David: from That Day in October When You Told Dick Teare to Withdraw the Chevy Chase Historic
To: Members of the Historic Preservation Review Board
From: Mary Rowse & Jenny Chesky, Chevy Chase Neighbors for a Historic District, Historic Washington Architecture, Inc.
Date: Thursday, October 22, 2009
Re: Comments on Proposed Amendments to Chapter 2 (Designation of Historic Landmarks and Districts)
We oppose the proposed amendments to Chapter Two because they will create a far more onerous task for designating historic districts in Washington DC.
We spent five years working for a Chevy Chase Historic District and believe the city can create a more positive and successful process for neighborhood designation if it takes a more hands-on approach and seeks partnerships with city residents who seek designation for their communities.
One of the goals of the Historic Preservation Office is to create historic districts. The fact that it has become increasingly difficult to do so stems primarily from the approach the Historic Preservation Office is taking. The proposed amendments to Chapter Two will just make it worse.
We offer our comments below for the record and because we want to see the historic district designation process succeed more often and protect more of our city from “unmanaged change.”
I. HPO should openly support designation for any neighborhood that merits it
(a) HPO must level the playing field for all non-designated neighborhoods and take on the task of initiating and advocating for historic districts across the city. Regulations already give the office the power to do this. Language in the current and proposed regulations should be altered to give preference for this approach and to create less of an antagonistic relationship and more of a partnership between preservation proponents and HPO. The playing field is not even when HPO sponsors the Meridian Hill historic district and the production of a booklet on the neighborhood (before it has been designated) and doesn’t do the same for other neighborhoods. There is no doubt that Meridian Hill will be designated with this kind of support, and that’s a good thing.
Every neighborhood in the city that merits historic designation should have HPO's public support and sponsorship. By openly advocating for historic districts, HPO will create a strong preservation environment that will transform the process into a much more positive and successful one. Few can argue with expertsin a preservation office doing their job. But they can anddid argue with a SHPO who didn't state openly thatHPO supported designating Chevy Chase. Designation opponents repeatedly asked about HPO's perceived bias in favor of the nomination and David Maloneyusually said the office hadn't taken a position but that it generally didn't encourage a neighborhood to submit a nomination unless it was qualified. This was essentially a backhanded way of saying HPO supported the idea of nominating
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October 22, 2009
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Chevy Chase, but consider how much more powerful and effective it would have been if HPO had stated from the beginning it supported a Chevy ChaseHistoric District, wanted to see a good nomination come before the Board and would support efforts to create that nomination. This would have helped proponents and HPO immensely.
If HPO had stated from the outset that Chevy Chase merited designation, it would have helped eliminate criticism within the community that it didn’t deserve the designation. Many people don’t understand why early 20th century neighborhoods are worth protecting and Chevy Chase proponents developed materials that outlined the reasons. But HPO must also educate the public about this. A lot of people would have been persuaded to support a historic district simply because experts said it was a good idea and the neighborhood merited it.
HPO’s sponsorship would have greatly reduced or eliminated neighbor vs. neighbor conflicts that caused some to question the motives of those who sought designation (“real estate agents who just want to increase profits”). HPO sponsorship would have eliminated accusations from opponents that those who didn’t live within the proposed boundaries were trying to “impose” a historic district on others. Pitting neighbors against neighbors created acrimony and diverted discussion from the issues of protecting our community and “managing change.”
There’s a place in HPO’s draft Chevy Chase Guidelines that says:
“NOTE: For the purposes of this draft, some of this section has been adapted from the evaluation of the Chevy Chase Village Historic District in Montgomery County. This section will be revised in the event HPO and HPRB receive and evaluate an application for the Chevy Chase Historic District.”
HPO was certainly aware of Chevy Chase DC’s history and qualifications for a historic district and should have spelled them out in this document. It could have pulled information from the neighborhood’s landmark nomination, which had been completed the previous July. The fact that it didn’t use this information was probably because the nomination hadn’t been formally “submitted” to the office (even though it was up on a neighborhood website). This was not helpful to the Chevy Chase effort. HPO and HPRB must review the process and rules by which nominations are submitted to the office to find a way to make sure the office can access a pending or completed nomination to seek information or advise in its development.
