Differences Between NYC & National Landmark Rules

Posted on October 27, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

Getting our house renovated feels like a never ending series of delays. We thought we had picked a contractor, but his final bid was 88% higher than his initial bid (!). We knew his initial bid was too low, but weren’t expecting such a huge increase. Now that his price is so much higher we’re re-examining our options and are back to getting other bids. We may wind up going with him, but the equation has changed.

Then there’s the tax credit incentives which I wrote up in a previous post. It’s yet another delay, but a delay that may put $100,000 in our pocket, so it’s worthwhile…

The first thing to realize is that the tax incentives follow federal (National Park Service) guidelines. Those are not the same as New York City Landmarking rules (as enforced by the Landmarks Preservation Commission). In some ways they’re more lenient, in other ways they’re stricter. Personally, I like the national standards better than the City’s standards.

When you get landmarked by New York City their objective is to restore the area to what it looked like in the past. As you do major work you’re required to put things back to what they used to look like. But the City is only worried about what things look like from the street (with the rare exception of landmarked interiors).

The federal government has a slightly different objective – they want to preserve and respect existing historic details. They’re more restrictive in that they care about everything – not just what can be seen from the street. However, they’re less restrictive in that if an original detail is missing they’re not quite so fussy about what replaces it. I spent a half hour on the phone with the woman from NY State’s Office of Historic Preservation in part trying to understand how that actually gets implemented. They have two options for replacing original details – 1) replicate the original exactly, or 2) put something contemporary in it’s place that’s generally “compatible” with the original design and more plain (less ornate) than what was there originally. Here are a few examples…

Front Doors – When we started thinking in terms of meeting the guidelines for the tax credit we wondered what we should do about the front door. Our original plan was to have two 8 foot (French) doors with a 2 foot transom over them. The doors would be wood and have the general proportions of the original doors with wood panels in the bottoms and glass in the upper portion. Thing is, in looking at the picture of our house from 1940 we see there were solid wood doors that were the full 10 feet tall. We then went to Demolition Depot thinking we might be able to find an old door that would pass muster with the historic preservationists. We found some, but they had glass panels in them. When I was talking to the woman from NYS I realized I had it all wrong. They don’t want old doors, or even new doors that look like old doors, unless they’re the originals or identical to the originals. The doors we were planning on initially were almost perfect – clearly contemporary, similar proportions, less ornate than the originals, etc. We’ll probably need to get rid of the transom and make the doors full height. And they may push back on the the glass in the doors – we’ll see… But the point is they like new doors better than non-original old doors.

Stoop Newel Posts – Unlike NYC LPC, the state/federal guidelines don’t require us to do anything with the newel posts – we could just repair what’s there. If we were landmarked by the City LPC I’m pretty sure they’d would require us to restore them given the overall size of our project. We want to do more than patch up what’s there – we want it to be much closer to what was there originally. Our guidelines will be 1) generally similar to the original, 2) less ornate than the original. Our only problem is Dan wants cast iron posts and finding ones that meet the federal guidelines.

Ground Floor Security Gates – Like the newel posts, because the originals are missing we have some latitude. We can do something contemporary and compatible and less plain than the original. That’ll save us a lot of money…

Windows – Again, the state/federal government lean a bit more liberal when replacing details that aren’t there. The woman I spoke with was open to the idea of “fake double hung windows” – ones that look like double hung from the exterior, but are actually tilt-n-turn windows. She was also open to the idea of having color matched protective metal trim on the wood windows’ most vulnerable spots. But she emphasized “open” didn’t mean they’d get approved. Still, I don’t think LPC would even entertain the ideas.

BUT, there are ways in which state and federal guidelines are stricter than LPC’s guidelines. They care about things like rear façades which can’t be seen from the street. We don’t have any original details inside the building, but I think they’d care about them if we had them which could be a huge headache.

Our rear deck is probably going to be the biggest sticking point. For starters federal guidelines require an archeological survey if there’s ground disturbance. However, because that’s cost prohibitive for small projects they’ve never actually required it for homeowners. But they clearly don’t like the idea of ground disturbance. Because our deck is, in part, a fire egress for our unit they’re willing to consider it. We’ll see what feedback they have.

I’m also not sure how they’ll handle the bulkhead we’re putting on the building – we’ll see what they say about that. I think we can make a strong argument for how we’ve done it, but I sorta expect them to ask us to change something – I’m just not sure what that something will be.

Both the LPC and National Park Service guidelines are somewhat difficult. I’m really glad we only have to meet one of the two. If we were landmarked by the City we’d need to comply with both. I’m also really glad we don’t have a lot of original detail. The lack of it is really helping us. After talking to her I wondered what limitations there would be if you had original plaster walls – would you be allowed to tear them out and change your floorplan?

