As CB4 Fears Loss Of Affordable Housing On West Side, Bill Would Tighten DOB Oversight Of Demolitions

Two City Council Members representing Manhattan’s West Side, Erik Bottcher and Gale Brewer, have introduced legislation to prevent illegal demolitions of affordable and rent-stabilized housing inside NYC’s “Special Zoning Districts.” West Bronx Council Member Pierenia Sanchez is a prime sponsor as well, signaling that the issue has citywide resonance.

To bolster the bill’s rationale, Bottcher–who represents Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, and parts of Greenwich Village–has highlighted a series of Community Board 4 letters addressed to city agencies.

Special Zoning Districts, which have been instituted citywide since 1969, are “tailored to distinctive qualities that may not lend themselves to generalized zoning and standard development.” This is according to the City Planning Commission, which currently counts 28 such districts in Manhattan. Bottcher’s office wants to emphasize that the districts in his purview–such as the Special Clinton District and the Special West Chelsea District–are important tools for preserving affordable and rent-controlled housing stock.

“The past instances of the Department of Buildings mistakenly approving illegal demolitions within Special Zoning Districts are unacceptable,” Bottcher said in a statement.

”Through my new legislation, we will ensure that the Department of Buildings double checks all applications for demolitions within these sensitive areas, preventing any such errors from occurring in the future. This additional failsafe regulation will safeguard our affordable housing stock and prevent irreversible damage from being done. Furthermore, requiring community board notification will provide an extra layer of protection, ensuring local oversight,” he added.

In a February 2017 letter addressed to the City Planning Commission and NYC’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, CB4 notes that the Special Clinton District (SCD) has a preservation mechanism that prohibits “the demolition of residential buildings.” One of the few exceptions is if the building in question is deemed unsafe by the DOB.

The rules have been in place since 1973, when the special district was first created to stave off real-estate speculation during the construction of the Javits Center. In 2005, the Special West Chelsea District was created. By 2009, similar anti-demolition provisions were added.

CB4 was blunt about what they thought would happen if these provisions were disregarded: “Without these same demolition restriction provisions being enforced in lower Hell’s Kitchen, Hudson Yards, the Garment Center and West Chelsea, these parts of our neighborhoods will become enclaves for only the highest income New Yorkers.”

Nevertheless, the 2017 letter claims that beginning in 2015, the DOB issued demolition permits that directly contravened these provisions. Seven buildings and 104 units were reportedly “fully vacated of tenants or owners” in “almost all [of these] cases,” they wrote, even though “most” of these the demolitions later received stop work orders. Buildings that had already been fully demolished escaped such orders.

One such location, 319-321 W. 38th St., was partially demolished before elected officials and CB4 stepped in and secured a stop work order. However, the building has not reemerged as residential housing, after sitting unused for years. Instead, a 26-story Best Western hotel is slated to open there in 2025.

Bottcher’s office also highlighted a CB4 letter on the subject that was written in May 2023, demonstrating that the problem has seemingly persisted. This one was addressed to the Mayor’s Office, NYC DOB, and the Planning Commission. More history was provided as to why certain demolitions in the special zones were illegal.

In 1987, the letter claimed, the Durst Organization fatefully made a series of partial alterations to a building they owned in on W. 43rd St. The Durst Organization, however, told Straus News that they had actually sold the build to Kalabi Realty Co. in 1984. The realty group sent a letter of their own to CB4 demanding that they correct the record, with a deed to prove it.

Either way, Kalabi Realty Co. removed multiple supporting beams throughout the structure in a piecemeal fashion, precipitating an inevitable removal of the entire facade. It was, in effect, a demolition in the Special Clinton District that didn’t identify as such. The DOB issued an internal policy memo to address the situation.

The above story has been corrected to show that Kalabi Realty Co. was the owner of record when a building at 427-429-431-433 W. 43rd St. was demolished in 1987. In a letter to the NYC DOB, Mayor's Office, and NYC Planning Commission, Community Board 4 initially said that the building was owned by the Durst Organization. We repeated CB4's claim in the first version of this story, which appeared online on March 3, 2024. The Durst Organization subsequently contacted us to note that the CB4 letter was incorrect, by providing a copy of a deed showing that the property was transferred to Kalabi Realty Co. in 1984. Calls to Kalabi Realty Co. were not returned.