DKCA Grills Buildings Dept. About Proliferating Hotels 

 

By Thomas Cogan
The Dutch Kills Civic Association had an extra meeting in June, some two weeks after its regular one, to ask two representatives from the Department of Buildings to explain why the owner of a building on 28th Street is vested—that is, officially approved—to take his place among the other hotel builders in the neighborhood when the DOB initially declared him to be not vested and therefore unqualified. The two DOB men have become familiar with both Dutch Kills and DKCA meetings, so they knew they would be hearing some hard questions, asked with raised voices; but added to that, they came bearing the burden of embarrassment, since they had to admit that in the matter of the vesting decision the DOB was found to have made a mistake and had had its decision reversed.  Talk about the possibility of condominium conversion by the hotels also arose during the evening.

When Dutch Kills won its zoning change last October 7, further hotel construction was to be denied any builder not vested by that date. Donald Ranshte and Steven A. Figueiredo, community affairs officers with the DOB, told the DKCA meeting that in the first week of October, the owner of a one-story building at 38-30 28th St. was still trying to become vested, having had a permit for vestment filed since 2006 and having passed an audit in late August 2008. An inspector from the DOB found, however, that the building lacked a basement, necessary for constructing a foundation if the building were to rise to its planned height of nine stories. On October 4, all work on the building was ordered stopped and the owner-developer was declared non-vested. The inspector found that the owner had not expanded the building as a means of strengthening it to support an eightfold increase in size upward—he had no room to do that, anyway—and, lacking room for a foundation also, had no sound support for such an increase.

The building owner appealed to the Board of Standards and Appeals. He proposed to dig under his floor without really constructing a basement, and there install supports of sufficient strength to hold up a narrow nine-story building. His building’s walls and floor-area ratio remained intact and he hoped he could eventually start stacking additional floors, if only the inspector’s vestment judgment could be reversed. In April, BSA found for him, concluding that the inspector’s evidence was incomplete. The owner-developer of 38-30 28th St. became vested.

Mary Cavallo, a woman living at 27-17 39th Ave., was concerned about the welfare of an evergreen tree, perhaps 40 feet tall, that stands in her 25-foot-wide backyard but branches out far enough to touch the building at 38-30 28th St., located just around the corner from her. She asked Ranshte if the developer-owner could demand the tree be cut down if it were to impede the upward progress of his building. Ranshte said the tree’s presence in her yard was inviolate but the owner could trim any part that should come over into his property. Cavallo said she has already had trouble from her industrial neighbor at 27-19 39th Ave., who constructed a wall that covered her roof and storm gutters with concrete shavings that she had to remove. What’s more, her house stands in the shadow of the massive, half-completed 27-05 39th Ave., which bids to tower 10 stories above the corner of 27th Street and 39th Avenue. That means she sometimes suffers the effects of a windy day that blows material off its higher floors into her yard and that of her adjacent neighbor at 27-15.
The big corner structure is partially shrouded to contain falling bits of material and debris, but some structures have no shrouding at all, the nearby three-story site at 38-28 27th St. being an example. Ranshte was asked why builders were not shrouding their sites, and the DOB representative answered that they were not under any mandate to do that. Cavallo said she had called 311 to ask about it and was told they were required to shroud, but Ranshte said she’d been given incorrect information. Cavallo also has been worried about the debris that is likely to be falling from the 38-30 28th St. site as it is being built up. 

The meeting also had time for speculation on the possibility that the hotels are really in favor of eventual conversion to condominiums. Megan Friedman, a 28th Street resident, said that the Holiday Inn on the southeast corner of 39th Avenue and 29th Street has balconies not usually found on an average hotel, Holiday Inn or otherwise; while other new hotels in the neighborhood lack the normal lobbies one expects in hotels; and might this mean they are looking to convert?  Ranshte said if that were the plan, it would entail change of use applications and approval processes before the community board and the BSA. Chris Lundgren, a 32nd Street resident, said that condo conversion would be the best outcome to the long affair of the hotels, anyway.