There was no need to adapt anything from Chevy Chase Village Maryland--as if to suggest that HPO didn’t have any information on the DC side. It wasn’t necessary to imply that HPO had any questions about Chevy Chase DC’s qualifications for designation because it didn’t. It wasn’t helpful to the Chevy Chase neighborhood and to the many volunteers who were working hard to make the case for a historic district, that HPO did not clearly state the
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neighborhood’s qualifications in this document, HPO’s only statement to the neighborhood on possible designation.
Making the case for neighborhood historic designation should be HPO’s job, not the primary job of community residents who aren’t well versed in preservation issues. Neighborhood volunteers can help prepare a nomination and they can fund it, but they can’t be expected do the important work of giving the idea credibility and a professional stamp of approval.
Of course HPO support can’t take the place of a solidly researched and written nomination, which must be evaluated independently by HPO and the HPRB.
(b) Alter language in the Proposed Amendments to reflect a partnership with preservationists not a hands-off approach
In reviewing David Maloney’s letter to the NorthwestCurrent newspaper in April 2008 and reading the proposed 2009 amendments to Chapter Two, one can feel a heaviness that seems to pit HPO against historic district proponents. The language talks about a "burden" on the applicant or residents who want a historic district.
“The regulations … make clear that an applicant for designation bears the burden of gathering support. They also enumerate what the applicant has to accomplish: extensive public outreach, community meetings, and a demonstration of support, including ANC resolutions and letters from organizations and elected officials.”
“The new rules would also modify the current process so that an application cannot proceed until the Historic Preservation Officeprepares design guidelines for the proposed historic district, giving property owners a better understanding of its implications. They enable both our office and the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) to defer action on aproposed historic district until the applicant has shown the required community outreach and support.”
This tone and attitude toward neighborhood residents who want a historic district must change. It sets up an antagonistic relationship with the very group of people who should be allies with HPO and who are promoting the idea of a historic district. HPO and preservationists need to work together and support each other. Shouldn’t HPO and
neighbors be on the same page just as Kim Williams and HPO are in their desire to obtain designation for the Meridian Hill neighborhood?
If HPO wants to create historic districts, it must do more to make them possible. There is no room for impartiality.
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October 22, 2009
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(c) HPO Must Make the Case to the Community
In David Maloney’s April 2008 letter to the Northwest Current, he also said:
”We …are judicious in not advancing applications until an effective case for the benefits of preservation has been made.”
HPO should be making this “effective case for the benefits of preservation” since they are the experts. Why should every neighborhood have to learn how to do this?
The staff needs to make the case to a community and provide a plan and generic materials to homeowners. It will streamline the process for everyone. Community residents shouldn't have to educate the public and produce their own documents justifying designation. This is a waste of every neighborhood’s limited resources. In Chevy Chase, two separate publications were developed at considerable expense and distributed to 1,000 property owners. These materials should be available to other communities and HPO should use them in producing a generic booklet, talking points, and a dedicated website on Historic Designation.
The booklet can explain the value of historic districts to residents, communities and the city andit should be mailed early to every household in a proposed area.It should have photos and information about many of the historic districts around the city. The booklet could be generic or it could (preferably) have a section that includes specific material on a particular neighborhood under discussion plus the generic information. Such a booklet will make it much easier to convince people to support the idea of designation.
Neighbors may find it harder to believe another neighbor about the benefits of a historic district but a publication and a dedicated website from the city’s preservation office offering real examples of how designation benefits them, their community and their city would make the case far better.
Ideally, HPO would create a process for historic designation that would include among other things: a booklet, a dedicated website, talking points and staff help. The office shouldn’t try to play it down the middle but should instead openly and effectively advocate for neighborhood preservation across the city. If HPO won’t do this, who will?
(d) HPO Must Assign a Staff Member to a neighborhood
During the Chevy Chase designation process, proponents were constantly asking HPO for answers to questions and had a difficult time getting timely responses. It would have been far more helpful if one or two staff members had been assigned to our neighborhood to regularly hear questions and get answers for proponents or individual residents. While David Maloney was available to attend many neighborhood meetings his time was limited for answering inquiries from proponents seeking clarification for one issue or another.
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October 22, 2009
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We did our best, but we often didn’t respond quickly enough to false statements and distortions promulgated by the opposition because we needed correct information. We had to be careful not to pass out wrong information, so we were more cautious and slower in responding.
