Lawmaking and the Council

On Sunday, when writing about the agenda for the informal Common Council meeting, Gossips wondered how, without a Legal Committee, new laws like those being introduced at the informal meeting came about. At the meeting on Monday night, Council president Tom DePietro announced that the Legal Committee needed to be revived and asked the aldermen to let him know if they would be interested in serving on that committee. He also said that the ad hoc committees that were working on new legislation--the sidewalk law and inclusionary zoning--would be folded into the reconstituted Legal Committee.

One of the laws that was introduced at the informal Common Council meeting on Monday was a zoning amendment that would allow eating and drinking establishments as a conditional use in R4 districts. The R4 districts, which appear in pink on the zoning map below, are primarily in the western end of the city. South of Warren Street, the R4 district is west of Third Street; north of Warren Street, the R4 district extends up to Fourth Street. The location of Crosswinds on Harry Howard Avenue is also an R4 district.

The motivation for making this zoning change is to accommodate Basil Nooks, who owns the building at 61-63 North Third Street.  

Nooks acquired the building in 2007 with the intention of opening a restaurant there. The building had a long history of being an eating and drinking establishment. It was Christie's Tavern, then Joe's Tavern, and finally the Flying Frog Tavern & Grill. The Flying Frog closed in October 2004, after a fire in the building.

After buying the building, Nooks started the work of repairing the damage caused by the fire and renovating it for its intended use. In August 2007, Nooks applied to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a use variance "to restore 61-63 North Third to its original use as a restaurant and tavern." A use variance was needed because, although there had been a long succession of eating and drinking establishments at the location, previous new taverns and restaurants had been grandfathered in. Nooks's proposed restaurant could not be grandfathered in because too much time had passed from when the building was the Flying Frog. Although he applied for the use variance in 2007, he did not pursue it at that time. Ten years later, in 2017, Nooks renewed his appeal to be allowed to open a restaurant in the building.  

Back in 2017, the Common Council was considering a zoning amendment, known as Local Law No. 9 of 2017, that would allow buildings located in residential districts that had previously had commercial uses and had not subsequently been adapted for residential use to have a commercial use again. This amendment to the zoning code would have solved Nooks's problem and allowed the Planning Board to grant a conditional use permit following a site plan review, but the amendment was never pursued by the Council. Now, instead of an amendment that would affect only buildings with a history of commercial use, the Council is considering an amendment that could conceivably allow eating and drinking establishments to be created in buildings that are currently and historically residential properties.

On Monday night, Gossips asked Jeff Baker, counsel to the Council, why this remedy was being proposed rather than some variation of Local Law No. 9, which would restrict the establishment of restaurants and taverns in R4 districts to buildings that had been constructed for and had previously had commercial uses. Baker said he was unaware of the previously proposed law.

Relevant to this topic is something that happened back in 2007 or 2008. For a few months, there was a popup takeout restaurant serving Indian street food in a storefront in the 400 block of Warren Street, just up from The Cascades. For reasons I don't recall--either because the rent was prohibitive or the space was no longer going to be available--the people who operated the popup wanted to move their operation to this building, on the corner of Second and State streets, a building that they owned.

I don't remember the circumstances, and the one person I spoke with who was on the Planning Board at the time doesn't remember either, but I do remember that the Planning Board granted site plan approval for the project, despite the fact that the building is located in an R4 district. For reasons unknown, after receiving site plan approval, the project was never pursued. 

The corner entrance to the building at Second and State suggests that at one time it had a commercial use, probably a shop of some sort. I don't know if its commercial history figured into the Planning Board's decision back in 2007 or 2008, but if the zoning code were to be amended to allow commercial uses, or specifically just eating and drinking establishments, to exist in buildings that had commercial uses historically, this building would be a candidate.

Update: Gossips has learned from a reader that the building at the corner of Second and State streets did historically have a commercial use. In the 1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s, probably up until the adjoining neighborhood was decimated by Urban Renewal, it was a corner grocery store called Slemp's Market, owned and operated by Everett and Norma Slemp. 

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