If Little Rock officials move forward with their plan to demolish unsafe and long-vacant houses, the loss of those structures would endanger the national historic registry status of three districts, preservation officials said.
More than 85 structures that helped eight districts earn placement on the National Register of Historic Places are scheduled for demolition if their owners do not repair them, according to Little Rock code-enforcement records.
If all of those houses are torn down, three of eight historical districts - Central High, Dunbar and West Seventh Street - could drop below the federally required percentage of historic properties needed to keep the classification.
Preservation advocates say the loss of historic-district designation would mean property owners in those areas would lose the opportunity to apply for state and federal tax credits for their preservation work. That could mean up to $125,000 in tax credits for certain property owners would no longer be available.
“Removing those historic district designations could really continue to put those neighborhoods at a disadvantage because it discourages both owner and private investment,” said Vanessa McKuin, executive director of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas.
“It’s not just a theory that these credits could be an incentive. It really has made a difference in encouraging rehabilitation of homes and houses that people are redeveloping for rental and sale.”
Since 2010, after state historic preservation tax incentives were approved by the Arkansas Legislature, 89 Little Rock projects have been approved to receive them.
Of those projects, 46 involved commercial buildings, such as the Mann on Main office and apartment building on Main Street and even the Villa Marre, a historic mansion on South Scott Street that’s used for weddings, parties and other gatherings.
Homeowners and landlords renovating houses as rental property have also used the incentives, according to Arkansas Historic Preservation Program records.
In total, $20,203,828 in renovations and $3,030,549 in state and federal tax credits have been paid out for renovation of historic structures. The average cost for a commercial renovation was $334,930, and the average incentive given was $47,926. Several smaller projects on individual houses cost as little as $25,000.
In applying for designation on the National Register of Historic Places, the state historic preservation group surveys all of the properties in an area and determines which ones have historical value, basing its decision on property records and the buildings’ style of construction, materials and physical details.
Jennifer Carman has taken advantage of the tax credits to renovate her own home, a 1912 American Foursquare, as well as other houses.
“My house had been vacant for over 20 years, and the house was in need of significant TLC,” she wrote in an email. “For the first several years I lived in the home without any modern conveniences - no central heat or air, no kitchen, and no shower, just a claw foot bathtub. When the tax credit program was approved in 2009, it was a godsend.”
Carman said the process moved so smoothly that she committed to fixing up several other houses in the Central High neighborhood.
“It simply comes down to my conviction that rehabilitating existing structures is simply the right thing to do. It benefits and preserves the environment, our cultural heritage, and the fabric of our communities,” she said.
“Essentially, through their demolitions, the city … spends taxpayer money to turn a problem lot with a financial incentive for repair into a problem lot with no chance of repair. It’s senseless.”
Since 2010, the tax incentives helped complete 43 projects on private residential structures. The average cost of each of those renovation projects was $111,560, and the average incentive amount was $19,170.
CITY COOPERATION
Little Rock officials have said they’re willing to work with the preservation community to allow some time to find buyers for long-vacant houses, and Mayor Mark Stodola has said he has been working on an ordinance that would codify the need to take more time with demolitions when a historic property is involved.
In early August, preservation advocates met with Assistant City Manager Bryan Day to discuss a few houses that were close to being sent to the Little Rock Board of Directors for approval of demolition.
Day said he worked with the advocates to allow an extra 180 days before moving forward on those structures as long as there was no threat to public health or safety.
The deferral is not a moratorium on demolishing structures. Owners can apply for demolition permits, as was done with two houses on Cantrell Road that were gutted of their historic flourishes, then demolished earlier this year.
“It’s a complicated issue because you have to find a common ground between the needs of the neighborhood and the historic district, and oftentimes those are not conducive,” Day said.
To be listed on the national registry, a district must have at least 51 percent of the structures within it contributing historic value to the neighborhood.
In the small West Seventh Street District, the demolition over the past month of the former Massery’s Laundry building at West Seventh and Cross streets raised concern among community activists over whether its historic designation could be revoked. The district now has nine historical properties and nine others, and there are questions about whether vacant lots count.
The districts aren’t immediately removed from the National Register of Historic Places when they drop below the required number of historic properties.
“For any property to be removed, our office would present it to the state review board, and it would vote,” said Mark Christ, community outreach director for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
In the Central High Historic District, if the 65 historically significant houses that the city deems long-vacant and unsafe are added to the demolition list and are knocked down, the number of historic structures there would drop well below 51 percent, McKuin said.
The Dunbar Historic District was approved by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program this summer and is awaiting its federal designation, which Christ expects to happen in the next month. At that point, residents would for the first time be eligible to use the tax credits to renovate their houses.
If the city were to demolish the seven structures that have been deemed unsafe or long-vacant but are contributing to the historic status of the eight-block-by-two-block district, the district would drop close to the required 51 percent.
Last week, Stodola announced at the Board of Directors meeting that the ordinance he is working on will codify the policy of allowing 180 days to find a buyer or contact the owners about the possibility of renovating the structures.
“I’m not quite ready to bring that initiative forward,” Stodola said. “But we’ve been doing a lot of research on all of our options in terms of these contributing properties. The 180-day deferral is part of that, but we’re also looking at ways to prevent condemnation by neglect.”
BLIGHT CONCERNS
Preservation-minded community members, including McKuin, have been giving presentations at neighborhood association meetings and using any opportunity available to spread the word about the tax incentives for preservation work and about how they can be used.
“Whenever we look at these districts and talk to people about creating them, we face a number of misconceptions,” Christ said. “First, these incentives do not sign away a person’s property. By being in the district, you do not forfeit your land or your ability to do work on your home.”
The goal of the talks is to pique interest in buying or renovating the houses in the three districts that are in danger of losing their historic status, but McKuin also hopes for a larger conversation about the city’s historic preservation policies.
“It’s difficult to see a future for some of these houses, but when you see the before and after photos, you understand what’s possible,” she said.
“It’s easy to tear down a house and temporarily improve the aesthetic, but there’s a much deeper and harder question of whether that stabilizes a neighborhood and encourages redevelopment.”
Some city officials and community activists say the tax incentives aren’t enough to help poorer residents undertake expensive historic-preservation renovations.
Others say it isn’t fair that residents in those neighborhoods have had to deal with dilapidated and unsafe houses that create blight in their communities for so long.
“This program, this tax incentive, it doesn’t help the poor folks who live in these houses, and it doesn’t bring back the out-of-state owners who aren’t taking care of their properties,” said Ward 1 City Director Erma Hendrix. “It helps people who can already afford to do that work.”
All but five of the unsafe and vacant structures in the three endangered historic districts are in Hendrix’s ward. She said neighbors are tired of looking at the rundown buildings, as well as dealing with the crime and other problems that arise when multiple houses in a block are vacant and deteriorating.
“I’ve had people tell me about seeing drug dealing and squatters and all of these things at these rundown houses,” Hendrix said.
“Criminals don’t care if a house has historic significance. They care that no one lives there.”
She added, “You wouldn’t see those kinds of houses out in Wards 3, 4 and 5. They wouldn’t let it happen.”
McKuin said a lot of those other newer areas don’t have historic character, which she said is worth saving.
“I know vacant houses are a problem, but that didn’t happen overnight,” she said. “It’s decades of disinvestment; decades of discriminatory policies for those neighborhoods that did not encourage investment. There are a lot of underlying issues obviously. But dealing with those issues and rehabilitating those historic homes isn’t going to happen overnight, either. If you knock them down, you don’t get them back.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/22/2013