October 24, 2019 • 44 mins
A fascinating thing about Americans is that we can disagree on anything. Such is the case with historic districts – areas of historic importance protected by local laws. Seems innocuous, but are they also to blame for the affordable housing crisis?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry
over there, and that makes this stuff you should know.
(00:22):
Say the clock tower, that's good? Like that, it's good.
Just popped into my head. Oh for real. Yeah, I
wasn't reading this article and doing this research thinking back
to the future, back to the future. I'm surprised it
just popped into my head. I actually hadn't thought about
back to the future at all. But but that's a
really that's very appropriate, Chuck. But that is not a
(00:43):
historic district. That is just a landmark building. I think
that could still it could still qualify for a registry
on the National Register of Historic Places, it just wouldn't
be a historic district, which is what we're talking about today.
Maybe this should just be the end of the podcast,
the end, Chuck. Have you ever gone into a neighborhood,
(01:06):
just been walking around town, and all of a sudden
you realize that you're in the most charming, adorable place
you've ever been in your life. Well, then you've probably
been in a historic district. Yeah, this is pretty cool.
I feel like this. We haven't done one like this
in a while. Do you like this? When I was
fully expecting you to say like this so much? I
(01:29):
love historic places, I know, but sometimes Yeah, I don't
know why I thought that, but I'm glad that you
I'm glad that it panned out. I actually selected it
because I knew you were gonna hate it, so, you know,
eggs on my face. This is I don't know, kind
of harkened back to some of our episodes we used
to do, like row houses and shotgun houses. Uh, yeah,
that's that stuff. Yeah, yeah, shotgun houses. We did do
(01:54):
a full episode on shotgun houses and their architectural importance.
I thought that was a pretty good episode. I agreed.
I think we released it as a select recently, too,
didn't we m I don't think I did. But that
might have been one of your picks. I don't think
I did. Jerry ghost producer. We need to let Jerry
select him some from time to time. Jerry didn't have
time for that stuff. That's fine. She needs nothing else
(02:16):
on her plate besides, so that's true, and overseeing the
largest podcast program in the world, Yeah, it's pretty impressive years.
Jerry said, thank you. Yes she does. She's aid, thank
your holding me so super in her mouth. So, um,
I think I've already kind of gotten the intro out
(02:36):
of the way where I asked if you've been in
a charming area and said, you've probably been in a
historic district. Well, I mean there's a good chance that
you have if you've been in the United States, because
they're more than twenty of them. Yeah, that's a lot.
I mean there's all over the place. And you might
say like, okay, well that's great. Who this is an
area that has been designated to have some sort of
(02:57):
historic significance. Um, can I please go to sleep now?
It will say no, no, please don't go to sleep yet,
because there's a lot more to it. And in one
of the more surprising twists you're ever going to have
in your entire life, it's actually controversial historic districts can
be Oh yeah, yeah, did you not read that one article? Yeah?
(03:17):
I was just being coy. Okay, my stomach just bottomed out,
didn't terror. So should we talk about Charleston, South Carolina? Yes,
a place where I well I didn't go there. I
went to the beach near there. Oh the Isle of
Palms just a few weeks ago. Oh yeah, but we
were within uh spitting distance of Charleston, South Carolina. Why
(03:40):
would you spit on Charleston. I wouldn't. I love it.
Bill Murray lives there, for God's sakes, Yeah he does.
Apparently he's a man about town there, and I think
his family lives there too. Yeah, that's why he lives here. Ohtah.
So Uh they formed the very first historic district in
the United States. Yeah, they established the Board of Architectural
(04:02):
Review And this quote here is pretty great. Uh, this
is the official quote from that Architectural Review Board. Can
you please read it in the mid Atlantic accent? Mid Atlantic?
Why that? Because that's the that's the one, the old
timey one, okay that you're probably going to use. I
was going to do an old Southern thing. Oh that's okay. Yeah, no,
(04:22):
that's way more, way better. The preservation and protection of
the old historic and architecturally worthy structures and quaint neighborhoods,
which in pought distinct aspect of the city of Charleston.
That is, that was beautiful. They actually have quaint neighborhoods
in their charge. Yeah, right, so I mean, like, from
(04:44):
what I've read too, Charleston like actually is legitimately interested
in its architecture and preserving its architecture. Yeah, although, as
we'll see later, there are some people that think Charleston
didn't do it right. Oh is that right? Yeah, that's
in the article as okay, so, or that they're overdoing it.
That's how I took it. Yeah, sure, okay, cool cool. So,
(05:05):
but Charleston was the first one to basically say, this
is historically significant architecture. This is a historically a significant area,
and we want to make sure that it stays that way.
So we're going to add a layer of protection, legal
protection over this area that the rest of the city
doesn't have. And within five years the word had spread
(05:28):
to New Orleans and they said, that's a pretty good idea.
Chief We're going to do that for the French Quarter.
It is my New Orleans accent. Oh is that it? Yeah?
Uh yeah, and that you know, what they're basically saying
is is that it can be either one. It can
and it all depends on your local jurisdictions, which we'll
(05:49):
get to. But historically or aesthetically, these buildings in this area,
they're linked together, right, And so the Charleston thing basically
provided the Charleston and then in New Orleans when basically
provided the groundwork, which was this area is protected, and
we're going to form a board who was charged with
making sure that it stays this way as much as possible.
(06:10):
We're gonna vest some legal authority into them. And these
people are who you have to go through if you
want to do anything significantly um uh, altering to the
exterior of your place, if you live in this area
or have a business there, right, or maybe not even significantly,
depending on where you are. So kind of like you know,
plotted along this idea. It was around for a couple
(06:32):
of decades, and then this whole process of urban renewal
that was kicked off after the highways started being built.
Um in part because of the highways, because people were saying, wait,
you're gonna you're gonna blow right through, you know, the
Lower east Side in Chinatown with this highway in in Manhattan.
We don't want you to do that. This is worth protecting,
(06:54):
So build your highway elsewhere. And then also as the
highways were built and traffic started being rerouted away from
other towns, um these other towns that used to be
thriving sorry to fall into disrepair. Some people are saying like, hey,
let's knock down these old buildings and build new ones
and maybe business will come back. Um it. It initiated
this idea that no, no, we've got some historic stuff
(07:17):
here and we need to protect it. And it really
started to kick off in earnest in the in the fifties,
and by nineteen fifty six the federales had gotten involved
and through the National Park Service established the National Historic
Preservation Act that said, you, MPs, you're in charge of
designating what's his an historic site and what's not. That's right,
(07:37):
and uh in nineteen sixty six they created the National
Register of Historic Places run by the National Parks or
not run. But I guess just sort of maintained. Sorry, yes,
I said nineteen fifty six. I'm in nineteen sixty six. Okay,
I got everything else right, Yeah, that's right. So, um
here's the deal. You can be listed on the National Register.
(08:00):
And that's really like that doesn't I mean it means something.
I don't want to say. It doesn't mean a whole lot.
But if you really want to protect something, you have
to go with your local historic district. You have to
create and protect it locally. That's a very big deal.
But we're gonna go over both national and state, which
(08:21):
is sort of like national and then local, which is
pretty different it actually is, but it's really it's impressive
that the local level is the one that has the
real teeth as far as historic districts are concerned, as
it should be so, but most people want to start
out with the national district at the very least, because
there's a certain amount of cache to it to having
your place designated as a national historic um either structure, district,
(08:46):
or area. But there's there's multiple things that can fall
under or be um logged onto the Register of Historic Places.
Apparently in other countries they have similar registers, but they'll
include things like uh, events, um, people, just not necessarily
(09:07):
things or objects. But in the United States there's a
real emphasis on place and situation and buildings in particular.
And so if you're on the National Register of Historic Places,
you are two things. You're an object and you're inanimate,
and you probably are in situated in a specific area.
(09:27):
You're like where you are what you are is kind
of tied to the area you're around. That's the real
focus of the United States National Register of Historic Places.
That's right. So there are five overall categories. Buildings, it's
pretty obvious. Structures also kind of obvious, but that could
be it says in here, that could even be an
(09:47):
aircraft as a structure. Yeah. I saw that there's a
grain elevator in the Fox, Illinois that's protected because it's
an example of the transition between one story and two
story grain elevators. Say, it is amazing, and I don't
want to yuck anybody's ye. That's the thing about this,
like to me, like if you can see, chuck, I'm
bleeding a little bit out of the corner of my
(10:09):
eye from being bored and even saying that sentence. But
I'm sure there are people out there really appreciate the
different architecture of grain elevators. And that's the point. It
means that if it's on the National um Register of
his Story Places, it is important to some group of people.
And so don't yuck there, yum, even if you find
it's boring, agreed, because they might find what you find
(10:30):
interesting is boring. Number three, It can be an object.
