Don’t rush on historic district
Riverside Terrace may get its first officially recognized historic district soon, over the objections of many of its residents.
Under a proposal approved by the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission on Thursday, 18 homes in the neighborhood will be included in the “First Riverside Terrace” district, if City Council agrees.
“Historic Third Ward is a very wonderful set of neighborhoods and it’s time that a toehold was established in Third Ward, so we started with a piece of Riverside Terrace that makes sense,” said Asif Mahmood, a homeowner who owns several properties in the proposed district and formally applied for the designation.
The move protects the history of the neighborhood and city, he argued.
“I believe that this history is a gift that we have inherited, and I believe it is incumbent on us to be good historians to honor it by preserving it,” he said at the hearing, which he attended remotely.
Historic preservation has never been Houston’s forte, and many homeowners who spoke at the commission meeting Thursday aren’t convinced about this attempt.
Phyllis Moss, who opposes the proposed designation, was one of several Riverside Terrace homeowners who took issue with the lack of communication regarding the process. Several years ago, she told the commission, she had tried to bring parking restrictions to her block of Wichita Street. The city’s process in that case required her to secure support from all of her neighbors before the city would move forward.
“When it comes to my home, I would think that value was even higher than restricting my parking,” Moss said.
“There should be a meeting before a district is even proposed to see if people have any interest in it whatsoever,” she said after the hearing. “By the time the letter comes, you’re already in the proposed district.”
Houston’s preservation ordinance was initially adopted in 1995, but it didn’t really become enforceable until it was strengthened in 2010.
An application for a historic designation can be initiated by people who collectively own at least 10 percent of the properties. At that point, the city is required to hold a public meeting, after which all the property owners in the district are sent a letter, asking to vote on the question within 15 days. If two-thirds agree, the district can be established.
While a supermajority is a high bar, the city of Houston’s FAQ on the process explains, “If less than 67% support is received, the planning director may modify the proposed boundaries to create a district in which 67% of the owners are in favor.”
Here’s how that played out in this case: Mahmood applied for the designation along with two other homeowners. The district they proposed would have included 51 tracts, but it failed to win the support of a supermajority.
And so the city simply redrew the boundaries of the district to include just 18 tracts, in which a supermajority could be, and was, achieved.
This is “gerrymandering,” argued Linchi Lopez, another property owner who opposes the plan.
Lopez told me that for her part, she’s skeptical of doing anything that would tie the hands of future Houstonians. But beyond that, she agreed with Moss that the deck had been stacked in favor of the homeowners who do want the designation — leaving everyone else with little time and opportunity to reply.
“I spent endless hours to get to where I’m at,” Lopez said. “I don’t want somebody else to have to go through this. I want the ordinance to be written correctly and fairly for everyone involved.”
If the designation moves forward, neighbors would be left at odds with one another, as the result of a process that gave short shrift to their views — a point several commissioners acknowledged before voting to proceed anyway.
But that should give City Council pause, especially since we’re talking about the stately Riverside Terrace, whose historical significance has more to do with the people who have made their homes there over generations.
Mahmood, reached on Friday, was unfazed by the controversy.
“You know, these are complexities of modern life,” he told me. Riverside Terrace is already experiencing gentrification, he observed, and will continue to do so regardless of any historical designation.
“The neighborhood is extraordinary and is slowly getting discovered,” he said, adding, “It’s not like you can hide the location.”
Mahmood said he didn’t have a comment on the process concerns that had been raised at the HAHC meeting the previous day: “The process is what it is. If the powers that be feel that the process needs improvement, fine — they should improve it.”
They should. This case illustrates why.
Moss’ point about her fight on street parking restrictions is a salient one. As she said, she had to put in a fair amount of effort in pursuit of that goal and talk to all of her neighbors individually. As a result, she was able to achieve the change she sought in her neighborhood; she also did so without leaving anyone feeling unheard or causing conflicts between neighbors that may fester for some time.
That’s the kind of process that shows respect for the integrity of a neighborhood, as well as one’s neighbors — and the kind of process Houstonians should insist on in order to genuinely preserve and honor our history.