At least they pay you to put up with all the rules…

Our townhouse over the years…

Posted on October 27, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

The City of New York has old tax photos available from 1940 and 1980 for people who want to know what their building looked like in the past. Here are the photos of our building…

Here’s the building in 1940…

168 West 123rd Street Harlem Brownstone in 1940

There are a few things that are interesting here. First is the size of the windows. I was expecting to see smaller panes. Clearly the architect liked the idea of big huge panes of glass.

I also like the low wall along the street, though that wouldn’t be considered safe enough these days. We plan on putting in a low wall with some sort of fencing above to make it meet current standards.

The next item is that you can sorta see the front door in the house next to ours and it’s solid wood with no windows. That’s somewhat surprising (and dark).

I also love the newel posts at the bottom of the stoop – wish they were still there. Dan thinks they’re done in brownstone, I think they’re done in cast iron. Oddly cast iron was the less expensive option back then. We probably only have the money to recreate something like them in brownstone.

The other surprising thing was that the building 2 doors down already had a fire escape by 1940 (it’s still on the building).

And here’s the building in 1980…

168 West 123rd Street Harlem Brownstone in 1980

You can see that the building had sorta seen hard times by 1980s. City records tell us a vacate order was issued in 1966 (and never lifted). So the building’s problems most likely started in the early 1960s, if not sooner.

By 1980 windows had been replaced with less expensive windows – a smaller window on the parlor floor and smaller panes of glass in the top two floors. The front doors were gone and replaced by one that was far less expensive and with a lot less character. The wonderful newel posts were gone.

On the plus side we can see that the exterior had been painted. While this may not seem like a good thing, what’s good about it is that 30 years later it’s still in remarkably good condition – the only problems are the cornices. We were thinking of doing a major job on the exterior, but seeing how stable it’s been we’ve changed our plans and will just patch up and restore the painted surface.

Our building has a commercial overlay. We’re allowed approximately two floors of commercial space. You can see in the picture that the ground floor was “The Happy Game Room”…

The Happy Game Room - 168 West 123rd Street, NYC, 1980

I’m sure the Happy Game Room wasn’t a completely legal establishment. After all, our block was a drug block back in the day. I’m sure there was a fair amount of drug use, drug dealing and gambling going on…

And here’s the building today (actually November 2009)…

168 West 123rd Street Harlem Brownstone Shell, 2009

After 1980 a storefront was added to the ground floor.

Things got pretty bad in the mid-90s when the building became a drug flop house. We’ve talked to some of the neighbors who “lived” in the building at that time. There was a raid and a largely unsocialized (nearly feral) child was found in a closet. Then there was a fire and apparently people pretty much stopped “living” there after that. But the woes continued and the building was involved in a mortgage fraud scandal that delayed it’s being renovated.

But hey, it got a tree! That’s a small step forward… 🙂

It’s definitely time for the building to get a new lease on life…

Different approaches to being “green” with tenants’ utilities

Posted on October 5, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

The other night when we were having drinks with Peter Holtzman, who owns one of the Astor Row townhouses and is an architect with The Downtown Group, the question of how to handle tenants’ utilities came up. His approach was to go all out for efficiency. He has one high efficiency boiler that provides heat and hot water for him and his two tenants. He doesn’t even have hot water heaters – just an insulated tank attached to his boiler. It’s worked for him – he’s got very low utility bills to show for it.

Our approach is different, but it’s only different – I don’t know that either of us can say our approach is better. We’re going to sacrifice a little bit of efficiency to emphasize conservation. To achieve this we’re having the tenants pay for many of their own utilities. For example we’ll meter the water separately. We figure if the tenants are aware of the cost of their water, they’ll use less of it. In a similar vein we’re giving them their own hot water heater which will be powered by their (separately metered) gas. Again, if they see the cost of their hot water they’re more likely to use less of it.

With heat it’s a bit more complicated. If we provide heat, NYC requires that it be up to a certain temperatures. We want our own unit cooler than the legal minimums – we like a little chill in the air. So we’re shooting for “a bit cool” but not so cool that our hands will get cold. To us that temperature is invigorating. For other people it just feels cold. We’ll extend the concept of awareness leading to conservation by giving our tenants combo heating/cooling units so they can raise the temperature in their unit even higher if they like a warmer apartment. But the supplemental heat will be electric heat and the cost of the additional heat will show up in their electric bill.

There’s another difference between Peter’s approach and our approach – ours requires a lot more equipment. We’ll have a boiler, two water heaters, as well as mini-split units for supplemental heat for the tenants. He just has a boiler. If you’re strict in your approach to being green you do need to consider the carbon footprint of making and maintaining that extra equipment (we’re not that fussy in our approach).

