[MissoulaGov] MissoulaGov Digest, Vol 44, Issue 15

[Bob Oaks]

As Bob requested of subscribers in his discussion of the proposed historic 
preservation ordinance, I'm coping my testimony sent in today by email

Bob Oaks

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To: Missoula City Council and Missoula Mayor, John Engen

I am writing in support of the currently proposed historic overlay ordinance 
for National Register Districts and properties in Missoula.

Three weeks ago, staff of the Zootown Arts Community Center, on North First 
Street, invited me to give a brief introduction of the Northside 
neighborhood to two representatives of national foundations, one from NYC, 
the other from Seattle. They were conducting a site visit for a grant, in 
which ZACC was a finalist.  This award from a collaborative program of the 
Metlife and Ford Foundations was going to a small number of groups 
nationwide that provide affordable space for artists to work, live or sell 
their creations.  One of the most interesting aspects of the Northside to 
these visiting foundation people  was its status as a National Historic 
District and ZACC's location in a primary contributing building to that 
district.

The program's "Space for Change" website explains that "Exemplary artist 
spaces support the unique and diverse practices of individual artists; 
generate creative enterprises in local economies; and play significant roles 
in long term community development and revitalization efforts."  It was 
taken for granted by these visitors that the exact same thing can accurately 
be said for the historic districts and buildings that are often the 
incubators for both cultural and economic vitality.

Fifteen years ago, when Allan Mathews and I met with former Missoula 
newscaster Toby Hatley, next to what is now ZACC's location, he asked, on 
camera, why anyone would be interested in creating a national historic 
district in a part of the city most people would consider a "slum."  Now, 
when I mentioned to the visiting foundation people that there was currently 
being debated city legislation that would protect designated historic 
properties, they expressed disbelief when I told them that there was 
significant opposition, even from some local architects.  They saw that 
mentality as inherently self-defeating for the entire community.

I heard later, that the visiting funders concluded their day, after meeting 
with the Mayor, with a stop back on North First Street to the new Kettle 
House Brew Pub in the old Pacific Fruit Co. warehouse.  Becoming more and 
more distinctly unslumlike, that street has seen considerable reinvestment 
in the past decade, including the beautiful façade restoration of the 1891 
Stensrud Building and the construction of the Gold Dust Apartments (named 
after a first-depot-era hotel, long demolished, but once on the same spot).

The Gold Dust Apartments is a modernist grouping of buildings, built by 
homeWORD for low-income tenants. (Later hW also adaptively reused and 
restored the Lennox Flats building near the Courthouse -- at a time when a 
number of building industry professionals argued for the building's 
demolition.)  The nonprofit developers and the local architects at MMW took 
great pains to work extensively with neighbors to create a development that, 
while distinctly modern, meets the historic district's pattern for street 
setback and massing.   The development also gained (something that should 
not have been required) a variance for parking reduction in a district that 
grew up around the railroad before the age of the automobile.  Another once 
seriously discussed option for the same vacant site (one that would not have 
received neighborhood support - but for which there would have been no 
disenabling legislation to back neighbors up) was to pave it for a 
park-and-ride lot.

After the establishment of the "Missoula Northside Historic Railroad 
District" I gave more that ten years' worth of tours during Bike Walk Week 
to unfailingly receptive people, many of whom were truly seeing the 
Northside for the first time - regardless of length of residence in the 
city.   On these tours, people often remarked when seeing the Warwick 
Apartments on Wolf and North Second Streets that Missoula needed more small, 
graceful, apartment buildings like it.  I had to tell them that such 
construction is now illegal due to one-size-fits-all setback and off-street 
parking requirements made in complete disregard of this neighborhood's 
historic development patterns.

It is also common, even the norm, in this district for century-old houses to 
be located at corners where alleys intersect the streets running 
perpendicular to the railroad tracks.  Many of these, now, would also be 
illegal given Missoula's current zoning regulations.  From my perspective, 
as someone more familiar with the Northside district than any of the others, 
I see a potential historic district overlay as more enabling than 
restrictive.  The Northside district encompasses, to a large extent, a 
fairly dense neighborhood of small houses on small lots and these homes 
have, with character and historic integrity, served generations of working 
class Missoulians.  Where an overlay could provide valuable, proscriptive, 
protection in the Northside district, would be to deter house scraping for 
the construction of the intrusive, unelaborated, box-like barracks-style 
apartment buildings that have so proliferated in other areas north of the 
tracks.

In a larger citywide focus, I also served on the Missoula Historic 
Preservation Commission for ten years.  During that time, and subsequent to 
it, the Commission and the City's Historic Preservation Officer have done 
extraordinary well the challenging job of conducting historic surveys and 
adding districts to the National Register of Historic Places.  Around the 
time I left the Commission, some seven years ago, I and a number of my 
colleagues at the time, were recommending a moratorium on establishing more 
historic districts until safeguards were developed to protect properties in 
the districts that had already been established.  I urge Council, now, to 
seize this moment at hand and accomplish that important but undone business.