Ahead of Development Decision, Board of Standards and Appeals Pointed At

A plan to build a two-bedroom house on a “side yard” in Bayside Hills could be shaping up as a battle royal between Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council – and there hasn’t been an official meeting about it yet.

 The budding brouhaha centers around 50-20 216th Street, at the corner of 51st Ave. A house sits on the wide end of what is basically a triangular lot and the owner has split the property into two tax lots, with the idea of building another house on the land.

 But there’s a catch. The planned construction falls short of zoning requirements, so a “variance” is needed from the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA), with an advisory vote from CB11.

 On January 23, architect Paul Bonfilio brought the proposal to a CB11 zoning committee meeting, and was met with significant community opposition. Opponents claim that the additional house will negatively impact the neighborhood and the application fails to meet the legal requirements.

 But there wasn’t a quorum present, so the meeting didn’t count.

 “The house wouldn’t be any different than the other houses on the block,” Bonfilio said, adding “some people just don’t want to see anything built. I’ll be going to the next CB11 meeting (on Monday, March 7) and I half-expect it to be voted down.”

 Bonfilio said that he feels that BSA will issue the variance anyway, based on “case law.”

 So does City Councilmember Dan Halloran, and he has a problem with it. After meeting with residents who were at the meeting, he explained.

 “According to the City Charter, we have a very powerful Mayor. But the Charter speaks loudly that the City Council has power over land use.” The problem as Halloran sees it is that the Mayor appoints the BSA and because of a loophole created by an earlier Charter revision, its decisions can only be challenged in court.

 “Bayside Hills has a very particular character and in my opinion this application would change it on that block,” he said

 “The custom of BSA has been to approve variance applications that don’t fulfill the conditions of the zoning code,” Halloran said. “In many ways some of their decisions have been arbitrary and capricious,” he continued.

 “We (the Council) have the power to determine land use, but no power over the entity that makes exceptions,” Halloran complained.

 To close the loophole would require either another Charter Revision, or a state law, Halloran said. “The Mayor can knock out the former and exercise considerable influence on the latter,” he conceded.

 But Halloran noted that “we had a victory two months ago” on a similar application to BSA, “so there’s some hope.”