Decatur City Commission Weighs In On Oakhurst Historic District
Decatur Metro | October 16, 2007GoDeKalb prematurely writes off the Oakhurst Historic District in a report from the Decatur’s City Commission meeting last night, where opponents and proponents of the Oakhurst Historic District debated for more than two hours. According to the article, “Decatur officials voted to direct the City Manager to limit the use of city resources in processing a new historic district encompassing the former City of Oakhurst as annexed into Decatur”.
While I personally don’t believe that an Oakhurst Historic District can ever be created in such a hostile environment (since it is the voter-elected City Commission that creates historic districts and not the HPC), this vote still can’t completely “put the brakes” on a Oakhurst nomination. This isn’t a process that was started or is really supported by city staff other than to field inquiries by residents, which it should do for all district nominations. This nomination could still move forward if the neighborhood itself completed a historic resource survey of the entire district, which would undoubtedly take a substantial amount of time, but could in fact be done. Then the often unfairly slandered Historic Preservation Commission could review the nomination and RECOMMEND to the city commission whether or not the district was indeed “historic”. So while this vote by the city to minimize staff involvement might set proponents of the neighborhood back, it doesn’t halt the nomination entirely.
The article goes on to say that “City Manager Peggy Merriss said the City Attorney advised that the Commissioners could not intervene in an application until the HPC made a recommendation to them under the current ordinance. The Commissioners approved a second motion to ask the staff to review the historic preservation ordinance and to make recommendations on how to amend it.”
This motion seems misguided. I don’t understand what the commission wants to change. In the case of Oakhurst, it was residents who first brought forth the nomination, and have kept the issue alive since then. The HPC is then tasked with providing guidance to interested residents of the district to complete a nomination. When the HPC told Oakhurst residents that its original historic boundaries wouldn’t hold up legally (since they were historically arbitrary) they recommended more historically defensible ones, which just happened to be the originally annexed boundaries of 1909. Again this was only a recommendation, based on the fact that historic districts need to have historically defensible boundaries if they are going to hold up under the law.
So then where exactly does the commission want to be able to intervene? Does the commission want the power to stop a grassroots movement by residents to create a district? That’s almost a frightening prospect and I honestly don’t think that is the commission’s intention. Ultimately, I don’t believe the ordinance has to be changed, people just need to become informed as to what the ordinance already says. The HPC doesn’t have any sort of power to create a historic district. That power already resides with the city commission. Opposition has already made themselves quite well-known to the commission in both their position and strength. This is how the process works. If and when a nomination for Oakhurst ever sees itself before the city commission, I’m nearly positive that it will be struck down because a strong opposition turned this into one of the most controversial issues in the city’s recent memory.
Near the end of the article, GoDeKalb quotes the mayor….“I don’t sense any support to study a 1000-house historic district,” Mayor Bill Floyd said. “I don’t like telling the Historic Preservation Commission the process has to be stopped.” The process had worked well when the city created four other historic districts, but this time, he said, “Something happened that should not have. I am interested in getting the process fixed.”
I really appreciate the mayor’s reserve on such an emotionally charged issue, which has the potential to force the city do something it would later regret. What happened was not caused by a faulty local ordinance, but was motivated by tension in a neighborhood that had seen increased “teardowns” and “McMansions” due to an overinflated real estate market and a lack of city-suppported preservation education and heritage pride.
The first part of that equation has already dissipated nationally, and I would assume that this kind of unsympathetic real-estate speculation has already started to decrease in Oakhurst over the past year. Therefore, the city should really focus on the second part of this equation…preservation education and encouraging pride in the city’s existing historic resources. We need initiatives that make people aware of what our preservation ordinance says and doesn’t say. We need to reinforce pride in our historic neighborhoods (and the remaining historic downtown corridor) with available informative resources and events that celebrate the history of Decatur.
The commission’s motion that called for next year’s budget to include funds for a historic resource survey is a good first step in what needs to be a continual process. This “softline” approach may not be able to stop an out-of-town developer from tearing down a Craftsman bungalow in Oakhurst and putting up something that casts long shadows over its neighbors (only a “hardline” local district could do that), but it should certainly minimize the kind of bitter infighting that has resulted from this nomination. Most of the historic homes of Oakhurst will survive this latest preservation battle with or without legal protection, but many friendships will not.
