New Landmarking Effort Targets Southern Prospect-Lefferts Gardens

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — A long-time Lefferts Gardens resident is trying to landmark about 450 buildings in the neighborhood's southern reaches.

Richard Walkes, who said he lives in the area and has family roots there, has founded the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens Heritage Council to support the effort. The group just received its non-profit status, he said, and will be launching a website in the future providing information on its work (for now, it can be reached by emailing plghc1@gmail.com).

Any development taking place in landmarked areas must first come before the local community board for an advisory opinion, after which it must be approved by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

In 1979, part of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens received landmark status from the LPC. That area, as diagrammed by the Lefferts Manor Association, stretches roughly from the north side of Fenimore Street to Sterling Street, and from Flatbush Avenue to Nostrand Avenue — though not all properties in the zone are included.

Walkes said he's concentrating on an area south of the currently landmarked zone, though he didn't want to disclose the exact streets he's focused on. The goal, he said, is to "preserve a lot of the heritage" in the area, to protect houses and buildings constructed "specifically for a middle-class community," but which are at risk of being replaced with out-of-context, and unaffordable, developments.

Walkes said he has been conducting outreach to homeowners for months, and has received a largely positive response. Many residents are unfamiliar with the landmarking process, he said, and don't realize that "there are financial incentives" to landmark protection — specifically, that many home values go up once they're landmarked.

The landmarking process isn't as mystifying as it may seem, Walkes insisted. It requires perseverance, he said, and collectively community will, adding, "We have to stand together."

Last week, Walkes provided an introduction to his plan to Community Board 8's land use committee, which received it positively, with members saying they were interested in putting the weight of the board behind him.

Walkes isn't the only local turning to regulatory bodies in an attempt to prevent runaway area redevelopment. In late November, for example, Community Board 9 voted to partner with the Fenimore Street Block Association in an attempt to downzone 21 buildings on the street. That highly local issue, however, resulted in a contentious hearing and opposition from community activists with The Movement to Protect The People, who feared the city's planning department could use the attempt as leverage to justify a general neighborhood rezoning.

Pictured at top: Hawthorne Street in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. Image via Google Maps.