Three apartment cooperatives on the Bronxville-Mount Vernon border are suing the city and a developer to stop construction of an apartment building that would border their properties.
The Brewster-Carver, Standish-Cabot and Bradford Hall apartments petitioned Westchester Supreme Court on Sept. 4 to order the Mount Vernon Zoning Board of Appeals and Buildings Department to stop construction, claiming, for instance, that the developer obtained a phony building permit.
“This proposed building, even under the approved site plan, is way too large for the lot,” the petition states. “It will crowd and choke the private drive the petitioners use, and would be a hideous eyesore.”
The lawsuit also names the property owner, Julie Properties of Armonk, and White Plains developer Bart Blatt and BRB Construction.
Alden Place is a short, private driveway off Midland Avenue that serves several cooperative apartment buildings on the Bronxville and Mount Vernon border. The developer”™s 0.26-acre parcel at 8 Alden Place is on the edge of the Fleetwood section of Mount Vernon, behind Bronxville Cemetery and near Bronxville Village Hall.
In 2014, the Mount Vernon planning board approved R.J. Luiso Industries”™ site plan for a five-story apartment building. The project was dormant until last year, when Julie Properties bought 8 Alden Place for $420,000 and applied to the city planning board for an extension of the site plan approval.
The extension was issued last October but required the developer to file a new site plan if the original plan was amended, even for minor changes.
The cooperative apartments claim that when the developer began work last summer a phony building permit was posted, signed by a nonexistent employee of the Mount Vernon buildings department.
A new building permit was issued in March. The project plans had changed, according to the petition, and deviated substantially from the original site plan.
Instead of 8,211 square feet of open space, new plans allegedly called for 3,384 square feet, a reduction of nearly 59%. The plans increased the building height by more than 8 feet and a side yard setback was reduced by 6 feet.
The developer did not submit the alleged changes to the planning board for approval, according to the petition, and a building permit should never have been issued.
“The permit holder utilized an apparently phony permit to illegally commence work in July 2019,” the petition states, “which brought absolutely no consequences from the ”¦ buildings department.”
Neither the city”™s corporate counsel, Brian Johnson, nor the developer responded to messages asking for their side of the story. But the developer”™s attorney, Troy D. Lipp, notified Justice Linda S. Jamieson on Sept. 8 that the lawsuit is strikingly similar to a complaint filed last year on which she rejected the plaintiff”™s arguments for relief.
The cooperative apartments had sued the developer, but not the city, claiming that the developer did not have the right to install utilities along Alden Place, the private road, there were not enough parking spaces and the building permits were faulty.
Jamieson ruled on July 20 that the evidence favored the developer on the utilities and parking space issues, and the cooperative apartments had failed to exhaust all administrative remedies on the building permits.
The cooperatives appealed the building permit ruling on July 31.
The city failed to issue a stop-work order while the appeal is pending, according to the new petition, and the developers have continued construction activities.
The cooperatives are asking the court to compel the Mount Vernon Zoning Board of Appeals and the Buildings Department to issue a stop work order or cease and desist order.
The cooperatives are represented by Rye Brook attorney Frank J. Haupel.
The City of Mount Vernon allowed this to happen without proper Land Use Board approval. The property had been sold/transferred numerous times since 2014 and each new owner was allowed extension after extension to file site plans which they did not but rode the coattails of the original proposed development which goes against the City Charter making this development more than questionable.