City’s Myriad Layers Of Bureaucracy Finally Good For Something

Minerva will continue to peer out at the Statue of Liberty from her Green-Wood Cemetery perch, instead of having to wave at a seven-story condo:

The wave is saved.

In a unanimous decision, a city board voted yesterday to revoke a construction permit for a seven-story condo locals feared would block the famed salute between Green-Wood Cemetery’s statue of Minerva and the Statue of Liberty.

“We’re delighted,” said Mic Holwin, of Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights. “The view is part of our national history.”

The graceful statue was erected in 1920 on Battle Hill, where part of the Battle of Brooklyn was fought during the Revolutionary War.

The vote by the Board of Standards and Appeals bars developer Chaim Nussencweig from constructing a planned 30,000-square-foot, seven-story tower.

Nussencweig can appeal the decision or develop a building, but under restrictive new zoning rules.

Nussencweig appealed to the Board of Standards and Appeals after the Buildings Department found “serious zoning violations” in the condo’s design last fall and revoked permits it already had issued for the project at 614 Seventh Ave.

The plans were submitted by controversial architect Robert Scarano, who last month agreed to drop out of a program that allows builders to certify that their drawings conform with city zoning regulations.

Buildings Department officials charged Scarano with repeatedly violating the regulations — on Nussencweig’s project and others — and said he failed to ensure the safety of an Ocean Parkway construction site where a worker was killed in March.

Backstory: Greenwood Cemetery Vista Saved?; Minerva Update.