Re the letter “Preservation is not the problem” (Jan. 30): I love seeing older buildings, but landmarking is out of control. According to a 2013 Real Estate Board of New York survey, nearly 28% of the buildings in Manhattan were landmarked at that time. And plenty more have been landmarked since. To suggest that the entire city should be our benchmark misses the point that much of the city lacks the zoning density and/or transportation that centrally located Manhattan offers.
The landmarking process passes off the additional costs of the public good offered by landmarked buildings to individual private owners with little to no outside assistance available. Groups such as The New York Landmarks Conservancy will point to their “grants” programs for restoring landmarked buildings. According to the organization’s website: “After 30 years…the Conservancy’s Sacred Sites program has given grants totaling $9.3 million to 750 congregations.” That means the average grant was $12,400, a pittance relative to the actual costs involved. I wonder if it even covers the costs for filling out the paperwork.
Lastly, the additional layers of technical, legal, zoning, etc., reviews required by the Landmarks Preservation Commission add additional costs to projects for struggling nonprofits, homeowners, religious institutions and others whose primary business is not real estate.
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These are not small costs or barriers. There are very few experts who can appear before the landmarks committee, and these experts cost extra. The additional layers of review cost time, money and expertise for struggling owners. It’s only common sense that these add costs.
Perhaps because the preservation organizations mostly agitate for more landmarks rather than actually write the checks for the full costs that landmarking incurs, they have no idea how much these things cost.
Economics 101: supply and demand. Landmarking decreases the supply of non-landmarked housing, which increases the price of it.
Terri Drach
Great article on storytelling (“Talk is not so cheap,” Jan. 23). I have been telling my clients for years that the best interviews involve engaging the audience—in this particular case, the interviewer—and that responding to questions should never be a list but rather an illustration to provide context. Words alone have no purpose except when they are tied together with meaning and intention. But they also need to be edited for content, appropriateness and length. Storytelling + good judgment = a great interview!
Roy Cohen
Manhattan
The writer is a career counselor and executive coach.
Tracking abuse
Re the letter “ACS open to tech” (Jan. 30): The Administration for Children’s Services can track cases with multiple incidences of abuse. It has data-warehouse capabilities, and while its tracking system is antiquated, another city agency—the Human Resources Administration—successfully loads client data to its data warehouse from antiquated state systems. There is no reason ACS cannot do the same. All that is lacking is either the will or the management insight to implement it.
Gordon Kraus-Friedberg
The writer is a former assistant deputy commissioner at the Human Resources Administration.
Re the letter “Preservation is not the problem” (Jan. 30): I love seeing older buildings, but landmarking is out of control. According to a 2013 Real Estate Board of New York survey, nearly 28% of the buildings in Manhattan were landmarked at that time. And plenty more have been landmarked since. To suggest that the entire city should be our benchmark misses the point that much of the city lacks the zoning density and/or transportation that centrally located Manhattan offers.
The landmarking process passes off the additional costs of the public good offered by landmarked buildings to individual private owners with little to no outside assistance available. Groups such as The New York Landmarks Conservancy will point to their “grants” programs for restoring landmarked buildings. According to the organization’s website: “After 30 years…the Conservancy’s Sacred Sites program has given grants totaling $9.3 million to 750 congregations.” That means the average grant was $12,400, a pittance relative to the actual costs involved. I wonder if it even covers the costs for filling out the paperwork.
Lastly, the additional layers of technical, legal, zoning, etc., reviews required by the Landmarks Preservation Commission add additional costs to projects for struggling nonprofits, homeowners, religious institutions and others whose primary business is not real estate.
These are not small costs or barriers. There are very few experts who can appear before the landmarks committee, and these experts cost extra. The additional layers of review cost time, money and expertise for struggling owners. It’s only common sense that these add costs.
Perhaps because the preservation organizations mostly agitate for more landmarks rather than actually write the checks for the full costs that landmarking incurs, they have no idea how much these things cost.
Economics 101: supply and demand. Landmarking decreases the supply of non-landmarked housing, which increases the price of it.
Terri Drach
Great article on storytelling (“Talk is not so cheap,” Jan. 23). I have been telling my clients for years that the best interviews involve engaging the audience—in this particular case, the interviewer—and that responding to questions should never be a list but rather an illustration to provide context. Words alone have no purpose except when they are tied together with meaning and intention. But they also need to be edited for content, appropriateness and length. Storytelling + good judgment = a great interview!
Roy Cohen
Manhattan
The writer is a career counselor and executive coach.
Re the letter “ACS open to tech” (Jan. 30): The Administration for Children’s Services can track cases with multiple incidences of abuse. It has data-warehouse capabilities, and while its tracking system is antiquated, another city agency—the Human Resources Administration—successfully loads client data to its data warehouse from antiquated state systems. There is no reason ACS cannot do the same. All that is lacking is either the will or the management insight to implement it.
Gordon Kraus-Friedberg
The writer is a former assistant deputy commissioner at the Human Resources Administration.
A version of this article appears in the February 13, 2017, print issue of Crain’s New York Business.
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