[MassHistPres] mpact of LHDs on RE values

[Dennis De Witt]

Marcia

The formatting got lost.  6th para.

Dennis


On Jul 10, 2007, at 12:01 PM, Marcia Starkey wrote:

> 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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