(Pictured above, an artist’s rendering of The Casa in Williamsburg, one of the many new condos within a block of my house now inexplicably dwarfing the surrounding buildings)

Anyone with a vested interest in real estate and/or Brooklyn quality of life in general should definitely check out this fantastic article in the NYTimes today, How Big Is Too Big? The article is about the architect Robert Scarano, who has giant new buildings currently under construction in all your favorite up and coming Brooklyn neighborhoods. Scarano is especially prevalent here in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. How can you spot a Scarano building? It’s simple, go to a modest tree lined street made up of almost entirely of hundred year old row houses and spot the out of place, hulking condo monstrosity destroying all the views and dwarfing the rest of the block. The chance that Scarano had something to do with that building is pretty high.

How does he get away with creating such huge buildings where the zoning doesn’t appear to allow for it? Well the answer now is that he doesn’t; the article lists 25 properties in various stages of construction that are now listed as “On Hold” by the building department (DoB) and that are cited in the disciplinary action against Scarano. Four of this properties are within a block of my house and have seriously changed the landscape of this neighborhood for the worse. Even someone not familiar with zoning laws and square footage regulations would look up at these buildings and think “How the hell were they able to build this giant structure on this tiny little street? Who’s pockets were lined to make that happen?”

The article explains the DoB’s “professional certification program”, an honor-system that allows architects and engineers to police themselves by approving their own building plans. Wow, I could have told them this wasn’t a good idea. Theoretically this system allows developers to avoid waiting months for plans to be approved by the DoB, but is still regulated as the completed structures are inspected and must conform to code before being signed off on by the DoB. In practice, developers are bending (surprise, surprise) and sometimes breaking the rules so blatantly it seemed only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped.

Well it appears someone finally took their head our of their ass at the DoB and realized that Scarano is unabashedly breaking the square footage rule by using what is now known as his signature mezzanine floor. This feature turns almost all units in his buildings into duplexes, which explains why the structures are so much taller than one would think they could be given the square foot allotments of those properties. The mezzanine floors are labeled as storage areas in the plans and should have low ceilings to indicate that those spaces are not not to be used as living areas. The DoB allows storage areas to be exempt from overall square footage, but in many cases Scarano’s mezzanines have ceilings over 7 feet tall as well as bathrooms and balconies, a clear indication that they were intended on being used for living space.

I for one am jumping for joy over this story, as the over-development of Williamsburg is an issue close to my heart, one I have written about here before. Also, as I am currently gut renovating my townhouse, I have had to jump through all sorts of building department hoops to nickel and dime square footage areas in order to conform to the allowances set forth by the DoB. Many times in the planning process we have needed to make major and mostly asinine changes to our plans to appease the building department, a bitter pill to swallow when you walk outside your house and spy so many big developer properties flying in the face of those same code regulations. It’s nice to know the playing field might be leveled just a little bit going forward. Now the real question is what will become of all these huge condo buildings on my street, most of them almost complete but currently standing vacant and untouched. I guess only time will tell.