Quote:
Originally Posted by jc5680
The city isn't doing anything as far as I know - they are the responsibility of the building owners. There are some recent reforms enacted by the city that makes maintaining them more expensive though.
Our building is currently faced with spending 25k to remove it or 50k+ to fix.
That leaves building owners with the prospect of potential special assessments for something that doesn't currently serve a function - or in our case trying to raise funds elsewhere:
https://www.gofundme.com/zf4bxg5e
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I don't think any were individually landmarked, but Daley loved them and on any landmarked building they were considered a defacto part of the historic fabric and all water tanks in the city were considered potential landmarks and any permit to remove them had to undergo landmarks PRC scrutiny.
But in general they have been an out of sight, out of mind item in terms of building maintenance and they suffered for it.
After the Brewster collapse increased inspections, this became obvious.
Other high profile issues like the Swedish museum splashed even more egg on the face of the DOB and in may of 2014 the portion of the code treating them as potential landmarks was struck.
A couple of months later the Donahue Building in the Printers Row district applied to demolish theirs and Landmarks reversed their previous stance saying:
"Moving forward, unless water tanks are specifically addressed in the landmark designation ordinance for a specific property or district, Historic Preservation staff shall review and approve the applications for their removal without further review and decision of the Permit Review Committee or the Commission."