Statement of the Historic Districts Council before the
City Council
Regarding the Preliminary Fiscal Year 2005 Budget
As it pertains to the Landmarks Preservation Commission
March 23, 2004
The Historic Districts Council is the citywide advocate for New
York’s historic neighborhoods. We are an independent, nonprofit
agency which acts to encourage preservation of New York City’s
valuable historic resources, and to further the preservation ethic.
It is my pleasure to have this opportunity to speak on the Landmarks
Preservation Commission’s fiscal year 2005 budget, a matter
of utmost concern to all preservationists.
The Landmarks Commission is a very small agency
charging with a very large mandate - identifying, designating
and regulating the built forms of New York City’s heritage.
The LPC has an annual budget under $3.2 million and is responsible
for overseeing more than 2% of the real estate in New York City.
Although the staff does an astonishing job, especially given their
strained circumstances, frankly put, the agency is in dire need
of further resources and it is HDC’s hope that the City
Council will work towards attaining that goal. I am specifically
asking City Council to increase the LPC’s proposed budget
by $300,000 or approximately 10%. This might sound like a lot,
but in the greater scheme of New York City’s $46 billion
dollar budget, it is negligible. This small increase would greatly
add the agency and the citizens of New York whom it serves. For
clarity’s sake, I will address the broad categories of the
commission’s LPC’s duties and how they might be better
served by this budget increase.
Regulation
Although permit applications have remained constant
over the past 5 years (averaging around 7,900), the following
conditions have resulted in immense burdens on the LPC preservation
and enforcement staff.
1. The added enforcement of the Landmarks Law
– resulting in greater calls for legalizations and other
curative measures.
2. The greater number of expedited permits issued in two days
(over 10% of all permits issued in the last fiscal year).
3. The greater number of permits issued within 10 days –
a total of 46% of all permits issued (around 3,623 permits in
all).
The staff is currently at its lowest levels ever
– 17 staff members in the preservation department and that
includes the administrative help– and while the immense
volume of work may have only slightly increased in the past few
years, the speed of turnaround is numbing. LPC has quite rightly
worked to make the permitting process as efficient as possible
for the applicant, but the result has been a never-ending deluge
of work that over-burdens staff and has led to some avoidable
errors.
SOLUTION: More preservation staff are needed to
leaven the burden on the LPC. Currently, the starting salary of
a landmarks preservationist is less than $45,000. Even at $50,000
per additional preservationist, an additional three staff members
would only constitute an increase of 4% in the total budget and
would a 18% increase in staff. This would still mean that each
staff member was responsible for issuing around 400 permits a
year, but that is better than each issuing 471 annually.
Designation
The increased desire for landmark designation
– 271 requests in FY2003 – with the research staff
at remarkably low levels has led to situations whereupon properties
worthy of being designated are not being considered in a timely
fashion and the LPC is constantly racing to keep up with the bare
minimum of their mandate. Furthermore, the LPC’s Survey
Department has not existed since 1996, creating a staff deficiency
in an integral agency function.
SOLUTION: There are currently 4 fulltime staff
members in the research department. The burdens on them are such
that a district of 200 buildings is about the largest possible
to designate – making such districts as Greenwich Village,
Park Slope, SoHo, Douglaston, the Upper West Side and Riverdale
almost impossible to designate under current conditions, regardless
of community pressure. Increasing the research staff from 4 to
6 would cost a mere $100,000 (or approximately 3% of the annual
budget) and would greatly increase the capacity of the agency
to respond to the vast tracts of unprotected buildings in the
outlying boroughs. This is especially important as the Council,
responding to the intense community interest in stemming the tide
of overdevelopment that is destroying neighborhoods throughout
the five boroughs, is now contemplating various legislations to
protect historic buildings and will be relying on the LPC to support
these goals.
Enforcement
There is still only one inspector for the LPC
for over 23,000 properties. While some of the slack is taken up
over LPC staff on site visits, and interested community groups,
that single inspector is the only person who sends out Notices
of Violation to the Landmarks Law, in essence hobbling the prompt
enforcement of the Law. Since its formation over 6 years ago,
the enforcement department has never had more than one inspector.
This is a situation that Mayor Bloomberg called “absurd”
in a speech on the campaign trail in 2001, but still hasn’t
been fixed.
SOLUTION: In order to have an effective and efficient
landmarks law, enforcement needs to be increased. The civil fines
legislation of 1997 was a major step in empowering the LPC to
follow its mission, but due to under-funding has never been properly
implemented. Adding another inspector would double the enforcement
division - and has been a needed increase for years now.
Remunerative Fees
There continues to exist a proposal to institute
fees for landmarks permits. Although LPC has responded to the
vast public outcry against this proposal by raising the threshold
for sliding scale payments, this proposal is still bad public
policy in that it punishes the private homeowner for investing
in historic property. It is said that the American system teaches
its values through money – funding behavior we as a society
wish to encourage and fining behavior we wish to cease. This fee
proposal, however modified, implies that preservation is a privilege
to be paid for, rather than a virtue to be encouraged. It is a
wrong-headed plan and should be stricken from the agency’s
expected revenues. If new revenues need to be found, we suggest
that increased enforcement of the Civil Fines for violators be
sought. Our goal, as a society, should be to encourage investment
in our city’s historic neighborhoods – not tax it.
Return to Recent Testimony
