Reno
Question: We have a family home, a late 1800s brownstone, that we’ve used as one family for decades, even though Finance Dept. has it as two family. Question is, do I need an architect if we want to use it as a two family. (In other words, do we need an architect to make sure…
Question: We have a family home, a late 1800s brownstone, that we’ve used as one family for decades, even though Finance Dept. has it as two family.
Question is, do I need an architect if we want to use it as a two family. (In other words, do we need an architect to make sure we have the right certificate of occupancy?)
Also, would we need an architect to add a bathroom and kitchen, and re-wire.
Thanks.
Oly
Thanks for the comments. Regarding the belief that it should be on file with hpd, maybe I’ll go back but their people on the eighth floor Downtown Brooklyn said it’s not there at all.
And about the i-card, people in Finance said the card was missing.
Missing could mean hard to find.
I went to Dept. of Buildings some months ago to get the original drawings and after waiting half an hour or so, I was told they were missing (which struck me as not weird for Brooklyn, given that more than a hundred years had passed).
But when I went back more recently and spoke with a supervisor and made the same request, lo and behold, he came up with the drawings and everything.
Go figure.
Oly
As smokychimp noted, there really is likely to be an HPD record, as an architect, I’ve never heard of them not having the information. If you want to discuss further let me know: we do these kinds of renovations pretty often. You can email me at tbraude at gmail dot com.
It’s very unlikely that HPD has no records of your building. It’s not particularly detailed information, but they have Initial Inspection Cards (usually called i-cards) with notes indicating room types on almost every single building in the borough. Some i-cards even have floor plans.
These i-cards date back to the 1800’s, and in absence of a C of O they determine the legal status of a building.
It’s a detailed point but you’re saying there are no records where there might be, so you wouldn’t want to be surprised by this one.
Absolutely you would need an Architect to file drawings for the addition of a bathroom and a kitchen to make it legal. You wouldnt want to have problems later on, would you? I say do it right the first time, spend a lil more but have peace of mind.
I have a good Architect if you should require one.
Thanks very much. Seems HPD has nothing on the building, because it was built before 1938 and no C of O was required. Folks whom I chatted up at DOB said I had to file for what’s called a “no objection” allowing for actual use of two-family as on Finance. But then someone said, well if you’re going to do a bathroom and kitchen, you should wait and file later, because the “no objection” would only pertain to its use as is.
I’m finding this all interesting, though Greek.
I appreciate your advice very much.
Oly
Finance dept is not the place to find the designation. Look at the HPD website, should list the number of ‘A’ apartments. Occasionally the website is wrong and you need to go in person to get the actual hardcopy listing the buildings use. You could have an expeditor look into it if you don’t feel confident you are finding teh information yourself.
If its a legal 2 you don’t need to change the CofO which is much simpler of course. You do need to file with the DOB to add a bathroom and kitchen, even if you aren’t changing the CofO so you will need an architect. I’d imagine if you are going to change from a one family to two family use there might be other things that need to be done and an architect would be very helpful.
If you are going to need a new CofO its a much bigger process as you’ll have all sorts of inspections and might well land up doing additional work you didn’t want to, or anticipate having to do.