[MassHistPres] mpact of LHDs on RE values

[Marcia Starkey]

Hello,  (I didn't receive a bold face paragraph.)
This article agrees with other reports on property values in HDs, but many 
seem to be pleasant environments, areas where values would normally be 
strong and are enhanced by resident's appreciation for this designation. Are 
there figures on areas with smaller historic building stock with homogenity 
derived from age or distinctive local tradition? Marcia Starkey, Greenfield 
HC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dennis De Witt" <djdewitt at rcn.com>
To: "MHC listserve" <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 6:20 AM
Subject: [MassHistPres] mpact of LHDs on RE values


As the question of the impact of LHDs on RE values always comes up
when an LHD is being proposed, the following from the New York Times
is worth keeping on file.  Note the bold face paragraph.

Dennis De Witt



State Senator John Sabini, whose district includes Jackson Heights,
has held public office for 15 years. One of his achievements came in
1993, when, as a city councilman, he helped persuade the Landmarks
Preservation Commission to designate the Jackson Heights Historic
District.

But Mr. Sabini, a lifelong neighborhood resident, has never himself
lived within the historic district. Nor is his local office, at 88th
Street and 35th Avenue, located there. “I can’t afford it,” he
explained, laughing.

When a historic district is born — the city’s 88th, Sunnyside
Gardens, was approved on June 26 — its neighborhood frequently
becomes two neighborhoods. The street signs within the district are
terra-cotta rather than the standard green, but the distinctions go
far deeper than signs, involving money, aesthetics, image, even class.

The Jackson Heights Historic District is an example.

“There are a lot of beautiful homes in that section that are not in
other parts of the neighborhood,” said Pauline Conti, an owner of
Century 21 House Depot, a real estate firm. “It’s an area where the
prices always have been strong. As the market changes and as the
market repositions itself, it won’t be as affected as much as other
areas far from the historic district.”

A 2003 study by the city’s Independent Budget Office found that
market values of properties in historic districts are higher and
appreciate at a slightly greater rate than those outside historic
districts. For example, the study, which covered the years 1975 to
2002, found that the inflation-adjusted prices of properties within
historic districts rose by an average of 5.3 percent a year, while
those outside historic districts rose by an average of 4.2 percent.

And the difference involves more than money. To walk the few blocks
from Little India and other undesignated sections of Jackson Heights
to the historic district is to travel from humble, sometimes teeming
streets to genteel serenity. The district, which comprises 538
structures on 36 of Jackson Heights’s 200 blocks, sometimes feels
like a different neighborhood altogether.

Within the district, the two- and three-story brick buildings in the
Tudor and Georgian styles, most of which were built from 1910 to the
1950s, are uniformly bordered by green lawns and black wrought-iron
gates, concealing the spacious interior gardens within. Influenced by
Europe’s Garden City movement, which aimed to avoid crowded tenement
conditions, the district’s developers built the nation’s first
cooperative garden apartments, as well as single-family homes in the
English Garden style.

“The rich dudes in Manhattan used to bring their mistresses here,” Wu
Ming Zhang, who has lived in the neighborhood for a decade, said of
the historic district. “They’d tell their wives they’d be gone for
the weekend on business.”

Daniel Karatzas, the author of the book “Jackson Heights: A Garden in
the City” and an agent at Beaudoin Realty Group, has found that
apartment buyers from outside the neighborhood not only call him but
even know the names and details of the Queen Elizabeth, the Fillmore,
the Belvedere and other individual buildings in the district.

Mr. Karatzas said that storefronts on several blocks skirting the
historic district voluntarily adhere to the district’s aesthetic
standards, using awnings of only one color on a block, rather than
what he called the “mishmash” seen on thoroughfares outside the
district. “There’s a reflected glory,” he said.

Like those few blocks of amenable storefronts, the exterior of Mr.
Sabini’s office pays subtle homage to the district of which it is not
a part.

“My awning is in compliance with historic district rules.” He paused.
“I think it is. We made it forest green, which is one of the
acceptable colors.”
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