Saturday, April 18, 2015, this snippet is from mid-afternoon, but they started at 8am.
God’s Love Continues to Deliver Its Specialty: Weekend Noise, Dust, and Disruption from South Village Neighbors on Vimeo.
Tag Archives: God’s Love We Deliver
God’s Love We Deliver Contractor Files Fraudulent Documents to Gain Weekend Permits
South Village Neighbors received a copy of the following email and videos from neighbors on Sullivan Street, and we are sharing them with our community. The letter and screenshot reveal the fraudulent representations that JRM Construction has made to the Department of Buildings in order to secure after-hours work permits that allow them to disrupt the neighborhood even on Saturdays. The videos demonstrate the unmitigated construction noise they inflict on the neighborhood six days a week.
Double-click to enlarge
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Dear Ms. Pearl and Trustees of Gods Love We Deliver,
Your contractor at 166 Avenue of the Americas has committed fraud in order to obtain after-hours variances. Several lies on their application are:
1. That the work is not within 200 feet of a residence,
2. That the work is within an enclosed building,
3. That the work does not involve partial demolition, and,
4. That the reason for needing the permit is “public safety”.
You may refer to the publicly-accessible information here in case you are thinking of disputing it. Or you can view the annotated image of your contractor’s application for after hours work permits, which includes corrected answers for your reference.
Today, a Saturday, your contractor is jack-hammering, using chain saws, and using gas-powered concrete saws, and hammering. All of these activities are very loud, especially the large, bobcat-mounted jackhammer. It is loud enough that it alerted me to the also-fraudulent Noise Mitigation Plan posted by your contractor. This type of contractor is not appropriate for situations requiring code compliance and respect of the rights of others. This is not the first instance, and I am beginning to wonder why this type of infraction has been written off by City inspectors at your site in the past, and why your contractor is still allowed to obtain after-hours variances.
I recommend you cause this infuriating behavior to stop voluntarily, immediately.
Lest you doubt the validity of these claims, here are a pair of videos taken this morning at 10am from an adjacent residential building of “the quiet delivery of material and debris clean up” your contractor claims to be doing.
| Saturday, April 12, 2014, 10:15am Bobcat-mounted jackhammer | Saturday, April 12, 2014, 11:10am Other non-approved, non-enclosed aferhours work |
Your website does not offer a clear contact person to whom one may present the above information, so I have addressed my email to any likely candidate. Please feel free to respond, but anything short of stopping the illegal behavior on your property will be irrelevant, and ignored. There are no excuses, so stow any you might craft.
Sincerely,
A Sullivan Street Neighbor
God’s Love We Deliver Unsafe Working Conditions
In addition to delivering a luxury condo construction site to our formerly quiet neighborhood, God’s Love We Deliver is now in the business of delivering unsafe working conditions. At about 1:00 Thursday afternoon, there was an accident at the God’s Love We Deliver site, and a worker was removed on a stretcher. We don’t know if there is a stop work order, but these images suggest that there ought to be. The Spring Street subway entrance is completely exposed to heavy demolition work on the roof of the former God’s Love We Deliver building. This work includes the jackhammering demolition of brick walls. There is no scaffolding or protection for straphangers entering or exiting the station, or for the local food cart vendor.
UPDATE: Saturday, December 28, 2013
A partial stop work order has been issued for the dangerous construction site owned by God’s Love We Deliver, Inc. The stop work order notes the failure of contractor to follow approved plans and scaffold the entrance to the subway, which creates a safety issue for pedestrians on Spring Street, especially for those entering and exiting the subway. (Click images to enlarge.)
News Wrap-Up 2013
Our fight against the GLWD-QT development at 180 Sixth Avenue has been much in the news in the past year. The New York Times covered our challenge as early as May, with a report on the fight by journalist Ronda Kaysen (5/7/13). Not long after that, in mid-July, the Times reported on the development assaults to our neighborhood in a report by John Freeman Gill (8/13/13). And even the Times’ Real Estate section (10/20/13) — never known to frown on new luxury development — characterized the QT project as an “invasion”. Starting in January and throughout the year, we’ve had excellent coverage from The Villager. And, of course, the dangerous conditions at the building site were widely covered in late September, when 188 Sixth Avenue had to be evacuated due to hazardous conditions created by QT’s excavation work. We expect our legal challenge to be much in the news in 2014. Stay tuned.
New York Times Covers South Village Neighbors’ Battle
Godz-ill-a! We Develop!
Image courtesy of Har-Monic Studio.
