History be damned? Not quite. Not if Emily Elwyn, president of St. Pete Preservation, and her board have anything to say about it. As its name suggests, St. Pete Preservation has a single-minded devotion to, uh, preserving St. Pete's historic bits. Turns out preservation is harder than it looks in the movies and St. Pete Preservation has — in the thinnest possible way — asked St. Petersburg city council to unclench, please.
Elwyn's asking nicely, of course, but the bottom line is this: It's too hard to get designated — and protected — as historic in St. Pete. The city's current historic preservation ordinance requires two-thirds of all property owners in a proposed district approve of applying for the designation, and if you don't vote, the city assumes you've voted no. So, to be clear, two thirds of residents must approve starting the process. That requires a better voter turnout than the nation has seen in the last two presidential elections.
In a letter to council, Elwyn argues that the current process fails both residents and the city's history. She also suggests that changes to the ordinance will help foster economic stability.
"Some of our current processes are far outside the norm of accepted best practices," Elwyn writes. "St. Petersburg is one of only three cities in Florida that require a property owner vote to submit an application for local historic district designation. Of the other two cities, Ocala only counts responding property owners, and Winter Park requires just 20% of property owners to approve an application."
St. Pete Preservation's website explains the issues with this system as such:
"There were 2,202 properties within the boundaries of the proposed Old Northeast local historic district. Fifty-two percent of those properties submitted a vote. Of those responses, 85% voted YES to submission of the application, and just 15% voted NO (969 “yes” votes vs. 167 “no” votes.)
"But because every owner that did not respond was counted as a “no” vote, the initiative failed, in spite of the overwhelming majority of yes votes submitted. This is an example of a small minority of property owners (167 out of 2,202) making a decision for everyone in their neighborhood.
In the past 13 months, Old Northeast saw 13 demolished properties, and Elwyn says three more will take place in coming months.
"Without local historic district designation, neighborhoods have no way to prevent unwanted demolitions," she tells council.
Currently, St. Petersburg has three locally designated historic districts: Roser Park, Granada Terrace and Lang's Bungalow Court.
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, along with city staff, recommend changes that include counting responses only those who vote.
St. Pete Preservation has more information on the proposed changes on its website. To read the full text of the letter, click on the two PDFs:
View document "Cover_letter.pdf" View document "St. Pete Preservation packet to city council"
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2015.