Ponce Court Makes Georgia Register of Historic Places
Decatur Metro | June 16, 2010Already a local historic district with all the rules and regs that go along with that, Ponce de Leon Court is setting its sights on state and national recognition…along with some snazzy tax credit options.
From Regina at the Decatur Minute…
Several residents of Ponce Court attended a hearing on June 4th at the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office and were given the great news that their neighborhood is considered worthy to be listed on the Georgia Register of Historic Places. One of the attendees was 82 year old Graham Thomas who lived on the street from 1920-1940. Next, the district nomination will be sent to the National Register of Historic Places in Washington DC where the nomination will hopefully be accepted and Ponce Court will be listed as an important historic district in the United States.
The proud and happy residents can now take advantage of significant property tax relief programs and income tax credits made available to properties listed on the Georgia and National Registers of Historic Places.
Where is Ponce Court?
Ponce Court is off E Ponce de Leon, between Commerce Dr and the Glenwood Academy.
I have a hard time believing “82 year old Graham Thomas” lived on Ponce Court 90 years ago….
That does indeed seem unlikely
I’m guessing from “sometime in the 20s” is a bit more on the mark.
Perhaps this was a Quantum Leap situation.
I wasn’t able to get off work to attend the June 4th meeting, but we’ve been well briefed throughout this process. As Ponce Court residents, we are very excited that our street is now on the Georgia Register and feel like we have an excellent shot to make the National Register! I will say some of those tax breaks aren’t as great as they initially sound when you look at the fine print of how much money you have to spend to actually take advantage of them, but the prestige alone and the knowledge that the historic feel of our street will be preserved is great.
As I recall Lump, the historic tax credits are only on renovations that exceed the value of the house (excluding the value of the land). Does that sound right?
Also, the GA and National Register listings don’t ensure any protection of historic properties, other than any project funded with state or federal money.
Aside: I’ve heard that Ponce Court is the only bungalow court in all of Georgia. Bungalow courts are quite prevalent out in Cali, but not in the South.
Wow, I had no idea this little street existed even though I’ve jogged/ran by the street on Ponce innumerable times.
This street is a great example of how a Local Historic District can ideally function. It’s of a manageable enough size that it’s a good bet everyone knows each other. That’s the key to developing the kind of community consensus necessary to establish an LHD because it allows homeowners to work through the issues collectively with people they know and trust.
Once the proposed area gets too big–as it was for the much discussed Oakhurst district–it comes across as something “someone else” is imposing on you. And once an LHD devolves into an ideological battle rather than a discussion of the parameters and details, you can forget it.
Lump, if you find a moment, I’d love a summary of how your LHD came to be.
That’s a pretty good rule, but it’s not without exceptions.
The other major way that LHDs of all sizes come into being is when there is a large common enemy. For example: Druid Hills’ massive LHD is thanks to the Freedom Parkway plan.
Oakhurst’s impetus – hyper-development of McMansions and whatnot – wasn’t enough of a universal threat to create sufficient camaraderie to hold the neighborhood together in a common cause.
Old Decatur on the other hand did have the appropriate conditions to create an LHD: the neighborhood is not TOO large, and the threat of the looming Hillyer condos (which were never built) were enough to band the neighborhood together.
That’s a good point, DM. I guess the neighbor that you really don’t know is still positioned higher on the totem pole of trustworthiness than powerful outside interests. Though I have a hard time imagining any potential threat big enough to get Oakhurst folks seeing eye to eye on the issue. Maybe the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse…
Hmmmm..I don’t agree with you. In my experience, Oakhurst folks have a pretty solid community, especially with the neighborhood association & community garden. Some people just don’t want to be forced to jump through endless hoops & layers of beaurocracy to do anything with their property in the name of “preservation”, and there’s nothing wrong with that (disclosure: my husband & I are members of the National Trust, so it’s not like I’m not appreciative of what LHDs have to offer).
Oakhurst has a great community (I know first hand…) but perhaps you didn’t follow the couple LHD blogs with some highly ideological, heated, angry, even periodically profane exchanges on the issue that would tend to suggest the opposite of what you’re saying. Some of the stuff that got posted most people wouldn’t even say to an enemy, much less a neighbor.
From my vantage point, the prospect of an Oakhurst LHD has left the land of reasoned, collaborative discourse. Even if the community, otherwise, gets on just fine.
