Hoffman v. N.Y.C. Bd. of Standards & Appeals (In re Peyton ex rel. Peyton)

• Decision Date: 17 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 88,88
• Citation: 36 N.Y.3d 271,140 N.Y.S.3d 447,164 N.E.3d 253
• Parties: In the Matter of Randy PEYTON, on Behalf of the Estate of Maggi Peyton, Deceased, Respondent, Hillel Hoffman, et al., Intervenors–Respondents, v. NEW YORK CITY BOARD OF STANDARDS AND APPEALS, et al., Appellants.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

36 N.Y.3d 271

164 N.E.3d 253

140 N.Y.S.3d 447

In the Matter of Randy PEYTON, on Behalf of the Estate of Maggi Peyton, Deceased, Respondent,

Hillel Hoffman, et al., Intervenors–Respondents,

v.NEW YORK CITY BOARD OF STANDARDS AND APPEALS, et al., Appellants.

No. 88

Court of Appeals of New York.

December 17, 2020

OPINION OF THE COURT

FEINMAN, J..

The question before us is whether an area must be accessible to the residents of every building on a zoning lot containing multiple, separately owned buildings in order to constitute "open space" within the meaning of the New York City Zoning Resolution, following amendments to the statute in 2011. The Board of Standards and Appeals of the City of New York (BSA), which is responsible for administering the Zoning Resolution, has interpreted the definition of open space to encompass rooftop gardens accessible to a single building's residents as long as the residents of each building on the zoning lot receive at least a proportionate share of open space. Because the BSA rationally interpreted and harmonized the relevant provisions of the Zoning Resolution, a complex statutory scheme regulating zoning in New York City, and appropriately applied them to this context, we conclude that its determination is not arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law.

I.

The New York City Zoning Resolution, adopted in 1961 and still in force as amended today, aims to provide "open space in residential areas wherever practicable ... in order to open up residential areas to light and air, to provide open areas for rest and recreation, and to break the monotony of continuous building bulk" (N.Y. City Zoning Resolution § 21–00[d] ). To achieve this goal, the Zoning Resolution requires a minimum amount of open space—a term of art—in high-density residential zoning districts (see id. former §§ 23–14, 23–142).¹ The definition of open space, not substantively changed since enactment in 1961, provides:

" ‘Open space’ is that part of a zoning lot , including courts or yards , which is open and unobstructed from its lowest level to the sky and is accessible to and usable by all persons occupying a dwelling unit or a rooming unit on the zoning lot "²

(id. § 12–10 [definition of open space] ). The minimum amount of open space required on a zoning lot is determined by the "open space ratio," which is "the number of square feet of open space on the zoning lot, expressed as a percentage of the floor area on that zoning lot" (id. ). The applicable ratio is a function of the residential district in which the zoning lot is located and the "height factor" of the zoning lot (see e.g. ZR former § 23–142). Thus, the minimum amount of open space required on a zoning lot is calculated by multiplying the given open space ratio by the total residential floor area on the zoning lot.³ Originally, a zoning lot had to be in single ownership, but the Zoning Resolution was amended in 1977 to authorize zoning lots consisting of parcels held by different owners.

The zoning lot at issue in this case is a superblock located between W. 97th Street, W. 100th Street, Columbus Avenue, and a midblock line east of and parallel to Amsterdam Avenue. It was developed in the late 1950s under a federally subsidized urban renewal plan. Three residential buildings, which form part of the Park West Village apartment complex, were built at that time. Shortly before a 40–year restriction prohibiting additional construction on the lot expired, respondent PWV Acquisition, LLC (PWV) acquired ownership of the zoning lot intending to develop additional buildings on the property. In 2006, PWV submitted a building permit application to the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) for a mixed-use building at 808 Columbus Avenue, with two one-story retail wings, each with a rooftop garden exclusively accessible to the new building's residents. PWV's architects presented site plans that treated the rooftop gardens, covering tens of thousands of square feet, as open space within the meaning of the Zoning Resolution and reserved additional space for a future community building. Based on the architects' assumption that the rooftop gardens qualified as open space despite their inaccessibility to the residents of the existing Park West Village apartment complex, the architects stated there would be enough open space to satisfy the minimum amount required on the zoning lot after construction of 808 Columbus Avenue⁴ and the future community building. Further, the architects represented that each building on the zoning lot would receive at least its proportionate share of open space.

