Tacoma City Council Approves Wedge Historic District
It’s been a long and thorny road for stakeholders in the debate over historic status for the Wedge neighborhood, but last night, the City Council at last settled the issue with a compromise. The neighborhood will have two layers of historic designation: one called a “special review district”, which will adhere to more stringent design and review standards; and a conservation district, which is more focused on working pragmatically with the limitations of non-profit groups operating in the area.
For those unfamiliar with the cause, the Wedge neighborhood is the area bordered by South L Street, South Sixth Avenue and Division Avenue. A study session on the issue of historic status for the neighborhood was held on April 5th. You can read specific council member comments from that session at the Tacoma Daily Index here.
One council member has pointed out that historic status issues have been almost exclusively contentious in Tacoma. Meanwhile, champions of preservation districts might feel that compromises such as the one approved yesterday dilute meaningful standards in order to gain consensus. These two key points beg the question: What is the future of historic preservation on a neighborhood-scale in Tacoma?
TNT coverage here.
Filed under: General
5 comments
V Volcano Boycotting RR Anderson May 25, 2011
why does a hospital own a bunch of empty historical houses in a residential neighborhood? Whose bright idea?
L low bar May 25, 2011
so traveling nurses can rent them? nurses like them old timey houses.
V Volcano Boycotting RR Anderson May 25, 2011
no. nobody is renting these houses. They are future parking lots (if Multicare can pull strings and get zoning code changed).
T Top o' the Hill May 25, 2011
Not rentals, nope. They just want to wait till they fall into disrepair and everyone forgets about them, then pull out the bulldozer.
M Morgan May 26, 2011
It’s all about moats.
Hospitals nationwide are known for creating moats around their properties. A Historic District makes it slightly more challenging for multi-billion dollar corporations (i.e. Multicare) to rip out buildings in order to create moats. However, if the strategy is “demolition by neglect” then there is little that even Historic status can do.
Remember The Luzon!