Good news: DoB comes back!!

Ken Lazar and Bryan Winter will return to CB1 Public Safety meeting on March 9, at 6.30pm. The meeting will be at the Swinging Sixties Center, corner of Ainslie & Manhattan Ave (glad we have more room, since it was sooo crowded). Bring your stories, pictures, printouts from DoB website, anything to call attention to the epidemic problem of neighbor damage.

Remember, spring is coming and construction will really fire up!

The Williamsburg-Greenpoint Development Watchdog is gathering info for the meeting.

See you there!

Development Woes

Rubble With a Cause
Redevelopment woes: Williamsburg residents yanked out by their roots
by Paul Moses
The Village Voice February 3rd, 2006 12:52 PM

Roger Owens was putting his one-month- and three-year-old sons to sleep on November 14 when firefighters banged on the door of his home on Diamond Street in Williamsburg. "You have a minute to get out," Owens said they told him. With his wife, Pamela, and their children, Owens dashed out the front door to a jarring streetscape of spotlights, fire engines, and hundreds of onlookers. He soon learned that the city had ordered his home vacated because construction of luxury housing next door had so damaged an adjacent building that it threatened to fall down on his own three-story frame house, which has been in his family since 1890, through five generations. "It was frightening," said Owens, a retired police officer. Such is life in the rezoned world of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, where even the most rooted property owner can wind up homeless on a minute's notice and where longtime tenants, both residents and businesses, are subject to massive rent increases, eviction, and harassment. Last May's deal between the Bloomberg administration and City Council to rezone the Brooklyn waterfront neighborhoods for a Manhattan-like string of luxury skyscrapers has superheated the area's already hot real estate market—but city officials have yet to follow through on millions of dollars in protections pledged for tenants and businesses displaced by rising rents. A $2 million fund is supposed to help tenants and aid in the battle against the sort of building abuses that drove Owens from his home. Now, the fine print looms large: The money is to come from sale of air rights over an MTA bus garage. But first the city has to find room for a new depot, the MTA says. City officials wouldn't predict how long that will take. And, as reported, a $4 million fund to help displaced industrial businesses relocate isn't available yet. The Bloomberg administration and City Council are "at an impasse" in talks on how to spend the money, said Councilman David Yassky, who is pushing for some of it to subsidize workers' health costs. "I am very frustrated by this," he said. "We did this rezoning eight months ago and these resources still are not out there."

Administration officials also have expressed frustration that the money hasn't been distributed. But neither side sounds as frustrated as Herb Engler, who has written a torrent of letters and e-mails seeking money from the fund to relocate his company, Penn State Fabricators, which is due to be forced out by a housing developer on February 28 after 36 years in Greenpoint. "At this point I am not only fighting for my own existence, but for those that are presently working for me," Engler wrote in a January 27 e-mail to all councilmembers, ". . . We are being forced to possibly close the company, and those that are responsible DO NOTHING."

Peter Gillespie, executive director of Neighbors Against Garbage, said local groups are reorganizing to press for the money promised in the rezoning deal. "The devil's in the details," he said. "If these promises aren't fulfilled, this rezoning is going to be a disaster for the community."

Neill Coleman, spokesman for the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said he couldn't give a timetable on when the money for helping tenants will be available. He pointed to the rezoning deal's provision for affordable housing—one-third of the new units, with half of those for community residents. In addition, he said, the zoning is being revised to require builders to get a certificate from HPD certifying that they had not harassed tenants. But the tenant fund is awaiting action from the MTA on the bus site, he said.

Jacek Bikowski, who counsels about 80 tenants a week who face the loss of housing, said the money to fight tenant harassment and illegal building is needed now. "By the time we get the money . . . most of the people who are about to be evicted will in fact be evicted," said Bikowski, who works for North Brooklyn Development Corporation and the People's Firehouse. Bikowski said the tenants he sees—often elderly Polish-speakers earning under $800 a month—don't want to leave and so are bunking with other seniors, curtaining off rooms. "This is their community and they have doctors and churches and friends," he said.

While the rezoning will create affordable housing, it's not soon enough for tenants like Marie Ditizio, 70.
She said she is under court order to get out by June 30 from the apartment where she's lived in a two-family house on North 7th Street for the past 28 years. With rents running at least double the $600 she's paying now, there is nothing she can afford. "I don't know what to do," she said.

