Historic Preservation in a 21st Century City

As someone who cherishes the feel and walkability of a historic downtown, it’s reasonable to expect that I also embrace historic preservation.  To a large extent, that expectation is correct.  But there are times when I find that historic preservation goes awry.

The Marina Vista and Alder Grove public housing projects are near the west end of Broadway in Sacramento.   Totaling 750 units, they retain a pleasant, almost pastoral exterior appearance.  But with over seventy years of use, the buildings are worn and the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) is facing the task of developing a plan for their future.

In addition to building age, the location of the housing is unfortunate on at least two levels.  For one, shopping options aren’t convenient, with most residents facing a walk of a half-mile or more.  A population that, more than many, could benefit from walkable urbanism is in a car-dependent location.

Second, and even more distressing to me, the elementary school that serves the housing has a boundary that is exactly the same as the housing.  All of the school children from the public housing are sitting in classrooms surrounded only by other children from public housing.

I’m sure there any many good people living in Marina Vista and Alder Grove who will rebuild their lives to move onward to market housing elsewhere, raising happy and successful children in the process.  And I’m equally sure that there are children in those classrooms who will progress to effective and productive lives despite a challenged start.  But children learn from examples.  If all they experience on a daily basis is other lives in public housing, they have a harder time learning of other lifestyle possibilities.  And their chances for higher life trajectories, if not extinguished, are at least reduced.

To me, the elementary school that serves Marina Vista and Alder Grove is the 21st century version of segregation.  And it needs to be remedied now.

Faced with the situation at Marina Vista and Alder Grove, the SHRA has decided that demolition and complete redevelopment of the site was the best solution.   Their vision includes more residential units, retaining the same number of public housing units plus adding market rate housing into the mix.  They also envision retail elements in the new plan, moving the site closer to walkable urbanism.

I haven’t seen conceptual site plans, but agree with the direction.  I also wish luck to the SHRA.  It’s always been difficult to assemble funding for a project like this and the difficulty is increasing.  SHRA will face a number of challenges.

 But one of the challenges was completely unexpected, at least to me.  A citizens group threatened to file suit, claiming that the housing is historic and should be preserved.  I find that offensive.

I’m neither equipped nor motivated to argue the fine points of historic preservation law.  But, as much as I love older buildings and the downtowns that they often anchor, I’m convinced that there are times when they must be removed.  There are times when historical preservation just doesn’t make sense.

And this is one of those times.

If we allow the children of Marina Vista and Alder Grove to sit in their demographically-segregated classrooms for even one day longer than necessary because adults are arguing about whether 1940s housing is “historic”, then we have failed the children and ourselves.

A Week of Being Grumpy

Looking over my posts of this past week, I find an unexpected pattern.  Early in the week, I questioned the civic worth of some suburban parks.  Mid-week, I challenged a road design award that seemingly gave more value to vegetated swales than walkability.  And above, I impugned a historic preservation stance that apparently ignored a greater good.

It was as if I was aiming for promotion from urbanist to Curmudgeon Laureate.

But there’s a unifying theme between the posts.  And that theme is more hopeful than grumpy.  I’ll explain in my next post.

Schedule Note

This rumination on historic preservation was triggered by an upcoming meeting of the Petaluma Planning Commission.  On Tuesday, March 25, the commission will consider demolition permits for a pair of sites that may qualify as historic.  (The initial agenda for the meeting listed a third possible demolition permit, one that was likely to be more controversial than the first two, but that project disappeared from later versions of the agenda.)

The hearings on Tuesday should offer insights into current historic preservation standards.  I’ll attend and encourage others with an interest in the subject to join me in City Hall at 7pm.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Nibbling Away at City Autonomy

I recently attended a presentation on the growing urbanism of Sacramento and the projects that will help it to achieve a successful future. 

I spent my high school years in a suburb of Sacramento.  Like many youths, I was eager to see other parts of the world.  At that age, I couldn’t visualize myself ever returning to Sacramento.  But in adulthood, Sacramento looks far less provincial and boring.  I welcome my occasional opportunities to wander its leafy streets.  And I find that many of my classmates, who were just as eager to depart as I, have now returned to the Sacramento area.

With my enlightening attitude toward the River City, I was pleased about the number of urban elements that are coming together in Sacramento, from transit systems to mixed-use housing to civic amenities.

However, there were a couple of disappointing moments during the presentation.  Moments that cast doubt on our ability to create healthy cities.
 

