From the looks of its skyline, St. Pete is a collection of condo towers. Beyond the high-rises, however, a visitor finds a mix of lush neighborhoods rich in history.
Each has its own sense of place. There’s Old Northeast, a stretch of rambling homes near the waterfront. There’s Historic Roser Park, which is tucked into an unusually hilly patch south of downtown thick with lovingly renovated bungalows. West of downtown, the streets of Historic Kenwood are lined with examples of Craftsman-style architecture.
But despite the passion of residents for such neighborhoods, only three have city-level historic designations warding off haphazard redevelopment that could compromise their innate charm.
“We’re ending up with some very insensitive, incompatible new builds,” said Susan Rebillot, vice president of the Old Northeast Neighborhood Association board. “The more that happens… the more we kind of lose the overall look and character of the neighborhood.”
That could change July 23 August 20*, when St. Petersburg City Council will weigh changes to its historic preservation rules. A meeting focusing on those possible changes will take place tonight at 6:30 at Sunken Gardens.
The proposed changes, which would make it easier for neighborhoods to apply for a historic designation, have met with pushback. Rumors have spread that the rule changes would affect what color residents can paint interior walls and make it difficult to redevelop on a property. Preservation advocates are fighting to dispel what they’re calling fear-mongering, paint color included.
“That’s just absolutely B.S.,” said Bob Jeffrey, the city’s former assistant director of development services, who now rehabs homes and apartment buildings in Kenwood. “There’s just a ton of misinformation out there.”
The changes would actually have nothing to do with what property owners can and can’t do to their homes; they would deal only with the process of applying for historic designation.
Namely, they would change the proportion of residents required to approve filing an application for historic status, over which City Council has final say.
Currently, two-thirds of property owners have to vote in favor of applying for historic district status, which makes it tough in neighborhoods with large numbers of absentee owners and others who might not care either way. Property owners who don’t weigh in are considered “no” votes.
When Old Northeast tried to apply for historic status in 2006, 85 percent of the 963 people who voted were in support, said former City Councilman Jeff Danner, which is nowhere near 66.6 percent of all property owners.
“Unless you’re a little tiny Lang’s Bungalow Court with a handful of property owners, you just can’t get two-thirds of the property owners to respond one way or the other,” said Peter Belmont, vice president of St. Petersburg Preservation.
The new rules would let the designation process start with a simple majority of votes approving it, and wouldn’t count those who don’t participate.
“It gives us the opportunity to have that discussion,” Jeffrey said. “Right now it’s basically precluded from it just because the way the ordinance was written.”
A block-long stretch of century-old homes facing a common walkway (harkening back to a time when ice was delivered to wealthy residents’ front doors), Al Lang’s Bungalow Court is one of three districts that have been able to land a designation from the city. Roser Park and Granada Terrace are the other two.
They’re small areas compared to Kenwood and Old Northeast; thus, fewer people needed to approve. Even so, getting enough people to sign on was tough for Al Lang’s Bungalow Court residents, who successfully applied for historic status only last year. A couple of houses were in foreclosure, and some homeowners were unresponsive.
“We had to engage every homeowner on the court, 14 of them, to discuss the situation with them, to come to a consensus on what we wanted to do, and put an application together,” said Cesar Morales, a resident who spearheaded the application. “It’s not an easy process.”
Critics say making it easier to become a historic district could make it overly burdensome to build in the affected area, with exorbitant permitting fees as well as arbitrary aesthetic requirements inside and out. There’s also concern over such restrictions’ possible adverse impact on property values. Judging by high demand and rising home prices in historic areas, Belmont said, that’s probably not the case.
“If you’re a historic district, then there’s some certainty that the neighborhood will maintain its character,” he said. “So because of that, there’s greater investment and the values remain stronger than if there’s not that certainty as to what’s going to happen.”
Frank Condo, who recently built on a vacant lot in Roser Park, said he didn’t have too much trouble building within the district’s standards.
“There were a few things that didn’t make sense for me, but they were minor,” he said. “They were easy to work around.”
The city asked him to change small things like the placement of windows. He was limited in what paint colors he could use on the exterior and was barred from using PVC for his fence.
Historic properties aren’t the only ones facing restrictions, said Danner, pointing out that regulations regarding setbacks, windows and other elements are in place now for 40,000 homes that aren’t in historic districts.
Condo, who plans to move into his new home next week, said he has no regrets about building in Roser Park.
“It’s just such a charming neighborhood, with the old hexagon block sidewalks, the ornate street lights, the meandering creek at the bottom of Roser Park,” Condo said. “People couldn’t have been more welcoming and friendly… I haven’t lived in a neighborhood like that since I was a young boy.”
*We originally reported that the date of this hearing as July 23, but the date has changed to August 20.
This article appears in May 21-27, 2015.