Posted Sep 28, 2020, 4:09 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 52,145
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https://www.westsiderag.com/2020/09/...ant-jacking-up
Apartment Tower on 66th Street Loses Lawsuit Over ‘Blatant Jacking-Up’
September 27, 2020
by West Sider
Quote:
A state judge ruled against Extell Development in a lawsuit that challenged the developer’s use of “mechanical voids” that helped lift the proposed building to 775 feet. The building at 50 West 66th Street would be the tallest on the Upper West Side, but it’s raised controversy because critics say it uses a loophole to lift the building above heights allowed in zoning rules. Construction on the site has been stalled for months amid the pandemic and legal challenges.
While developers need space for mechanical equipment like elevator equipment and plumbing, Judge Arthur Engoron wrote that there are clearly other benefits too. The building at 50 West 66th Street includes nearly 200 feet of height for mechanical space, accounting for more than 25% of the building.
“These ‘mechanical floors,’ also boost the height of buildings, and this Court will take judicial notice of the fact that the higher an apartment, the higher the purchase price or rent it can command,” he wrote. “Developers have, thus, increased the number and height of mechanical floors, called by some cynics “mechanical voids,” to raise the height of buildings. The Developer has taken this tactic to a whole new level.”
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https://gothamist.com/news/judge-voi...ury-mega-tower
Judge Voids City Permit For Controversial Upper West Side Luxury Mega Tower
BY ELIZABETH KIM
SEPT. 26, 2020
Quote:
In his decision, Judge Engoron said that the void design was an egregiously overreach by the developer.
"No sane system of city planning, and no sane system of judicial adjudication," he wrote, "would allow developers to end-run around height-limits by including in buildings gargantuan mechanical spaces that may not even contain mechanical equipment and have no purpose other than to augment height beyond otherwise legal limits."
John Low-Beer, the attorney who argued the case for the City Club, said the decision was an indictment on the city's zoning authorities.
“In recent years, the city agencies charged with enforcing the zoning resolution have been too ready to endorse the stratagems of property developers who stretch its text past its breaking point," he said. "In this case, those violations of law would have led to the tallest building on the Upper West Side, a building totally out of scale, more than twice as high as intended by the zoning resolution. I am pleased, therefore, that the court has enforced the zoning resolution as it was written and intended.”
A spokesperson for Extell said the developer planned to appeal the decision.
“The court’s decision overturns a unanimous, well-reasoned decision of the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA), the expert body which correctly concluded that Extell’s building plan complies with all applicable zoning regulations,“ Extell said in a statement.
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