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This morning the New York Times covered the South Village Neighbors challenge to the GLWD-QT development scheme at 180 Sixth Avenue. It’s fantastic to have the opportunity to air our concerns in a public forum, particularly since we were shut-out of the City Planning Commission discussions, unrepresented by our Community Board, and ignored by our City Council representative, Christine C. Quinn, who is a longtime advocate for GLWD — at the expense of her residential constituents. That said, we were not surprised to see that 80% of the ink went to the GLWD position: GLWD has a powerful public relations machine, a celebrity-studded Board of Trustees, and the deep pockets of their new real estate developer pals. Check back in the next few days to hear more about what the neighbors are saying about this story.
April Update: Save the Sunshine – Stop 180 Sixth Avenue
March was a productive month for our campaign to stop the God’s Love We Develop-Quinlan-Tavros scheme at 180 Sixth Avenue. Since our last update, the South Village Neighbors have:
• retained a prominent land-use attorney to begin our legal challenge. On March 29th the core group involved in the Stop 180 Sixth campaign met and voted unanimously to hire land-use attorney and zoning expert Stuart A. Klein to challenge the GLWD-QT scheme. Stuart comes to us highly recommended by SoHo Alliance, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, and other neighborhood groups. 
A legal committee met with Stuart and one of his associates the following Wednesday to map out our approach, which will begin with a challenge to the legality of the air rights transfer. A research committee has been conducting the basic discovery/document retrieval to support our legal team’s work and keep our costs down. Last week they visited three archives and secured some obscure documents that support our efforts. Many thanks to these two committees!
• consulted with the Office of the Mayor/Department of Citywide Administrative Services on the status of the air rights transfer. We have been in bi-weekly communication with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Division of Real Property, to follow the status of the proposed air rights transfer. As of this past Wednesday, there has been no progress on the sale of these air rights, which is, of course, great news for us. The fact that several members of our group testified eloquently on the inappropriateness of the air rights sale at the February 27th DCAS hearing seriously slowed down this process. Our contact at DCAS tells us that it could be several weeks until anything is resolved with regard to the air rights sale. Our legal challenge, which has only just begun, is expected to delay this matter even further; we hope, in perpetuity. So a huge thanks to the group who attended this meeting and/or testified! We also thank Andrew Berman, who alerted us to this hearing, and Stuart Klein, who encouraged us to have a strong presence there even before we had him officially onboard!
• secured additional news coverage of our legal challenge: the neighborhood news service dnainfo.com ran a favorable story about our work at the end of March. You can read that HERE. If you have press contacts who may be helpful to us in this challenge, please be in touch.
• set up a new list-serv/Google group for internal communication. At the March 29th meeting we identified the need for an internal communication mechanism to allow people to share information and ask questions of each other in a more horizontal way. Two folks on our team explored a number of options and arrived at the conclusion that a Google Group would be the best way to manage this. If you’re on our mailing list, later today or early tomorrow you’ll receive an invitation to join the group, and I encourage you to sign up. You will have the option of receiving news as it is posted, once a day, or once a week. If you sign up with a Gmail account, you will have the additional option of being able to be able to access the discussion board and its online archive directly. This is helpful if you prefer to not receive emailed updates, or want to look back at past discussions.
180 Sixth Avenue, April 14, 2013 12:04am
• witnessed the arrival of two unpleasant pieces of yellow equipment. Friday evening at 8pm a rather formidable looking piece of equipment (that appears to be a pile driver) arrived at 180 Sixth Avenue. And last night at midnight, QT treated us to midnight delivery of another Komatsu behemoth. Their rig blocked traffic on Sixth Avenue, with backed up cars honking for half an hour, waking up everyone. This is an unpleasant reminder of what our future could look like if we don’t continue our campaign to Stop 180 Sixth Avenue.
If you live in the neighborhood and have been alarmed by this development, please be aware that: (1) at this time no construction permits have been approved for the development (so nothing can be built at this time) and (2) the current unapproved plans for an 80,000 square foot building cannot be approved until the matter of the air rights transfer is resolved. The last time plans were filed (03/05/13) they were not approved. However QT does have an approved permit (filed 12/12/12) to demolish the single story structure at 178 Sixth Avenue (that used to be Sleepy’s). So they may begin pulling that building down. Tearing down this building has tax advantages for them as it will lower the property tax assessment on this lot. However this does not mean anything about the overall outcome of our challenge, which is – thanks to your support – stronger today than it has ever been. [Correction: After this posted, we learned that they have an approved application for demolition, but that no permits have yet been issued. Apologies for any confusion this may have caused. – The Editors.]
