There goes the neighborhood.
That’s the lament heard most often when a big box store or fast food outlet wants to move in near a residential area. It’s also heard when a soccer field is promoted, when government officials start talking about widening or adding roads, toll or otherwise, and when a zoning change is proposed – or even when a new neighbor arrives with a dog that seems to constantly bark.
For my street, two blocks south of Cheesman Park, the uncertain threat loomed when the March 2003 snowstorm collapsed the roof of a beautifully restored 1915 bungalow and the city condemned it. Because we’re a neighborhood that allows duplexes, the purchaser bought the land expecting to be able to build two units, only to discover the lot frontage was short by 10 feet. Only one house could be built. He’d paid more for the empty lot than any single house on the block had ever sold for, so that posed a serious quandary.
May is Historic Preservation and Archaeology Month across America, so I’m glad to report how historic preservation will help in this common and frustrating conundrum.
This block and its neighbors are a wonderful mix of houses built in the 1900s and after, Craftsman bungalows, Denver squares, cottages, Spanish, Tudor, Victorian, Colonial, large and small, knit together by a graceful tapestry of mature landscaping. Green lawns flow down the tree-lined street, and a multitude of trees are seen across the backyards. It’s comfortable middle class, attractive, varied, well-kept but not pretentious. Nothing like the gargantuan McMansions that seem to be the house design of the year when a speculator appears on the scene. That empty lot and what could have been built on it seemed perilous to neighbors. A big, pretentious mansion would be totally out of character, out of scale, with the streetscape.
To get the necessary 10 more feet to build two houses, the new owner finally bought the next-door bungalow; he’ll pop its top, and take all its south yard to add onto the empty land, making two 50-by-125 lots, each for sale at $795,000. This, on a block where the most expensive house, built in 1905 and with 1,872 square feet (plus basement and garage), sold for $555,000 in 2002.
With these lots so expensive, it seems likely that a new house will be very pricey, and undoubtedly big. But bigger isn’t always better.
Even under the Quick Wins 2 zoning adopted in 2002, which is meant to keep houses from totally covering the lot (by stipulating that 62.5 percent of the backyard must be maintained as open space), a 4,200-square-foot house could be built on each of those lots. That’s about three times the size of most houses on the block.
That’s where historic preservation can help maintain the historic and attractive character. The area, between Fourth and Sixth avenues, from the alley west of Marion to the alley east of High Street, won designation as a historic district in 2003. We were surrounded on four sides by other historic districts, which made our area particularly vulnerable to developers eager to build big, expensive houses in such a desirable location. The historic designation gives some protection: No existing house may be demolished without permission from the Denver Landmark Commission, and any new house design must be approved by the commission. The design must be in scale and character with the other houses in the district, although distinctive, handsome architecture is certainly welcome.
The Landmark Commission trumps the Quick Wins 2 restrictions, a spokesman at the zoning department pointed out, in that the commission will determine if the new designs complement the existing streetscape. Thankfully, an oversized, overwhelming McMansion seems unlikely.
We’ll see what develops. Like neighborhoods all over Denver, we’re finding that preservation is important to protecting contemporary liveability. Maintaining the scale and character of an established neighborhood is essential in keeping its desirability and enhances the intrinsic appeal of the city itself.
Joanne Ditmer’s column on environmental and urban issues for The Post began in 1962 and now appears on the third Sunday of the month.
