Landmarks Commission Quietly Proposes Cutting Public Hearings

NEW YORK CITY — The Landmark Preservation Commission is quietly trying to cut the public out of the decision-making process for a “huge number” of applications, according to opponents and city records.

LPC officials will hear testimony this month on proposed amendments to Landmarks Preservation Commission rules that would cut public hearings and community boards out of the approval process for certain applications, city records show.

But opponents call the new rules “an inherently anti-transparency, anti-good government, anti-public participation move,” that would make it easier for people to swindle the commission.

“It’s very common that applicants provide information that is slanted toward their point of view,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of a preservation advocacy group opposing the LPC proposal.

“But at a public hearing, the public has the chance say, 'Wait a minute, they’re not showing you this.'”

LPC first floated the rule changes — which call for “authorizing the LPC Staff to approve a variety of work-types that are consistently approved by the Commission” — at a public hearing on Feb. 13, records show.

Under the new rules, owners of historically landmarked buildings would no longer be required to seek approval from local community boards and certain proposals would no longer be subject to public hearings, according to the presentation.

Instead, LPC staff members would work directly with owners to approve or deny their work applications “behind closed doors,” as Berman put it.

The goal of the new proposal is to improve efficiency, “to ensure that the Commission has the capacity at future public hearings and meetings to review an increasing number of applications,” the proposal states.

Facade work, rooftop and backyard additions, new lighting fixtures, pavement changes and ramp installations are just some of the work orders that LPC staff members would be authorized to approve.

The new rules will also provide a speedier review by “ensuring that applicants do not have to go through the more time-intensive Certificate of Appropriateness public hearing process,” according to LPC officials.

But Berman, of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), argues that removing those applications from the public hearing roster could hurt neighbors who would be rendered powerless to stop them.

“These are substantive changes that people will notice,” Berman told Patch. “Decisions will be made behind closed doors and they won’t make for better outcomes.”

Which is why GVSHP and Brownstoners of Bedford Stuyvesant, a preservation group based in Brooklyn, are promoting a petition addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio and LPC officials that calls for rejecting the proposal.

“It would do the public, the process, and preservation great harm to implement these rule changes that would make a huge number of landmarks applications no longer subject to public hearings,” reads the petition, which Berman said has garnered about 1,000 signatures.

“There is absolutely no justification for moving a huge number of decisions regarding landmarked properties from an open process.”

The preservation groups are also asking New Yorkers to attend a public hearing — during which attendees can testify for or against the proposal — on March 27, 9:30 a.m., at the Landmark Preservation Commission hearing room at 1 Centre St.

The LPC press office did not immediately respond to Patch’s request for comment.

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