The 103-year-old wood-frame house on the Northwest Side scarcely looks the way it did 95 years ago when Flora Disney gave birth to entertainment icon Walt Disney.
White vinyl siding covers the outside. Someone along the way added a front porch, raised the two-story house and tacked on a rear addition.
If it weren’t for the fact that Disney’s father, Elias, built it himself, it would hardly stand out among the thousands of other remaining low-cost workers’ cottages built throughout the city during the late 19th Century.
Even so, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks recommended in 1991 that it receive landmark designation, a designation June Saathoff, its owner of 26 years, has resisted ever since.
Her fear, that owning a landmark will be a financial burden, is shared by owners of every property type, from small houses like Saathoff’s to large commercial properties like the McGraw-Hill Building on North Michigan Avenue.
“There’s nothing in it for me, only restrictions,” Saathoff said.
That’s a common–if somewhat oversimplified–assumption in the ongoing controversy over landmark preservation, but it’s also a telling illustration of the widespread confusion and concerns over the issue.
Landmark status doesn’t mean, for example, that an owner can’t change the wallpaper in the bathroom without approval or, in Saathoff’s case, put on a new roof.
It does mean that such approval might be required to change the facade of a building: to widen a bay window, for example, if the resulting proportions are deemed aesthetically jarring.
The concerns of those who could be affected are likely to come before the council in the coming weeks as Mayor Richard Daley’s administration seeks landmark status for two dozen sites.
At one extreme are simple questions like Saathoff’s. Preservationists note she would need a permit to replace her roof with or without landmark designation.
At the other extreme are larger concerns from developers whose buildings sit on prime commercial land worth millions of dollars.
If they’re landmarked but subsequently lose millions because of low occupancies and rents–even after a beautiful restoration–will the owners have any hope of getting permission to tear them down?
Clearly, landmark status makes demolition harder, but when an owner can make a strong case that the building has little economic value, the Landmark Commission does authorize demolition.
That’s what happened last year to the Lexington Hotel, a 103-year-old crumbling and vacant official landmark on South Michigan Avenue.
At the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe apartment towers at 860-880 N. Lake Shore Drive, which could receive landmark designation, the tenant government already imposes strict rules about exterior changes as well as changes to the interior of the apartments. (And not even the Landmarks Commission would interfere with any changes to apartment interiors.)
While the commission would have to review changes under landmark status, it isn’t likely to block those that are not extreme. Patrick Shaw, a building trustee who supports landmark status, said the concerns of opponents are more of a vague uneasiness. “The reason people are fearful is the belief that if their building is landmarked, they don’t somehow own it,” he said.
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Basically, once a structure becomes a landmark, it is policed by the city only when the owner applies for a building or demolition permit, said Charles Thurow, the deputy planning commissioner in charge of landmarks.
The owner is not required to launch an expensive renovation project. In fact, landmark ordinances, in Chicago and other cities, don’t even require a minimum level of maintenance.
When landlords do take on the serious task of rehabilitating an old building, they’re not required to dig up the original facade material regardless of the cost.
For instance, terra cotta cladding, commonly used on buildings at one time, is now rare and expensive, so the Landmarks Commission allows a number of substitutes, such as fiberglass, glass-reinforced concrete and enamel aluminum.
But for owners of major commercial properties there are more pressing concerns.
First, the city’s ordinance is too vague in its definition, said Jack Guthman, an attorney who represents developers in zoning and landmarking disputes.
“Pretty much any building of age could qualify as a landmark under one of the city’s seven standards in the ordinance,” he said.
For example, preservationists tried to keep a nine-story brick-and-stone apartment structure from being torn down in 1988 to make way for the 900 N. Michigan Ave. complex anchored by Bloomingdale’s, said Guthman.
“It was a small, pleasant bulding, but the architect was a person of modest reputation. It was the city’s first co-op, but that’s not worthy of landmarking a building,” Guthman said. He successfully argued against making it a landmark.
The most serious complaint among developers is that landmarking an old office building can mean they become saddled with an outmoded structure that doesn’t lend itself to modern, commercial uses. Meanwhile, they are still stuck with its accompanying maintenance costs and taxes.
Usually only the facade of a building is landmarked, but an owner still can face the cost of installing new elevators, heating, ventilation and air conditioning as well as raising the floors to allow for a modern communications system.
And in the end, the owner is still usually stuck with a building in which each floor has only 4,000 to 6,000 square feet, compared with the 20,000 found in more modern buildings.
“They’re not viable today,” Guthman said of such buildings.
Preservationists, on the other hand, contend research shows that old, renovated buildings, if marketed properly, often stand out next to the usual modern glass-encased towers.
Under the city’s ordinance, owners can argue against landmark status on the grounds that it would pose too great an economic burden, raising the question of whether such owners should be offered some type of tax relief.
“There’s nothing helping the landmark landlord,” said develper Sam Roti. “I think it’s unfair that a landmark has to compete with a brand new office building without help.”
Although there are now no city-sponsored incentives, some relief is provided by the federal government and the county. Owners of buildings that are named to the national registry of landmarks are eligible for an income tax credit worth up to 20 percent of the cost of any renovations done to the structures.
The federal government also allows a charitable tax break for building owners who donate a facade easement of the structure to a not-for-profit organization.
For renovated residential buildings, an owner can get a property tax freeze for 12 years from the county. (The program is administered by the state.)
City officials are considering a number of tax abatements, including a proposal that would freeze property taxes for eight years for renovated commercial properties.
More extreme proposals to compensate property owners have increasingly popped up in cities across the nation, but most have failed because state legislators realize they translate into huge tax revenue losses.
And as unpopular as land-use regulations and zoning are, arguments for compensation rarely hold up in court.
Said David Socolow, director of the American Resources Information Network, a research group on land-use issues: “There’s no 5th Amendment right to get the highest and best economic use of your property,”