It’s Just A Construction Fence…

Posted on January 26, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

Continuing with the bureaucratic insanity of the NYC DOB… It’s amazing how difficult it is just to build a simple plywood construction fence…

First and foremost it takes a completely separate permit to build a temporary construction fence. They’re all built pretty much the same I honestly don’t know why they can’t have an approved design that people can build without a permit. If you have an approved permit for other work, then the fence should just be something that you can do without overthinking it. But no, this is the NYC DOB we’re talking about.

Next up our architect had never drawn a construction fence and didn’t want to be responsible for it. I guess there are liability issues since pedestrians come in contact with it. The architect/expediter who works for him hadn’t ever drawn one either. So we asked our contractor to take care of it. His expediter searched around for the architect with the best price and $800 later we had plans we had approved plans. I doubt our contractor will charge us $800 to build the thing – it’s just plywood and 2x4s…

But that’s not the end of it… We have a permit for construction, we have a permit for a fence, but we still have a stop work order on the property so we can’t do anything…

The original stop work order that was issued in 2007 for working without a permit when no work was being done and a permit was in place (but not displayed) – that one got lifted. But apparently the new stop work order they put on us in late December for having two sets of approved plans is still in place. But I’ll reiterate – the first set has expired and cannot be renewed. We filled out the paperwork to cancel the original (expired) job a couple of weeks ago now, but they still haven’t lifted the stop work order. How is this so complicated? Old plans that can’t be renewed + new plans that reference the old plans… What’s not to understand?

All we want to do is build a construction fence to resolve a violation (for the current fence not being constructed properly)…

Once we have the stop work order resolved things should go a bit more smoothly. We want to start renovations in earnest in mid to late March. Before then we want to get sewer, water, electric and gas service re-established. But sometimes it just feels like it’s never going to happen…

Bureaucratic Insanity @ The NYC DOB

Posted on January 7, 2011 by BeatingUpwind

There are times when all you can do is shake your head in disbelief… Let me go back in time to explain…

November 2005 – The prior owner of our townhouse submits plans to the DOB to convert it to two family.

July 2006 – The plans still aren’t approved, so the owner submits a smaller set of plans just to do demolition. They’re approved in August and a permit was pulled on August 2, 2006.

November 2006 – The original full set of plans are finally approved.

January 2007 – A permit for the full job was pulled.

February 2007 – Plans were filed and approved to build a construction fence.

March 2007 – Plans were filed and approved for structural, mechanical and plumbing. No permits were ever pulled and none of the work was ever done.

July 1st/2nd, 2007 – The permits for demolition and renovation expired on the 1st and were renewed on the 2nd.

July 14, 2007 – A violation and full stop work order was issued for not having the renewed permits for the full job posted. However, a permit was in effect and as far as we can tell no work was ever done on that job.

August 2007 – The permit for the construction fence was pulled. It was renewed 11 days before it expired.

July 1, 2008 – All permits expired.

March 2010 – We purchase the building.

April 2010 – We submit plans to renovate the building.

August 2010 – Our plans are approved.

December 23, 2010 – We pull a permit to do work (but don’t actually start).

January 3, 2011 – An inspector stops by the house and issues another violation for not having resolved the stop work order on the building from 2007 even though the stop work order was issued for not having a permit when a permit existed and no work was being done and we still weren’t doing any work.

Our problem at the moment is how to get rid of the stop work order from 2007. It should never have been issued in the first place – no work was being done and there was a permit in effect at the time (it just may not have been displayed at the property). But now that it exists it won’t go away… In fact we got another violation 3 days ago for not resolving the first one. We thought if the violation was for not having a permit, that getting a permit would resolve it, but no… You can have a permit and get a violation for not resolving a stop work order that was issued for not having a permit (when there was a permit).

Our contractor’s expediter is saying that we should withdraw the previous owner’s job application. The problem we see with that is that that job is the primary job number for our job. Because that job was never started (or completed) and our job has roughly the same scope of work our job continues that job. If we withdraw it we worry we’ll void our current approval and permit.

