Closing Bell: A Curb Cut for Boerum Hill Historic District?
At next week’s LPC public hearing, the commission is going to consider an application to create a curb cut smack in the middle of the Boerum Hill Historic District. The owners of 199 Dean Street have applied for a certificate of appropriateness in order to construct the cut. While we’re not certain whether the owners…
At next week’s LPC public hearing, the commission is going to consider an application to create a curb cut smack in the middle of the Boerum Hill Historic District. The owners of 199 Dean Street have applied for a certificate of appropriateness in order to construct the cut. While we’re not certain whether the owners are looking to kill a section of the sidewalk directly in front of the house or to its side, on Bond Street, we’ve seen curb cuts crappify brownstone blocks in order to create private parking so often that it’s tough not to be wary of the 199 Dean plans. GMAP
boo hoo hoo. sell your car or move to the burbs.
Maybe the owner needs a place to park his horse and buggy.
I agree that it’s obnoxious in areas where parking is scarce. There’s a house on the corner of Joralemon and Clinton in the Heights, where they have a huge curb cut to access a garage and a back lot — they use their garage as a work room, use the back lot as a patio with outdoor furniture, and park their car in the curb cut, posting a note on their dash that it’s their driveway. I can’t believe that it’s legal. It’s essentially just taking a piece of public parking and making it reserved for one person.
Nasty comment about Michelle Williams. Parking came with that house. It’s not like she added a curb cut. Plus she (or they) made substantial external renovations to that house, including a really beautiful landscaped garden, which can only be for the enjoyment of passers-by.
I don’t care. I have parking in Boerum Hill.
-Michelle Williams
I don’t blame them for trying–sure, I’d love to have a parking space.
But before somebody makes the false argument that curb cuts take up less space than a parked car:
Yeah, the cut and driveway is only 10 feet wide, which is shorter than many cars. But street parkers can’t nudge their bumpers right up to the edge of that 10 feet. In fact, the law for distance that you need to allow for a hydrant, when you’re parking on either side of it, is 15 feet. Anything much less, whether it’s a hydrant or a driveway or whatever, is getting tight for that driveway’s ingress/egress. So nobody does it.
So your driveway can easily take 20, 30, even 40 feet of parking off the street, not 10 feet, depending on how street parkers respond to it. AND the owner of that curb cut can also block his own drive with his car and use the garage for a boat if he wants.
If it’s legal, fine–lucky you. I still have the right to think you suck.
Brownstoner:
No comments on the white windows?
You’re slippin’ G.
“a new gate?”
WTF!!!!!
This is on the agenda for tonight’s CB2 Land Use Committee. According to the agenda, the curb cut will be on the Bond Street side of the property and the owners are also proposing a new gate. All this work requires LPC approval, but is not “impossible in an historic district,” as 4:19 queries.