In early December, the Historic District Council of New York City and the Victorian Society New York presented a Policy Report to the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission outlining what they see as shortcomings and gaps in the agency’s current Scenic Landmark Review process, and offering a host of policy proposals they believe would improve the process.
The report, which was cosigned by nine other citywide preservation and civic groups, contains illustrative examples from recent proposals for Central Park, Prospect Park and Riverside Park, and focuses largely on the regulatory relationship between the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Public Design Commission and the Parks Department.
Historically the Landmarks Preservation Commission took a leading role in this dynamic, to the benefit of New York’s Scenic Landmarks. The authors of the policy report maintain the agency now takes a diminished role, to the detriment of New York’s most beloved public spaces.
They offer a number of proposals for how the Commission can revive its formerly robust approach to the regulation of Scenic Landmarks.
You can read the report here.
Interested civic groups can still sign on to this report as members of the coalition. Coalition groups that join at this time will be listed on the Historic District Council (HDC) website.
If you would like to join the coalition to help improve stewardship of Scenic Landmarks, reach out to HDC’s Preservation Advocacy and Community Outreach Manager, Lucie Levine, at llevine@hdc.org.
Central Park photo courtesy HDC.
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