Permits Filed for Homes on Streets Named After Greed and Deception

FORT WADSWORTH — Homebuyers can soon purchase property on a street name that's a synonym for greed.

Permits were filed this week to start building condos on the site of the former Mount Manresa Jesuit retreat. They have to be built on streets that Borough President James Oddo named after greed, trickery and deceit — and which a judge allowed to stand.

Developers Savo Brothers will build 25 homes on Cupidity Drive, named for an inordinate desire for wealth, and Avidita Place, which is derived from avidity meaning greed, according to Department of Buildings records.

Permits for homes on Fourberie Lane, whose name means trickery and deception, have not been filed yet.

The Savo Brothers won a hotly protested battle to tear down the 103-year-old retreat house and replace it with homes. 

After a judge ordered Borough President James Oddo to issue street names for the new development, he rejected the builder's suggestions — including Timber Lane which he said was a direct snub to residents — and took to the dictionary to extract his revenge.

He chose the creative street names for the project and the Savo Brothers sued the borough president over them, arguing his clever wordplay was "vengeful and spiteful."

The city argued that the names chosen by the Savo Brothers were too similar to existing ones and could cause confusion for emergency workers. Judge Philip Minardo ruled Oddo's names would stick in February.  

"Whatever the goal [for the names] may have been, this court cannot change it," Minardo wrote in his decision.

"There is no apparent legislative authority or legal precedent which delineates the precise manner in which the Borough President assumed this power to name, nor as to how street names are chosen, although this court notes that the power appears to rest with the Office of the Borough President."

The Savo Brothers later filed an appeal against the names. A lawyer for the developers did not respond to questions on whether the permits change the status of that appeal.

Mayor Bill de Blasio promised protesters that he would reach out to the developers to see if they would sell the property to the city, but the developers said no.

Each of the permits call for about 2,385 square-feet for each home, which range from two-story houses to three-story one-family homes, some with two-car garages, according to DOB records.

The total project will take up 403,377 square-feet, according to the permits.