Take Back Authority

A historical survey is underway in Southampton Village to determine if the village’s historic districts should be expanded to encompass more streets.

The neighborhoods under consideration are referred to as the Northeast and Southern Expansion Areas, identified as being the “most vulnerable to demolition and insensitive redevelopment.” With a $40,000 grant from the State Historic Preservation Office footing the bill, the Village Board contracted with Preservation Studios last November for an “intensive-level survey” and to prepare a submission to the National Register of Historic Places.

On April 10, The Express News Group hosted an Express Sessions conversation on the potential expansion and what it would mean for those homeowners in the expansion areas. In short, owners of contributing historic structures would lose the ability to demolish or significantly alter their homes at will.

Historic districts preserve the character of the village for everyone’s enjoyment. They also ensure that homebuyers that when they move into a designated historic neighborhood for its charm, that neighborhood won’t change and become unrecognizable in the future.

Future homebuyers will know what they are getting themselves into before they buy in. For existing homeowners, the designation can have numerous consequences in addition to the new restrictions on their property rights. They could find their insurance rates go up and their home values go down. They could find that changes they intended to make to accommodate their families are now prohibited or at least much harder and more expensive to obtain.

Designating new or expanded historic districts is not a bad idea, but it is a decision that can’t be taken lightly and deserves a lengthy public hearing.

Currently, the power to designate a village historic district or a landmark lies with the Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation, the members of which are appointed by the mayor with the approval of the Board of Trustees.

Whether vesting this power in the hands of an appointed board is mandatory became a point of discussion during the Express Sessions conversation. But some research revealed that the Board of Trustees can, in fact, take back the power and still maintain its status under the federally sponsored Certified Local Government Program. This is important, because being a Certified Local Government makes the village eligible for certain grants that it could not obtain otherwise.

So with that concern moot, should the Board of Trustees — an elected board, accountable to the voters — or the Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation — an appointed board with no voters or campaign donors to worry about — be making the decisions on historic districts and landmarks?

Having people no one elected making decisions regarding property rights could rub some residents the wrong way. On the other hand, isn’t it beneficial to have a body that is free of politics making these consequential decisions impartially?

However, as former State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. put it last week, “Politics is involved in everything but very deep sleep.” The firewall between appointed boards and politics may not be as impenetrable as it appears, especially when reappointments are at the discretion of the Board of Trustees.

Having an appointed board rather than the Board of Trustees make decisions on historic districts and landmarks does accomplish one thing: It allows the Board of Trustees to deflect blame when residents are unhappy with the decisions.

Mayor Bill Manger wrote in a March 13 letter to the editor: “The mayor and trustees have no authority in the expansion of a district.”

The mayor and the Board of Trustees can change that. And they should.