Meenakshi Srinivasan Resigns as Chair of Landmarks Preservation Commission

NEW YORK CITY—The chair of New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission Meenakshi Srinivasan has announced her resignation. This follows a recent groundswell of opposition to the agency’s initiative to streamline the process for working on landmark designated properties. Community groups protested in large numbers the proposal which would remove applications out of the public review and approval process.

Srinivasan issued the following statement, “I am honored to have served as chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission for the past four years and to have had the opportunity to serve the city for the past 28 years. I am proud of what we have accomplished – promoting equity, diversity, efficiency and transparency in all aspects of LPC’s work, and working with the administration to make preservation a critical part of the city’s planning process.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio issued the statement, “Meenakshi Srinivasan is a talented, dogged public servant and a leader with know-how, and she’s proved that time and again. At the helm of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, she sliced through decades of regulatory red tape and modernized the commission. We congratulate her and thank her for the important reforms she instituted, and we wish her well in her future pursuits.”

Shrinivasan will transition to the private sector, with her last day at the commission on June 1.

Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, a group which opposes the proposal says, “Now more than ever, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission needs a leader who understands the value of preserving and protecting our city’s history, its heritage and culture, its sense of place and its livability. We have seen a disturbing drift in recent years, accelerated under the de Blasio administration, in which preservation has been undervalued and the Landmarks Preservation Commission was more geared towards greasing the skids for developers than protecting what New Yorkers love about their city.”

The Real Estate Board of New York supported the proposal at the public hearing on March 27. Council speaker Corey Johnson and community board representatives opposed it. More than 1,500 community members had written to the mayor and the commissioner to express their opposition.

“The rules amendments proposal is intended to make its regulatory process more transparent, efficient, and user-friendly, as well as address demands on our regulatory function as we continue to designate landmarks in the future,” says an LPC spokesperson. “It will streamline the application review and permitting process for everyday work on designated properties and set clear criteria that will ensure predictability and transparency for approval of various work types.”

The spokesperson tells GlobeSt.com that the commission reviews more than 14,000 applications per year and that 93% to 96% are approved by staff members based on the rules. Only 3% to 6% of applications go before the commission where there are public hearings. The proposal is to update the rules to reflect current staff practices, according to LPC.

The commission says the proposal would put into the guidelines the type of work that for decades has been routinely approved by staff without going to the commission with a public hearing. The types of work would involve everyday items such as signage, windows or access ramps that would be codified to allow staff approval. The spokesperson says major changes to façades or new buildings would still need to come before the commission at public hearings.

Berman asserts that the innocuous changes are not the crux of the proposal. He says it would allow certain rooftop and rear yard additions to go straight to staff level approval, where the public would not know about applications or their content. “Additionally, it would allow the LPC staff to decide which properties in historic districts are ‘non-contributing’ and therefore subject to much looser regulation–up to and including demolition and replacement,” says Berman. “These are consequential decisions which should not be made without public scrutiny and input.”

He adds, “In general, the proposed rules changes are intended to cut the public out of the process and make more decisions behind closed doors—exactly the wrong direction we should be moving in.”

The commission has extended the comment period for the proposed changes to May 8.

The LPC spokesperson points out that under Srinivasan’s tenure, the commission has designated more than 3,800 buildings and sites across the five boroughs, including 67 individual landmarks, three interior landmarks, and nine historic districts. The commission asserts that Srinivasan created a more efficient, rigorous and transparent landmark designation process. It notes she also was committed to advancing landmarks and historic districts in diverse neighborhoods less represented by landmarks such as the Stone Avenue branch of the NY Public Library in Brownsville, and Queens Clock Tower in Long Island City.

GVSHP points to multiple developments as out of scale and out of character allowed to proceed in the popular Manhattan neighborhood of the Village. As one example, Berman highlights the demolition of five walk-up buildings for the construction of the 285-room Moxy East Village Hotel at 112-120 E. 11th St., constructed in partnership with the Marriott. Berman notes that the developer David Lichtenstein raised funds for Mayor de Blasio, and was appointed to the New York City Economic Development Corporation board.

On Friday, GVSPH initiated a campaign to urge the mayor and deputy mayor Alicia Glen to nominate as the new LPC chair a person with a record of advocating for the preservation of the city’s historic heritage and protecting landmark laws.