Number four, It can be a site. And this is
a big one, uh in the United States because like
Civil War battle fields, UM, stuff like that Applach and trail, Yeah,
or MLK Historic site. Sure, it's like a bunch of
well we'll tell you we'll talk about that later. Or
(10:51):
it can be a district, which is basically some kind
of combination of those first four UM or just let
me group like you know, the street has has ten houses,
ten ten beautiful Victorian houses are all built by the
same architect and so this is, well, we're going to
consider this a district. Right, So like maybe in each
(11:12):
of those instances, if one of those houses was in
a neighborhood, it might qualify for UM designation as a
historic building. But if you put them together, because they're together,
they form this district, which is you know, the some
of these parts forms something larger and that connects them
and UM there's a couple of qualifications that they have
(11:35):
to meet to to be part or listed on the
National Register UM. Almost without exception, they have to be
fifty years old. I think the law is that, UM
it has to be exceptionally important to be younger than
fifty years old and still be designated on the Historic
places register, that's right. Uh. The other thing it has
(11:55):
to be as significant, which sounds kind of broad, but
um and and I guess it kind of is, because
significance is in the eye of the beholder. But that's
why we have boards and things like that to determine
whether or not they think it's significant to behold things
for us. And then finally it's got to be evaluated
that's significant and historic context, which kind of speaks for itself,
(12:19):
like it did any great history happen there? Um? You know,
was this Bob Dylan's house in Minnesota when he was
a child. Although I don't know if that's on the list.
I just threw that out there. It could be. I
mean it could be that's that's a that's a home run.
But say, like let's say you said, um, well this
this building used to house soda shop, a soda shop
(12:40):
that made pretty good chocolate malts. Um and so it's
representative of that time. Well, if you were on the
board looking at this application, you would look around and
try to put it in context, like, yes, people liked
chocolate malts at soda shops at one period in American history,
But was this the place where chocolate malts were in
wanted or is this the place where everyone widely agreed
(13:03):
made the best chocolate malted It's like no, Like it
has a history, but not necessarily significant history in context
of the larger era that it's a part of, So
it would probably get passed over. Yeah, like the four
sort of historic context that you you have, it's not
shoeing necessarily, but you have a good chance if if
(13:24):
something important historically happened there, like this is the place
where so and so was shot and killed or born
perhaps who on a more up note, okay, uh, did
someone live here that was significant? George Washington slept here?
Sure or associated with them? Didn't have to live there necessarily? Um,
(13:44):
is it related to a certain architectural period or method
of construction? Like that's a that's a big one for
the Park Service. Sure, like this is the um this
is the last house to be used that used plaster
and laugh for their walls. Or there's a there's a
college in Florida called Florida Southern College that is like
(14:04):
the entire campus was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. So
that is clearly going to to be accepted on the
National Register or Finally, Um, was there information at this
place that is historically important? Yeah? Or might there be
because they can afford protection to say, like an archaeological
site that's a known archaeological site that they haven't really
(14:27):
dug yet, Like, we'll find it right there, saying there's
a pretty good potential that some information or history or
historical significance will be yielded from investigation of the site,
but we want to protect it now before developers come in.
That's right. Here's the thing though, if you want to
be a historic district, um, that doesn't like if you
if you want to say, like these three square blocks
(14:48):
or historic district, that doesn't mean that every single property
in there is what's called a contributing property to that district. Yeah,
they're non contributing properties are allowed. Sure, Like if you
have the those fifteen Victorian houses on a block, and
then there's the one, you know, m the one modern McMansion, right,
(15:08):
that's non contributing. I think we can all agree. But
it doesn't disqualify the rest of the area necessarily. It
just it depends on um. From what I've seen, it's
very much a subjective measure. How much that McMansion detracts
from the field or the um authenticity of the rest
of the site what they call um integrity. Yeah, that's
(15:31):
really kind of interesting, I think, because all the stuff
is subjective, but the integrity there is how that the
physical characteristics of that property reflect, like on this day,
reflect that significance historically, right, So like if you have
that row of Victorian homes, but every single one of
them was altered in the sixties or the seventies or
(15:53):
the eighties, and the people inside made some really weird
decisions and so altered the interior the exterior of these homes.
That yes, they were all part of this Victorian era,
and they were once pretty good examples of it. They
aren't any longer. Even though it qualifies for all these
other things, it would not be considered um a site
(16:15):
with integrity, and it might get passed over unless everyone
agreed to restore the houses back to that Victorian era.
That's the saddest letter to get, I think, is I'm
sorry you've been denied because your property has no integrity
pretty pretty much, you know, and you, sir, do not either.
That's how they finish every letter like that. Should we
take a break and talk about how you might create
(16:38):
a historic district. There is one other thing before we do, Chuck,
I think it's a fine idea. I'm not shooting down
your idea, but I do want to point out that
um areas have to be unified, not necessarily physically, visually geographically,
but somehow they have to be linked to be considered
a district. All right, now you wanna take a break, yes, Okay,
(17:06):
if you want to know, then you're in luck. Just
listen to don't chuck susion. Alright, So if you're a
person and you live, let's just take us for instance,
Like let's say I wanted to get my house in
(17:27):
my neighborhood and in Atlanta recognize as it or my
block as a historic National Historic district. Okay uh. And
the real reason I want to do this is because
of the street near my house. They're going to expand,
and it's a real bummer because they're gonna have to
tear down, um a few of the houses that are
(17:49):
really what I think are significant, and they might take
possession of that little strip of land that you've been
exercising squatting on. Yea. More importantly, they will take my
little strip of land, right Okay, so what would you do, like,
what what are you gonna do? And and um as
step one check to protect your home well to place
(18:09):
it on the National Register. I would start at the
state uh, the state Historic Preservation Officer, and this is
a person every state has one. You can go to
the NPS website to find out who yours is and
get in touch. And they're basically gonna help you out
with I mean, you're gonna you're gonna plead your case,
of course, but they're gonna help you fill out this
(18:31):
form um explaining why. I mean, they may say listen,
don't even bother, But what they're supposed to do is
help assess whether or not it might be eligible and
help you fill out all your national forms to send in. Right,
they might say like how old your house? And if
you're like, oh, it's Bill in the nineties, it's still
pretty nice, they'll be like, don't don't bother, that's right.
But um, you're since you have never done this before,
(18:54):
your dinghis at it and they're there to help you
figure this out and how to do it right. They're
not the ones who were going to judge this. A
board will and typically a state board um for a
state historic preservation board. Their review board is made up
of people who know what they're talking about, architects, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists,
(19:16):
people who have been trained in this stuff, who can say, yeah,
this actually isn't that great. There's a much better example
of it, you know, a couple of blocks over. As
a matter of fact, why don't we go to the
other place and make that a historic district? And then
you're like, no snobs, but um, the the officer that
you are contacting, it's their job to help you get there,
(19:39):
your application in, in state your case, and then get
it in front of the review board, who will then
take it from there and say this is a great idea,
there's a terrible idea, or I don't care either way,
and it's time for lunch. Approved, that's right. And this
is again going for that national register. And one reason
you might want to do this is because here's the thing.
(20:00):
It's it's sort of a badge of honor um like
we said before, and we'll we'll uh, we'll talk about
again later about the local one. That's one you really want.
But if you are on the National Register, it does
provide you with some legal protections federally, So if that
road is a is a federal highway project, then it
(20:22):
could protect your house, or even better, even if it's
a local or a state project, if it's getting any
federal funding whatsoever. The same thing applies sure where they
have to say what's going to be the impact on
any historic district of this project, and if the impact
is deemed too great, the project won't go forward. So
there is there are some protections for it, but for
(20:45):
the most part it's kind of symbolic, and there's a
little bit of cache. And you know, you can put
it on your zealo page that your house is part
of a national historic district, right, but you can't. They
can't say, I mean you can. You can live in
a historic a national historic home, and you can let
it fall into disrepair and like garbage. And they can't
come in and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're you're on
(21:06):
the national register. You can't let your house fall into
disrepair like this, right, Yeah, clean yourself up. You got
a stain on your shirt, get a shape, what's your problem.
They don't say that that those are individual property rights
and it's only up to local governments to infringe on
individual property rights, not the state or federal government. So
while the state or federal government will have laws restricting
(21:27):
its own activities in regards to historic districts, like expanding
a road or something like that. Yeah, if you get
on the National Register of Historic Places, your whole neighborhood
gets on there. Your neighbor can do whatever they want
with their house. Still, So if that was your whole
employ all along Chuck to really keep your neighbor from
doing something like, say, I don't know, putting a second
(21:48):
story on their house. Um, you're going to find that
you have been frustrated. That's right. Um, you can go
to the state, But the state is basically like federal
Um as far as protections and stuff like that go.
Where where the real teeth come in is with the
local historic districts, and it is very different. They don't
(22:10):
have to meet the same guidelines. A lot of times
very similar, but they don't have to have the same
exact guidelines as the national Historic districts do. So the
first thing that you're gonna need, though, is there's got
to be an ordinance, a local preservation ordinance, which is
basically just, hey, here are the rules on how we
do this around here. Here, here's how we're gonna identify
(22:32):
these houses. And here's what it means if you have
one right, so, and this isn't like this is like
square one stuff like. This is what a city has
to do before it ever creates its very first historic district.
