Double Checking Code Compliance

Posted on September 27, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

Even though we’ve got approved plans I’m a bit paranoid about getting our C of O at the end of the construction process. These days it seems like there are no guarantees when it comes to dealing with the NYC DOB. We don’t want the C of O examiner to find some code violation that was missed earlier and deny us our C of O. The changes could be expensive or even impossible. We want to get things right from the beginning.

A Harlem townhouse owner and architect, Peter Holtzman of the Downtown Group, had posted a few helpful comments here on the blog. He seemed to know code really well, especially as it pertains to townhouses. We started chatting via e-mail and I asked if he’d be willing to sit down and review our plans to see if he could spot anything others had missed. Our architect is quite good, but townhouses aren’t his specialty. Fortunately Peter was kind enough, and interested enough, to say yes. So we met Peter at Bier last week, went over the plans, and got mildly drunk. 😉

Peter had a variety of suggestions – everything from the practical (e.g. you’ll wish you had a gas fireplace in your master bedroom, not wood burning), to aesthetic (e.g. do a 3D rendering of the parlor floor to make sure you’re happy with how everything resolves), to code issues…

The most substantial code issues he brought up were related to what we we are doing on our freestanding sidewall, which is on the lot line. Our approved plans show bathroom windows, bathroom exhausts, dryer exhausts, kitchen exhausts, and a fresh air intake for the boiler – all on the lot line wall. Other than the fresh air intake, which he wasn’t certain of, he thought we’d have problems with the other items.

Those comments sent our architect scrambling to confirm what exactly was “up to code”. Mind you – we did get the plans approved, and the plans had an entire sheet showing clearly what we were doing on that lot line wall – you would think the plan examiner would have said something if they were real problems. Our architect dug through the code and talked to a few other architects and found 1) the code is contradictory and 2) experienced architects disagree… One camp of architects says we should assume the worst and do as little as possible with the lot line wall. The others say there are parts of the code that say at least some of what we’re doing is just fine, and most importantly the plans went through many months of review and were approved – so we should just go ahead and if we run into any problems we should ask for a reconsideration.

There are a number of factors in our favor if it came to a reconsideration. First, the building next to us is overbuilt. It won’t be torn down and rebuilt because the owner would need to replace it with a smaller building. Second, there is discussion of landmarking the block. That would also prevent the building being torn down and rebuilt. And even if it were torn down and rebuilt, zoning requires there to be a side yard / rear yard, so they can’t build to our lot line anyway. That means the alleyway is there for the foreseeable future. In fact it would probably be made even bigger if the building were rebuilt since the neighbor’s windows on it are not “legal windows” based on the current code.

As the plan examiner was stamping our plans he noticed that our bulkhead didn’t provide the 8 foot “side yard” that’s required on the roof (plan examiners do miss things – they’re human). So that’s one thing we know should be changed. We can either narrow the bulkhead or widen it to full width and provide a ladder over it. We’re going to make it wider to get even more light into the building. That requires at least one round of alterations to the approved plans. When we make that change we will also make some changes to how we’re using the lot line wall to be extra safe.

We’ll vent bathrooms up the plumbing wall and out the top of the bulkhead. Some parts of the code say we don’t need venting in the bathrooms, others say we need a small, 50 cpm fan. Since it’s relatively easy to do, we’ll err on the side of caution and vent through the roof.
We haven’t decided what we’ll do regarding the kitchen exhausts. Apparently we’re not required to have any exhausts since the kitchens are part of rooms that have proper ventilation (in the form of windows and doors). The rental kitchen can probably be vented up the plumbing wall, but our kitchen is rather far from the plumbing wall, so venting it would be a much bigger challenge. Yet that’s the kitchen we most want vented, so we still need to figure that out.
We’ll probably vent the dryers out the rear wall.

The one thing we don’t have to change is our plans for windows in the sidewall. Distance between our building and the next is about 4 feet with a few places being 3 1/2 feet. Because we’re over 3 feet and we’re “R-3” (a type of residential building), the new 2008 code says not only can we have windows on the sidewall, but they can cover up to 25% of the wall and do not need to be fire protected. That means we can keep our 4 small bathroom windows. They may not count as legal windows for light and air, but they will come in handy for everyday usage.

