PRESERVATION ISSUES DOUGLASTON HILL LANDMARK PROPOSAL REJECTED
Queens Tribune Editorial December 12, 2003
To Preserve Or Not
The anger surrounding the Landmarks Commission's rejection of a proposal to grant Douglaston Hill landmark status this week proves one thing - the way Landmarking is currently done doesn't work.
Right now, the Commission uses extremely vague criteria for landmarking, a criteria so open to interpretation that preservationists across the city disagree on what is worthy of preservation and what isn't.
Those broad and vague criteria has caused friction in the city - Queens leaders called the Commission biased this week, stating that the borough has been ignored by the agency.
Douglaston Hill, they said, is just the latest example.
Well, the argument leads to the obvious question, what should be preserved?
Is it based an age? Is it based on historical significance? is it based on the architect? What is worthy and what isn't?
The Landmarks Commission does not offer a clear-cut answer to those questions, and that's where the problem is.
We call on our city fathers to come up with a clear set of criteria that a neighborhood or building needs to meet to be landmarked. A list that is so clear, it can't be used by the Commission to only landmark areas that its members prefer.
If there is indeed a Manhattan-centric attitude, a clear set of criteria should eliminate it.
Queens Chronicle December 25, 2003
Dear Editor:
Speaking as someone who is moving out of Jamaica Estates to the suburbs because of the epidemic of demolitions and illegally overbuilt and "MacMansions," I sympathize with Douglaston Hill. While a number of us here in Jamaica Estates fought to try to attain landmark status, there were others who were opposed and who managed to thwart all attempts to even start the process. As a result, our neighborhood has had its face changed for all time, zoning laws are a joke and Jamaica Estates is no longer called a "prime neighborhood" by a lot of people.
Landmarking would have prevented what has happened here and what will, unfortunately, happen in Douglaston Hill and all other areas without landmark status.
I feel I have been forced out of my own neighborhood because of the illegal overbuilding here and the lack of any enforcement by the city. I leave with some degree of sadness to move to a suburb, where not only are there strict zoning laws, but they are enforced.
I really have to question the city’s motives in denying that sought-after status to so many areas, especially in light of its refusal to protect the homeowners in Queens through the laws which are already on the books. Were those laws enforced, homes like the one in Douglaston Hill would not be standing in the path of the wrecking ball.
