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kermelie t1_ixvzany wrote

Reply to comment by Timmah_1984 in Five houses targeted for demolition in Mount Vernon historic district by Rubysdad1975

This narrative that building that are standing can’t be savaged is ridiculous. You put braces up and underpin doesn’t take a world renowned developer to oversee a project like this.

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plain-rice t1_ixw3yai wrote

My understanding (an this is only from limited experience with older buildings in the city) but I think that code enforcement requires they maintain their historic features. So while it might not be unreasonable to repair the structure the historical architecture makes the cost prohibitive. There are only so many companies and skilled workers that can do this kind of work. We ran into this problem in cherry hill a few years ago with my great grandmothers house.

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bmore t1_ixwwnjw wrote

Cool, they should sell them to someone. It's a unique, historic, dense block of incredible housing that someone could absolutely profit off of redeveloping even if they have to underpin and brace.

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kermelie t1_ixyd36p wrote

Maintaining or replicating trim or wood windows on front facades have no structural effect. Just maintaining the front facade and underpinning with cinder blocks or wood framing. There’s grants for these type of projects as well.

I think residents are purposely mislead into thinking preservation is more difficult than it is to allow agencies to have discretion for demolition. If non developers knew everything could be preserved and isn’t cost prohibitive the political pressure to keep architecture would be too great to overcome.

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CaptainObvious110 t1_iy26hb8 wrote

That block loses a large chunk of it's irreplaceable historic features if those buildings aren't preserved.

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