Registered Plainfield historic sites and districts under active threat — from demolition, from neglect, or from redevelopment designations that strip away historic review.
A landmark church whose future turns on finding a stewardship plan before deferred maintenance becomes irreversible.
A civic anchor on Watchung Avenue, vacant and vulnerable. Its reuse is the test case for downtown preservation.
Years of neglect and litigation. New ownership raises the question again: restoration, or another loss?
A city-owned house inside a designated historic district, headed to redevelopment without Historic Preservation Commission review.
City Hall and the neighboring Salvation Army properties remain under a proposed “area in need of redevelopment” designation — the mechanism that can strip away historic review. Save the Queen City has challenged the study before the Planning Board.
Our attorney cross-examined the city's planner; our own licensed planner testified that the statutory standards were not met. The Planning Board granted a continuance. The fight continues.
The threat to Plainfield's landmarks rarely arrives as a wrecking ball. It arrives as paperwork — an “area in need of redevelopment” designation that quietly removes a property from historic review. Save the Queen City works to keep that review in place.
We challenged the City Hall redevelopment study before the Planning Board, and a court denied the city's motion to dismiss our case, allowing it to proceed. We filed a formal objection to Resolution R380-24, and pushed back when the city floated designating the entire Urban Enterprise Zone an area in need of redevelopment. The YMCA's proposed reuse is currently under New Jersey Historic Preservation Office review (Project #25-2216-4).