The real-estate tumult has been so tough on the elderly that it has forced some to move in with out-of-town relatives or to a nursing home. This is what happened to Phyllis Mascia's two sisters-in-law. All three widows were evacuated from their apartments on Havemeyer Street on June 15. The Buildings Department issued vacate orders for the Mascia family's building and another one two doors down because excavation done to put up new housing at 22 Havemeyer Street caused cracks in the neighboring buildings. Work was being done in violation of a previous stop-work order, according to city records.
Mascia, 67, said the "Golden Girls," as she dubbed them, were separated. A 90-year-old sister-in-law moved to a nursing home, and another, age 87, moved in with her son on Long Island. Mascia found a studio apartment down the block.
The developer, Mike Choi, had wanted to buy the two adjacent buildings, Mascia said. "He had been trying to buy our two buildings before this incident for years, and even afterwards he had the audacity to say, I'll give you $450,000 for the property and you can live in the [new] building," Mascia said. "What a nerve. . . . I said, `You don't understand, Mr. Choi. We're not landlords. We're not developers. This is our home. This is our castle." Asked if he had offered to buy Mascia's building, Choi said he didn't know. But, he said, he has been allowed to continue building at 22 Havemeyer Street and the problems have been resolved.

Ilyse Fink, spokeswoman for the Buildings Department, said the developer was fined $4,960. She said a vacate order was lifted on Mascia's building but one remained in place on another next to the construction. Mascia said she didn't know the vacate order was lifted until after a local official (alerted by an inquiry from the Voice) told her. "The Buildings Department doesn't know what it's doing," Mascia said, adding her building was beyond repair.

The delayed city funding, noted Bikowski, would help neighborhood groups stop such abuses. "We need to research what's going on, follow up on every development, check records of landlords' harassment," he said. "We would increase the cooperation with the Department of Buildings."

In the meantime, Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, a Greenpoint Democrat, has proposed legislation requiring developers to create escrow accounts to reimburse those displaced by faulty construction.

Owens said that ultimately he casts blame for what happened to him on the city for allowing such rapid change and then doing little to help those it hurt. "I have more anger for the city than I do for the builder," he said, adding that the builder, at least, found him an apartment. The pressure is not likely to ease: Owens said he got an unsolicited offer for his home even after it had just been ordered vacated. "Somebody came up to me that night," he said. "I said, `Listen pal, this isn't my investment . . . it's my home.' "

DoB comes to CB1 Public Safety meeting

Deputy Borough Commissioner Bryan Winter and Ken Lazar of Governmental Affairs came to a meeting with our community.
Few expected the crowd. It packed the small room, and spilled out into the hall. Emotions ran high, and lots of neighbors had sagas of damage by neighboring construction.

Ward Dennis asked the DoB people to introduce themselves. They spoke about how much Brooklyn wants building development, and that it is difficult because of the soft soil here. The homeowners couldn't restrain themselves, so many were so upset by the damage done to their homes. They spoke about chunks of roof falling into their yard, evacuations from homes, harrassment and threats from developers. One neighbor was out of her home for 7 months, only to move back in and find out that the following week next-door developers would be underpinning her home without giving her notice at the address they knew she had been evacuated to. And on and on.

Then Winter and Lazar said that existing community safety was their first priority. But that DoB is reactive, that is, they need a complaint to act.

They were surprised to hear that 311 does not always accept construction complaints and that people can get frustrated with the 311 route. Excessive noise can be a matter for DEP, and they can be called separately. Also complaints can be made to Gerry Esposito or Marie of CB1. We learned that there is one building inspector assigned to CB1, Andy, and that another inspector may come in depending on complaint locations and case load. When immediate safety is an issue, it might be a good idea to call the police.

As general guidelines, construction is allowed from 7am to 6pm M-F. Work at any other time requires a special variance permit for each day. And that variance must be displayed, for Saturday work, by the Thursday before. If any site is working outside of those hours, call 311.

They said homeowners should see plans of neighboring construction.
Winter recommended using DoB's BIS website and the ACRIS system (links at the right on this page). He also suggested oasisnyc.com for the big overhead picture and pshark.com. Also Department of City Planning has a "Zoning Handbook" for $8 which is a good guide for what is permitted by rezoning.

They told us about a pilot safety program, educating contractors in the South Slope area, that seemed to improve things. Peter Gillespie called for the program to go borough wide, since we are in a crisis situation.

DoB asked the community for a list of sites where construction damages neighbors. A list is in the works and will be to them within a week of the meeting. Lazar (and possibly Winter) will return in a month to report.

Diana Reyna's office sent a representative. Yassky's office did not send anyone to the meeting even though they were notified.

