sunsetparker's Profile
Author's Posts
June 22, 2009
Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
I live in a nice 2 story in sunset park and everyone has uniform brownstone houses. Recently a new buyer has bought out the house next to me and is expanding the house horizontally and destroying their patio and garden to build more space for their house. Since everyone on the block has the same type house this will destroy the integrity of the block. Is there a law against this? The building will partially block our view on the balcony patio as well but it's gonna be a huge eyesore too. The guy got a building permit too which is unbelievable.
Author's Comments
No. He's building in front not the back. It's just like the picture in the link.
Posted by: sunsetparker at June 20, 2009 5:31 PM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
Oh Yeah. This is what's happening to me.
http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/09/a_brownstone_st.php
I think the same developer bought my neighbor's house and is gonna do this again. WHat can I do?
Posted by: sunsetparker at June 20, 2009 3:54 PM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
Responses to Author's Forum Comments
47th street between 7th and 8th avenue
Posted by: sunsetparker at June 20, 2009 6:33 PM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
SHIT! I'm on 47th too between 5 & 6! Do you know people on your block? You can reach me at r.ladd.bklyn@gmail.com
Posted by: Rick at June 20, 2009 7:03 PM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
47th b/w 5&6 is one of my favorite blocks in the whole hood. That's nice there!
Posted by: saturdayrenogirl at June 21, 2009 1:45 AM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
This is one of the reasons that the city is trying to rezone Sunset Park.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/sunset_park/index.shtml
Posted by: SenatorStreet at June 21, 2009 3:44 AM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
Rezoning is a good idea. This past year I have seen more Brownstones being torn down for new construction. Chinatown is growing and changing the character of the neighborhood greatly between 7 & 8 ave. 8th ave is the heart of Chinatown.
Posted by: Rick at June 21, 2009 8:45 AM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
This is hugely unfortunate, and will destroy your property values. If it's not illegal now, maybe you could make it so if you band together with your neighbors. Good luck. What a nightmare.
Posted by: mopar at June 21, 2009 11:47 AM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
somebody in my area bought 2 family brownstone and wanted to change it into 4 families so people did not like it and told him, that they will watch his every move and verify every permit. I believe he spent 60K on fire systems, etc. just because people watched after his.
So point is - if somebody will change the front - tell him that you will verify every single permit. It might straightening it out.
Posted by: bobjohn at June 21, 2009 8:31 PM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
Cry me a river.
Posted by: crimsonson at June 22, 2009 10:19 AM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
I too live in S.P. and am watching the neighborhood change very rapidly. I really like the idea of verifying every permit as I believe there is a lot of permits issued by the city for work they never check up on. The permit on one of the houses on my block was for "minor repairs". It was completely gutted and they were pounding on something in the house so hard my house shook (for days), and we're 5 houses away!
I've read some of the arguments on here and it seems some of the people in support of the new deconstruction seem to always say in effect "well the owners are hardworking people that bought their own home and so they should be able to do anything they want to it now that that they have a piece of the american dream". But honestly, since moving here in 2001, I've seen 6 homes on my side of the block turn over and be completely gutted and bumped out in the back and have in some cases quadrupled the occupancy of the building. These are legal 2 family homes! To the best of my knowledge -as it's difficult to figure out who the owners are and the tenant turnover if frequent but I don't think these are owner occupied homes, I suspect they are investment properties where the ownership is maximizing the rentable square footage. So far, no one has tried to build out to the sidewalk or make a curb cut, but I suspect that's not too far off. It's disapointing considering I chose this block for it's uniformity, trees and lack of ugly curb cut driveways in front of the hundred yr. old row houses.
The new zoning mentioned above does not protect the integrity -at least as it's currently written- it allows for essentially doubling the height of the current buildings on the "side streets". If the current trend continues, I figure in ten years I might as well knock my house down and turn it into a best western -as an architect friend advised.
Posted by: Schmigital at June 22, 2009 10:42 AM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
Um...not to sound crass, but welcome to Brooklyn. Wild-wild West.
You are in an R6 district, so the skies the limit until the proposed rezoning goes through.
Posted by: Action Jackson at June 22, 2009 11:10 AM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity
47th street between 7th and 8th avenue
Posted by: sunsetparker at June 20, 2009 6:33 PM in response to Neighbor Building a Monstrosity