Fayetteville abandons push to make Dickson Street historic
Lana Hazel
Issue date: 3/25/09 Section: News
Fayetteville's Historic District Commission decided March 12 to give up its hopes of making Dickson Street a local historic district. Commissioners agreed that the Fayetteville City Council was unlikely to support the project because not a single property owner had spoken in favor of the district.
The opposition showed that a historic district on Dickson may not be what the community needs, said Commissioner Ethel Goodstein-Murphee. "Property owners made it clear that to pursue a district would violate the morale, spirit and will of the community," she said.
The Historic District Commission was reestablished in 2006 to focus primarily on creating an ordinance district downtown, said Karen Minkel, strategic planning director. The ordinances in place protect some of the older buildings on Dickson Street.
To make Dickson Street an official historic district would impose regulations on all its buildings and any projects would have to be approved using specific design guidelines. Property owners were adamantly opposed to such outside regulation.
Two property owners came to Thursday's meeting "to be assured that they were finally relinquishing the idea." They said they were very concerned about the regulations and wanted to hear for themselves that the commission was not going to pursue the historic district.
Commissioners were discouraged at the lack of support from the community. "We put a lot of time in it," Karon Reese said, "and I don't understand how we still could have been so out of touch." She compared walking into a meeting with the property owners to walking into a fiery furnace.
"We picked the toughest district first," Commissioner Mikel Lolley said. "I wish we would have saved it and tested the waters somewhere else."
Goodstein-Murphee said she knows the hoards of people on Dickson Street are not there for the architecture but rather for the atmosphere, and if they had communicated that understanding better they might have received more support for the district.
The opposition showed that a historic district on Dickson may not be what the community needs, said Commissioner Ethel Goodstein-Murphee. "Property owners made it clear that to pursue a district would violate the morale, spirit and will of the community," she said.
The Historic District Commission was reestablished in 2006 to focus primarily on creating an ordinance district downtown, said Karen Minkel, strategic planning director. The ordinances in place protect some of the older buildings on Dickson Street.
To make Dickson Street an official historic district would impose regulations on all its buildings and any projects would have to be approved using specific design guidelines. Property owners were adamantly opposed to such outside regulation.
Two property owners came to Thursday's meeting "to be assured that they were finally relinquishing the idea." They said they were very concerned about the regulations and wanted to hear for themselves that the commission was not going to pursue the historic district.
Commissioners were discouraged at the lack of support from the community. "We put a lot of time in it," Karon Reese said, "and I don't understand how we still could have been so out of touch." She compared walking into a meeting with the property owners to walking into a fiery furnace.
"We picked the toughest district first," Commissioner Mikel Lolley said. "I wish we would have saved it and tested the waters somewhere else."
Goodstein-Murphee said she knows the hoards of people on Dickson Street are not there for the architecture but rather for the atmosphere, and if they had communicated that understanding better they might have received more support for the district.
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