More bs.
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Neighbors sue to block Extell’s UWS tower after city OKs amended plans
The back-and-forth over Extell Development’s 770-foot Upper West Side tower is now headed to court.
Weeks after the Department of Buildings renewed permits for the development at 50 West 66th Street, the City Club of New York — which nearly killed Barry Diller’s Pier 55 project— and several of the project’s neighbors have filed a lawsuit against the developer, seeking to halt construction due to alleged zoning violations.
“Plaintiffs need immediate relief because Defendants’ construction has reached a stage where arguments about vested rights and potential mootness are looming,” the lawsuit states. “Even where courts have ultimately found that a building violates zoning, they have proven reluctant to order demolition.”
The lawsuit alleges two major violations at the development. First, the building contains massive structural voids that allow Extell to build higher and pricier penthouses without adding residential space. Though current zoning rules do not contain any limitation on the height of a building’s mechanical floors, officials are looking to close this loophole by counting “unusually large” mechanical spaces toward a building’s height limit.
In January, the DOB announced its intent to revoke Extell’s permits if zoning issues were not addressed. It now appears that they have been, as far as the city is concerned.
Wait, wealthy UWS NIMBYs are filing more harassing lawsuits in a cynical attempt to repeatedly delay projects/add to development costs?
Color me shocked. Never would I have imagined such a thing!
I suspect that most of the people involved in this lawsuit aren’t wealthy at all. They’re probably underemployed people living in roach-filled, rent-regulated eyesores who resent wealthy people.
https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/fe21561dc24afdb4d2e80df3d5b92959/5DCDDC36/t51.2885-15/e35/s1080x1080/67316528_600051533858364_8160453038332929897_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1HQtcxne_e/
Does anybody have an update on this tower?
Last I heard it’s on hold because of the economy.
That’s a shame, the developers went through multiple legal hurdles to get the approval and reached street level like last Summer. Would be a very nice unique building if they can build it.
Extell is probably gasping for a construction loan here. If they can get it in this economy, it’ll be built. If not, this will probably be on hold until things look better.
It will be built. It’s just a matter of when. This is an amazing building in an incredible location. This tower will be an enormous success.
On the bright side this project is now as of right, whenever they resume construction.
no loan news, but a new partner has been brought onboard.
The cost of the delays on this project was enormous to both the developers and the public at large; yet I defy anyone to post here what exactly was at issue.
It is obvious that the ‘rule-of-law’ and local zoning regulations are now somehow too ‘vague’ or ‘indecipherable’ or contentious for anything to get built in this city without running into a morass of incomprehensible rules and regulations that will render a project untenable.
What was the ‘violation’ exactly - the height of the building? No, there are no height restrictions on that site, the same height could have been achieved without the ‘mechanical void’ by simply adding a few feet to the height of the ceilings on each of the residential floors.
This project followed the “letter of the law” entirely and no one disputes that fact; the lack of a simple explanation of the ‘violation’ indicates a failing on the part of NYC regulatory agencies - not on failings of the developers/planners/architects.
As always, it all boils down to height-hating NIMBYs. If it was shorter, you wouldn’t have heard a peep out of the Nims but because it is tall, and much taller than their own buildings, they whine about voids and zoning loopholes, the same zoning regs that have been in place for over 100 years and no one’s complained and all of a sudden, it is a big pressing problem.