Why Historic Preservation Districts Should Be a Thing of the Past

[KamaAina]

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/01/why-historic-preservation-districts-should-be-a-thing-of-the-past/431598/

Behre reports that Charleston is changing its architectural-review process, which could ease the way for more ambitious growth. Charleston residents aren’t all against the idea. And as his longtime readers know, the people of Charleston bear an authentic interest in architecture; it’s not a front. Still, the same class of argument being levied against cutting-edge campus design is being used to thwart more affordable housing, and that’s a problem. The result is a Charleston elite of increasingly wealthy downtown residents, and an affordable housing crisis for everybody else....

Historic districts thwart this access in the name of preserving the character of a neighborhood. It’s not that far off from any argument about preserving the character of a single-family neighborhood. And the results—pockets of highly segregated wealth and access—are the same around the nation, whether the homes are architecturally distinct or dreadful McMansions.

That case against historic districting is similar to the case against protectionist single-family zoning anywhere. And the question isn’t just aesthetic, it’s constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year on “disparate impact” means that wealthy communities cannot keep affordable housing out because wealthy residents feel that they’re better off without it. The federal government’s Affordable Furthering Fair Housing rule means that cities and neighborhoods cannot use single-family zoning to keep affordable housing at bay.

As cities confront the growing nationwide housing crisis, there will be both a need and a market for building more densely, even in the most precious neighborhoods. Historic preservation is a tool better used to protect community assets, not private assets. Historic preservation is a tool better used to safeguard the historical resources in which everyone can take pride—not the historical resources that were only ever allotted to winners by race-based housing policies.

[Travis_0004]

1. I've always thought it was dumb that the city could decalare your house historic agaisnt your will

Then require you to follow a bunch of rules and regulations that you never agreed to.

I would be fine if somebody bought a historic house, knowning the rules, but to suddenly add the rules against somebody's wishes is dumb.

[JustAnotherGen]

13. Not sure where you live

A Historic Preservation home in my community is not just given a plaque against your will. You have to apply to National Register.

My home is in the Historic District of my community - but we aren't on the historical register and have no intent of applying.

We are a stop on walking tours (exterior) and since HBO's Boardwalk Empire there is a lot of interest (per the woman who organizes our history weekend celebration each year) from people intrigued by the shit that went on here over the years.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I don't consider destroying historic buildings 'smart' growth.

Disagree completely with the premise of this article.

[world wide wally]

3. Likewise^

I would NEVER want to see the French Quarter changed to look like another Home Depot special!

[KamaAina]

5. But I would want to see it become more accessible

for people who use wheelchairs, like my friend the degreed sexologist.

[Recursion]

10. I do. Most of them were built on the foundations of older destroyed buildings.

We need to build taller and denser than we are currently. And that means tearing down buildings, yes, even historic ones. Just like those builders did when they built the historic buildings.

[JustAnotherGen]

15. If you tear it down

Do I get compensated? Do I pay for the new box? What about my husband's art studio - its a 36 * 15 free standing building. He is an iron/metal artist? Fire. He can't do that in an 8 * 10 fiber board 6 foot ceiling room in a home. Will our communal property now allow that?

The article doesn't address that.

Also doesn't address people like us - we could have bought a Jersey Special McMansion or modern build - but they have no heart. They all aso took a big hit during Sandy. My custom arts and crafts with plaster walls and a brick with reinforced cement foundation Home didn't even flinch.

And we got it for 1/3 what our jackass peers trying live like Diamond Jim Brady did.

[Recursion]

18. The answer in either case is "it depends"

If you are saying that re-development has screwed over a shit ton of people, mostly poorer people and people of color, then I'm right with you.

OTOH, avoiding re-development also screws over a shit-ton of people, magically also mostly poorer people and people of color (I know you know both of those; that's for the lurkers).

As we said in the Marines, "It's a shit sandwich". And that's exactly what our lack of any forward-thinking urban planning in this country is. And we're all going to have to take a bite, one way or another.

