City Seeks to Break the Rich, White “Historic” Mold: Applicants wanted for equity-focused preservation workgroup – News
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Palm School is just one of many historic properties that has deep cultural significance to the East Side. (Photo by Jana Birchum)
Historic Landmark Commission chairman Terri Myers said for decades, “Monument preservation was pretty much the realm of the lifestyle of the rich and famous.” Myers, an active voice in Austin conservation circles for 35 years, continued, “First and foremost, the great mansions of the great white men.”
Austin’s heritage conservation program, which includes tools to discover everything from the distinctive architecture of a single home to the cultural significance of an entire community, has long focused primarily on white and wealthy property owners who receive tax exemptions in return for maintaining their properties Parts of the city’s heritage. City planners and preservationists hope to change this and recreate the entire program from a cheap perspective. A new working group, for which the city will accept applications from interested parties by June 14, has the task of rewriting the city’s maintenance plan, which was updated in 1981.
A new plan will ideally address not only the many changes in Austin over the past four decades, but also the changes in conservation principles and practices. “The nature conservation sector itself has really experienced a major paradigm shift towards the preservation of communities and not just buildings; to tell all of American history, not just the stories of wealthy white men, ”said Cara Bertron, senior planner at Austin’s Housing & Planning division. “We know we haven’t gone far enough in this paradigm shift, but the intent is to do so.”
While conservation plans can affect almost every aspect of a city’s approach to housing and land use, the 1981 plan is so out of date that it is irrelevant, according to Lindsey Derrington, executive director of Preservation Austin. Even she, a conservation professional, never read the document. The lack of a functional plan means that there is little formal framework for subsequent decision-making, such as consistent review guidelines that could identify and salvage overlooked historical structures, or a systematic approach to community engagement.
Austin’s current program caters disproportionately to the needs of homeowners and design professionals specializing in historic real estate (especially homes) and the often difficult calls on controversial building projects in mostly upscale historic neighborhoods. “The policies and programs are so expensive and time consuming,” said Derrington. “That’s why we end up with these kind of imbalances … Preserving any legacy is a good thing, but we just need to make sure more people have access to it. This plan will help us get there.”
Of Austin’s 600+ buildings and sites recognized by the city as landmarks (others have state and federal designations), only 7.7% recognize Black Austinites, while only 2.5% focus on Latinx heritage. There have been changes over the past year – 40% of new groundbreaking cases have been focused on historically underrepresented heritage, including two new historic neighborhoods honoring the history of Blacks, Latinx and Lebanese.
It is hoped that the new working group will be empowered to go further to develop a heritage conservation strategy that reflects Austin’s diverse and intersecting cultures. To encourage more than the usual suspects to apply, the city is offering a $ 25 an hour scholarship for those whose job doesn’t pay them to join the workgroup. It also uses a number of media channels to reach out to people outside of the city’s monument protection districts.
“Historical preservation tools can help [us] to achieve greater community goals such as equity, affordability, sustainability or displacement prevention, ”said Bertron. “These are the pressing issues Austin is facing right now and Protection has a really solid toolbox [that] can be used to help with some of these larger priorities. ”
Find out more about the maintenance plan here or apply for the working group. Apply by midnight Monday, June 14th.
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