When the LPC meets on Tuesday it will likely vote to calendar the Phase II extension of the existing Crown Heights North Landmark District. When the commission surveyed the area, back in the 1970s, they identified nearly 1900 buildings that deserved landmarking. In 2006 the first 400-some buildings were protected. Now, over the next few years LPC will extend the district in Phases. The LPC has been a little vague in how long the process will take and in how many phases - I guess that affords them some flexibility. The vote on Tuesday will likely be a close session but they will schedule a public forum to discuss the extension sometime in the next few months. I invite you, and anyone interested in preservation, to attend to urge landmarking of this and other phase extensions of this district!

Posted by: Laudanum at June 21, 2009 8:51 PM in response to Crown Heights Historic District

Be careful what you wish for!!! While avoiding awful, out of scale building and developments is a good thing - once your district is landmark all home owners will be very limited to what they can do with their homes...keep in mind that there is great design out there that marries "old and new." Well, new and innovative, including the use of sustainable, green products may be not be allowed. And, for those of you are thinking of creating a roof deck and bulk head one day - BEWARE...it just cost a client of ours over 6000.00 in consultant fees and serious butchering of the design not to mention 3 months of time to get it approved...

Posted by: triciaely at June 22, 2009 9:19 AM in response to Crown Heights Historic District

triciaely- landmarking stabilizes values and while your client may have had to pay more to get a design approved, we've all seen "new and innovative" which usually translates into grotesquely out of sync with a historic neighborhood. What is a minor inconvenience to your client could very well have been a nightmare for everyone else. Sorry- no sympathy from me. And for the record, the LPC supports green solutions and is all for good design that uses it.

Posted by: bxgrl at June 22, 2009 1:04 PM in response to Crown Heights Historic District

Landmarking is obviously not without its drawbacks but unfortunately, Triciaely, we don't live in a world where property owners hire talented architects who can marry old and new. It seems that most owners appear not to use architects at all and are happy to ruin the streetscape and destroy neighbors' views, air and light. I live in Prospect Heights. Across the street from me is a 3-now-4.5-story house with a vertical extension that looks like a Southern California bungalow was dropped by helicopter on top of the existing brownstone. It's especially unforgiveable because it's adjacent to a 4-story brownstone so the new construction could easily have been aligned to match its neighbor. Then behind me, another 3-story brownstone is being turned into a 5-story house with a 20ft rear extension as well and balconies on every floor! On Park Place, a beautiful old house with a gracious porch was torn down and replaced with a fedders apt building. On St Marks, an original woodframe farmhouse dating probably to the 1840s or 1850s was torn down. And on Bergen, two 19th century brick carriage house buildings had a date with the wreckers ball a couple of years ago. The apt building that replaced them was so shoddily constructed it created a subsidence emmergency that had the DOB evacuating homeowners on St Mark's Ave. It's still empty, awaiting a C of O. So bring on landmarking!

Posted by: grand army at June 22, 2009 1:09 PM in response to Crown Heights Historic District