WHAT YOU CAN DO – UPCOMING EVENTS AND NEXT STEPS
ATTEND the Landmark Preservation Committee meeting on the South Village Historic District. On Monday, April 15th at 6:30pm there will be an important Landmark Preservation Committee informational meeting regarding the proposed South Village Historic District. The meeting will take place at the NYU Meyer Building, 4 Washington Place (at Broadway), Room 121. As this is an informational meeting, no testimony is heard, but questions can be asked. I strongly encourage you to attend. If you are a property owner in the neighborhood you will learn more about the implications of landmarking. And if you are not a property owner, you are still welcome to attend. Several of our group will attend, and we’ll hand out informational material about our Save the Sunshine/Stop 180 Sixth Avenue campaign. For additional information about this meeting, visit the GVSHP website HERE.
SIGN-UP for the South Village Neighbors email/listserv when you receive your invitation email, or visit HERE to request an invitation to the group.
CONTRIBUTE to the South Village Legal Fund. Thanks to your generosity, and the gracious fiscal sponsorship of SoHo Alliance, the Valentine’s Day campaign for the South Village Legal Fund has raised more than enough to kick off our legal challenge. Ultimately, this fight will may cost a good bit more than what we currently have on hand. If you have already supported the legal fund, many thanks for your support. If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to contribute to the fund, we encourage you to do so today. It’s easy. You can find instructions on how to donate HERE.
Legal Fund Presses Forward to Stop GLWD-QT Scheme
The South Village Neighbors Legal Fund has raised $3,400 in just two weeks. Donations have ranged from $20 up to a $1,000 pledge that we will match. We are only $1,600 away from our goal of $5000 to retain a land use attorney to stop the God’s Love We Deliver-QT development scheme at 180 Sixth Avenue. Even with all of this great work, we have to remember that this is what we’re up against: an 80,000 square foot, 15-story luxury condominium tower and ground floor retail space, built at our expense.
That’s why we’re redoubling our efforts:
- Last week a group of South Village neighbors testified against the GLWD-QT Development scheme at the Office of Citywide Administrative Services. The folks from GLWD and QT were awfully surprised to see us there, and the representative from the Mayor’s Office seemed fairly impressed by our arguments. While this testimony may have little impact on the Mayor’s decision regarding the air rights deal, it is part of the public record if we ever wind up in court with our opponents. Read more about it here.
- Six hundred fundraising flyers about the South Village Legal Fund have been distributed in buildings and businesses around the neighborhood this weekend. If you receive a flyer and don’t need it, please consider asking your drycleaner, bakery, coffee shop, drugstore, newsstand, barber’s shop or grocer to post it. We’ve found that neighborhood merchants are eager to help when asked by the people they see all the time.
- We’ve reached out to the Friends of Vesuvio Park for their support as the children’s pool at the playground will lose much of its summer sunshine if the GLWD-QT development proceeds as planned. Read more about this here. And next Sunday St. Anthony’s Church will include news about South Village Neighbors and our efforts in their parish bulletin.
If you have already supported the South Village Legal Fund, we thank you on behalf of the whole neighborhood. Perhaps you would consider speaking to a neighbor who hasn’t yet contributed? This is very much a grassroots, neighbor-to-neighbor effort to save our skyline, our playgrounds, and our sunshine across three affected public spaces: Vesuvio Playground (bet. Thompson/Sullivan), Soho Square (at Spring/Sixth) and Father Fagan Square (at Prince/Sixth).
June 21st shadows on Vesuvio Playground from the Environmental Site Assessment commissioned by the developer.
And if you haven’t had a chance to give yet, we urge you to do so today. No contribution is too small. $300, $200, $100, $50 . . . it all helps. After the backhoes and pile drivers arrive, it may just be too late to stop them. We would not want you to regret that you didn’t act today.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE:
| BY CHECK | VIA PAYPAL |
| 1. Make a check to SoHo Alliance for $500, $300, $250, $100 or whatever you can afford (no contribution is too small).
2. Note South Village Legal Fund in the memo line. 3. Mail or drop off your check with Barbara North, who has kindly agreed to manage the bookkeeping on this: Barbara North, 100 Sullivan Street, Apt 1E, New York, NY 10012. |
1. Visit www.sohoalliance.org/join.html.
2. Enter the amount you’d like to donate and click on “PayPal”. 3. Just before you pay you will have the opportunity to designate your donation for the legal fund. When you see the “Your order summary” page, enter South Village Legal Fund in the box for description. This will earmark your donation for 180 Sixth Avenue challenge. |
Neighbors Testify Against God’s Love We Deliver–QT Sweetheart Deal
This past Wednesday a group of South Village neighbors testified again, this time at the New York City Office of Citywide Administrative Services, where they spoke out against the sweetheart deal that God’s Love We Deliver wants to pass along to Quinlan-Tavros Development at the expense of the city and the neighborhood. They also released a recent rendering of the impact of the GLWD-QT development on the neighborhood’s skyline.
