LPC Chair resigns

From the NY Times:

The chairwoman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission announced on Thursday that she was stepping down from her post, after nearly four years of a sometimes tumultuous stewardship.

The chairwoman, Meenakshi Srinivasan, had faced fierce opposition to a set of proposed rule changes that critics said would weaken protections for historic buildings in New York City.

Those changes would, among other things, put the commission staff in charge of some types of landmarks decisions. Critics said that would remove decisions from public view and eliminate the chance for public comment.

At a commission hearing on March 27, an overwhelming majority of speakers voiced opposition to those rules; at least one speaker at the hearing called for the removal of the chairwoman, to loud applause.

LPC releases plan to address backlog of calendared sites

After Public Comment Period, Agency to Hold Special Hearings for 95 Sites

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has released a plan to address the agency’s backlog of buildings and sites that were under consideration for designation and were not acted upon, many of which have been on the Commission’s calendar since the 1960s. The backlog includes 95 properties that were placed on the Commission’s calendar prior to 2010, of which 85 percent were calendared 20 or more years ago. Backlog95 is a plan which allows public review and comment on the backlog properties, and which includes an efficient public hearing process that will ensure timely Commission decisions regarding the backlog items.

In response to the Commission’s request for input regarding the backlog properties with a comment period ending on May 1, 2015, the agency received over 200 responses on how the backlog of calendared sites should be addressed. The Commission has considered feedback from a wide cross-section of stakeholders— including preservationists, architects, developers, community boards, property owners and elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer— to establish a plan that addresses the backlog efficiently with input from the public on the 95 sites.
The plan includes three phases: (1) a Public Review Period; (2) Special Hearings dedicated to Backlog Items; and (3) Public Meetings for Commission Decisions. The Commission projects that the backlog of calendared items, most of which date to the 1960s and 70s, will be resolved by the end of 2016.
Details of the Backlog95 Initiative can be accessed on the LPC website.

“Last fiscal year, the Commission designated over 2,000 buildings and sites throughout the city in record timeframes, and I hope to extend this level of efficiency to every aspect of the agency,” said Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan. “In that spirit, we are focused on addressing this backlog of properties that, for decades, have been languishing on the Commission’s calendar, creating uncertainty for both property owners and the preservation community. We have received considerable feedback, and have formulated a plan that will ensure fairness and transparency, while allowing significant public input.”

Public Review Period
In order to encourage informed testimony, beginning July 8, 2015, there will be a minimum three-month review period, during which interested parties can review background materials, available for download on the LPC website, on the backlog items. Background materials include fact sheets with maps and summaries of each property, and 15,000 pages of publicly accessible portions of LPC research files, which provide available information on the history of each property. Throughout this period (and through to one week after the special hearings), the public is welcome to submit written statements to backlog95@lpc.nyc.gov, which will be entered into the record and distributed to LPC Commissioners.

Special Public Hearings Dedicated to Backlog Items
The Commission will hold four special hearings on October 8, October 22, November 5 and November 12, 2015. The hearings will be organized by borough and grouped by Community Districts, with roughly 5 to 12 items per group.

Subsequent Decisions
At public meetings, to take place in early 2016, staff will present summaries of the testimony and written submissions for each item. At that time, Commissioners will consider:

1. Prioritizing designation for some items (by December 2016); or
2. Removing from the calendar by voting not to designate; or
3. Removing from the calendar by issuing a no action letter.

A no-action letter is an administrative process that allows items to be taken off the calendar without prejudice, and with no judgment on the merits for designation. Such items could be brought forward at a later time for designation. Denying designation is based on the merits of the property – for example, a property may be heavily altered or found to lack the significance to merit landmark designation.

LPC has new procedure for reducing calendar backlog

From the Wall Street Journal:

Public hearings for each application are now to be held this fall, and final decisions on most of the historic properties are due by the end of next year.

“We have received considerable feedback regarding the backlog, and have formulated a plan that will ensure fairness and transparency, and allow significant public input,” Ms. Srinivasan said.

Many of the long-forgotten potential landmarks had continued to stir passions—by those who wanted them saved and others who didn’t—and the commission’s new backlog plan drew applause from both the real-estate industry and the preservation community.

