For anyone to understand why Carroll Gardeners are so against Architect Robert Scarano, here is some background info about his antics. This is from a 2006 newspaper article from The Brooklyn Paper. Thought you may be interested.
November 18, 2006 / News / Not Just Nets / Around Brooklyn
And it’s all legal!
Scarano uses sleight of hand, plywood to beat zoning laws
By Dana Rubinstein
The Brooklyn Paper
A plywood stage inside this bedroom shaved enough square footage off architect Robert Scarano’s oversized condo to get city approval.
Brooklyn architect Robert Scarano is the consummate survivor.
The city’s investigation into his eyebrow-raising building practices — which led him to surrender the right to certify his own buildings in August — may have crimped his style, but it hasn’t stopped him from turning a profit.
“The Washington” in Prospect Heights, Scarano’s chichi seven-story, 45-unit building on Washington and Underhill avenues, is nearly sold out, even though some of the apartments have been jury-rigged to reduce total square footage and meet city zoning requirements.
By order of the Department of Buildings, Scarano has converted a number of the building’s high-ceilinged rooms into five-foot-tall crawl spaces with the installation of plywood platforms. (So-called “mezzanines” under five feet tall don’t have to be included in the building’s overall square footage.)
The result, said one potential buyer, is an awkward, unusable space in an otherwise luxurious building that boasts a Zen garden and private gym.
“Imagine you can’t walk into a room, but instead have to hop onto a platform,” he said. “I’m six feet tall and would slam my head against the ceiling.”
To read more, click here: And It's All Legal
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