I think you are right on. I mean, I don't want to make it so that people can't afford to renovate their own house or something, but our DC housing stock in general is just so awesome that cheap home depot materials really bring them down a few notches. This is why I love the Historic Homeowner Grant program, but that is only for people in HDs.

I especially favor your idea on blocks where half the block is in the HD, and other half isn't. It really destroys the unity when something across the street from a really great stretch of houses is allowed to be a suburban mcmonster.

thanks you for pushing for so much great reform!! Don't ever leave DC.

by DG-rad on Aug 15, 2008 12:12 pm • link • report

Degrees of preservation is a good idea. In fact, looking at the criteria for preservation, you can see the beginnings of checklist, as well as a system that preserves some aspects and not others. If materials and techniques is a criterion, then those aspects could get more preservation. If work of a master is the issue, then maybe only the parts he or she designed could be saved. ANd so on in more fine degrees.

Similarly, "fading out" a historic district, per DG-rad is also a great idea. But at the same time, i totally disagree with you that everything should be protected. There are MASSIVE swaths of undistinguished property that really would be better off if they were stripped of all protections. It would be acceptable to me if it were just for limited review on all buildings over 100 years old, but not specific preservation of literally all buildings.

So, good housing ideas should be taken care of in zoning and not HP. There are a lot of pre-1950 apartment buildings that are elegantly decorated, but street hostile. Could a developer slap on something that compromises the integrity of the building by getting better urbanism points? Similarly, should a well designed building, that does not "blend in" be stopped in a historic district?

Aesthetic control laws will embalm this city, and really further limit the ability of architects to bring interesting architecture to the capital of the United States. I'm not talking about wild Coop Himmelb(l)au crystals or another Thom Mayne spaceship like in Suitland, DC is missing out even compelling traditional architects.

by The King of Spain on Aug 15, 2008 12:42 pm • link • report

*missing out on...

by The King of Spain on Aug 15, 2008 12:44 pm • link • report

Some board members opposing the change talked about how this is a rare undisturbed row of houses. In other words, because this block has changed little, it shouldn't at all.

regardless of the merits of this particular case, i think the "in other words" misses the key point: not that the block has changed little, but that it is one of the very few that have changed little. the distinction is important: if there were tons of examples of undisturbed blocks, changing this one wouldn't be important. but there aren't. so it is.

unfortunately, if that's the way preservation is rationalized, it creates a perverse incentive to change things "while you still can." i saw the hazards of this in action when a mcmansion went up in my neighborhood: the builder took down several large tulip poplars, estimated by the urban forester to be at least 100 years old. the county didn't have any objections because that particular block was filled with tulip poplars of a similar age; they would only get involved, the forester said, if the trees were some of the last ones in the area.

by jenny on Aug 15, 2008 12:54 pm • link • report

Here's an idea: let property owners decide how their homes and businesses should look and everybody else mind their own damn business.

by David on Aug 15, 2008 1:41 pm • link • report

David,

Yesterday you wrote, "Preservation is not zoning." I'll take that one step further and say it is not Planning and it is not Design Review.

Yet, that is where you're going. I believe that the point of Historic Preservation is to preserve. It is not to create another layer of bureaucracy impeding development in a city where it is already difficult to do so. There is already so much subjectivity in Pres. Law that a lot of people hate, but yet you want to interject more. "Better urbanism" "sliding scale" and "more historic" are just as subjective as beauty and ugly. You trust someone at City Hall to make more of these types of judgments?

My biggest concern is that these proposals would prevent rejuvenation in areas that are or will undergo a renaissance. Adams-Morgan didn't become the way it is because of a basic level of "protection". There were cheap buildings with flexible zoning and no design review. I would argue that A-M is something we need to replicate throughout the city. Thus, shouldn't we put in place the same rules so that Eleventh Street in Columbia Heights, Petworth, and Anacostia, etc. replicate that success?

I am an architect (and former architectural historian) and I have worked on small renovations in historic districts within the city. One project I worked on took 9 months to get approval. It was an addition at the rear of the rowhouse, and only those in the alley would see it. The owner kept the original front windows, details, etc. While the 9 months for review went by, contractors dropped out and prices of things went up. The client was not a happy camper. All of these additional rules add time, cost and frustration on to home-ownership in the city. Why do that? Don't we want more people moving into the city?

Currently, a project takes about 6 months to get reviewed by the BZA. That’s just a review date – not a decision. That's now. You want to add a large chunk of DCs building stock to the review process and you want it to be done more quickly? While in theory it sounds great, I think that you're asking for the impossible.

Finally, I believe that the "basic level of protection" is also going to disproportionately affect the poor. The upfront cost and care of wood windows is exponentially more than aluminum and vinyl. Who is going to bear these costs? Are we going to expand the Historic home grants to cover everything that already exists? Is this the best allocation of tax dollars?

I think that we want a lot of the same things for DC, but I think in the Historic Preservation case, you're barking up the wrong tree.

by MarkM on Aug 15, 2008 3:28 pm • link • report

@MarkM

"The upfront cost and care of wood windows is exponentially more than aluminum and vinyl."

Perhaps the upfront costs are higher, but wood windows not only look better (That may not be subjective, but perhaps there are those that think otherwise), but they last significantly longer (100 years or more, in many cases).

That factors in to resale and to the overall aesthetic of a neighborhood.

by William on Aug 15, 2008 3:42 pm • link • report

Sort of on topic: I just came across a great photo from the Indiana University collection of Georgetown in 1940. I knew enough about the history of DC to know that part of Georgetown used to be a black ghetto, but seeing photographic proof really brought that home.

