Citywide Historic Resource Survey OK'ed by L.A. City Council - Experts React & Prognosticate

TPR has convened this panel in order to discuss the City of Los Angeles' upcoming historic resources survey. What is the argument for undertaking such a survey?

Ken Bernstein: We've just come from a joint L.A. City Council meeting of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee and the Arts, Parks, Health & Aging Committee that took the first steps toward a citywide historic resources survey. This action by the joint committee follows several years of work by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), under the leadership of its director, Tim Whalen. Working with several city departments and the Chief Legislative Analyst's office, they have published a report outlining a five-year, roughly $4.5 million effort to survey the entire city and identify its historic resources.

GCI had found that less than 15 percent of the city has even been looked at up to this point, leaving huge swaths unexamined. GCI's work also noted that the city is already expending significant resources on individual area surveys. In many years, more than $1 million a year is spent on these surveys that accompany the creation of new historic districts, community planning efforts, and redevelopment agency plans, not to mention the huge amount of money that LAUSD is spending on historic resource surveys as they build 160 new schools. So, there are tremendous opportunities to consolidate all these efforts, gain efficiency, and create greater certainty for all the parties in the development process – including preservationists such as the Conservancy, individual property owners, community groups, neighborhood councils, etc.

The Mills Act, which provides for tax abatements to owners of historic structures if they maintain them, was passed by the city in 1996. Why has it taken eight years to get to where we are today?

Rick Starzak: I don't know the exact answer, but the volume of buildings is extremely large. The Planning Department was actually tasked with a citywide survey in the early 1990s. We submitted the first cost estimate, and it was just staggering. We then scaled it back so all we were really doing was a windshield survey, and at that we finished five of the 35 Community Planning Areas. Keeping all of that data organized, getting people in the field, and submitting those reports – it's really a tremendous undertaking.

But, when you look at the areas that have never been surveyed – Silver Lake, the Hollywood Hills, most of Wilshire, the Palisades, Bel Air – you have to figure that some of those houses and commercial buildings were built by some of the finest architects that have worked in the city. So, there is definitely a need for a comprehensive survey.

Why is the City Council now taking action to support a survey?

Con Howe: To a great extent, these items came in front of the council because on July 1, staffing for the Cultural Heritage Commission moved from the Cultural Affairs Department to the Planning Department. During the budget deliberations, the council discussed the resources presently devoted to the Cultural Heritage Commission and Mills Act programs, whether those resources were really adequate. That mission was understaffed under the Cultural Affairs Department, and it remains understaffed now at the Planning Department given what we'd like to do.

Clearly, one of the major factors underlying the need for an historic resources survey is the number of the buildings in Los Angeles approaching 50 years of age. Rick, why is 50 years of age that important?

Rick S.: Well, 50 years of age is the standard cutoff for historic status, under both the National Register and the California Register criteria. So, if you are doing a project that might trigger a CEQA review, then you would expect to look at any building more than 50 years of age to see if it turns out to be significant. However, we often look to see when a project would be implemented and look 50 years back from that date. For example, on a project we're doing in Denver right now our cutoff is 1964, because that is when they would expect to start expanding.

Kate, you're a Los Angeles-based developer. There has been a lot of fear that historic preservation overlay zones will keep development from happening. But, we see developers doing projects that don't seem to fear but take advantage of the status. When did we reach the tipping point? Who will benefit from this historic resource survey?

Kate B.: I think there is more interest than there has ever been in historic properties. People are hungry for something that has a sense of Los Angeles' past, ranging from people who want to buy homes or condominium properties to people who want to work in a building that has a sense of history and architectural detail. The people who benefit are to a significant degree the consumers, as well as the developers who care about these issues and want to be able to develop things that have texture and richness.

I think that the tipping point in this instance has been the adaptive reuse ordinance. That ordinance ultimately will be judged to be one of the single most important things that this city has done to preserve its past from a planning and zoning perspective. What it does, simply, is to bundle together a series of rights that help developers and builders overcome the special challenges posed by an historic building with specific architectural constraints. It has made a huge difference in our ability to go after projects.

I'll give a specific example: The Pegasus Apartments project. It seems like a no-brainer, but that property had been vacant for five years. What was determinative for our equity partners was the ability to demonstrate that the entitlements were "by right," meaning that we didn't need to assume the risk associated with variances. If we were building ground up in the Valley, we would probably have needed an EIR. So, instead of the risks of variance, instead of the delays and costs associated with an EIR, we got our approvals within nine months because the city had already bundled together the rights. That's huge.

Con, how might this ordinance play out citywide?

Con H.: One of the trends we have noticed is that, while the adaptive reuse ordinance was initially used just for buildings in their current state, the rehab has now come back to life, and that's great. We are now seeing a trend of projects that are more complicated because they involve new construction added on to existing buildings – a more rich mixture of old and new construction in Hollywood, Downtown, and a number of places. That will be really interesting, and it also emphasizes the need for the city to identify historic sites so we can give guidance about what has to be protected and, frankly, what ought to be changed.

