As the state's leading historic preservation advocacy group, we found Ed Lowe's column on Chicago's landmark process (June 22-26) to be rife with inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Here are a few countervailing facts:
Lowe: Landmarking removes many of the owner's rights to alter, change, or upgrade their property.
Response: This country's landmark laws, which date back to the 1930s, are based on the same constitutional grounds as local zoning ordinances. That is, they help to protect a community from inappropriate changes that could negatively impact the value of individual properties. Because landmark districts generally focus on a building's public-facing façades, they seldom impact on the owner's right to upgrade the structure. Further, most of Chicago's landmark districts have been initiated by a community group as a way to help ensure stability, both in property values and neighborhood character.
Lowe: Landmarking necessitates time consuming and expensive permits.
Response: Nearly 95 percent of the building permits received by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks are approved the same day they are received. No extra permit is required for work on a landmark property. In fact, owners of landmark properties are privileged to obtain a special permit fee waiver — instituted by the City a few years ago — that eliminates the regular building permit fee.
Lowe: Landmarking does not provide any tax relief.
Response: In addition to the permit fee waiver, owners of landmark properties are eligible for other economic incentives, including: a 12-year property tax freeze following a residential rehabilitation project, income tax deductions for the rehab of income-producing landmarks (such as apartments), a reduction in the property tax rate for the rehab of commercial and industrial landmarks, and IRS tax deductions for the donation of preservation easements.
Lowe: Landmarking prevents change — neighborhoods that do not change become slums.
Response: Once again, this would be a great shock to the residents of the city's landmark districts, whose property values have greatly increased since they were made designated by the City Council. Consider the Old Town Triangle, Mid North, or McCormick Rowhouse districts in Lincoln Park — all of which were designated in the mid-1970s.
Lowe: Whenever there's an open forum, sentiment turns against landmarking.
Response: This will surprise the residents of Chicago's 40 local landmark districts, some of which date to the early 1970s. In virtually every landmark district, the vast majority of the property owners have supported designation, based on the responses to the owner-consent forms that the City sends to property owners prior to each designation vote. The recent meetings in East Village and Sheffield have had some vocal opposition to landmark designation, but many of those voices have been non-residents or those who would economically benefit from teardowns and new construction, such as developers and real estate agents.
Lowe: The designation of 860-880 Lake Shore Drive as a Chicago Landmark has made alterations to these Mies van der Rohe-designed towers much more difficult.
Response: Both of the issues that Mr. Lowe cites were decided by the buildings' own Board of Trustees, not by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. The replacement of the travertine plaza has never been submitted to the City, since the building's own board has not yet agreed on a solution. Similarly, the building's board — not the landmarks commission — rejected the hinged door solution for the lobby.
Lowe: The legal maneuvering needed to remove landmark designation for the Metropole (aka Lexington Hotel) feathered the nests of lawyers.
Response: The demolition of this deteriorated 1893 structure was permitted under a section of the City's Municipal Code that allows a landmark to be demolished if its condition is "imminently dangerous," as determined by the City's building department. The Lexington Hotel never was de-designated.
Lowe: Landmarking provides busy-work for self-interested and self-serving petty officials.
Response: It's easy for a self-serving columnist to unfairly malign city officials with whom he has had little interaction. As a private non-profit organization, we have disagreed with some of the decisions of the landmarks commission. However, we have consistently found the City's landmarks staff to be among the hardest-working, most professional individuals in city government. They are knowledgeable and very generous with their time. Their very heavy workload — largely spent in responding to a huge number of requests for designations from community groups and elected officials — provides no time for "busy-work" or "petty" business.
The next time you run an individual's tirade on an important subject — such as the protection of our city's great architectural and community heritage — try to get the other side of the story— or at least make sure the facts are correct. The one-sided treatment that Mr. Lowe has given the topic of landmark protection over the past year does a great disservice to your newspaper's fine
journalistic traditions.
David Bahlman
President
Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois
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