We’re a growing group of your neighbors. We live here because we love it—the shopping, the restaurants, the block parties. And we love how our neighborhood looks. But historically insensitive redevelopment is changing the look and feel of our rowhouses. Sunset Park is in danger of losing its sense of place. That’s why we started the Sunset Park Landmarks Committee.

Yes, but that doesn’t protect our neighborhood. The National Register of Historic Places is a list of places worthy of preservation. But being on the Register doesn’t protect our neighborhood—it doesn’t prevent alterations to a building’s façade or demolition of buildings. Only New York City historic district with landmark designation will preserve the look and feel of our neighborhood.

Sunset Park was re-zoned to R6b. In general, the re-zoning means much taller buildings can be built on 4th Avenue but not on the side streets. However, in general, it does allow a rowhouse to be taller by about 10 feet than what we already have. That means a typical rowhouse of about 30 feet can have an entire story added right on top, and that's allowed by zoning. Rowhouses that are in a historic district can have an additional story built on top, but only if it the new story is nearly invisible from the street. That's how a historic district can preserve the look of a block.

A historic district is an area of a neighborhood that is landmarked by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). The LPC is a NYC agency that has the authority to designate areas where the buildings represent a period or style of architecture typical of the city’s history and give that area a distinct “sense of place.” The purpose of landmarking is to protect existing building exteriors and prevent out-of-scale and historically insensitive redevelopment.