To me it’s just absurd that DOB is enforcing a stop work order that probably never should have been issued in the first place when we’ve resolved the underlying issue. It’s also absurd that you can get a stop work order for not having a permit posted when you’re not doing any work. It’s also absurd that it doesn’t seem anyone can press a “resolved” button somewhere and make it all go away. I mean a full stop work order in a situation like this? Please…

UPDATE: The expediter got back to us. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds… They do recognize that the original 2007 stop work order was an error and it should get cleared without a problem, though it will take them a few days to handle it. And the stop work order a few days ago was because we technically had two “Alt-1s” active at the same time. In other words two sets of building plans had been approved for the same place – the 2005/2006 set and the 2010 set. Thing is, we’ve been told previously that the old plans cannot be resurrected – once they’re expired for two years they’re completely dead. So it’s still a bit crazy that we got a violation / stop work order for not formally withdrawing plans that can’t ever be reopened. Why can’t the system just automatically withdraw them for you?

The one lesson from this is that you should clear all violations and pull ALL your permits before starting your mortgage. If we were paying $5,000+ a month on a mortgage while all of this was happening I’d be freaking out right now. As it is, it’s just a somewhat amusing irritation. Hopefully the expediter won’t charge us an arm and a leg to take care of it.

Differences Between NYC & National Landmark Rules

Posted on October 27, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

Getting our house renovated feels like a never ending series of delays. We thought we had picked a contractor, but his final bid was 88% higher than his initial bid (!). We knew his initial bid was too low, but weren’t expecting such a huge increase. Now that his price is so much higher we’re re-examining our options and are back to getting other bids. We may wind up going with him, but the equation has changed.

Then there’s the tax credit incentives which I wrote up in a previous post. It’s yet another delay, but a delay that may put $100,000 in our pocket, so it’s worthwhile…

The first thing to realize is that the tax incentives follow federal (National Park Service) guidelines. Those are not the same as New York City Landmarking rules (as enforced by the Landmarks Preservation Commission). In some ways they’re more lenient, in other ways they’re stricter. Personally, I like the national standards better than the City’s standards.

When you get landmarked by New York City their objective is to restore the area to what it looked like in the past. As you do major work you’re required to put things back to what they used to look like. But the City is only worried about what things look like from the street (with the rare exception of landmarked interiors).

The federal government has a slightly different objective – they want to preserve and respect existing historic details. They’re more restrictive in that they care about everything – not just what can be seen from the street. However, they’re less restrictive in that if an original detail is missing they’re not quite so fussy about what replaces it. I spent a half hour on the phone with the woman from NY State’s Office of Historic Preservation in part trying to understand how that actually gets implemented. They have two options for replacing original details – 1) replicate the original exactly, or 2) put something contemporary in it’s place that’s generally “compatible” with the original design and more plain (less ornate) than what was there originally. Here are a few examples…

Front Doors – When we started thinking in terms of meeting the guidelines for the tax credit we wondered what we should do about the front door. Our original plan was to have two 8 foot (French) doors with a 2 foot transom over them. The doors would be wood and have the general proportions of the original doors with wood panels in the bottoms and glass in the upper portion. Thing is, in looking at the picture of our house from 1940 we see there were solid wood doors that were the full 10 feet tall. We then went to Demolition Depot thinking we might be able to find an old door that would pass muster with the historic preservationists. We found some, but they had glass panels in them. When I was talking to the woman from NYS I realized I had it all wrong. They don’t want old doors, or even new doors that look like old doors, unless they’re the originals or identical to the originals. The doors we were planning on initially were almost perfect – clearly contemporary, similar proportions, less ornate than the originals, etc. We’ll probably need to get rid of the transom and make the doors full height. And they may push back on the the glass in the doors – we’ll see… But the point is they like new doors better than non-original old doors.

Stoop Newel Posts – Unlike NYC LPC, the state/federal guidelines don’t require us to do anything with the newel posts – we could just repair what’s there. If we were landmarked by the City LPC I’m pretty sure they’d would require us to restore them given the overall size of our project. We want to do more than patch up what’s there – we want it to be much closer to what was there originally. Our guidelines will be 1) generally similar to the original, 2) less ornate than the original. Our only problem is Dan wants cast iron posts and finding ones that meet the federal guidelines.

