Sentimental New Yorkers are worried about the planned renovations at the Plaza Hotel. Here’s hoping the city government ignores their concerns – not out of callousness, but out of recognition that decisions about the interiors of private properties in the city are best made by their owners, not by government.

The Plaza’s new owner, Elad Properties, announced last week that the hotel’s 70-year-old Oak Room restaurant will close this month along with two other eateries, the Oyster Bar and One C.P.S. The three Plaza restaurants will undergo renovations, but the owner has not yet decided whether the spaces will be converted to another use, according to a spokesman for Elad Properties, Steve Solomon of the Rubenstein Associates public-relations firm.

Mr. Solomon told us that he doesn’t expect complications over the Plaza’s designation as an historic landmark, which prohibits changes to only the exterior of the building. Previous developers haven’t been so lucky. When demolition began on the Biltmore Hotel in 1981, representatives of the Landmarks Conservancy, a private group, sought a court order restraining further demolition until the city’s Landmarks and Preservation Commission had a chance to determine whether the Biltmore – with its gilt clock, Palm Court, and ballroom-should be designated a landmark. The Commission declined to give the Biltmore landmark status, but the developers did settle with the conservancy for $500,000. Today, the former Biltmore serves as the Bank of America’s eastern headquarters – without the ballroom or Palm Court.

The current president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Peg Breen, told us that her organization is “really concerned” about the closure of the Oak Room at the Plaza, but she expects that it would be difficult to designate the hotel’s interior as a landmark after renovation plans are already in place. Currently, none of the Plaza’s interior is so designated. Instead, Ms. Breen plans to write the Plaza’s owners regarding the planned renovations as well as other historic spaces inside the hotel. “I really hope the owners notice how New Yorkers cherish those places and treat them accordingly,” she said. “There are a lot of collective New York memories in those spaces.”

The Landmarks Commission is authorized to landmark an interior that is 30 or more years old and “customarily open or accessible to the public, or to which the public is customarily invited, and which has a special historical or aesthetic interest or value as part of the development, heritage or cultural characteristics of the city, state or nation.” In October 1989, the commission recommended an interior landmark designation to the Four Seasons restaurant, which is in the Seagram Building. The Board of Estimate approved the designation the following January, despite objections from the owner of the building that it interfered with the landlord’s ownership rights.

Other restaurant spaces, such as the recently closed Gage and Tollner in Brooklyn and the recently closed Le Cirque 2000 in Manhattan, have been designated interior landmarks. The interiors of some banks and Broadway theaters also enjoy landmark status. Still, the Landmarks Commission has been reluctant to landmark interiors. More than 20,000 exteriors are landmarked in the city, but just more than 100 interiors.

Whether the Oak Room will be added to that short list remains uncertain. The director of community and government affairs at the Landmarks Commission, Diane Jackier, told us only that the commission is reviewing the Oak Room in response to a request.

Much as we share Ms. Breen’s regard for our historic sites, we hope the commission permits renovations at the Plaza. The Oak Bar isn’t subject of the current dispute, but should it ever be, let the Landmarks Commission focus on preserving the right of New Yorkers to do what they have traditionally done in the Oak Bar, which is smoke while they’re drinking. In any event, as Ms. Breen noted to us, the owners will still need to attract customers to their new space, incentive enough, by our lights, to keep the public’s trust. Prohibitions on new development undermine the city’s vitality. New York isn’t a museum. It’s a dynamic, living city. And even its most treasured spaces sometimes need room to grow and change and progress.