VOCAL Neighbors

The Pro-Landmarking Position, Dee has a few points to ponder

Yesterday, I asked Alderman Daley what purpose landmarking (whether district-wide or block-by-block) served. Here is what the response came down to:

Alderman Daley has had a very positive experience living in Old Town, which is itself landmarked. Mid-North is landmarked. Lincoln Park is now a nice neighborhood, so why not landmark it too? No disaster befell the commercial property owners after Armitage and Halsted was landmarked.

People are concerned about preserving the "neighborhood character." This essentially consists of keeping older homes, and not seeing big new ones, which are referred to disparagingly as the McMansion phenomenon. (A misnomer, actually, as McMansion usually refers to a big house that uses sloppy cheap construction. Last time I checked, the large homes being built in the neighborhood were not being done on the cheap. Also, whether we should disparage McDonalds in that way in the first instance can be debated, as my McDonalds meal yesterday was pretty good on a tastiness-per-dollar value, but we can do without that digression).

According to the Alderman, the only way to build the big houses that really tick a certain noisy few off is the owners use multiple lots. There is no way to keep people from assembling multiple lots to build homes. Landmarking is a tool available to stop tear-downs, which will help to prevent people from assembling the multiple lots needed to build the bigger homes.

They claim that zoning cannot control this. I have my doubts (given the availability of height restrictions, surface area restrictions, green space requirements, etc.), and if there is anyone out there with more experience on this point, I would appreciate greater details.

But let's take their argument at face value.

It essentially boils down to, some people don't want to see bigger homes being built in the neighborhood.

Is that really what landmarking is designed for?

Is that a sufficient excuse to justify permanently encumbering the property on an entire city block?

If it is purely the age of the building that matters (and we can debate whether a building's age means it has historical significance), will we really be able to keep more of the older buildings if the Landmarks process makes it twice as expensive for their owners to maintain them, and adds a new layer of permit-based bureaucracy to boot?

Was the neighborhood character better or worse 30 years ago, when there were a lot more old buildings, but no-one wanted to really live in them?

[On this point in particular, since someone raised the Burling street objection last night: Has anyone seen pictures of what some sections of Burling street looked like 20 years ago? It is precisely because no-one wanted to live on Burling street south of Armitage that the larger homes were able to be built. (Oh, and BTW - most people do not know that that particular stretch of Burling and Orchard received special zoning exemptions to encourage building on those streets, because the situation was not very ideal there; they thus have the right to build taller buildings, have a greater area taken up with building bulk, etc. etc. that does NOT apply to the blocks presently under landmark consideration. In other words, you couldn't build some of the Burling-sized houses a few blocks over on Fremont or Bissell even if you tried...)].

Does the aesthetic objection to a bigger home on your block get weighed against the benefits of the increased property tax revenue (30-40K for most of the new large single family homes)? Where will that tax revenue be made up, if not from the newer homes?

I suppose that leads me to what has bugged me personally about this whole process. (I'm speaking individually, not on behalf of all VOCAL members when I say this).

If it is a question of aesthetics, I'm sorry, but I think that it is rather arrogant of someone to say that their sense of aesthetics for a piece of property that they do not own should trump the person paying the mortgage on the property. Which is why if someone wants to preserve their old building, they should be encouraged to do so. It would be fantastic if the City came up with some real tax breaks for the people who do that, because as far as I can tell, it represents a labor of love.

But is it really my place to tell someone that the City bureaucrats should force them to undertake that burden?

For someone who may have bought their old home for $50,000 back in 1960, and is counting on selling their old property at a high cost to a developer, using the monetary appreciation to fund their retirement, can I in good conscience tell them that I think they should suck up a hundred-thousand-dollar plus hit (or more) so that I can continue to admire the colors in their first-floor leaded glass window when I walk past? Is it even worth it to my family's home investment in the neighborhood to take a cut in future appreciation for that same purpose?

Is the character of our neighborhood really so shallow as a compilation of building facades?

Or is it the people who live here and expectation of continued growth and prosperity that give us a flourishing community? We are lucky to have a mix of young and old, families and singles, long-term residents and new. A whole range of income groups. Isn't that what makes our neighborhood so enjoyable and dynamic?

If it is the character of the neighborhood that we are interested in preserving, wouldn't our efforts be better focused on getting real tax relief for long-term residents, so that they do not get priced out of their homes via ever-increasing property tax bills?

If it is the character of the neighborhood that we are interested in preserving, wouldn't it be nice to see these types of efforts put towards improving the local school systems, so that we don't lose young families to the suburbs?

If it is the character of the neighborhood that we wish to preserve, why do we think that unelected city bureaucrats, with no financial stake in our homes, will do a better job making the "preservation" decisions than our neighbors who live here?

I have yet to hear a pro-Landmarking person address these questions.

I invite them to do so. If you are pro-landmarking, or know someone who is, have them send in their position, and I promise to post it (assuming the tone is civil; I don't want inflammatory invective). Diane Levin, Don Higgins, or one of you folks who has put a pro-landmark poster in your window, I hope that you are reading this site and respond.

Cheers,
Dee

posted by The Grants @ 8:39 AM