At City Hall, a showdown over historic preservation
Trouble is brewing as critics and defenders of Seattle's landmarks process prepare to face off at a public meeting. Meanwhile, a lawsuit over the recent designation of a Ballard diner hangs over the debate.
By Knute Berger
March 19, 2008.
Call it the opening salvo in the fight over the future of historic preservation in Seattle. On Friday, March 21, the Seattle City Council's Planning, Land Use, and Neighborhoods Committee, chaired by Sally Clark, will be meeting at City Hall. (Tim Burgess, Tom Rasmussen, and Jean Godden are the other members of the committee.) One of the pieces of business: a report from the city's preservation officer, Karen Gordon, about the state of preservation efforts and her plans for 2008.
The city's work has come under criticism lately from some property owners and developers. One of the chief critics is consultant Art Skolnik, who has attacked the city's program, launched last year, to proactively nominate downtown structures for landmark status. Skolnik has a number of clients who are disgruntled property owners.
Skolnik, a former city preservation officer who has more recently taken on causes such as saving the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the old ferry Kalakala, is sending out e-mails in the hope of generating a show of force at the committee meeting by people critical of the city's landmarking process. This is an opportunity to take on the issue at a public meeting. Skolnik says he will ask that a task force be appointed to re-examine the landmarks law and Landmarks Preservation Board procedures. He also says he will ask for a landmark "moratorium" until the group has completed its work. Skolnik believes the current landmark ordinance is unconstitutional, in violation of the state Growth Management Act, and that the criteria that nominated landmarks must meet are too subjective.
His critique echoes some of the objections raised in a recent lawsuit filed against the city's preservation office by an arm of developer Benaroya, the owner embroiled in the controversial designation last month of the Ballard Manning's/Denny's "Googie" diner as a city landmark. Some have criticized the designation as over-reach by preservationists. Benaroya has said that if the city does not rescind the designation, they will proceed with the suit, which not only claims that the designation was unfair but attacks it as an illegal property "taking." It also claims the landmarks process is flawed and unconstitutional. One preservation consultant predicts that the growing flap over the diner is a slow-motion "train wreck."
Former City Council member (and Crosscut contributor) Peter Steinbrueck, who has taken no public stance on the Ballard diner controversy, calls the Benaroya lawsuit "frivolous" and believes the issues over the general constitutionality of historic landmarking are well settled. Steinbrueck, an architect, says there is room for reasonable disagreement over the application of the landmark criteria. That's to be expected in any deliberative process involving history and community values. But it doesn't warrant dismantling the process.
Larry Johnson, the historic preservation consultant hired by Benaroya to write and present the diner's nomination to the Landmarks Board, believes the Denny's decision is bad news. Johnson thinks the nomination he prepared should have been declined. "This decision will unfortunately result in an undermining of the landmark process that we, the preservation community, have supported for so long by keeping the bar high enough that it has precluded legal challenge."
It has certainly given ammo to Skolnik, who cited the decision in an e-mail to council member Clark, writing, "After recent actions by the Landmarks Board to designate the old Denny's building in Ballard, the property owners I represent want the Council to re-examine the ordinance and make it more user-friendly for both owners and community members." Skolnik says the relationship between property owners and the preservation process is "growing hostile."
And it's not just property owners and developers who are frustrated but preservationists, too. Save Manning's, the group that has fought to preserve the Ballard diner, is upset that Benaroya is threatening to take down the whole process unless they get their way. They have tried to engage Benaroya in a discussion of how the Ballard site could be developed while keeping the diner intact. Benaroya says they've considered and rejected that approach as unrealistic and not financially feasible.
In a statement in response to the news of the lawsuit filing, Save Manning's wrote:
Rather than valuing Ballard's recent past heritage and being creative about including the building in any future development, the owner has chosen a confrontational and potentially destructive path. This self-interested approach goes against established and accepted preservation practices and law."
The group's full statement can be read here [20K PDF].
One has to question whether Benaroya truly has an issue with the process philosophically, or whether they're using the suit as leverage to get an unfavorable landmark decision reversed. During testimony before the Landmarks Board, company representatives went out of their way to say they were not opposed to landmarking per se, simply that they were opposed to it in the case of the Denny's. The fact the lawsuit's raising of constitutional and structural issues, though, suggests their critique has either broadened or that their views are strictly situational. Benaroya has said the lawsuit will go away if the diner is de-landmarked.
But the Ballard lawsuit may also make this an awkward time for the city to go ahead with Skolnik's task force to re-examine and possibly re-invent the landmarks process. Why would the city appoint a task force to critique a process that the city is now having to prepare to defend in court? Wouldn't a task force now be a tacit admission that Benaroya has a case? In addition, the suit might prevent city employees from speaking frankly or publicly about the landmarks process for fear of jeopardizing the city's defense.
There are people on all sides of the preservation issue who believe that Seattle could do a better job with historic preservation. For one thing, strengthening the incentives for property owners to save or creatively adapt and re-use older structures is something that would likely get support from both developers and preservationists.