If your city has already done this, then you would
just basically go through the same process that you would
with the National Register in applying to get historic designation
(22:56):
for your neighborhood in your city from your local unit pality.
But if they've never done it before, they've got to
create new legislation for it, new laws protecting you know,
historic areas. And then they also have to set up
a preservation commission to basically the same thing that that Charleston,
South Carolina did all the way back in that's right.
So you're gonna go in front of the commission. Uh,
(23:18):
they're gonna hold some public hearings where people can come
and argue the case for or against. Yeah, because not
everybody likes this idea. No, not everyone does. As we'll see, Um,
you have to have in fact, it's it's kind of hard.
You have to have. Like the community has really got
to be behind this in order for this to go through. Yeah,
in most cases, from what I've seen, you need a
(23:39):
majority of homeowners and business owners in the area to
agree to this. And I think even if the opposition
is particularly vocal and mad about it, it's they still
might be able to derail local ordinance designation. That's right.
But it's all going to be considered by the commission. Uh,
and they're gonna make that recommendation into the officials. They're
(24:01):
gonna say, you know you're gonna reject this. Are you're
gonna say it's okay? Is it all great or not?
And here's a deal. If you get named local historic district.
This is when um, they can say, oh no, no, no, no,
you live in a historic home in this district. You
can't let it fall out of disrepair. You can't. There
was this one case where was it in Maryland? I
(24:24):
think where I guess these front porch columns, Um, we're
being replaced by a family and they skimped a little
because what is expensive and used, whether these fiberglass or something.
And they said, no, no, no no, no, you can't do
that because you live in the historic district and you
have to use Uh, these original materials to preserve this house. Yeah,
(24:46):
you gotta use you would, like you said. I don't know.
Maybe they were like, we don't want to cut down
a tree, or maybe they were just cheaping out, but um,
I think they sued or yeah, I believe they sued
in order to try to keep them. But that's a
really tip goal. Um. Part of any local historic district
ordinance is if you're going to make any kind of repairs,
(25:07):
especially significant repairs, any alterations to the exterior, anything like that,
you need to use historically accurate materials. Well, you have
to submit it for approval to a local design review
board too, right, Sorry I got ahead of us. So
the first thing you have to do is say, I
want to replace the columns in the front of my
house because they're falling apart. I want to replace them. Um,
(25:29):
can I please do that? Please sir? Please let me
and the local review board or commission will analyze this
and they'll say, sure you can. But this is what
they have to look like. This is the materials they
have to um they have to be made out of,
and this is the color that they have to be painted.
And you have to follow that or else you can
be fine. They can place a lean on your property,
(25:50):
and um, the penalty can be pretty stiff. Actually, yeah,
And here's the thing, like I can at least understand
this and what we'll when we'll talk later about you know,
freedoms to do what you want with property that you own.
But this I can stomach a little bit. And we've
talked about homeowners associations before. Those are the ones that
(26:12):
really get me to where it is not historically significant.
It is an ex urb with seven hundred houses and
a subdivision that require you to have the same mailbox. Right.
So the in that sense, having a homeowners association covenant
UM and having a historic preservation district on a local
(26:34):
level where they both have teeth that they can actually,
you know, find you or tell you what to do
to the exterior of your house or your yard. The
point is the same in this sense, and that they're
trying to keep things a certain way at least. I
think what you're saying is, at least with the historic district,
they're trying to preserve something that has been deemed historically important,
(26:56):
whereas with the suburb, it's just they want to make
sure everybody's lawn is cut or that just looks the same,
or no one paints their house pink or whatever, but
they have the same aim, which is, like, this is
what we're all saying is very nice and pleasant. I
just watched Pleasantville last night for like the five hundred times.
It's a good movie, but oh man, it's so good.
(27:16):
But um, we've all agreed that this is pleasant and
this is what we want our area to look like,
and then this is how it's going to stay, and
you can't change it. And if you do, you have
to petition, and this review board can tell you know
you can't do that. Yeah, And of course I know
that the answer to my problem with these the ex
orbits don't don't move there, then like you know the
stuff going in, then don't buy a house in that neighborhood.
(27:39):
And I think most people who do buy out there
are pretty aware of that, and I think some of
them are looking for that because it tends to protect
property values. Like you're never going to have a neighbor
who just parks like a boat with a moth eaten
cover over it in their front driveway for five years. Um,
Like that's just not gonna happen out there. But at
the same time, it's also eye bleedingly boring to live
(28:03):
out there as well. Can I also just say that
I love that you're Halloween October movie watching its pleasant Bill?
Do you know I watched last night The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre the original? Yeah, I had never seen it. Can
you believe that I had never seen it? That's really surprising?
(28:23):
What did you think? Uh? Wow, it was it was disturbing. Yeah,
that hammer scene that he drags out for like twenty
minutes of the hour and twenty minute long movie. Yeah,
it was tough. Um, and I realized that, you know,
I'm prepping for a movie crush h slasher movie special,
But um, I didn't. I never watched a lot of
(28:45):
that stuff growing up. I don't know if it's because
I was churchy, but just there that maybe so because
and I don't think it was like, oh I thought
I would be in trouble. I think just like the
people I was around didn't really get into that stuff.
So you missed a like crucial window in horror movie
watching because I can see coming into it as an adult,
(29:05):
you're like, like you said, this is highly disturbing stuff,
and this is this isn't fun like you like. It
has to kind of dovetail with that period of your
life where you feel immortal um and so it kind
of bounces off of you, the disturbing nous of it,
and then as you get to be an adult, you
can kind of start to appreciate the truly disturbing aspects
(29:26):
of it, but it's still tempered by that, you know,
teens and twenties something doing that you remember as well,
that just coming into it like this, you know, late
forties is not a good time to start watching Texas. Man.
I feel for you. I liked it. I mean I
thought pretty much appreciate it. It is well it's a
classic alright, I feel like we should take a break
(29:48):
and uh, we'll come back and finish up about historic
districts right after this. If you want to know, then
you're in luck. Just chuck, alright, chuck. So we've kind
(30:13):
of hinted a little bit at the idea that not
everybody's on board within historic district and for you know,
getting a real designation, like a local designation where there's
actual restrictions on you. The person who owns the home
um can or can't do things without permission from a
board of people you might not even have ever met
(30:35):
in your life. Um. You the for it to be
really successful, you need the community behind that to to
get that designation. And everybody going in with their eyes
open saying, okay, you know this is We're willing to
spend the extra money on wood. We're willing to um
spend the extra money on you know, a hand handmade
(30:55):
window if one breaks, because we're not allowed to replace
the original old single pane windows that make it twenty
degrees in our house all winter long. Right, Like we're
we're go. We're going in with our eyes wide open
like that. But even if most of the community does,
there's probably still going to be somebody who says, I'm
a libertarian, I don't believe in this kind of stuff,
(31:18):
and I'm really not happy about this. And that person
is basically going to have an historic district shoved down
their throat. Yeah. Um, and you you'll probably not you,
but if you are that person, you will be the
one that's vocal. If you know about the meeting and
you're there and you want to make hay, but you
can be overruled. Uh, and all of a sudden you
(31:39):
are subject to those whims libertarians hate that. Well, there's
a bunch of sides to this coin here. Um. One is,
there's a bunch of factors. One is, let's talk about
the pros. How about that? Yeah, I mean one of
the pros is many times, uh, it increases property values
because there's a standard that has to be upheld in
your house and those around you won't be falling into disrepair. Right.
(32:02):
And Plus, if you are like if you're if you're
housing prices are stable and rising in relation to the
rest of the town, your tax base or your taxes
also tend to rise to and so these areas very
quickly start to become very wealthy areas of town. So
it's a wait for for people to basically secure their
(32:26):
investment in their property. Yeah. And I guess we're talking
about disadvantages mixed in here too, because there are some
people that say, hey, in the US, that's can be
code for keeping the wealth in the in the pocket
of the few, because who's going to be owning these
houses are people that have a lot of money. Yeah.
There's a guy named Kristen caps Um who wrote an
(32:49):
article on City lab back in two thousand and sixteen
that basically said the the um inequality and housing in
the housing pricing crisis late it at the feet of
historic preservation districts, which is pretty preposterous in a lot
of ways, but he did make some really he sure,
but the I think that his point was, like, just
(33:11):
do away with historic preservation for districts for neighborhoods, because
most of these things are covered by zoning laws that
say you can only have single family homes in here. Well,
only certain people can afford really expensive single family homes
in UM with really high taxes, and so it keeps
(33:31):
out people who would otherwise love to enjoy this amazing
neighborhood with this, you know, these mature oak trees and
beautiful sidewalks and neighbors walking around being friendly, and trader
Joes on every corner, or really good schools that there.
