Posted on 11/29/2008 10:13:16 AM PST by reaganaut1
Hours before the sun came up on a cool October morning in 2006, people living near the Dakota Stables on the Upper West Side were suddenly awakened by the sound of a jackhammer.
Soon word spread that a demolition crew was hacking away at the brick cornices of the stables, an 1894 Romanesque Revival building, on Amsterdam Avenue at 77th Street, that once housed horses and carriages but had long served as a parking garage.
In just four days the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission was to hold a public hearing on pleas dating back 20 years to designate the low-rise building, with its round-arched windows and serpentine ornamentation, as a historic landmark.
But once the building’s distinctive features had been erased, the battle was lost. The commission went ahead with its hearing, but ultimately decided not to designate the structure because it had been irreparably changed.
The strategy has become wearyingly familiar to preservationists. A property owner — in this case Sylgar Properties, which was under contract to sell the site to Related — is notified by the landmarks commission that its building or the neighborhood is being considered for landmark status. The owner then rushes to obtain a demolition or stripping permit from the city’s Department of Buildings so that notable qualities can be removed, rendering the structure unworthy of protection.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This article reminds me of a side-effect of the Endangered Species Act -- encouraging landowners to kill protected animals before the government discovers they are on the property.
You are talking about environmental law of 20 years ago. It does not work that way any more. Now you don't get that pass.
Exactly my reaction. The comparison is totally valid. In each case the government seeks to deprive a private citizen of his property rights, without any compensation. And when these laws are set up by idiot liberals, they naturally expect the pee-pul to just stand there and let themselves be hit, and not react or act pre-emptively. They never learn.
It didn’t work that way 20 years ago either. I don’t know where you were 20 years ago but there has never been a pass for killing animals to get around enviro laws. What the other poster was talking about is the old adage of shoot, shovel and shutup. A plan that works well and keeps a person’s property rights intact as long as they are not caught. Most of our stupid enviro laws are a violation of constitutional rights and should all be trashed.
“The Three S-es” are still in effect. (Shoot, Shovel, and Shut-up) Landowners know they can’t be prosecuted if BigGov doesn’t know the “Lesser Rocky Mountains Ass-snapper” was ever on the property.
It is like liberals say they care about health care but don’t become Doctors or Nurses, or Aids, whom I guess don’t care and are in it for the money.
Liberals say they care about Tibet. But the Chinese have been whacking away at the Tibetan for 58 years. More cowbells, er, bumper stickers.
Darfur. No one is stopping the lefties from loading up at REI and taking of to fight the muslims in Darfur.
Lefties. Talk, no walk, no reaching into their wallet.
The usual NY Times propaganda for some hideous law in the works to further strip private property rights.
Real breaking news in these opening lines! LOL!
Who the hell reads this prissy, irrelevant, far left rag anymore?
There was no pass but there were extreme reasons to make sure that no animal considered for protection resided on your land and yeah, some got rid of them before they were discovered to reside there.
“Lefties. Talk, no walk, no reaching into their wallet.”
If that were all there was to it, we’d only have to suffer from their insufferable self-righteousness. Instead, they want to reach into OUR wallets, so that they can assuage their own liberal guilt AND feel superior for having taught their ‘inferiors’ a moral lesson in generosity.
Progress cannot occur if we have a missplaced sentimental attachment to old buildings. Rome would be a better city if they just bulldozed the old Roman ruins and old buildings and just built anew. And yes I think Egypt’s pyramids are an eyesore. Think how much better we all would be if Mecca was turned into a shopping mall.
It may be a perception of developers that they can do this, but if the land is already designated as an environmentally sensitive area, it won't matter if there are species on it or not.
Maybe the comment on “20 years ago” is more a symptom of my age. We have a tendancy to forget that those favorite songs playng in the elevator are really, really old. If 30 years ago or 40 years ago works, then use that.
The point is, you can not get away with that kind of thinking anymore.
On property rights, I think it is now established that for land to be taken for environmental reasons, the property owner must be compensated. That is the way environmental set-asides are now being structured.
Well I doubt your age is much more than mine. I am 66. As far as enviro set asides, they can kiss my a** on all enviro laws. The more I can work around or outright cheat on the better I like it. Enviro laws are unconstitutional, all of them, especially if they pertain to private property. down with big government, up the republic.
As an ex-sawmill, plywood plant employee, may I say that one of the proudest moments of my life was when a spotted owl flew into my windshield while I was patrolling company land. Never turned it in or mentioned it.
My ex wife was a Forest Service employee and told me about the outright cheating that went on, during the Clinton dynasty, in order to put a certain piece of US forest under a no cutting rule due to "spotted owl" presence. What a crock that was! Want more info? FReep mail me and I will be glad to enlighten you.
Here it was the Oplamato (sp?) falcon. My husband grew up in the rural areas of our county and had never seen one or heard of them and then they just suddenly appeared, and they wanted to protect them.
According to the “experts”, cattle disturbed them when they were nesting so they made this one rancher move his cattle off his pastures. Guess what, the falcons abandoned their nests and followed the cattle.
Duh, if you watch any birds of prey they have learned to hang out with cattle and humans because they kick up prey.
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