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MAY - NATIONAL PRESERVATION MONTH
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Historic Preservation can be a slippery slope. Trying to balance the often times disparate goals of honoring our past, and preserving our Sense of Place while at the same time addressing the demands that development puts on a community, often with good intentions.
Preservation represents a commitment to remembering the past and preparing for a sustainable future.
Why is Historic Preservation important? Historic Preservation has become a fundamental tool for strengthening American communities. It has proven to be an effective tool for a wide range of public goals including small business incubation, affordable housing, sustainable development, neighborhood stabilization, center city revitalization, job creation, promotion of the arts and culture, small town renewal, cultural heritage tourism, economic development, and others.
What are the Benefits of Historic Preservation? There are three main areas that are often evaluated when quantifying the benefits of Historic Preservation:
Environmental Benefits - Historic Preservation is a Sustainable Practice
Cultural Benefits - Historic Preservation is the visual and tangible conservation of our cultural identity, our Sense of Place.
Economic Benefits - Recent studies of the economic and public benefits of Historic Preservation have revealed that it is a powerful tool in sustaining local economy, creating jobs, and even generating capital. Historic Preservation can increase property values, create jobs and tax revenue for communities through Cultural Heritage Tourism.
Best regards,
David Shearer Executive Director Our goal is to keep Claremont's history alive and honor the past and our unique sense of place to inspire and inform future generations.
Judy Wright to be Honored
Wednesday, May 18th at 3:30 pm | Historic Sante Fe Depot | 150 West First Street
Known to many as "Mrs. Claremont", Claremont historian, Judy Wright will be honored with the dedication of a commemorative plaque to acknowledge her many contributions to our community. Judy Wright spent more than a decade on the City Council, served as Mayor in the 1980's and helped found Claremont Heritage. Judy wrote two books about the city - "Claremont: A Pictorial History" and "Claremont Women: 1887 - 1950". Judy who passed away in 2012, will be represented by her husband, Colin Wright. The Depot site is appropriate as it is one of the historic icons in our community that Judy helped to save from possible demolition and will now be occupied by the Claremont Museum of Art.
IN THE NEWS
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin writes about Pomona College Plans
Will Lester/Staff Photographer
Pomona College's desire for a museum splitting the community
Pomona College has requested to change the zone for this property from medium-density residential to institutional/educational. The change is required so it may implement Pomona College's 2015 master plan, which hasn't been approved. The plan includes the construction of a new Museum of Art building on the subject property. To accommodate the new building, the existing cottages on the site would be demolished and Historic Renwick House would be moved to a site diagonally across the intersection at College Avenue and Second Street.
Historic Preservation
HISTORIC PRESERVATION = SUSTAINABILITY + CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM
Living in a city that has taken care to preserve its architectural legacy is a wonderful gift until it is challenged. We have seen over the years the potential effect that development might bring to our town. If the old Santa Fe Depot or College Heights Packing House had been torn down as was once proposed, our city would lack some of the historic fabric that makes it so wonderful!
Join Claremont Heritage in celebrating our 2016 Theme - Claremont Matters! By preserving our historic structures and neighborhoods, we attract visitors who will positively impact our community economically through Cultural Heritage Tourism! Just ask any Village merchant.
Preservation represents a commitment to remembering the past and preparing for a sustainable future.
The benefits of historic preservation are often overlooked because they come to societies as a whole over time rather than directly and immediately benefiting a developer or property owner. Preservation of historic properties demonstrates long-term vision by preserving irreplaceable cultural resources and promoting sustainability practices by conserving our limited environmental resources.
Environmental Benefits
On its most basic level, the practice of historic preservation is the practice of conserving resources. Not only do restoration and redevelopment consume less energy than demolition and new construction, but preservation also recovers the worth of past energy investment. Demolition and new construction not only consume present-day energy, but negates and wastes the past (embodied) energy investment made in a building. Preservation is a remarkably effective method of sustainability. Historic buildings are often regarded as energy inefficient in measurement systems that focus solely on annual energy usage. This approach ignores two important factors:
- The annual energy use in an appropriately rehabilitated historic building is not measurable greater than for a new building; and
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Fifteen to thirty times as much energy is used in the construction of a building than its annual operation. For an existing building the energy expended in construction has already been "embodied" in the structure. When the energy consumption analysis is approached from a life cycle perspective wherein both the energy needed to construct the building as well as annual energy usage is included, the energy inefficiency claim against historic buildings largely disappears.
Cultural Benefits
Architecture is a direct and substantial representation of history and "Sense of Place". By preserving historic structures, we are able to share the very spaces and environments in which the generations before us lived. Historic preservation is the visual and tangible conservation of cultural identity.
Architecture is one aspect of our heritage with which we can interact and adapt. Some buildings have specific historic context and must be meticulously and exactly preserved. Most buildings, however, must be lived in, interacted with and maintained by the public. These buildings change with us, thus recording a piece of each generation's story. We have an obligation to respect this community resource and preserve it for future generations. Preservation works within the established history and location of cities and towns to build on the rich culture already at hand.
In addition to solidifying a community's past, preservation can help strengthen a community's future. Historic buildings help create vibrant, cultural downtown's that draw tourism, art, festivals, and other activities which in turn draw investment, revenue, and economic growth. A dynamic historic downtown can be the centerpiece of community life: a place to shop, invest, create and live. Simultaneously, preservation can be a tool to boost economy and quality of life.
Local residents benefit through interpretive components such as learning and recreational activities that complement an historic site's didactic offerings and illustrate a special meaning between its past, present and future. The more the community is involved, the more attractive and effective an area will become for locals and visitors.
Economic Benefits
In the past, historic preservation has been considered a luxury practice, but in recent years, research of the economic and public benefits have revealed that it is a powerful tool in sustaining local economy, creating jobs, and even generating capital through Cultural Heritage Tourism.
A number of studies have been conducted throughout the United States in recent years, analyzing the economic benefits of historic preservation on property values. The results, on both state and local levels, have consistently reported that properties in historic districts appreciate significantly faster than comparable properties not located in historic districts. Property values are determined by the sales of property in a given area, and when dealing with historic properties, buyers and sellers must recognize the significance of the historic properties in order for the value to remain high. Studies have given evidence that we, as a society, value those buildings and homes that represent our collective history. These findings make investment in historic properties economically beneficial.
Historic districts do have aesthetic stipulations, but they are not intended to hinder property owners. Bylaws help ensure that the character of the neighborhood remains intact. The stability provided by these standards usually raises property values because investors can be assured that the historic nature of the district will remain intact. According to Donovan D. Rypkema, a scholar in the field of preservation economics, "it has been found that when a local district has the greatest positive impact on property values four variables are usually in place:
- Clear, written design guidelines for the affected properties, usually in the form of a preservation ordinance or historic site recognition
- Preservation staff or consultants to inform the planning department and commissions.
- Active educational outreach by preservation organizations and city staff to property owners, real estate brokers, architects, builders, etc. and
- Consistent and predictable decisions by the city staff, commissions and the City Council."
Our goal is to keep Claremont's history alive and to honor the past and our unique sense of place to inspire and inform future generations.
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