A Good Thing

http://www.citylab.com

Golden Belt Apartments
Durham, North Carolina
mynewplace.com

Hello Everyone:

Welcome to the new week and fresh things to chat about.  Today we are going to take a look at how historic preservationists in  Durham, North Carolina are trying to stop or delay gentrification.  In September of 2016, the Durham City Council voted (4-3) to adopt a district and preservation plan (http://www.durhamnc.gov; date accessed Jan. 16, 2016) that would, in the words of Amanda Abrams, put "...the neighborhood in a position to be a guinea pig in this experiment."  The experiment she refers to, in her CityLab article "Using Preservation to Stop Gentrification Before It Starts," is the adoption of a plan that would require developers to obtain a certificate of appropriateness before making any changes to the exterior of the buildings and properties with the district.  (Ibid)  It is a novel approach that could have implications for other communities that want to stave off gentrification.

Golden Belt Manufacturing Company
opendurham.org

What makes the former Golden Belt Manufacturing Company and the district it sits on so important? The Golden Belt is uniques among the communities on the National Register of Historic Places because "...it is a racially diverse area with a mix of renters and owners and has always been a mostly working class community."  Further, it has not given into the intense market forces currently reconfiguring the city and the residents have spent a decade to add layers of protection they hope will help both the people and retain its historic character.

Golden Belt was a mill village built in 1900 for company employees, who made packing for tobacco products.  The neighborhood is made up of about 10 square blocks bordered by small homes built in the style typical for the period: porches, gabled roofs, and back gardens large enough for the millworkers to have gardens and keep chickens.

Typical Golden Belt Parkway home
redfin.com

The factory shut its doors in 1996, by then, the company sold the homes to individuals and the neighborhood went into decline.  In 2008, the mill buildings were repurposed as artists's studios and retail space; the area began to experience a renaissance..  Today, there are some professionals living in the tidy bungalows that once housed the foreman and there Habitat for Humanity homes in the areas and other low-income housing close by.  Ms. Abrams observes, "Most of the neighborhood is still unremarkable, featuring chain link fences, cluttered years, and unimproved homes.

Over last few years, Durham has experienced rapid and extreme gentrification pressure.  The once sleepy downtown has woken and young families are moving into nearby residential areas.  Housing prices for the downtown area increased "63 percent between 2004 and 2014, according to a Washington Post analysis." (http://www.washingtonpost.com)  Developers responded by leveling the modest homes and replacing them with larger ones.

So far, the Golden Belt area has been spared from the changes sweeping across the city, but it is only a mile from downtown, soon it will experience the changes.  This forecast was the catalyst for the preservation effort.  As was the need to protect Durham's last mill village; the city was the onetime home of serval company villages, totaling hundreds of mill houses, however most have made way by development.  Former Golden Belt resident John Martin recently said in an interview with the blog http://www.bullcityrising.com,

If you don't do this, you'll start being gentrification in a bad way, people tearing down mill houses that can be protected and preserved.

Durham Rescue Mission
carolinajouurnal.com

Another driver was the the nonprofit homeless shelter, the Durham Rescue Mission, which owns several properties in the Golden Belt district.  The Rescue Mission has undetermined plans to build a large community center there.  Although, the residents support the organization's mission, the residents believe that the Rescue Mission has not been a good neighbor and did not want it compromising the character of the neighborhood.  This was not a case of NIMBY-ism  (Not In My Back Yard), simply a case of what the Golden Belt residents felt was in the best interest of their community.

Amanda Abrams reports, "The result was a years long, resident-driven process that finally resulted in approval the City Council in September.  In the future, neighbors will be able to delay potential house demolitions for 365 days; and new construction-as well as modifications to existing homes-will be be required to conform to design guidelines."

Golden Belt gallery
durhamneighborhoodprofiles1.web.unc.edu

Ben Fillippo, the executive director of Preservation Durham, proclaimed "It was a success on all fronts."  First, the neighborhood will have an additional layer of protection from gentrification.  He said,

I think you'll see it help mitigate against speculative development.

Equally important, is the precedent this effort sets.  Mr. Fillippo continued,

This is probably one of the only locally designated districts in North Carolina that is working class and has remained so for the entire 20th century.

Mr. Fillippo was quick to point out that "not a single resident at the meeting opposed the designation."  Further,

From the policy side of things, we often talk about low-income neighborhoods as though they wouldn't want nice things.  I think this was beautiful and poignant tossing away of that narrative.  

As does Blogger.

The big question remains, "will it work?"  Naturally, demolitions might not happen, but preservation can inhibit growth.  Thus, would the logical result be a rise in home prices?

Golden Belt arts sign
goldenbeltarts.com

Amanda Abrams writes, "Scholars Brian McCabe and Ingrid Gould Ellen, from Georgetown and New York University, respectively, studied historic neighborhoods in New York City and consistently found that a neighborhood's socioeconomic status improves following designation."

One caveat, New York is not emblematic of the rest of the country, most experts agree "it's hard to predict what will happen in a given area; more development doesn't always  lower prices."  Mark Treaskon, a researcher at the Urban Institute added,

The reality is that there's so many moving parts...It's difficult to know how it'll play out.

Alan Mallach, a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress, who studies affordable housing and community revitalization, seconds the above comment.  He told Ms. Abrams,

To my mind, there isn't a clear relationship between preservation and affordability one way or the other.

There are many determinants, from the size of a given city and the rate of housing price increases, a neighborhood's distance from downtown and its relationship to other attractive neighborhoods.

Studio Front, August 2008
Photograph courtesy of Warren Hicks
warrenhicks.com

Each situation is unique and in the case of Golden Belt, its history might be its saving grace.  Mr. Mallach said during a phone interview,

There's only so much you can do with some houses...They're very small.

A quick look on Google Maps reveal that most of the neighborhood homes sit on plots about 1000 square feet-miniscule by today's standards.  An appropriate addition would probably not add a lot of square footage. That puts a roof (slight pun intended) on how expensive a home can be-which may be a good thing for Golden Belt in the future.

For other communities, like Golden Belt, historic preservation could be a tool for neighborhoods packed with small houses, not just the mill houses throughout North Carolina but other communities across the United States.

Building Six (Hosiery Mill)
Golden Belt Manufacturing Company
opendurham.org

Myrick Howard, executive director of Preservation NC and an expert on the mill houses, told Ms. Abrams:

Most mill villages are [currently] occupied by working class whites and blacks and Hispanics.  

The mill houses act as affordable housing, as they were initially intended to do.  Many are in physical decline.  Given their diminutive size, historic preservation could be the mechanism to protect them with a great threat to their affordability-while celebrating their working class history.

Back in Durham, Ben Fillippo and his group are planning to make Golden Belt their model to protect other threatening parts of the city, including ones with deep ties to Durham's African American history.  In which case, the program will also incorporate subsidized loans and free technical assistance to the help area's senior residents remain in their homes.  The key is local local historic preservation designation.

Local historic preservation designation does not always equate gentrification and displacement.  that is a very good thing.