Flatbush

Victorian Flatbush Real Estate: Waiting for Godot: Development stalled at 248 Stratford Road

Eye On Real Estate: Flatbush Installment Two

May 28, 2014 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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The historic houses on Stratford Road are so pretty. The stalled-out construction project in their midst is not.

The “concrete bunker,” as the Beverley Square West Fall 2013 neighborhood newsletter calls it, is a partly constructed shell of a building looming above a metal fence at 248 Stratford Road.

What happens next at the project?

“I don’t know,” owner Gershon Matiteeb told Eye on Real Estate in a very brief conversation.

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He filed a plan last year to construct a new three-story, single-family house on the lot on the corner of Matthews Court. The city Buildings Department disapproved that plan in September 2013 – and disapproved it again on May 20.

Back in 2009, the city agency issued a permit – for which it later issued a notice to revoke – for a front and rear extension of an existing two-story, two-family house on the site, which was to be converted to a single-family home.

Gershon and Lili Matiteeb bought the two-family house for $850,000 in 2004, city Finance Department records indicate. It was a sweet-looking house, online photos show. Eventually it was demolished, that neighborhood newsletter notes.

There’s a twist to this story. If Matiteeb decides to sell 248 Stratford Road, he must first get written consent from either Asher Berliner or Nathan Berliner, according to a “declaration of restriction” filed in city Finance Department records.

Why is that? Matiteeb wouldn’t explain.

“I don’t want to answer to you and the neighbors,” he said.

The document does not explain who the Berliners are or what’s their relationship to Matiteeb and his properties. Asher Berliner has numerous real estate holdings in Brooklyn and New Jersey, online sources indicate.

Asher and Nathan Berliner also have declarations of restriction for at least two other properties Matiteeb owns.

One is 503 Beverly Road in nearby Kensington, which Gershon and Lili Matiteeb bought in 2002. The initial plan was to enlarge the existing building on the site, but instead a new building was constructed. Sound familiar? It’s a three-story apartment building.

Another property of Matiteeb’s for which the Berliners have a declaration of restriction is 640-652 Coney Island Ave., a residential property that’s just around the corner from 248 Stratford Road.


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