Denver City Council members today will consider a historic landmark designation plan dubbed by many as a textbook case of a “hostile designation” proposed over the objections of property owners.
Neighbors near Harvard Gulch Park in south Denver contend that the property of the late, influential landscape architect S.R. DeBoer should be protected.
DeBoer left his mark on many of the city’s parks, and his property on East Iliff Avenue became an artist colony, the neighbors contend.
But DeBoer’s descendants say the proposal is a veiled attempt to block them from selling the property to developers.
“I think their late-found feelings about S.R. DeBoer … are an excuse to try to prevent change,” said attorney Larry Berkowitz, who represents the family trust.
“My clients are poor people. … This is killing them.”
Historian Dave Burrell said that taken on its own, the property should be preserved.
“The true nature of the question is: Is this a historic landmark?” he said. “Does the community have an interest in this property because it has historic characteristics that we care about?”
The DeBoer debate is the most contentious of several recent battles in Denver pitting historic preservation against property rights. With no other means to protect the character of their communities, neighbors in several areas have turned to historic designation to prevent demolitions.
But many homeowners worry that those protections can harm property values – often where the bulk of their wealth is tied up.
Neighbors of the DeBoer property originally proposed a historic district that included two nearby homes. In November, however, the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission recommended a single building owned by DeBoer’s descendants for historic designation.
The Denver Planning Board voted against that scaled-down proposal last month.
“It wasn’t about preserving a building,” planning board member Fred Corn said. “It was just about preventing multi-family housing from going up on a half-acre lot where the neighbors didn’t want it. To me, that’s a bad planning decision.”
The nuance is one that troubles preservationists and property owners alike.
Steve Turner, Historic Denver Inc.’s director of preservation services, said he believes the DeBoer property deserves designation, but he said a recent run of contentious applications poses a concern.
“There are other times that historic designation gets used as a tool just to stop development, and that’s really where it gets the bad eye,” he said.
“The problem is not historic designation,” Turner added. “I think the problem is there are no other tools to use.”
The City Council’s Blueprint Denver Committee meets today at 1:30 p.m.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
