A bill making its way through the City Council would impose deadlines on the 50-year-old Landmarks Preservation Commission in regards to designating landmarks and historic districts. While its sponsor says the bill is supposed to make things more efficient and help the commission deal with its backlog, advocates are concerned that it would hamstring the LPC, and eliminate dozens of items that are being considered as landmarks.
Intro. 775, authored by Queens Councilman Member Peter Koo and Brooklyn Councilman David Greenfield, would impose deadlines on this process. For individual and interior landmarks, the commission would have 180 days to hold a public hearing once an item is calendared and then another 180 days to take action (vote to designate or vote not to designate) once the public hearing is held. For historic districts, it would be one year from calendaring to public hearing and then another year from hearing to designation vote.
The bill, which goes before the council on September 9, also aims to deal with the nearly 100 items (94 buildings and two districts) backlogged at the LPC. Eighty-five percent of these items have been calendared for more than 20 years. Earlier this year, the LPC had proposed de-calendaring all of the backlogged items, but, unsurprisingly, that was met with much public disdain. Instead, the commission backed off and devised a schedule to deal with those items at public hearings organized by borough. The bill would give the LPC 18 months to deal with the entire backlog, but any backlogged items not addressed during that time period would be automatically de-calendared.
There's one more provision in the bill. If the commission fails to designate an item, be it a landmark or a historic district, the property in question would be barred from reconsideration for five years.
5 comments:
I think that its great shame to Queens that Koo is one of the sponsors.
We call upon Queens Historical Society, Jack Eichenbaum, the Queens Historian, and Mitchel Grubler, and whatever that committee he chairs that purports to do whatever it does that is supposed to represent us, to come out against this publicly, and furthermore, to write a public letter to every councilman from Queens on this issue.
Furthermore, we should expect every councilperson in Queens to make a public statement, as well as Melinda Katz and Neyelli Tennent her cultural whatever.
These people do not represent our communities and their silence brings great embarrassment to our borough.
Do not trust Councilman Koo Koo for anything.
They are out to gut the Landmarks Kaw , once again.
REBNY is behind this, you can bet!
No one trusts Koo and you are stating the obvious - which leaves us nowhere.
We have to be proactive.
People that are in the positions of responsibility must exercise that responsibility to benefit the people of Queens or suffer the indignity of loss of respect or authority from the same.
If they do nothing then we must make it a point of throwing this in their face until they are replaced by people that actually serve the interests of the people of Queens.
The authority is self-appointed anyway. No loss to us as they do little for us in the first place.
Got this in from Historic District Council:
In July, a group of elected officials including several State Senators, City Council Members and the Manhattan Borough President wrote to Commissioner Carl Weisbrod, Chair of the Department of City Planning, to express community concern over excessively tall new construction in Midtown. Of specific concern is the slew of “super tall” residential buildings now rising or slated for construction along 57th Street. The letter is an excellent catalogue of the potential ill effects of so much high-rise construction. Issues like the casting of long shadows over the great public amenity of Central Park for the benefit of a few ultra-wealthy high-rise dwellers to increased density and congestion on neighborhood streets are raised in the letter.
My question is why is this unthinkable in Queens? Why are we putting up with representatives who tell us something like this is impossible.
Or should I say lie to us....
Oh....and how do we become "proactive" by donning prophylactics?
All of the hysterical societies from QHS,...supposedlly the borough wide org...GAHS the western group...onto the east should be making public statements regarding this. Surely they can do as little as that. Nobody expects these mealy mouthed groups to become fully "proactive".
Post a Comment