Last month’s court decision ordering the removal of potentially 20 floors of a high-rise building (The Committee For Environmentally Sound Development v. Amsterdam Avenue Redevelopment Associates, Sup. Ct., N.Y. Co., Index No. 157273/2019) shook the local development community. How can the issuance of a construction permit by one branch of government be invalidated because of community opposition? And when can a developer rely upon final determinations of the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA)?

The dispute involves the DOB’s issuance of a permit authorizing the construction of a 55-story, 668-foot-high residential and community facility building on a development site with 110,794 square feet of lot area. The development site’s “zoning lot” was created over 28 years by agreements made with contiguous neighbors to subdivide and merge land parcels and partial land parcels within the block. Each time the agreements were made, “declarations” were recorded as conveyances that established the modified tracts of land.