Just last week, Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), one of the City Council’s most outspoken advocates for the rights of property owners, again said he would champion those in his ward who don’t want their buildings to become landmarks.
It’s a statement he has frequently made. Yet on Monday, Natarus appeared to be playing the role of born-again preservationist, voting in favor of landmark status for two famous 1920s-era high-rises in his ward.
But, during a break in the council’s Committee on Historic Landmarks hearing, Natarus revealed he hadn’t changed that much after all.
“I think they should litigate,” he said of the owners of those two buildings. He gave the same advice to other landlords who consider landmark status an economic burden, saying they should challenge the city’s ordinance on the grounds that landmarking amounts to a government “taking” of their property.
“I don’t see the government giving them any incentive (to favor landmark status),” he said. “So, I’m letting these things go ahead and I’m hopeful that it’ll be decided once and for all by the courts.”
The two buildings in Natarus’ ward, which were the subject of the hearing and are likely to receive final approval by the full City Council on Tuesday, are: the 21-story London Guarantee Building, 360 N. Michigan Ave., and the One North LaSalle Building, whose intricately detailed lobby is considered to be one of the best surviving examples of the Art Deco style of architecture.
The structures were among seven sites recommended for landmark status by the committee.
But attorneys representing those on both sides of the landmark debate said that legal challenges like the one Natarus suggests are easier said than done.
They said a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Penn Central Transportation Co. vs. New York City case made such challenges nearly impossible when it ruled that landmarking is not a government “taking” unless it blocks all reasonable uses for the property.
Since then, lawsuits challenging landmarks ordinances have not been successful, said Brad White, president of Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois.
But in other land-use cases, the pendulum seems to be swinging in the other direction–and that may ultimately influence landmark litigation, said Jack Guthman, a zoning attorney who often represents property owners.
For example, more and more property owners, in cases unrelated to landmarking, have challenged “inverse condemnation,” which gives the government the authority to take away the use of private property without payment, said zoning attorney Jerome Torshen.
But, at least in the case of the two 42nd Ward high-rises, neither owner appears to be inclined to sue.
“Is he going to pay for it?” asked Fred Gardner, a real estate manager for the University of Chicago, when told of Natarus’ comments. The school owns the London Guarantee high-rise.
In fact, Gardner told the committee that the school had not even decided whether it opposed or supported landmark status for the building since it had not received notice of the hearing in time to study the issue.
That explanation didn’t go over well with Natarus, who reminded Gardner that the London Guarantee high-rise was first recommended for landmark status some 10 years ago by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.
During the meeting, Natarus, wearing his preservationist hat, as well as Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), grilled both Gardner and Stanton Shuman, an attorney for Investment Properties Associates, which manages the London Guarantee Building and is the beneficial owner of One North LaSalle.
“When you look at the (London Guarantee) building, it’s kind of pretty, isn’t it?” Natarus asked Gardner at one point.
Natarus and his committee colleagues approved landmark designation for the Soldiers’ Home, 739 E. 35th St., once a hospital for recovering Civil War soldiers, against the wishes of its owner, Catholic Charities of Chicago.
Rev. Mike Boland, association administrator for the organization, testified about concerns that the added regulations of landmarking would interfere with operating the children’s home now located there.
Also approved for landmark status were the DuPont-Whitehouse House, 3558 S. Artesian Ave., a 120-year-old Italianate-style building with deep ties to the history of the Brighton Park neighborhood; and the Peoples Gas-South Chicago Neighborhood Store, 8935 S. Commercial Ave., which was built in 1925 by George Grant Elmsley.
The other sites approved are the Raber House, 5760 S. Lafayette Ave., a 126-year-old mansion that ranks among the city’s few pre-Chicago Fire homes; and the Kaufmann Store and Flats at 2312-14 N. Lincoln Ave., which was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan.
In another landmark-related case, 200 people appeared Monday night at a public hearing sponsored by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks on a request for a permit to tear down the Hettler Mansion in the Hawthorne Place Landmark District on the Near North Side.
Its owner, the Chicago City Day School, wants to tear it down for a school addition. The commission said it will issue a ruling May 1.