These neighborhoods shouldn't just be for extremely wealthy people. But
in saying that it's only single family housing allowed in this,
(33:54):
no one can ever build a high rise with a
bunch of apartments that those people who who might be
able to afford to live in and enjoy the neighborhood.
And so there's so on the one hand, they're like, well, yeah,
we don't want high rises here that it has nothing
to do with the historical architecture and it's a blight.
And other people say, well, you're also just keeping poor
people out too, So it's it's um, it's definitely double
(34:17):
edged sword because that's that's very much accurate. But it's
certainly not the cause or even a major solution to
the housing crisis either. Yeah, and there are Republicans in
Michigan that are trying to do away with a lot
of these um I don't know about districts, but maybe
potential future designations, because their whole thing is like, you
(34:38):
don't want the federal government coming in here and telling
you what you can do and what you can't do
with your house, although it wouldn't be the federal government
and it would be local, be local, but these must
be state reps uh and local reps. But they're saying,
let's let's do away with some of the stuff, like
Michigan has far too many of these, and your freedoms
are being squashed, right exactly. You want to paint your
(34:59):
ho spink, then you should be able to. And so
some some preservation district commissions are a little more laid
back than others. Apparently in Georgia. Um, if you it's
up to you to pick what color you want to
paint your house. If the repairs you're doing are minor,
you don't have to have a certificate of appropriateness. And
then in other places it is a staunches is kind
(35:23):
of an understatement. Um, old Town Alexandria very famous, Like
you can't do anything to the outside of your your
house in this old town district. But as a result,
it's an extraordinary it's an extraordinarily charming place to be
in the Like tons of people who visit d C
make the trip over to Old Town just to go
(35:44):
shopping or to eat, or to do whatever, just walk around. Um.
So that's another benefit of having an a story preservation district.
It attracts business or it attracts customers to your businesses,
and very frequently you'll find an influx of tour some
dollars coming into this area too. Yeah, and you know
we've talked about a bit before. The legendary um fabulous
(36:07):
Fox Theater here in Atlanta are only remaining, like amazing
huge old school Egyptian style theater. Was it was going
to be a bank parking lot in the nineteen seventies. Man, like,
they were literally going to put a parking lot there.
And I remember when I was a kid, they had
to save the Fox Theater campaign and it took you know, uh,
(36:28):
these celebrity benefit concerts to raise money. Ben Vereen did
he come. I could see it. It was the right
era that Frank Sinatra came. He was one of the
big wigs. Really yeah, yeah, Frank came to Atlanta and
performed and raised money and I was like, no, you
can't tear down the Fox, guys, that's my Frank. It
(36:49):
was okay, I should have gone with Sammy. You should
have done a Charleston accept for Frank. But uh, that's
the other side of the coin, which is like if
people don't I mean, there was a time in this
country in the fifties, sixties, and seventies where that could
that can very easily happen, and that did happen in
downtown Atlanta. If you look at old pictures of downtown Atlanta,
(37:10):
it looked like New York, a smaller version of New
York City. And uh, you know, now we've gotten some
of that character back, But there was a period where
they just tore down everything old in favor of putting
up these bland white buildings in the name of like
the future, and they called the urban renewal. And thankfully,
in the last ten twenty years, I'm not sure where
the idea came from, people said, no, you can have
(37:32):
the same effect, you can have businesses, you can have
mixed use development by reusing and rehabilitating these these same buildings.
You have to tear it down and build something new.
It's usually cheaper to do that, but it's much better
if we do it the other way and kind of
preserve the history. And that's definitely become the push lately.
But yeah, there was definitely a period in the middle
(37:55):
of the last century where a lot of stuff was
torn down and as a result. I was on a
website I can't remember the name of it um where
they were listing the most boring cities in the world
the world chuck, and the first one was Atlanta. What
the reason. One of the criteria they were using was
history like history, like, how much history is just kind
(38:16):
of mixed into the the fabric of the city. And
part of it is all the tearing down that they
did in the fifties and sixties, but also part of
it was um late at the feet of General Sherman,
who burned the town to the ground and burned up
a lot of the history as well on the March
to the Sea. So Atlantis has kind of had a
twofold um knock around where a lot of historical stuff
(38:41):
was not preserved and was actually torn down. As a result,
it lacks a certain amount of character because it compared
to other cities that have more history, the old twofold
knock around. Uh yeah, that's that's a dumb I mean,
I'm not saying this just because this is my hometown.
Atlanta is not the most boring city in the world.
In the world. That was in the top ten the
(39:01):
dumbest thing I've seen ever. Uh well, here's the other
thing too. I think there is a and this isn't
necessarily about preserving history, but I think there's just been
a general return to taste and craftsmanship across the board
in the last like fifteen years. And some people may
call it hipsterism or whatever, but you know, people there
(39:23):
are artists and bakers now, and you know, handcrafted cocktails
instead of fern bars, and when they are building new buildings,
they're trying to make them blend in, and I just
feel like there was a time where I think every
everyone in America thought the future was just going to
be sterile and white, and these sterile white buildings were
(39:44):
going up everywhere, and these and the baseball stadiums that
were just round white objects. And then starting with Camden
Yards in Baltimore, they started building these old style ballparks
and that's all you see now, And I think that's
just across the board. Is I think people are respecting
craftsmanship in history a lot more than they did for
(40:04):
a long long time, like decades. I agree, But it
is true that that comes at a price, because if
you look at those neighborhoods where you know they are
being rehabilitated and preserved by the people who are moving
in there. As they're doing it, um they're raising the
home values and which also raises the taxes, and so
people who have traditionally historically lived in these neighborhoods are
(40:28):
being pushed out of the neighborhood. So so that is
one part. It's one facet that has yet to be cracked,
like how do you how do you keep a neighborhood,
you know, um, mixed as far as like income goes
or use goes, Like how do you how do you
really preserve that kind of thing. So so it's not
just like, yes, we're preserving this neighborhood at the expense
(40:51):
of the residents who used to live here, because it's
you know, richer people who are coming in and rehabbing
areas gent gentrifying basically what we're talking about. Cover that
in our gent Vacation podcast. Okay, but but that's a
that's a big thing. So it is a criticism of
historic preservation, but it's certainly not a reason to do
away with historic preservation. And one of the other challenges
(41:12):
I've seen is, Okay, so let's say we're going to
allow somebody to come in and build a high rise
in this amazing historic neighborhood. Do you really think they're
going to be building it for low or mixed income
people to move into. No, they're gonna build it for
the wealthiest people who probably have even more money than
the people who own the houses in this historic district.
(41:33):
And it's not going to help this housing crisis at all.
It's just going to exacerbate it and will have ruined
a perfectly beautiful historic district in the process. We should
totally do one on gentrification. I agree. I agree. I
love episodes like these where it's like, oh, what's the resolution?
There is none yet, had stay tuned everybody. We know
(41:56):
you're very anti resolution, so I've read before people who
read fiction, uh tend to be able to deal with
open ended like endings more than people who don't, which
is weird because I don't read much fiction these days.
But I can still, I can still hang with with
no resolution, no closure, no closure, you got anything else,
(42:21):
nothing else. You're just waiting for me to stop talking.
It looks like, maybe, well, if you want to know
more about historic districts, why don't you go try to
get your place put on the national register. Why don't
you as you do that, let us know how it goes.
Maybe keep us posted um In the meantime, though, first,
before I tell you how to get in touch with
us to keep us posted, let's say it's time for
(42:42):
a listener, ma'am, I'm gonna call this government shutdown. Follow up. Hey, guys,
I'm a member of the permanent government in d C.
I thought you did a great job it was great.
The emphasize the cost of a shutdown is the key thing.
Most people don't understand. These things aren't to blip. I
want to point that the effects of the last shutdown
(43:05):
still aren't over. When we got back to work, we
were told that it took the agency six months to
recover from the previous shutdown that lasted sixteen days. And
these things are exponential, not uh linear. With the thirty
five days shutdown, we just don't know how long it's
gonna take to catch up. We have settled into our
normal and just expect to miss deadlines. People we serve
(43:26):
regularly understand and are working with us, but I don't
think the general public gets it. You can't just push
back all deadlines by thirty five days because new work
is constantly coming in. There's no pause button just because
the government is shut down. We're all working to catch up,
but it hasn't happened. It's not like we can blame
the shutdown either. People don't understand how work submitted after
(43:47):
the end of the shutdown can still be affected by it.
But we can't just double our workload. There's only so
many hours in a day, and that is from Nate.
Thanks Nate, it was a nice little follow up. Yeah,
thanks for bringing us down here, right. We had just
kind of gone out on such a mediocre level, and
now it's down level. Well, if you want to get
in touch of this, like Nate and bring us down
(44:09):
or to keep us posted on how it's going to
in your quest to get your house or your neighborhood
on the National Register of Historic Places, you can go
onto stuff you Should Know dot com and check out
our social links there, or you can send us an
email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
(44:30):
you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio is
at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry
over there, and that makes this stuff you should know.