“We will be there,” said Tara Kelly, executive director of the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, pressing for historic designation of a 19th- century wood-frame farm house at 412 E. 85th St.

The Real Estate Board of New York, an industry group that often has testified against what it has characterized as overbroad landmark proposals, said it welcomed the commission’s “efforts to provide greater clarity and increased transparency.”

After the initial uproar in December over the commission’s first backlog plan, Ms. Srinivasan delayed action. She set aside a three-month comment period, during which the commission received 200 comments. Most called for hearings on each landmark.

After the hearings, the commission plans to review the testimony given at the individual landmark hearings, draft designation reports and in most cases vote each item up or down.

A third option would be to issue a so-called no-action letter, removing an item from the commission’s calendar, but allow supporters to reapply in the future.

Koo doing LPC chair's dirty work

From the Queens Chronicle:

City Councilman Peter Koo (D-Fushing), chairman of the Landmarks Committee, has introduced a reform bill that will reduce the time it takes for the Landmarks Preservation Commission to consider potential sites.

The legislation (Int. 775) imposes a timeline on the designation of landmarks and historic districts.

“Landmarking in New York City is an arduous process that has kept many properties in a state of perpetual limbo, unable to reap the benefits of an actual landmark designation,” Koo said. “Since the creation of the landmarks law 50 years ago, many potential landmarks have languished on the LPC calendar for as long as 49 years with no end in sight.”

He called that inaction “unacceptable.” The legislation would give the LPC 18 months to clear that backlog.

You may recall that last year when the LPC chair announced that she was clearing up the backlog there was a shitstorm and she backed down. So she found a stooge to do this for her.

A warning from Landmark West!

Landmarking advocates vs. real estate interests

From Crains:

Major players on both sides of the long-running debate over the future of landmarking in New York City repeatedly butted heads at a forum Tuesday morning, but on one thing they surprisingly agreed: The landmarking process itself is in sore need for reform and improvement.

For decades the city's development community has complained about a range of issues regarding the city Landmarks Preservation Commission's operations, including an extreme lack of certainty about timeframes of the decision-making process—some items have been under consideration for decades—as well as the commission's criteria for either designating a building or a district as historic. But since the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has focused on increased housing development—particularly the affordable variety—that process has come under heightened scrutiny. It comes as the mayor's choice to chair the commission, Meenakshi Srinivan, is about to take over the commission, and perhaps suggest changes of her own.

But other than a common desire to make some fixes to the commission, including possibly paying its volunteer commissioners in order to bring a higher degree of professionalism, the forum was largely dominated by drastically different viewpoints.

Ms. Breen and the Municipal Art Society's Ronda Wist argued that far from hindering the city's economic advancement, landmarking is a plus not just for drawing tourists but also new hi-tech firms. Both noted that older, quirky buildings not modern glass-box office buildings are in high demand from young tech companies and their employees.

On the other side, Mr. Spinola along with Kenneth Jackson, a long-time professor of New York history and social science at Columbia University, as well as Nikolai Fedak, founder and editor of New York YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard), argued that landmarking can stifle development and economic growth. Mr. Spinola also noted a recent REBNY-commissioned study that concluded that aggressive landmarking was hurting housing development. Among other things, that report found that in the last decade in Manhattan a total of just five units of affordable housing had been constructed in landmarked districts.

BSA chair is now head of LPC

Photo from Pardon Me For Asking

From Wall Street Journal:

Mayor Bill de Blasio is set to nominate an urban planner to guide the Landmarks Preservation Commission, as the 49-year-old agency attempts to balance the mayor's pro-development agenda with its mandate of preserving New York's built history.

The mayor has chosen Meenakshi Srinivasan, who for the last decade has been chairwoman of the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals, an agency that makes often highly technical decisions about granting exemptions to zoning for individual lots, according to city officials. Ms. Srinivasan also spent 14 years at the Department of City Planning.

The nomination is set to be announced Friday. It still needs City Council approval.

The selection of Ms. Srinivasan signals a desire by the administration to have the commission be more in tune with planning concerns. That includes the mayor's pledge to promote new development around the city as a way to create both affordable housing and jobs.

Ms. Srinivasan, a native of India, is an architect.