Sunday, April 6, 2014

Brewer introducing landmarking lifeline

From Crains:

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer plans to introduce legislation that would require the city Landmarks Preservation Commission to consider any building older than 50 years for review, whenever a developer files permits to demolish it, she announced Friday.

The proposed legislation would require the commission to take 30 days for public review before deciding whether or not to consider a building for landmark status. Separately, it would also codify a provision that prohibits owners of buildings under consideration for such protected status from gaining demolition permits.

Ms. Brewer announced the legislation at a news conference along West 57 Street, where developers are currently building some of the city’s tallest towers, including Extell Development’s One57 and JDS Development’s super-thin tower nearby.


On a related note, I found this flyer in Midtown this past week:

5 comments:

Mike Francesa said...

Is she upping the budget for the landmarks preservation commission? How are they going to deal with the increased workload? Or is that the idea, indiscriminate delays to kill jobs in NYC?

Once reviewed by the landmarks commission it should be ineligible for review for some period of time, five years at least. That way a building owner can clear through at least some of the red tape and offer any potential buyers a degree of certainty that they'll be able to do something with the property.

Anonymous said...

Crappy, you should cover what is going on in Manhattan to let us know what has been suspected for some time: we are two cities, and the certitudes that our local press and politicians tell us is very different from the reality in other communities.

It is the only way we can break the strangle-hold on information.

Good work on this post!

Anonymous said...

they should have done this a long time ago when certain realty companies in Astoria were destroying landmark buildings --

Anonymous said...

30 days is not an indiscriminate delay.

Anonymous said...

30 days is absolutely an indiscriminate delay. you're talking about 90% of the buildings in new york when you say older than 50 years old.

you understand that people have mortgages and financial commitments, right? you understand that construction encompasses so much more than developers knocking down penn station to build the garden, right? you understand that construction in NYC costs like 30% more than anywhere in the country because of bullshit like this, right?

does every matthews model flat seriously need LPC approval? what about every single family house? any light fixture? where does it stop?

fuck it, any demolition at all needs LPC approval and we can pay for all the review on the backs of the middle class instead of the developers. enjoy your 11% city tax, cause you asked for it.

try listening to yourself before you speak.