City Claims UWS Tower Won't Need Height Cut Despite Court Ruling

UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN — City officials are challenging the idea that a controversial Amsterdam Avenue tower needs to cut down its already-built floors despite a court decision about the development that caused them to change zoning rules.

The Department of Buildings updated its zoning codes this week to outlaw the use of partial tax lots following a court ruling that revoked the building permit for 200 Amsterdam Ave., a 52-story tower that used what advocates called a "gerrymandered" combination of partial lots to allow a much larger development.

But despite the change to its rules, the city claims the update only affects new developments, not 200 Amsterdam Ave.

Instead, the city and the developers for Amsterdam Avenue have partnered up to appeal the court ruling, which would likely have lopped off half the building's 52 floors.

“The developers of 200 Amsterdam took advantage of a decades-old zoning interpretation to create a gerrymandered 39-sided zoning lot in order to construct a luxury building that is one of the tallest on the Upper West Side," Jane Meyer with the Office of the Mayor said. "We are closing this loophole so that developers will no longer be able to cobble together partial tax lots for new buildings."

Advocates who filed the Article 78 challenge that ultimately led to the court ruling against 200 Amsterdam said Tuesday they plan to fight the city's interpretation of the judge's decision.

The groups, the Municipal Art Society and the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, have fought 200 Amsterdam, which is currently the tallest development in the Upper West Side, since it was first proposed.

"It is not enough to ban this deceptive practice going forward, the developers of 200 Amsterdam Avenue must be held accountable for violating City regulations and continuing to build in the face of abundant evidence that their zoning lot was illegal," MAS President Elizabeth Goldstein said. "That is what Justice Perry ordered in his decision and we intend to proceed with the case.”

Meanwhile, the developers lauded the city's position.

Attorneys with SJP Properties, developers for the tower, have claimed that retroactively applying the rule to 200 Amsterdam Ave. would create a chaotic mess for the city's Department of Buildings, who would need to reassess the building permits for dozens of other similarly situated buildings across New York City.

"We applaud Mayor de Blasio and the New York City Corporation Counsel for taking a stand against a legally flawed court ruling that seeks to apply a new policy, not adopted until after the court handed down its decision, retroactively to a project that has been already built, with zoning that has been approved and consistently upheld by the Department of Buildings and Board of Standards and Appeals, the city agencies with the highest authority on zoning," a spokesperson for SJP said.