As chair of the City Council’s subcommittee on landmarks, public siting and maritime uses, Jessica Lappin has a strong hand in what has become one of the most controversial aspects of New York City development and property rights — landmark status.
The City Council has the final say on a site or an area getting landmark status, and Lappin’s subcommittee is the Council’s gatekeeper for these decisions. In the spring, she was involved in the contentious designation of Fieldston, the Bronx, as a landmark district, a designation fought by several property owners (see Not everyone loves the new landmark status in Fieldston). Also, Lappin’s Council district includes Roosevelt Island, a spit of East River land that for decades has been a reliable source of affordable housing — but that has seen both market-rate condos and rentals open up in the past year.
In a recent podcast with The Real Deal, Lappin talked about the housing future of Roosevelt Island, and why landmarks aren’t the kiss of death for development.
THE REAL DEAL: Can you walk us through the process of designating something a landmark in New York City?
JESSICA LAPPIN: Sure. Anybody from the public can fill out a request for evaluation and submit it to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. That’s how they do their intake. And they have a staff, a research staff that will evaluate the requests that come in, either for a property or for a district. And the commission then calendars an item for a public hearing before them, and ultimately they will vote as to whether or not they think it deserves being recognized as a landmark. After that happens, then it comes to the City Council to say yes or no.
TRD: And what goes into the decision making process? What sort of facets or criteria are in the decision making over a landmark?
JL: They are looking for historical events, architectural significance. If it’s a historic district, would they call it a distinct sense of place, so that you walk into that neighborhood or that district and you have a sense that you are in a real community that’s distinguished by its landmark architecture?
TRD: There was a recent and contentious decision involving the Fieldston neighborhood in the northwestern Bronx. It was designated a landmark in April, and the Council had actually played a big role in that.
JL: Sure. The City Council can’t originate designations. As I said, we can only say yes or no once they’ve been designated by the commission. So, we are the point in the process where the public really gets to, at a grassroots level, engage in the discussion and the dialogue about that designation. So, I met with people on both sides of the issues — for and against — to weigh the arguments, because the landmark’s law does not take into account the position of the owner. But we’re always interested in hearing the owner’s perspective.
TRD: Why doesn’t it take into account the owner’s position?
JL: Because if somebody owned a property like a Grand Central Station or a Pennsylvania Station and wanted to tear it down just because they could make more money developing it in some other way, the law’s intended to still protect those properties. You landmark a property or an area because it’s appropriate, not to prevent development. That’s why we have zoning, and if you want to try and go through a zoning change, then you do that.
TRD: How will market-rate condos and rentals affect Roosevelt Island?
JL: I think what’s happening with the affordable housing there is a real tragedy, and it’s not unique to Roosevelt Island. The Mitchell-Lama buildings, they’re coming out of the program, and that’s something that’s happening all across the city. And once those units are gone, we’ll never get them back. So, it’s going to change the character of the island. It’s going to change the affordability of the island.
TRD: Is this an irreversible change?
JL: I hope in the short term the state and the city can work together to encourage home ownership, to keep some of the families who built the Island there. In the long term, I think we need a new program, whether it’s a new version of rent stabilization, a new version of Mitchell-Lama Housing, a new 21st-century program that can help us build affordable housing, because I want to see New York continue to be a place where people from different incomes and backgrounds can live and live together.