Yes, another one of these stories.
This:
The Louisville Metro Council Planning and Zoning committee tabled an amendment to the landmarks ordinance proposed by Councilman David Yates, D-25, which would make significant changes to the city’s land development code.
The current ordinance requires residents gather at least 200 signatures to petition the Landmarks Commission for protected status for a building or monument. In Yates’s amended version, however, 102 of the signatures would have to come from people who live or own property within a one-mile radius of the proposed historical site.
Further changes would give the council final say on any landmark designations, but preservationists argue the proposed guidelines threaten historic buildings and favor developers.
Yates says the Landmarks Commission does important work, but the council should have more oversight.
“The Landmarks Commission is appointed by the mayor and therefore not held accountable by the constituents. While they do great work, we respect them and we need them…I think there should be oversight and there should also be a forum for constituents and neighborhoods who are affected to be able to voice their concerns to an open body,” he says.
The rest of the council Democrats are TERRIFIED to stand up against Greg Fischer. Even Jim King, who has turned into everything he said he was not. Absolutely laughable.
Yates, however, is stomping on Fischer’s nuts and you can expect more of this out of him.
The fact that Metro Council doesn’t want to stand up for something like this is absurd.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Steve Magruder // Feb 15, 2012 at 6:07 am
I’m not surprised that our finer Metro Council members aren’t sponsoring it. At best, the amendments are chasing problems that aren’t there, such as the misconception that property owners don’t have a chance to participate in the landmark decision making. They have as much opportunity as anybody else. A petition is not a final decision in these matters anyway — they are only the beginning of a process, and everyone who possesses facts that counteract the landmark proposal are free to present these to the commission.
Worse is that this bill hands over greater petitioning power to property owners, and therefore is pre-Jacksonian and anti-democratic by modern standards.
Beyond discounting the say of tenants and other non-property owners in a community, it also discounts the say of Louisville Metro residents in general, who have a clear stake in the maintenance of the city’s culture via occasional landmarking.
2 Fleur-de-gris // Feb 15, 2012 at 8:51 am
mr yates made clear in the hearing – with help from ms ward-pugh – that he doesn’t know how the process works and how there IS accountability built into the landmarks process.
3 jake // Feb 15, 2012 at 9:00 am
Not a single Metro Councilcritter explained their opposition or doubt.
If there’s serious concern on their parts, why are they playing church mouse? Why not openly talk about their concerns?
This culture of fear and secrecy needs to end.
4 Metrohack // Feb 15, 2012 at 11:17 am
I hope this passes as written. It should be called the Colonial Gardens Ordinance.
5 Fleur-de-gris // Feb 15, 2012 at 11:52 am
As came up in yesterday’s public hearing:
- Colonial Gardens’ landmarking was supported by *that* district’s councilperson – the one elected to represent the people of that area.
- Those who proposed demolishing CG proposed rebuilding it exactly. Besides the fact that this would be a ridiculous and wasteful charade, it also would not likely have happened in this economy and you’d have only an empty gravel lot and memories.
- There is new promise of someone wanting to purchase and renovate Colonial Gardens and open a business there, partly *because of its historic importance in the community*.
Vicki Welch, while supporting the ordinance change, simultaneously bemoaned the prevalence of chains and the lack of unique businesses in the South End. Tearing down structures which are part of the area’s unique story is not to way to get there.
The changes in the ordinance are unnecessary. It’s already doing what it’s supposed to do: protect those historic properties which make Louisville unique and which make up Metro Louisville’s shared legacy. This isn’t just a sentimental benefit, but also an economic development benefit.
6 Metrohack // Feb 15, 2012 at 12:13 pm
The problem with the rules as written now there’s no fore warning, CG wasn’t a landmark, the owner wanted to tear it down and allow a pharmacy to be built in it’s place.
From my understanding the deal was struck, until the the structure was declared historic.
Property owners should have a right to know before hand what can and can not be done.
7 John Q Public // Feb 15, 2012 at 6:20 pm
I agree with Metrohack.
Seems people dont care about protecting properties until after a business buys them, plans to demolish them, and then they try to get them protected and saddle the business owner with hundreds of thousands in renovation costs.
You want to protect something? Fine. Then do it upfront, before saddling a local business owner with a building they didnt want and repair costs they hadnt anticipated.
8 Fleur-de-gris // Feb 15, 2012 at 10:16 pm
Presumably someone owns just about every potential landmark already. How would the community’s Landmarks process go about getting ‘upfront’?
There are some existing surveys of ‘contributing structures’ on record which serve as reference in the review process, but even their generation is costly and time-consuming for a cash-strapped organization. Preservation – because of limitations in resources – is necessarily REactive rather than PROactive.
9 Steve Magruder // Feb 17, 2012 at 2:11 pm
The old canard shows its ridiculous face again.
The reality is that it is very difficult to organize people around anything in this town _until_ there’s a crisis. Colonial Gardens, an obvious South End landmark except to those regressive types who hate culture, was under threat, so people came together to save it.
I also would like to see more proactive determination of properties in Louisville Metro that are historic, but using that as an excuse to complain about the Colonial Gardens decision is lame.
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