[MassHistPres] Demolition by neglect

[Paulus, Emily]

The city's Historic Preservation Review Board in Washington, DC has successfully made that case.

The test for unreasonable economic hardship, which is codified in the city's preservation law, is very stringent.  In short, the test is whether an applicant can establish that "there are no reasonable economic uses for the building as it exists" (this is also consistent with the constitutional regulatory takings standard).  Generally, if the applicant owns the property, it is virtually impossible to meet the economic hardship test.  

In one case that went to the Mayor's Agent for Historic Preservation (the administrative law judge that acts on behalf of the Mayor in reviewing applications to the Review Board), the applicants conceded that they had made no attempt to sell the property.  And since there had been several competing bids on the property prior to their purchase, the Mayor's Agent concluded that the applicants failed to prove the property had no economically viable use absent demolition, which he defined according to whether an owner can use the property for some economic purpose or can sell the property. 

Existing case law in DC also maintains that when applicants are well aware of the historic nature and landmark status of their property at the time of purchase and yet choose to go forward with a project anyway, they can not have a reasonable expectation that they would obtain approval to demolish a property.

Georgetown Law maintains an interesting website on historic preservation decisions in DC, including summaries by appeal basis.  See http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/histpres/.



Emily Paulus
Preservation Planner
New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources
19 Pillsbury Street, 2nd Floor
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-6628
Emily.Paulus at dcr.nh.gov  

-----Original Message-----
From: Paulus, Emily 
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 2:00 PM
To: 'slater at alum.rpi.edu'; 'masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu'
Subject: RE: [MassHistPres] Demolition by neglect


The city's Review Board in Washington, DC has successfully made that case.

The test for unreasonable economic hardship, which is codified in the city's preservation law, is very stringent.  In short, the test is whether an applicant can establish that "there are no reasonable economic uses for the building as it exists" (this is also consistent with the constitutional regulatory takings standard).  Generally, if the applicant owns the property, it is virtually impossible to meet the economic hardship test.  

In one case that went to the Mayor's Agent for Historic Preservation (the administrative law judge that acts on behalf of the Mayor in reviewing applications to the Review Board), the applicants conceded that they had made no attempt to sell the property.  And since there had been several competing bids on the property prior to their purchase, the Mayor's Agent concluded that the applicants failed to prove the property had no economically viable use absent demolition, which he defined according to whether an owner can use the property for some economic purpose or can sell the property. 

Existing case law in DC also maintains that when applicants are well aware of the historic nature and landmark status of their property at the time of purchase and yet choose to go forward with a project anyway, they can not have a reasonable expectation that they would obtain approval to demolish a property.

Georgetown Law maintains an interesting website on historic preservation decisions in DC, including summaries by appeal basis.  See http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/histpres/.



Emily Paulus
Preservation Planner
New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources
19 Pillsbury Street, 2nd Floor
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-6628
Emily.Paulus at dcr.nh.gov  



-----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu]On Behalf Of slater at alum.rpi.edu
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 1:28 PM
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Demolition by neglect


>Like many (most?) other communities, Medfield has
>had its share of properties that are slowly decaying due to neglect -
sometimes
>benign, sometimes malicious. A demolition delay ordinance can sometimes
be of
>use, but only if the property owner has a true interest in saving an
historic
>property.

I'd be curious to know others experience with something along these
lines.

If a property owner in a LHD simply doesn't want the building on his
property, but wants to keep the land (perhaps because the land is more
valuable to him in another way, such as an empty lot or parking lot),
have local historic commissions successfully made the case that an owner
can't claim hardship based on economic viability of the property without
trying to sell it?

For example, let's say the owner is into a property for $50k, he claims
that repair to the structure will be $500k and its market value is
$300k. Although the owner is claiming that it would be hardship to make
him spend $500k on the property, if he offered it on the market for
$100k he might find a buyer who is willing to either put in sweat equity
or to take the financial hit in hopes of a return later on.

So in other words, can a commission say "you haven't tried to sell it,
so you can't prove hardship" when it disagrees with an owner's
assessment of a property?

There was a case in Longmeadow -- not in a district -- where the owner
of a property razed a grand mansion to divide up the property into a
number of building lots. The property was not run down, he simply could
make more from the lot sale than he could by selling the house.

Ralph Slate
Springfield, MA 
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