Photo courtesy Preservation and Progress: An Update to the City's Heritage Preservation Program
Neighborhood Coalition Urges City's Comprehensive Resource Study for Ordinance Reform
March/April 2024
San Diego is at serious risk of losing the irreplaceable authenticity, architectural evolution, and unique character embodied in our historic homes, neighborhoods, heritage sites, and cultural landscapes. Not only is the City of San Diego starting to overhaul its Heritage Preservation Program, with some officials fallaciously assuming that preservation curtails affordable housing creation, City officials are also acting on these important issues without a clear economic picture to guide them. SOHO, together with preservation groups from around the city, are proposing a solution to this lack of data and far-reaching insights.
Recently hailed in the eNews article Neighborhood Historic Preservation Coalition Rebanded, the coalition stands ready to combat the most serious threats in decades to San Diego’s preservation ordinance, heritage policies, even the Mills Act. The coalition is urging the Historical Resources Board to recommend and the City Council to then commission a citywide economic study and analysis of historic preservation, as other major cities have done to their ongoing benefit.
The coalition, which includes a dozen neighborhood preservation groups, has identified possible funding for a study of this scope and rigor in the city’s Historic Preservation Fund.
We invite you to read their strong, fact-filled letter, which formally requests the Historical Resources Board (HRB) to commission a study by PlaceEconomics to comprehensively analyze the impact of historic preservation on San Diego’s affordable housing, equity, and climate goals, utilizing the Historic Preservation Fund.
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