I obviously don't know your particular situation, so you might be better off with one or another; to that extent, I hope that idea is what wins.



What do you think?

[JustAnotherGen]

22. I'm going to send you a pm

Link to my town. Our strength is in who is moving here. I think my home listing is still online two years later.

If you are talking urban planning - go ahead.

If you are talking a out a borough of 4500 with 1200 square foot goes built in the early 1700's -bought in the past 15 years and destroyed - no goal.


I'll let you decide.

[sinkingfeeling]

31. Sorry, but none of the houses in my historic district were built

on top of destroyed, older buildings. They are the first buildings built in the town. I can see why Republicans hate them, as stated in the article, but where would some place like New Orleans be with out the Quarter? Thank God Europe doesn't share your belief.

[Odin2005]

55. Yes, let's destroy history and replace it with soulless high rises!

[FSogol]

16. Same here. n/t

[Odin2005]

4. The premise of this article is faulty.

I think communities have a right to protect old neighborhoods from rapacious developers.

[A Little Weird]

6. Disagree

The author states:

Nobody wants to see classic Georgian homes torn down and replaced by bland apartment buildings. No one wants to bulldoze gorgeous Queen Anne mansions to erect cookie-cutter condo buildings.

I've seen too many people who want to do just that. There are a lot of people who don't see any value in historic buildings and would love to tear them down and replace them with crap.

I live in a historic neighborhood - it is not an enclave of wealthy houses. It's a mix with some very expensive houses and many others (like mine) that are very affordable, small homes.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Me too

I hate the "boxes". We also have resident duplex and apartment building owners who offer low cost rental half homes/apartments. Many did what we did - bought well below the market then threw 100k into restoring it.

I liove my custom arts nd crafts style home built in 1909 with the original iron claw foot tub on the third floor (tall but small levels) and its wacky hallways, odd corners, dumbwaiter, paned windows. They don't build or design home like this anymore unless you have tens of millions of dollars.

[jmowreader]

7. Oh my...

This basically boils down to "we want to tear down a dilapidated old house George Washington slept in and replace it with a sparkling new house George Washington slept in."

If you want to see the ultimate endpoint of a "get rid of the historic districts!" posture, go to Fayettenam, North Carolina. The whole town is covered in "there used to be a really neat historical building right where you're standing!" signs. Please understand Fayetteville doesn't exactly have a choice in the matter - General Sherman wiped Fayetteville off the face of the earth because of the arms factory the Confederacy had there.

The "historic district" system might do with a little reform, but overall it serves a purpose.

[FLPanhandle]

8. This article reads like it was written by a developer eyeing a historic district building

Totally disagree with the premise of the article.

[Recursion]

11. You can't both be against this and be against gentrification. It's one or the other.

Either we keep our cities at current density (which means gentrification) or we build them denser and taller (or, I suppose, denser and deeper, but nobody's really talking about that), which means losing historic buildings (which were themselves built on top of the foundations of torn-down older buildings).

[FLPanhandle]

12. I'm not against gentrification.

And your idea of turning over historic districts to be bulldozed by a bunch of developers is sickening.

Which historic district do you want to plow under first? the New Orleans French Quarter?, Miami's Art Deco district?, Boston's Historic Buildings?

Fuck that.

[Recursion]

14. Why not?

Why should we be slaves to the architecture of the past?

I'll grant Miami's deco district was built on a newly drained swamp, but the French Quarter and Boston's Back Bay were literally built on the foundations of older buildings they razed.

That's how cities work. They change, every generation or so.

[FLPanhandle]

20. You are painting a dystopian nightmare

Cities with no history, no character, no different than each other.

Replace the French Quarter with this?



Nice to see someone here defending greedy developers.

[Recursion]

23. And that will be an historical classic in 50 years, just like the rowhouses it's replacing

Here:
http://www.greenestreet.nyc/home-m

Four centuries of one block of SoHo.

