Ruling Endangers City's Landmark Ordinance

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Feb 15, 2009 6:00PM

On Jan. 31, when we heard that the city’s landmarks ordinance was in peril, we started digging into the 300-plus-page filing. Turns out that while developer and city residents Albert Hanna and Carol Mrowka may have a point about the constitutionality of the ordinance, their actions might be undoing much more than they ever expected. Citywide, more than 9,000 property owners are affected by some part of the ordinance as it stands. Some see it as a burden, and fight the districting of their properties. Others use the ordinance to their advantage, and put the various tax breaks to good use.

The Appellate Court opinion [PDF, via Landmarks Illinois] doesn’t overturn the law, or even the landmark status of the two neighborhoods involved, but it could set a precedent for overturning landmark status- and that realization is sending shudders through the historic preservation community.

The key to the case is precedent, it seems. Hanna v. City of Chicago, as it stands, could be the case that developers and landmarks-owners use to escape from what they see as unfair - or unfit - property designations that hold them to more costly standards. The implementation of the ordinance can have a real effect on property value and on homeowners’ insurance, but in the long term, it seems worth it to keep the city beautiful.

City law department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said Chicago is filing with the Illinois Supreme Court before their March 13 deadline. “We plan on filing a PLA with the Illinois Supreme Court as quickly as possible,” she said in an email. “We disagree with the appellate court's analysis and findings. As we said in our briefs and during the oral arguments, the City Council is responsible for making the final decision regarding landmarks.” Nationally, any successful challenge to the Chicago landmarks ordinance could be used as a precedent to overturn the local historic status of buildings, oftentimes the only barrier between the building’s destruction and its preservation.

Post by Kate Gardiner
Photo by The New No. 2