At its January 4 meeting, the Landmarks Commission discussed the draft Alternatives Report presented as the next step in the “Shape the Future” project.
From a historic preservation standpoint, we feel that the most important elements of the report are in regard to the common elements that will be part of each and every alternative that is ultimately presented.
While Historic Preservation, Sustainability, Building Reuse, Preservation of Neighborhood scale and Preservation of existing Housing are all on the “Common Elements” list, it makes no sense that the incentives for these things are on the optional list.
Please make every alternative that we study meaningful by including a policy framework for incentives to encourage those policies. The following items from the “Options” list need to be bumped up:
* Incentives to support preservation of historic resources.
* Incentives for adaptive reuse of older buildings.
* Transfer of Development Rights to preserve historic or existing buildings.
* Integration of Historic Preservation Element policies in Land Use Element.
* Incentives for preservation of residential ne3ighborhoods.
* Incentives for sustainable business practices.
We would also like to be sure that performance indicators that study the various alternatives do a quantified analysis of impacts on existing historic resources in effected areas and that consistency of new zoning with identified potential historic districts is also studied.
Nina Fresco
Vice-Chair, Landmarks Commission