Where we agreed with Peter was on using closed cell foam to insulate all the exterior walls. The 2 1/2 inches of closed cell foam, plus everything else in the wall will give our exterior walls an r-value of R20. That will drive down utility bills for everyone, require a smaller heating and cooling system, etc. But it’s beyond that point where you need to figure out which you like better – maximum efficiency, or slightly less efficiency with an emphasis on conservation.

But… We don’t want to be landmarked…

Posted on October 3, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

Generally I’m a big advocate of landmarking – certain places just need special protection. But these days most of those places have been identified and now some of the places they’re trying to landmark don’t really warrant landmarking.

Case and point is the Mount Morris Park Historic District – there are pluses and minuses to the proposed expansion. The core of Mount Morris Park was landmarked by the City in 1971 – just a few short years after landmarking began in New York. The neighborhood was then put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Then in 1996 the boundaries defined by the National Register of Historic Places were extended (see map below). Now residents are talking about changing the City’s landmark boundaries to reflect the national boundaries.

mount morris historic district map with extension shown

There are parts of the MMP extension that make perfect sense and should be landmarked. The Historic Districts Council shows examples on their website that demonstrate this perfectly. I want to be clear, I’m not against the expansion of the Mount Morris Park Historic District. BUT, not all the blocks in the proposed extension are as homogeneous as the ones they show. I think the boundaries of the extension need to be reconsidered. For example, our block is nothing like the blocks they show, yet they want to landmark it. Here are a few pictures of our block…

West 123rd Street between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell
Variety of architecture on West 123rd Street

How is that something that should be landmarked? That’s not the streetscape of a historically significant area that needs landmarking. That’s just a nice street in Harlem. There are brownstones on the south side of the street, but I wouldn’t say they warrant landmarking either. It’s not like every brownstone in Harlem needs to be landmarked.

Brownstones on West 123rd Street between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell

Landmarking is supposed to be reserved for things that are special – and we’re just not that special. The row of townhouses one block down that were designed by Francis Hatch Kimball – are a completely different situation…

Townhouses on 122nd Street designed by Francis Hatch Kimball

Those townhouses are incredible. They absolutely need to be landmarked, and everything adjacent to them that can be landmarked should be landmarked to preserve the general feel of the era when they were built (unfortunately, there’s a 1950s-era school across the street from them). But my point is, we’re not that special.

The other night we were walking around lower Manhattan. What struck me was the layers of history you could see in the buildings. New and old were mixed together and there were new interpretations and adaptations of old buildings. I liked the mix of it all. As you can see in the pictures above, our block is a bit like that. There are a few old brick townhouses with mansard roofs, there are classic brownstones in a few different styles, there are a couple churches on the block (both landmarked), and there are apartment buildings. One apartment building looks like it’s from the 1930s, others look like they’re more turn of the century. And then there’s the gleaming new condo – Windows on 123. We have that wonderful patchwork of different historical eras. Thing is, you don’t preserve a patchwork of eras by freezing it in time. You preserve it by letting the patchwork continue to evolve. For example, when new and old are co-existing so closely, why shouldn’t the old buildings have modern doors or windows? Yet that is what would be prevented if the block were landmarked.

Yes, there is something special about our block, but the best way to preserve it is through zoning, not through landmarking. Many of the old apartment buildings on our block are built over their currently allowed F.A.R. (floor area ratio) which means if they were torn down you’d have to build a smaller building in their place. That’s a huge incentive for their owners to keep them in tact and renovate them. Even our townhouse – it’s currently at a FAR of 3.0. The max is 3.44, so you can’t even add another full floor to our building (though the previous owners did manage to fudge the numbers and get plans approved that included an additional floor).

If it were no big deal to own a landmarked building we wouldn’t really care. But it’s a huge headache to own a landmarked building. So many things are more complicated and more expensive. And there are certain things you’re just not allowed to do. For example, we’ll be putting in large tilt-n-turn windows that would not be allowed if the building were landmarked. I’m sure our doors wouldn’t meet with landmarks approval either – they’re modern interpretations of old doors – still wood, and similarly proportioned to the original doors, but lacking the details you would find on an old door. If I lived on a block that warranted landmarking I’d gladly put up with the headaches associated with being landmarked. But our block doesn’t warrant landmarking so neither Dan nor I feel we should have to deal with the hassles of owning a landmarked building.

There’s a community meeting this Tuesday evening (October 5th) at 7pm at the Rice High School library (74 West 124th Street). I plan on being there to see what the chances are of dropping 123rd Street from the proposed extension.

