Brooklyn homeowner repeatedly breaks the rules

From Brooklyn Daily:

The city must crack down on a Marine Parker who is repeatedly violating the rules as he builds an addition on his Kimball Street home, neighbors are demanding.

Officials have issued two stop-work orders on the home after inspectors caught the owner building bigger than he was supposed to. But work was allowed to continue once, and now neighbors fear the homeowner will continue to break the rules and get away with it.

“Before you blink this is going to be done and be a giant monstrosity. We got to get to the bottom of how this person submitted plans and got away with building something different,” said James McDonald, who lives next door and started a petition that has garnered more than 200 signatures.

The home — between Fillmore Avenue and Avenue S — is zoned for a maximum height of 35 feet. The Department of Buildings issued two stop-work orders on the home, the first in September, when inspectors found owner David Avraham was building a third story contrary to approved plans, which were only for the alteration of two existing floors. Avraham then re-submitted plans calling the third floor an attic space, and the city rescinded the stop-work order in November, according to an agency spokesman.

But inspectors ordered construction halted again a week later when they noticed work on the back of the home was larger than what was in the approved plans. The city partially rescinded the stop-work order to allow owners to make emergency repairs to the roof, but then fully reissued it on Dec. 8 once the repairs were completed, the spokesman said.

Neighbors described the structure as an eyesore and said it would set a bad tone for future construction, but they are also worried about safety.

McDonald is worried the construction is shoddy and that someone will get hurt as a result — things appear to be falling off the structure and onto his lawn, he said.