A huge vacant housing site of 274,600 square feet in Staten Island is being foreclosed for owing a mere $2,445 — and the City even thinks it’s worth $14 million.
But to view it you need a snorkel, as the land is completely under water.
Yes, the city has plenty of vacant “lots,” but it doesn’t mean they are all ready for cement trucks.
The parcel in foreclosure is off New Dorp Beach in an old “resort” area once filled with bathers, bungalows and long piers — dubbed the “Poor Man’s Bermuda.”
Now it is part of Great Kills Park.
Much of what is now the park was condemned to make way for Shore Front Drive — a brainchild of Robert Moses that was eventually deep-sixed.
On Google maps, look for Center Place and Cedar Grove Avenue, which runs alongside Cpl. Allan E. Kivlehan Park, a scrubland crisscrossed with trails and a children’s playground.
Marked as “irregular” by city assessors, with an address of “Neutral Avenue,” it is 183 feet wide (roughly between Center and Marine Way) but has 1,501 feet running from a point off the sandy beach out among the fishes.
Maybe that’s what’s “irregular.”
The city has no clue to the ownership and deems it a “bad address” — guess the postman can’t even ring its bell. But this Class One property was just assessed with a tentative market value of $14.01 million — up $2.9 million over last year.
The parcel likely held one of the old piers that hasn’t been around in decades.
Being somewhat realistic, the Finance Dept. counts this Class 1b property with a tentative market value of $55,850 and an assessed value of $3,351 — dutifully boosted by the allowed 6 percent per year, or $188. The tax bill would be $645 starting in July.
In 1979, $87.50 was paid, but by 1995, the parcel owed over $500 and was later added to a lien sale.
That 1998 tax lien is now being foreclosed through a published notice to an entity “Cedar Associates” — perhaps named after part of the beach — and John Does, just filed by lawyer Thomas P. Malone, who represents the tax lien trust and Bank of New York Mellon.
Malone said taxes and interest due to his clients now add up to $1.3 million.
They uncovered the city deed from 1957 when a co-partnership — some were lawyers and others involved in the ritzy Apthorp in Manhattan — bought it with prior owner, Elja Lurje, subject to two mortgages totaling $28,400. The deed leaves out his two acres of real land — now part of the park — and notes the rest is “under water.”
We can only imagine that the savvy investment group figured with the Robert Moses condemnations underway, they could come out ahead.
A few waves away, another 150 x 1,500-foot lot is valued at $7.653 million and is owned by DCAS – the City of New York, likely scooped up during the condemnations.
Broker Bob Knakal, chairman of NYC investment sales at Cushman & Wakefield, had never seen parcels like this. “I’ve seen partially under water,” he said. “There is not much you can do. The city won’t let you build on it, and you can’t get flood insurance because it’s already flooded.”
Some creative mind may take a swim at it – a personal houseboat mooring, fishing grounds or floating hotel — but you’d surely need at least a paddleboard to get there.
A spokeswoman for the Dept. of Finance said in an e-mail, “We recognize that the market value is high on these parcels and the values are subject to review by the property team.”
Why keep these orphan properties on the books at all? With over 1 million parcels, it’s hard to keep track, which is why there are one-foot-wide parcels and others that are landlocked or on cliffs.
But they do add up to a larger market value for the entire city, and that, my dear taxpayers, allows the city to borrow more money.