No, I didn’t follow the blogs– but actually, the fact that there were angry, impassioned arguments against creating an LHD within Oakhurst supports what I’m saying, which is that obviously, more people didn’t want the restrictions that come with an LHD than did want them. It’s too bad that some felt the need to get nasty, and there’s certainly no excusing that, but people who feel that existing ordinances are sufficient limits on what they can do with their property tend to get pretty amped up when the prospect of even more restrictions are proposed. I can’t say these people were wrong simply because they weren’t interested in having that additional layer of restrictions imposed upon them. Not every neighborhood lends itself to “historic” preservation, and the majority of the folks who owned property in Oakhurst agreed that theirs didn’t, either. The neighborhood seems to be doing just fine– I’m not sure what constitutes a McMansion (reasonable people will differ), but I haven’t noticed gigantic infill houses that fill up their lots overtaking the area, nor do I see lots of renovations going on that aren’t at least making an attempt to respect the general characteristics of the neighborhood. My point is that an LHD isn’t always the best & only means to use to preserve a community’s feel and sense of place, so I don’t think Oakhurstians are the poorer for not having one. Folks on the other side of the blanket will feel differently, and I can’t be mad at ‘em for that.
Cuba, I don’t think Scott is taking the stance you think he is. He isn’t saying “Yay!” or “Nay!” to the Oakhurst LHD, just that the resulting discussion cut some pretty deep wounds in the community and that issue is now officially poison for the next decade or so, regardless of any future events.
As for the lack of McMansions lately, the economy did that.
I didn’t think Scott was throwing in his vote for an Oakhurst LHD, just his contention that he didn’t think the community would ever see eye-to-eye (his words) on it. I disagreed, on the premise that most people banded together to stop it, hence there was plenty of eye-to-eye– just not for an LHD. From Scott’s comments, I have no way of knowing where he landed on the issue…just conversatin’ & throwing my opinion into the mix, FWIW (approx. .02, if anyone’s buying).
You might have a point about the economy, but that doesn’t explain the whole picture, as evidenced by the plethora of neighborhood-appropriate renovations that happened before the bottom fell out.
What part of the picture do neighborhood-appropriate renovations represent? That folks who would have been sensitive to the neighborhood’s style and form even without an LHD?
Your last sentence may be missing a word, but on the assumption that you meant what I think you meant, yes– from what I’ve observed, folks in the neighborhood appear to be following a similar series of styles/sizes as their existing neighbors’ houses, even without a LHD. So far, I haven’t seen enormous houses filling up their lots, or oddly contemporary houses that don’t look like anything around them (not that this would necessarily be a bad thing), or suchlike.
But how is that an argument for not implementing a regulation?
Would we even have laws if you could argue them away by saying “well, most people follow that already”?
Well, that’s not really the point with a LHD– even without them, there are ordinances and building codes that control, to a point, what someone can do with their property. LHD regulations really are directed at the aesthetic aspect of a property, so they’re certainly not essential to ensure that builders follow safety standards or height/lot size restrictions. You’re making a distinction that isn’t really apt here, because LHDs only have a passing acquaintance with laws & regulations passed to implement safety codes. It’s not making an argument that we shouldn’t have laws at all, it’s simply making an argument (with which many, many property owners in Decatur & elsewhere agree) that there shouldn’t be layer upon layer of restrictions on what kind of dwelling one can have, or how that dwelling should look, simply for a perceived value (in this case, historical preservation) that frankly is subjective. Your argument is going off in another direction, and goes way beyond the simple point I’ve been making.
Sorry if I’m going off in another direction, but I thought originally that you were implying that because most people weren’t building McMansions, that an ordinance wasn’t necessary.
That doesn’t really make sense to me since a preservation ordinance exists in large part to protect a historic neighborhood against the most unsympathetic building-types. It only takes a couple to have a real impact on a district. So just because most people aren’t doing it doesn’t seem like strong enough rationale to discount it completely.
Also, you’ve gone from saying that you’re a member of the National Trust to saying that preservation ordinances are really subjective, which is essentially the legal argument always used to fight preservation ordinances. Sure, there is an element of subjectivity to it, but that’s why there’s a 50 year rule and why districts need to come up with specific guidelines that explain their thinking as to why and how the ordinance will be implemented. The Supreme Court has verified this multiple times, after decades of challenges to local preservation laws.
