Woodland Heights Officially Historic
The official word is posted at RTD. Congrats to all those that put in the hard work. The official application is here and worth checking out.
The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has added the Woodland Heights neighborhood of South Richmond to the Virginia Landmarks Register.
Woodland Heights was among 29 new sites approved by the department after presentations last week.
Woodland Heights is an approximately 80-square-block area — bounded roughly by the river on the north, West 24th Street on the east, West 34th Street on the west and Bainbridge Street and Forest Hill Avenue on the south — that is one of the oldest streetcar suburbs in Richmond.
Woodland Heights also has an application pending for designation as a federal landmark, a process that is expected to produce a decision in the coming months.
If you don’t know the process, this was just impossible. Lee Shewmake and all the people of Woodland Heights have performed an unbelievable amount of work. Now just don’t let CAR in.
CAR?
CAR stands Commission of Architectural Review. Their mission is: “is to plan and guide development in order to enhance the quality of life in Richmond.” Sometimes their interpertation of how to “enhance” conflicts with the neighborhood they are trying to “enhance”. http://chpn.net/news/tag/car/
CAR is the Committee for Architectural Review:
This comes with designation of an area as a City Old & Historic District, and has nothing to do with the Virginia or National register.
Some folks take issue with CAR/City O&H as there are more restrictions as to what a property can owner can do with their property or with new construction in an area. Before a property can be restored or built in a City Old & Historic District, the plan must be approved by CAR. This is aimed at preventing work that is falsely historic, or that degrades the historic nature of the designated area. CAR has a reference set of guidelines, but the process has enough leeway as to be quite contentious at times.
National/State designation makes tax credits available to property owners that choose to follow certain guidelines, but doesn’t restrict the choices of property owners that choose not to follow guidelines. Under National/State designation, if you do not want the tax credits, you can do whatever you’d like with your property.
There are more neighborhoods/properties in Richmond on the National/State registers. A trolley suburb like Woodland Heights, Fairmount in East End was added to the national register a few years back. In 2005 Springhill became the only neighborhood south of the river on the City Old&Historic list; Church Hill North was the most recent area of the city to receive the designation. Union Hill, adjacent to the St.John’s area of Church Hill, is currently pursuing City O&H designation.
Thanks…the initials didn’t ring a bell. I guess I need more coffee….
Thanks John for a much more detailed explaination than they one I gave.
Be careful what you wish for. You may want to think twice before inviting CAR into your living room to approve your design specs.
Harry Kollatz Jr. gives some love to Woodland Heights here: http://richmag.com/news/blogs.php?blogID=0c77bb266d6ae4d5e5d622db90370227
On a side note, CAR proved utterly useless when “fighting” the proposed development in Springhill. Despite it being the only Old and Historic District in South Richmond, they would not get involved because the property on which it is to be built is adjacent to, rather than within, the district boundaries.
“Be careful what you wish for. You may want to think twice before inviting CAR into your living room to approve your design specs.”
Woodland Heights has not “invited CAR in.”
Unless I’m mistaken, CAR typically doesn’t have a say on what is done to the interior of a structure.