Nobody gets to keep the city they grew up with. That's never how cities have worked. And they've always been built by soul-less rich people.

[FLPanhandle]

24. I want no part of your idea of city planning

Let's just leave it at that. Ugh.

[Recursion]

25. And I want no part of your attempt to freeze the imagined city of the past

You want sterile? That is sterile.

[sinkingfeeling]

32. Eureka Springs, Arkansas is 90 % the way it looked 150 years ago

[Recursion]

33. So is Carthage, MS. Neither are "cities" (nt)

[sinkingfeeling]

34. So you only think historic homes should be eradicated in large,

soulless cities?

[Recursion]

36. I think historic buildings are not worth infinite rent increases

And that in many cities that's the choice

[sinkingfeeling]

37. I didn't know that rent increases were confined to historic buildings.

[Recursion]

39. Any building becomes magically "historical" when a high-rise is contrmplated

And that's most of the problem

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

60. I have asked you before to address this...

Why are cities like New York, London, Toronto and Vancouver not enjoying a windfall of affordable housing as a result of their fifteen year high-density building sprees?

[EllieBC]

66. Vancouver (all the lower mainland really)

The main problem is foreign investors. And last I heard none of the parties here were interested in doing anything about it.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

68. I'm going to tell you a dirty little secret...

Condos aren't housing. They're a fungible, low-maintenance commodity that can be traded nearly anonymously and easily evade most money laundering and foreign exchange controls.

There is no business case for condos in most places without their utility as a discreet store of value.

[KamaAina]

50. The way New Orleans works, that would go just above the Quarter

in a triangle formed by Canal (the upper boundary of the Quarter), Poydras and I-10.

[bluedigger]

61. Most of New Orleans is historic districts.

And yet somehow new buildings manage to somehow magically appear.

[KamaAina]

70. Perhaps other cities could learn from NOLA's example.

Nice to see my former home doing something right for once!

[Odin2005]

56. Fuck this dystopian shit.

[Cal Carpenter]

26. I agree

I've been watching a small city get developed to increase density and virtually all the new housing is luxury condos and apartments. The cost of housing is skyrocketing regardless of the quantity of new downtown units. The working class is being pushed out the areas in which they work. The small amount of open public space downtown is being parceled off. It's not helping slow down the sprawl on the edges of town, and don't even get me started on the farce of the tax breaks the out-of-town developers get for including a small number of 'affordable units' in the developments...

The developers are gonna keep winning all over the place since they have the power and influence, but this idea that it is somehow going to keep housing costs more affordable is just bullshit in most situations. So the fact that this argument gets used just pisses me off, regardless of how I feel about historic preservation, downtown density vs sprawl, etc.

[Recursion]

9. Want to deal with the fact that the rent is too damn high? That's definitely a start (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

47. Tearing down old to build new does not make the rent lower, NYC develops constantly and rents are

still high. New buildings do not have lower rents than older buildings. Rent control makes lower rent, public housing and subsidies make lower rent. Higher wages make the cost of the rent less important....some in NYC don't mind the tariff because they have sufficient means.

The other things to consider is that almost everything is built on top of something else and that is rarely considered good reason to tear down what it there now, see Jerusalem for extreme examples. Cities profit by their own nature, people go to NOLA because of what it is not because they want to go to a humid spot with tons of high rises. NOLA is what it is in part because of how it looks and how it is built. The feel of the place is a civic treasure. Imagine Amsterdam razed for new building. Sure more could live there but would they still want to, would the city be the same, would tourists fill the streets? No.

Some places make use of techniques from the school called 'facadism' which can be googled up for examples. Leave the street level facades and build up behind and over them. Walk down an Old City street but look up and it's 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facadism

That is also controversial. I myself like areas that have been developed in that way.