Here’s typical inflammatory language from Chevy Chase designation opponents that was used to spread fear and misinformation and that designation proponents had to respond to:
“The historic preservation regulatory regime seeks to control almost all exterior aspects of a home and grounds, and subjects the owner to personalized, highly subjective, and often idiosyncratic official design reviews and approvals. In the District, the Historic Preservation Regulations governing the actual "preservation" of buildings fail to provide property owners with articulated standards for regulatory compliance - a basic requirement for the enforcement of police power-based regulation.”
II. Create One Set of Guidelines, Not 26
We oppose proposed amendment 211.5:
“The Board shall not give public notice of the designation hearing on a proposed historic district or on an expansion of an existing historic district by more than fifty (50) properties, until the staff has prepared and released draft guidelines for the proposed or expanded district.”
There should be one set of guidelines for all neighborhoods across the city, not 26. If HPO wants tooutline uniquecharacteristics and concerns in each neighborhood, this would be useful and would help educate the Board and community residents.
But if these guidelines are:
“… intended as a practical tool to help the public understand historic preservation principles and practices. They are not government regulations or rigid rules establishing what is permitted or forbidden. Broadly stated, their purpose is to explain the reasoning and rules of thumb that preservation officials use when reviewing work that affects historic property.” -- Draft Chevy Chase Guidelines
…all the more reason not to develop 26 of them (one for each neighborhood historic district) and not to interrupt a neighborhood’s designation process at the same time. Otherwise, such guidelines take on a greater level of importance.
Creating separate guidelines for 26 neighborhoods will also take too much time, money and effort away from an office that needs to conserve and manage all three well. Separate guidelines could also causesome to suggest there is unequal treatment for different neighborhoods unless HPO makes it clear their guidelines depend more upon what kind of
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October 22, 2009
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building and physical context someone lives in rather than his or her specific neighborhood. (The unequal treatment argument just sets up HPO and the HPRB for challenges down the road by preservation opponents.)
For example, if the HPRB is going to permit flagstone walkways in front of single family houses but not in areas where houses are grouped closer together in a row or in semi-detached groups, then it can state this in the universal guidelines. It isn't a neighborhood'sname or locationthat should determinewhen such aguideline kicks in, but the nature ofa building’s architectural and physical setting. Many neighborhoods across the city have single family houses so if the HPRB is going to relax the flagstone walkway rule,this changeshould apply equally across the city to single family neighborhoodsor blocks of single family homes.
Another important reason we oppose developing separate guidelines for neighborhoods is that taking months to develop these guidelines interrupts the process of discussion and advocacy in a neighborhood. When HPO stopped the historic designation effort in Chevy Chase and announced it was taking 6 months to prepare design guidelines, this gave the opposition more time to spread misinformation and fear.Proponents were understandably upset—particularly because they weren’t consulted about the idea and because it was dropped on the community without notice.
In the end, we don’t believe many people read the Chevy Chase guidelines nor did they change anyone's mind about the issue. The guidelines certainly didn't satisfy the opponents. Nothing was going to do that and HPO needn’t have tried to accommodate them because it wasn't going towork (and never will). This smallgroup ofmen will oppose neighborhood designation forever because it's really an intellectual argument with them, nothing more. Practically speaking, they all claim to support “Historic Preservation.” It’s just Historic Districts they don’t like!
Here’s another excerpt from the draft Chevy Chase Guidelines from April 2008:
“This series of guidelines will allow more individualized consideration of the particular historic resources and design questions in each historic district. It will also help tailor the preservation process to the prevailing preservation issues and concerns in each community.”
Most people would agree the above statements reflect a useful process to engage in. But couldn’t a community do this both before and after designation? Why should articulating these valuable considerations (which may change with time) slow down the historic designation process for a neighborhood and be developed before a community has had some experience being designated?
In summary, there should be one set of guidelines that takes into account: (1) varying building designs--single family houses, semi-detached houses, rowhouses, apartment
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houses, low scale commercial buildings, etc; (2) varying streetscapes--urban, suburban; and (3) varying physical characteristics of late 19th and early 20th century neighborhoods.
This universal set of guidelines can cite specific neighborhoods for their distinctive architectural and physical settings but overall it should emphasize that it’s the environment in which a building sits that determines what rules apply, not the name of a neighborhood.