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Thank You for the Mills Act, Senator Mills!
July/August 2017
By Ann Jarmusch
 Taken at Petco Park at the annual 2004 People In Preservation awards event. Photo by Sandé Lollis |
The California Mills Act, which turns 45 this year, is one of the most effective and sought-after preservation incentives for owners of designated historic resources. We owe a huge debt to former State Senator James Mills, a denizen of Coronado, historian, author, and recipient of a SOHO Lifetime Achievement Award, for carrying this groundbreaking law in 1972.
The Mills Act has made it possible for thousands of owners of designated historic residential and commercial properties throughout California to save on property taxes provided they spend the savings on restoration, rehabilitation, and maintenance in keeping with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and municipal codes.
Because the Mills Act contract is transferrable to a new owner, many real estate agents, newspaper and magazine ads and articles about homes on the market tout an existing Mills Act contract, or the potential for one, as a strong selling point. A ten-year agreement with a work plan is enacted and renewable annually, so the contract is ongoing unless terminated by the owner or municipality.
Individual savings depend on the property and have ranged from 20 percent to 70 percent, based on a state law formula. Economic studies have shown that all home values rise in neighborhoods with preserved historic homes or historic districts. A University of San Diego study of the impact of the Mills Act on San Diego coffers suggests "the loss in property tax revenue is more than compensated for by a general increase in the property value of other houses in the neighborhood."
In San Diego, the majority of homeowner applications for local historic designation include requests for Mills Act agreements, which are processed by the San Diego County Tax Assessor's Office. Read more about the Mills Act. Find City of San Diego Mills Act application information HERE.
While celebrating the Mills Act's 45th anniversary, SOHO's Our Heritage had the honor of speaking with Senator Mills shortly before he turned 90 on June 6. He said he had no problem passing the Mills Act. "Neighborhoods are enhanced" as a result, he said. "It doesn't take revenue from cities…If you improve one house, it increases the value of the neighborhood. Only 'ignoramuses' think the Mills Act costs cities money," he said, referring to a recent past Mayor of San Diego.
Despite that one foe, Mills called it "a good sign" that San Diego has among the highest number of Mills Acts contracts in California, even surpassing Los Angeles. In addition to preserving historic resources and community character, the Mills Act "gives an incentive to people to stay where they are. It's a real break for homeowners who have been in their properties since before Prop. 13."
No other state official can match Mills in advancing the preservation cause with tools to match. He also introduced the bill that became the California Historical Building Code in 1975. Everywhere from big cities to rural areas, countless historic structures that would otherwise have been lost to earthquake damage, general decay or flawed engineering reports have been saved by this flexible code.
Mills served in the California Assembly and Senate from 1961 to 1972, including ten years as President pro Tempore of the Senate. A Democrat, his terms spanned those of Governors Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, and Jerry Brown (first term). Mills is responsible for significantly reorganizing the state Constitution and creating the full-time legislature. "I hope God will forgive me…," he wrote in his respected book A Disorderly House: The Brown-Unruh Years in Sacramento.
Mills said his roots as a preservationist stemmed from his love of history, which led to his major at San Diego State University and early career as a middle school history teacher.
For five years beginning in 1955, he was the San Diego Historical Society's Serra Museum curator. He recalls meeting architectural historian and longtime SOHO member Rurik Kallis doing research in the archives, which the Senator himself used in writing his first two books, Historical Landmarks of San Diego and San Diego: Where California Began.
Mills' earliest recollection of SOHO, however, "probably had to do with a man named Bruce Coons. He was in touch with me early on. He had done some marvelous restoration of the Kimball House in National City."
Just as Mills was a visionary in the State Senate, fighting for reduced ozone levels as early as the 1960s by encouraging bike paths and bicycle commuting and, later, light rail public transit, he used his museum curatorship as a bully pulpit. "I persuaded, no, I told the County Board of Supervisors they had to establish the Whaley House as a museum," he recalled, citing the Old Town residence's importance as an early courthouse and theater. "I wasn't much into the ghosts."
He praised SOHO for "taking charge" of the Whaley House many years later, and "running it very well."
For Mills, historic preservation has evolved in San Diego with SOHO's development into a professional organization with a large membership and a national reputation for effective advocacy and community outreach. He noted SOHO's role in saving the Santa Fe Depot and the Villa Montezuma, its vigilance in protecting the Hotel del Coronado for decades of different owners, and its success as the current operator of the Marston House Museum & Gardens.
"I've been very pleased with what SOHO has been trying to do, especially with Balboa Park," Mills said, referring to a controversial parking plan SOHO is suing the City of San Diego to stop. "The plan would really do violence to [the historic core]…that hard right turn into that beautiful canyon via a heavy concrete bypass and destructive new road leading to an unnecessary garage. It surprises me that anyone wants it.
"Balboa Park is a national treasure. Its collection of Spanish Baroque buildings is remarkable. In civilized cities, like New York, they don't put parking in Central Park. Parking is destroying Balboa Park."
Senator Mills has long been recognized for his outstanding leadership and innovative ideas. The Mills Act isn't his only namesake, though he's modest about discussing others. It bothers him that people assume he angled to have the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System James R. Mills Building named for him after he created and chaired the transit district. Initially, a station was to bear his name, but he objected during a meeting, saying stations should reflect street names. That's when his transit board colleague Leon Williams asked, "Any objection if we name the building for you?"
Any other tributes? Yes, the State Senator James R. Mills Scenic Overlook above the ocean at Torrey Pines State Natural Preserve.
"I was very happy with that one."
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