Several elected officials and Park West Village residents objected that the rooftop gardens did not qualify as open space under the Zoning Resolution because they were not accessible to all residents of all buildings on the zoning lot. Discerning no such requirement in the Zoning Resolution, the DOB rejected the challenge and approved the proposed open-space calculations. In 2009, the BSA upheld the DOB's determination, noting that each of the existing buildings was allocated a proportionate amount of open space in excess of what would be required if each building were located on its own zoning lot, and finding that the proposed allocation did not violate the open-space requirements under ZR §§ 12–10 and 23–142. The residents commenced a CPLR article 78 proceeding but soon discontinued it with prejudice. The 808 Columbus Avenue building was completed in 2010.

In 2011, the City Planning Commission adopted amendments to the definition of certain key terms in the Zoning Resolution. As part of this revision, the Commission also made nonsubstantive changes to clarify the meaning of various provisions and update obsolete language in line with DOB practice. Included in this latter category were nonsubstantive changes to the sections relating to minimum required open space and open space ratio, which clarified that those requirements apply to zoning lots, not buildings. For instance, references to the term "building" were deleted in former section 23–142: "[I]n the districts indicated, the minimum required open space ratio and the maximum floor area ratio for any building on a zoning lot shall be as set forth in the following table for buildings zoning lots with the height factor indicated in the table."⁵ No changes were made to the definition of open space.

That same year, respondent Jewish Home Lifecare, Inc. (JHL) entered into an agreement with PWV to build and operate a nursing facility at the location designated in the 2006 site plans for the prospective community building. According to JHL's site plans, the amount of open space to be provided would satisfy the minimum required, assuming that the rooftop gardens at 808 Columbus Avenue counted toward the total.

After the DOB approved JHL's application, petitioner Maggi Peyton, then president of the Park West Village Tenants' Association, challenged the issuance of the permit, arguing that the proposed nursing home did not satisfy the Zoning Resolution's open-space requirements. The DOB rejected the challenge, determining that the amount of open space proposed was in excess of the minimum required. On appeal to the BSA, Peyton argued that amendments to the Zoning Resolution enacted in 2011 superseded the BSA's 2009 determination and made plain that, to constitute open space, an area must be accessible to the residents of every building on a zoning lot. In 2015, the BSA denied her appeal, noting, among other things, that there was no indication that the City Planning Commission had intended to alter the BSA's 2009 determination. Specifically, the BSA stated that the only question before it was whether the 2011 amendments to the Zoning Resolution "changed the language of the text such that it now reads as [a]ppellant argued in the 2009 appeal, and whether the open space requirements are changed in such a way as to implicate the proposed construction of the Nursing Facility." The BSA rejected Peyton's argument that the amendments effectively changed the definition of open space to include only space that is accessible to and usable by all residents of all buildings on a zoning lot.

Peyton commenced this CPLR article 78 proceeding in November 2015, asserting that the BSA's interpretation of open space had no legal basis under the Zoning Resolution. Supreme Court denied the petition, rejecting her contention that the 2011 amendments modified or clarified the definition of open space, and concluding there was "enough ambiguity to defer to the DOB's practical construction of the ordinance." The Appellate Division reversed over one Justice's dissent (166 AD3d 120).⁶ Declining to defer to the BSA, the majority opined that the definition of open space in ZR § 12–10 unambiguously requires that open space be accessible to the residents of every building on a zoning lot. By contrast, the dissent concluded that the statute was ambiguous and would have deferred to the BSA's practical reading of the open-space definition as applied to multi-owner zoning lots. The Appellate Division granted respondents' motion for leave to appeal to this Court.⁷

II.

In matters of statutory interpretation, "legislative intent is the great and controlling principle" ( Matter of Rizzo v. New York State Div. of Hous. & Community Renewal, 6 N.Y.3d 104, 114, 810 N.Y.S.2d 112, 843 N.E.2d 739 [2005] [internal quotation marks omitted] ). Because "the clearest indicator of legislative intent is the statutory text, the starting point in any case of interpretation must always be the language itself, giving effect to the plain meaning thereof" ( Kuzmich v. 50 Murray St. Acquisition LLC, 34 N.Y.3d 84, 91, 108 N.Y.S.3d 431, 132 N.E.3d 624 [2019] [internal quotation marks omitted], rearg. denied 33 N.Y.3d 1135, 109 N.Y.S.3d 216, 132 N.E.3d 1096 [2019], and cert. denied ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 904, 205 L.Ed.2d 462 [2020] ). Courts generally "construe words of ordinary import with their...