More than 25% of Manhattan buildings landmarked: Report

More than a quarter of Manhattan’s buildings are designated landmarks, and a powerful city real estate group says that’s bad for economic growth — but conservation groups say it’s just the opposite.

The Real Estate Board of New York released a report Thursday saying that 27.7% of Manhattan’s buildings carry the designation, with the Upper East Side, SoHo and the Village reaching as high as 70%, and that these high percentages will “stifle job creation” and economic development, the group says.

“As the ability to develop housing is constricted, housing prices increase and wealth concentrates in heavily landmarked areas,” REBNY said, adding high percentages will “increase the cost of living in New York, and further homogenize much of the borough’s neighborhoods.”

The report adds that 93% of Manhattan’s properties are in historic districts, saying that this “broad-brush approach” to landmarking undermines the process by encompassing unimportant buildings.

But Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, said the report is “based in ideology and not fact.”
“They claim that landmarking prevents economic development yet somehow forces neighborhoods to become wealthier and wealthier,” he said. “It’s an inexplicable paradox and it’s not borne out by the facts.”

He added: “To try to make the argument that neighborhoods like Greenwich Village or the Upper West Side are not contributing to the economic vitality of New York City is simply laughable.”