I'm scratching my head. Our coop unit comes with roof rights to build above and add a floor, but I'm unsure that a building even has the air rights. I checked on Property Shark, and it lists a FAR of under 3.00 giving 975 sq ft left to build. Also checked on the NYC building site/zoning and it shows about 925 sq ft free if you do the math lot size vs estimated gross floor area. But this all... [more]
I'm scratching my head. Our coop unit comes with roof rights to build above and add a floor, but I'm unsure that a building even has the air rights.
I checked on Property Shark, and it lists a FAR of under 3.00 giving 975 sq ft left to build. Also checked on the NYC building site/zoning and it shows about 925 sq ft free if you do the math lot size vs estimated gross floor area.
But this all doesn't make sense, if you do the math, the building has 4 floors -- which if you calculate the raw gross floor area, means it should not have any floor area at all and by my math is overbuilt. Which is even more confusing. What constitutes gross floor area for a Manhattan apartment building when calculating FAR? Hallways count towards the floor area, but not elevators, machine rooms or stairways? But all walls count?
Another issue seems to be that 2 apartments used the air rights to already build additional floors in 1988. Is Property Shark smart enough to subtract that addition against the avail air-rights? Or did the neighbors take all the available air rights already?
Setback - zoning says there a setback needed after a certain min/max height in that area of the city. Would a penthouse require a setback from the front of the building if it's under the max zoning height?
Finally structural - how does one know from old buildings whether too much structural work is needed to justify cost for the extra sq ft?
I know the typical answer is hire a profession and plan to -- BUT it would be nice to have a nice blog / discussion post on some of these questions/answers. Heck I'll write it when I learn the details.
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