Beekman Hill Ass'n v. Chin

274 A.D.2d 161, 712 N.Y.S.2d 471, 2000 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8373
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedAugust 3, 2000
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 274 A.D.2d 161 (Beekman Hill Ass'n v. Chin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beekman Hill Ass'n v. Chin, 274 A.D.2d 161, 712 N.Y.S.2d 471, 2000 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8373 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Sullivan, P. J.

In this CPLR article 78 proceeding, petitioners appeal from the Supreme Court’s denial of their application to annul a determination by the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) sustaining the refusal of the Department of Buildings (DOB) to revoke a building permit for a building presently under construction at 845 First Avenue in Manhattan. Petitioners include several community organizations that oppose construction of the building. Respondents are the municipal officials and agencies responsible for the determinations being challenged, as well as the limited partnership, including the general and limited partners, that owns the zoning lot upon which the building is being constructed.1

Additionally, this Court granted permission to the Associated Builders & Owners of Greater New York, a real estate industry association, to file an amicus curiae brief in opposition to petitioners’ appeal.

This appeal requires us, inter alia, to determine whether the Supreme Court applied the proper standard of review under CPLR article 78 in evaluating petitioners’ challenge to the BSA’s determination. Assuming the correct standard was applied, we must then determine whether the Supreme Court properly found that the BSA’s interpretation of the relevant provisions of the New York City Zoning Resolution (Zoning Resolution) had a rational basis. We answer both questions af[164]*164firmatively and affirm the Supreme Court’s order dismissing the proceeding.

On October 22, 1998, DOB issued a building permit authorizing the construction of a 70-story, primarily residential building on a zoning lot located on the west side of First Avenue, between 47th and 48th Streets (Building). The subject zoning lot (zoning lot) was created through a zoning lot merger pursuant to Zoning Resolution (ZR) § 12-10 ([Zoning Lot] [d]), which permits the sale or transfer of development rights between contiguous lots in order to create additional development rights on one portion of the merged zoning lot. The zoning lot is located in two different commercial zoning districts, a C5-2 district and a Cl-9 district, and has a combined area of 89,772 square feet. The building permit authorizes the development of the C5-2 portion of the zoning lot with a mixed building,2 and allows the transfer of 526,105 square feet of floor area from the Cl-9 portion to the C5-2 portion.

On February 4, 1999, the attorney for petitioner Beekman Hill Association (Beekman Hill) wrote to DOB requesting that it revoke the building permit and issue a stop work order on the ground that the proposed Building violated the Zoning Resolution in two ways. First, Beekman Hill argued that the Building cannot be built pursuant to the residential tower regulations set forth in ZR § 23-65, but must instead be built in accordance with the Tower-on-a-base regulations of ZR § 23-652.3 Second, Beekman Hill contended that under the “split-lot” provisions of the Zoning Resolution, floor area rights from Cl-9 portion of the zoning lot could not be transferred to the C5-2 portion.

By letter dated April 21, 1999, the DOB Commissioner (Commissioner) denied Beekman Hill’s request for revocation of the building permit. The Commissioner’s, ruling rejected both of Beekman Hill’s key contentions. He found that the Tower-on-abase provisions of ZR § 23-652 did not apply in C5-2 zoning districts, and that the Building may utilize floor area gener[165]*165ated in the Cl-9 portion of the zoning lot since the floor area regulations applicable to C5-2 and Cl-9 portions of the zoning lot were the same.

On April 28, 1999, Beekman Hill and other petitioners filed an appeal with the BSA. The BSA, a five-member body that includes at least one planner, a licensed professional engineer and a registered architect, is vested with exclusive jurisdiction to determine appeals from DOB decisions (NY City Charter § 659 [a], [b]; § 666 [6] [a]). In support of their appeal, petitioners submitted a statement of facts and legal memorandum reiterating their two primary contentions. DOB and the Owners made written submissions urging affirmance of the Commissioner’s determination. On June 23, 1999, the BSA conducted a lengthy public hearing at which representatives of all parties, as well as public officials and interested members of the public, gave testimony. The BSA also accepted posthearing submissions.

On September 28, 1999, the BSA voted unanimously to confirm the Commissioner’s determination and denied the appeal. In its resolution, the BSA explicitly stated that the statutory structure of ZR § 35-63, as well as the legislative history of the Tower-on-a-base amendments, supported the Commissioner’s determination that the Tower-on-a-base regulations did not apply to C5-2 zoning districts. The BSA’s resolution further stated that consistent with DOB’s longstanding interpretation of the split-lot provisions of the Zoning Resolution, where a zoning lot is divided by a district boundary but the two districts have identical regulations for a particular aspect, such as maximum floor area, then the divided zoning lot would not be considered a split-lot for purposes of that particular aspect. The BSA also concluded that petitioners’ interpretation of the Zoning Resolution’s split-lot provisions was overbroad and would render superfluous many other split-lot provisions in the Zoning Resolution.

Petitioners thereafter commenced the instant article 78 proceeding seeking vacatur of the BSA’s determination and an order directing DOB to revoke the building permit and issue a stop work order. Petitioners’ legal arguments were the same as those made before the DOB and BSA: that the Tower-on-abase regulations were applicable and prohibited construction of the tower portion of the Building, and that the transfer of development rights from the Cl-9 portion to the C5-2 portion of the zoning lot violated the Zoning Resolution’s split-lot provisions.

[166]*166The Supreme Court denied and dismissed the article 78 proceeding. With respect to petitioners’ argument that the Tower-on-a-base regulations were applicable to C5-2 districts, the court stated that C5-2 districts were “conspicuously missing” from the list of districts in ZR § 35-63 (a) that have been specifically designated as requiring the Tower-on-a-base design. The court also found that notwithstanding the Owners’ election to be governed by the residential tower regulations of ZR § 23-65, which incorporates a “Tower-on-a-base carve-out” allegedly making the Tower-on-a-base regulations applicable here, “this [wa]s plainly an example of inadvertent draftmanship.”

In the court’s view, the drafter’s failure to make reference to the Tower-on-a-base regulations in subdivision (c) of ZR § 35-63, which governs C5-2 districts, as had been done in subdivision (a) of the same section, was persuasive evidence that C5-2 districts were not subject to the Tower-on-a-base regulations. The court also found that the legislative history of the Tower-on-a-base regulations and the planning rationale underlying them further supported the BSA’s determination. In contrast, the court found “nothing in the legislative history to support [p]etitioners’ interpretation.”

The Supreme Court also confirmed the BSA’s interpretation of the split-lot provisions of the Zoning Resolution.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
274 A.D.2d 161, 712 N.Y.S.2d 471, 2000 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8373, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beekman-hill-assn-v-chin-nyappdiv-2000.