The moral of this story is that there are many things that could potentially be considered “wrong” with any townhouse that’s rehabilitated. For example the old brick walls don’t meet current seismic guidelines. The placement of the windows in the walls aren’t up to current code, etc… The list could go on and on. But there’s a practical side to it as well – there are somethings you just can’t fix without making the owner tear down the building completely and start over – that’s not desirable, so compromises are made. All we can hope for is inspectors who understand that perfection is impossible. And if that doesn’t happen, then there’s always the reconsideration process…

I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best…

What It Costs To Just Own A Townhouse Shell

Posted on September 17, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

As the months waiting for DOB approval have been clicking by we’ve been telling ourselves “it’s no problem, it doesn’t cost us much at this point”… Relative to what it will cost once we have the rehab loan, that’s true, but a couple days ago we added up the costs and were a little shocked at how much we’re actually spending on an empty building…

Taxes

Our taxes are relatively low… $3,441/year or $286.75/month.

It’s worth saying that we’re lucky we have low taxes. Some of the places we saw in our search were paying over $2,000 per month in taxes, though $3K to $6K per year is more typical for Harlem townhouses.

Assuming we get construction started before the end of the year, one trick I learned from a friend is that you can file the change of occupancy with DOF as soon as you start construction – you don’t have to wait for construction to be complete. That means our taxes will drop to the rate for 2 family before we’re done with construction, so next year they’ll be even lower and will go up more slowly than they do now.

The “Building Super”

The apartment building next to us has a bodega with rather messy customers. Unfortunately the prevailing wind drives their garbage down the block in front of our building. Also, by the time some of them walk past our building they’ve gotten their purchase out of it’s bag or wrapper and they throw what they don’t need in front of our building. We’re not on some brownstone-only block that’s relatively clean. As a result, it’s cheaper to pay someone $200/month to keep things clean than it is to pay the ECB tickets for garbage.

The first day we owned the building we went to it and there was a $100 ECB ticket waiting for us – the snow was melting and we got a ticket for the garbage that was in the melting snow. The City needs money and they’re pretty aggressive about ticketing for garbage.

Paying the $200/mo also helps build relationships with our neighbors. We went with the (self-appointed) super of the apartment building next to our townhouse (the building has a mostly-absentee landlord, so he approached the landlord and worked out a deal to watch over the building). He has a group of guys who watch that building and they now watch ours. Those eyes are worth something. We plan on continuing to use him even after we move in (though at lower rate).

Our Line Of Credit

We bought our place mostly with cash, but we took out money from a line of credit to make up the difference between what we had available and what we needed. Our accountant suggested taking out more than we needed since he was seeing lines of credit get reduced and didn’t want to see us in a position where we didn’t have access to cash. We took out $80K, and a fair amount of that is sitting in our checking account which means we’re paying interest on money we’re not really using… Luckily, the interest is low since it’s tied to the prime rate (lower than the rate we’d pay on a mortgage – and with a MUCH lower principle amount), so we’re just paying about $345/month in interest on the money.

Grand Total

So that means we’re spending about $835 per month on an empty building – not including all the architectural fees, permits, etc. for the actual rehab of the building. It’s not a huge amount, but it does add up. Still that’s a lot less expensive than getting something wrong and having costly delays and change orders during construction. I’m sure we’ll have some, but the fewer the better.

Sugar Hill & Hamilton Heights Townhouse Sales, Early 2010

Posted on September 12, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

Continuing with an examination of townhouse sales this year, this time I’m looking at Sugar Hill and Hamilton Heights…

[Remember that price per square foot is generally pretty inaccurate because the measurement of townhouses is not consistent – some include the ground (basement) level in the square footage, others don’t.]

