de Blasio's D.O.B. enables illegal demolition of house

 

 THE CITY

 Before the first fireworks launched on the Fourth of July, booms and bangs were already reverberating around a residential block near Prospect Park.

That morning, despite a city order halting construction work, a small demolition crew revved up a backhoe and began ripping apart what had once been a three-story house at 1935 Bedford Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, alarming local residents.

“Everyone heard a huge crash,” said Cal Hadley, who lives adjacent to the property on Fenimore Street. “We all looked out the window, thought there was an explosion.”

For years, Hadley and a group of concerned neighbors have complained to city agencies and local politicians about what they asserted were unauthorized demolition, unsafe conditions and trash dumping at the site and a property next door at 1931 Bedford Ave.

The city Department of Environmental Protection found asbestos at the site in 2018 — and last year fined the owner more than $68,000 for multiple violations of asbestos-removal safety rules. While DEP certified the site asbestos-free as of this March, locals, especially many who live in a neighboring co-op and on Fenimore Street, fear they’re inhaling toxic particles kicked up by demolition. 

Bedford Holdings JV, LLC, an entity associated with developer Gabriel Sakaff, purchased the side-by-side lots on the Bedford Avenue block in 2017. Where two homes once stood, only half of one remained until Wednesday, its backside gutted and debris strewn across the lots.

Sakaff intends to build a seven-story residential building with at least 39 apartments and a community facility, city records show. THE CITY could not reach Sakaff at any of the phone numbers or emails provided on applications his firm submitted to the city Department of Buildings.

 ince work on the property began years ago, residents of the neighboring co-op in the fast-gentrifying neighborhood have complained about debris blowing into their homes. “I can’t get fresh air because I have to keep my window closed,” Olga Baly-Noel, who’s lived in the co-op for more than 20 years, recently told THE CITY.

During the clamor on July 4, residents called 911. Several agencies, including the NYPD, FDNY and DOB’s emergency response team, arrived and forced demolition to stop. DOB officials issued a $12,500 fine to Bedford Holdings for violating city orders.

After city officials left, a man neighbors identified as Sakaff began “raving up and down the sidewalk” and shouting obscenities, said Leif McIlwaine, a co-op resident. A neighbor, James Parks, recorded a video showing a confrontation between the man and McIlwaine. In another, the man blows a kiss into the camera before storming off down the street. THE CITY reviewed the footage.

The demolition crew returned the next day to tear down the home. Residents confronted and filmed the workers, who left before the authorities arrived. The DOB issued several more fines to the property owner on July 6, city records show.

On the night of July 14, a worker used a hacksaw to remove a lock that FDNY placed on a fence surrounding the property, according to local residents who filmed the incident and called the police. That heightened local concerns about demolition work.

A DOB spokesperson initially told THE CITY that demolition work couldn’t proceed until the owner obtained proper permits, contractors produced an engineering report on the site’s conditions and remedied unsafe conditions, and the DOB inspected the site.

Now, city officials are reversing course on their stop-work order

Fighting to protect historic neighborhood

From GoFundMe:

The Fenimore Street Block Association learned late last month (Jan. 2017) that a beautiful house on the southeast corner of Bedford Avenue and Fenimore Street is being targeted for demolition. A prominent Williamsburg developer recently filed for a permit to demolish 174-176 Fenimore Street. While no plans have been filed as of yet, we suspect that he will construct an as-of-right apartment building many times the size of the existing house.

For several years now, our Block Association has been fighting to preserve our neighborhood from non-contextual development that is quickly becoming the hallmark of new construction in PLG. We are currently in the process of initiating a rezoning application to change our current R6 zoning - which allows high density development - to R2, which only allows single family homes. This is due to our research, where we discovered that houses on the south side of Fenimore Street between Bedford and Rogers--including 174-176 Fenimore--have deed restrictions that explicitly prohibit the development of apartment buildings, as the language makes clear that only single-family houses may be built - like the rest of Lefferts Manor. We discovered that this side of the street was originally part of the Lefferts Farm and should have been included in both the R2 single family zoning which begins on the north side of the street as well as the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Historic District, which covers the entirety of Lefferts Manor proper. In fact, as of this week, all 19 properties on the south side of Fenimore Street have been found eligible to be added to the National Register of Historic Places as an extension of the existing Lefferts Manor National Register Historic District.

The Fenimore Street Block Association intends to battle this developer in court with the understanding that we have a very strong legal leg to stand on. We are doing this because the courts have routinely deemed these original deed restrictions to be binding if found enforceable, which our zoning and land use expert has affirmed to be the case. However, we lack the necessary funds for a sustained legal battle. It is possible that there are other parts of PLG which also have enforceable deed restrictions as well and a victory in this case could set an important legal precedent for future court cases against developers.