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From Governing’s
Modernism Q&A Julie Lawless Julie Lawless is an historic preservation planner in the Fort Worth Planning Department. Fort Worth is on the cusp of designating its first postwar historic district. I spoke with her about it by telelphone. —Christopher Swope
I hear that Fort Worth is thinking about designating a postwar subdivision as a historic district. Tell me about it. The area is called Carver Heights. This neighborhood is significant to the city because it was the first auto-oriented suburban-type subdivision created by black professionals for black professionals. It was the first time black professionals moved out of the urban core. It's made up of architect-designed contemporary ranch houses. It's pretty interesting. The development was started in 1950 and the first house was built in 1952. The majority of structures were built between 1952 and 1962. There are more than 800 properties. How did the preservation effort get going? The neighborhood had applied for and received a federal grant, called a Model Blocks grant, for different types of home repair loans, streetscape improvements, and basic neighborhood rejuvenation. The neighborhood received this in July. And all along in making that application the neighborhood association wanted to designate their neighborhood, in order to celebrate what they consider to be so significant about it. One of the truly remarkable things is that many of the original homeowners live there, and their children are coming back as well. There are a lot of blocks where you have parents and children living near each other--it's a very tight knit neighborhood. They were going to pursue a neighborhood petition but Councilman Donavan Wheatfall felt so strongly about it that he initiated it by a resolution. Staff and members of the neighborhood worked together to draft design guidelines, and it will hopefully go to the city council for final adoption in November. Upon adoption, property owners will then be expected to get approval for substantial alterations from the landmarks commission. In exchange, we have tax incentives they'll be eligible for. Some cities are declaring neighborhoods historic in order to fight the teardown and McMansionization trend. Is that motive at play in Fort Worth, or is it more of a genuine itch for preservation? It's both. They did want to recognize the uniqueness of the neighborhood. And the McMansion craze isn't happening yet in this neighborhood. But it is in all the neighborhoods around it. One reason they pursued Model Blocks was to stave off that pressure. At the same time they wanted to pursue a historic district because they knew the guidelines and restrictions on new development would make sure it's in scale with the neighborhood. Is there anything different to consider in a postwar neighborhood, versus an older place? It's an automobile oriented neighborhood. The rest of our historic districts were urban core neighborhoods constructed before the widespread use of cars. There were narrower streets with sidewalks and detached garages. In this neighborhood we have curvilinear streets, no sidewalks, attached garages that are quite prominent, and big wide driveways. We had to be careful when crafting the guidelines that we were not unnecessarily changing the character by the way we worded the guidelines. Do people in Fort Worth have a hard time seeing ranch houses as historic? As more people become aware that this is a historic district a lot will say, "Wait a second that's not historic." We've been working to get people to recognize that just because George Washington didn't sleep there and it's not 200 years old that doesn't mean it's not significant to the city. I think if we tried to designate a bunch of different subdivisions that happened to be built in 1955--that would be controversial. But if we can truly show there's a unique value to that neighborhood, and by designating it as a historic district that uniqueness will be preserved, then people will be more willing to accept it. Carver Heights is unique because of how it was developed and who lived there and what it's about. It's so much more than the architecture. So where do you draw the line? There is a lot of Mid-Century stuff out there, and not all of it is special. When I talk about this to people in the neighborhoods, I say don't think today, think 50 years from now--what will people have wanted to see? What will people want around? That's what you designate, what will be evocative of the history of Fort Worth 50 years from now. It's going to be decided on a case-by-case basis. There are some cities that didn't see a boom in the '50s. And they're not struggling with this now, but in 10 years they probably will. And then 10 years after that there'll be a whole new issue to worry about. What cities have to do is figure out what your community is saying to you--what your built environment says about your community--and decide how you want to go forward and preserve that character. We'll probably all come up with different answers. © 2006, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are registered trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. |