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/results/detail.do?query=state%3A%22District+of+Columbia%22&page=1&pagesize=20&display=thumbcap&action=browse&pnum=P02072

by tom veil on Aug 15, 2008 3:42 pm • link • report

MarkM: I'm certainly open to the possibility that this may be a bad idea. However, many of the parts of HP that create a hassle are not ones we need apply (and in fact I wasn't thinking of applying). I don't advocate applying the current historic district system to the entire city.

For example, we could have a lower level of HP that doesn't affect the rear of the building at all. Already preservation gives a greater level of deference to rear changes; for the less stringent level of preservation, we could simply say that rear additions not visible from the street are completely as of right.

Windows are another thing that I don't think need to be as strict. Same for roof shingling. While I like the rules in my neighborhood, I don't think we need to say that Eckington should also require original slate (or imitation rubber slate) or wood windows. However, I do feel that the rows of Victorian townhouses with pointy roofs ought to be protected to the extent that we don't have cheap, vinyl-siding pop-ups or houses completely torn down to put in a glass box. There's value to the architectural unity there, and we should keep that, but may not need to haggle over every subtle detail of materials.

Finally, not all zoning decisions go to the BZA. Most of the zoning work is already done at DCRA, and only special exceptions and variances have to go to the BZA.

Maybe I really want form-based codes, you might say. And maybe so. However, right now, HP totally overrides zoning. We can have zoning rules that state we want 8-story buildings with front entrances and 100% street frontage, but if HPRB decides they want to "sculpt" the building in various ways, that's the last word, and they're not supposed to be taking the desired urban forms into account at all, just the "historic compatibility."

I'd like a blending of the historic and zoning factors, so that a change which is very good in an urbanism context can get away with a little less compatibility if it doesn't disturb the primary historic qualities of a building or area that much, and areas which aren't protected now can slow down the most disruptive kinds of changes without leading to HPO micromanagement of fenestration when it's not warranted.

by David Alpert on Aug 15, 2008 3:43 pm • link • report

Architecture is an art and a science. Urban design is an art and a science. So the standards for evaluating architecture and urban design should not be exclusively objective nor subjective. If well-conceived, a blend of objective and subjective metrics will yield the best results.

Note that subjectivity does not necessarily entail a lack of rigor. A well made evaluation system may have subjective judgments, but the results will be repeatable. In other words, if you give the same instructions and guidelines to different people, they will make roughly the same evaluations.

An example of this is the Identifying and Measuring Urban Design Qualities research initiative. It may be the first attempt to develop a statistically rigorous scoring system for the perceptual qualities of urbanism. The point is not that the particular metrics used in that study are the best -- I disagree with several of them -- but that repeatability is essential for any evaluation system that is intended to be rigorous and credible.

The historic preservation system we have now yields arbitrary, often discretionary results, and maybe that is inescapable in the political process. Even if we do reform the system, there's no guarantee that the evaluators will discontinue making arbitrary decisions. They may use the reformed system to justify their actions after the fact anyway.

But at least a reformed system would be clearer about its vision and goals. At least it could promote the ideal of a more useful, more sustainable, and more beautiful built environment in DC.

by Laurence Aurbach on Aug 15, 2008 3:56 pm • link • report

Enforced preservation of parking lots as part of the context of a building should be explicitly forbidden. I see it as pure NIMBYism, an effort to prevent the creation of an urban streetscape.

Take a look at the preserved parking lot in Silver Spring at Colesville & Georgia Ave. The excuse was that this was necessary to preserve the integrity of the art deco strip mall behind it. However, a big sign saying "downtown Silver Spring" has been erected in front of the parking lot, with as far as I know no complaint from the preservation authorities. It seems entirely inconsistent to preserve the parking lot as part of the visual context of the building, and then allow a big sign to change the view of the building from the street.

Of course, it's not inconsistent if what you're trying to preserve is the suburban anti-pedestrian feeling of Silver Spring. In fact, the sign, by walling off the buildings from the street, enhances that feeling. But that's a misuse of historic preservation as a substitute for zoning - in this case, an effort to get through the back door what you lost when the decision was made out in the open to develop an urban downtown around the Metro.

Vistas are important. (I wouldn't support putting up condos in front of the Washington Monument!) But they are a matter of urban planning, not of preservation. Nobody advocates preserving historic context when it blocks a view. (Does anyone think that the plaza in front of Notre Dame in Paris should be filled up with tenements to restore the original historic context?) Historic preservation should be about buildings and entire districts, not about the context of individual buildings.

by tt on Aug 17, 2008 1:45 pm • link • report

tt, see the Cleveland Park Giant and Professor Longstreth (of Third Church fame) circa 2000.

by William on Aug 17, 2008 6:55 pm • link • report

I don't recall if D.A. or other commenters have already said the following: A building first and foremost provides a function. If the function is not provided then the design is a failure. Regarding the 3rd church, I do like the way it looks from the outside. But the roof leaks, the skylight blinds the organist, the lights hum so loud as to be a distraction and are very expensive to maintain. The bldg. is very insufficient for providing shelter (difficult to heat, leaky roof) which is the primary function of a building. It fails. It should not be preserved as a good example because it's not a good example. A good example employs the style in a functionally successful way, like the metro platforms do for Brutalism. If it's the design only that's worth preserving, because clearly the functionality of this building was never good, then it should be preserved as a sculpture, not a building.

by Bianchi on Aug 23, 2008 12:41 pm • link • report