First, Congresswoman Doris Matsui proudly explained that the federal government is now looking for “ancillary benefits” for new projects, such as reduced emissions or improved access to affordable housing.  Those are admirable benefits, but I was disappointed not to hear “economic sustainability” or “financially supportable” on the list.  If we don’t look to long-term maintenance issues, we make our cities depending on continuing federal largesse.  And given the news out of Washington, D.C. this week, that isn’t a good place for cities to be.

Even more concerning was a later comment by John Dangberg, Assistant City Manager for Sacramento.  Dangberg acknowledged that we live in a time when cities are dependent on federal assistance for many projects and that the federal funds don’t always conform to perceived local needs.  As he described it, the role of a city is to identify available funds and then to tweak the funding as much as possible to serve local desires.

I’m often skeptical about the ability of a city to accurately scope local projects, given the need to balance public opinion, the agendas of elected officials, and the knowledgeable if sometimes locally-ignorant input from consultants.  To refract that dubious consensus through the ivory tower prism that is Capitol Hill is a recipe for the inefficient use of limited funds.

I’ve written before that cities may be the best laboratories for 21st century problem-solving.  But for them to fill that role, we need to give them the freedom to find their own paths.

I don’t mean to criticize Dangberg for his comments.  In fact, his candor was refreshing.  There are times to criticize rules.  And there are times to swallow and to play the game under the rules that exist.  It often takes wisdom to know the difference.

One last thought.  Some may interpret a call for smarter government “investments” as a call for government austerity.  I’m not one of those.  I think government has the inevitable duty to help us adjust to a world in which resources are stretched thin and dire environmental consequences are looming.  And to fill that role effectively, government must be smart.  Not small, but smart.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

White Hats versus Black Hats

Many years ago and in another state, I scheduled a meeting with the staff of a small city about an on-going land-use project.  It was a significant meeting for a large project, so the meeting was to be attended by many, including the developer, his staff, his consultants, city planners, and city public works staff.

As we filed into the room, the City Engineer took control of the seating arrangements, directing that “the black hats should sit on that side of the table and the white hats on this side.”  The City Engineer may well have spoken in a moment of ill-considered haste, for which he was known.  My memory is that the City Development Director immediately rebuked him for his words.  But years later, his words still rankle.

They rankle for several reasons.  The immediate reason is that the city, like many cities, was dependent on continued growth to keep the municipal books balanced.  This is the state of municipal finance that StrongTowns argues is fatally flawed, with the day of reckoning now upon us.  But even setting the StrongTowns argument aside, if the city thought they needed new development to keep the city afloat, why should the people who were working to bring new development be denigrated as “black hats”?

But more fundamentally, the City Engineer’s words rankle because, even if one accepts that there are white hats and black hats in the room, it would be wrong to automatically assign the hats based on job titles.

I suggest that there are three constituencies are represented in any development meeting.  The first two are the ones highlighted by the City Engineer’s words, the team responsible for ensuring that the developer makes a good profit on the new land use and the team responsible for assuring that the new development conforms to appropriate city standards and pays all required city fees.

It’s the third constituency that is often forgotten during such meetings.  That third constituency is the people who will live in the city fifty years hence.  If land sales are the goal, the developer’s window is often only five years.  Even if the improvement is to be held long-term, the developer probably doesn’t care about more than fifteen years.  And the city’s windows can be even less, perhaps only looking to improve city finances over the next three or four years during which much of the current council will be running for re-election.

It’s often the case that nobody is looking fifty years into the crystal ball.  And if perchance someone is, they are the ones who deserve the white hats. And, not surprisingly, increased urbanism is often the perspective taken by those taking the long view.

This subject comes to mind because of a meeting I attended in early October.  The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has a program through which land-use professionals from other regions will visit a city with a pending project.  The visiting professionals will engage in extended meetings over a couple of days to learn about the issues.  Next, they’ll meet far into the night to pool their training and experience to offer true outsider advice on how to configure the improvements to optimize the long-term public benefits.  Finally, they’ll offer their thoughts to the project members and the public.

The visiting ULI members have their expenses paid and receive their regular pay from their employers, but receive no additional compensation for their long hours of work and travel.  Nor is there any hope of securing a new contract.  They offer their services solely for the betterment of a community that is often several time zones away.

The project under discussed in October was the Railyards in Sacramento, a vastly interesting urbanist development near the recently reconstructed Sacramento Train Station, pictured above.  The ULI team presented some cogent and interesting suggestions that I may review in the future.

But for today, with the Christmas spirit hopefully still lingering in the air, my only goal is to let you know that there are sometimes white hats in the land development process and that those hats don’t belong to the developer’s team or the city staff, but to the professionals who go over and above their regular duties to serve the long-term interests of a community.  And their advice usually advocates for the urbanist aspect of the future.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)