West Village
A homeowner in the West Village just provided this information:
I received an estimate to replace six windows and a double door for the front of my property. To perform this rehabilitation along standards for preservation? The estimate runs $14,000. That's a far cry from what these repairs would cost in a non-preservation district.
Lower West Side
So there I am, working on a building I bought to create a new home for me and my family. A building that was the site of drug deals and heroin shooting. I had to set up the old fence to protect the home from these guys who were there everyday and night doing their drugs.
So there's a section of the fence that couldn't be saved and I replaced it with a new section, same materials, same size, same everything. Then a building inspector that lives in my neighborhood and doesn't even have a district assigned to him for inspections cites me for the new section of fence.
When I bought the property the city didn't provide anything saying it was in a preservation district and I would have to get a permit to replace a section of destroyed fence. There wasn't any realtor involved since it was a foreclosed property that stood vacant for over two years and fell apart since the bank didn't do anything to take care of it.
The property was being taken care of by the neighbors as best they could, but they would have to fight off the heroin dealers that destroyed the fence so they could squat on the property.
I'm trying to do something here and have the backing of most of my neighbors except for that building inspector, without the backing of any organization that gets funding for doing nothing. But I'm stubborn and will continue.
