May is National Preservation Month: How does historic preservation remain relevant when advocates call for zero change in the face of a growing population?

Columnist Shawn Micaleff of the Toronto Star writes an interesting piece, "Toronto’s heritage advocates have a responsibility to find room for new people," in response to a new planning document, Changing the Narrative: The State of Heritage, 2019, by Heritage Toronto, about the place of historic preservation in the life of the city.


He makes an important point (I've made a similar point over the years*)

... there is often an abuse of what heritage means that seems primarily motivated to keep other people out. Last year, there was the fight over a daycare in Cabbagetown where, it was in part argued, strollers on the porch would clash with the historic character of the neighbourhood. Just last week some Toronto councillors defended voting against allowing a second front door for a secondary unit such as a basement apartment because it would clash with neighbourhood “character.” ...

When notions of heritage and character are so abused and narrowly defined I lose interest in the cause, and it most certainly must alienate the next generation of potential heritage advocates who are currently struggling to even live in this city.

He calls attention to the three themes laid out in the report:

• heritage promotes social cohesion
• historic preservation is the foundation of sustainability
• the link between preservation and economic development.

For me, #2 and #3 are old news.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the US was talking about sustainability decades before it became the buzzword and organizing construct it is today.  

The same goes for economic development--for years historic preservation was the only long term successful revitalization strategy for cities when trends did not favor urban living or urban business location.

(Two of the best books for understanding the role of preservation as the centerpiece of urban revitalization in that period are The Living City: How America's Cities Are Being Revitalized by Thinking Small in a Big Way and Cities: Back from the Edge both by Roberta Gratz.)

From the article:

... Called “Changing the Narrative,” the first of its three themes examines how heritage promotes social cohesion. That is, a sense of togetherness and belonging. All those historic plaques are important. Learning the history of a place connects us to it, like a kind of mental investment. More important is making sure that as many stories and people are represented, an evolving challenge for a city like Toronto. ...

A third theme looks at the connection between heritage and economic development. Heritage makes places more attractive, not just to potential tourists, but also by improving the quality of life of those of us who live here. If we feel like we belong, we’re more inclined to take care of the place or even invest in it. It’s not a surprise, then, that local Business Improvement Areas will often start projects, such as commissioning murals, that promote local heritage, as way of creating an environment that people want to hang out in and where new businesses might want to open. ...

(Interestingly, this is exactly the point I made in one of my earliest blog entries, "Town-City branding or 'We are all destination managers now," from February 2005.) Micaleff also writes:

The most critical part of the report, for me, is a call to: “Promote new, inclusive uses of heritage properties that meet current and future residential and commercial needs.”

This is something the heritage community needs to explore even more. We are a city with a housing crisis. Heritage and all its related concerns cannot mean freezing the city like a museum exhibit and preventing new housing, whether it’s a basement suite with a front door, a stacked townhouse, a new affordable rental apartment building or even a condo.

If heritage means “no” its community of advocates will shrink and it will become irrelevant to a generation where houses and home ownership, Cabbagetown Victorian or otherwise, are out of reach and seem outright hostile to their ability to live here.

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* My point is that historic preservation came of age (in the 1960s and 1970s) during the period of the shrinking city, and the primary goal for residents was staunching the outflow, and stabilizing neighborhoods and the city more generally. Now that the city has the opportunity to grow, preservationists haven't come to terms with creating a new agenda that acknowledges changing conditions.

Adding residents isn't just great for the new residents, it provides more social, community, and economic energy for neighborhoods and the city at large. In the context of a city like DC, it makes sustainable mobility more effective, etc.

Too often, our planning processes don't discuss in a substantive way the difference between preserving (maintaining), enhancing (improving), or creating (building new stuff).

Concepts from the Nashville Community Character Manual.

If we are to make "preserving existing neighborhoods" a priority, it means figuring out how to accommodate new housing, tinkering with height limits, etc. as a result, etc., to be able to add housing.

And preserving existing neighborhoods means keeping them pretty much the same.  That's what DC's Comprehensive Plan calls for but people arguing against development argue as if that's not what the plan says.

It means thinking about choices in terms of constraints and opportunity costs.

E.g., when it's reasonable to have a mix of heights of buildings within a neighborhood depending on location (on arterial, at the corners, etc.), I can't help but look at a building like this and rue that it isn't five stories. Sure maybe that only adds 4-8 units, but spread similar kind of decision across the city and that's a few thousand extra units that will never be built.

Recently I read a statistic in the Financial Times that every 2% increase in housing supply reduces pricing of owned and rental housing by 1%.

You need a big increase in supply for prices to stabilize. Not building any new housing doesn't help anyone.