In its recent newsletter, Preservation Long Island applauded and thanked the Village of East Hills and the Roslyn Landmark Society for their successful efforts to save the historic John Mackay III House.
Environmental Review Protects Local Historic Resources (page 4)
In September of 2021, the Village of East Hills reached an agreement with the former owners of John Mackay III’s Happy House to preserve the property’s significant historic resources. Previously, the property faced demolition and redevelopment as a new four-lot subdivision. Thanks to the agreement, the historic house is now protected by preservation covenants and a more sensitive two-lot subdivision was approved instead of the original four-lot proposal.
Some readers may be surprised to learn that this outcome had nothing to do with the village landmark ordinance—in fact, East Hills does not have one. Happy House was saved by another law, the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), and by the village’s commitment to conducting a comprehensive environmental review as mandated by SEQRA. The resulting agreement emerged from a rigorous review process, including the preparation of a detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), acknowledgement of the concerns of local community members, and identification of more sensitive alternatives to the four-lot subdivision as initially proposed.
We applaud the exemplary efforts of community members and village officials, especially Mayor Michael Koblenz, the Village Trustees, and the Planning Board. We also thank our colleagues at the Roslyn Landmark Society who organized the local advocacy efforts and sponsored the property’s listing as one of Preservation Long Island’s 2021 Endangered Historic Places. We hope the Happy House agreement will inspire other municipal governments to improve local preservation outcomes by pursuing more comprehensive processes of review.
The SEQRA process empowers local governments to prevent insensitive redevelopment projects from negatively impacting our environment, including local natural, historic, and cultural resources.
For more information about SEQRA and other policies, please visit our Advocacy & Services webpage.
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