Developers SJP Properties and Mitsui Fudosan America may be forced, under a recent New York State Supreme Court ruling, to tear down the top 20 stories of a nearly-completed 56-story luxury residential skyscraper in New York City designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects.
The New York Times reports that last week, New York Supreme Court Justice W. Franc Perry found that the property at 200 Amsterdam Avenue on the city’s Upper West Side was being developed in excess of its allowed zoning. The judge ordered the New York City Department of Buildings to revoke the building permit for a tower currently under construction at the 200 Amsterdam Avenue site, as part of this revocation, the portions of the building that exceed the allowed zoning envelope for the site will have to be removed.
The exact building height and density allowed on the site is currently unclear, but according to an analysis done by The New York Times, 20 floors could be removed to have the tower meet regulations. The number could also be higher.
The decision comes after community groups sued the developers arguing that the building site’s “gerrymandered” lot configuration allowed the project team to build a much taller structure than might actually be allowed due to a complex set of air rights swaps and other potentially undue bonuses. The “39-sided” zoning lot strings together a variety of adjacent and “a number of tenuously connected lots” to amass the adequate zoning allowances. The arrangement is an increasingly common one that has been deployed to various effects across many developments, especially among the growing crop of supertall towers in the city.
According to the report, the lawsuit was initiated just as construction was getting started on the site, but the project team moved ahead with the project despite the lawsuit. The developers are planning to appeal the decision.
8 Comments
ok, so the developer broke the law. as penalty, turn the top-20 floors into homeless housing. If refused, turn the entire building into affordable housing + homeless housing
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I like the top much better than the rest. Keep it and tear down the rest?
the zoning laws are flawed if an accurate interpretation is so difficult to achieve. i'm not saying the developer didn't push it - but a good zoning code wouldn't leave anything open to question after permitting.
the part that said "39 sided lot" stands out to me. I don't know their zoning ordinance, but once you get a 39 sided lot it starts to look a little like you're playing games
Vague language makes bad law.
it’s a real estate myth that you can only build in already dense places. there’s plenty of room if you have imagination. look at amazon — they were about to build in an empty lot in Long Island City until people complained about their tax breaks (that were never off the table)
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