By: Benyamin Davidsons

The 52-story condo tower at West 71st Street in the Upper West Side is about to have its day of destiny.  Developers for the ‘too-tall’ building at 200 Amsterdam Avenue are nervously awaiting the decision of an appeals court.  As reported by the NY Post, on Wednesday a four-judge panel of the state Appellate Division will take up the case by developers SJP Properties, Mitsui Fusodan and the city’s Law Department seeking to overturn a previous decision to tear down the top floors of the building  because the tower allegedly violated zoning rules.

In February, Judge Franc Perry ruled that the top 20 floors in the tower must be taken down after Upper West Side activists and the Municipal Art Society had sued to cut the project’s size, accusing the developers of using “deceptive practices” and “violating city regulations.”

The developers claim that they had valid permits for all 52 stories from the DOB and the Bureau of Standards and Appeals. City Hall also joined in the appeal, agreeing that the approvals were based on long-standing precedents.  The developers and other proponents of the project say that the court was improperly trying to retroactively reverse long-standing Department of Buildings rules.  The case’s outcome can affect other buildings under construction, and even impact some well-known existing towers.

As per the Post, the approvals for the $700 million construction of the tower were based on NY Department Of Buildings interpretation of an obscure, 42-year-old zoning policy allowing “partial” and “whole” tax lots to be combined in order to create a larger footprint for new construction.  Over the past few decades, the DOB has similarly approved dozens of other towers through what critics are calling tax-lot “loopholes”.  One such building is the iconic MetLife tower on Park Avenue, formerly known as Pan Am.  The DOB actually nixed such tax-lot combinations in 2018.  For this reason, Judge Perry had ruled that the city should take away 200 Amsterdam’s permits.  The developers argue, however, that the DOB and BSA had already given them the permit a year prior to the change.

A project spokesman said, “If a single judge can unilaterally cast aside expert agencies’ reading of a complex technical statute, it effectively renders city agencies powerless and creates uncertainty and risk for anyone trying to do business here.”

Some of the apartments in the questionable floors of the tower at 200 Amsterdam already have signed sale contracts, while more sales have been put on hold pending the legal decision.