NPR story about how Philadelphia can look to Baltimore for better practice on historic preservation-based revitalization

I think this article ("Philly is losing historic buildings at an alarming rate. Can it learn from Baltimore?") is "funny" because my first attempt at a blog entry in November 2004 was reprinting an op-ed I wrote the year before, published in the Philadelphia Daily News, about how Philadelphia should be more focused on historic preservation as an urban revitalization strategy, which was my take away from attending the then "Urban Forum" conference on urban revitalization sponsored at the time by LISC.

-- "An outsider's version for saving Philly," What I wrote then:

No. 1 is the job core at the heart of the city. We know that a strong core is required to drive demand to reoccupy vacant housing, particularly by those who don't want to spend a lot of time commuting. Focus on job development, retaining businesses and attracting new ones.

No. 2 is solid public transportation. A tour of Girard Avenue convinced me that major investment in non-automobile transportation is essential to the revitalization of our traditional cities. Bringing back the trolleys to surface streets like Girard makes vacant houses worth occupying and rehabilitating.

No. 3 - recognize the value of your historic housing stock. Buildings that Philadelphians think are worthless would go for a million dollars in Washington.

At the time, then Mayor Street was promoting demolition as the primary revitalization strategy, called NTI--Neighborhood Transformation Initiative.  This was back when the city was still a weak market, and its major program was a ten year property tax abatement for properties being converted to residential.

I was proud of myself for asking a leading question about this at one of the plenary talks, and I think it helped shift NTI's focus some, the National Trust for Historic Preservation started working with the city on preservation initiatives, etc.

But 18+ years later, apparently Philadelphia is still losing a lot of historic buildings.  From the article:

Despite its struggles, Baltimore places a greater premium on protecting its historic infrastructure and achieves far more in the field of preservation than its larger cousin to the north. 

In large part, that’s because city leaders have seen historic preservation — often considered an arena for a handful of wealthy snobs — as a tool to anchor rowhouse neighborhoods that are fighting divestment. ...

Local policies are especially important because there is little that neighborhood preservationists can rely on at the federal or state level. National Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits are only applicable to income-producing projects. That means they can’t be applied to owner-occupied properties. The National Register of Historic Places offers no protection from demolition. 

At the state level, Maryland offers more than Pennsylvania. Up to $5 million can be divided across the entire 13 million-person Keystone State annually — again, only among income-producing properties. With less than half the population, Maryland’s $7.5-to-$10 million a year tax credit goes further. Still, it has shrunk dramatically from the years where it existed without a cap: As much as $98 million a year was being drawn from the subsidy back in 2003. Unlike Pennsylvania, Maryland also offers a rehabilitation tax credit for owner-occupied historic properties.

Some observations.  

(1) Baltimore seems to have more local foundations committed to local investment, although the Neighborhood Reinvestment Fund is based in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia has locally focused philanthropic initiatives, like Pew Charitable Trusts.

But maybe the better comparison is Pittsburgh.  The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation is one of the nation's best practice local preservation groups.  Unlike most, over the years it has been an active "developer," taking on "white elephant projects and improving them, usually with the support of local foundations.  Other foundations are all in on the city as well.

(2) The focus of preservation groups and neighborhood stabilization organizations.  Philadelphia has a decent preservation group, the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, another great group called the Design Advocacy Group, a number of active community groups, community-focused newspapers and journalists at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, with a lot of coverage on Philadelphia issues especially Inga Saffron, one of the nation's last beat writers focused on urban design, and other stakeholders. 

But a key difference between preservation groups in Philadelphia versus Pittsburgh and Cleveland, is that the latter deliver specific assistance programs including loans to assist homeowners directly in maintaining and rehabilitating their properties.  

PHLF has homeowner rehabilitation programs, including loan programs and technical assistance.  In the past, there had been other groups offering similar kinds of assistance, including the now defunct Community Technical Assistance Center.  The best is the Cleveland Restoration Society.

Also, while Philadelphia has plenty of national landmarks like Independence Hall and Benjamin Franklin's home, it doesn't treat the whole city as a "heritage area" the way that Baltimore does.  

Baltimore is a designated National Heritage Area, after first having local designation under the state program ("Treating an entire city as a heritage area/conservation district, rather than a neighborhood by neighborhood approach," 2020). 

Thinking of your community as a heritage area changes how you think about the value of historic preservation as a centerpiece of neighborhood revitalization programming. 

(3) State support.  The article focuses on state support.  Pennsylvania does some interesting things, for example it has a good receivership law allowing for the "curing of property nuisances" by independent groups ("Receivership as a strategy for notorious nuisance properties," 2017), but doesn't provide much in the way of funding.  

The article discusses how Baltimore does a form of this, without acknowledging Pennsylvania has such a program, it's just not used much.

Maryland is better, but has the same problem of state legislators resenting what they see as extranormal financial help being provided to the state's major cities, so at the state level, they've put restrictions on the use of the preservation tax credit, just like Pennsylvania, which has even more cities that would be eligible.  

Maryland does have the Maryland Historic Trust which operates state-wide and the Maryland state heritage areas program.  But Pennsylvania has similar structures.

Pennsylvania in the past has introduced best practice programs on neighborhood and commercial district revitalization, but support of these programs waxes and wanes with each succeeding administration.

(4) Local government support.  When I first got involved in preservation/urban revitalization, I used to say of cities like Baltimore and Pittsburgh, that "they have a desperate willingness to experiment, because they have no other choice," that that was why those cities were innovative and DC wasn't.

Still, Baltimore has issues.  They too wax and wane depending on who is leading the government.  They had a big urban renewal phase.  And they tend to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of vacant properties present in the city, which leads them to be supportive of demolition of historic buildings, if that's what a developer wants to do.

But they have a number of strong neighborhood associations, and perhaps most importantly, some systematic neighborhood stabilization programs, one of which, Vacants2Valule, is mentioned in the article, support from the philanthropy sector, and other stakeholders that help keep a focus on neighborhood improvement.

Maybe a key factor is that these programs have the support of local government but at the same time they are independent of local government, although closely aligned.

Somehow, Philadelphia has less of this, and the city government is less focused in practical ways on neighborhood stabilization and revitalization.

Note that both Baltimore and Philadelphia have had tax abatement programs supporting the conversion of properties to residential.

Systematic neighborhood stabilization programs.  The article mentions the Vacants2Value program in Baltimore, where the city can take over nuisance properties and sell them off to developers for rehab and resale.  

It doesn't mention the Live Baltimore resident recruitment program or the Healthy Neighborhoods program, which focuses its efforts on stabilization in a set of specific neighborhoods in transition.

Where Baltimore (and Pittsburgh) differs from Philadelphia is in having neighborhood focused initiatives where a lot of the energy is independent of local government agencies, so it stays focused.  \Where these efforts are focused on property rehabilitation, resident recruitment, etc.

In 2020 (with an additional post in 2021), I wrote a series of entries about how to go about doing systematic neighborhood stabilization in weak real estate markets.  Ironically, the program that I think is the model is one pioneered by the State of Pennsylvania, called "Elm Street," and modeled after the Main Street commercial district revitalization program.

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)"
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2"
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)"
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)"
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," 2021

Philadelphia could take on the Elm Street approach and focus it on key neighborhoods in the city.

... along with 

-- enhancing the employment base in the center city, and

-- enhancing and expanding public transportation in the city ("SEPTA Metro rebranding of rail services: insights into conceptualization of transit networks," 2021)

as I wrote in 2003.