Affordable Housing Institute : US

I was in New York City a while back, riding the subway from here to there, when I picked up the local free daily, AM New York, whose cover story showed an expostulating Donald and caused me to think, Trust Donald Trump to find a practical use for the portable hole.

 

“Weally?  Donald Twump used my idea?”

 

You remember the portable hole?  Bugs Bunny [Whose accent was pure Brooklyn — Ed.] had it in his pocket, threw it against a wall, and dived through it to the other side. 

 

Apply to any non-stick zoning laws

 

Portable holes are sometimes created and used in Looney Tunes cartoons, including such variations as foldable doorways. One entire cartoon (”The Hole Idea,” directed by Robert McKimson and released in 1955) depicts the invention of the portable hole by one Calvin Q. Calculus.

 

Then when he was done, he plucked it off the wall, sealing up the breach.  Something similar is what The Donald is doing in SoHo, as he’s developing a condo-that-dare-not-speak-its-name, using the zoning equivalent of a portable hole.

 

Donald Trump Tuesday got the green light from the city to erect what will be the tallest building between midtown and the financial district, sparking a wave of outcry from politicians and activists.

 

We’re good to go.

The Trump SoHo — a so-called “hotel condominium” — was approved at 42 stories, and site preparation has already begun at 246 Spring St., at Varick Street,

 

Lower Manhattan, amid a tangle of streets and highways

 

in a corner of SoHo now populated by parking lots and old industrial buildings that would be dwarfed by the new construction.

 

You have to worry about the self-esteem of those old industrial buildings, finding themselves suddenly dwarfed. 

 

My goodness, they’re threatening to wipe out …the parking lot!

Activists are crying foul, and threatening to sue, because this part of Manhattan is zoned as a manufacturing district, and the only residential buildings allowed here are hotels.

 

Enter the portable hole — a singularly impractical zoning designation.  

 

And when you’re buying, buy the best!

 

Paraphrasing former vice president Spiro Agnew, once you’ve seen one 42-story gleaming tower, you’ve seen them all.  From the outside, who can distinguish an apartment, a condo, and a hotel?

 

According to early design plans, the building will feature an outdoor pool and a bar in the lobby. It is slated to open in early 2009.

 

Like a hotel …

 

As a “hotel condominium,” the Trump SoHo will offer condos for sale to private buyers, with the requirement that they not be lived in year-round.

“The proposed condominium units may not be used for residential occupancy,” reads a warning on the building¹s Web site. “They may only be used for transient occupancy and for no other purpose.”

 

“The unit is only to be used for transient occupancy, and for no other purpose, okay?”

 

We appreciate the care with which Mr. Trump is informing his buyers of the city’s requirement, and his concern for the laws of New York City.

 

The Department of Buildings said it approved the project only after receiving a “restrictive declaration,” detailing how the developer will ensure condo owners are using their units as hotel rooms and would not call the Trump SoHo home.

A restrictive declaration.  A statement by the developer as to what it will tell buyers they are required to do.  While the Web site offers information only after one compiles a questionnaire and is contacted by a sales associate, I read elsewhere that the hotel requirement means you must ‘move out’ every thirty days.  Given the propensity for upscale Manhattanites to take trips to wherever, or even to have homes elsewhere, many will be able legally to comply.

 

“Honest, officer, I was out of town at least one weekend!”

 

But I forgot!  Who will be enforcing the restriction?  Anyone?

 

“Bueller?  Will you be enforcing the rules?  Bueller?  Anyone?”

 

As soon as the condos are sold, Mr. Trump will have no further involvement, and will walk away from any obligations.

 

“I won’t be the one getting scalped!”

 

Who’ll do the enforcing?

 

You violated the occupancy restrictions, you varmint!

But that requirement will be “virtually impossible to enforce,” say activists opposed to the project.

 

Even more relevant, who will be in a position to enforce it, or want to enforce it?

 

“Will you be enforcing the rules?  Bueller?  Anyone?”

 

They accuse the city of flouting its own zoning laws by allowing Trump and his partners to build what will amount to luxury condos in an area where they are prohibited.

That certainly seems entirely plausible. 

 

 “The restrictive declaration [19 pages, in .pdf — Ed.] is a sham, a fig leaf designed to cover up the obscene decision of allowing this monstrosity where the law clearly prohibits it,” said Andrew Berman –

 

Even making this stipulation, are you really saying you’d prefer an actual hotel, with all the traffic that would entail, or the current highly stylish parking lot?

 

– executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

 

Now the opposition becomes clearer.  It’s not anti-condo, it’s anti-high-rise, and the hotel restrictions is seen as a means to that end.

 

“The city has set a precedent for all of these other developers to step in and do the same thing,” said Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens), chairman of the zoning committee.   

 

Councilman Avella is entirely correct. 

 

He’s smiling here, but he’s fuming on the inside

 

Once the portable hole opens to allow the property to be built, it ‘closes’ immediately after, making pursuit impossible.

 

 

After the Trump SoHo is built, it will be occupied full-time by people who signed the restrictive declaration and then ignored it.  The critics are right — the declaration will prove unenforceable in practice.  The new residents will want to be in the city year-round (except when they’re jetting off somewhere), and they’ll be earning money, spending money, paying sales taxes, paying property taxes, and voting.  Not only will the city have no incentive to enforce, it will have many financial and political incentives — votes and city revenue — to waive it or grandfather it in as a proper condo.

 

So there I was, livin’ happily in my own condo!

But the city council’s gonna bail me out!

 

Mr. Trump is shrewdly betting that this will happen, and that buyers will be so able to see that it’s inevitable, they’ll ignore the restrictive covenant in their pricing evaluations.

 

“They’ll tell you not to live there full time, got it, bub?”

 

Mr. Trump is right.

  

“Hey, what’s up, Donald?”

 

“They’re ignoring their own rules,” said Councilman Avella.

The Department of Buildings said yesterday it was considering a zoning amendment to address the broader issue of hotels in manufacturing districts.

 

Is it?

 

The law of economic gravity dictates that when buildings can go up, they generally do go up.   That’s why so often, zoning is destiny.  Were I the defenders of industrial buildings, factories, and parking lots, I wouldn’t be at all sanguine about the outcome, for you are about to be outvoted.

 

Workers in nearby business, meanwhile, expressed enthusiastic support for the Trump SoHo.
“Bring it on,” said Jeff Woodward, business manager at 1-800-Postcards, among the last printing businesses in the area. “This area is crap. It’s a bunch of old, run-down buildings and parking lots. People just wrap themselves around the concept of historical preservation. But here it’s a parking lot opposite another parking lot.”
 

That’s the beauty of the portable hole — once you’re through it, you’re really through it!

 

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