Higher end properties

Sugar Hill

2/17/2010 – 614 West 148th Street, $1,316,199, 3,000 sq. ft., $438/sq. ft. – SRO restricted
4/21/2010 – 545 West 149th Street, $1.095M, 3,264 sq. ft., $335/sq. ft. – SRO restricted
5/19/2010 – 413 West 154th Street, $1.2M, 4,368 sq. ft., $274/sq. ft. – Landmarked, not SRO restricted, Aging ’80s renovations, English basement, 25′ foot wide

Hamilton Heights

1/20/2010 – 410 West 145th Street, $900K, 3,608 sq. ft., $249/sq. ft. – Landmarked, not SRO restricted, on busy commercial street
3/3/2010 – 522 West 142nd Street, $895,638, 2,872 sq. ft., $311/sq.ft. – Not SRO restricted
6/4/2010 – 554 West 142nd Street, $1.12M, 4,543 sq. ft., $246/sq. ft. – SRO restricted

What’s shocking here is that nothing sold on Hamilton Terrace, Convent Avenue, or the prime, landmarked blocks in Hamilton Heights (with house numbers in the 400s). The other rather shocking thing is the generally low prices. With the high end of Mount Morris Park now pushing $2M, the highest sale in Sugar Hill was barely over $1.3M, and calling $895K “higher end” just feels odd to me…

We actually went through 413 West 154th Street during our search. It sold for more than we expected. A nearly identical sister townhouse just around the corner on St. Nick had sold in August of 2009 for $1.05M and it was recently renovated. 413 needed $200K to $300K in renovations. Still, it was a very solid house in good repair. If you didn’t mind the aging renovations there was nothing that needed to be done.

Low end properties

Sugar Hill

2/16/2010 – 844 St. Nick, $775K, 5,195 sq. ft, $149/sq. ft. – Huge ark of a house on a small lot, had certificate of no harassment and approved plans (under 1968 building code) for renovation to 2 family, some original details, lots of charm with a lot of big huge rooms
4/14/2010 – 427 West 146th Street, $450K, $165/sq. ft. – Habitable, SRO-restricted
5/18/2010 – 521 West 150th Street, $250K, $89/sq. ft. – SRO restricted

Hamilton Heights

1/29/2010 – 48 Hamilton Place (near 140th St), $450K, 3,146, $143/sq. ft. – Active, occupied SRO
2/5/2010 – 505 West 144th Street, $425K, 3,468 sq. ft., $122/sq. ft – Had certificate of no harassment, estate sale, some interesting original details, but smelled (badly) of urine, and on a block that is a bit rough at times

A few of these houses we knew pretty well. We had gone through 844 St. Nick a couple times. It was a wonderful ark of a house with huge rooms, great bones, some original details, a certificate of no harassment, and approved plans for conversion to 2 family (under 1968 building code). It was owned by a friend and initially we thought we couldn’t afford it, then he confided what he really wanted and we bid $765K, but he already had a verbally accepted offer for $775K and so we didn’t get it.

505 West 144th Street was always the one we’d bring up when we got discouraged and thought we weren’t going to be able to buy a townhouse. We went through it twice. Despite the strong sense of dog urine (a ‘caretaker’ had a dog in there for years and didn’t walk it very often), it had some real charm. But ultimately we walked away because we didn’t feel comfortable or safe on the block at night.

With the exception of 521 West 150th, low end prices were slightly higher than I would have expected – especially given the stagnation in the neighborhood in the higher end properties. There’s less of a gap between shells and high end properties than there is in Mount Morris Park which means less opportunity to make a profit from renovation.

It would seem Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill are are the place to buy if you want a higher end property that needs minimal renovation – the properties are going for a half million less than they are 20 blocks south. What might be hurting sales is the lack of services. Mount Morris Park and South Harlem have great restaurants, grocery stores, etc. Those are sorely lacking in Hamilton Heights / Sugar Hill.

“Body Block”, Near Feral Children, Drug Houses, etc.

Posted on September 12, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

In all honesty when we put the bid in on our place on 123rd Street we didn’t really know what we were getting into. When we bid on other places we would walk the blocks after dark on summer nights and could get a clear sense for what the block was really like. There would be people out on the street and we were able to differentiate “good” blocks from “not so good” blocks. In one case we walked away from a building we were considering after Dan walked past two women who nearly got into a fist fight (actually fists would have been fine – he was worried one of them would pull a knife or a gun).

