If I were the building owner, I'd go to the Lege and ask them for legislation overruling post-facto landmarking unless the City is willing to buy the building at market rate, and restore it itself.
What a nightmare. Preservation should also be about empowering and not just saying “no.” Like loosening use restrictions and parking minimums and energy requirements for these buildings and allowing denser infill around them and giving owners expedited review and additional incentives to get these buildings back into use. Finding some aspects to preserve and honor but compromising on others where it just isn’t feasible. It is a hard balancing act. “New businesses need old buildings” ….unless the old buildings end up being more expensive than the new ones!
Unfortunately, the approach seems to be to make it as hard and expensive as possible to rehabilitate: for the "privilege," everything will take twice as long and cost twice as much!
Well said. And I like your idea of incentivizing voluntary preservation up front. IF govt is to even get involved in this realm (a v big & contested if), that is a much more productive & liberal (ie pro freedom) way to do so.
China has thousands of years of history; if there is anything historic to "preserve," it's there. Yet Chinese cities look far newer and more modern than most in the US and Europe? Why? The Chinese have a proverb: 旧的不去，新的不来.
This translates to "If the old doesn't go, the new cannot come." China certainly preserves some historical sites but recognizes that there is a cost to preserving too much. Unless it has extreme historical importance, it gets the wrecking ball, as it should.
If we cannot move on from the past, we will never be able to build the future we desire.
If I were the building owner, I'd go to the Lege and ask them for legislation overruling post-facto landmarking unless the City is willing to buy the building at market rate, and restore it itself.
I agree!
What a nightmare. Preservation should also be about empowering and not just saying “no.” Like loosening use restrictions and parking minimums and energy requirements for these buildings and allowing denser infill around them and giving owners expedited review and additional incentives to get these buildings back into use. Finding some aspects to preserve and honor but compromising on others where it just isn’t feasible. It is a hard balancing act. “New businesses need old buildings” ….unless the old buildings end up being more expensive than the new ones!
Unfortunately, the approach seems to be to make it as hard and expensive as possible to rehabilitate: for the "privilege," everything will take twice as long and cost twice as much!
Well said. And I like your idea of incentivizing voluntary preservation up front. IF govt is to even get involved in this realm (a v big & contested if), that is a much more productive & liberal (ie pro freedom) way to do so.
100%!
China has thousands of years of history; if there is anything historic to "preserve," it's there. Yet Chinese cities look far newer and more modern than most in the US and Europe? Why? The Chinese have a proverb: 旧的不去，新的不来.
This translates to "If the old doesn't go, the new cannot come." China certainly preserves some historical sites but recognizes that there is a cost to preserving too much. Unless it has extreme historical importance, it gets the wrecking ball, as it should.
If we cannot move on from the past, we will never be able to build the future we desire.