1019 Bushwick Avenue (via Google Maps)
In October, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate the Peter P. and Rosa M. Huberty House, at 1019 Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, as a city landmark.
“The designation of the Huberty House honors both the historic character of Bushwick Avenue as it developed in the early 20th century, as well as the contributions of architect Ulrich Huberty to the borough of Brooklyn," LPC Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan said at the time. “Today's landmark designation will preserve this splendid Colonial Revival for future generations of New Yorkers to enjoy."
A little more than three months later, on February 6, the item passed the City Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting, and Maritime Uses. It then passed the Council’s Land Use Committee on February 8, and finally the full City Council on February 15. The landmarking has the support of the LPC, Council Member Antonio Reynoso, who represents the district the house sits in, Reynoso’s predecessor, Diana Reyna, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the Historic Districts Council, and the New York Landmarks Conservancy, to name a few.
The problem: the owner of the house, Virginia Giovinco, is staunchly against it.
Giovinco testified at a January 23 meeting of the Council’s Landmarks Subcommittee, when the landmarking of the house was being considered.
“It’s a terrible burden on me,” she told the subcommittee. “I just cannot live with that idea. So I strongly oppose this designation for that moment that I don’t have control over my house.”
The home has been in Giovinco’s family since 1937, when it was purchased by her grandfather, Luciano Giovinco, a tailor who had immigrated from Italy at the beginning of the 1900s. The house, a 4,000 square foot colonial revival mansion, was originally built in 1900 by the architect Ulrich Huberty for his parents, Peter and Rosa. Huberty also designed buildings such as the landmarked Williamsburgh Savings Bank, Hotel Bossert, and the Prospect Park Boathouse.
Giovinco, now in her eighties, claimed at the hearing that the city has been attempting to landmark the house for at least 15 years. Her main worry appeared to be losing the autonomy of regular homeownership. She testified that, over the course of the Giovinco family’s 81-year ownership of the house, it had been kept in immaculate condition and any improvements had not deviated from the original colonial style of the home.
“The old-timers did not need an outside agency to tell them they should preserve the appearance of this house,” she said. “And I don’t need an outside agency either.”
Virginia Giovinco’s cousin Paul Giovinco also testified at the hearing, attesting that the house was not just within Virginia’s immediate family but rather a focal point for the entire extended family. Paul called out the city for not being supportive, saying that they had not received an offer from the city to cover a fixed portion of maintenance costs required by the landmarking.
“We’re not gonna go ahead and throw down some tar paper, and some shingles,” Paul said. “We’re gonna maintain it the same way. But I don’t see no compensation or help. So what is the landmark giving us?”
In response to testimony from the Giovincos, Council Members Daneek Miller and Mark Treyger discussed the need to strike a balance between the issues of homeowner autonomy and the need to preserve historic structures and communities through the landmarking process. Council Member Peter Koo recommended that the committee lay over the matter until further study.
At the February 15 meeting of the full City Council, Miller, Treyger, and Koo all voted to advance the landmarking.
Seven Council members voted against the designation: Joe Borelli, Ruben Diaz, Sr., Mark Gjonaj, Bob Holden, Steven Matteo, Eric Ulrich, and Kalman Yeger -- the Council’s three Republicans and several more conservative Democrats. Giovinco’s objections to the landmarking were on their mind.
“It is my understanding that the property owner was not in favor of the landmark designation,” Ulrich told Gotham Gazette. “Therefore I voted against it.”
Borelli went even further in his objections, suggesting that the landmarking is a violation of the owner’s personal liberties.
“No owner is treated fairly if their rights are taken away without compensation,” Borelli said in an email. “There is no other agency in government that has that power, only this commission that decides which buildings are more relevant than others.” Among the rights Borelli cited as being taken away by LPC include “everything from putting a new addition on; to painting it with purple polka dots; [t]o using aluminum siding; [t]o demolishing it, because the cost of maintaining it under LPC guidelines is costly.”
Borelli said the Landmarks Preservation Commission should be focusing more on landmarking buildings wherein preservation would be a public benefit, rather than simply picking “the prettiest house on the block.”