Double Checking Code Compliance

Posted on September 27, 2010 by BeatingUpwind

Even though we’ve got approved plans I’m a bit paranoid about getting our C of O at the end of the construction process. These days it seems like there are no guarantees when it comes to dealing with the NYC DOB. We don’t want the C of O examiner to find some code violation that was missed earlier and deny us our C of O. The changes could be expensive or even impossible. We want to get things right from the beginning.

A Harlem townhouse owner and architect, Peter Holtzman of the Downtown Group, had posted a few helpful comments here on the blog. He seemed to know code really well, especially as it pertains to townhouses. We started chatting via e-mail and I asked if he’d be willing to sit down and review our plans to see if he could spot anything others had missed. Our architect is quite good, but townhouses aren’t his specialty. Fortunately Peter was kind enough, and interested enough, to say yes. So we met Peter at Bier last week, went over the plans, and got mildly drunk. 😉

Peter had a variety of suggestions – everything from the practical (e.g. you’ll wish you had a gas fireplace in your master bedroom, not wood burning), to aesthetic (e.g. do a 3D rendering of the parlor floor to make sure you’re happy with how everything resolves), to code issues…

The most substantial code issues he brought up were related to what we we are doing on our freestanding sidewall, which is on the lot line. Our approved plans show bathroom windows, bathroom exhausts, dryer exhausts, kitchen exhausts, and a fresh air intake for the boiler – all on the lot line wall. Other than the fresh air intake, which he wasn’t certain of, he thought we’d have problems with the other items.

Those comments sent our architect scrambling to confirm what exactly was “up to code”. Mind you – we did get the plans approved, and the plans had an entire sheet showing clearly what we were doing on that lot line wall – you would think the plan examiner would have said something if they were real problems. Our architect dug through the code and talked to a few other architects and found 1) the code is contradictory and 2) experienced architects disagree… One camp of architects says we should assume the worst and do as little as possible with the lot line wall. The others say there are parts of the code that say at least some of what we’re doing is just fine, and most importantly the plans went through many months of review and were approved – so we should just go ahead and if we run into any problems we should ask for a reconsideration.

There are a number of factors in our favor if it came to a reconsideration. First, the building next to us is overbuilt. It won’t be torn down and rebuilt because the owner would need to replace it with a smaller building. Second, there is discussion of landmarking the block. That would also prevent the building being torn down and rebuilt. And even if it were torn down and rebuilt, zoning requires there to be a side yard / rear yard, so they can’t build to our lot line anyway. That means the alleyway is there for the foreseeable future. In fact it would probably be made even bigger if the building were rebuilt since the neighbor’s windows on it are not “legal windows” based on the current code.

As the plan examiner was stamping our plans he noticed that our bulkhead didn’t provide the 8 foot “side yard” that’s required on the roof (plan examiners do miss things – they’re human). So that’s one thing we know should be changed. We can either narrow the bulkhead or widen it to full width and provide a ladder over it. We’re going to make it wider to get even more light into the building. That requires at least one round of alterations to the approved plans. When we make that change we will also make some changes to how we’re using the lot line wall to be extra safe.

We’ll vent bathrooms up the plumbing wall and out the top of the bulkhead. Some parts of the code say we don’t need venting in the bathrooms, others say we need a small, 50 cpm fan. Since it’s relatively easy to do, we’ll err on the side of caution and vent through the roof.
We haven’t decided what we’ll do regarding the kitchen exhausts. Apparently we’re not required to have any exhausts since the kitchens are part of rooms that have proper ventilation (in the form of windows and doors). The rental kitchen can probably be vented up the plumbing wall, but our kitchen is rather far from the plumbing wall, so venting it would be a much bigger challenge. Yet that’s the kitchen we most want vented, so we still need to figure that out.
We’ll probably vent the dryers out the rear wall.

The one thing we don’t have to change is our plans for windows in the sidewall. Distance between our building and the next is about 4 feet with a few places being 3 1/2 feet. Because we’re over 3 feet and we’re “R-3” (a type of residential building), the new 2008 code says not only can we have windows on the sidewall, but they can cover up to 25% of the wall and do not need to be fire protected. That means we can keep our 4 small bathroom windows. They may not count as legal windows for light and air, but they will come in handy for everyday usage.

The moral of this story is that there are many things that could potentially be considered “wrong” with any townhouse that’s rehabilitated. For example the old brick walls don’t meet current seismic guidelines. The placement of the windows in the walls aren’t up to current code, etc… The list could go on and on. But there’s a practical side to it as well – there are somethings you just can’t fix without making the owner tear down the building completely and start over – that’s not desirable, so compromises are made. All we can hope for is inspectors who understand that perfection is impossible. And if that doesn’t happen, then there’s always the reconsideration process…

I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best…