8 Windsor Place: Bringing the clean, sleek aesthetics of modern living to the character-filled brownstone architecture of traditional South Slope Brooklyn

8 Windsor Place Condominiums between 7th and 8th Avenues nears completion.  
Owner/Developer: Udi Marciano   U. R. Development LLC
Architect/Engineering/Planning  INFOCUS   

Windsor Place streetscape looking towards 7th Avenue. The light-colored brick rowhouses fall within a R5-B residential zoning district. In fact, almost all residential sidestreets within the Windsor Terrace neighborhood have been designated R5-B. The "B" in R5-B designates a zoning district with Contextual Regulations.  Contextual zoning's purpose is to produce buildings that are consistent with the existing neighborhood character.  Such things as bulk, height, sky planes, street setbacks, and yards are regulated.    Zoning districts can change from one block to another, even from one side of the street to the other. 7th Avenue is zoned R6-A...In contrast, just one street over, 16th Street, is zoned R6B. 
Now, what changes everything is the fact that 8 Windsor Place falls within the 100-foot commercial overlay extended from 7th Avenue. This C2-4 zoned 100-foot overlay extending towards the middle of the block modifies and supplements any underlying R5-B regulations governing the rest of the block and instead uses the R6-A rules from the adjacent 7th Avenue   The intent of these commercial overlays is to serve local retail needs such as stores and restaurants.   It's very common to find corner buildings in the South Slope occupied by restaurant spaces that extend down the street but in this case, it's a separate building from the corner without any planned retail.  Corner buildings are not required to have rear yards so many historic buildings have single-story garages.

The zoning lot

This Zoning/Planning document puts everything INFOCUS

Demolished to make way for the new 4-story residential building, this single-story garage space was used as a martial arts school. Fazio Heating Oil Company had its office there back in the 1980s.  You can see that the streetscape plane extends out past the neighboring stoop.  The new building sits on this footprint.

The C2-4 Commercial Overlay indicated in these 3D renderings, is provided by New York City Planning's ZoLo Zoning and Land Use map.

Plans from NY Department Of Buildings         Building Information System for 8 Windsor. The rooftop bulkhead is considered a permitted obstruction and often exceeds the height limitations under zoning. Notice the indicated 30-foot rear yard setback...

1940 NYC Tax Photo of the classically designed 8 Windsor Place, Brooklyn   

1940 Tax Photo corner of 7th Avenue and Windsor Place with ground floor retail.