Larry Wills
The city's billboard, Web sites and publications cannot mention the word "Marietta" without prefacing it with the word "Historic." Now the day of reckoning has arrived. The Devil has asked for his due and Marietta's Daniel Websters, Mayor Thunder Tumlin and Councilmen Philip Goldstein and Van Pearlberg tried to come up with an ordinance that allows the city to have its cake and eat it too.
The Devil is the city's first locally controlled historic district in a residential neighborhood. The Devil says, "If the city wants to remain historic, it must tell private homeowners what they must do to their property."
Marietta's Daniel Websters say, "Wait a minute Devil, that's sorta, kinda true, but we can satisfy both you and our desire to use our property as we so desire."
Unfortunately, Marietta's legal beagles are not as gifted as the real Daniel and have crafted an ordinance similar to the Obama Administration's Health Care Reform Act. It is all things to all people and nothing to "No Body," and filled with all sorts of "slippery slopes" and unintended consequences for future historic preservation actions. The only way to make their ordinance any more confusing and toothless is to print it in Latin.
Marietta's historic preservation community is so disgusted with being sucker punched with a legal technicality by the city council's property rights advocates and the gutting of their long suffering preservation ordinance, they have withdrawn from the battlefield.
Things might have turned out happier if the participants had adopted more of a carrot and less of a stick approach to preservation. The stated purpose of the city's Historic Preservation Ordinance is to "protect and enhance" the attraction of "tourists and visitors" to Marietta to "promote and stimulate business" by protecting "places, districts, sites, buildings, structures and works of art." In other words, if homeowners on Kennesaw Avenue agree to maintain their homes to a certain level of museum status, Marietta businesses and government will receive direct financial returns. If this is true, it begs several questions.
Why should private homeowners incur the cost of maintaining a museum house for the financial benefit of private businesses and government? The real Daniel might say, "They should not!" Anyone who lives in an older house knows it is a high maintenance item. They also know they are susceptible to being punished by government every two years for maintaining their property with back-door property tax increases via reassessments.
If the city gains financially, it should contribute to the associated annual up-keep of a historic home by exempting the property owner from property taxes at some appropriate level - the carrot.
The stick has always been the extent of the museum quality standards the city inflicts upon the historic homeowner. The real Daniel might suggest this should equal the level of authenticity the homeowner is willing to assume and the level of compensation the city is willing to fund. The tougher the standards, the more tax benefits the homeowner should receive.
I have been involved in several museum house restoration and reconstruction projects including the Root House and Chief William McIntosh's house in Carroll County. In all my experience, debate develops concerning authenticity. The highest level of restoration requires the use of vintage hand tools and salvaged materials of an appropriate age. At the other end of the cost scale is what is called "chainsaw restoration."
The city and the homeowner can negotiate this item and record it as a deed restriction, requiring all future property owners to honor the historic covenant and receive the tax exemption. Plain old vanilla zoning, code enforcement ordinances and building codes can protect all other aspects of a historic district from encroachment, replacement, deterioration and radical modifications.
The carrot approach is not really my idea, but is modeled on the Conservation Easements of Land Trusts, the most successful preservation movement in American history. The Alabama and Georgia Land Trusts and their affiliate organizations now protect over 153,249 acres, thanks to approximately 40,000 acres added in 2009, setting a record for a single year. This at a time when government sponsored preservation tanked because of deep budget cuts.
The chance that City Hall will give tax incentives and gifts of cash to historic homeowners, like they do to businesses and local land developers, is probably zero. In addition to having close ties to the real estate industry, the city council is more interested in image than substance. They are turning Old Marietta into a theme park that has "a pedestrian feel" or "a historic feel," instead of a real, viable city. Marietta's motto needs to be changed from "The Gem City of the South" to the "Superficial City of the South."
Larry Wills is a retired recycling consultant.
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Unfortunately, Marietta has made some serious mistakes already that may have been avoided had our forefathers had a more long-term vision. Historic homes on Roswell Street, gone. Historic Atlanta Road forever changed into an unrecognizable mess due to a short-sighted and poorly executed 120 loop design that should have never encroached upon the square is it has. Go visit one of Marietta's oldest and historically significant houses the c. 1850 Bostwick-Fraser house behind the ill-fated Godwin loft project to witness the greatest tragedy still standing resulting from non-existent preservation controls and owner stupidity. It is finally in the hands of individuals playing with a "full deck of cards". Whitlock Avenue hangs on by a thread of hope, it seems. Only Church and Cherokee seem to be impervious to the danger. However, there is nothing to prevent someone with more money than sense from buying a Church or Cherokee Street property, tearing the house down and building a stainless steel, concrete, and glass house. Only then will preservationists get any cooperation from the influential residents of that corridor.
Also, I still cannot understand how there can be a historic district along Kennesaw Avenue that does not include Tranquilla and Oakton. Oakton is an excellent example of a large property that needs to have significant tax exemptions in place to protect the land on which it sits if it is to be preserved.
Mariettans can be stubborn in their convictions and independence, and many seem to have forgotten that despite their wealth, intellect, and influence they could very well be on the wrong side of a very important issue.
As for the Marietta square, unless we get a council with an incredible amount of fortitude to declare it a historic business district we are all at the mercy of one individual who does not want to be bothered with maintaining buildings, only collecting rent.
I say we should do away with districts and let anyone apply for historic status who meets certain criteria -- then give them a sizable tax break. Government should use economics to address the issue, not ordinances with a slippery slope.
So Larry, good point, but lighten up, will you? That huge chip on your shoulder is showing.