The Landmarks Preservation Commission describes itself as “the largest municipal preservation agency in the nation;” 36,000 buildings are landmarked properties in New York City. Most of those are located in larger historic districts, but there are 1,405 individually landmarked buildings, along with 120 “interior landmarks” and 10 “scenic landmarks,” which consist of city parks such as Central Park, Prospect Park, and Riverside Park. Its leadership is made up of 11 commissioners appointed by the mayor. When the LPC designates a city landmark, the designation must then be approved by the City Council’s Land Use Committee and then the full council.
Virginia Giovinco declined to comment for this story. She has been on record against the landmarking since at least 2013, when she testified at an LPC hearing with the same concerns as she has now: that landmarking the house would result in her losing autonomy over her property.
For its part, an LPC representative said that the commission has designated approximately 150 free-standing homes as landmarks, with another 2,000 being landmarked as part of a historic district. Zodet Negron, a spokesperson for the LPC, told Gotham Gazette that the LPC has designated eight single-family homes as landmarks in the past four years, receiving the support of six of the owners; in the end, the owner’s approval is not required for designation. Negron stated that the LPC had done “extensive outreach” with Giovinco and that it intended to work with her “to ensure a smooth regulatory process.”
“Our intent and approach is always to seek the cooperation of owners and establish a collaborative relationship that continues after designation,” Negron told Gotham Gazette. “Thousands of single-family homes are regulated by the Commission throughout the city, including both individual landmarks and within historic districts, and we work closely with homeowners to appropriately and expediently meet their needs.”
According the city’s administrative code, minor work on a landmarked property typically requires a permit from the LPC, unless another city agency deems an improvement necessary for safety. Major work such as demolitions or new construction requires more permissions from LPC, including a “certificate of no effect” on “protected architectural features,” a “certificate of appropriateness,” or are otherwise authorized to proceed with the work. The code also says that owners should keep properties in “good repair” and prevent decay and deterioration. Negron said “routine maintenance” of landmarked properties typically does not require review from LPC.
City Council Member Adrienne Adams, the chair of the Landmarks Subcommittee, also told Gotham Gazette that she had met with Giovinco after the hearing.
Though Bushwick Avenue is lined with many historic properties, only one other home on the avenue has been landmarked: the Catherina Lipsius House at 670 Bushwick Ave. Other landmarks on the stretch include a church, a Brooklyn Public Library branch, a Masonic Lodge, and the Williamsburg Houses NYCHA development.
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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Council Member Rosenthal and others (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
As the nation grapples with how to confront sexual misconduct, the New York City Council is addressing the issue in its oversight and legislative capacities. On Wednesday, Council members held a press conference and subsequent hearing on “best practices” for preventing sexual harassment, identifying current city government protocols, and considering a slate of new legislation.
The 45-minute press conference outside City Hall featured about a dozen Council members, along with advocates, promoting the action being taken by the Council. It was led by Council Member Helen Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the Committee on Women and ran the hearing that was held jointly with the Committee on Civil and Human Rights. During the hearing, members formally introduced the Stop Sexual Harassment in NYC Act, a package of 11 bills aimed at preventing and punishing sexual harassment in much of city government and the private sector.
“Countless women and men have raised their voices and built the #MeToo movement,” Rosenthal said at the press conference. “The courage and the grace of these survivors has made a reckoning inevitable, not just for the powerful individuals finally brought to account, but for our society as a whole. We owe them a great deal of gratitude--and more to the point, we owe them action.”
“Because although we have strong sexual harassment protections on the books,” she said, “we know that reality has not caught up with the law. Harassers are still too often able to operate with impunity.”
Among the Council proposals is a bill requiring city agencies to administer anti-sexual harassment training twice per year. The lead sponsor of the bill is Council Speaker Corey Johnson. Another bill, introduced by Council Member Mark Levine, would require the dozens of city agencies to produce a yearly report of sexual harassment incidents. Additionally, Rosenthal introduced a bill mandating that the city’s Commission on Human Rights distribute a “climate survey” to city agencies to “assess the general awareness and knowledge of workplace sexual harassment policies and prevention” in them, according to the bill’s summary.
In a similar vein, Council Member Adrienne Adams proposed a bill requiring the Commission on Human Rights to join forces with the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) to deliver an “assessment of risk factors associated with sexual harassment within city agencies” to the mayor and speaker. Notably, this assortment of legislation applies only to mayoral agencies, including the mayor’s office, but not the City Council itself, according to a spokesperson for Rosenthal. The bills do not apply to the Borough Presidents’ offices, the Comptroller’s office, the Public Advocate’s office, or other non-mayoral government entities, either.
