Luxury building developer Bauhouse Group has performed some New York-style black magic on the residents of Sutton Place, allegedly tricking them into allowing the building of a 90-story luxury high rise in the Upper East Side neighborhood. According to the Daily News, the residents signed away air rights and zoning for what they expected to be a building of 30 stories, at most:
According to minutes of the Dec. 22 meeting, a shareholder asked Bauhouse executive Christopher Jones for details, including whether it would be “a 100-story building.” Jones replied that he was “unsure of exact height” and that “air rights would be a factor,” but the tower “will not be 100 stories, as of now expected to be 13 stories,” the minutes state.
A representative of another shareholder estimated that between air rights and zoning, the “building will be between 12-30 stories.”
That is not what happened:
“It appears the developer got the residents to sell the air rights by misleading them into believing the building would be no more than 30 stories,” said Arthur Schwartz, a spokesman for a number of the building residents. “Before the ink was even dry, the developer turned around and announced plans for a $1 billion, 90-story mega-tower, one of the largest condos in the country.”
If completed as (now) planned, the tower will stand 900 feet, making it one of the tallest residential buildings in the city.
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