Tales of the LPC v.27Oct2020
If you’re a historic preservation enthusiast, want to become involved in your local government, curious about what’s happening to a building in your neighborhood, or all of the above (like moi!), then attending the local Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting might be of interest to you!
A Landmarks Preservation Commission
What is a preservation commission?
A quasi-judicial branch of your local government.
How does one become a member?
Typically, the mayor or county official appoints the members, sometimes seven, sometimes nine. If you’re interested in participating, keep a look out for announcements in locations such as city/county job postings, their social media. Members tend to be architects, engineers, urban planners, contractors. Some have positions specifically for young professionals.
What are their primary duties?
They hold public hearings to do the following:
Landmark. Designate a building, structure, landscape in your city/county/etc. as a city/county landmark. Please note: landmarking does not save a building from demolition.
Certificate of Appropriateness. Approve changes to said landmark via a document called a Certificate of Appropriateness. Most jurisdictions require this CoA for a building permit which they require for a variety of construction.
How do they evaluate properties for landmark status or for CoAs?
Since they are quasi-judicial, their evaluation criteria is from the rules and bylaws of the city/county/government. Most incorporate the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, written by the National Park Service.
In my neck of the woods, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission holds their meetings via Zoom and YouTube on Tuesdays. Check their website for the exact meeting details.
Through this blog, I plan on providing my take on the activity. To be expected in the largest US city, things get juicy for the preservation nerds out there.
First up, the meeting that closed October on Oct. 27, 2020!
There were many highlights in this five to six-hour meeting:
Is it Worth It, Worth Saving? Thank you Missy Elliott … Public meetings / design charrettes survey the public on their thoughts on proposed changes in their neighborhoods / boroughs such as renovations to their local courthouse plaza. In these meetings, how much detail do the presenters (sometimes local government, sometimes architects/planners, sometimes both) give the public about the history of the place? What do they include? What do they omit? How does the selection of history affect the public’s buy-in to change? Case in point, item one on the docket, NY State Supreme Court House in Queens. The planned renovation of the brick plaza in front of the Neoclassical or Beaux Arts national landmark, built 1874 and remodeled in 1904, involves the demolition of the existing fountain. To keep or not to keep the fountain was a central point of deliberation by LPC. Difficulty in maintaining the fountain is the rationale that Parks gave for not including it in the new grass-filled plaza. Watch the hearing by clicking here.
Windows, aka “the Eyes of a Building’s Soul”, Replacement. The number of hearings the LPC reviews that are solely about windows or where windows are a component of the overall renovation is quite a few. I counted about three out of eight total hearings where renovations featured windows. Of note was the replacement of 10-year old Marvin Ultimate replacement windows. The owner proposed replacing the windows because of air leakage and energy performance issues, as stated by the architect. Watch the hearing here.
Oh, how do you solve a problem like existing woooood doooors? Not so much a “problem,” by catchy a la The Sound of Music ... Well, the architects and team at Spacesmith added a pocket on either side of the existing frame at 706 Madison Ave, Manhattan - so creative, so impressive, SO COOL! With this ingenious approach, they respond to a critique from a previous hearing to keep the existing exterior doors and the new full-glass doors, by sliding the existing doors into the pockets at night when the employees secure the store at night. Preservation is a compromise and in this case, it was at a minimum impact to existing components. Watch the hearing by clicking here.
Affordable Housing & Landmarks - an Odd Couple? The LPC day of deliberations concluded with what one Commissioner phrased as a “delicious problem” - the construction of affordable housing next to a historic church. The congregation at St. James Church Fordham in the Bronx plan to capitalize on their adjacent tree-filled lot by developing it into affordable housing. The proposed plan would bring a nine-story, multi-family building adjacent to the one-story, landmark church. The building would be one of the, if not the tallest building in the borough at its time of completion. Thus, the Commissioners discussed reducing the height above the adjacent breezeway, in an attempt to not overwhelm the modest landmark. Their suggestion:
Remove 10 units above the breezeway* for historic preservation, thus creating a large buffer between the landmark and the new multi-family tower. *Note: The breezeway is a buffer at the sidewalk level that is acceptable to the Commissioners.
The 10 units above the breezeway in question are in the dashed rectangle, added for clarification.
In response to the buffer at the ninth story level, a representative from the developer, Concern Housing Partners, explained the challenges with this modification:
the restoration of the church is an estimated seven-figures.
reducing the height of the multi-family tower would increase the construction cost of each unit to half a million per unit. This cost increase, they predict, would be above what the state of NY is willing to pay for each affordable housing unit. (It would eviscerate the pro forma.)
without a CoA, the developer cannot receive a construction permit, causing delays in schedule, and a potential threat to funding for the project. What’s at stake is a project that would bring not only affordable housing, but housing for veterans, and food for those in need, to an area of the city that needs it the most.
Overall, a historic preservation intervention to create a larger buffer between the landmark and its adjacent addition would reduce the number of affordable housing units, and thus position the total development project at risk of failure.
With the above stated risk, some Commissioners believed it, affordable housing, placed undue pressure on the Commission to approve the CoA, lest they be viewed by others as being in opposition to affordable housing. Several Commissioners believed that it was not the job of the Commission to, as one Commissioner stated, “get mired in the social issues,” but to focus on historic preservation when approving a project for a Certificate of Appropriateness. As one Commissioner quipped, “just because this is the Bronx doesn’t mean we should not focus on historic preservation like in other neighborhoods.” Yes, a valid point - every neighborhood deserves a lens of historic preservation applied to their projects. In the past and present, it is a standard of care afforded only to properties of high style, associated with predominantly White, cis-gendered, able-bodied sites and neighborhoods.
The Commission and historic preservation professionals, must apply the tenets of historic preservation to alterations. The universally accepted and enforced tenet, per the bylaws of most Commissions are the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, 2017, published by the National Park Service, which state that they do not recommend, among many things:
“Constructing a new addition on or adjacent to a primary elevation of the building which negatively impacts the building’s historic character.
Constructing a new addition that is as large as or larger than the historic building, which visually overwhelms it (i.e., results in the diminution or loss of its historic character.”
Yet, the question at hand: Does the LPC get a pass on the “social issues” when evaluating the appropriateness of modifications to a landmark or adjacent to a landmark? In neighborhoods like the Bronx, that need more affordable housing, and development that does not displace the current residents, i.e., mindful gentrification, the preservation community, developers, designers, etc., must consider not only historic preservation, but also the constraints that are in fact opportunities of the site, which include the social issues like providing affordable housing. When looking through a lens of equity in preservation at a landmark in the Bronx, and other neighborhoods / boroughs, there is a pressing socio-economic need that the city, as a whole, must address, through affordable housing and other means. It’s an “all hands on deck” situation.
SPOILER ALERT: It was back to the drawing board for St. James Church and their development team, to work on massing and sizing, that is appropriate for the site. Which left everyone wondering, “Is any building appropriate on this site?” To be continued …
Watch the hearing by clicking here.