Comment by jacobolus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacobolus | Hacker News Reader

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“Dilapidated building” is a loaded description. The house is the oldest in the neighborhood, from 1889, and the neighbors claim it is of both architectural and local-historical significance. (I don’t have enough local knowledge to weigh in.) Here is the neighbors’ landmark application: https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/Planning_and_D...

Insisting that they are just saying that as an excuse because they don’t like town houses seems uncharitable at best. Considering the sources pushing this story I’d call it more like a bad-faith political hit job vs. Prof. Reich. E.g. your link is from a far-right “think tank” in North Carolina full of climate denialists, funded by Art Pope, GOP megadonor and close friend of the Koch brothers. Not exactly the people I would trust to fairly evaluate Berkeley’s decisions on which buildings should be landmarks.

In any case, the city council decided that the house isn’t important enough to qualify as a landmark, and the project is going through; the building will be torn down.

> the neighbors claim it is of both architectural and local-historical significance.

The neighbors will say whatever they can to stop the building without regard for truth or basic decorum. Their class interests are extremely conflicted, and such duplicitous bad-faith use of law is endemic in wealthy white neighborhoods like this.

See, for example:

https://twitter.com/cselmendorf/status/1468608996185501700?s...

The lying about true causes is so ingrained that a power-broker wrote it all out publicity in a local magazine, and thought it was self defense.

Every neighbor who signs the petition to make a local building a landmark isn’t always and inevitably acting in bad faith.

Developers will also often happily tear down irreplaceable historical landmarks if they can profit, but that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily acting in bad faith.

Which is why there is a city process involved. (In this case, deciding in favor of the developer.)

Of course they are.

Neighbors don't determine historical significance, they determine their financial and aesthetic best interests.

Not really sure what "developers" have to do with this. I thought it was about history? Or is any sort of justification ok if it stops housing that's more affordable than the rest of the multi-million dollar homes of the neighborhood?

If you have decided a priori that all historical preservation is just bad-faith NIMBYism, that’s kind of the end of the conversation.

Personally I think it is fine to leave to some kind of city process to decide which 19th century buildings to tear down, case by case, rather than just tearing them all down. In this case, the historical preservationists made their petition, but the city decided that their case wasn’t strong enough. Seems fine.

But if the process is working poorly in some places, then people in the city should press for fixes. (And if city officials are violating the law, they should be sued or prosecuted, as appropriate.)

Finding Bob Reich’s signature on a historical preservation petition for a 19th century building in his already mixed neighborhood (from what I can tell 2/4 corners at this intersection already have large multi-unit buildings) seems like an especially flimsy reason to write a screed attacking him for hypocrisy.

Historical status is not determined by financially conflicted neighbors, it's determined by historical societies.

My "pre determination" is that neighbors lie all the time another whatever they can to stop housing. This is a base fact.

If it's historical, there are professionals who determine that based on facts, not people who want to build financial walls around their house.

Still wondering why you brought up developers unless you're admitting that the historical status isn't actually about history but instead about stopping housing.

I would say historical status is determined by formal city process, not any independent organization.

But the person leading this petition was apparently historian Daniella Thompson of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association: http://berkeleyheritage.com

Here is the association’s letter to the city after the house was denied landmark status: http://berkeleyheritage.com/letters/payson_house_appeal_lett...

> ... According to BAHA’s records, the Payson House is the oldest residence standing in its neighborhood and is one of the oldest shingle houses remaining extant in Berkeley.... It is BAHA’s view that the Payson House qualifies as a structure of merit pursuant to the City’s Landmarks Ordinance...

What are your criteria for who counts as a valid historical society? As far as I can tell the BAHA is the most relevant/appropriate organization in Berkeley in this context.

(Note: historical societies are made up of local residents, and historians can be paid for their work; local historians weighing in on specific buildings are probably generally financially conflicted, as well as generally biased towards preservation.)

> Historical status is not determined by financially conflicted neighbors, it's determined by historical societies.

well according to this: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2020/08/07/landmarking-fails-fo...

> Commissioners also used the contentious meeting as an opportunity to tell residents that if they took issue with the way landmarking typically unfolds, they should ask the city to conduct a historical survey for landmarking, instead of relying on applications that happen to come in when development is proposed at certain locations.

Most people are like this when they have a ridiculous amount of their net worth tied up in a particular asset. Doubly so when they're leveraged.

The irony is that by dragging down property values rent control would actually reduce this type of behavior.

I support rent control, but I don't think it either drags down property values, or prevents this sort of behavior a ton.

A lot of NIMBY behavior is about financial interests, but there are a lot more motivations too: basic conservatism, fear of change, fear of different types of people, and the incredible human bias against the unknown.

> oldest in the neighborhood, from 1889, and the neighbors claim it is of both architectural and local-historical significance

The building is architecturally mundane and inefficiently built (SFH) . It is around 150 years old, which is quite new as far as 'old' buildings go. It also doesn't look that nice (subjective personal opinion)

Usually, 'historic significance' is a thinly veiled attempt to grasp at straws for blocking any densification.

In most cases, these sort of

"historic significance" doesn't have a formal definition as far as I can tell. We really need one that is stricter than people feel it should be.

Historical buildings should be protected, but I don't know how to formally define that. The best I can come up with is the market: if you actually cared about it you would put your money where you mouth is and buy it out (perhaps with a group of like minded to create a foundation), and protect it as you see fit for as long as people continue to protect it. Of course this mostly eliminates the poor, but for the most part I'm not sure it matters as anything that is historic probably has at least one rich person who cares.

Did you have a look at the house? It’s pretty funny to think it might have been considered a landmark by some.

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