(00:22):
Say the clock tower, that's good? Like that, it's good.
Just popped into my head. Oh for real. Yeah, I
wasn't reading this article and doing this research thinking back
to the future, back to the future. I'm surprised it
just popped into my head. I actually hadn't thought about
back to the future at all. But but that's a
really that's very appropriate, Chuck. But that is not a
(00:43):
historic district. That is just a landmark building. I think
that could still it could still qualify for a registry
on the National Register of Historic Places, it just wouldn't
be a historic district, which is what we're talking about today.
Maybe this should just be the end of the podcast,
the end, Chuck. Have you ever gone into a neighborhood,
(01:06):
just been walking around town, and all of a sudden
you realize that you're in the most charming, adorable place
you've ever been in your life. Well, then you've probably
been in a historic district. Yeah, this is pretty cool.
I feel like this. We haven't done one like this
in a while. Do you like this? When I was
fully expecting you to say like this so much? I
(01:29):
love historic places, I know, but sometimes Yeah, I don't
know why I thought that, but I'm glad that you
I'm glad that it panned out. I actually selected it
because I knew you were gonna hate it, so, you know,
eggs on my face. This is I don't know, kind
of harkened back to some of our episodes we used
to do, like row houses and shotgun houses. Uh, yeah,
that's that stuff. Yeah, yeah, shotgun houses. We did do
(01:54):
a full episode on shotgun houses and their architectural importance.
I thought that was a pretty good episode. I agreed.
I think we released it as a select recently, too,
didn't we m I don't think I did. But that
might have been one of your picks. I don't think
I did. Jerry ghost producer. We need to let Jerry
select him some from time to time. Jerry didn't have
time for that stuff. That's fine. She needs nothing else
(02:16):
on her plate besides, so that's true, and overseeing the
largest podcast program in the world, Yeah, it's pretty impressive years.
Jerry said, thank you. Yes she does. She's aid, thank
your holding me so super in her mouth. So, um,
I think I've already kind of gotten the intro out
(02:36):
of the way where I asked if you've been in
a charming area and said, you've probably been in a
historic district. Well, I mean there's a good chance that
you have if you've been in the United States, because
they're more than twenty of them. Yeah, that's a lot.
I mean there's all over the place. And you might
say like, okay, well that's great. Who this is an
area that has been designated to have some sort of
(02:57):
historic significance. Um, can I please go to sleep now?
It will say no, no, please don't go to sleep yet,
because there's a lot more to it. And in one
of the more surprising twists you're ever going to have
in your entire life, it's actually controversial historic districts can
be Oh yeah, yeah, did you not read that one article? Yeah?
(03:17):
I was just being coy. Okay, my stomach just bottomed out,
didn't terror. So should we talk about Charleston, South Carolina? Yes,
a place where I well I didn't go there. I
went to the beach near there. Oh the Isle of
Palms just a few weeks ago. Oh yeah, but we
were within uh spitting distance of Charleston, South Carolina. Why
(03:40):
would you spit on Charleston. I wouldn't. I love it.
Bill Murray lives there, for God's sakes, Yeah he does.
Apparently he's a man about town there, and I think
his family lives there too. Yeah, that's why he lives here. Ohtah.
So Uh they formed the very first historic district in
the United States. Yeah, they established the Board of Architectural
(04:02):
Review And this quote here is pretty great. Uh, this
is the official quote from that Architectural Review Board. Can
you please read it in the mid Atlantic accent? Mid Atlantic?
Why that? Because that's the that's the one, the old
timey one, okay that you're probably going to use. I
was going to do an old Southern thing. Oh that's okay. Yeah, no,
(04:22):
that's way more, way better. The preservation and protection of
the old historic and architecturally worthy structures and quaint neighborhoods,
which in pought distinct aspect of the city of Charleston.
That is, that was beautiful. They actually have quaint neighborhoods
in their charge. Yeah, right, so I mean, like, from
(04:44):
what I've read too, Charleston like actually is legitimately interested
in its architecture and preserving its architecture. Yeah, although, as
we'll see later, there are some people that think Charleston
didn't do it right. Oh is that right? Yeah, that's
in the article as okay, so, or that they're overdoing it.
That's how I took it. Yeah, sure, okay, cool cool. So,
(05:05):
but Charleston was the first one to basically say, this
is historically significant architecture. This is a historically a significant area,
and we want to make sure that it stays that way.
So we're going to add a layer of protection, legal
protection over this area that the rest of the city
doesn't have. And within five years the word had spread
(05:28):
to New Orleans and they said, that's a pretty good idea.
Chief We're going to do that for the French Quarter.
It is my New Orleans accent. Oh is that it? Yeah?
Uh yeah, and that you know, what they're basically saying
is is that it can be either one. It can
and it all depends on your local jurisdictions, which we'll
(05:49):
get to. But historically or aesthetically, these buildings in this area,
they're linked together, right, And so the Charleston thing basically
provided the Charleston and then in New Orleans when basically
provided the groundwork, which was this area is protected, and
we're going to form a board who was charged with
making sure that it stays this way as much as possible.
(06:10):
We're gonna vest some legal authority into them. And these
people are who you have to go through if you
want to do anything significantly um uh, altering to the
exterior of your place, if you live in this area
or have a business there, right, or maybe not even significantly,
depending on where you are. So kind of like you know,
plotted along this idea. It was around for a couple
(06:32):
of decades, and then this whole process of urban renewal
that was kicked off after the highways started being built.
Um in part because of the highways, because people were saying, wait,
you're gonna you're gonna blow right through, you know, the
Lower east Side in Chinatown with this highway in in Manhattan.
We don't want you to do that. This is worth protecting,
(06:54):
So build your highway elsewhere. And then also as the
highways were built and traffic started being rerouted away from
other towns, um these other towns that used to be
thriving sorry to fall into disrepair. Some people are saying like, hey,
let's knock down these old buildings and build new ones
and maybe business will come back. Um it. It initiated
this idea that no, no, we've got some historic stuff
(07:17):
here and we need to protect it. And it really
started to kick off in earnest in the in the fifties,
and by nineteen fifty six the federales had gotten involved
and through the National Park Service established the National Historic
Preservation Act that said, you, MPs, you're in charge of
designating what's his an historic site and what's not. That's right,
(07:37):
and uh in nineteen sixty six they created the National
Register of Historic Places run by the National Parks or
not run. But I guess just sort of maintained. Sorry, yes,
I said nineteen fifty six. I'm in nineteen sixty six. Okay,
I got everything else right, Yeah, that's right. So, um
here's the deal. You can be listed on the National Register.
(08:00):
And that's really like that doesn't I mean it means something.
I don't want to say. It doesn't mean a whole lot.
But if you really want to protect something, you have
to go with your local historic district. You have to
create and protect it locally. That's a very big deal.
But we're gonna go over both national and state, which
(08:21):
is sort of like national and then local, which is
pretty different it actually is, but it's really it's impressive
that the local level is the one that has the
real teeth as far as historic districts are concerned, as
it should be so, but most people want to start
out with the national district at the very least, because
there's a certain amount of cache to it to having
your place designated as a national historic um either structure, district,
(08:46):
or area. But there's there's multiple things that can fall
under or be um logged onto the Register of Historic Places.
Apparently in other countries they have similar registers, but they'll
include things like uh, events, um, people, just not necessarily
(09:07):
things or objects. But in the United States there's a
real emphasis on place and situation and buildings in particular.
And so if you're on the National Register of Historic Places,
you are two things. You're an object and you're inanimate,
and you probably are in situated in a specific area.
(09:27):
You're like where you are what you are is kind
of tied to the area you're around. That's the real
focus of the United States National Register of Historic Places.
That's right. So there are five overall categories. Buildings, it's
pretty obvious. Structures also kind of obvious, but that could
be it says in here, that could even be an
(09:47):
aircraft as a structure. Yeah. I saw that there's a
grain elevator in the Fox, Illinois that's protected because it's
an example of the transition between one story and two
story grain elevators. Say, it is amazing, and I don't
want to yuck anybody's ye. That's the thing about this,
like to me, like if you can see, chuck, I'm
bleeding a little bit out of the corner of my
(10:09):
eye from being bored and even saying that sentence. But
I'm sure there are people out there really appreciate the
different architecture of grain elevators. And that's the point. It
means that if it's on the National um Register of
his Story Places, it is important to some group of people.
And so don't yuck there, yum, even if you find
it's boring, agreed, because they might find what you find
(10:30):
interesting is boring. Number three, It can be an object.
Number four, It can be a site. And this is
a big one, uh in the United States because like
Civil War battle fields, UM, stuff like that Applach and trail, Yeah,
or MLK Historic site. Sure, it's like a bunch of
well we'll tell you we'll talk about that later. Or
(10:51):
it can be a district, which is basically some kind
of combination of those first four UM or just let
me group like you know, the street has has ten houses,
ten ten beautiful Victorian houses are all built by the
same architect and so this is, well, we're going to
consider this a district. Right, So like maybe in each
(11:12):
of those instances, if one of those houses was in
a neighborhood, it might qualify for UM designation as a
historic building. But if you put them together, because they're together,
they form this district, which is you know, the some
of these parts forms something larger and that connects them
and UM there's a couple of qualifications that they have
(11:35):
to meet to to be part or listed on the
National Register UM. Almost without exception, they have to be
fifty years old. I think the law is that, UM
it has to be exceptionally important to be younger than
fifty years old and still be designated on the Historic
places register, that's right. Uh. The other thing it has
(11:55):
to be as significant, which sounds kind of broad, but
um and and I guess it kind of is, because
significance is in the eye of the beholder. But that's
why we have boards and things like that to determine
whether or not they think it's significant to behold things
for us. And then finally it's got to be evaluated
that's significant and historic context, which kind of speaks for itself,
(12:19):
like it did any great history happen there? Um? You know,
was this Bob Dylan's house in Minnesota when he was
a child. Although I don't know if that's on the list.
I just threw that out there. It could be. I
mean it could be that's that's a that's a home run.
But say, like let's say you said, um, well this
this building used to house soda shop, a soda shop
(12:40):
that made pretty good chocolate malts. Um and so it's
representative of that time. Well, if you were on the
board looking at this application, you would look around and
try to put it in context, like, yes, people liked
chocolate malts at soda shops at one period in American history,
But was this the place where chocolate malts were in
wanted or is this the place where everyone widely agreed
(13:03):
made the best chocolate malted It's like no, Like it
has a history, but not necessarily significant history in context
of the larger era that it's a part of, So
it would probably get passed over. Yeah, like the four
sort of historic context that you you have, it's not
shoeing necessarily, but you have a good chance if if
(13:24):
something important historically happened there, like this is the place
where so and so was shot and killed or born
perhaps who on a more up note, okay, uh, did
someone live here that was significant? George Washington slept here?
Sure or associated with them? Didn't have to live there necessarily? Um,
(13:44):
is it related to a certain architectural period or method
of construction? Like that's a that's a big one for
the Park Service. Sure, like this is the um this
is the last house to be used that used plaster
and laugh for their walls. Or there's a there's a
college in Florida called Florida Southern College that is like
(14:04):
the entire campus was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. So
that is clearly going to to be accepted on the
National Register or Finally, Um, was there information at this
place that is historically important? Yeah? Or might there be
because they can afford protection to say, like an archaeological
site that's a known archaeological site that they haven't really
(14:27):
dug yet, Like, we'll find it right there, saying there's
a pretty good potential that some information or history or
historical significance will be yielded from investigation of the site,
but we want to protect it now before developers come in.
That's right. Here's the thing though, if you want to
be a historic district, um, that doesn't like if you
if you want to say, like these three square blocks
(14:48):
or historic district, that doesn't mean that every single property
in there is what's called a contributing property to that district. Yeah,
they're non contributing properties are allowed. Sure, Like if you
have the those fifteen Victorian houses on a block, and
then there's the one, you know, m the one modern McMansion, right,
(15:08):
that's non contributing. I think we can all agree. But
it doesn't disqualify the rest of the area necessarily. It
just it depends on um. From what I've seen, it's
very much a subjective measure. How much that McMansion detracts
from the field or the um authenticity of the rest
of the site what they call um integrity. Yeah, that's
(15:31):
really kind of interesting, I think, because all the stuff
is subjective, but the integrity there is how that the
physical characteristics of that property reflect, like on this day,
reflect that significance historically, right, So like if you have
that row of Victorian homes, but every single one of
them was altered in the sixties or the seventies or
(15:53):
the eighties, and the people inside made some really weird
decisions and so altered the interior the exterior of these homes.
That yes, they were all part of this Victorian era,
and they were once pretty good examples of it. They
aren't any longer. Even though it qualifies for all these
other things, it would not be considered um a site
(16:15):
with integrity, and it might get passed over unless everyone
agreed to restore the houses back to that Victorian era.
That's the saddest letter to get, I think, is I'm
sorry you've been denied because your property has no integrity
pretty pretty much, you know, and you, sir, do not either.
That's how they finish every letter like that. Should we
take a break and talk about how you might create
(16:38):
a historic district. There is one other thing before we do, Chuck,
I think it's a fine idea. I'm not shooting down
your idea, but I do want to point out that
um areas have to be unified, not necessarily physically, visually geographically,
but somehow they have to be linked to be considered
a district. All right, now you wanna take a break, yes, Okay,
(17:06):
if you want to know, then you're in luck. Just
listen to don't chuck susion. Alright, So if you're a
person and you live, let's just take us for instance,
Like let's say I wanted to get my house in
(17:27):
my neighborhood and in Atlanta recognize as it or my
block as a historic National Historic district. Okay uh. And
the real reason I want to do this is because
of the street near my house. They're going to expand,
and it's a real bummer because they're gonna have to
tear down, um a few of the houses that are
(17:49):
really what I think are significant, and they might take
possession of that little strip of land that you've been
exercising squatting on. Yea. More importantly, they will take my
little strip of land, right Okay, so what would you do, like,
what what are you gonna do? And and um as
step one check to protect your home well to place
(18:09):
it on the National Register. I would start at the
state uh, the state Historic Preservation Officer, and this is
a person every state has one. You can go to
the NPS website to find out who yours is and
get in touch. And they're basically gonna help you out
with I mean, you're gonna you're gonna plead your case,
of course, but they're gonna help you fill out this
(18:31):
form um explaining why. I mean, they may say listen,
don't even bother, But what they're supposed to do is
help assess whether or not it might be eligible and
help you fill out all your national forms to send in. Right,
they might say like how old your house? And if
you're like, oh, it's Bill in the nineties, it's still
pretty nice, they'll be like, don't don't bother, that's right.
But um, you're since you have never done this before,
(18:54):
your dinghis at it and they're there to help you
figure this out and how to do it right. They're
not the ones who were going to judge this. A
board will and typically a state board um for a
state historic preservation board. Their review board is made up
of people who know what they're talking about, architects, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists,
(19:16):
people who have been trained in this stuff, who can say, yeah,
this actually isn't that great. There's a much better example
of it, you know, a couple of blocks over. As
a matter of fact, why don't we go to the
other place and make that a historic district? And then
you're like, no snobs, but um, the the officer that
you are contacting, it's their job to help you get there,
(19:39):
your application in, in state your case, and then get
it in front of the review board, who will then
take it from there and say this is a great idea,
there's a terrible idea, or I don't care either way,
and it's time for lunch. Approved, that's right. And this
is again going for that national register. And one reason
you might want to do this is because here's the thing.
(20:00):
It's it's sort of a badge of honor um like
we said before, and we'll we'll uh, we'll talk about
again later about the local one. That's one you really want.
But if you are on the National Register, it does
provide you with some legal protections federally, So if that
road is a is a federal highway project, then it
(20:22):
could protect your house, or even better, even if it's
a local or a state project, if it's getting any
federal funding whatsoever. The same thing applies sure where they
have to say what's going to be the impact on
any historic district of this project, and if the impact
is deemed too great, the project won't go forward. So
there is there are some protections for it, but for
(20:45):
the most part it's kind of symbolic, and there's a
little bit of cache. And you know, you can put
it on your zealo page that your house is part
of a national historic district, right, but you can't. They
can't say, I mean you can. You can live in
a historic a national historic home, and you can let
it fall into disrepair and like garbage. And they can't
come in and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're you're on
(21:06):
the national register. You can't let your house fall into
disrepair like this, right, Yeah, clean yourself up. You got
a stain on your shirt, get a shape, what's your problem.
They don't say that that those are individual property rights
and it's only up to local governments to infringe on
individual property rights, not the state or federal government. So
while the state or federal government will have laws restricting
(21:27):
its own activities in regards to historic districts, like expanding
a road or something like that. Yeah, if you get
on the National Register of Historic Places, your whole neighborhood
gets on there. Your neighbor can do whatever they want
with their house. Still, So if that was your whole
employ all along Chuck to really keep your neighbor from
doing something like, say, I don't know, putting a second
(21:48):
story on their house. Um, you're going to find that
you have been frustrated. That's right. Um, you can go
to the state, But the state is basically like federal
Um as far as protections and stuff like that go.
Where where the real teeth come in is with the
local historic districts, and it is very different. They don't
(22:10):
have to meet the same guidelines. A lot of times
very similar, but they don't have to have the same
exact guidelines as the national Historic districts do. So the
first thing that you're gonna need, though, is there's got
to be an ordinance, a local preservation ordinance, which is
basically just, hey, here are the rules on how we
do this around here. Here, here's how we're gonna identify
(22:32):
these houses. And here's what it means if you have
one right, so, and this isn't like this is like
square one stuff like. This is what a city has
to do before it ever creates its very first historic district.
If your city has already done this, then you would
just basically go through the same process that you would
with the National Register in applying to get historic designation
(22:56):
for your neighborhood in your city from your local unit pality.
But if they've never done it before, they've got to
create new legislation for it, new laws protecting you know,
historic areas. And then they also have to set up
a preservation commission to basically the same thing that that Charleston,
South Carolina did all the way back in that's right.
So you're gonna go in front of the commission. Uh,
(23:18):
they're gonna hold some public hearings where people can come
and argue the case for or against. Yeah, because not
everybody likes this idea. No, not everyone does. As we'll see, Um,
you have to have in fact, it's it's kind of hard.
You have to have. Like the community has really got
to be behind this in order for this to go through. Yeah,
in most cases, from what I've seen, you need a
(23:39):
majority of homeowners and business owners in the area to
agree to this. And I think even if the opposition
is particularly vocal and mad about it, it's they still
might be able to derail local ordinance designation. That's right.
But it's all going to be considered by the commission. Uh,
and they're gonna make that recommendation into the officials. They're
(24:01):
gonna say, you know you're gonna reject this. Are you're
gonna say it's okay? Is it all great or not?
And here's a deal. If you get named local historic district.
This is when um, they can say, oh no, no, no, no,
you live in a historic home in this district. You
can't let it fall out of disrepair. You can't. There
was this one case where was it in Maryland? I
(24:24):
think where I guess these front porch columns, Um, we're
being replaced by a family and they skimped a little
because what is expensive and used, whether these fiberglass or something.
And they said, no, no, no no, no, you can't do
that because you live in the historic district and you
have to use Uh, these original materials to preserve this house. Yeah,
(24:46):
you gotta use you would, like you said. I don't know.
Maybe they were like, we don't want to cut down
a tree, or maybe they were just cheaping out, but um,
I think they sued or yeah, I believe they sued
in order to try to keep them. But that's a
really tip goal. Um. Part of any local historic district
ordinance is if you're going to make any kind of repairs,
(25:07):
especially significant repairs, any alterations to the exterior, anything like that,
you need to use historically accurate materials. Well, you have
to submit it for approval to a local design review
board too, right, Sorry I got ahead of us. So
the first thing you have to do is say, I
want to replace the columns in the front of my
house because they're falling apart. I want to replace them. Um,
(25:29):
can I please do that? Please sir? Please let me
and the local review board or commission will analyze this
and they'll say, sure you can. But this is what
they have to look like. This is the materials they
have to um they have to be made out of,
and this is the color that they have to be painted.
And you have to follow that or else you can
be fine. They can place a lean on your property,
(25:50):
and um, the penalty can be pretty stiff. Actually, yeah,
And here's the thing, like I can at least understand
this and what we'll when we'll talk later about you know,
freedoms to do what you want with property that you own.
But this I can stomach a little bit. And we've
talked about homeowners associations before. Those are the ones that
(26:12):
really get me to where it is not historically significant.
It is an ex urb with seven hundred houses and
a subdivision that require you to have the same mailbox. Right.
So the in that sense, having a homeowners association covenant
UM and having a historic preservation district on a local
(26:34):
level where they both have teeth that they can actually,
you know, find you or tell you what to do
to the exterior of your house or your yard. The
point is the same in this sense, and that they're
trying to keep things a certain way at least. I
think what you're saying is, at least with the historic district,
they're trying to preserve something that has been deemed historically important,
(26:56):
whereas with the suburb, it's just they want to make
sure everybody's lawn is cut or that just looks the same,
or no one paints their house pink or whatever, but
they have the same aim, which is, like, this is
what we're all saying is very nice and pleasant. I
just watched Pleasantville last night for like the five hundred times.
It's a good movie, but oh man, it's so good.
(27:16):
But um, we've all agreed that this is pleasant and
this is what we want our area to look like,
and then this is how it's going to stay, and
you can't change it. And if you do, you have
to petition, and this review board can tell you know
you can't do that. Yeah, And of course I know
that the answer to my problem with these the ex
orbits don't don't move there, then like you know the
stuff going in, then don't buy a house in that neighborhood.
(27:39):
And I think most people who do buy out there
are pretty aware of that, and I think some of
them are looking for that because it tends to protect
property values. Like you're never going to have a neighbor
who just parks like a boat with a moth eaten
cover over it in their front driveway for five years. Um,
Like that's just not gonna happen out there. But at
the same time, it's also eye bleedingly boring to live
(28:03):
out there as well. Can I also just say that
I love that you're Halloween October movie watching its pleasant Bill?
Do you know I watched last night The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre the original? Yeah, I had never seen it. Can
you believe that I had never seen it? That's really surprising?
(28:23):
What did you think? Uh? Wow, it was it was disturbing. Yeah,
that hammer scene that he drags out for like twenty
minutes of the hour and twenty minute long movie. Yeah,
it was tough. Um, and I realized that, you know,
I'm prepping for a movie crush h slasher movie special,
But um, I didn't. I never watched a lot of
(28:45):
that stuff growing up. I don't know if it's because
I was churchy, but just there that maybe so because
and I don't think it was like, oh I thought
I would be in trouble. I think just like the
people I was around didn't really get into that stuff.
So you missed a like crucial window in horror movie
watching because I can see coming into it as an adult,
(29:05):
you're like, like you said, this is highly disturbing stuff,
and this is this isn't fun like you like. It
has to kind of dovetail with that period of your
life where you feel immortal um and so it kind
of bounces off of you, the disturbing nous of it,
and then as you get to be an adult, you
can kind of start to appreciate the truly disturbing aspects
(29:26):
of it, but it's still tempered by that, you know,
teens and twenties something doing that you remember as well,
that just coming into it like this, you know, late
forties is not a good time to start watching Texas. Man.
I feel for you. I liked it. I mean I
thought pretty much appreciate it. It is well it's a
classic alright, I feel like we should take a break
(29:48):
and uh, we'll come back and finish up about historic
districts right after this. If you want to know, then
you're in luck. Just chuck, alright, chuck. So we've kind
(30:13):
of hinted a little bit at the idea that not
everybody's on board within historic district and for you know,
getting a real designation, like a local designation where there's
actual restrictions on you. The person who owns the home
um can or can't do things without permission from a
board of people you might not even have ever met
(30:35):
in your life. Um. You the for it to be
really successful, you need the community behind that to to
get that designation. And everybody going in with their eyes
open saying, okay, you know this is We're willing to
spend the extra money on wood. We're willing to um
spend the extra money on you know, a hand handmade
(30:55):
window if one breaks, because we're not allowed to replace
the original old single pane windows that make it twenty
degrees in our house all winter long. Right, Like we're
we're go. We're going in with our eyes wide open
like that. But even if most of the community does,
there's probably still going to be somebody who says, I'm
a libertarian, I don't believe in this kind of stuff,
(31:18):
and I'm really not happy about this. And that person
is basically going to have an historic district shoved down
their throat. Yeah. Um, and you you'll probably not you,
but if you are that person, you will be the
one that's vocal. If you know about the meeting and
you're there and you want to make hay, but you
can be overruled. Uh, and all of a sudden you
(31:39):
are subject to those whims libertarians hate that. Well, there's
a bunch of sides to this coin here. Um. One is,
there's a bunch of factors. One is, let's talk about
the pros. How about that? Yeah, I mean one of
the pros is many times, uh, it increases property values
because there's a standard that has to be upheld in
your house and those around you won't be falling into disrepair. Right.
(32:02):
And Plus, if you are like if you're if you're
housing prices are stable and rising in relation to the
rest of the town, your tax base or your taxes
also tend to rise to and so these areas very
quickly start to become very wealthy areas of town. So
it's a wait for for people to basically secure their
(32:26):
investment in their property. Yeah. And I guess we're talking
about disadvantages mixed in here too, because there are some
people that say, hey, in the US, that's can be
code for keeping the wealth in the in the pocket
of the few, because who's going to be owning these
houses are people that have a lot of money. Yeah.
There's a guy named Kristen caps Um who wrote an
(32:49):
article on City lab back in two thousand and sixteen
that basically said the the um inequality and housing in
the housing pricing crisis late it at the feet of
historic preservation districts, which is pretty preposterous in a lot
of ways, but he did make some really he sure,
but the I think that his point was, like, just
(33:11):
do away with historic preservation for districts for neighborhoods, because
most of these things are covered by zoning laws that
say you can only have single family homes in here. Well,
only certain people can afford really expensive single family homes
in UM with really high taxes, and so it keeps
(33:31):
out people who would otherwise love to enjoy this amazing
neighborhood with this, you know, these mature oak trees and
beautiful sidewalks and neighbors walking around being friendly, and trader
Joes on every corner, or really good schools that there.