[JustAnotherGen]

19. My home is former redline

As cities confront the growing nationwide housing crisis, there will be both a need and a market for building more densely, even in the most precious neighborhoods. Historic preservation is a tool better used to protect community assets, not private assets. Historic preservation is a tool better used to safeguard the historical resources in which everyone can take pride—not the historical resources that were only ever allotted to winners by race-based housing policies.

What will you do with black owners in historic districts? We buy cheap (in my town) and thrown money into restoration.

How does this work? Government says we need to build a sky scraper in a borough of 4500 - you have n 11k square foot propert here's ten thousand dollars - now get out?

Can we talk this though?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. Eminent domain.

It's amazing how support for historic districts or even individual historic homes drops when black owners move in.

[JustAnotherGen]

30. I don't think

Thats where Kama or Recursion are coming from. They are coming from - and they can correct me if I'm wrong - poor should be equivalent with awful living conditions. I agree.

That said - you made a really good point.

[KamaAina]

69. What gave you that idea?

edit: In fact, the main reason I posted this is that the article posits that historic districts are getting in the way of affordable housing.

[JustAnotherGen]

71. Not my idea or thought

Respinding to Erich.

[Vinca]

21. I disagree.

We shouldn't "McDonald-ize" our historic cities and towns. There's nothing worse than tearing down a beautiful old building and replacing it with a shiny box identical to the shiny box in the next town. Old buildings can be adapted to new uses on the inside, but leave the exteriors alone. Recently, over in Brattleboro, Vermont, the historic Brooks House - a hotel where Rudyard Kipling was known to stay - had a fire. It encompasses a good chunk of Main St. so tearing it down would be a big deal. The current owner sold it to a foundation that has totally rehabbed it. That includes restoration of the exterior to its former glory and turning the inside into offices, a college facility and I think some apartments. The first floor is store fronts now filled with new businesses.

[Trajan]

28. I'm kinda shocked to read this ...

here, from this poster ...

[KamaAina]

51. Just throwing it out there

My main interests are in affordable housing and accessibility. Maybe we could "mend it, don't end it" so as to find a way to incorporate those features into historic districts. Perhaps designating individual buildings or blocks as historic rather than half-square-mile swaths like the French Quarter.

[ShrimpPoboy]

29. 100% disagree with OP

Architecture, history and culture are intertwined and they're worth preserving. I don't care how efficient a bunch of giant boxes would be.

[geek tragedy]

35. There has to be a balance. Cities like S.F. that go overboard on NIMBYism

wind up being gated communities for the rich.

At the same time, residential architecture is part of a city's cultural heritage, whether it's Charleston, SC or Merida, MX.

[Nye Bevan]

41. Yep. Those "Painted Ladies" should be the first to be torn down.

They're just annoying. Let Donald Trump build a nice high-rise there to replace them.

[geek tragedy]

42. as I said, there needs to be balance.

cities should preserve truly outstanding period architecture. But cities are places where real people need to live--they're not time capsules.

Big liberal cities have utterly failed on the issue of affordable housing. NIMBYism certainly plays a role.

[Bluenorthwest]

48. And yet Amsterdam looks like Amsterdam while being fully modern and housing is made affordable

by means other than building massive substandard tower blocks. SF can't solve their housing problem by tearing down older buildings and making tons of apartments unless they were to intentionally and swiftly build far past the market demand for housing, otherwise what happens is that all those new crappy apartments get priced higher than the old charming ones they replaced making more profit for developers but not really causing the prices to fall in the overall market.

[geek tragedy]

67. How affordable is Amsterdam itself as opposed to the suburbs?

There is very little housing supply in SF compared to the demand. Tech workers make an easy scapegoat but in reality height restrictions etc combined with lots of rich people of all kinds wanting to live there means it's going to be one of the least diverse cities in the country very soon.

[Nye Bevan]

38. Yeah, anyone who wants to see old buildings can visit Europe.

Most of those old buildings don't even have central air and central vac. Rip 'em all down and put up modern highrises.

