By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) called on the city Department of Buildings Friday to measure the foundation of a Bayside house under construction that he and the home’s neighbors contended violates zoning laws.
But a Department of Buildings spokeswoman said the agency had no plans to measure the property and the home’s developer maintained the project was legal.
Construction of a house on a vacant lot at 36-13 210th St. began last fall. Plans call for two stories and a cellar with the structure measuring 27-by-58.75 feet.
But Brixton Doyle, a nearby resident who has been researching the project’s compliance with the zoning code, measured the property himself and said it is larger than what is called for in the building’s plans.
“We believe the plans that were approved are not what the developer is building here,” said Avella, flanked by Doyle and a few other neighbors at a news conference in front of the lot.
Avella demanded that the Buildings Department measure the building to verify Doyle’s calculation.
But Buildings Department spokeswoman Ilyse Fink said the agency would not take measurements “at this time.”
“We have examined this site, we have examined the plans and they conform to zoning,” said Fink, who noted that the agency had visited the site Jan. 21 and found it locked. “There is no work ongoing now.”
Paul DiBenedetto, whose white clapboard house with a sloped roof sits next door to the lot under construction, said: “I think it’s terrible for the neighborhood.”
“I want to see a home that has the same roof line, the same look,” said DiBenedetto, who has lived in his house for four years.
The neighborhood is zoned for one-family homes. But Doyle said the building’s plans include a basement bathroom and an outside separate entrance, suggesting that the property could be “the prototypical two-family conversion.”
Ilias Theodoropoulos, the project’s developer, maintained that “it’s a one-family and that’s the way it’s being developed. The plans were approved and that’s the way it’s going to be built.”
The councilman and Doyle also called for the elimination of the legal loophole that allows developers to write off the square footage of first floors used for recreation rooms, garages and utility rooms — an exemption they said led to outsized new homes, or “McMansions.”
“The plans show these nebulously titled open spaces,” said Doyle, contending that the spaces in question would be used instead for a living room. “Something terribly fishy is going on.”
But Theodoropoulos responded by saying “the plans are public in nature. If there was a problem with the house, I’m sure the Buildings Department would have told us.”
Avella said the Buildings Department needed to hire more inspectors because developers took advantage of the agency’s inability to closely monitor construction.
Queens Historical Society President Stanley Cogan, who attended Friday’s news conference, said the construction on 210th Street was an example of how the borough had been divided architecturally into what he called “the old Queens and the new Queens.”
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
