DOB (Finally) Pays Attention to The Washington
With the embarrassing photos of the make-shift plywood mezzanines at The Washington Condo posted on this blog and later picked up on by the mainstream media, the DOB kinda had to talk a little tough when Brooklyn Papers phoned them up to ask press them on their stance. The mezzanines do not comply with the…
With the embarrassing photos of the make-shift plywood mezzanines at The Washington Condo posted on this blog and later picked up on by the mainstream media, the DOB kinda had to talk a little tough when Brooklyn Papers phoned them up to ask press them on their stance. The mezzanines do not comply with the department’s requirements, said Jennifer Givner, a Buildings spokeswoman. Thanks for doing a crackerjack job, there, Jen! It turns out that while reducing the ceiling height of the mezzanines from seven to five feet did (unbelievably!) cure the FAR issue, the use of plywood instead of steel and concrete could hold up the issuance of a final C of O. Scarano claims that the plan was to use concrete all along which, to be fair, may be theoretically possible. According to the article, only one of the mezzanine apartments has a buyer. We thought the building was sold out. What gives?
Scarano Told to Get Up to Code [Brooklyn Papers]
Agree 9:57. To 5:08: You can not require from any private developer in a capitalist society to minimize the profit instead of maximizing it…it is the same as to expect from a cat to give up hunting mice. As for the loopholes to detriment of neighbors: don’t you think it is City Laws’ fault, not developer’s that allow doing that?!! Don’t you expect from your accountant each year to find more “loopholes†to get less, rather than more, tax return? And if your accountant is too conservative, because he may cares more about the National Revenue income than about his clients, you will probably go to look for another accountant, and this one will sit with no work!!!
Again they are not loopholes. When you upgrade an existing R-2 to an R-7, or one block is R-2 and the next block is R-7, which happened to a neighborhood I used to live in, you are going to have an unproportianate scale. And I do agree is terrible, but if you owned the property you cannot tell me you are going to build the min. and not the max. especially with the cost of land in NY. My boss told me the zoning book used to be 30 pages long, and the city tapered from the tallest buildings in the center to the smallest along the coast, which maximizes views, air etc. Now Zoning is chapters upon chapters written in legal terms, and does not take into consideration scale. One clear example is Quality Housing vs. Conventional Zoning, if you understand the differnce between these 2 things,then you tell me whos at fault?
Hey Anon 1:58, I don’t care about the technicalities of the Zoning laws or which agency is responsible, or how easy it is to get around FAR issues. Talk about boring…
What I do care about (and what I do in fact get) is the reality that certain repeat offender architects/developers/investors exploit these loopholes TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE SURROUNDING NEIGHBORS and NEIGHBORHOODS.
It’s simple: If you want to build a 100 foot-high 5 storey condo somewhere, fine, do it on a street or avenue that ALREADY has similar building stock. But if you must plunk down your supersized corporate turds next to 3 storey rowhouses from 1900, just to MAXIMIZE your profit, you’re pretty much a weenie, and you should be blocked from committing further damage to Brooklyn.
Sorry you still do not get it, the CITY created the laws. Regardless it is height which determines the size of the building, in which a lot of people are complaining about. Floor area is another issue, and there are many ways to get around the FAR., it has nothing to do with mezzanines. By the way DUH, height is regulated by Zoning (created by the CITY) not the Building Code.
Agreed 8:02…but I also think you can boil it down to this: that for some inexplicable reason, big, bulky, nasty, aggressive penis-extension type structures are allowed to penetrate once-uniform and tranquil NYC nabes, without warning or protection.
Since when did 4 stories become equatable to 70 feet in height? THAT is what needs to be changed in the building code (duh!)
No. The CITY never thought of this degree of exploitation of the mezzanines. The CITY intended the mezzanines rule to be a gracious allowance to builders, not as a tunnel to drive a freeway through.
The people in need of a little common sense are the builders who use every little cranny to get an edge.
Everyone is missing the real issue here, which is the problem with NYC Zoning Laws, which limits floor area. What diiference does it make when these mezzanines are built up limmiting the head room, the building is still the same size on the outside.
Zoning should not restrict what one can build in terms of floor area within the envelope as it does not have any effect in terms of scale or context to the neighborhood.
Who cares if you have a double height space or a mezzanine inside YOUR OWN apartment?? (as long as its to code)
The CITY needs to re-think its Zoning Policies, and the DOB has to interpret theses laws with common sense!
So, I guess the plywood boxes weren’t the fix Mr. S was looking for the DOB to approve. I still cannot believe such a stunt was tried as a blatant disregard for DOB bylaws (if the mezzanines weren’t that in the first place). Well, DOB has spoken (and I hope will enforce), that Mr. S MUST build up the illegal mezzanines using steel and concrete and bring his “mess-anines” up to code.
Too little, to late? perhaps not if they intend to us The Washington as an example, and have him do rounds to all the new building in in Greenpoint/Billyburgh, Ft. green, Clinton Hill, South Slope and Greenwood Hts.
place is garbage i was inside it was done pretty shoddy