Preservation prevails in Winter Park

Winter Park’s new historic preservation ordinance has become law.

City Commissioners made a final vote on the ordinance during Monday’s meeting, passing it by a vote of 3-2 with Commissioners Carolyn Cooper, Greg Seidel and Tom McMacken voting in favor.

The new ordinance makes the process easier for a neighborhood with historic homes to be named a historic district – a title that offers a barrier of protection to historic buildings. Any alterations, additions or demolition involving historic resources within the district must go before the Historic Preservation Board for review – a fact that leaves many residents believing their property rights could be infringed upon.

In order to form a historic district, the city’s previous ordinance required two-thirds of the residents within the proposed district to vote in favor. That percentage requirement was changed to 50 percent plus one — a simple majority vote — during a Nov. 9 meeting and was approved in the final language passed on Monday.

Commissioner Cooper said the Historic Preservation Advisory Board, which includes two attorneys, would never recommend something that infringes on property rights, but said Winter Park should do a better job of protecting its historic resources.

McMacken noted that while the voting percentage has been decreased, it’s still up to a neighborhood to go through the required process to create a historic district.

"This doesn't create any districts at the end of the day," McMacken said. "They'd have to go through the process. This allows people to apply [for a district] if it meets certain criteria."

Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel and Mayor Steve Leary opposed the ordinance mainly due to the percentage change. Both wished to see the percentage remain at 67 percent, the same number used to determine street lighting, electrical undergrounding and road bricking within neighborhoods.

Sprinkel added that far more residents she’s spoken to are opposed to the language.

“I don’t like the historic districts, because that’s what the public is telling me: they don’t either understand, know enough about or like it,” Sprinkel said. “I look at this and think, ‘This can’t be good for the public.’”

Only one resident came up to speak before the final vote: resident and City Commission candidate Peter Weldon, who spoke against the ordinance.

“Historic preservation is good,” Weldon said. “This historic district language in this law is bad.”

Weldon said the ordinance enables a majority of neighbors to “compel 49 percent or less of property owners to forfeit their privacy and property rights, except under legal process at great personal expense and risk of failure.”

After voting the ordinance through, City Commissioners spoke about ways to incentivize historic home owners to put their homes on the Winter Park Register of Historic Places, which offers a further layer of protection.

City staff continues to search for the best way to do that, but Mayor Leary spoke against financial incentives such as tax breaks.

“[I hope that] if you believe in historic preservation and your home is truly historic and you have a Tiffany – a gem – that you will do it regardless of incentives,” Leary said.

“I don’t think we should be financially incentivizing people at the expense of others around them.”

Commissioners directed city staff to continue work on incentives; specifically focusing on a group of 130 homes within the city deemed the most historically significant.

The issue will be brought back before the City Commission in February.