Hattip: In Decatur
Latest from Decaturish
Well I think there are two main reasons for re-writing the ordinance. First, the current ordinance does not provide for any demonstration of consensus on the issue before creating an application for a historic district. This process takes at least 9 to 12 months of time, uses lots of city staff resources, and if not supported by the vast majority of residents, creates a lot of unwarranted division (such as in the case of Oakhurst). There should be some sort of demonstration of public support before putting the neighborhood and the city through this.
Second, there are no time limits in the current ordinance that says that a vote of the HPC must take place after so many days or months of the nomination of a local historic district. For example, the ordinance can say that if the HPC does not take a vote within 180 days of the nomination, the nomination dies. As we have seen with Great Lakes and Oakhurst, these things can go on ad nauseam without the HPC ever taking a vote. The City must put a stop to this.
As far as the HPC being “unfairly slandered” that cannot be further from the truth. Without any input from the City Commission, back in April, the HPC attempted to put a moritorium on demolitions in Oakhurst even though the law did not allow them to do so. They City Commission, rightly, shut them down. Last month, without any input from anyone, they decided to quadruple the size of the proposed Oakhurst historic district. The City Commission, rightly, shut them down again. The HPC needed to be checked by the city commission and I applaud them for doing so.
Now the HPC has a choice. They can either defy the will of the city commission and go forward on the historic district as they have proposed. Or they can go back and vote in favor of a smaller district they are on record as saying is legally indefensible.
In response to OneOakhurst’s posting…
While I’m not against getting some kind of gauge of public support for a historic district, I am wary about creating some sort of precedent where a neighborhood is polled before information about historic districts can be properly disseminated (ie. the fact that everyone thinks that paint color will be regulated when it would not). Additionally, polls are very easily skewed based on how questions are worded and how/when the poll is taken. I’m afraid it could become a misused political tool for both sides of the issue. So I’m skeptical.
I don’t quite understand the use of “lots of city staff and resources” argument. As far as I can deduce, it is the neighborhood that should be doing a large majority of the work to create a nomination, using the HPC and city staff as a resource to guide them along the right path. While there seems to have been talk to apply for funds to pay to survey the neighborhood, this doesn’t have to be the case. Old Decatur used college students to do their survey and create their design guidelines pro-bono. Even if a nomination goes beyond the submission stage, the length of time wouldn’t really affect city staff since they only advise, review and schedule meetings.
In regards to time limits on voting for or against a nomination, I don’t have a problem with giving a set amount of time for a nomination to be reviewed. As long as the rule stipulated that if the HPC desired and communicated modifications, the time frame would be reset. When was the original, smaller Oakhurst nomination submitted? How long did it take the HPC to respond? I can’t find the submission date in the minutes. If it was never submitted, the length of time isn’t the HPC’s fault and no ordinance stipulation would be able to require private residents to hurry up with their survey and nomination. Additionally, I don’t think the Great Lakes has ever even submitted a nomination for a LHD, so the long, drawn out process there seems again be the neighborhood’s issue.
In regards to the moratorium, I believe the HPC consulted with the city attorney before suggesting it to the city commission and it was OKed, correct? Is that reason enough to condemn the HPC? I think the city commission rejected it, not because it was illegal, but because of public pressure.
I understand the general shock to the suggestion of enlarging the Oakhurst district, but it also should be understood that this was only a recommendation and not written law. It was recommended because the smaller district had no historical precedent. I don’t see how trying to create a more legally defensible district is a discredit to them. A lot of HPC’s wouldn’t even pick up on a subtlety like that and would just allow any Tom, Dick or Harry with enough support to create a district that may just suit individual needs.
The city commission may have sent a message to the HPC with last night’s meeting but it can’t literally “shut them down” as was the topic of my original post. It can only restrict use of its staff…but that doesn’t prevent the nomination from going forward if proponents can keep it alive. The HPC isn’t staff, they’re volunteers.
The HPC already voted against the original district boundaries and won’t go back to that.
In the end, the HPC only advises the city commission as to whether of not the district is historic. I don’t believe that anything about that is “defiance”. It’s the city commission’s job to create the district, not HPC.
I appreciate the discourse OneOakhurst.
[...] my own reaction to the commission’s decision, I explain why technically its too early to announce the death [...]