We bid on the place we bought in mid-November. By that time it was cold and people were staying indoors, so we didn’t get the same sense of what the block was really like. That worried me a bit. We could tell the apartment building next door was a bit run down, and the apartment building across the street was only slightly better. We could tell parts of the block weren’t so great, but we didn’t know whether we should be worried or not.

As it turns out the people who live in the run down apartment building next door are really nice. Our worst problem seems to be the people who buy their “40s” at the corner bodega – they’re not threatening so much as messy. Our biggest concern is getting $100 ECB tickets for their trash.

That’s the block today – it has it’s rough edges, but we feel safe and people are nice to us. However, we’ve come to realize the block (and even our own building) had a very different past which still lingers a bit in the air…

The first warning bell was when we were told that many years ago the building two doors down had been taken over by a drug dealer who killed the landlord and two other people, chopped the bodies up, put them in the cellar, and kept covering them with lime to keep the smell down. It seemed like a pretty unusual story and we thought it was just “local color” – every neighborhood has something bad that’s happened.

Then we also started hearing references to the fact that a number of other people had died on the block over the years, but we figured that was probably true of most streets in Harlem… There was a time when Harlem wasn’t such a great place…

But then my friend and I went on the MMPCIA’s house tour… We stopped at Minton’s Playhouse and were served lemonade. As we were sipping our lemonade we started talking to the guy behind the bar who lived in the neighborhood. I said I bought a townhouse shell. He asked where, I told him, and he said “Oh, body block”. I naively asked what he meant and he explained that our block (123 between Lenox and ACP) had the nickname “body block” because so many people had died on the block over the years. Turns out our block wasn’t just average in terms of violence, but one of the roughest blocks anywhere in Harlem…

And it continues… Dan was showing the building to my nephew and his girlfriend one day when a guy stopped and started talking to them (a common occurrence on our block – one of the things I really like about it). He said he had “sorta lived” in the building in the late 90s. Then he mentioned that the building was raided in 1997 and the police had found a nearly feral child living in a closet. I believe he said the child was 6 or 7 years old when she was found. In other words, our building was a drug building. The people who say they “lived” there were largely drug addicts, and some unfortunate kid was born into that, and neglected so badly that she spent years living in the closet of a drug flophouse with little to no meaningful social interaction with other people. Truly sad…

I’m sure some of that history is the stuff of legends and a bit embellished, but the general gist is that our block, and even our building, have a rather sordid past.

But things are changing. The biggest change has to be the new condo down the block – Windows On 123 – it’s really changed the nature of the street. With asking prices up to $1.465M for a floor through, 3 bedroom, 3 bath unit, the block is quickly losing it’s bad reputation.

There’s a lot we love about the block…

We don’t really like 124th street – you get the ugly backs of all the big buildings on 125, so 123rd is as close as you can realistically get to the subway stops at 125 – and we’re right between two of them – a 4 minute walk to the 2/3 and a 6 minute walk to the A/B/C/D. With one stop to 59th Street you can’t get better subway accessibility without paying downtown prices.

We also love that we’re between all the new development over on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and the established, stable core of Mount Morris Park. Being near them means we’re near a number of great restaurants, bars and grocery stores.

We also like the friendliness of the block. People talk to each other and in my mind people watching what’s going on and knowing each other makes the block a lot safer.

As odd as it may sound, we also like the music on the block. When we looked at some blocks in Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill salsa and merengue were blaring from the windows. We never listen to salsa and merengue and thought it would get pretty irritating pretty quickly. On our block there are guys hanging out on the stoops, some with carts of CDs, playing R&B, soul and the gentler side of hip-hop – that’s all music we listen to ourselves and makes the block sound like home to us. It also means we’re less likely to be irritated by our neighbors’ loud music.