Ground Floor Security Gates – Like the newel posts, because the originals are missing we have some latitude. We can do something contemporary and compatible and less plain than the original. That’ll save us a lot of money…

Windows – Again, the state/federal government lean a bit more liberal when replacing details that aren’t there. The woman I spoke with was open to the idea of “fake double hung windows” – ones that look like double hung from the exterior, but are actually tilt-n-turn windows. She was also open to the idea of having color matched protective metal trim on the wood windows’ most vulnerable spots. But she emphasized “open” didn’t mean they’d get approved. Still, I don’t think LPC would even entertain the ideas.

BUT, there are ways in which state and federal guidelines are stricter than LPC’s guidelines. They care about things like rear façades which can’t be seen from the street. We don’t have any original details inside the building, but I think they’d care about them if we had them which could be a huge headache.

Our rear deck is probably going to be the biggest sticking point. For starters federal guidelines require an archeological survey if there’s ground disturbance. However, because that’s cost prohibitive for small projects they’ve never actually required it for homeowners. But they clearly don’t like the idea of ground disturbance. Because our deck is, in part, a fire egress for our unit they’re willing to consider it. We’ll see what feedback they have.

I’m also not sure how they’ll handle the bulkhead we’re putting on the building – we’ll see what they say about that. I think we can make a strong argument for how we’ve done it, but I sorta expect them to ask us to change something – I’m just not sure what that something will be.

Both the LPC and National Park Service guidelines are somewhat difficult. I’m really glad we only have to meet one of the two. If we were landmarked by the City we’d need to comply with both. I’m also really glad we don’t have a lot of original detail. The lack of it is really helping us. After talking to her I wondered what limitations there would be if you had original plaster walls – would you be allowed to tear them out and change your floorplan?

At least they pay you to put up with all the rules…

Our townhouse over the years…

Posted on October 27, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

The City of New York has old tax photos available from 1940 and 1980 for people who want to know what their building looked like in the past. Here are the photos of our building…

Here’s the building in 1940…

168 West 123rd Street Harlem Brownstone in 1940

There are a few things that are interesting here. First is the size of the windows. I was expecting to see smaller panes. Clearly the architect liked the idea of big huge panes of glass.

I also like the low wall along the street, though that wouldn’t be considered safe enough these days. We plan on putting in a low wall with some sort of fencing above to make it meet current standards.

The next item is that you can sorta see the front door in the house next to ours and it’s solid wood with no windows. That’s somewhat surprising (and dark).

I also love the newel posts at the bottom of the stoop – wish they were still there. Dan thinks they’re done in brownstone, I think they’re done in cast iron. Oddly cast iron was the less expensive option back then. We probably only have the money to recreate something like them in brownstone.

The other surprising thing was that the building 2 doors down already had a fire escape by 1940 (it’s still on the building).

And here’s the building in 1980…

168 West 123rd Street Harlem Brownstone in 1980

You can see that the building had sorta seen hard times by 1980s. City records tell us a vacate order was issued in 1966 (and never lifted). So the building’s problems most likely started in the early 1960s, if not sooner.

By 1980 windows had been replaced with less expensive windows – a smaller window on the parlor floor and smaller panes of glass in the top two floors. The front doors were gone and replaced by one that was far less expensive and with a lot less character. The wonderful newel posts were gone.

On the plus side we can see that the exterior had been painted. While this may not seem like a good thing, what’s good about it is that 30 years later it’s still in remarkably good condition – the only problems are the cornices. We were thinking of doing a major job on the exterior, but seeing how stable it’s been we’ve changed our plans and will just patch up and restore the painted surface.

Our building has a commercial overlay. We’re allowed approximately two floors of commercial space. You can see in the picture that the ground floor was “The Happy Game Room”…

The Happy Game Room - 168 West 123rd Street, NYC, 1980

I’m sure the Happy Game Room wasn’t a completely legal establishment. After all, our block was a drug block back in the day. I’m sure there was a fair amount of drug use, drug dealing and gambling going on…

And here’s the building today (actually November 2009)…

168 West 123rd Street Harlem Brownstone Shell, 2009

After 1980 a storefront was added to the ground floor.

Things got pretty bad in the mid-90s when the building became a drug flop house. We’ve talked to some of the neighbors who “lived” in the building at that time. There was a raid and a largely unsocialized (nearly feral) child was found in a closet. Then there was a fire and apparently people pretty much stopped “living” there after that. But the woes continued and the building was involved in a mortgage fraud scandal that delayed it’s being renovated.

