Editorial - Enacting Local Preservation Ordinance Ensures Quality of Life

A Preservation Ordinance sets a standard for a historic community. How many parents would entrust their children's future to a school that had no standards? How many homeowners are willing to invest in a neighborhood without covenants and standards? Clearly defined standards reassure the homeowner and protect the quality of life surrounding the significant investment of a home.

Donovoan K. Rypkema, nationally known real estate and development expert, says quality of life is the significant variable for economic development and the physical environment is a major element in the quality of life criteria. "There is no greater threat to sustainable economic growth than the elimination of those community-based enactments whose sole purpose is that physical environment whether it is built or natural," Rypkema says.

The most significant contributor to the unique quality of life in the City of Norcross is the exclusive honor of a National Registry listing which drives our economic base. We are the only downtown in Gwinnett County to have a listed historic district. Citizens have worked for 25 years to protect and enhance historic status in the vibrant hundred-year-old city core over-development threatens to encroach upon and redefine.

What are we doing to ensure a future for our city's historic core by providing standards to protect historic property, thus protecting quality of life and property values? Conspicuously missing is a fair and open procedure for reviewing changes to historic property, the city's heart and lifeblood, and historic houses are falling at an alarming rate. Presently, the Downtown Development Authority conducts design reviews and issues certificates of appropriateness for new Commercial and Multi-family construction and Residential rehabs under its Design Guidelines, but the DDA tabled the companion preservation document last February 2004 under pressure from real-estate oriented individuals.

Recently, DDA Member Doris Day's Design Committee tried to obtain a grant to survey the remaining historic inventory and look for other houses meeting Department of the Interior criteria in our 1870- 1955 era. Ms. Day learned Norcross must be a Certified City with a local preservation ordinance in place before application can be made. Without a local standard, Norcross can't even get to first base.

A smart investment, the preservation ordinance would align the city with state and federal statutes, by protecting property owners with a review such as that already used for new construction and other residential rehabs. Many Georgia cities, 113 in number, have a preservation ordinance and are realizing economic and human benefits. The City of Norcross has a compelling interest in enacting the local ordinance, and we urge the City Council to act with due diligence and do so without further delay. It is an idea whose time has come. Can we afford not to act?