But most importantly our new neighborhood reminds me of what New York used to be like when I first moved here 20 years ago. Back then New York was this wonderful mix of extremes. Today most of Manhattan seems to safe, “pedestrian” and rather bland. I like the edginess of Harlem. The chaotic, uncertain energy makes you feel alive – it’s why I fell in love with New York and chose to make it my home…

If our sale really was a bit of a low water mark, then I think the sordid history of our block may have factored into the low price in some way. Personally, I really like the idea of buying into a place that has seen hard times but is turning around. There’s a little risk to it, but you can see much bigger gains in situations like that than you can in neighborhoods that are well established.

How We’re Configuring Our Townhouse

Posted on September 10, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

I thought I’d share how we finally decided to (re)configure our townhouse… It’s a 5 story brownstone. We’ll have a 4 story owner’s quadraplex over a duplex rental unit (that has “accessory” space in the cellar)…

Starting at the top… There will be a roof deck on the rear of the building. We only learned after buying the building that we had views of the midtown skyline (off in the distance). Mind you, climbing up all those stairs to get there won’t be a lot of fun, which means we’ll need some sorta buzzer system for the front door. We’ll eventually mount a retractable awning on the bulkhead for shade. We opted for bulkhead windows instead of a skylight because they let in more light in the winter and less in the summer.

There is some dispute on the proper width of the bulkhead. The architect has a 3 foot passage to the side of it, the plan examiner says it’s a “side yard” and should have an 8 foot passage OR be the entire width of the building with a ladder over it. The architect noted that if he encloses the walkway it becomes interior space and 3 feet is appropriate. We’re still trying to figure out which solution we want to go with.

The next floor down, the 4th floor of our unit (8-9′ ceilings), will be art studio space for Dan. He’ll have a clean studio / office in the front of the building, and a dirty studio in the rear of the building. The small utility room in the middle will be his wet area. The floors in all his studio space will be commercial grade vinyl flooring (inexpensive and practical). There will be clerestory windows letting lighting from the stairwell into the front room (which is on the North side of the building). We’ve configured it in a way where the next owner could turn the utility room into a bathroom and then have two additional bedrooms / playrooms, etc.

The 3rd floor of our unit (9′ ceilings) will have the master bedroom in the rear and a spare room in the front. The spare room will most likely be a den / exercise room – have a treadmill, a couch and a TV. Like the clean studio above it, the den will have clerestory windows letting in light from the stairwell. We wanted the bedrooms in the back since the back of the building should be quieter.

The 2nd floor of our unit (one floor up from parlor, 10′ ceilings) will have the spare bedroom in the back and a home office in the front. Having the office in the front achieves two goals… First, the office isn’t noise sensitive, so it’s on the noisy side of the building. And second, it’s used during the day, so air conditioning bills will be lower since there’s far less heat gain on the North side of the building. (We’re using a mini split ductless system where each room is a separate zone). On this floor, attached to the bathroom is the laundry room. Having been in apartments for the past 20 years, we can’t wait to have a washer/dryer in our unit! Oddly it’s one of the things we are most looking forward to.

Our original plans had the 2nd and 3rd floor swapped, then we realized that we’ll be going up and down stairs to the office a lot more than we would be going up and down to the master bedroom, so we put the master bedroom up higher and the office down lower. Swapping the floors also lets us have a laundry chute from the master bedroom closet directly into the laundry room. We’re going to love that feature!

The parlor floor (10.5′ ceilings) will have the living room, dining room and kitchen. This is where we had to get a special reconsideration to have an open floor plan since code would otherwise require having 1 hour fire rated walls around the staircase and from the staircase to the front door. I know some people hate having front doors open into kitchens, but we saw so many narrow unusable living rooms that we decided to put the living room in the rear where it could be more spacious. But it does mean that the kitchen design needs to be pretty flawless since it will be people’s first impression of the house. One thing we have noticed is that the living/dining/kitchen space is nearly identical to our old apartment. This is a 15′ wide townhouse – we may have 6 bedrooms, but some things are more on the modest side.

