WSJ:
Under state law, when New York City is a defendant, it is entitled to an automatic stay of a ruling against it, lawyers said.
The case will now be considered by an appellate panel and could face a review by the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
Someone should also examine the zoning appropriateness of the nearby towers the NIMBYs live in. Maybe it might be also in violation and then chop off the floors at them too. Let’s see how they’ll like that.
Since the city’s actions are challenged in the case, it has automatic rights to an appeal and a stay pending appeal. That and only that now has happened.
Robert— As far as I know other buildings around 200 have not used similar land use setups to gain height. And if they have none have used a zoning lot like this one.
Thanks, Chused. Are you a property lawyer? If so, what do you think that the chances are on appeal? I read the articles quickly and inferred the city’s position was that it could simply ignore the court order but that didn’t seem correct.
Don’t practice. But I’ve taught property at Georgetown and NYLS for over forty years.
I recall that you’re a professor, but I was curious if you teach Property. I’m a commercial lit lawyer.
Have no idea about appellate results. Tho some on this forum think it’s a slam dunk for the developer I think those are gut reactions from I don’t like NIMBYs types. This is an unusual case. Unfortunately we will just have to be patient, especially if it ends up in the lap of the NYCA.
The court drama is a sideshow. The NIMBYs know they cannot “chop down” buildings without BSA approval, which would never happen. But the NIMBYs essentially “won” by making future zoning mergers more difficult, thus maintaining their property values and views while the rest of us have less housing and the city has less tax revenue.
What’s BSA?
Board of Standards and Appeals. The developers would just go to BSA, which grants relief from zoning code under certain circumstances.
If we use CitySpire as an example, they will make a deal and use part of the building for charitable service etc., or be required to build affordable housing elsewhere.
Thanks.
Does anyone know what the precedent is for something like this? Has any development ever had the top of the building chopped off before?
Yes, there was one building on the East Side 20 years ago, but it was a totally different scenario. In that case, the developer actually falsified submitted zoning documents.
The contention seems to be the use of ‘partial lots’ for additional air rights; as well as assembling a random “spider like” collection of said partial lots that are not directly adjacent to the site of 200 Amsterdam Ave. I have limited knowledge on the subject: but always thought that that air rights could only be purchased from ‘adjacent’ sites: not from a significant distance over multiple sites/blocks as we see here in this case. This is very interesting to watch develop: Crawdad, and Chused are clearly in the know on this subject - great commentary.
But, crawdad, as with so much else courts could step in and undo a BSA deal if they found it illegal. I don’t think any result is predictably a slam dunk right now. Nor do I think we know more than getting this resolved in one way or another will take a long time.
People who understand these laws, is there any chance of a compromise happening? Like, say, cutting only ten floors off?
Sure—if all parties including the city agree and the deal is approved by the court. Will this happen? I’m skeptical.
What do you call a forum full of lawyers?
The YIMBY Forums! 
Excellent informative discourse.
My firm (yes Im a real estate lawyer too) is monitoring this closely. There is precedent for this ruling, btw, so it will be interesting to see what happens on appeal.