Demolition freeze may cover 80% of the city (NYC)

[chris08876]

Demolition freeze may cover 80% of the city

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer's bid to protect buildings over age 50 frightens developers, construction unions and housing activists.


A politician's proposal to protect the thousands of older buildings in New York that face demolition each year has triggered a backlash not just among powerful developers, but also among construction unions and advocates for affordable housing who fear the measure could drastically curb residential construction in the city.

The storm began on April 4 at a protest outside the stately, likely-to-be-razed Rizzoli bookstore on West 57th Street, when Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer pledged to do more to prevent such losses in the future. She offered to introduce a bill that would require a 30-day review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission of any demolition permit filed for a building over 50 years old. The measure would apply to nearly 80% of the city's structures and 91% of those in Manhattan, according to city data.
"We'll see what we end up with—it's possible we could go older than 50 years," Ms. Brewer allowed in a follow-up email responding to a question from Crain's. She said she has invited the Real Estate Board of New York and the Landmarks Conservancy to sit down with her and discuss the proposal, which is still being written.


Even extending the threshold age to 80 years, however, would still mean that the law would cover more than half the buildings in the city—and going back a century would still put more than half of Manhattan's properties in the group to be reviewed. Automatically bringing that many buildings under the purview of Landmarks, which would have the power to halt construction, has members of the development community—including Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress—worried. He notes many buildings with zero historical significance would be brought into the fold, potentially slowing down one of the city's key economic engines—construction.

"Generally, replacement buildings are an improvement, but if an existing structure should be considered a landmark, we have a process for that," Mr. Anderson said. "To put everything under a blanket review—I don't see the basis to do that."

AGING STRUCTURES

Number of buildings constructed before 1965, and percentage of total buildings
New York City
654,420 (80%)
Manhattan
37,157 (91%)
Brooklyn
233,828 (88%)
Queens
272,020 (87%)
Bronx
66,190 (79%)
Staten Island
45,225 (40%)
Source: NYC Department of Finance

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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...80-of-the-city
April 14, 2014

[Rizzo]

Developers and trades are outraged by a 30 day (or less) landmarks review? Please. The planning and permit phase takes time anyways so how is a concurrent review process actually going to impact time and money significantly.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Hayward

Developers and trades are outraged by a 30 day (or less) landmarks review? Please. The planning and permit phase takes time anyways so how is a concurrent review process actually going to impact time and money significantly.

Obviously yes they would be outraged. It would eliminate as of right development in 80% of NYC. That would change everything. Basically land values would evaporate overnight, because no one would have any clue what they could do with the land.

But this isn't really even worth a news article. The bill is one of hundreds of bills proposed annually by NYC city council, and has zero chance of reaching a vote. Stuff like this is announced to score points with narrow political constituencies.

[mrnyc]

well thats overly dramatic, but the title of the article is terrible, it almost makes it sound like a done deal when in fact its nowhere near that. i would expect this of say, the post, but not crains. it should have said demo review proposed or something.

[mhays]

Uncertainty is a big deal for a developer.

And WTF, 1965? You could extend that by 20 years and miss very little of value. Just a bunch of midcentury crap.

[niwell]

If this came to pass I'd be interested to know if the Landmarks Preservation Commission would have even close to the capacity to review all applications. I'd imagine that would be a huge increase in service to what they currently do. While on paper it seems like a decent idea, if 30 day reviews were turning into year long backlogs (not that uncommon for planning applications) that would be problematic.

As mhays said, uncertainty is a huge deal to a developer.