These neighborhoods shouldn't just be for extremely wealthy people. But
in saying that it's only single family housing allowed in this,
(33:54):
no one can ever build a high rise with a
bunch of apartments that those people who who might be
able to afford to live in and enjoy the neighborhood.
And so there's so on the one hand, they're like, well, yeah,
we don't want high rises here that it has nothing
to do with the historical architecture and it's a blight.
And other people say, well, you're also just keeping poor
people out too, So it's it's um, it's definitely double
(34:17):
edged sword because that's that's very much accurate. But it's
certainly not the cause or even a major solution to
the housing crisis either. Yeah, and there are Republicans in
Michigan that are trying to do away with a lot
of these um I don't know about districts, but maybe
potential future designations, because their whole thing is like, you
(34:38):
don't want the federal government coming in here and telling
you what you can do and what you can't do
with your house, although it wouldn't be the federal government
and it would be local, be local, but these must
be state reps uh and local reps. But they're saying,
let's let's do away with some of the stuff, like
Michigan has far too many of these, and your freedoms
are being squashed, right exactly. You want to paint your
(34:59):
ho spink, then you should be able to. And so
some some preservation district commissions are a little more laid
back than others. Apparently in Georgia. Um, if you it's
up to you to pick what color you want to
paint your house. If the repairs you're doing are minor,
you don't have to have a certificate of appropriateness. And
then in other places it is a staunches is kind
(35:23):
of an understatement. Um, old Town Alexandria very famous, Like
you can't do anything to the outside of your your
house in this old town district. But as a result,
it's an extraordinary it's an extraordinarily charming place to be
in the Like tons of people who visit d C
make the trip over to Old Town just to go
(35:44):
shopping or to eat, or to do whatever, just walk around. Um.
So that's another benefit of having an a story preservation district.
It attracts business or it attracts customers to your businesses,
and very frequently you'll find an influx of tour some
dollars coming into this area too. Yeah, and you know
we've talked about a bit before. The legendary um fabulous
(36:07):
Fox Theater here in Atlanta are only remaining, like amazing
huge old school Egyptian style theater. Was it was going
to be a bank parking lot in the nineteen seventies. Man, like,
they were literally going to put a parking lot there.
And I remember when I was a kid, they had
to save the Fox Theater campaign and it took you know, uh,
(36:28):
these celebrity benefit concerts to raise money. Ben Vereen did
he come. I could see it. It was the right
era that Frank Sinatra came. He was one of the
big wigs. Really yeah, yeah, Frank came to Atlanta and
performed and raised money and I was like, no, you
can't tear down the Fox, guys, that's my Frank. It
(36:49):
was okay, I should have gone with Sammy. You should
have done a Charleston accept for Frank. But uh, that's
the other side of the coin, which is like if
people don't I mean, there was a time in this
country in the fifties, sixties, and seventies where that could
that can very easily happen, and that did happen in
downtown Atlanta. If you look at old pictures of downtown Atlanta,
(37:10):
it looked like New York, a smaller version of New
York City. And uh, you know, now we've gotten some
of that character back, But there was a period where
they just tore down everything old in favor of putting
up these bland white buildings in the name of like
the future, and they called the urban renewal. And thankfully,
in the last ten twenty years, I'm not sure where
the idea came from, people said, no, you can have
(37:32):
the same effect, you can have businesses, you can have
mixed use development by reusing and rehabilitating these these same buildings.
You have to tear it down and build something new.
It's usually cheaper to do that, but it's much better
if we do it the other way and kind of
preserve the history. And that's definitely become the push lately.
But yeah, there was definitely a period in the middle
(37:55):
of the last century where a lot of stuff was
torn down and as a result. I was on a
website I can't remember the name of it um where
they were listing the most boring cities in the world
the world chuck, and the first one was Atlanta. What
the reason. One of the criteria they were using was
history like history, like, how much history is just kind
(38:16):
of mixed into the the fabric of the city. And
part of it is all the tearing down that they
did in the fifties and sixties, but also part of
it was um late at the feet of General Sherman,
who burned the town to the ground and burned up
a lot of the history as well on the March
to the Sea. So Atlantis has kind of had a
twofold um knock around where a lot of historical stuff
(38:41):
was not preserved and was actually torn down. As a result,
it lacks a certain amount of character because it compared
to other cities that have more history, the old twofold
knock around. Uh yeah, that's that's a dumb I mean,
I'm not saying this just because this is my hometown.
Atlanta is not the most boring city in the world.
In the world. That was in the top ten the
(39:01):
dumbest thing I've seen ever. Uh well, here's the other
thing too. I think there is a and this isn't
necessarily about preserving history, but I think there's just been
a general return to taste and craftsmanship across the board
in the last like fifteen years. And some people may
call it hipsterism or whatever, but you know, people there
(39:23):
are artists and bakers now, and you know, handcrafted cocktails
instead of fern bars, and when they are building new buildings,
they're trying to make them blend in, and I just
feel like there was a time where I think every
everyone in America thought the future was just going to
be sterile and white, and these sterile white buildings were
(39:44):
going up everywhere, and these and the baseball stadiums that
were just round white objects. And then starting with Camden
Yards in Baltimore, they started building these old style ballparks
and that's all you see now, And I think that's
just across the board. Is I think people are respecting
craftsmanship in history a lot more than they did for
(40:04):
a long long time, like decades. I agree, But it
is true that that comes at a price, because if
you look at those neighborhoods where you know they are
being rehabilitated and preserved by the people who are moving
in there. As they're doing it, um they're raising the
home values and which also raises the taxes, and so
people who have traditionally historically lived in these neighborhoods are
(40:28):
being pushed out of the neighborhood. So so that is
one part. It's one facet that has yet to be cracked,
like how do you how do you keep a neighborhood,
you know, um, mixed as far as like income goes
or use goes, Like how do you how do you
really preserve that kind of thing. So so it's not
just like, yes, we're preserving this neighborhood at the expense
(40:51):
of the residents who used to live here, because it's
you know, richer people who are coming in and rehabbing
areas gent gentrifying basically what we're talking about. Cover that
in our gent Vacation podcast. Okay, but but that's a
that's a big thing. So it is a criticism of
historic preservation, but it's certainly not a reason to do
away with historic preservation. And one of the other challenges
(41:12):
I've seen is, Okay, so let's say we're going to
allow somebody to come in and build a high rise
in this amazing historic neighborhood. Do you really think they're
going to be building it for low or mixed income
people to move into. No, they're gonna build it for
the wealthiest people who probably have even more money than
the people who own the houses in this historic district.
(41:33):
And it's not going to help this housing crisis at all.
It's just going to exacerbate it and will have ruined
a perfectly beautiful historic district in the process. We should
totally do one on gentrification. I agree. I agree. I
love episodes like these where it's like, oh, what's the resolution?
There is none yet, had stay tuned everybody. We know
(41:56):
you're very anti resolution, so I've read before people who
read fiction, uh tend to be able to deal with
open ended like endings more than people who don't, which
is weird because I don't read much fiction these days.
But I can still, I can still hang with with
no resolution, no closure, no closure, you got anything else,
(42:21):
nothing else. You're just waiting for me to stop talking.
It looks like, maybe, well, if you want to know
more about historic districts, why don't you go try to
get your place put on the national register. Why don't
you as you do that, let us know how it goes.
Maybe keep us posted um In the meantime, though, first,
before I tell you how to get in touch with
us to keep us posted, let's say it's time for
(42:42):
a listener, ma'am, I'm gonna call this government shutdown. Follow up. Hey, guys,
I'm a member of the permanent government in d C.
I thought you did a great job it was great.
The emphasize the cost of a shutdown is the key thing.
Most people don't understand. These things aren't to blip. I
want to point that the effects of the last shutdown
(43:05):
still aren't over. When we got back to work, we
were told that it took the agency six months to
recover from the previous shutdown that lasted sixteen days. And
these things are exponential, not uh linear. With the thirty
five days shutdown, we just don't know how long it's
gonna take to catch up. We have settled into our
normal and just expect to miss deadlines. People we serve
(43:26):
regularly understand and are working with us, but I don't
think the general public gets it. You can't just push
back all deadlines by thirty five days because new work
is constantly coming in. There's no pause button just because
the government is shut down. We're all working to catch up,
but it hasn't happened. It's not like we can blame
the shutdown either. People don't understand how work submitted after
(43:47):
the end of the shutdown can still be affected by it.
But we can't just double our workload. There's only so
many hours in a day, and that is from Nate.
Thanks Nate, it was a nice little follow up. Yeah,
thanks for bringing us down here, right. We had just
kind of gone out on such a mediocre level, and
now it's down level. Well, if you want to get
in touch of this, like Nate and bring us down
(44:09):
or to keep us posted on how it's going to
in your quest to get your house or your neighborhood
on the National Register of Historic Places, you can go
onto stuff you Should Know dot com and check out
our social links there, or you can send us an
email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
(44:30):
you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio is
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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