Quote of the day: Historic Preservation

Sally Ryan for The New York Times. In the East Ukrainian Village neighborhood of Chicago, new construction and old share the streetscape.

"We see a cute house,” said Mr. Fine, an architect and president of Preservation Chicago, a local group. “A developer sees a 16-unit condo building.”

From "Preservationists in Chicago Fear Losing Ground to Condos," in the New York Times. I've written about this before. For a couple years running, this has been an issue brought to the fore by Preservation Chicago in their most endangered list, which they call "The Chicago 7."

Check out this year's write up of the issue with regard to the Pilsen neighborhood. They have a great set of policy recommendations:

1. Create a Comprehensive Master Plan for the neighborhood.
2. Create a Landmark district to protect the existing buildings.
4. Neighborhood workshops to explain the benefits of renovation.
5. Create micro-incentives to support homeowners who cannot otherwise afford to spend money on major renovations.
6. Create an organization to provide funding assistance to homeowners of lesser means.
7. Downzoning to make "matter of right" development capacity equal to the character of the historic residential building stock, rather than significantly greater. This creates a mismatch of great proportions, one that encourages teardowns.
13. Demolition prevention ordinance (imo, the way in which the proposed ordinance is written is fraught with potential problems)

In 2005, the neighborhood they chose to bring attention to this issue was Sheffield.

Index Keywords: historic-preservation