But hey, it got a tree! That’s a small step forward… 🙂

It’s definitely time for the building to get a new lease on life…

The government will pay 40% of your renovation costs…

Posted on October 8, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

Did the title get your attention? Good… This is pretty important…

It’s amazing how much we didn’t know when we bought our place. I was doing TONS of research, thought I knew a fair amount, but first I didn’t know we were buying into the roughest block in the neighborhood, and now I find out there are government programs that will pay up to 40% of our renovation costs. 40% makes a REAL difference and we had no clue when we went into contract… If we had picked the “wrong” building we would have gotten nothing.

Last night I went to a “town hall forum” run by state senator Bill Perkins on tax credits for renovating historic buildings. Luckily (for us) our townhouse is in an area that’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Being in that area is what qualifies us for the tax credits. You also have to be in a census tract that is below the average income in New York State ($51,000). Nearly all of Senator Perkins’ district is below the NY state average income – some 1600 buildings qualify for these credits. HOWEVER, next year they’ll be changing over to 2010 Census data and there’s no guarantee that those buildings will qualify next year. So you should take action pretty quickly to get this money.

Here’s how it breaks down… There are state and federal programs and they’re divided into “homeowner” and “commercial”. “Commercial” means anything that produces income – including rental apartments in a townhouse. In general you can get 20% for homeowner and 40% for commercial. (There’s also a 10% credit for old, but non-historic buildings, but it can’t be used for residential buildings.) There is a max credit of $50,000 for the homeowner credit, and $5M for the state part of the commercial credit, but the federal commercial credit is unlimited.

In both cases there are stipulations… For starters these credits are for historic buildings so they’ll only pay for things that are done inside the historic building envelope. They won’t pay for the fence along the street, they won’t pay for a new sewer connection, the won’t pay for a deck on the back of the building, etc. But they will pay for pretty much everything else. The other big stipulation is that you must follow federal guidelines when doing the renovation (as defined by the Secretary of the Interior and the National Park Service). There are 10 guiding principles which are worth repeating here…

A property shall be used for its historic purpose or be placed in a new use that requires minimal change to the defining characteristics of the building and its site and environment.

The historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided.

Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements from other buildings, shall not be undertaken.

Most properties change over time; those changes that have acquired historic significance in their own right shall be retained and preserved.

Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a historic property shall be preserved.

Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture, and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.

Chemical or physical treatments, such as sandblasting, that cause damage to historic materials shall not be used. The surface cleaning of structures, if appropriate, shall be undertaken using the gentlest means possible.

Significant archeological resources affected by a project shall be protected and preserved. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures shall be undertaken.

New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment.

New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.

Curiously, those are not exactly the same standards as the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) uses. The LPC is much more rules based, where the national system is much more interpretive and subjective so you can get approved by LPC and then rejected by NY State or the National Park Service.

In our case we don’t have to deal with the NYC LPC since we’re not landmarked by the City, so we just have to deal with the federal standards. One of the presenters last night worked for New York State Office of Historic Preservation and is the woman who will probably be the primary person making the decision on our project. I asked her a number of questions many of which were about windows. Her responses say a lot about their decision making process.

The windows we’ve been wanting are tilt-n-turn windows. Normally you wouldn’t think of tilt-n-turns on a historic building, but they can be mulled together in a way that makes them appear from the outside to be double hung window. We realized early on in the process that our window openings are so huge that we need “architectural” level windows. Those don’t come cheap, so we started investigating what our options were and looked beyond the standard choices (Marvin, Anderson, Pella) and had an architect recommend Gaulhofer. Gaulhofer is an Austrian company that only has one distributor in North America (located near Vancouver – if you’re interested, contact Eva and tell her Jay & Dan told you about them). Gaulhofer has VERY high quality windows – they don’t use cheap wood like American window manufacturers do – they use either end grain Spruce or Larch. The wood is stunning actually… I’ve heard a number of people this week talk about how their 100 year old wood windows still work. Well very few of the new American wood windows will be around in 100 years – they’re just not built how they used to be, but a Gaulhofer window just might be.

Gaulhofer wood window One of my questions was about the protective metal trim Gaulhofer puts on their wood windows (see the picture to the right). The woman answering my questions didn’t want to make a decision on the spot, but she recommended that we should submit plans with the metal trim in the same exact color as the wood. While she made it clear it would have to be discussed and she might say ‘no’, she said she liked the fact that the metal strips would make the window last longer. She also pointed out that even if she approves it, it could get rejected by the National Park Service. But the point here is that these aren’t preservationists who are inflexible. Unlike the LPC, she has the right to subjectively interpret the federal guidelines and use her best judgment.

