REVISITING THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN’T, AND IS THERE AN OPTIMAL SOLUTION? by JANINE LOUISE DUNCAN (Under the Direction of James K. Reap) ABSTRACT The inclusion of historic preservation into city and county codes, or ordinances, was due in part to the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA). This thesis is an examination of how different communities have interpreted preservation at the local level via the inclusion of a historic preservation ordinance into municipal and/or county code. Because all preservation begins at the local level, an attempt has been made to identify the optimal parts, or inclusions, in a municipal or county historic preservation ordinance. A brief legal basis for the use of preservation ordinances is included, as is an examination of existing preservation codes, and ordinance data gathered by the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions. The optimal ordinance inclusions are provided in the final chapter. INDEX WORDS: Historic preservation ordinance, Preservation ordinance, Thesis, Graduate school, Student, Master of Historic Preservation, The University of Georgia REVISITING THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN’T, AND IS THERE AN OPTIMAL SOLUTION? by JANINE LOUISE DUNCAN B.A., Gonzaga University, 1985 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION ATHENS, GEORGIA 2007 © 2007 Janine Louise Duncan All Rights Reserved REVISITING THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN’T, AND IS THERE AN OPTIMAL SOLUTION? by JANINE LOUISE DUNCAN Major Professor: James K. Reap Committee: Maryanne Akers Melvin Hill Smith Wilson Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2007 iv DEDICATION The author wishes to dedicate her thesis to her parents, Marlece and Howard Duncan. The author and her father, Howard Duncan Seattle, Washington (1966) The author and her mother, Marlece Hébert Duncan Camano Island, Washington (1966) v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to acknowledge the patience and assistance of Professor James K. Reap, Drane Wilkinson, Dr. Maryanne Akers, Melvin B. Hill and Smith Wilson. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Barbara M. Doyle of Portland, Oregon who accepted the unenviable task of reading thesis drafts one and two. Finally, a very large “thank you” to family and friends for putting up with my lack of regular phone calls and emails during the writing and editing process. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………...…………v LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………….….viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………..1 2 LEGAL FRAMEWORK………………………………………………….8 3 EXISTING PRESERVATION ORDINANCES: FIVE EXAMPLES…..13 4 SURVEY………………………………………………………………...27 5 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………..61 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………..…....87 APPENDICES APPENDIX I Phoenix, AZ historic preservation ordinance…………………………………….92 Table of Historical Landmarks for the City of Seattle, WA….………………....107 Pike Place Market Historical District Ordinance (Seattle, WA)….…………….115 Ballard Avenue Landmark District Ordinance (Seattle, WA)………………….124 Pioneer Square Historical District Ordinance (Seattle, WA)…………….……..133 Columbia City Landmark District Ordinance (Seattle, WA)…………….……..141 Harvard-Belmont Landmark District Ordinance (Seattle, WA)……….....…….150 Chapter 909.01.I.3 SP-4(III) Historic Subdistrict code for the City of Pittsburgh, PA…………………………………….…………………….162 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Megapolitan America - September 2006……………………………………….7 Figure 2: Location Map – Phoenix, AZ………………………………………………....13 Figure 3: Location Map – Seattle, WA………………………………………………….17 Figure 4: Location Map – Pittsburgh, PA……………………………………………….20 Figure 5: Location Map – Indianapolis, IN……………………………………………..21 Figure 6: Location Map – Denver, CO………………………………………………….24 Figure 7: Alaska / Lower 48 Overlay Map………………………….…………………...27 Figure 8: Boroughs within the State of Alaska………………………………………..…28 Figure 9: Maryland Counties………………………………………………………..…...41 Figure 10: State of Montana Urbanized Areas Map………………….………………….44 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION There exist an infinite variety of derogatory opinions about modern planning.1 Although speaking to the effects of Western Europe’s mid-to-late-19th century version of urban renewal (e.g., the removal of Vienna’s city wall in order to create the Ringstrasse) Camillo Sitte’s words ring as true today as they did in 1889. The methodologies used by a government to mandate how their community will create and regulate its built environment always have had its share of critics. The current state of debate and criticism in the State of Georgia was recently summarized by Dan Reuter, President of the Georgia Planning Association: Almost 50 years ago Georgia adopted a Planning and Zoning Enabling Act which remained until the 1983 Constitution. But only in the past 10 years has Georgia made substantial progress towards real community planning… Through new regulations, design standards and various public-private partnerships, communities across the state…are being renewed with urban densities, street level retail and walkable streets. Many developers are now reinvesting in historic urban centers…Now is the time to forge partnerships with natural allies in government, non-profits and community groups to look at good models for new development, rural protection and greenspace acquisition…2 The interwoven nature of historic preservation and planning was not apparent to me before I began my graduate preservation studies at the University of Georgia. As someone who has been interested in ‘old stuff’ from a young age, who has watched This 1 Sitte, Camillo. 1889. The Birth of Modern City Planning (Der Säadtebau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen). Vienna. Translation by George R. Collins and Christiane Crasemann Collins, Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006: 223. 2 Reuter, Dan. 2006. The State of Planning in Georgia 2006, Georgia Planner, December 2006: 2. 2 Old House since its inception, and who has been a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation since the early 1990s, I thought I understood historic preservation. Living in Fairfax County, Virginia for four years and watching the constant pull between preservation groups, property rights groups, and local governments gave me a glimpse of the marriage between planning and preservation; however, it was not until fall 2005 that I realized preservation ordinances were a subset of city zoning. The seed for this thesis was planted during Dr. Maryanne Akers’ graduate City Planning course at the University of Georgia. During a lecture about ordinances, Dr. Akers made the comment that it is common for local governments to adopt an ordinance already in use by another city or county government. The ordinance may not be thoroughly analyzed before adoption, and, as a result, a local or county government will have codes on their books that are inappropriate for their community. While some cities (such as Charleston, South Carolina) added historic protections to their zoning ordinances decades before the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966, the majority of U.S. cities and counties did not incorporate historic preservation until more recently when a site or building was threatened or lost (e.g., Seattle in 1971 after rescue of the Pike Place Market). Preservation groups and governments of all sizes have retained all manner of historic fabric in the United States; however, public education about preservation has not kept pace. As a result, there is a disconnect in the public mind as to how preservation functions at the national, state, and local levels. Lawmakers are not immune to insufficient preservation education, and combined with the practice of adopting codes already in use by other communities, they may inadvertently create preservation 3 ordinances that are vague, inappropriate or that cannot stand up to judicial scrutiny. The city of Lakewood, Washington provides an excellent example of an inappropriate adoption. Lakewood, Washington is a community of 58,211 residents as of the 2000 U.S. Federal Census. Located 35 miles south of Seattle at the base of Puget Sound, it is a small city which has had a long association with three nearby military bases: Fort Lewis, Fort Steilacoom and McChord Air Force Base. One of the most prominent historic properties in Lakewood is Thornewood, a 31,000 square foot Tudor-style mansion completed in 1912 at a cost of $1 million. In order to move its preservation efforts forward, Lakewood became a Certified Local Government and its city council adopted the preservation codes of the City of Seattle in 2000. Seattle’s codes are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. For the purposes of this discussion, however, it should be noted that Seattle’s codes are very detailed, and among other provisions they allow for the creation of seven historic district commissions, one for each historic district within the city. Shortly after adoption, a Certificate of Appropriateness application (COA) came before Lakewood’s Historic District Commission (HDC). It was during the process of reviewing this COA application that the HDC realized they could not properly review it because of incompatibilities between the preservation code and other city ordinances. The City Council was notified, the COA resolved, and according