If it’s really a victory, Marine Park residents haven’t been able to enjoy it yet.
It’s been over six weeks since State Senator Martin Golden declared that the “diligence and the community-minded residents of Marine Park have won” in their fight to bring the building at 22-32 Kimball Street into compliance with zoning regulations.
But when residents look up at the six-story building today, they still see the same offending top floor they’ve been staring at for the last several years.
In April 2006, the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) issued a stop work order and revoked the building permit for 22-32 Kimball Street after the applicant failed to address DOB objections to professionally-certified building plans that outlined a six-story building – a no-no at that particular site.
Later, in December of that same year, the DOB received new plans conforming to existing zoning regulations, and the stop work order was partially lifted to allow for the removal of the sixth floor.
Three years after that, however, the building owner still had not moved to removed the offending floor, so the DOB issued a violation on June 11, 2008 to begin a criminal court action.
That same day Hernan J. Galvis of Fractal Architecture PLLC filed an application on behalf of the owners to manually demolish and remove the sixth floor of the Kimball Street building.
Buildings records indicate that a contractor has still not yet obtained a permit from the agency to perform the work.
Borough President Marty Markowitz was thrilled when he heard that the sixth floor was finally coming off 22-32 Kimball Street.
“I am pleased that my office’s intervention, and the voices of other elected officials, led to the Department of Buildings auditing the original plans three years ago, and discovering the building violated zoning for that area and that a building permit had been issued in error,” he said. “This is a great example of how Brooklynites and government can work hand-in-hand to solve problems and make their neighborhoods better places to live.”
Despite the long wait to get the property owner to comply with zoning regulations, some in the neighborhood appear willing to exercise at least a little more patience.
“We didn’t expect anything right away,” said Jim Ivaliotis of the Marine Park Civic Association. “I think it will happen sometime.”
