IT’S HIGH TIMES!
Court OKs UWS 52-story tower
The controversial, 52-story apartment tower at 200 Amsterdam Ave. won’t have to take a 20-story haircut after all — because it isn’t really too tall, a four-judge state panel unanimously ruled on Tuesday.
The Appellate Division upheld the legality of the tower developed by SJP Properties and Mitsui Fudosan. The panel slapped down a lowercourt judge’s earlier decision that they must take down 20 stories because the structure supposedly violated zoning rules.
Developers and landlords around town sweated out the decision, as an upheld order to tear down part of the building could have impacted many others — both in construction and standing. Even the MetLife Building at 200 Park Ave. could have faced legal challenges as it relied on the same zoning-law interpretation used at 200 Amsterdam.
State Supreme Court Judge Franc Perry ruled in February 2020 that the developers had used “deceptive practices” and “violated city regulations” in putting up the tower at Amsterdam Avenue and West 71st Street, even though it had valid permits from the Department of Buildings since 2017.
The city gambled that Perry would be overturned and allowed construction on the tower to continue.
The city Law Department joined SJP and Mitsui Fudosan in an appeal filed last fall.
They argued that the project conformed with complicated, long-standing zoning rules that allowed combining whole and partial tax lots in order to create a bigger “footprint” for construction.
The appellate judges agreed, saying that while the zoning rules were “ambiguous,” the city’s Bureau of Standards and Appeals “rationally” interpreted them. The lower court “should have deferred” to the BSA, the judges ruled.
Because the ruling was unanimous, the plaintiffs face a high bar to bring the case to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest judicial body. A unanimous decision can’t automatically be appealed to the higher court but must receive permission that’s rarely granted from the appeals panel to take up the case.
Richard Emery, the lawyer for the Municipal Art Society and other groups that filed the suit, said he hoped the Court of Appeals would review the decision, which he called “threatening for any community or neighborhood effort to control development.” The MAS said the ruling gives developers “carte blanche to tell the city what a zoning lot looks like” and called 200 Amsterdam’s “39sided lot” a “direct and explicit violation of the law.”
But SJP chairman and CEO Steven J. Pozycki called the ruling “an unequivocal affirmation that 200 Amsterdam’s permit was lawfully issued . . . We thank the city for their support.”