DM, I’m not sure where the disconnect for you is, but you’re still making points that don’t really counter anything I’ve said. Being a member of the National Trust (for nearly 19 years now)doesn’t mean that I’d automatically presume that any district proposed for preservation is necessarily appropriate for it– you seem to believe that this is inconsistent with my support for an organization that exists for preservation purposes. It’s not! Thousands of properties are submitted each year for the Trust’s consideration, and only a few are actually accepted & granted that status. Why? Because the NTHP exercises its *subjective* opinion to determine which are deserving of protected status and which are not. Preservation ordinances are neighborhood specific (they vary from place to place, even within the same city, just like Decatur’s); because they’re designed to protect the architectural style of an area, rather than to enforce building, size, and safety codes (which apply across the board no matter which neighborhood the proposed building is/will be in), they are not the same animal. There’s also a big difference between someone moving into a nieghborhood where there’s an existing LHD, as opposed to one outside the LHD. In the former, a buyer presumably has notice that s/he is moving into a LHD, and therefore cannot (and should not) complain of its restrictions later on when s/he wants to build a non-conforming addition. The latter situation is where Oakhurst found itself, and where the majority of the property owners decided they’d rather not be subject to an additional layer of restrictions after the fact. The Supreme Court has certainly upheld many rulings having to do with cases under existing LHDs; its rulings on cases brought under the latter situations are a different story, because it (like trial courts must) makes the distinction between the two, just as I have above. I don’t understand why this seems to be a sticking point for you, but I’ll just conclude my part in this discussion by saying that the merits of any LHD are a matter of perception from the point of the people who want one; all perceptions are subjective, and will differ from person to person. My perception is that LHDs are not the be-all, end-all with respect to keeping property values steady or keeping a neighborhood attractive– sometimes, people can accomplish these goals without additional regulations.
I agree with you that LHDs aren’t always the answer.
I guess the disconnect here is that you’re asserting that a majority of property owners in Oakhurst were against the LHD. Scott and I were both saying that we never really knew the for/against breakdown since it never got to a point where anyone voted on anything before things got nasty and the whole thing fell apart. Is that a misrepresentation?
As for the more general conversation about LHDs and the NTHP, I don’t know of any cases where preservation ordinances were struck down over the fact that residents had it forced upon them. Weak preservation guidelines, yes. But not because they already lived there. I’d be interested to learn more about those.
Oh, and LHDs do regulate size.
I think the disconnect isn’t quite summed up in that nutshell– for one thing, Scott and you were talking alongside each other, rather than saying the same thing. Scott started out saying one thing (that the Oakhurst folks hadn’t, and couldn’t now, come to a consensus on an LHD), but explained he meant another (he was just using that fracas as an example, when he had no real idea how things had stacked up). I clarified my position, which was essentially that there in fact was a consensus on the LHD, given that if a majority of homeowners in Oakhurst had been in favor of an LHD, they’d have gotten past the idea stage. Your point seemed to change with each post, so I couldn’t be sure what it was that you were really driving at– only that you pretty much kept missing my original point. It started to feel like the discussion was degenerating into a false-syllogism argument (e.g., if one is a member of a preservation organization, one cannot take a position against LHDs and keep one’s position consistent with one’s membership in said organization), which made me think you might be arguing simply for its own sake. Of course, this is only my perception, so if I’m attributing such motives to you unfairly, I apologize– I’m not trying to dog you out, I’m just telling you how it seemed to me.
Yes, LHDs can and do include size regulations (which is just one subset of aesthetic-driven rules that comprise the largest part of LHD regs), but so do ordinary zoning ordinances– that’s why some property owners might think another set of size-based regulations is superfluous. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that Ponce Court got its National LHD status– in my (entirely subjective) opinion, it’s a good example of an area where there are enough truly historically authentic, architecturally significant buildings (in this case, houses) to merit preservation. Most importantly (to this discussion, anyway) is the fact that enough people who lived there at the right time wanted it, found a way to agree upon aiming for it, and worked together to get it. In Oakhurst, enough people decided the opposite, so it didn’t get past the discussion phase. Thankfully, the neighborhood seems to have survived intact. Does that always happen? No– not even in some places where LHDs actually get passed. It’s up to the people who live there, you see?
Anyhoo– at least we know we can agree on some things, so we don’t have to agree on everything. You go ahead & have the last word– it’s your blog, after all, and I’m frankly in need of a frosty adult beverage. Cheers!