At Wednesday’s hearing, representatives from DCAS presented a new citywide employee handbook that outlines guidance for many examples of inappropriate workplace behavior and what to do when an employee feels harassed.
Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer submitted legislation that would require businesses contracting with the city to include sexual harassment policies and procedures in their division of labor services employment reports.
The array of proposals also addresses private businesses throughout the city. For example, Council Member Laurie Combo and Public Advocate Letitia James put forward legislation requiring businesses with more than 14 employees to conduct sexual harassment prevention training. Along similar lines, Council Member Keith Powers’ bill on the matter would amend the city’s Human Rights Law related to sexual harassment to apply to businesses employing any number of people, rather than the current threshold of businesses with more than four employees.
Council Member Robert Cornegy, for his part, introduced a bill that would mandate that employers inform workers of their rights vis-à-vis sexual harassment with an office poster and a bill introduced by Council Member Alicka Ampry-Samuel would direct the Commission on Human Rights to provide resources regarding sexual harassment on its website.
Council Member Carlina Rivera has legislation classifying sexual harassment as a form of discrimination under the city’s Human Rights Law. In an interview prior to the hearing, Rivera explained the goals of the effort. “What we’re looking for is clearly to show everyone that as a city we’re going to set the model for others, whether it’s the public or private sector,” she said. “What we’re looking for are best practices.”
The Council wants to ensure “every workplace is free from sexual harassment,” Rivera added.
“When it comes to private businesses,” Rivera said, “one of the things that is incredibly challenging is transparency.” The legislation pertaining to private businesses, Rivera said, needed to not just be symbolic, but must clearly codify what is and is not acceptable workplace conduct.
“We’re doing this to open that door for all to come forward and say, ‘Hey, this is what’s happening to me in my own business,” she continued, “and we’re going to be able to challenge them on their own set of practices in terms of protecting their employees.”
Former City Comptroller and Congressional Representative Liz Holtzman, who participated in both the press conference and hearing, echoed Council Member Rosenthal. She noted that though there have been previous efforts to address seuxual harassment, not enough has been done to follow through once the problem had been identified.
The Council bills may be amended before either another hearing to discuss them or committee votes to move them through. Bills passed by committee are then voted on by the full 51-member City Council. Mayor Bill de Blasio would then be asked to sign any bills passed by the overwhelmingly Democratic Council. The Democratic mayor has indicated he is supportive of taking new legislative action on this front, and representatives of his administration appeared supportive of the Council’s proposals at the Wednesday hearing.
Public Advocate James contended that as high-profile instances of sexual harassment make headlines, it is also a common occurrence in daily life of too many everyday New Yorkers. “We all have our own individual, personal Harvey Weinstein’s that we know,” she said.
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by Sam Raskin
@samraskinz @GothamGazette
Speaker Johnson talks with Mayor de Blasio (photo: William Alatriste)
The City Council is set to begin hearings next week on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $88.67 billion preliminary budget proposal for fiscal year 2019, with a smaller but significant figure likely to become an issue of controversy in negotiations between the two sides of City Hall.
Council Speaker Corey Johnson seems to be gearing up to push the administration on funding half of the MTA’s $836-million action plan to stabilize the city’s ailing subways. The plan, announced by MTA Chair Joe Lhota in July, has become another point of contention between Mayor de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, as Cuomo and his appointee, Lhota, have called on de Blasio to fund half the action plan, which the mayor has refused to do. De Blasio has pointed to more than $450 million he says the state has raided from the MTA and should return in order to fund the action plan.
While de Blasio fights the governor’s demand, Johnson may be closing in on the mayor from the other side.
“It is no secret that our subway system is in crisis. Though I am glad the Governor appointed Chair Lhota to fix the MTA’s ongoing problems, we still have serious concerns and we finally need to get the job done,” Speaker Johnson said in a statement to Gotham Gazette on Friday, when asked about his position on the MTA action plan. “The New York City Council will consider a one-time payment to fund the proposed subway action plan and we look forward to working with the Mayor, Governor, the Senate and Assembly and MTA in repairing the transit system.”