[Ron Green]

40. This is an area where I get a bit Libertarian:

Local ideas, involvement and control as well as pay-as-you-go financing ought to be the norm. See http://www.strongtowns.org and think about "chaotic but smart" solutions.

[hunter]

43. That's some very interesting stuff, good link.

Pay as you go, chaotic but smart, no new roads... I think all of these are wise.

[Ron Green]

57. It's a great site full of life and good discussion.

Chuck Marohn has blogged on this for over 7 years, and is now putting "boots on the ground" all over the country. He's a Republican, for God's sake, and if my socialist self can agree with so much of what he's saying, then there's something of value here.

[hunter]

65. Eisenhower was a Republican too, but the party has been devolving since Nixon.

I'm not sure how any sane person can identify as "Republican" anymore.

Even my conservative retired Army Air Force officer grandpa called Nixon a crook and many Republicans Nazis.

[tabasco]

44. Stupid people don't appreciate history and

historic structures.

[FLPanhandle]

45. I think it's less stupidity but more short term thinking

Rent problem today?

Tear down the New Orleans French Quarter. Who cares if generations have enjoyed it and it's the heart and soul of the city.

Art Deco district in Miami making rents expensive? Tear them down and build a bunch of condos.

It's pathetic anyone here would be so short sighted and, in some cases here, stupid.

[JCMach1]

46. Having lived many years in St. Augustine, FL, I got to see first-hand the struggle to maintain the

integrity of the place. Gentrification happened anyway, inside AND outside the historic zone. But, in special places like these these extremely careful preservation and management is the only thing you can do to maintain any character for the place.

Do you want people demolishing 400 year-old buildings? Or, have a Hooters move-in next to a museum? In St. Augustine, you also have a college and college students competing for rental space in the historic downtown.


Opening it up the vagaries of the market would seem like an insane idea, sorry.

[Bluenorthwest]

49. Let's take a look at the Garden of Allah Apartments in Hollywood. Residence to many, many luminaries

including countless major film stars but also Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, Maugham and Fitzgerald. Some say that when Joni wrote 'they paved paradise and put up a parking lot' she was talking about the Garden and this link will show you that historic paradise and the crappy parking lot and strip mall that stands in it's place on Sunset Bl today. It is truly crappy.
http://laist.com/2009/04/18/laistory_the_garden_of_allah.php

http://gardenofallah.com/GOA_original.asp

I'll be damned if I'll believe anyone lives in a place called the Garden of Allah.
—?Thomas Wolfe, a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Starry Messenger]

52. Jesus, no.

They did this to downtown San Mateo in the '90's and it still looks like shit. And rent is still going up.

[KamaAina]

53. Obviously they didn't do it right.

[Throd]

54. Poorly written article about a dumb idea.

[BuelahWitch]

58. Who needs a 236 year old building when we could have another CVS?

Stuff like this really chaps my hide. Covered Wagon Inn in PA that was built in 1780 to be demolished to make way for a CVS pharmacy...
http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2016/01/28/main_line_suburban_life/life/doc56a6b5ece41ff840829795.txt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

59. The success with which developers have made useful idiots of the urban left is astounding

Making "luxury condos for offshore investors" synonymous with smart growth and housing affordability and all that bullshit is truly masterful.

[EllieBC]

64. Offshore investors

Is half of the problem in Vancouver. Homes and condos bought by people as an investment and the prices go ever higher. Meanwhile the government does nothing but say they "understand" there's a problem.

[EllieBC]

62. Hasn't worked here

From Vancouver to Squamish (halfway to Whistler) developers have been buying up single family homes by the block and replacing them with monster condos.

Here and in places like Squamish the rent is out of control.

If your ideal is 15 people crammed into a 3 bedroom apartment you can keep your dystopia.

[romanic]

63. NO way.

Historic districts are an important part of any city. They add character and flair, something a tall modern boxy building could never accomplish.