You know, I've been really pleased about the attitude towards preservation in Los Angeles because there is a certain flexibility by advocates and regulators that resources can and should be adapted. They don't have to be frozen at one point in time. That will be especially important when we get into more mid-20th-century architecture. Some of the projects we are seeing, both adaptive reuse and these mixed old and new construction are evidence that you actually can improve the qualities of a building.

Many of the structures that are coming of age now are not generally thought of as historic properties. And yet, they would be eligible for local, state, or federal status. Ken, can you talk about the potential and the challenges in moving this forward constructively?

Ken B.: It is very challenging, as Rick indicated a moment ago. As we enter 2005, the 50-year mark is now 1955. Many of these sites are architecturally modest, in keeping with the modernist aesthetic, and some are younger than many of the people living in or around them. But that period, 1945 to roughly 1960-65, was one of our greatest explosions of growth in Southern California, the post-WWII boom, which shaped the built environment in huge segments of the city, including much of the west side of Los Angeles and almost all of the San Fernando Valley. There are huge numbers of potential historic resources to examine. The challenge is to begin to sort out what is truly significant and what is less so.

There are many specific types of potential historic resources to look at. There is the best of our post-World War II housing – pioneering examples of ranch houses and multi-family housing. There are the roadside icons, what we often call "googie-style" architecture. And, there is the work of the high-end modernists on single-family homes, commercial buildings, and civic buildings. Not everything that turns 50 years old is or should be eligible for historic designation, but it's important to develop those frameworks and typologies and to think about what is most worth preserving.

Con H.: One of the other issues is how many structures there are, and how many are truly unique. Now that we staff the Cultural Heritage Commission, I see firsthand some of the issues they face when someone when someone applies for designation. They have no basis on which know whether this is one or one of 10,000, and so I think ultimately they make different judgments.

Ken B.: That comes back to why a citywide survey is so important, so that we deal with these issues on a comprehensive basis, guided by a citywide framework. Now, groups like the Conservancy and the Cultural Heritage Commission often have to be reactive rather than proactive. Only a citywide survey and a more comprehensive approach can create the basic framework that will reduce the tendency to end up in pitched battles.

So why do so many developers and homeowners still fear that this process will restrict their property rights, as opposed affording a new opportunity?

Kate B.: I think a lot of it is lack of information. When you are restoring something and there are criteria that limit your options, you probably conclude first, that it is going to slow you down, and second, that it will cost a lot more. But the fact is, if you take a more strategic approach and bring in architects and construction specialists who know what they are doing it doesn't have to take more time, because you will know what you're looking at and can plan for it. It may or actually may not cost more. But at the same time, you have materials, architectural details, and structural elements that you can't duplicate.

So are people's property rights fears unfounded?

Rick S.: We get many calls – more this year than last – from attorneys representing property buyers, asking us to research and tell them if there will be a constraint. They don't want to get caught by surprise, to suddenly find themselves in a redevelopment area, triggering an EIR, or to discover that they just purchased a house by an important architect. It's almost like doing a soil report during escrow. We check if there are important events or important persons associated with the building, if it is architecturally important. The buyers are looking for some assurance. So, yes, these fears are definitely grounded.

Ken B.: The challenge, of course, is that that gives potential buyers information on what is known, not what is unknown. And that's great for the 15 percent of the city that has been surveyed or for properties that may have been designated historic. The realistic fear is about the 85 percent of the city that has never even been looked at, and that is why property owners are increasingly concerned about getting caught up in that type of situation.

It comes back to the need for a citywide survey. For earthquake damage, USGS has a comprehensive liquefaction map, so owners can tell when they buy their home if it is in a liquefaction zone that might make them more vulnerable to earthquake damage. What we are talking about here is providing at least some level of citywide information that would benefit potential buyers, existing owners, developers, neighborhood councils, community groups, and preservation groups alike, because they won't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to hire private consultants.

Kate B.: The city really needs to think about a responsibility to give as much additional educational information as possible.

Ken B.: There are some property owners and developers who fear potential historic regulation, but there are also owners who are seeking out other positive incentives apart from the adaptive reuse ordinance, which I agree is probably the primary engine for historic rehabilitation right now. For example, we see a growing number of owners who submit their own properties for historic cultural monument status, in part to protect them moving forward, and in part to take advantage of the property tax incentive available through the Mills Act. The Standard Hotel and the Pegasus Apartments were, I believe, the first two post-World War II commercial buildings in L.A. to take advantage of the federal historic rehabilitation credit.

Finally, who is going to pay for this citywide historic resources survey?

Ken B.: There's not a definitive answer to that yet. The CLA report cited a price tag of $4.5 million. It is expected that a partnership of public, private, and philanthropy will ultimately pay for the survey. There will be some level of city commitment based on savings the money already going into surveys that could be used more efficiently in a citywide process. There is some expectation that the Getty will contribute to the effort, and that there will be a consortium of other potential foundations and private parties. The task is for the Getty, the CLA, the CAO, and other parties to begin to put together the case statement for funding of the citywide survey.