CITY HALL -- A controversial development on grounds of the former Mount Manresa Retreat House is under more bureaucratic scrutiny.
The Board of Standards and Appeals, or BSA, requested additional information about the plans from developers this month before deciding the townhouse project's future.
Cupidity Drive, Avidita Place and Fourberie Lane would be put on the official City Map in a move that could potentially kill the development.
Last year Oddo asked the BSA to enforce an obscure law that prohibits final certificates of occupancy from being issued for buildings facing streets that aren't on the official map.
GENERAL CITY LAW 36
General City Law 36 allows developers like the Savo Brothers to apply to the BSA for an exemption after the Department of Buildings denies a certificate of occupancy for buildings facing unmapped streets.
The BSA grants this waiver if enforcing the law is impractical, causes unnecessary hardship or when the proposed building won't be related to an existing or proposed street.
Plans submitted to the BSA show 163 two- and three-story homes at the Fort Wadsworth site, with most on the new roads named Cupidity Drive, Avidita Place and Fourberie Lane. Some homes don't require the waiver because they front Fingerboard Road, already on the official City Map.
'PROVIDE A TRAFFIC STUDY'
By Dec. 6, the developers had asked the BSA for 133 exemptions to the law where house numbers have been issued for buildings that would face the three new private roads.
On Feb. 6, the BSA sent a "notice of comments" about the plans to Todd Dale, a land use attorney representing the Savo Brothers, asking for the height of proposed homes, the number of parking spaces, a traffic analysis and other details about the plans.
"Discuss the addition of 168 homes to this area and its effect on the current street grid and sewer system. Provide a traffic study," one request from appeals project manager, Toni Matias, states in the notice of comments.
"What provisions have been made for the development of the infrastructure to accommodate the large number of homes?" another asks. "What are the proposed fire safety measures to be implemented?"
The notice of comments also requests that the developers revise their "statement of facts" and site plans to include additional information on nearby wetlands or flood hazards, utility lines, open space, sidewalks and more.
"The notice of comments consist of technical comments from staff," BSA executive director Ryan Singer said in an email last week. "No decisions have been made on this project."
As of Feb. 14, the BSA had not heard back from the developers.
"We ask that they respond within 60 days but they can ask for more time," Singer said.
The BSA had no additional comment on Tuesday.
'BSA IS ASKING IMPORTANT QUESTIONS'
Dale and the Savo Brothers did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
A notice of comments is always given by the BSA as part of the application process for waivers to General City Law 36. But the length and scope of the five-page notice to the developers about this project are not typical.
"It certainly appears the BSA has heard us and is seriously contemplating the concerns we have consistently voiced and shared along with the local community, and is conducting the rightful thorough review of the project," Oddo said in a statement. "BSA is asking important questions and they must be answered, and those responses must be fully and completely vetted."
Private roads don't require the same environmental reviews as new streets on the City Map. But changes to the map require a review process that includes project analysis from multiple agencies.
"It is simply common sense that the City of New York, through its various agencies, would investigate all the potential impacts a project could have on a community, and ensures these implications are fully addressed before a project can be built," Oddo said.
PLANS COULD BE BLOCKED
City Map revisions are also subject to the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, known as ULURP. That seven-month process is public and includes input from several levels of city government, including the Community Board, the borough president, the City Council and the mayor.
If the BSA ultimately denies waivers for the project -- and require the roads to be on the City Map -- the plans could be blocked.
Both Oddo and Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore) are against the project already. The Council usually defers to the local member in matters of land use.
At Mayor Bill de Blasio's urging following an April town hall, the city reached out to the developers earlier this year and was told they were decidedly against selling the land. Using eminent domain to seize the property isn't considered feasible.
Controversy has followed the project since the former Jesuit retreat house was sold for $15 million. A relentless Committee to Save Mount Manresa continues to lobby even after the retreat house was demolished.
The plans are considered too dense for the community and developers have been criticized for tearing down trees and fraudulently hiding asbestos contamination.
A court battle is ensuing over three unflattering street names assigned to the project by Oddo last year.