Your Home Is Your Castle. Really.
Historic Landmark Meeting Set For Sept. 13
By Neil Funsch
As summer draws to its end the efforts of the local Historical Park Hill Landmark Committee have also been cooking along.
The main focus of effort has been the continuing outreach to all residents in the district to educate and get their input.
The district covers 32 blocks, from Colorado Boulevard to the east side of Dahlia, and from the north side of Montview Boulevard to 26th Avenue.
Support for preservation is currently running about 63 percent for designation, 13 percent opposed and 24 percent undecided to grant Landmark status to the district.
The status would impose guidelines on the type of development allowed and generally involves changes to the exteriors of existing buildings, which require a permit. A full description of the process and guidelines are available at www.historicparkhill.org.
Denver Councilman Chris Herndon is hosting a community meeting to address the important issue of local landmark designation. The meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 13 at the McAuliffe School Auditorium, at 26th and Holly Street.
In this election year we are reminded of the diversity of opinions and interests that exist in our nation at large. The community meeting will be an excellent opportunity to get questions answered and fashion positions based not upon fear or rumor, but an understanding of the facts concerning the future of our neighborhood.
For some the choice appears easy. For others the tradeoffs involved make for a difficult decision.
Why here? Why now?
During the past year a few questions have continued to be raised. I’ll address them here.
Some have asked, why has this area been chosen?
Park Hill is a huge area. The District in question is 32 square blocks and is the original subdivision of Park Hill. It now comprises just 1/12th of the total neighborhood that is Greater Park Hill. Even so it would be the largest area in the Denver Designated Landmark system, with 700 homes.
The district has already been inventoried in 2004 for National Historic Designation, so much of the staggering job of collecting and organizing data has already been done and can be used for this process. It includes an excellent representative cross section of Park Hill homes – ranging from tiny 635 square-foot cottages to two 7,000-plus square-foot mansions. The median home size is 2,500 square feet. Only 7.5 percent of the homes are larger than 4,000 square feet and only 40 of the homes are on Montview Boulevard.
In short it is diverse, representative, pristine and the most manageable area to start the landmark designation process. Each subsequent area of Park Hill would have to do its own independent proposal, which would have to stand on its individual merits.
Diversity vs the Million Dollar Box
An argument has been made against landmark designation that a centerpiece of the vibrancy of Park Hill is that young families who have bought smaller homes could then expand them as their families grew. Added restrictions would make it more expensive and more difficult to expand their houses. These young families would thus be “financially excluded” and choose to purchase somewhere else, and Park Hill will suffer for their loss.
My response? Common sense would argue otherwise. If all the smaller houses were scraped or “improved” by just 750 square feet, at a conservative figure of $350 per square foot, the addition would add $262,500 to the price of that home. If the base home were an affordable $375,000, the young families’ new price tag would be a daunting $637,500.
Currently 23 percent of the homes have a combined above grade and finished basement of less than 2,000 square-feet. Many of these homes are a modest 1,000 to 1,200 square-foot main floor with a 500 to 800 square-foot finished basement. Perhaps a better strategy to maintain diversity is to protect the smaller homes in the district from conversion into a million dollar box.
The cost of your tenure
I‘ve always felt that my home is my castle. Little did I know how apt that metaphor is. It seems property rights as they evolved in the U.S. colonies originated in Mother Country England, where all property was owned by the king and transferred under feudal relationships based upon mutual obligations. You could be granted land that came with a bundle of rights and all sorts of obligations and conditions.
For instance you might have the right to live there but not cut down any of the king’s trees. You might have to fight or provide armed men to the crown, and of course there were always the taxes. Those rights were called the tenure of ownership. You could sell some of the property rights and hold some back for yourself. All of this could get exceedingly complex.
In the colonies things were simpler. Only one form of tenure was permitted, termed free and common socage. This bundle of rights was perpetual, alienable, inheritable and you could cut down your trees, etc. But your ownership was still conditional. Simply put the cost of your tenure was – you guessed it – you had to pay your taxes.
With the passage of time and the increasing demands and complexities of society, other restrictions have also been put on your property. The mineral and air rights belong to someone else. The government has the right to regulate your land usage with zoning limits, building permits and environmental protection laws.
In short, it has been a long time since we were free to do whatever we wanted with our properties. In the present context you and your neighbor’s rights to not have some developer come in and build a McMansion next door, blocking your sun and invading the privacy of your backyard, will be protected.
Come to the village meeting and get the facts. As our forefathers might have said … No development without representation!
Neil Funsch has been a mortgage broker for 21 years, the last eight in Park Hill. He is a member of the Historic Park Hill Committee and can be reached at 303-229-2684 or neil.funsch@gmail.com. Editor’s note: For more on Park Hill’s proposed Historic Landmark, check out past issues of the newspaper, at greaterparkhill.org.