Letter to the editor: Developers versus residents

If you thought Winter Park was ready to move on from the historic preservation debate with last December’s passage of a three-years-in-the-making, desperately needed revised historic preservation ordinance—one that represents a reasoned compromise conceived by a diverse group of city interests to balance preservation and private property rights—think again. Newly elected City Commissioner Pete Weldon is resurrecting the debate as his first order of business.

Here’s what Weldon wants to do, according to a memo that he distributed at the March 28 commission meeting, his first:

“Restore two-thirds voting requirement to form historic district.”

The revised ordinance made it slightly easier to form historic districts—which academic research uniformly shows increase property values—by lowering the threshold needed from two-thirds to a simple majority of all property owners in a proposed district. In so doing, the Commission took Winter Park from having the highest such threshold in the state of Florida to just having among the highest. Weldon’s proposal will return Winter Park back to the bottom rung, in the name of protecting private property rights.

“Any ownership interest voting against inclusion of their property in a nominated district shall exempt the property from Certificate of Review oversite (sic)…”

In other words, any property owner voting against a district doesn’t have to abide by the rules of the district, rendering a district designation virtually meaningless. If this had been the policy when the College Quarter Historic District was formed, today, instead of having a delightful neighborhood of 1920s bungalows, Mission and Mediterranean revival structures of similar scale and massing, we’d have a neighborhood more like Winter Park’s “tree streets,” with massive generic mansions looming over the neighboring original structures. According to Ann Peery, executive director of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, “I know of no ordinance situations that permit an ‘opt-out’ option. . .allowing contributing properties to opt out would take the guts out of historic districts.”

“All variances for properties listed on the Winter Park Register…are to be pursued through the Board of Adjustments.”

Finally, Weldon recommends stripping the Historic Preservation Board of its power to consider variance requests for properties on the Winter Park Register. Currently, the most powerful incentive for placing your home on the Register is that the HPB, because of its knowledge and sensitivity to the challenges of historic structures, may grant reasonable exceptions to city code on individually designated properties or houses in districts. In the past two years, three historic houses, one-third of the structures listed, have pursued designation as a direct result of this allowance.

Mr. Weldon contends that he’s answering the will of the people, who elected him based on his promise to overturn the ordinance. But he was elected by a margin of 50.55 percent to 49.45 percent, which is hardly a mandate for change. By contrast, incumbent Carolyn Cooper, a strong and outspoken proponent of historic preservation, roundly defeated her challenger, Lambrine Macejewski, 54.15 percent to 45.85 percent. Both Weldon and Macejewski ran on ‘restoring property rights,’ a straw man argument if there ever was one. Voters didn’t buy that their rights had been violated, because they hadn’t.

We hope that the majority of the City Commission will see this proposal for what it is—a plan that favors Mr. Weldon’s free market ideology over empirical research and best practices, and developers and spec house builders over Winter Park residents.

Karen James and Drew Krecicki, AIA, are the chairman and chairman-elect of the Friends of Casa Feliz.