By Sheldon Gardner
Posted Sep 21, 2018 at 7:35 PMUpdated Sep 21, 2018 at 7:35 PM
  
The city of St. Augustine is taking aim at building demolitions with its Historic Preservation Master Plan, which says demolitions are threatening the city’s historic character.
“An increased demand and value of property creates pressure in the historic areas of the city to redevelop property to its full capacity,” according to the plan.
Just in the city’s Lincolnville National Register Historic District, more than 100 buildings have been demolished since 1991, according to the city.
Major preservation projects have occurred in St. Augustine, including moving houses and restoring historic properties for commercial purposes.
But local demolition requests have also grabbed attention.
The owner of 9 Aviles St., a more than 100-year-old building that had been modified over time, had the building torn down this summer after discovering it was unstable. The owner received an after-the-fact certificate of demolition from the city’s Historic Architectural Review Board, and a new building is expected to be constructed at the site.
HARB is charged with reviewing applications for demolition for buildings that are at least 50 years old as well as buildings with certain designations, such as landmarks.
Also this year, crews tore down Echo House, which was built in the 1920s and had served as a nursing home for poor African-Americans who needed care at the end of their lives. HARB allowed the building to be demolished in segments over time as part of separate requests, and the building had been allowed to decay for years before a church asked to tear it down for parking.
The city has been crafting the Historic Preservation Master Plan over the course of a few years, and it still needs to go to the City Commission for consideration, said Jenny Wolfe, the city’s historic preservation officer. The plan cost close to $75,000 for the help of consultants, she estimated.
The plan not only focuses on demolitions but also topics such as dealing with flooding and creating incentives for preserving buildings.
While adoption of the plan won’t allow the city to enforce its recommendations, city officials will work on measures to make the recommendations enforceable, Wolfe said.
The plan points out that demolition by neglect, when buildings are intentionally allowed to deteriorate, could be curbed by:
• Requiring maintenance of properties and issuing fines and taking further action if unsafe conditions aren’t remedied.
• Requiring people to pay a fee if they allow a building to deteriorate to the point of needing demolition.
• Getting an independent assessment of a building’s condition.
The plan seeks to limit after-the-fact demolition applications. This could be done by:
• Requiring property owners to pay a fee when an after-the-fact demolition occurs.
• Requiring a property owner to reconstruct the building envelope to match the previous conditions, which would prevent the property owner from gaining square footage via the demolition.
For property owners who say it would be a financial hardship to maintain a property, the plan suggests:
• Requiring owners to demonstrate that they have made an effort to sell, relocate the property or find tenants that could help with the financial burden until another use for the building is found.
• Getting an independent assessment of the building’s condition at the cost of the property owner, with some exceptions so as not to create a hardship for someone by requiring the assessment.
The city is also trying to come up with more financial incentives for people to stabilize and fix up their properties, Planning and Building Department Director David Birchim said.
“We don’t want to just go after poor people and penalize them because they don’t have the means to keep up their houses,” Birchim said. “We are really focusing on keeping the houses and keeping folks in their houses.”