HOLY ROW!
CLERIC RIPS CONSTRUCTION NEAR CHURCH
As the Rev. Stephen Harding stood on the roof of the sacristy of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Chelsea, he feared one of the historic church’s walls might buckle.
Below him, several construction workers dug deep into the dirt — alarmingly close to the house of worship’s south-facing wall.
"That dirt is part of the foundation,” Harding said over the deafening clang of hammers. “If you remove that, if you excavate lower, then it can become unstable. This is how you get a collapse.”
“If the south wall of St. Peter’s goes because of this digging, people are going to be killed,” explained Harding, an FDNY chaplain. “I’ve been to a number of fatal construction accidents. I really do not want to go there and find bodies.
“I can’t ignore this, This, for me, is the final straw."
Concerned about the structural integrity of the W. 20th St. church and the safety of its parishioners, the reverend quickly contacted the city Buildings Department and called for an immediate stop-work order at 345 and 347 W. 19th St., the two buildings on the property behind St. Peter’s.
That order was never granted. A Buildings Department inspection July 10 found that the land was not excavated, and the construction was not in violation of any city codes, even though the property owner — fashion photographer Kenneth Willardt, who has shot portraits for A-listers like Madonna — did not renew a crucial permit that allows for such work to continue, records show.
According to Buildings Department reports, the department issued a permit for 345 W. 19th St. in March 2016 that authorized construction combining the building with adjacent 347 W. 19th St. That permit expired in July 2017.
While the Buildings Department does not actively enforce permit renewals, it maintains such work is illegal unless the permit is valid.
Patrick Hammond, an architect who said he is handling the Buildings Department paperwork for Willardt, asserted that the construction is legal because work to combine the buildings has not been done in the last year.
“Other permits have been issued to do work individually, under separate permit applications,” he said.
“That is the construction that has been done. They are separate and they are going to remain separate until the paperwork goes through.”
Harding’s grievance is the latest in a long list of complaints the church and other neighbors lodged against Willardt and the Buildings Department since construction began two years ago.
Property owners who spoke with the Daily News claim that despite what Willardt says, he has worked on combining the buildings within the past 12 months — with the expired permit.
“The neighbors have been calling (the Buildings Department) throughout the last year to report illegal activity, (but the department) permitted the work to continue,” Harding told The News, noting that the landmarked church never received written notice he claims is required from Willardt’s team about the construction.
“Why didn’t they shut him down? If (the Buildings Department) is not going to retroactively enforce its own permit, why do we have the (department)?” Harding said.
The department did not say whether written notice is required and did not answer requests for clarity.
Willardt said 345 and 347 W. 19th St. are on one deed and are under a single mortgage — but the “buildings are not (yet) combined in the physical sense.”
“I’ve been trying to combine them two years, but right now, I’m working on them separately,” he said. “Everything has been done legally. I’ve done nothing wrong. There’s nothing I’ve done that hasn’t been resolved by the (Buildings Department). I’m turning these deteriorated buildings into a really nice building. I’m trying to do the right thing.”
In September 2016, Buildings Department inspectors and engineers found illegal excavation at 347 W. 19th St. caused a water main pipe to burst. The damage under-
mined a wall shared by a neighboring brownstone. Department officials inspected, deemed 347 “unstable” and “a danger to the public,” and invoked an immediate stop-work order, according to department records.
The people who live in the building next door had to evacuate and are still waiting to get back in.
Neighbor Henry Lombardi said the collapse sparked a sequence of events that has led to an all-out war with Willardt.
"He displaced the family on the other side of him,” said Lombardi, a seasoned property insurance executive who has lived on the block for six years. “He was not conciliatory, gave no type of apologies, nothing.
“He (told us) the collapse was not his fault because he refers it as ‘an act of God,' ” he added, referring to Willardt's comments in emails to neighbors, the Buildings Department and other city officials. “In my parlance, ‘an act of God' is thunder or lightning. It's not that you dig a hole and collapse a building wall.
“It seems everything that is done here is done under a cloak of darkness — starting with the excavation of the basement,” Lombardi said. “I'm not going to stop him from doing what he's entitled to do. But there's got to be some oversight and at least some consistency of what he can and cannot do.”
Willardt said the damage to the wall was unintentional, and that he has worked tirelessly to resolve the issue.
“It was nothing I wanted to happen, it was a complete accident,” he said. “Unfortunately, it cracked my building and the neighbor's wall. It's the last thing I wanted to happen.
“I have been working to rectify this for the last two years — but it's been a nightmare,” he added.
Andrew Rudansky, senior deputy press secretary for the Buildings Department, said through this process, the agency has followed protocol.
The Buildings Department “is committed to safe construction,” Rudansky said. “We responded aggressively to complaints regarding this property and took enforcement actions that led to the correction of unsafe conditions at the site. We will continue to monitor the project closely going forward.”
The Buildings Department “is doing nothing to ensure the safety of the property,” Harding countered. “My next concern is for the history that would be destroyed,” he added, noting that the community has recently put in $2.5 million into renovating the early 19th century church.
“I'm not out to savage Mr. Willardt. But he is not showing any signs of being a good neighbor.”