Historic Preservation and Displacement

On the H-URBAN list, it was written:

A student of mine is interested in exploring whether historic preservation strategies have been or could be deployed in urban settings in ways that do not promote displacement. In particular, I've asked her to pay close attention to tenants, single individuals, and people whose earnings fall below the poverty level.

My response:

The answer to this question requires more nuance than I find in its construction. The answer lies at a more micro level, dependent upon the particulars of specific regional markets and the communities therein, whether or not the broad regional real estate market is strong or weak, and then must focus on particular neighborhoods, presumably in the center city. (Even weak markets have strong submarkets, and vice versa.)

Depending of the nature of the market, similar policies have wildly varying impacts, say in a strong real estate market like DC compared to a weak real estate market like Pittsburgh, where very large brick rowhouses can be purchased in the Lawrenceville District for significantly less than $100,000. In Pittsburgh you're trying to build demand regardless, in DC slake it--at least in terms of preserving affordable housing for those of limited means.

Furthermore, historic preservationists also don't tend to be broader policy analysts and activists and would need to wed themselves to a variety of non-historic preservation policies:

1. property tax assessment methodologies;
2. land tenure systems such as the community land trusts you mention and cooperatives,
3. diversity of housing types (and housing sizes),
4. Social housing production strategies
5. Production, development, and portfolio investment to keep housing permanently low cost, although this means rental and puts limits on a low income household's ability to create wealth through housing ownership and appreciation;
6. revolving funds to support maintenance needs for those where maintaining a house to historic standards poses financial hardship (although increasing the long term value of the house as part of the household's wealth portfolio).

Cf. Donovan Rypkema's piece, Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing: The Missed Connection. Rypkema makes the point like Jane Jacobs' about the need for a large stock of old buildings. The nature of housing construction means that new housing can't be inexpensive without massive subsidy. Therefore, tearing down historic buildings is counter productive in terms of retaining relatively low cost housing.

cf. "Gentrification and Resistance in New York City," By Kathe Newman and Elvin Wyly. Shelterforce, Issue #142, July/August 2005. Abstract: three recent studies imply that gentrification does not cause displacement. Not so, contend our authors, and they show what it takes to help people stay when the community improves.

One of the most important policy proscriptions to reduce displacement is to change the process of frequent reassessment of properties for property taz assessment purposes. This has an extranormal negative impact on people of limited financial means, and those where the historic basis in a property is quite low. Rolf Goetze discussed this in Understanding Neighborhood Change: The role of expectations in urban revitalization, published in 1979, and it is close to 30 years later. To understand these issues in all their nuances, Goetze's work is some of the best.

(See Building Neighborhood Confidence, published in 1976, and "The Dynamics of Neighborhoods: A Fresh Approach to Understanding Housing and Neighborhood Change" by Goetze and Colton, Journal of the American Planning Association, 1980--which summarizes the two books.)

The kind of broader housing policy you suggest, i.e., "Has any group ever successfully restored a single-room occupancy hotel, "workingman's hotel" or flophouse with the intent of providing housing for impoverished individuals?," is intriguing and something I have raised from time to time in DC, to no avail. Most housing activists have a short range of policy proscriptions in mind, inclusionary zoning being the primary tool. I was amazed to see at least one SRO on the border of two upscale neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon, and very convenient to the PGE Park light rail station besides. We have no SROs in the center city of Washington.

I used to "joke" in the context of neighborhood zoning reviews, that various condo and other multiunit buildings going up downtown could include SRO housing on a floor, or take Section 8 vouchers. But I never got any traction.

Just like historic preservationists need to look more broadly beyond preservation to best position their issues and react to concerns about displacement, I would argue that few housing advocacy organizations offer much in the way of a comprehensive housing policy that can be effective in strong real estate markets and/or strong real estate submarkets, especially in the center cities. The Shelterforce article is a start, and New York City one of the best examples in the U.S. of a close to comprehensive policy (despite the recent sales of many large housing developments).

A recent issue of the Boston Globe reviews three current books on gentrification-center city issues.