Local Government Preservation: Preservation where it counts

Zoning and Downtown Vitality How would zoning create greater economic vitality downtown? 1. Encourage business to stay in the downtown core. City government Post Office and federal government offices 2. Encourage social center downtown. Entertainment. Zoning is the most powerful tool that cities have. Zoning creates regions of commercial, industrial, and residential use. Zones of transition are also possible.

The Planning Commission and the Planning Department The Planning Commission is the appointed by the city council to represent the interests of the city and to comment on projects within the city. The Planning Department is staffed with professional planners who provide technical backup for the planning commission and city councils to make decisions.

Downtown Development Authorities Encourage downtown projects may have some powers from the planning commission within the area of the downtown. The main activity of the DDA is financial encouragement. Development is encouraged through Tax Increment Financing, or TIF. The treasurer identifies the initial assessed value of property in the district. Any taxes generated by assessment higher than the initial assessed value go the DDA to support projects to improve the downtown. DDA may also sell municipal bonds. (This is the Central Park condition) 2. What kinds of projects? Usually infrastructure improvements, not grants to private owners.

Working with architects and developers. Developers are looking for opportunities to invest and profit from opportunities. 1. Property may be undervalued. 2. Property may have experienced delayed maintenance. 3. Not the highest and best use–if rezoned.

Local preservation requires infrastructure Property owners, builders, carpenters, masons, as well as administrators if the preservation work is to be of lasting quality. 1. The increase in interest in living in older homes and a return to downtown areas, has completely changed the attitudes of planners about the viability of urban areas. 2. Changes in the demographics of home ownership created new enthusiasms for living downtown. People with alternate lifestyles, homosexuals, and couples who were professionals and did not have or wish to have children saw the inner city residences as beneficial. The attractiveness of rehabilitation when balanced against the energy costs of new construction. Case studies demonstrated that rehabilitation costs run one- quarter to one-third less than new construction. While true, this statistic conflicts with common sense information of builders. And it presupposes a work force with the skills to work within existing structures. 1. Shoddy rehab is no more energy efficient than shoddy new construction. 2. Rehabilitation has stabilized close-in suburbs and urban blocks making those areas some of the most competitive properties.

Encouraging local non-profit groups through indirect incentives 1.Unused and condemned historic buildings are sold at nominal amounts. Buildings that are vacant have no direct value. Properties can be sold for back taxes. 2. Local funding while not high is often a significant amount. 3. Local planning commissions use existing planning procedures to assist in the protection of historic sites.

Some common issues for local preservation 1.Stabilization of downtown areas has brought back developers anxious to build new buildings in the downtown area. 2.Displacement of minorities in downtown redevelopment. 3.Tourism as a blessing and curse. 4.The balance of aesthetics and history in preservation. 5.Preservation of religious sites as churches follow their congregants to suburbs.

Points of Tension Employ preservation professionals or to use volunteers. The adherence to revered stories about past actions or persons in the community may be indifferent to the architectural artifacts available to preserve. The preservation effort at the local level involves players with a mix of reasons to preserve. Preservation is a comfortable way to maintain the status quo of the social order. Local preservation may publically celebrate one's personal heritage (the descendent factor). Local preservation may provide business opportunities for individuals who participate.

The concept of Comprehensive Plan The traditional comprehensive plan has four principal characteristics. A.It is future oriented, establishing land-use and development goals that will be attained incrementally over time through regulations, individual decisions about zoning and rezoning, development approval or disapproval, and municipal expenditures for capital improvements, such as road construction and the installation of municipal utilities. B.The planning is continuous in that the plan is intended not as a blueprint for future development that must be as carefully executed as the architect’s design for a building, but rather as a set of policies which must be periodically reevaluated and amended to adjust to changing conditions. C.The plan must be based on a determination of present and projected conditions within the area covered by the plan. D.Fourth, planning is comprehensive. It should include all the planning elements of the jurisdiction.