CITYLAND DECEMBER 2006 center for new york city law VOLUME 3, NUMBER 11 Highlights CITY COUNCIL Illegal work fines increased . .165 BOARD OF STANDARDS & APPEALS Chelsea apartments app’d . .167 Queens hospital expanded . .167 Cemetery project not dead . .168 Chelsea Piers health club . .168 LANDMARKS UWS stables’ fate decided . .169 Landmarks designated two City and Suburban Homes buildings in Lenox Hill 16 years after the Board UES site finally re-designated . .169 of Estimate removed their landmark status. See full story on page 169. Photo: LPC. 3 W.Village sites discussed . .170 to an incremental structure with a Cast-iron controversy . .171 CITY COUNCIL $2,000 fine for the first violation, Church spire also telcom. pole .172 Stop-Work Orders/Demolition $5,000 for the second, and $10,000 for each additional violation. The Citywide COURT DECISIONS penalties must be paid before the Council passes stiffer Department of Buildings will allow DeNiro hotel tax credit denied . .172 penalties for illegal work work to continue. Williamsburg power plant . .173 The bill also increased civil Couldn’t Save Our Parks . .173 Developers violating stop-work penalties for working without a per- orders now subject to greater fines, EDC lease in Bronx OK’ed . .174 mit. For one- and two-family jail time. The City Council unani- homes, the civil penalty increased SI developers lose again . .175 mously approved two bills, increas- from two times the cost of the Bklyn Bridge Park still a go . .176 ing the penalties for violating stop- required permit to four times, with work orders or undertaking illegal the minimum penalty increasing CITYLAND PROFILES demolition work on one- and two- from $100 to $500. For all other family homes. Council Speaker buildings, the civil penalty Paget . .177 Christine Quinn explained that the increased from ten times to 14 changes would improve construc- times the cost of the required per- CHARTS tion safety by deterring builders mit, with the minimum penalty BSA Pipeline . .168 from working without proper per- increasing from $500 to $5,000. Any mits. Council Member Vincent person found to have continued Landmarks Pipeline . .170 Gentile noted that builders would work despite a stop-work order will Landmarks Actions . .172 no longer be able to write off fines be subject to an additional penalty and penalties as a cost of doing between $2,000 and $15,000 for DCP Pipeline . .174 business. each violation, as well as a maxi- ULURP Pipeline . .175 The Council raised the fines for mum jail sentence of six months. failing to comply with a stop-work The second bill made unau- Citylaw.org New Decisions . .178-9 order from a flat $500 per violation thorized demoli- (cont’d on page 167) December 2006 Volume 3 CITYLAND 165 COMMENTARY Con Edison to build 17 new substations over the next ten years Electric power, reliably delivered, is an absolute necessity for sustaining New York City’s growth. Air condition- ing comprises about 75% of Consolidated Edison’s residential peak load and is one of the main reasons for last summer’s usage peak that topped 13,000 megawatts. To sustain residential and commercial growth Con Edison must build 17 new substations over the next ten years. It will not be easy. New substations have sometimes met community opposition such as occurred in the mid-1990s when Con Edison sought to build a substation on land that it had long owned at 24th Street and Sixth Avenue, Manhattan. The community successfully prevented Con Edison from obtaining a needed special permit. Con Edison sold the site, ultimately building a new substation on a site less centrally located on West 30th Street. Other new substa- tions, with less controversy, have recently been constructed at 7 World Trade Center and at South Street Seaport. Power is brought into the City through transmission lines at efficient, but extremely high voltages which must be stepped down by passing the current through massive transformers each one of which is larger than a UPS truck. Transmission substations have five and sometimes ten of these large transformers. Power is then routed beneath the streets through thick feeder cables to area substations which step the power down yet again. From area substations power is delivered to smaller transformers in the street which step the power down further to household voltage of 110-120. On December 12, 2006, at a Manhattan Institute-sponsored program, Con Edison outlined the City’s need for the new substations. Demand for electric energy throughout all five boroughs, according to Con Edison projec- tions, will be near or exceed Con Edison’s capacity by 2011 unless the new substations come on line as planned. On the 24th Street site, which Con Edison was forced to sell, a new, block-long residential tower is nearing completion. The residents moving into