Crown Heights North on LPC Agenda Today
With the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting today to consider designating the area known as Crown Heights North, the New York Sun reports that, not unexpectedly, there is a mix of reaction within the community. “We believe we are just as worthy as Park Slope, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Stuyvesant Heights,” said Deborah Young, a…
With the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting today to consider designating the area known as Crown Heights North, the New York Sun reports that, not unexpectedly, there is a mix of reaction within the community. “We believe we are just as worthy as Park Slope, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Stuyvesant Heights,” said Deborah Young, a homeowner who was led the effort to ressurrect a 1978 LPC study on the area’s architectural importance. Politically, Borough President Marty Markowitz is strongly in favor–and the addition would also help address recent accusations that LPC has been far too Manhattan-centric. Still, while some long-time homeowners like the idea of “preventing speculators coming in and tearing stuff down and building something out of character,” some also worry about those renters living on a fixed income who will be hurt by the upward trend in prices that often follows an historic designation. As for us, we can’t think of an unprotected area more in need of protection.
CHN Designation Would Worry Some [NY Sun]
Personally, I’m excited about the protection that landmark status will provide to the wonderful architecture that surrounds CHN. I wish it would have come sooner for the farm house on Bergen bet. NY & BK which was razed to build the row of burgundy houses. Now that’s a tragedy!
I think that the homeowner/renter who opposes landmark status is due to lack of knowledge; instead of listening to the opinions and half-truths of others, they need to come out to the CHNA meetings and hear the issue for themselves.
Ah- CHP is in the house! Welcome back!
Well, as a renter I don’t see where landmark status will necessarily drive anyone out. First of all, anon at 9:57- the renters you so summarily dismiss are the ones who help many a homeowner able to afford that landmarked house. True, landlords want to get the best price for their rentals- certainly understandable. But I think very few of them are so interested in squeezing a renter dry as you seem to be.
Secondly, landmarking, as CHP points out, will open up financial assistance and opportunities to people who may not be able to maintain the house they’ve owned for years because they didn’t have the money. CHNA’s impetus is protecting the people of this neghborhood who most need it, as well as ensuring that it stays beautiful and desirable.
Thirdly- it protects the neighborhood. First from greedy developers. It also puts a damper on declaring eminent domain on a homeowner just because a developer wants to ratnerize.
So thanks for all your concern for us poor downtrodden renters, anons at 9:57 and 11:30 but I would say get a different soapbox. I hardly want the likes of you claiming to speak for me.
thanks, chp. i agree, community groups getting more support in under-served neigborhoods like crown heights is always a good thing. never mind the trollocks…
Landmark status does not automatically mean that CHN is going to turn into Park Slope overnight. (Hopefully never, actually) There are too many other factors in the mix, including the state of real estate in general, and Brooklyn, specifically. And not to mention the general economy, and the local economy in the nabe, which is well below the city average. As I said before, this protects what we have BEFORE we end up with the building messes so often described here that take place in Bed Stuy. We are being pro-active for a change. Landmarking provides protection to an area, and announces to the world that a specific neighborhood, or group of buildings is architectually and historically worthy of attention and protection. This is of value to everyone in the community.
Throwing little old ladies and their rents into the mix is disengenuous and a smokescreen, and is only thrown up by my hate club to get me riled up. The people in CHNA, including myself, are doing all we can to insure that housing stays affordable, especially to senior citizens, and that help is available to anyone who may need to navigate the city beaurocracies, including Landmarks.
Landmark status may help give many different kinds of community groups a step up in status in getting programs and money for the community, as furthur preservation of our peoples and histories is part of what makes a Landmarked area a good thing. We are all concerned in much more than the architecture.
Anons 11:30 and 11:44 could give a damn about little old ladies’ or anyone else’s rents, or Crown Heights, or any other social concern. Their sole purpose for being seems to be keeping track of what I write, and calling me out whenever possible. I’m so flattered to have biographers so early in my literary career.
just out of curiosity (honestly, not trying to start WW3 here), but is there any precedent for an area getting landmark designation and prices NOT going up? everyone seems to think that it’s a foregone conclusion that little old ladies with fixed incomes are going to get kicked out in droves from their rentals in CHN when it gets landmarked. what if the crashing/bursting/slowly-deflating housing market simultaneously pushes real estate values way way down? couldn’t that mean that the invading forces of gentrification would come to a standstill and people who already own there would just sit tight and get nice little grants from the city every once in a while to get the facades of their townhomes restored to their original glory?
don’t nobody talk no mess bout CHP. That’s my girl. Brilliant and beautiful, as always.
Shame on those concerned about the price of living. Everyone knows that architectural integrity is more important than affordability.
Once again, CHP shows a contrast between thought and behavior. Not content with renting her unit at market rate (while chastising developers for doing doing the same thing), she now tells those concerned about rents and home owneships costs that their pain is a price that must be paid. Lovely.
I know I just got back into town, and am a little bleary, but what do the above comments have to do with landmarking in Crown Heights?
I wanted to go to the hearing this morning, work interrupts life, but I know Debra Young, and the other members of Crown Heights North Association are representing. I fully understand older(and younger) homeowner’s concerns that repairs and paperwork will be more expensive and a pain in the butt, but as homeowners on Lefferts Place, Victorian Flatbush, Bed Stuy know, unprotected and non-landmarked areas are prime targets for rapacious development, land grabbing and fugly cheap construction. Keeping the beauty and community pride of Crown Heights North intact is worth the price.
The Times Union from New York. “The housing boom ended more than a year ago, but sellers are having a tough time accepting that fact, says David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. The result has been tumbling sales as buyers stay on the sidelines.â€