Frankly, as someone who has lived in Oakhurst for a very a long time who actually has a couple of graduate degrees that required me to do actual hands on historic preservation internships and who has worked on historic tax credit applications and historic surveys, I want to make couple of points.
There are piles of sometimes cheaply built, overpriced, oversized, overbuilt McMansions over here now, many the fault of a single developer whose taste I admit is not mine and obviously not that of anyone who built over here before 2005. A local historic could have prevented these giant houses being plopped next to 1940s single story 2 bedrooms and helped preserve a more consistent look. The district rules are not as restrictive as opponents like to pretend,and they do help preserve the qualities in a neighborhood that make it attractive in the first place. What happened over here was pretty bad. I know key players in the original Oakhurst application and know a little bit about the opposition’s story as well. The initial mistake was that the application was done on the sly by a few people for a few streets with no community involvement, and I think, frankly, an inappropriate plan. The application only took a few streets from Winter over under its reach. I always felt the original outlines of the city of Oakhurst should have been the borders for the district with the plan to maintain the character of the original town. It’s a stronger argument and provides more flexibility.
The hard feelings, from what I gathered,came in when a lawyer in Kirkwood who represents many local developers got involved. She was a source of those yard signs and I received some of the flyers she was handing out. I also have a friend on Cambridge she approached. Much of the information she was giving out was vague, misleading and just plain wrong.
The failure of the district was due to a perfect storm- a few neighbors taking it on themselves to introduce a stealth application and a weak attempt to get support after AFTER the fact and a determined group of developers at the peak of the building boom. Other people may have different views on my points, but this is really how I feel.
Also, anyone who believes a local historic district is bad and takes away ability to do what you want with your house, I challenge you to contact Michae =l or his staff at the Atlanta History Center or Richard Laub and Tim Crimmins at GSU and ask them for an explanation of what the district means to residents.
I should say Michael ROSE at the history center
Just for curiosity’s sake, Nell– what’s your definition of a McMansion? Mine would be a house that’s extended to the maximum size & setbacks that its lot will allow, and something of a size that is not merely larger than its neighboring houses (whether single or two storey), but dwarfs them. I can count on one hand the houses in Oakhurst that meet those criteria. Even those don’t look too different from the Craftsman bungalows that make up the neighborhood.
For the record, I’ve never argued that LHDs serve no purpose, or that they’re always bad for property owners. I also don’t need degrees in preservation to understand the value that LHDs can bring to a neighborhood (and obviously, most people who live in LHDs don’t, either); I do know, however, that the restrictiveness of LHDs is by no means uniform– like any other body comprised of human beings with their own opinions and taste, LHD boards can run the gamut of merely protective to utterly draconian. Some people would mind, others would find it too limiting. If you’re one of the latter & you buy property in a LHD, then you have no room to gripe b/c no one’s forcing you to buy there. If you’re one of the latter & you buy property in a non-LHD neighborhood, then you certainly have the right to object to the restrictions that would be imposed by an after-the-fact LHD, regardless of how accommodating it may or may not be.
A handful? I am going to put anything that is two stories and taking up every inch of space smack in the middle of block of single story homes in that category for me. There are two in one block on East Lake; three on two blocks of Fayetteville; 5 on three blocks of McCoy, a pile on Mead…I can keep going.
I did say before it was a taste thing; some of my dear friends live in those kind of houses! And I can’t judge it, really, even though it may sound like it, because it breaks down to my sensibility and what I think works versus what others think. I don’t have to love it, but I have to respect it because the homeowners and builders are only do what they want to do and what the code allows them.
“…I know … a little bit about the opposition’s story as well.”
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With all due respect, nellie, I feel compelled to point out a couple of things myself. One is that opposition to the Oakhurst LHD application was by no means monolithic–there wasn’t a single “opposition’s story.” In fact, some of the bitterest parting of ways occurred among people who initially thought they were of one mind, until they began to parse each others’ reasons for opposing the application. Some were (and remain) against anybody telling anybody else what to do with their own property. Some had problems with how the whole thing got started. Some consider local historic districts to be a sneaky proxy for design ordinances which can smack of suburbanesque HMA covenants. Some believe fervently in local historic preservation but object to the way Decatur has gone about it. Some think Decatur’s LHD process is fine but that it was mis-applied in the case of the Oakhurst application (and don’t necessarily agree among themselves about whether or not it was done nefariously).