TIME TO STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING

ADDRESSING THE CITY WIDE CONSTRUCTION FRENZY

http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/weeklyView.cfm?articlenumber=1845
City Limits WEEKLY
Week of: January 30, 2006
Number: 520
UNDER THE WIRE: DEVELOPERS
RACE TO BUILD BEFORE REZONING

City Councilmember Tony Avella proposes new legislation to stop illegal last-minute construction By Bruce Wallace

Lilly Pappas was surprised to see construction workers digging up earth and pouring concrete at a long-vacant lot on Barker Avenue in the Bronx this fall. But Pappas, who runs the Olinville Taxpayers and Civic Association, a neighborhood organization active on development issues, was even more surprised when, in the weeks that followed, she received a flurry of complaints about late night and weekend demolition at this and other properties in the area. “The real estate developers were trying to sneak in under the law,” she said.

Olinville is one of several neighborhoods throughout the city facing new zoning regulations that will, in most cases, restrict the size of buildings in residential areas. But in their mad dash to complete projects before the deadlines hit, neighbors say, some developers are skirting noise restrictions and building codes.

City Councilmember Tony Avella, chair of the council's Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, is hoping to put the brakes on such development with legislation that would freeze new building permits during the roughly 45 days between the Planning Commission's approval of a rezoning and the City Council vote that makes it law.

Avella’s council district in Queens includes Bayside, which had over 100 stop-work orders issued during the rezoning that went into effect in April 2005. But the problem, he said, goes far beyond Queens, and has outpaced the city's response. Without sufficient resources, he said, “the Department of Buildings has problems catching even the most egregious problems."

Since September 2004, 21 patches of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn have been rezoned, placing new building restrictions on over 2,100 blocks, most recently in Olinville, South Park Slope in Brooklyn, and Whitestone in Queens. Ten more proposals, including ones for Pelham Bay in the Bronx, Middle Village/Glendale in Queens and Midwood in Brooklyn, should face a final City Council vote in the coming months. If all the proposals pass, it would mean an additional 800 blocks of rezoned land.

“THE MINUTE WE SUBMITTED THE REZONING APPLICATION, THERE WAS MORE DEVELOPMENT THAN I'VE EVER SEEN," said Carmen Rosa, district manager of Bronx Community Board 12, home to Olinville and recently rezoned Woodlawn.

Councilman James Oddo, whose district was part of a borough-wide rezoning in Staten Island, saw the same “beat the clock” phenomenon there. “You literally saw cement trucks flying all over the island trying to get their foundations poured. It was bedlam,” said Oddo, one of the bill’s 21 co-sponsors.

Zoning changes are an increasingly popular tool sought by residents hoping to cap the size and type of buildings that can be built in an area. Until recently, many neighborhoods had decades-old zoning laws. But since Amanda Burden was appointed chair of the department in 2002, it has become increasingly proactive in responding to community requests for zoning studies.

But many neighbors don't anticipate the frantic activity prompted by pending changes. Aaron Brashear, a resident turned activist in South Park Slope, saw cement trucks clogging the streets and heard jackhammers pounding as he ate dinner. "WE WERE SEEING PROPERTIES FULL OF VIOLATIONS, DEMOLITION AND CONSTRUCTION THAT WAS ENDANGERING ADJACENT PROERTIES," he said.

CITYWIDE, THE LEVEL OF CITIZEN COMPLAINTS ABOUT CONSTRUCTION SITES HAS RISEN FROM AN AVERAGE OF ABOUT 4,000 COMPLAINTS PER MONTH IN 2000 TO AN AVERAGE OF 10,000 PER MONTH IN 2005. This increase is well above the percentage growth in new building applications in the same period. Jennifer Givner, a Department of Buildings spokesperson, attributed the rise to the ease of making complaints through the new 311 hotline and an increase in public awareness. She said the department would be hiring and assigning more staff to investigate citizen complaints and increase enforcement.

Meanwhile, Avella expects his moratorium bill, which was introduced last year but didn't reach a full vote, to be reintroduced in the next few weeks.

Allen Cappelli, counsel for the Building Industry Association of New York City, called Avella’s bill “politically motivated” and “dangerous.” People, he said, need to stop worrying and embrace bigger buildings. “Everyone’s so housing-phobic that the idea of any density scares the hell out of them,” he said.

Brashear disagreed. “We’re not anti-development," he said. "But it has just been so out of scale that it’s changed the neighborhood."

--Bruce Wallace