Johnson’s remarks came after a recent interview with the amNew York and Newsday editorial board in which he indicated that perhaps the city should consider paying half the cost of the plan in exchange for more accountability from the MTA, and possibly more. “Maybe if the mayor were able to get some other good things for the city that are really important to him, maybe he would be more willing for the city to come up with a one-time payment,” Johnson said in the interview, perhaps previewing his role as a deal-broker on the issue.
Not only will all the parties be negotiating the action plan funding, but also long-term funding for the MTA, which may include a congestion pricing scheme. Johnson said he is worried that a potential “lock box” for revenue raised through congestion pricing -- a hotly debated policy issue that has taken center stage in the MTA funding conversation -- would not be failsafe. That concern appears to muddy de Blasio’s demand that any congestion pricing plan include such a lock box guarantee that any money raised in the city stays in the city for MTA subway and bus improvements.
At an unrelated news conference on Thursday, de Blasio brushed aside any concern about Johnson’s contrasting perspective, and denied that it may be undercutting his position in budget negotiations with the state. “I have a lot of respect for the speaker. We have talked about it. We have a different view but it’s with real respect,” de Blasio said, when asked by Gotham Gazette about Johnson’s openness to funding the MTA action plan. “He’s the leader of a separate part of government. He’s going to issue his opinions, the important thing is we always talk about them.”
De Blasio expressed appreciation that Johnson was pushing for “real checks and balances” to ensure money raised in the city is spent within the city and with oversight and approval from local officials. “So I think the speaker was right on point on those things he said about what the conditions would be. But no we’ve had a very collegial relationship. I’m very happy with it.”
It was a similar exchange to that de Basio had with Comptroller Scott Stringer last summer, when Stringer said that the city should put up half the action plan funds.
De Blasio and the City Council must agree on a new city budget deal by the July 1 start of the next fiscal year. The state fiscal year begins April 1, and negotiations in Albany are about to heat up.
At the Thursday press conference, the mayor reiterated his preferred policy of implementing a so-called millionaire’s tax that would both fund transit infrastructure and subsidized MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers, and called the new congestion pricing plan, put forth by the governor’s Fix NYC panel, that would implement a surcharge on taxis and for-hire vehicles “a very promising one.”
“Look, there’s going to be a whole negotiation over the state budget. We’re going to be actively involved in that,” he said. “And we’re going to be listening for any plan that guarantees results for the people of New York City. If it doesn’t have a lockbox, we’re not going to part of it.”
As Johnson noted, any agreement on funding the MTA and on a potential congestion pricing plan will have to be negotiated between the governor, the state Assembly and the state Senate. But state elected officials have so far vacillated on how to move forward or presented options that have been unpalatable to de Blasio’s administration. The governor has not presented actual bill language around congestion pricing, though his panel put forth detailed recommendations with a three-year phase-in.
“We had an initial conversation internally,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, told reporters earlier this month. “I can clearly say the funding sources for the MTA is a priority for members, but I don’t think the members at this point are ready to go forward. But I do think we will come up with some ideas because the importance of funding the MTA — even the biggest critics realize some sort of long-term funding is necessary.”
The Senate leadership, on the other hand, has been far more hostile to the mayor’s priorities, as is typical. “The city has to ante up its share. The state has already made a commitment,” said Senate GOP Majority Leader John Flanagan, at an unrelated news conference on January 10. Flanagan has already come out against any new taxes and has been noncommittal on congestion pricing. During a Crain’s New York Business breakfast forum on January 26, he said, “When someone asks me about congestion pricing, I don't want to gratuitously say ‘no’ because we have not conferenced this.”
The Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference, which helps Republicans control the chamber, has put forward separate legislation earlier this month that would force the city to bear half the cost of the MTA action plan by diverting a percentage of sales tax revenue.
That measure, among others, was also part of Governor Cuomo’s executive budget proposal, which includes cost shifts for MTA capital improvements from the state to the city and a proposal to create special tax zones in the city to capture revenue for the MTA from increasing property values around transit investments. The Citizens Budget Commission, an independent fiscal watchdog, criticized the proposals and called the shifts “unjustified” and said they would require “a sevenfold increase in City capital contributions.”
“These proposals are an attempt to impose an onerous cost shift onto New York City residents and businesses, who already pay an estimated 72 percent of MTA dedicated taxes and subsidies,” said CBC President Carol Kellerman, in a statement on Cuomo’s executive budget in January.
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette