Anti-historical histrionics
When it comes to the debate over historic preservation, the members of the Seattle Times editorial board ought to read their own paper. They might learn something.
The great thing about large daily newspapers is that if you read something ridiculous in one part of the paper, likely you'll find it counter-balanced (maybe even refuted) in another part. Such was the case with the Seattle Times' recent editorial criticizing Seattle's historic landmarking process, suggesting that "involuntary landmarking amounts to a partial taking of the owner's property." The Times was taken to task by a number of commentators, including Mossback and Will of Horsesass.com who, for once, found something to agree on. It also raised ire and many eyebrows in Seattle's historic preservation community. How could the paper get something so fundamental so wrong? If the Times editorial board had simply waited a week, they could have read a thoughtful explanation of the landmarking and preservation process in their own paper – one that might have changed their minds.
That piece ran Sunday, Jan. 14, in the Times' Sunday magazine, Pacific Northwest. It's by Lawrence Kreisman, author and staff member of Historic Seattle. Kreisman was doing a follow-up to a popular feature he did for the Times last year on historic structures in Seattle that deserve to be saved, from buildings to boats.
In the new piece, Kresiman says that 2007 was a banner year for historic preservation here, not so much for what was saved – though some important buildings, like Seattle's First United Methodist Church downtown, did avoid the wrecking ball – but because there was so much public discussion of and media attention paid to preservation issues, notably the city's proactive research into potential downtown landmarks.
The city's effort is one Kreisman applauds, even if some Times columnists (and editorial board members) did not. Bruce Ramsey spoke up for property rights, writing, "I remind myself, however, that every property has an owner who has money and hope invested in it, holds responsibility for it and has rights over it. These buildings are not mine." And columnist Lynne Varner worried that the city's enthusiasm for saving buildings was a sign of nostalgia running wild and suggested the city was embarked on "hysterical preservation."
But Kreisman carefully lays out many of the advantages of historic preservation – including the financial ones. The entire intent of preservation, he says, would be undercut if the landmarking process was strictly voluntary. The city we know today would never have come to be:
If Seattle's 1973 Landmarks Preservation Ordinance had included owner consent, the city would have faced what other major cities experienced: Some of the most important vestiges of city life were demolished because the roles of boards and commissions were advisory rather than regulatory. They could stay a demolition for a short time, but they had no authority to stop it.
Had owner consent been required in Seattle, few significant downtown commercial buildings would be protected today, because most of them, no taller than 25 floors, do not constitute the highest and best use for the quarter- or half-blocks that they use. Say goodbye to the Exchange Building, the Arctic and Alaska buildings, the former Frederick & Nelson and Bon Marché department stores, the Coliseum and Paramount theaters, and hundreds of other designated landmarks in the city. For that matter, Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market and the International District would likely not have been established over the naysaying of individual property owners. ...
The foundation of Seattle's preservation program evolved from local citizens' pride in their surroundings, their concern for hanging on to significant physical aspects of Northwest heritage, and their interest in maintaining historic continuity downtown and in the surrounding neighborhoods. These concerns were amplified when important pieces of that heritage were threatened with destruction in the 1970s for proposed parking garages, roads and high-rises. Many of these threats came from within city government itself, under the guise of economic improvement. Sound familiar?
Indeed it does. Give Kreisman's piece a read. He does an excellent job of laying out the issues, including the incredible challenges preservationists face in many of the old "streetcar" neighborhoods. And kudos to the editors of Pacific Northwest for asking him to update last year's story. Let's hope the editorial board is reading the rest of their paper.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Jan 25, 10:54 a.m. inappropriate
First, it's Horsesass.org, not .com; the HA Happy Hooligans are, to borrow a line from the movie M.A.S.H., "Those loveable lugs with wonderful mugs," always yearning to group-hug all who post there.
The whole thing about "owner consent" is bogus. To contend that owner consent is an impediment to historic preservation simply obscures the cheapness and false virtue of proponents. If these edifices are so important, then why can't preservationists raise the money and either buy them or buy out development rights from their owners?
What value is there in controlling the life and property of another at essentially no cost to you? All the while claiming it's really in the best interests of the controlled? I can think of a whole host of governmental schemes on the extreme ends of both the left and right that sought to justify their existence by such thought.
Since when do the rights of casual observers with zip at risk trump those who have a serious investment in a property? Muddying the waters with Hobson-choice "advantages of historic preservation - including the financial ones" is an excuse to justify, "I know better what you should do with your life and property than you." Baloney!
If my building is so important to you, then buy the damn thing yourself! If you haven't the money, pass the hat among the like-minded and raise it. If that's unsuccessful, then maybe there's a message in the failed effort that you ought to consider: outside you and your buds, nobody else cares!
At a minimum, common courtesy suggests approaching the owner in an effort to persuade him or her to see things your way rather than use the blunt-obect, at-the-end-of-a-gun force of some busybody law to get by force what you can't by reason.
Bragging on the virtue of tyranny got Italy's trains running on time several decades ago, but at what cost?
In the meantime, show some respect for the right of a property owner to use it in whatever otherwise lawful manner that owner sees fit.
The Piper
Posted Fri, Jan 25, 10:54 a.m. inappropriate
QUESTION TO ASK: I wonder if anyone has asked Kreisman if he thinks
saving the Ballard Mannings is a good idea.
Posted Sat, Jan 26, 8:37 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Pass the hat: "Casual observers with zip at risk?" This is what you call the people who live in the city and are affected by the way the cityscape changes? I don't consider myself a "casual observer" in relation to the Pike Place Market, the International District, or any of the other public features that give Seattle an identity and a soul--that is, places that bring people together and shape our daily lives, shape the character of our city, make it something more than just a big mall or cubicle farm.
As a Christian, I'd expect you to understand that financial risks are not the only ones that have meaning. As Jane Jacobs pointed out in her classic study, The Life and Death of Great American Cities, the design of buildings and neighborhoods profoundly shape--or obstruct--the safety and the interpersonal culture of a city; infrastructure shapes relationships. Without collective memory and without much-loved gathering places, a city is spiritually bereft.
"What value is there in controlling the life and property of another at essentially no cost to you?" The problem is that property owners are just as likely to control their neighbors--at no cost to themselves--as the public is likely to control individual property owners. Some people have terrible ideas for how to use their property, ideas that harm the environment, block their neighbors' views, deplete community water resources, etc. I don't believe our Pilgrim ancestors would have tolerated radical individualism, because they knew their survival depended on their being able to function as a group as well as on an individual basis--if Goodman Smith wanted to pave over his share of the cornfield to put in a bowling alley, his neighbors would stop him. But this radically individualistic way of regarding land came with Western expansion, so that many people have the idea that individual property rights are more sacred, inherently, than the right of the community to have a say, too, about decisions that affect everyone. Personally, I think both are sacred and need to be balanced.
Not even dictators have the power indefinitely to ignore the public--why on earth would private property owners in this country have that expectation, that they can do whatever they want without having regard for their neighbors or community?
I'm so grateful that we have a Pike Place Market instead of a big parking garage on that site--and while I know there are many frustrations involved in being subject to regulation, I think it's better to live with those problems than to live with the alternative.
Posted Sat, Jan 26, 1:02 p.m. inappropriate
Its a TAKING!: For many years, I have dreamed of opening my own XXX drive in porno theater, with attached punk rock all ages beer garden, fronted by a museum of the history of appliances and dead cars.
Unfortunately, forces of evil such as state liquor laws, zoning, obscenity laws, and laws governing junk on my property all thwart me.
These laws were all obviously passed by casual observers with zip at risk- I would be the one who actually had to 86 those drunken punk rockers, after all-
But somehow our society just keeps making compromises that balance the needs and desires of the community against my personal desires, which, according to Piper, should be paramount.
Lousy socialists!
Piper, maybe I could open my establishment next to where you live?
I would be willing to buy the property, after all, and you love the sound of the Ramones, played at 125 DB, at 2 in the morning, dont you?
Posted Sun, Jan 27, 10:03 p.m. inappropriate
Over time, the Common Law, supplemented by statutory law, developed land use schemes, including the concept of nuisance, that allow neighbors to be able to use and enjoy their property and be protected in that from your abuse of your right to use and enjoy yours.
Every jurisdiction has a noise ordinance, for example, that has its roots in Common Law standards that balance property rights and interests. But these standards are based upon the right to own and use property, not an abstract sense of you not liking what I do with mine or you second guessing the wisdom or esthetic value of what I decide to do with mine. If you want more of a say, then negotiate with me for that right and offer to compensate me such that I have an incentive to forgo my rights.
What's troubling is that you dismiss out of hand the idea that property rights are something to be protected just like every other civil right, and property rights are a civil right.
What you do with yours is none of my business so long as your use doesn't interfere with my use and enjoyment.
What's wrong with that?
The Piper
Posted Sun, Jan 27, 10:03 p.m. inappropriate
Over time, the Common Law, supplemented by statutory law, developed land use schemes, including the concept of nuisance, that allow neighbors to be able to use and enjoy their property and be protected in that from your abuse of your right to use and enjoy yours.
Every jurisdiction has a noise ordinance, for example, that has its roots in Common Law standards that balance property rights and interests. But these standards are based upon the right to own and use property, not an abstract sense of you not liking what I do with mine or you second guessing the wisdom or esthetic value of what I decide to do with mine. If you want more of a say, then negotiate with me for that right and offer to compensate me such that I have an incentive to forgo my rights.
What's troubling is that you dismiss out of hand the idea that property rights are something to be protected just like every other civil right, and property rights are a civil right.
What you do with yours is none of my business so long as your use doesn't interfere with my use and enjoyment.
What's wrong with that?
The Piper
Posted Sun, Jan 27, 10:59 p.m. inappropriate
Property rights are a specie of civil right, tracing their lineage back to Magna Charta and beyond. Our federal and state constitutions protect property rights from public abuse, although the courts have, in my opinion, improperly chipped away at them over the years. Still, backlash occurs such as that experienced after the horrendous decision in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), which upheld a city's abiliy to take property by process of eminent domain for private developemtn purposes.
Nobody liked that decision, and action to limit it based upon the important nature of individual property rights has been swift.
If the Pike Place Market or the Ballard Denny's are that important to you, what are you willing to put up to preserve them? Mere assertions of some esthetic sensibility give you zero standing to complain if their owners have other plans. Again, my point is instead of crushing the civil rights of a property owner at no cost to you, why don't you raise the funds and buy what you want to preserve? That's what was done to Preserve the Pike Place Market.
Would you contend that other Fifth Amendment rights are "radically individualistic?" Shall we dump "due process" and "just compensation" from the Constitution? While, as Mossback has noted, zoning and landmark designation laws have passed Constitutional muster, they've gone too far, especially when it comes to negating an owner's otherwise lawful and permissable use of his property.
You say:
"But this radically individualistic way of regarding land came with Western expansion, so that many people have the idea that individual property rights are more sacred, inherently, than the right of the community to have a say, too, about decisions that affect everyone."
Our legal system doesn't recognize any such "balance" because it does, in fact, inherently regard individual property rights as more sacred than the right ot the community to "have a say." While I can be subject to zoning restrictions, they must conform to strict, Constitutional standards that are far from a mere "balance." The standards require that a zoning rule may not be:
"clearly arbitrary and unreasonable, having no substantial relation to the public health, safety, moral, or general welfare. " Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365.
The Constitution of the United States isn't a creature of Western expansionism, and property rights are a civil right just like any other.
If, as a citizen, you want a legally binding say in the use of the property, then invest in it. For an excellent discussion of this issue read Protecting Private Property Rights from Regulatory Takings, the Cato Institute's Roger Pilon's 1995 Congressional testimony.
Your notions of "terrible ideas" may be my esthetic sensibility with turnabout being fair play. And there's a vast difference between mere standards of taste or subjective notions of historic importance and those that protect public safety and health. Nobody contends that the plans for the Ballard Denny's property are environmentally unsound or will injure people. You mix little tiny apples with massively large oranges.
Things done on the cheap or on the sly are worth nothing. Your reasoning is high-minded sophistry that justifies impinging upon the rights of another all for your convenience, pleasure, and spiritual solace. Sorry, but that simply does not get the job done.
If the Ballard Denny's is so important to you, buy it form its current owner. If unwilling or unable to do that, then at least acknowledge that you want your opinion to trump that of the property's owner and that is simply that!
The Piper
Posted Sun, Jan 27, 11:15 p.m. inappropriate
The Piper