Preservation, sustainability, great places and density

Remember that the root issue of urban revitalization is a weak real estate market/broken economy at the municipal level.

1. And this is the basis of this article from the Charleston Post & Courier, "Charleston preserved by economic woes?"

2. The City of Rochester, New York's preservation ordinance celebrates its 40th anniversary, and there is an article about it in the Rochester Daily Record, "Preservation code working here: City of Rochester ordinance celebrates 40th anniversary."

From the article:

Rochester is considered a leader in preservation planning, in terms of its initiative as well as the ordinance's overall success, Howk said. That's mostly thanks to city leadership that, for the most part, always supported enforcement of the preservation code, she said. ...

"If you want to protect a building from demolition, then you must create an ordinance and be able to designate town landmarks, village landmarks, city landmarks," Howk said.

Buildings can be designated with or without an owner's consent. When the Rochester Catholic Diocese planned to demolish the former Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, for example, the city used the law to protect it, Howk said. "Your main goal is to protect a building and if you can only designate a building with an owner's permission ... you're left in the corner," she said. ...

Preserving older buildings can have other significant, long-term effects, according to Howk.
"Often in neighborhoods that have city preservation districts, the property values there not only stabilize but increase in value," she said. "Part of that is because ... any exterior design must [be reviewed], so you don't get a lot of haphazard remodeling and a lot of streets filled with aluminum siding. "

Identifying neighborhoods as preservation districts also can ensure that they are cared for, are of quality and that their character won't be compromised, according to Gar Lowenguth, a Realtor and member of the city's preservation board.

"The proof is in the pudding" when it comes to judging the success of the city's ordinance, he said. "The places with the highest real estate values are the preservation districts, wherever they are, whether it's Corn Hill, whether it's Mt. Hope. " ...

"Beyond the historically significant architecture or social history, it certainly has been studied on a national basis that the designation of communities or neighborhoods or individual streets as historic or preservation districts does have economic ramifications to the benefit of the community," Howk said.

Owners and developers with a vision that doesn't fall within the guidelines can lead to disagreements, however. Preservation board members try to work with owners to find ways to meet their needs as well as the interests of preservation, Lowenguth said. For the most part, those who appear before the board are willing to work under the constraints placed on properties, he said.

"I can think of a number of cases where people weren't pleased, but they weren't trying to do the right thing in the first place," he said. If the owners aren't receptive to what the board has to say, "my attitude is, 'Don't move into a preservation district,'" he said.

3. In a lower income neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Manchester, the neighborhood community development organization, the Manchester Citizens Corporation, is far more preservation oriented than the city, according to this article, "Manchester residents hope to have history on their side" from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The neighborhood's biggest need is money and time.

The problem with preservation in weak real estate markets is that historically accurate rehabilitation costs more, and it isn't always the case that the money spent comes back dollar for dollar, in increased property values. It depends on the neighborhood, and whether or not it is a relatively strong real estate market in the context of the regional residential real estate market.

4. Finally, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the Chicago Tribune, Blair Kamin, reprinted in his newspaper-associated blog Cityscapes, a recent speech he gave on the topic, "Historic preservation and green architecture: friends or foes?" From the speech:

My first reaction was: What tension? I could hardly image two groups whose cultural profiles are more alike. ...

Both camps drew intellectual inspiration from brilliant women who wrote brilliant books --Jane Jacobs, whose “Death and Life of Great American Cities” assaulted the conventional wisdom about “urban renewal; and Rachel Carson, whose “Silent Spring” helped give birth to the environmental movement by documenting the harmful effect of pesticides. ...

[after going through three case studies] Architects are always telling me that the greenest building is the one you’ve already built. Preservationists invariably raise the same point when they are trying to save a threatened structure. May I give some advice? Don’t play this card too often or it will come back to haunt you. All the LEED points in the world will not make a mediocre building worth saving. If you can trade up, you should. ...

I would argue that the real common ground between preservationists and conservationists can be seen right here in Grand Rapids, which, in contrast to Detroit, has promoted mass transit; lively, walkable streets; vibrant cultural attractions, and, with them, the density that makes cities thrive. Density is what it’s all about. If we live densely and don’t sprawl, we’ll save on energy. And if we save cities, we’ll create a demand for the historic buildings in them. The LEED rating system is finally coming around to this. Its new system offers a density credit that rewards projects in urban settings and a public transit credit which rewards projects in proximity to mass transit. I loved how the Grand Rapids Art Museum won LEED points for putting a snow-melting system under the sidewalks around it. To me, that was the ultimate endorsement of a walkable urbanism. ...

The answer, if there is one, goes beyond BTUs and green roofs. It is about how we live and how we navigate between perilous extremes: Not with overzealous ideology but with an enlightened pragmatism that reshapes and reinvigorates old ideals in response to new realities. The case studies I’ve discussed with you today offer a hint of how to do that, and so does the urbanism of Grand Rapids. In conclusion, then, by virtue of their common heritage and their common values, preservation and conservation can be friends, not foes. But like good friends and rival siblings, they may need, occasionally, to agree to disagree.