HDC on the Proposed Sunnyside Gardens Rezoning
Note the chainlink fence and back deck. Would this be improved by a rearyard addition?
Statement of The Historic Districts Council
Before the City Council Subcommittee on Zoning & Franchises.
Regarding the proposed change to the Sunnyside Gardens Special Planned Community District Zoning
June 2, 2009
The Historic Districts Council is the citywide advocate for New York’s historic neighborhoods. Since 2003, we have been working with community members in Sunnyside Gardens to create better and more efficient protections for the neighborhood’s unique and carefully-crafted character. To that end, we have worked closely with Sunnyside residents to petition for local designation as a New York City historic districts, a campaign which proved successful when the City Council affirmed its designation in October 2007.
During the road to landmark designation, the one thing that everyone agreed upon was that Sunnyside Gardens’ innovative zoning, adopted in 1974 to protect the character of the neighborhood, while well-intentioned, was inefficient and difficult to enforce. Part of the desire for landmark status was that the LPC had the power to enforce its own regulations, as opposed to the Department of City Planning which had to rely upon the Buildings Department as its strong right arm. The restrictions of the PC District were not the problem, enforcing them was. The Landmarks Commission and City Planning seemed to be of like mind about this issue and there were discussions of how to better coordinate regulatory efforts between the three agencies in order to best continue to protect the character of Sunnyside Gardens as it has been protected since its inception, first by covenants, then by zoning and finally by landmark designation. All the advocates were very surprised by City Planning’s proposal to emasculate the Planned Community District and essentially open the door to rampant development within the new historic district.
Please make no mistake, this action is a defacto up-zoning of the neighborhood. As part of HDC’s regular activities, we monitor and comment upon applications that go before the Landmarks Preservation Commission every week. We have been doing this for almost 20 years, and we have heard countless times that the Landmarks Preservation Commission does not regulate zoning and can only respond to applications that are brought before it. Therefore, it is our contention that a zoning change which would allow applications to add, on average, an additional 600 square feet to the majority of buildings within a historic district is an up-zoning, plain and simple. If the underlying zoning permits a certain kind of development, then the LPC will be faced with applications for that kind of development. We see it happen almost every single week at the LPC, where small older buildings which fall in high-density zones are asked to take on more and more bulk because that’s what they are zoned for.
Every year, low buildings within the Tribeca Historic Districts are proposed to be demolished for larger developments and federal rowhouses in Greenwich Village and Cobble Hill are proposed to be dwarfed by extreme rooftop and rear-yard additions. This is why Community Board One in Manhattan petitioned to have the South Street Seaport Historic District rezoned to encourage more contextually-scaled development on the vacant lots within that district and why Community Board Two in Brooklyn established one of the few truly limited-height zones in New York City in the Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill Historic Districts. Landmark designation is not enough – the underlying zoning must also be compatible with built environment in order for preservation to be successful.
By removing the protections of the PC District, the door is now wide open for applications for driveways, fences, sheds, carports, parking pads while mature trees will have no protections whatsoever. Equally important, almost all the buildings in the district are grievously under-built with regard to their lots. They only cover 22% of their property lots. They’re small buildings with a lot of open space, which was the point of the development in the first place and remains its most appealing draw.
Yes, the Landmarks Preservation Commission will still regulate these buildings on the basis of appropriateness – but through this zoning change, the bar for what could be appropriate is fatally lowered. In a perfect world, the LPC would somehow enforce all the rules of the PC District, thereby making enforcement more efficient, while not sacrificing any of the protections the neighborhood has previously enjoyed. Perhaps this can be done with the adoption of carefully-crafted agency rules for a master plan for the district, perhaps there should be an investigation made by the Council and the Administration to see if this is the opportunity to establish a “neighborhood conservation district”, which is a technique growing in popularity nationwide but still un-used in New York City.
What should not happen is that the PC district be deactivated and the LPC then be expected to play catch-up. That is a certain recipe for disaster – the Fieldston Historic District has been waiting for over two years to even have a hearing on its Master Plan, and the promised master plan for the Gansevoort Market Historic District never materialized at all. It is an accepted fact that the Landmarks Preservation Commission is under-resourced and over-worked, even considering all the support this Council and the Mayor have given the agency in recent years. The only way a solution to the Administration’s concerns about regulating the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District can be worked out that would be fair to the community’s desire for protection would be if a plan is put into place before the existing protections of the PC District are altered. Anything less would be unbolting the barn and hoping that the horse really doesn’t want to go for a run.