Inside Third & Bond: Week 5

Every development project stirs up issues with neighbors in adjacent properties, and we’re used to dealing with the full range of neighbors’ issues from the good (at J Condo: the owners of the restaurant Superfine appreciated the new business brought to them by the construction workers who came in for happy hour and happily anticipated the business of future residents) to the bad (occasionally: complaints about noise, dust, sometimes about construction starting before 7 am) to the ugly (rarely: nuisance lawsuits, demands for a hotel room for the next 6 months or payment for lost customers).

Most neighbors are anxious about construction projects, and from our standpoint, we try to strike a balance between being responsive to their needs while not overpromising in the face of the unreal expectation that we can perfectly maintain the status quo. Every neighbors’ issue tests this balance.

At Third & Bond, we have nine neighbors—some are tenants and many are long-time owners. They are nice people and we aren’t just saying that because a few of them read this blog. They are generally anxious about the big project happening next door, but they all seem glad to see development happening. As we went about getting our standard pre-demo work done, we reached out to them about a few standard items and in return found out about a whole host of other issues.

Among the standard items for any of our projects is a pre-construction survey…

The survey consists of digital photos or photography of all our neighbors’ building foundations and walls. The purpose is to establish a baseline. If during the vibrations of demolition or construction, a foundation crack appears or widens, we can more easily figure out what we might have caused. The consultant hired to do the survey calls the homeowners, explains the purpose of the free service, and does the survey. Unfortunately, some of the neighbors are either impossible to reach or refuse to allow the survey. We think it’s in their best interest—people tell us that they’ve seen insurance companies deny claims to homeowners because they refused the pre-construction survey and don’t have any evidence that the foundation cracks came on as a result of nearby construction. Plus, we aren’t really eager to pay for damage that we don’t think we caused. But if they refuse, there’s nothing we can do about it.

While making contact with all our neighbors to introduce ourselves and get this survey scheduled, a host of other issues emerged:

The tree: One of our neighbors pointed out that he had a tree close to our property line. We immediately hired an arborist, who climbed around our lot (in weeds taller than most of us) and up onto the roof (now full of holes from the asbestos abatement), before issuing his opinions about this tree and others he saw in neighboring yards. In short, there are two trees that should be unaffected, two trees that will need feeder roots carefully snipped, and one tree that is going to be a little tricky. It looks like that tree might be using a wall for structural support that we will be removing during demo. Dealing with the tree will require some additional upfront planning, but as our arborist pointed out, it’s better to be planning for it now than calling him up in a panic that the 30′ tree is wobbling.

The phone lines: A neighbor pointed out that there are lines attached to the rear of our building which we can’t see from any vantage point on our property save the roof. These lines provide phone service to our neighbors. So, we contacted Verizon and they have busily set out to find someone willing to take a temporary pole that the lines can be moved to until there’s a more permanent solution.

The plant: Another neighbor has a plant in her rear yard that is partially dependent on one of the old foundation walls that we are taking out. This plant was given to her by her mother over a decade ago. Her mother has since passed and the plant has become very special to her. She doesn’t really need anything from us for the plant, except for enough notice to slowly transplant it. This issue might not sound like a big deal, but it is in terms of neighbor relations.

The brick wall, the addition wall, the cage: All three of these are from the same neighbor. Issue one is an old brick party wall that is only a little better than rubble. For whatever reason, the property owner believes that half of that wall (a couple of inches of brick at most) belongs to him and doesn’t want his portion demolished. Issue two is an addition built between his building and ours that might or might not have its own rear wall. When we start demo, we’ll gingerly take out the wall on our side. Hopefully, behind it we’ll see the rear wall of the addition and not the neighbor eating breakfast in his pajamas. Issue three is a metal cage that sits atop the addition, providing security for his third floor patio. The problem is that he connected the metal cage into our building a number of years ago and now thinks that our wall belongs to him. Again, he doesn’t want us to knock it down. We know that once we knock that building down, including this wall, his cage will be unnecessary because there will be no new structures nearby—thus no need for the security cage. But that doesn’t mean he is happy to give up his current situation.

At this point, we are optimistic that we can resolve all of these issues pretty easily—and so that everyone is mostly happy. And so far, no one has asked to be put up at Hotel Bleu, there aren’t any nuisance lawsuits on the books, and we haven’t seen any protestors chaining themselves to the trees. But we all know, neighbors included, that this project is just getting started and there will be more cause and cure for anxiety in the coming months.

From our lawyers: This is not an offering. No offering can be made until an offering plan is filed with the Department of Law of the State of New York.”

Inside Third & Bond: Week 4 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 3 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 2 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 1 [Brownstoner]