The Denver City Council approved a historic district in the northwest part of the city Tuesday night amid laudatory comments about the benefits to neighborhood character and complaints about the designation’s restrictive nature.
The debate centered around what the historic designation meant for homeowners in the Wolff Place neighborhood, but council members acknowledged the issue is coming up in several parts of the city.
Betty Luce, a real estate agent with Highland-based Nostalgic Homes, said the historic quality of the neighborhood has made the area popular with young homebuyers.
“It encompasses the most beautiful homes in the neighborhood,” she said. “It is exactly the character of this neighborhood that has drawn people to northwest Denver.”
But Steve Erickson, a homeowner in the district just south and west of the Highland Square neighborhood, said he was concerned.
“This is a tough one,” he said, noting that the older homes are generally too small to meet the needs of modern families.
He worried that homeowners would not be able to improve homes and that the Wolff Place neighborhood would become like the Baker neighborhood, which in his opinion, “seems to me to have just stopped in time.”
Councilwomen Jeanne Faatz and Rosemary Rodriguez were not convinced that historic designation was best for the homeowners. Both voted against the measure.
“I believe that it violates what I consider to be sacred: a person’s property rights,” Faatz said.
But Councilman Rick Garcia supported the designation in his district, saying that other historic districts have shown that appropriate improvements can be made.
“I think it is going to add viability to northwest Denver,” Garcia said.
The designation passed 9 to 2.
Also Monday, the City Council held a public hearing on the city’s new Construction Empowerment Initiative program.
The three-part program is the result of more than a decade of legal battles over contracting programs for women- and minority-owned businesses.
It includes programs for disadvantaged businesses, small businesses and the local construction business climate in general.
Speakers overwhelmingly supported the program.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
