CB 7 votes to landmark 1330 Flushing buildings

To prevent the spread of “McMansions,” Flushing residents voted to landmark a 75-block area of Broadway-Flushing.
Community Board (CB) 7 unanimously approved an “historic” application to give 1330 buildings landmark status, and until the process is complete – possible years down the road – all construction in the area will need to abide by landmark regulations.
“Once the application goes in, the guillotine falls,” said Victor Ross, a Community Board 7 member, which voted for the application, 36-0. Once the application is calendared on the Department of Buildings’ website, all construction in the area will need to be approved by the City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.
“What happens if you wanted to put up a fence?” Ross asked rhetorically.
The area — bounded essentially by 155th Street to the west, 29th and 32nd Avenues to the north, Francis Lewis Boulevard to the east, and Northern Boulevard and Crocheron Avenue to the south – includes 86 non-contributing buildings, which are newly constructed or so much changed from their pre-1950 style that they cannot be accorded a landmark designation.
In their appeal to the community board, Paul Graziano, an Urban Planning and Historic Preservation Consultant, and his partner, Phillip Esser, an architectural historian, showed locals the roots of the neighborhood, as a country bedroom community and escape for Manhattan residents.
The area’s founders intended homes in Broadway-Flushing to be set back from the street, creating green streetscapes.
Graziano said that since his company, Associated Cultural Resource Consultants, began researching the 350-page application two years ago, he has felt strong support from the community.
“But you are always going to have some people against it,” Graziano said.