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An owner's right to preserve
Contributed by: Richard Gardner on 4/3/2008

Lately there has been a fair amount of discussion as to future changes to Golden's historic preservation ordinance.

Some have advocated strengthening it in various ways such as regulatory; others have advocated watering it down even though it already is among the weakest preservation laws in the land.

One can read the preservation code's current form as municipal code chapter 18.58 at cityofgolden.net and be informed for yourselves.

To my knowledge it allows for a 180-day stay of demolition, which I've long understood to be meant as a "cooling off" period where reasonable discussion might take place to hopefully come to a win-win agreement.

That certainly does not seem unreasonable to me, and I think Goldenites who say they support preservation would do well to support those who work hard in good faith to reach agreements to preserve our historic places.

In any event, lost in the discussion of "property rights" in preservation is one that is crucially important to many and should be addressed: a property owner's right to ensure their historic treasure remains forever protected from harm.

Many who utilize historic designations believe that the recognition is there to help protect their places from harm, and they use it to help ensure that it is.

They are not idiots and have not been fooled or coerced by anyone; they truly care about it and want it to stick around for future generations.

I think quite strongly that a place that purports to support historic preservation should support a property owner's right to place their historic place under perpetual protection, from successor owners or anyone or anything else that might threaten them.

To that end, I urge the Golden City Council to create the Landmark designation in a way that ensures the perpetual protection of historic places and can never be revoked.

If it is voluntary, who should object?

Anyone owning the place after designators is freely placing themselves under such obligation much like an easement or covenant that runs with the land, and has no reasonable standing to object to it. State statute does recognize an owner's ability to protect their property through perpetual preservation easements. Protecting Golden's historic treasures forever is something that benefits the community in many ways and Golden should do what it can to help willing owners to achieve this goal with their places.

Beyond a perpetual Landmark designation other useful things could include a preservation easement program to assist owners with the legal and financial means to protect their property. These are ideas I believe which time has come, and in ways is long overdue, and I urge Golden's government and citizens to take the steps we can to make such permanent preservation a reality.


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Richard Gardner

Golden , CO

Richard Gardner has posted 95 stories and 0 comments since joining on 9/15/2005. Richard Gardner 's average story rating is 4.95.
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