Two years after their small corner of Brooklyn was up-zoned to accommodate the plans of an individual developer, residents of an apartment building in East Windsor Terrace are still waiting for the developer to make good on his promise to revise his plans to provide a 16-foot buffer between that building and the one he is planning to erect next door.
Daniel Rokeach, the developer at 22 Caton Place, had agreed in April, 2006, to leave the 16-foot side yard in order to get the City Council to support the controversial change from R6 to R7-B that had been opposed by many residents in the vest-pocket neighborhood sandwiched between Coney Island Avenue and the Prospect Expressway.
The concern was that approximately 30 apartments in the existing building would have their windows blocked, should the side yard in the new development not be wide enough.
However, plans filed with the city’s Department of Buildings (DOB), by 22 Caton Place Corp. still show eight-foot side yards on either side of the seven-story structure, a turn of events that has residents of the adjacent building, 81 Ocean Parkway, on high alert.
“He’s come up with one excuse after another not to change the filing at DOB,” remarked Warren Shaw, the president of 81 Ocean Parkway Owners, Inc.
While, said Shaw, in January, Rokeach had “circulated the revised architectural plan that complied with the side yard agreement
