Joe Moore told about 20 residents gathered at the Sherwin Manor Nursing Home for the meeting that a parking lot is permitted under existing residential zoning. Moore said his office consulted with the Chicago Landmarks Commission, which reported that the building is not architecturally significant.
BLOGNOTES: Not architecturally significant? How many times have we heard that before? And what's the deal?
Why is it: - Everyime the Alderman or DevCorp North holds a meeting, only about 20 people attend or bother to show up, in other words?
7 comments:
The city of Chicago, in conjunction with the architecture program at UIC or IIT looked at every single property in the City of Chicago. They coded every property one of three colors: green, orange or red.
Green means no architectural or historical significance. Orange means there may be some significance, and red basically means that the property is significant.
For orange or red properties, there is at minimum a stay for the issuance of a demolition permit(60 days, I believe). This allows the preservation commission, the community and other interested parties to double-check this property's historical significance.
The city then has the opportunity to designate the property as a landmark during the stay period and then the demolition will not be issued. Their whole database is online.
http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/CHRS.html
Even though this property is not on there, you can still ask the landmarks department to look into it. There may be a problem, however, with denying a permit for historical significance after the fact, meaning that a court may have a problem with the city designating a property significant AFTER someone has applied for a permit.
because the only time i hear about these meetings is when you (Craig) post something and its usually the day of the meeting which is too late for me to fit it into my schedule. or its during a time when i'm at work.
> The city of Chicago ... looked at every single property in the City of Chicago.
That's not true. The CHRS is very significant but it did have many flaws. It was far from comprehensive or decisive. The surveyors came from OUTSIDE the neighborhoods. The choice of buildings to look at reflected the interests and biases of the surveyors.
For example, name architects were more important to them than history. They did a very poor job of considering local history in their survey. Of course, knowing the local history of every Chicago neighborhood was beyond their budget constraints, and the CHRS was done on the cheap.
For example, in our neighborhood the Rogers Park West Ridge Historical Society was not consulted and did not participate.
Politicians cite the CHRS when it suits their purposes but it is far from the last word on the value of a building.
Hugh- You hit the nail on the head!
Do we really want to leave our decisions about historic properties solely to the government?
The review was comprehensive. I did not say it was decisive. Significant properties may have fallen through the cracks. And as to the bias of the surveyors, I would like to believe that they followed the protocol they were given. Now, whether that protocol was flawed is another story.
Most of the work was done by architecture students, I have been told.
However, since the database is there, any historical society now is on notice which properties in its areas are protected and to what extent. So, there should be no excuses for these historical groups doing everything they can to lobby properties they deem significant.
Therefore, if the West Ridge Historical Society has a few extra properties that they believe are significant, I am sure there is a way to appeal to the Landmarks Commission to include previously excluded properties.
Do we really want to leave our decisions about historic properties solely to the government?
What is being asked for in this North Shore School situation? People are asking the government to step in to stop a person from exercising what is otherwise a right given to every property owner in that zoning district. As far as I know, the government is the only one who can compel a property owner to do something, or not do something, barring some other private agreement.
Personally, I believe that this whole database and classification system is a great first step. If preservationists believe that properties have fallen through the cracks, they now have the opportunity to be proactive. The Chicago government has found a way to protect its architectural history by giving itself the opportunity to look each situation on a case-by-case basis.
Moore is on the City of Chicago landmark council. This is why he is able to deem anything and everything "Not architecturally significant".
As long as it suits his needs, or his campaign contributor’s needs, it will always be "Not architecturally significant". Such was the case with the Adelphi Theater and many other beautiful buildings and theaters that have contributed to our community over the years. Remember the Granada Theater?
This is not a new tactic in the political books, (especially in Rogers Park).
As far as the color scale for historic significance, many real estate owners attempted to protect their investment by covering up architecture with second walls for inspector visits.
This did lead to some, if not many historic buildings not acquiring their landmark status. This also gave building owners the green light to do teardowns at their financial convenience, architecturally significant or not.
I spoke with Lori Healy , the Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development about this a little while ago. She stated that if she sent inspectors to inspect every building for historical significance this year, real estate in Chicago would be very different.
She also stated that there is no budget for such a project.
Abe and Hugh both make good arguments. Abe is right that nothing prevents preservationists from organizing to lobby and the issue of owner's rights is not a minor one. However, as Bill mentions, given the practical realities the city operates under, it seems unlikely that lobbying for any but the most spectacular examples is likely to get much traction.
Personally I don't think this building should be landmarked for its architectural merits. Perhaps if it were surrounded by a whole neighborhood of similar buildings it might be different. To me, it's more about an era in the personal history of a lot of long term RP residents passing and losing a perfectly sound, non-residential building that could be put to some creative adaptive reuse given the right leadership. That seems to be the missing link here.
Recently an email on this subject was forwarded to me as part of a group mailing. It seems people who were at the community meeting are under the impression that an adaptive reuse solution is still a possibility. The writer of the email says that "The building is owned by the landlord of the immediately adjacent (east) apartment building who is willing to stay the demolition (for 23 parking spaces for her 26 tenants) IF a use and renovation funds can be found for it. If you are even the slightest bit interested, please inquire. Some incentives or matching support may be made available for a viable project." It's kind of an 11th hour way to handle it, communicating this at a meeting announcing the intention to turn it into a parking lot otherwise, but it appears that adaptive reuse is still on the table.
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