Cincinnati is losing its historic buildings at an alarming rate. Misguided City policy, compounded by the economic downturn, the foreclosure crisis and negligent speculators, is destroying the fabric of Cincinnati’s center-city neighborhoods.
Every month, salvageable buildings—some with great architectural significance—are demolished because there is no one willing or able to take them on. The City plans to tear down two hundred and fifty buildings this year, and has spent millions of dollars on demolition over the last fifteen years.
Nowhere are these problems more acute than in Over-the-Rhine. With almost half of its buildings demolished since 1930, the neighborhood is at the tipping point: About two hundred more buildings are condemned and face demolition. Many of these issues shared by city’s forty-nine other historic districts.
Cincinnati Preservation Association and the Over-the-Rhine Foundation (OTRF) believe this strategy is misguided. Wholesale demolition is eroding the City’s tax base, clogging landfills, destroying neighborhood character, and wasting economic potential. Too often, when people want to renovate buildings, bureaucracy stymies them.
At the same time, economic impact studies across the country demonstrate that investment in historic preservation generates more jobs, income, taxes and wealth than similar investment in new construction or in many other types of economic activity. With new interest in city living drawing people back to the urban core, the City’s historic buildings hold great potential for revitalization.
To address these and many other concerns, the OTRF developed a holistic, commonsense proposal to make preservation work better in all of Cincinnati’s neighborhoods, and establish a pilot receivership program. This plan grew out of a series of meetings conducted by the Foundation in 2006 and 2007, in which CPA was actively involved, and from input from City department heads and neighborhood stakeholders.
Highlights of the plan include the following:
Proposed changes to the Cincinnati Building Code
Preference for preservation over demolition
Early, aggressive intervention
Demolition funds spent to stabilize buildings
Clarify definitions of economic hardship and reasonable rates of return
Eliminate nonprofit loophole
Fund strategic receivership program
Create special financing
Provide training for code officers
Clarify historic guidelines
Recognize green benefits of preservation
Change attitudes
Roxanne Qualls, chair of City Council’s Vibrant Neighborhoods Committee, invited the OTRF and CPA to present an overview of the proposal to Vibrant Neighborhoods in three working sessions during the summer. We will present it to the full Council in the fall.
CPA and the OTRF solicited and received support from all parts of the City. For more information, or to add to the endorsements we have already received, contact CPA at 513-721-4506 or info@cincinnatipreservation.org.
Working Session 1) o Why preservation of OTR (and all of the City’s districts) is important
Protects history
Importance of place
Economic impact: increased tax revenue, higher property values
Job creation
Working Session 2) o Why we are losing so many historic buildings (not limited to the following)
Demo by neglect
Negligent speculators
Misuse of emergency demolition
Non-profit clause
Working Session 3) o How we can fix these problems
Proposed changes to the Cincinnati Building Code
Preference for preservation over demolition
Demo funds spent to stabilize buildings
Early, aggressive intervention
Clarify definitions of economic hardship and reasonable rates of return
Eliminate nonprofit loophole
Fund strategic receivership program
Create special financing
Provide training for code officers
Clarify historic guidelines
Recognize green benefits of preservation
Change attitudes
Date posted: September 22, 2009
UPDATE:
Following months of presentations by the Over-the-Rhine Foundation and CPA, in late October Cincinnati City Council passed a motion supporting historic preservation in Cincinnati. The motion includes a requirement that demolition monies be used for stabilization rather than demolition in City historic districts as much as possible, provided that the cost is the same. The resolution also included training in preservation issues for administrative boards, and the formation of a task force to review proposed code changes and explore new financing tools. Council also passed a resolution of support for the OTR Foundation’s application for stimulus dollars to fund a pilot receivership program for blighted properties.
