[MassHistPres] mpact of LHDs on RE values

[Jill Fisher]

Dennis - This is a great article to keep on file - do you happen to have the 
date it was published?  Citations always increase the credibility of a 
handout!  Thanks.  Jill


Jill Fisher, AICP
Principal Planner
Larson Fisher Associates, Inc.
Historic Preservation & Planning Services
PO Box 1394
Woodstock, NY  12498
845-679-5054
jillfisher47 at hotmail.com

www.larsonfisher.com





>From: Dennis De Witt <djdewitt at rcn.com>
>To: MHC listserve <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
>Subject: [MassHistPres] mpact of LHDs on RE values
>Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:20:23 -0400
>
>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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