A Man’s Beach Bungalow Is His Castle, Under
Siege by Developers
By COREY KILGANNON
Richard George lives in a charming little beach bungalow just off the ocean on
the eastern end of the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens.
Like the homes of his neighbors, his small, three-bedroom shack is cooled by the
salty breeze and surrounded by wildflowers and the sandy walkways leading to
other lovely old wooden homes that form a beach colony, parts of which look more
like Fire Island than New York City.
Mr. George’s home on Beach 24th Street has cotton bedspreads, quaint tablecloths
and kitschy artwork. But don’t be fooled by the surroundings: it’s really a war
bunker from which he defends his ever-shrinking seaside neighborhood.
At the table in his galley-size kitchen, he assembles legal briefs used to sue
developers and city agencies to ward off efforts to demolish the bungalows for
newer, bigger housing.
Back
when the Rockaways was still a popular ocean resort for New Yorkers, these
bungalows were abundant, with many built in the 1920’s. Groucho Marx is said to
have invested in 24 of them. Now the largest remaining patch of the historic
shacks are the roughly 120 that line three city blocks leading to the dunes in
Far Rockaway.
With each
passing year, more of the bungalows along Beach 24th, 25th and 26th Streets
between Seagirt Boulevard and the boardwalk are demolished by developers
building new housing. So far, Mr. George has not been able to get the city to
declare the bungalows, many of which are abandoned, landmarks. So he fights
local development by filing lawsuits claiming that the projects violate federal
coastal regulations by illegally diminishing public access to the waterfront.
He is in court against a 130-unit condominium project being built between Beach
25th and Beach 26th Streets. Mr. George is arguing in State Supreme Court in
Queens that the bigger project blocks an easement to the beach written into the
bungalows’ deeds and titles.
State conservation officials ordered work stopped at that project, citing a lack
of proper permits. Now the site, which has been idle for several months, looks
as if the crew just went on a coffee break, with tools and brick piles strewn
about and the iron framework gathering rust.
“These
developers knew when they bought the property that their project was in
violation,” said Mr. George, who bought his bungalow in 1982. He now owns a
handful of other bungalows, which he rents out, and heads the Beachside Bungalow
Preservation Association of Far Rockaway.
Gary Rosen, a lawyer for the project, Metroplex on the
Atlantic, said the legal easements to the ocean expired in 1930. He said that he
was certain he would defeat Mr. George in court but that the delays alone might
ruin the project.
“My client has a $14 million loan out on this, and it is costing him $3,000 each
day the project is delayed,” Mr. Rosen said. “This could bankrupt the project.
He’s already cost my client more money than those bungalows are worth.”
Even when ultimately unsuccessful, Mr. George’s lawsuits have often managed to
frustrate and delay developers until costly delays and legal fees have forced
them to abandon their projects.
The most powerful weapon in his arsenal is an obscure regulation known as the
Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, enacted by Congress to help local
governments preserve access to waterways. Mr. George claims that the city and
state mainly ignore the regulations despite receiving federal funds to enforce
them.
“The right to have waterway access maintained is protected by the U.S.
Constitution and goes back to ancient Rome,” he said recently, sitting in his
bungalow and surrounded by piles of documents that he says support his case. “It
costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year to enforce this program, which
benefits all city residents, and no one enforces it. They’re handing the
waterfront over to developers and it’s breaking federal law, basically because
nobody knows or seems to care about this law.”
He is suing the city in federal court, claiming it violated federal access laws
in approving the huge Arverne by the Sea project, which will create thousands of
units over 117 acres. Mr. George says the project will eliminate 46 streets that
lead to the ocean.
The suit is one of at least seven Mr. George currently has against the city,
said Gabriel Taussig, a city lawyer. Although judges may issue temporary
stop-work orders against developers, Mr. Taussig said that in the end, the
judges consistently reject Mr. George’s claims.
Federal and state officials say the federal coastal act offers a general
guideline for projects, which are evaluated case by case. City Planning
Department officials say waterfront development projects are stringently
reviewed to ensure that access is preserved.
Mr. George sat in his kitchen showing old wills and deeds from landowners in the
1800’s stipulating that an easement to the ocean must be maintained. He thumbed
through a heavily annotated, underlined, highlighted and Post-it adorned copy of
the federal act, with his own bookmarks and footnotes. He flipped to Section
306, Part 1455, which encourages “public participation in the permitting
process,” in order to “ensure compliance by government.”
Mr. Rosen accused Mr. George of protecting the bungalows simply to preserve his
income as a landlord.
“He buys these bungalows for dirt cheap, and he’s lining his pockets by running
the biggest scam,” he said. “Here you have developers bringing millions of
dollars into the neighborhood, and he’s killing their projects and making them
want to walk away.”
He said he was suing Mr. George for “malicious prosecution of my client.”
“I’ll take all the bungalows if I win,” he said. “Most of them are garbage
anyway. They’re shacks.”
Mr. George dismissed Mr. Rosen’s claims.
“If money was my motivation, I’d want the project built because it would
increase my property value,” he said. “I’m not antidevelopment; only when it
discriminates against everyone else living around it.”