Content area
Full text
Since purchasing their two-story farmhouse-style home in Staten Island's Great Kills section more than 20 years ago, Joseph and Sheila Diamond have meticulously maintained it. Every year, Joseph, an engineer, devotes half of his six-week vacation to painting part of the house's 1840s clapboard façade.
Over the years, the house has attracted many admirers--including, to the couple's dismay, city officials who may decide Feb. 23 to declare it a landmark. It is a move the Diamonds adamantly oppose.
At a Landmarks Preservation Commission public meeting in October--at which homeowners, elected officials and preservationists weighed in on proposed landmark designations on Staten Island--Joseph Diamond likened landmarking to the city's seizing control of his home and saddling him with the financial burden of maintaining it to strict specifications.
Besides needing commission preapproval for any exterior maintenance, he fears the designation will lower the house's value by reducing the pool of buyers to those who can stomach the bureaucratic rules that come with a landmarked property.
"We knew our house was a treasure when we found it," said Sheila Diamond, a retired teacher. "We just didn't know we'd be punished for it."
The Diamonds are among 26 Staten Island property owners in the commission's crosshairs. Homeowners and institutions including Richmond University Medical Center and Wagner College, which have historic...