Humanize the Earth!

professional communication

April 19, 2006 at 3:54 pm | In housing, co-ops, humanize |

My housing co-op needs a zoning variance (or variation, depending on who you ask) in order to replace a flat roof with a gable roof that will allow the inside space to be of legal living space height to put in a bathroom.

We hired a zoning attorney, Mark Kupiec, back in February.  Actually, we met with him at our place on Feb 8th and then officially agreed to hire him at a meeting on the 11th.  The plan was that he would get us a denial first (required) and then apply for a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals.  There was some requirement of a public notice 30 days before the hearing so the earliest to get a hearing date was to be April.

Two weeks ago today, we finally were told by the attorney that we were not on the schedule for April.  Dan then talked with him 3 days in a row where Mark promised to send an email explaining the situation so we all could have the same information rather than play the telephone game where our questions don’t get answered.  No email.

Then I left messages 5 business days in a row.  And I sent one email.  No response.  Yesterday we had a bicycling attorney friend give Mark a call.  He left a message.  No response.  He recommended we drop by Mark’s office.  I did that today.

Mark wasn’t in.  I spoke with Agnes (I think).  She said they were waiting for Peter to get new drawings to them, as required by Mr. Garcia at the City.  Mr. Garcia is the one that has to officially deny our request so we can file the request for appeal.  Agnes hopes to get the denial tomorrow.  She didn’t know if we’d already missed our window for the May hearing date (they only meet once/month).  She also couldn’t give me any better advice about how to get Mark to communicate with us.  She took my name, phone number and email again.  We’ll see.

Update 5:24p same day: Mark phoned me just now to give me the whole scoop.  He wasn’t calling back because he was hoping to give us news of the official denial last week and then every day they’ve been visiting the City.  Still no dice.

He had to visit the examiner (Gerald Garcia, the most senior person there) 6 times so far on our case because there are no City records showing 6 units in this building.  Everything shows 4 so they had to search Board of Elections, Water Department from the 50s, permit applications, etc as well as photos we submitted.  Since we’re 6 units, we also were not given a City certification of number of dwelling units at closing because that’s only done for 5 or fewer units.  We also had to submit a section drawing from our architect because the front part of the building has 2 floors and the back part has 3 floors which made the examiner question how the building fits together and when the back building was added.

We have missed the May hearing deadline.  We should get a denial soon (tomorrow, he hopes) and then will move forward with the June 16th hearing.  We’ll know the answer that day, more or less and then can follow-up by phone the following Monday, and will have to wait a few weeks for the in-writing confirmation.  That’s when we can apply for our permits.