My other major window question was about reflectivity of the glass. Modern “low-E” coatings have a reflective sheen and the National Park Service says at one point in their clarifications that you shouldn’t change the reflective quality of the glass, so I was wondering whether we would be limited in the glass we used in the windows. Well, it turns out changing the reflective nature of window only applies if you’re restoring an old window (or presumably putting a new window next to an original one). Like durability, energy efficiency is something they’ll bend the rules to accommodate – though only so far…

Because the previous owner gutted the building, we don’t have many original details to preserve so we’re allowed to be completely modern in the interior of the building and the federal and state tax credits will cover those modern renovations. In fact, you can see in the guidelines above that they prefer modern details over fake historical details. They want a differentiation between what’s new and what’s old. In our case we need to pay a lot of attention to our cornice and to our stoop – since those are some of the only original details that are left on our building. We will also need to replicate the original security gates (which will be expensive).

Back to the tax credits…

The homeowner tax credit is the easiest to get. It’s 20% of everything you spend on your property that’s inside the original building envelope. Review is also the easiest, especially if you’re like us and don’t need to go through LPC – it’s pretty much reviewed and approved by the woman I met – and she seemed completely reasonable to me. The homeowner tax credit can also be used for little things – like a new roof, new windows, or fixing up your stoop – as long as you’re spending $5,000 or more and at least 5% of the work is exterior work, you’ll qualify. But as I mentioned above the problem is that it’s limited to a max credit of $50K.

Things get more complicated, but potentially more profitable when you go for the commercial tax credit, especially if your building is a mix of an owner’s unit and rental apartments (like ours). For starters, to get the commercial credit you need to determine the current “adjusted basis” of the building. The adjusted basis is the current value of the property, minus any depreciation, minus the value of the land. Then you need to spend at least that amount on the commercial part of your property. The commercial credit is only for really major renovations. Spending the value of the building on just the rental units can be quite difficult – especially in a case like ours where only about 25% of the building will be rental. You do get to include a percentage of the common elements of the building (the roof, the façade, etc.) to your commercial renovation costs. The percentage you can use is the percentage of your building’s square footage that’s “commercial”. To pull all of this off, you’ll probably need an appraiser to determine the adjusted basis, and an accountant to handle all the cost breakdowns – it’s not easy, but you may get a substantial amount of extra money.

One other detail is that you must own the building for 5 years after completion for the commercial credit and two years for the homeowner’s credit – otherwise they’ll want at least some of their money back. However, if you don’t use the entire credit the first year, you an roll it over to subsequent years – up to 20 years on your federal taxes and indefinitely on your state taxes. You also aren’t allowed to change things during those 2 or 5 years – at least not details that were conditions of the tax credit.

These tax credits only help a bit when you get your mortgage. They are considered assets by the bank, not income, so you become a better credit risk, but it doesn’t change your debt-to-income ratio. So somewhat unfortunately you may need to do a more expensive renovation to get the tax credits, but those extra costs may put you beyond your loan limit based on your debt-to-income ratio.

So this is definitely the time to renovate a shell in a historic area. Below is a list of historic districts that are covered. Contact Kathleen Howe at the New York State Office of Historic Preservation (518/237-8643) if you’re not sure if your building is in one of these areas (the City’s landmark boundaries are not the same as the boundaries set by the National Register of Historic Places)…

Mount Morris Park
Manhattan Avenue (around 120 to 123)
St. Nicholas (Strivers’ Row)
Hamilton Heights
Sugar Hill
West 147-149
Audubon Terrace
Jumel Terrace

And make sure you start the application process soon. The 2010 Census data may disqualify areas that are currently qualified since Harlem changed so much over the past 10 years.

If you have any questions about these tax credits start by calling the New York State Office of Historic Preservation – 518/237-8643. They’re incredibly helpful and knowledgeable and want to see people using these programs to fix up old buildings.

[And yes, I do understand there’s a certain contradiction in not wanting to be landmarked, but making use of tax credits for historic buildings… More on that in another blog post.]