Letter to the Editor: Preservation or Power Grab?

Let’s cut to the chase: The city’s proposed new preservation rules are a power grab masquerading as reasonable historical preservation.

Per Ethan Fry’s reporting: 

• “[O]wners looking to demolish most buildings constructed over 50 years ago must deliver a demolition application to the commission, the director of Planning and Zoning and neighbors within 100 feet of the structure.” “Another proposed change would expand the “notification radius” from 100 to 300 feet.”
• “If someone files an objection within 21 days claiming the building is architecturally or historically significant, the commission would hold a public hearing either on its own initiative or at the property owner’s request.”
• “The ‘qualified preservation professional’ hired by the city would have 30 days to prepare a report that the commission would use in its final determination. If the report finds the building is historic, the applicant could still propose ‘alternatives’ consistent with the findings.”

This means that buildings barely older than I am are eligible to be “historic” — try calling a person over 50 “historic” to their face! — and if anyone within 300 feet wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, they can force the city to hire an expensive consultant to rubber-stamp whatever nostalgic feelings the commissars on the historic commission hold about that particular site.

This is “guilty until proven innocent.” In fact, this entire enterprise has been a power grab purely intended to extend punishments to homeowners for the sin of Exercising Their Property Rights While Disagreeing With Any NIMBY Within 300 Feet Or With The Elected Commissars Over At The Historic Commission.

Norwalk’s NIMBYs know they cannot get such a power grab passed through normal politics, so they hide it behind the facade of historical preservation because they know that most people love the general idea and don’t bother looking into the specifics.

If these rules are passed, I urge Norwalkers to proverbially “throw our bodies on the gears.” Let’s object to every single demolition application! Gum up the works. Show how stupid and unworkable this new law is!

Most of the buildings that were built 50 years ago need to be torn down, because that’s right about the time that Norwalkers tore down the actual historic buildings so they could build a bunch of parking lots and strip malls that killed downtown and SoNo for a whole generation, while leaving Connecticut Ave. an unwalkable hellstroad.

In closing, it’s funny that Norwalk’s foremost preservationists have chosen to obsess over punishing homeowners, instead of encouraging actual preservation of historic buildings by allowing realistic, low-cost solutions for their maintenance, or preserving the future of those buildings’ style by making it automatically-approved to build more buildings in that style throughout SoNo.

This is the hill they want to die on. We shouldn’t let them kill Norwalk’s future development along with them. Washington Street is vulnerable enough as it is, and we should be building more of it and repairing what we have, not enabling these commissars to engage in vindictive purity campaigns.

Editor’s note: This piece is an opinion article. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the perspectives of the publication or its staff.