At the same time, there is a risk that Seattle could needlessly undo preservation laws that have helped make Seattle so desirable. Historic preservation at the Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square were ahead of their time and helped Seattle avoid losing urban heritage that was lost in so many urban "renewed" cities in the 1960s and '70s. Yet none of that preservation would have occurred without the public putting heritage ahead of the agenda of many developers and property owners who were intent on tearing down old structures. It turned out that strong preservation laws were a good investment in the general prosperity of the city.
Ironically, that's partly what's created so much tension today: Preservationists are trying to get out in front of the unprecedented rate of tear-downs and development. The city's desire to identify and nominate potential landmark downtown structures is an effort to give property owners more predictability down the road, instead of blindsiding them with controversy at the last minute.
One thing that is not in question is that preservation battles focus the public on larger community values, whether it's property rights or saving the soul of the city. There are bound to be winners and losers in the process, but Seattle has decades of experience that have taught that a strong commitment to preservation is mostly a huge plus.
The Skolnik e-mails are getting wide circulation. Pro-preservation forces are also being rallied to the March 21 meeting. Jennifer Meisner, executive director of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, has sent an e-mail encouraging attendance by pro-landmarks forces.
The result should be public airing of views about the kind of city Seattle will become as a result of how we deal with the past.
Comments:
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 7:38 a.m. Inappropriate
Skolnik? Preservationist opponent?: Ask Skolnik how he's using county preservationist laws to protect his own property out in North Bend, and then ask, "Why does he want one set of laws for himself, and another set of laws for Seattle?"
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 9:33 a.m. Inappropriate
Steve Miller questions Skolnik: Good question Steve and here is the answer. Art Skolnik finally found a paying client.
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 10:20 a.m. Inappropriate
RE: Steve Miller questions Skolnik: Shame on you Patricia. I would have thought you'd act on evidence and research before you would state an opinion. I am very disappointed in you..
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 10:23 a.m. Inappropriate
Art
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 11:11 a.m. Inappropriate
Personally I believe the First Methodist Church situation is proving that developers can always find a way to keep buildings that should be preserved while still making millions.
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 11:30 a.m. Inappropriate
Only the first speaks to bettering the city for everyone and is broadly supported.
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 11:32 a.m. Inappropriate
Civility, please: There's obviously enmity here, and it's lost on those of us who don't personally know the people harboring and expressing it. So let's try to keep this potentially enlightening discussion focused on issues.
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 11:40 a.m. Inappropriate
RE: here's an idea...: Only one of the criteria listed on the designation standards mentions architectural style.
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 12:04 p.m. Inappropriate
RE: here's an idea...: Yet here we are with a crappy building that's being preserved not for quality, but as an example of a style.
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 5:52 p.m. Inappropriate
RE: here's an idea...: Actually it is "f) Because of its prominence of spatial location, contrasts of sitting, age, or scale, it is an easily identifiable visual feature of its neighborhood or the city and contributes to the distinctive quality or identity of such neighborhood or the City."
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 6:30 p.m. Inappropriate
The facts are:
The Viaduct is a s safe as it ever was except for one or two spots that need to be and are being strengthened. Otherwise the State wouldn't be letting us drive on it 8 years after the quake, which was the largest one this Viaduct has ever experienced and it's still standing.. not collapsed.
RETROFITTING it is consistant with ALL common practices with the degree of reinforcement needed and the quickest to complete and the least cost and with little or now interferrence hardly any impact on current traffic flows during construction.
The State has to nominate the Viaduct to the National Register of Historic Places as part of their responsibility once a alternative is approved. It will be designated due to what it is for what transportation solution it solved and for it's unique double deck/elevated design for it's time.
I could go on.
We jusdt need to wake up tpo the reality that we are being led down the ol garden path by our nose and pockertbook.
Art
Posted Thu, Mar 20, 10 p.m. Inappropriate
RE: here's an idea...: Sort of, "Ballard is where that shitty Denny's used to be".
Posted Fri, Mar 21, 2:21 a.m. Inappropriate
And finally we come to a this sort of day when a neighborhood can only exist via "preservationism." And just let's not forget how god awful it's all gone; people are trying to preserve a former cafeteria. Not that it shouldn't be preserved, but still. I mean real. Who raised a fuss when they tore down the Music Box? Or they let these townhouses build to the lot lines and kill gardens and lights?
I suspect the city will never allow this to go on. I think the key phrase of Mr. Burger's post is:
"The city's work has come under criticism lately from some property owners and developers."
The city will never allow things to disturb the march of progress. Look around you?
And our current boss has already got his memoir (three volumes to be sure!) well outlined, and the parts where he was able to crush those opposed to "growth" and the desires of the developers will read as golden triumphs!
A final grossness related to "preservation": Look at how drastically Seattle has changed in ten years. And most of the buildings are glass or vinyl/plastics. They don't take on a patina of age; they just degrade and crumble. But, maybe a good old fashion Depression can sort things a bit.
Posted Fri, Mar 21, 7:36 a.m. Inappropriate
I don't get the Denny's decision, but it is no reason to create a "task force" or establish a "moratorium."
Skolnik has been losing for his clients in a system that normally works pretty well for the rest of us, so he wants to change the system and stop any preservation.
The Council surely can't be taking him seriously.
Posted Fri, Mar 21, 9:01 a.m. Inappropriate
In the case cited that is yet to be proven, right?