Outlining the history and finances of the proposed development, one Sullivan Street neighbor pointed out that GLWD received an extremely favorable deal on the original purchase price of the 166 Sixth Avenue building, paying only $535,000 for the 18,000 square foot structure in 1993. The reduced price tag came with the stipulation that the air rights be held in perpetuity for community use. Specifically, the deed noted that the air rights could not be used for commercial development. Now, these same air rights are being sold for just that: a luxury condominium and retail high-rise development.
If that weren’t bad enough, GLWD is selling these air rights for less than market value to Quinlan-Tavros. The Wall Street Journal reported that GLWD will sell the valuable vertical real estate for $200-300 per square foot or for $5.5-6.5 million dollars. Comparable air rights in New York City go for $400-500 dollars per square foot, or up to $9 million dollars. Quinlan-Tavros is receiving a 30-50% discount on these air rights, saving between $3 and $4 million dollars, as GLWD passes along their sweet deal to private developers at the expense of the neighborhood and New York City’s taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the City is settling for just $765,000 as their share – taxpayer’s share, our share – of this deeply discounted deal. That’s less than the asking price for a studio apartment in the proposed condominium complex.
The neighbors have long known that the GLWD-QT scheme is bad for the neighborhood, which will lose sunlight at Vesuvio playground and at two other public spaces, but it seems it’s also a bad deal for all New York City taxpayers.
News: South Village Neighbors Launch Legal Fund to Fight Out-of-Scale Development
A group of concerned South Village neighbors have banded together to challenge the proposed 15-story high-rise luxury condominium development planned by God’s Love We Deliver & QT Development at 180 Sixth Avenue.
The GLWD-QT monstrosity is at the heart of the proposed South Village Historic District and will dwarf the surrounding neighborhood and leave us to live in its shadows. It is totally out of character with the low-rise, low density buildings that we have come to appreciate as being part of the charm and warmth of our beloved South Village.
After consulting with a prominent land use attorney and zoning expert, South Village Neighbors has launched a legal fund campaign to mount a serious opposition to this latest example of overdevelopment in our neighborhood community. The goal is to raise $5,000 by the end of Valentine’s Day weekend. By standing together, we can stop, or seriously slow, the 180 Sixth Avenue overdevelopment disaster.
What neighbors say about the GLWD-QT Development:
I’m an artist. I’ve lived directly across the street from the GLWD site since l975. My wife and I have raised two children, here, and struggled mightily to create a home amidst the enormous pressures of economic and commercial hyper-development. This project is architecturally destructive to the brick-and-mortar nature of our neighborhood, and totally inconsiderate to those of us who actually live here. It is an invitation to developers far and wide to demolish our historical buildings, push us out of our homes, and allow rampant construction of ugly glass and aluminum buildings which are completely out of scale with the beautiful SoHo, which originally attracted artists and tourists. This neighborhood needs to be preserved, just as great European cities preserve their historical areas and landmarks. It is truly unfortunate that a reputable and positive charity such as God’s Love We Deliver has chosen to act as a stalking horse for some of the worst forces in our city.
– Harry Pincus
Our overburdened and outdated infrastructure and electrical grid can barely support current demands without adding more overdeveloped properties. We have enough new luxury condo space in the neighborhood which remains vacant.
– Crissy C.
Unrestricted development is destroying quality of life for millions of New York City residents. There is no sense of balance. New construction of residential and office space continues unabated with NO corresponding improvements to infrastructure to accommodate increasing numbers of residents and workers. In addition, the asethetics of entire neighborhoods are being destroyed with little or no concern for longtime residents or small business owners. For lack of a better word, I am disgusted and my vote in the upcoming Mayoral primary will reflect that disgust!
– David A.
Show God’s Love and QT what real neighborhood love looks like. Make a Valentine’s Day Legal Fund contribution today.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE
| BY CHECK | VIA PAYPAL |
| 1. Make a check to SoHo Alliance for $500, $300, $250, $100 or whatever you can afford (no contribution is too small). 2. Note “South Village Legal Fund” in the memo line. 3. Mail or drop off your check with Barbara North, who has kindly agreed to manage the bookkeeping on this and get your checks to SoHo Alliance: Barbara North 100 Sullivan Street, Apt 1E New York, NY 10012 |
1. Visit http://www.sohoalliance.org/join.html. 2. Enter the amount you’d like to donate and click on “Pay Pal”. 3. Just before you pay you will have the opportunity to designate your donation for the legal fund. When you see the “Your order summary” page, enter “South Village Legal Fund” in the box for description. This will earmark your donation for 180 Sixth Avenue challenge. |
Many thanks to SoHo Alliance, and their Executive Director Sean Sweeney, for agreeing to serve as a fiscal sponsor for the South Village Neighbors Legal Fund.
South Village Neighbors 
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