the new tower will expect reliable electric power. That power will pass through Con Edison’s new substation on West 30th Street. This pattern of constructing new substations to come on line ahead of the demand will have to be repeated at least 17 more times over the next ten years if New York City is to sustain its residential, commercial and industrial growth. Ross Sandler CITYLAND Ross Sandler Wessel Graphics Caitlin Hannon Executive Editor and Director, Design Director Subscription The Center expresses appreciation to the individu- Center for New York City Law Coordinator Kevin Schultz ’05 als and foundations supporting the Center and its Melanie Cash ’02 Morgan Kunz ’06 Emilia Keric ’09 work: The Steven and Sheila Aresty Foundation, Associate Director Fellows in New York City Law Shane M. Tattan ’08 Managing Editor The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, The Horace Jesse Denno Caitlin J. Walsh ’08 Molly Brennan Staff Writer Research Assistants W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Murray Goodgold Editor, CityLand Publication Prod. Assistant Foundation, Jerry Gottesman, The Marc Haas CITYLAND ADVISORY BOARD Foundations, The Prospect Hill Foundation, and The Revson Foundation. Kent Barwick Howard Goldman Carol E. Rosenthal CITYLAN D Andrew Berman David Karnovsky Michael T. Sillerman (ISSN 1551-711X) is published 11 times Albert K. Butzel Ross Moskowitz ’84 Paul D. Selver a year by the Center for New York City Law at New Frank Munger York Law School, 57 Worth St., New York City, New York 10013, tel. (212) 431-2115, fax (212) 941-4735, CENTER FOR NEW YORK CITY LAW ADVISORY COUNCIL e-mail: [email protected], website: www.city- law.org © Center for New York City Law, 2006. All Stanley S. Shuman, Eric Hatzimemos ’92 Steven M. Polan rights reserved. Printed on recycled paper. Maps CITYLAND Chair Michael D. Hess Norman Redlich presented in are from Map-PLUTO Arthur N. Abbey ’59 Lawrence S. Huntington ’64 Joseph B. Rose copyrighted by the New York City Department of Sheila Aresty ’94 City Planning. City Landmarks and Historic Dis- William F. Kuntz II Ernst H. Rosenberger ’58 Harold Baer, Jr. tricts printed with permission of New York City Eric Lane Rose Luttan Rubin David R. Baker Randy M. Mastro Landmarks Preservation Commission. Anthony Coles Frederick P. Schaffer Richard Matasar Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Edward N. Costikyan CITYLAND Paul A. Crotty Robert J. McGuire O. Peter Sherwood , 57 Worth Street, New York, New York Richard J. Davis Francis McArdle Edward Wallace 10013-2960. Periodicals postage paid at New York, Michael B. Gerrard John D. McMahon ’76 Richard M. Weinberg New York. Judah Gribetz Thomas L. McMahon ’83 Peter L. Zimroth Kathleen Grimm ’80 Gary P. Naftalis James D. Zirin 166 Volume 3 CITYLAND December 2006 tion work on one- or two-family by 1,683 sq.ft., BSA maintained its Memorial Avenue. The proposed homes a misdemeanor punishable objections. The final design called garage would be located on the cor- by a fine of $5,000 to $10,000, with a for ten stories, ten units and a total ner of Booth Memorial Avenue and maximum jail sentence of six height of 130 feet, but increased the 141st Street with two below-ground months. street wall height from 87 to 107 levels and one above-ground level, feet. requiring demolition of five existing Int. No. 216-A, amending Admin. Code The developer submitted as- §§ 26-118, 26-212.1, 26-248 (Nov. 15, two-story hospital buildings. 2006); Int. No. 132-A, amending Admin. of-right feasibility studies showing The hospital argued that with- Code § 26-248 (Nov. 15, 2006). that an 18-story office building out the larger floor plates and flexi- would be infeasible due to the bility permitted by the variances, increased construction costs the new entrance could not be built BOARD OF STANDARDS & APPEALS caused by the narrow and shallow and the addition would lose 18 lot and by the weak return on office beds, three treatment rooms and Variance space with such small floor plates. one-third of the required mechani- Chelsea, Manhattan BSA agreed, granting the vari- cal equipment. ance. BSA noted that since the City On October 11, 2006, the Plan- Apartments OK’ed in Chelsea required greater street wall heights manufacturing district ning Commission rezoned a por- in the recent South Chelsea rezon- tion of the site (R4 to R6) to permit ing, the increased height con- Developer reduced overall size, but additional floor space, granted a formed more closely to zoning goals increased street wall height. A special permit for the garage, and and nearby Chelsea buildings. Chelsea developer applied to BSA to allowed accessory parking any- construct an 11-story, 187-foot tall BSA: 299 Seventh Avenue (199-05-BZ) where on the site. The City Council residential building with ground (Oct.