With less than 18 months left in Mayor Bloomberg‘s final term, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is in a race against the clock to approve historic designations for more than 1,000 buildings.
The number of proposed designations includes a planned new historic district in Prospect Heights with 860 of the buildings.
Last year, only 369 buildings were approved citywide.
“The clock is ticking, and we’re trying to do as much as possible while we have the momentum and the resources,” said Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Robert Tierney.
“I’m not sure ‘urgent’ is the right word, but there is a sense that we have to move ahead.”
It’s just the first month of the current fiscal year, but Landmarks officials already have their eyes on two other new historic districts:
* Alice and Agate Courts in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The district comprises 40 late-19th-century homes on two cul-de-sacs off of Atlantic Avenue.
* Ridgewood, Queens, where roughly 100 buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are being considered.
A district of former factory buildings in West Chelsea was approved earlier this month.
“Over the next 18 months, we have our eyes on a lot of properties that we’ve been surveying,” Tierney said.
Landmarks preservation has been a priority in the Bloomberg administration. This year, the relatively small agency was one of the few city departments that did not have to cut its budget as the city struggles with lower projected tax collections.
The preservation agency received a $4.3 million budget, compared with the $3.1 million it had to work with in 2004.
During the Bloomberg administration, an average of 399 buildings a year have been added to the landmarks rolls, compared with an average of just over 200 a year under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“Certainly since their modest funding and staffing increases, their level of activity had increased,” said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
“Do we always agree with them? No. But there are definitely more things that are good things.”
The proposed historic designation for Prospect Heights would cover a neighborhood bordering the megadevelopment at Atlantic Yards. Similarly, the West Chelsea district abuts the massive Hudson Yards project.
Part of the pressure on Landmarks comes from the wave of construction sweeping across the city.
“It’s a challenge to be sure,” Tierney said of efforts to protect historic buildings from destruction. “I believe development and preservation can coexist if done the right way.”
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