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Nothing says historic like a satellite dish in a front yard.
Or a gray-and-white paint scheme on a rowhouse.
Or a gigantic commercial logo painted as a mural on a building facade.
Those eyesores and more made a report prepared for the Historic District Board of Review earlier this month. The document summarized 14 recent examples of work performed on building exteriors in the historic district without the approval of the historic review board.
The historic district ordinance, written in 1973 to protect downtown’s historic integrity, gives the board review powers over all exterior alterations or improvements visible from the street — no matter how minor — within the historic district boundaries.
Property owners must apply for permission to change everything from the color of a house’s siding to a sign on the front of a business.
“Some find the oversight oppressive, but it’s necessary and it is part of the ordinance,” said Tom Thomson, executive director of the Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission. “It’s more about education than anything else. Every so often we have to let people know that in the historic district, if you are doing something to the outside of a property, it needs to be reviewed.”
Thomson and the city of Savannah are debating the most effective ways of getting the message out. They are likely to issue and distribute doorhanger cards reminding residents and tenants of the ordinance’s finer points in the coming months.
Patient process
The recent rash of overeager property improvers was somewhat predictable: The economic recovery has led to an uptick in property sales and the opening of new businesses. The newcomers, particularly those from out of town, are simply ignorant when it comes to the ordinance.
“People just don’t think the minor things need governmental approval, but they do in the historic district,” said Geoff Goins, the city’s zoning administrator and a former MPC staffer.
The city takes a measured approach in addressing work done without permission. They start with an investigation, inform the property owner the work done requires review and deliver a courtesy notification letter that includes an application for a certificate of appropriateness, or a COA.
The proprietor of new Broughton Street resident R.O.S.E. Public House came to work one day in March to find a COA application had been left with his bartender.
Rex Osborn, a Savannah newcomer, had peeled a vinyl sticker off the marquee of his restaurant — located in what was once the Avon Theater — advertising the space’s former tenant and replaced it with one of his own without getting a COA.
“It was the same size, the same style; we didn’t change anything structurally or aesthetically, other than the letters,” Osborn said. “Needing a permit for that … it kind of blindsided us.”
Osborn is working on the application, which requires measurements and photographs or renderings of what his sign looks like.
Violations at the other properties cited in the historic review board report varied.
• The 24e furniture store on Broughton Street was listed because property owner Ruel Joyner had his businesses logo painted as a mural on the building’s rear facade, which is visible from Drayton Street and Congress Street.
Joyner did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment.
• The White Way Cleaners on Whitaker Street made the report for replacing its sign without permission. Business leader Melissa Hall could not be reached for comment.
• A renovated house on West Perry Street drew scrutiny because owner Melissa Hall painted her shutters white instead of a darker color more in keeping with shutters in the ward and district as instructed by the review board.
Hall, who lives in Baxley and inherited the property following her mother’s death, spent $5,000 to paint the exterior of the house and has requested more time to save money to make the change.
“I appreciate what the historic board does because without them historic Savannah would be ruined,” she said. “But everything they put you through, it gets expensive.”
Or else what?
The zoning staff typically gives violators a “few weeks to a couple of months” to initiate and complete the COA process.
Non-compliers find the system gets more punitive from there. The zoning enforcement staff lacks the power to issue fines, but in cases where property owners refuse to fill out the application or work with the MPC staff, Goins will submit a summons to Recorder’s Court.
The court will then schedule a hearing on the issue and can demand action. Back in 2005, the Recorder’s Court judge ordered an Indian Street nightclub owner jailed for not responding to a COA request and failing to show for a pair of Recorder’s Court hearings.
The nightclub owner spent a few hours in jail before apologizing to the judge, as well as the Historic Board of Review. She also agreed to go through the COA process.
Goins has yet to refer any of the cases cited in the historic review board report to Recorder’s Court.
Most violators have been responsive. Two have completed their COA applications, with one found in compliance. The other was reviewed at the last historic board meeting and will require changes.
“In most cases, I don’t think people are willingly not complying with the ordinance,” Goins said. “So we give them time and work with them.”
Still, the notion that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission exists among some property owners. Thomson acknowledges the MPC regularly gets after-the-fact submissions, where the property owner does the work before filing the application believing it gives him leverage with the board.
The tactic is ineffective. The board often orders property owners to make changes to work done without permission. In some case, they will demand the change be reversed.
“It’s a real source of frustration,” Thomson said. “People need to understand it will be easier and cheaper in most cases to go through the process properly.”
ON THE WEB
Go to the MPC’s website, www.thempc.org, to view the full report on recent work downtown without a COA. From the website’s home page, select “meeting agenda” under the “meetings” tab near the top of the page. Scroll down to the Savannah Historic District Board of Review agendas and click on the “May 08, 2013” document. The report is on the last page of the document under Item X: Work Performed Without a Certificate of Appropriateness.