package of reforms<\/a> city officials are proposing in an effort to streamline rules protecting historic homes and buildings. The effort is called \u201cPreservation and Progress.\u201d<\/p>\nThe second half of the package, which city officials describe as more complex and robust, may include limiting property tax breaks for historic homes and eliminating automatic historical review for buildings when they reach 45 years old.<\/p>\n
The centerpiece of the package\u2019s first half is shrinking the power of the city\u2019s Historical Resources Board by allowing the City Council to reverse its decisions.<\/p>\n
Under the current system, the council\u2019s discretion to overturn such decisions is limited to when there has been a procedural error \u2014 not disagreements about historic value.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistoric designation has a demonstrable chilling effect,\u201d Planning Commissioner Daniel Reeves said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at creating a better process, not a more difficult process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Matthew Boomhower said the change could also help the preservation community if the Historical Resources Board becomes too pro-development.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it cuts both ways,\u201d Boomhower said.<\/p>\n
Bruce Coons, executive director of a preservation group called the Save Our Heritage Organisation, said the new policy would complicate and politicize the process and could lead to more litigation.<\/p>\n
He stressed that under the existing policy the City Council already gets final say in what happens to a historic structure.<\/p>\n
\u201cDesignation doesn\u2019t dictate what a property can be used for, or whether it\u2019s being modified or removed or demolished,\u201d said Coons, explaining that\u2019s already a council land-use decision. \u201cDesignation simply ensures that its fate is fairly considered in deciding the tradeoffs of a new project.\u201d<\/p>\n
That perspective was shared by many other preservation advocates and community leaders.<\/p>\n
The Community Planners Committee, an umbrella organization for neighborhood groups across the city, voted 23-0 against the proposal primarily because of the changes to the Historical Resources Board.<\/p>\n
But the local development and business communities praised the new policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe delays and uncertainty from threats of inappropriate designations are well-documented and do nothing to serve our community,\u201d Stephanie Benvenuto of the Building Industry Association.<\/p>\n
Ben Nicholls of the Hillcrest Business Association said the few buildings in Hillcrest with historical value have already been preserved in last year\u2019s update to the area\u2019s growth blueprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt strikes the right balance between protecting the character that makes Hillcrest unique while allowing thoughtful growth that keeps our community thriving,\u201d Nicholls said.<\/p>\n
The policy change affecting Ocean Beach was characterized by city officials as amending the municipal code to simply clarify what was already allowed.<\/p>\n
Ocean Beach has the only \u201cemerging historical district\u201d in the city, and there was apparently some lack of clarity whether the Complete Communities incentive, which does not apply in traditional historic districts, would apply there.<\/p>\n
Kelly Stanco, a city planning official spearheading the preservation reforms, said the 72 beach cottages designated historic in Ocean Beach\u2019s district aren\u2019t eligible for that incentive, which lets developers build many more units than the zoning of a property would otherwise allow.<\/p>\n
But she said the roughly 3,000 other properties in the neighborhood are eligible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not changing the rules, this is just clarifying what the rules have always been,\u201d Reeves said.<\/p>\n
Boomhower said the city shouldn\u2019t be limiting development on sites that don\u2019t have contributing resources just because some historic cottages might be nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that I should be stymied because of scattered historical properties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The second half of the city\u2019s proposed package of preservation reforms is expected to be announced next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Planning Commission unanimously approved Thursday a proposal to accelerate homebuilding in the city by softening…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":361233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,8629,50,80,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-361232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115506197580697601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}