There will be a narrow 4′ wide deck with a pergola off the living room. We kept it narrow so the tenant’s window would still get plenty of sunlight, and we added the pergola (which we’ll have vines growing on) to give us some shade in the summer. Here’s a diagram showing how it will look…

Rear deck with pergola on Harlem Townhouse

From the beginning of our process we knew that we didn’t have the biggest townhouse and as a result our design choices were a bit limited. There just wasn’t the space (or budget) to be all that extravagant. Where we were a bit extravagant was with the staircase. It will have a 3′ x 6.5′ lightwell running down the middle of it that will help get light deeper into the core of the building. We’re also going with open risers to help let light bounce around. From the beginning I knew the stairs would be the dominant design element in the building. To that end our architect really stepped up and has given us an incredible staircase design. You can see a bit of it in this diagram…

Stair layout in a Harlem townhouse

Basically there will be swoopy translucent plastic (or fiberglass) panels that will be attached to simple metal framing. Because it’s reducing metal work it should be a fairly economical solution. It’s also changeable. I had thought the staircase would permanently define the space, but because the panels can be redesigned and executed in different materials, there’s nothing permanent about it. Not shown in the diagram is the architect’s solution for the “railing” along the hallway. We’ll be taking the existing floor joists cutting them down into thin strips and creating a “screen” (wall) with vertical strips of old floor joists. That will be our version of “original details” and should look pretty incredible if we get the right balance of colors and textures in the space.

Continuing down the building… The rental unit will have smaller rooms that are still a decen size (i.e. the bedroom will be 175 sq. ft. and the living/dining room 260 sq. ft.). We’ll be putting in a decent Ikea kitchen (not bare bones, but still Ikea). One of the things we’re debating currently is the appropriate level of security for the rental unit. Our options are metal gates/bars on the doors/windows -or- laminated security glass with a security break sensors in lieu of gates/bars. Gates and bars will feel more secure, but it may seem like you’re in a prison.

The rental will be a bit of a duplex. I say “bit of” because it incorporates cellar space which can’t legally be a bedroom. It can be a media room, a workspace for an artist or craftsman, or a home office. Because that’s the south-facing wall, there should be plenty of light down there so it won’t feel too much like being in a cellar. What this means is is that it’ll be far more than a 1 bedroom, but not really a two bedroom. The tenant will also have their own laundry room in the cellar.

The cellar will also have the mechanical room and storage space for us. There’s this incredible arched brick ceiling in the “vault” under the “front yard” which we’ll be repairing/restoring. This townhouse is rather unusual in that it has a separate entrance for the cellar under the stoop, so we don’t have to go through the tenant’s space to get to the cellar.

In terms of utilities we’ll only be providing heat for the tenant. We’re separating all the other utilities – gas, electric, even water. Given how the boiler will work if we were to put in separate heating for the tenant the heating system wouldn’t run at optimal efficiency. So it won’t cost that much more to give the tenant heat. We don’t want to have the typical over heated New York apartment. Instead, we’ll keep it at a temperature where we’re comfortable in a light sweater but not so cool that our hands get cold. That will be lower than the minimum heat required by NYC, so the A/C units in the rental unit will be “mini PTAC” thru-wall units which can also provide supplemental heat as needed to keep the tenant comfortable. That means we’ll need to have the tenant sign something saying they understand they aren’t getting full heat for their unit.

I know Julia Angwin had mentioned on her blog at the Wall Street Journal that she had a tough time trying to figure out if she still wanted telephone jacks. Our strategy for voice and data is fairly aggressive, but also a bit conservative. Half of the closet in our home office will be a mini “server room” complete with rack mounted servers, cool air intake and warm air exhaust. (Dan and I do web projects for a living – we need all that sorta stuff). All voice, data and security will “home run” to that closet. We’re assuming we’ll continue to have a Vonage VoIP system, so we see won’t have a dedicated phone line coming into the building. Other than in the server closet there will be only two voice jacks – one in the office for the fax machine and one in the living room for a phone. We’ll also have Ethernet jacks throughout the house even though wireless will be our main form of connectivity. Primarily we’re putting Ethernet jacks next to cable TV jacks because we believe video and entertainment over the Internet will be common in the near future and the video/entertainment boxes may not support wireless. The Ethernet jacks will also be used for wireless routers – we assume we’ll need several to properly cover the entire house.

There’s a lot more detail I could go into, but that covers the basics… It’ll be fun to see it all come together…