While I am not personally acquainted with the lawyer from Kirkwood who represents developers (I don’t think), there was a substantial groundswell of opposition to the application that arose independently of outside agitation. It stands to reason at least some developers perceived an opportunity (and/or a threat) and fanned flames. But the debate was going to happen, regardless.
One more thing worth noting, IMO, is this: I’m generally a big fan of Decatur city government and city management. But when the City gave every indication of complete and unwavering support to an LHD application that originated so stealthily, it effectively made a lot of residents feel totally disenfranchised. That contributed significantly, IMO, to the degree of shrillness and bitterness that wound up being expressed in public (and certainly in private) discussions.
Personally, I hope it doesn’t take another ten years for the topic to re-emerge in Oakhurst, and I hope that when it does, cooler heads will prevail enabling an open, candid, adult process to unfold, one that results in a solution that is appropriate for this part of town.
BTW, my congratulations to the folks on Ponce Place. That little street is indeed a gem, and I’m glad they found a way to preserve it and live in it at the same time!
I agree- I am referring to the lawyer and not the residents. I overstated that.
“anyone who believes a local historic district is bad and takes away ability to do what you want with your house, I challenge you to contact Michae =l or his staff at the Atlanta History Center or Richard Laub and Tim Crimmins at GSU and ask them for an explanation of what the district means to residents.”
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One more thing….I don’t mean at all to argue against LHDs categorically. But anyone who doubts that local historic preservation CAN take away the ability to do what you want with your house should read proceedings of most any Decatur historic preservation commission meeting in the past few years. LHD “guidelines” CAN be extremely powerful and CAN leave tremendous latitude for arbitrariness and capriciousness on the part of the commission, depending on how they are written. It’s altogether too easy, if you find yourself wielding only hammers, for everything to look like a nail.
Precisely, stg– you said it better than I did.
I’m not in a position to provide a full accounting of how it went down, since we moved to Ponce Court four and a half years ago, within a few weeks of it being named a LHD. However, I was asked to speak at the City Council meeting and did so, highlighting the aspects that had charmed us into buying a home on the street.
As I recall, there were some minor controversies (resistance from the owner of the converted apartment units on the street and the son of the street’s original developer who still owned a parcel and had hoped to develop it), but for the most part people seemed to be on board.
I think the observation that the relatively tiny size of the street made it easier is accurate. We have a Ponce Court e-mail list and everyone is on a first-name basis. We even took a neighborhood photo down in the cul-de-sac a few weekends ago. I’d have to think it’d be much harder to get consensus on anything with a larger community, especially one the size of Oakhurst. The more people you have, the more disparate interests are represented. That said, we moved down from a neighborhood in Greenville, SC, that was placed on the National Register while we lived there, and it was considerably larger, so who knows.
What DM said. I wasn’t supporting LHDs in anything I’ve written. I’ve been talking about process. All I said was that any discussion of one in Oakhurst was off the table for the foreseeable future. Not because either side was right or wrong but because the process itself was flawed due to the size of the suggested area, the means by which the issue was initially raised and, as DM noted, the absence of any identifiable threat.
That said, given that I have a slew of Oakhurst friends against an LHD and a slew that are for it, I see no evidence of neighborhood-wide agreement. Only that it’s gonna stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Scott, if you read earlier response to DM, I clearly said there was nothing that indicated that you were advocating for an LHD. I merely disagreed with your stance on the extent of agreement against one.
That’s the rub, Cuba. I wasn’t taking a stance on the extent of agreement against one. I was saying that, given the way the process unfolded, reasoned discussion is essentially impossible at this point so any legitimate assessment of shared concerns, potential threats, and common ground — the de facto baseline necessary for even evaluating an LHC as a potential tool — isn’t in the cards right now.
I’m really ambivalent about who’s for or who’s against. That’s not what I was talking about. You’re mistaking a discussion about the criteria necessary to have a productive discussion of local historic districts as one about a particular situation. I was only using Oakhurst as an example of where the process was flawed. I have no idea how the numbers stacked up on each side and I don’t care.
All right, so I took your first post in the thread literally– but it’s because you didn’t indicate that you were merely using Oakhurst as an example. I certainly didn’t mean to put you on the defensive, but the fact that you were speaking illustratively simply wasn’t clear to me. ‘K?
I love this street. A friend of mine just moved here a few months ago and it is really picturesque with the palm trees and the cul-de-sac. I want to live there myself now!