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In further thinking about this entry, I am going to recant some of my sentiment and agree with David here--on the general point of the need for "clarity," but not in terms of his specific argument.

Not because I think "clarity" doesn't exist or shouldn't be a high priority, but because the reality is that even if not true, the fact that there is a perception that the HP design review process is arbitrary poses a serious threat to preservation in terms of how valuable (or not) people consider HP to be it in terms of maintaining Quality of Life/Placemaking values within the city.

David makes the point that this perception makes it difficult to add more preservation regulations to areas undesignated now--that isn't my main concern, because I have already pretty much given up on that. Other aspects of the process, combined with the inability to organize and to articulate the value of preservation in the 21st century pretty much dooms any new effort to create a historic district, especially in the face of ever present property rights concerns.

But this does get back to the conundrum that absolutely bugs the s*** out of me (what made me a preservationist), the fact that preservation saved the city, that what makes the city potentially a great place to live (architecture, identity, walking city era urban design) and viable neighborhoods, during the almost 50 year period when residential living trends did not favor choosing the center city.

Instead, people harp on preservation being arbitrary and capricious when what they should be doing is praising HP to high heavens because it stabilized and preserved so many potentially or once great DC neighborhoods (that with the addition of transit and some more density) that are now ready to be lived in by people who want to live in cities, ready to be "repurposed" for the 21st century.

(I discussed this general process in a somewhat different context in this blog entry, http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2011/07/revitalization-in-stages-anacostia.html)

So if people like David Alpert (and Lydia DePillis) aren't convinced that HP isn't clear, then we have a big problem, since he is intelligent, reads lots of documents, goes to hearings, talks to people etc.

If he isn't convinced, how does that compare to the people who just complain without doing any additional research?

Now I mentioned above some HP design publications from other cities that I like a lot, that I wish were used as models to shape how DC interprets and promotes preservation.

Another document I like is the comparable guide for Montgomery County, for two reasons in addition to the general info on historic preservation and architecture: (1) it has a general history chapter, which puts history and architectural history in context; and (2) history-design writeups for each designated neighborhood.

Again, we pretty much don't have this kind of straightforward info in the city. Sure we have the historic district brochures, but maybe in the Internet/millenial/mobile generation, those brochures are too long and text heavy and aren't getting the message across.

Now, I don't think that clarity is the issue per se, I think that people don't know much about architecture, design, and history and because they don't understand, they ascribe the failure of design review process to yield what they want as arbitrary. (sorta like my line that people call "culture" something that is in fact the result of a process, just one that people don't understand).

That needs to be addressed. Not just by telling people (as I am wont to do) that it's just because they haven't read X, Y, and Z, but by producing the kinds of documents, materials, and campaigns that are necessary to correct the misperceptions, and to address the problems (and there are some, undoubtedly) that do actually exist in the process.

by Richard Layman on Jul 31, 2012 5:31 pm • link • report