HPO Zoning as a Weapon

The application of historic registration with the Historic Preservation Overlay Rezoning was used to keep student housing out of the Myers Park Neighborhood during the Great Student Housing Nimby War about the year 2001-2002. Here's the story:

Myers Park is a very cute, older neighborhood of small curvy streets lined with gingerbread houses. It's just southeast of the Capitol Complex downtown. There are approximately 125 homes, of which about 100 are "historic". In neighborhoods near Myers Park, a single owner amassed several empty lots over the years, and recognized that Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University was just across Monroe Street from the neighborhood. He designed and built a number of quadraplex hybrid structures which technically qualified under the then-current building code as single-family homes. Student housing began to fill the vacant lots in adjacent neighborhoods south and west of Myers Park.

Outright panic ensued! Student Housing! With the same reckless practicality that would prompt a mother to swing a priceless Ming vase at a rabid dog attacking her child, Myers Park and the City of Tallahassee swept in and struck at the developer with whatever weapon was available.

What was available? Quick! They sprang into action! On the way out the door to do battle, someone in the City grabbed a weapon for the fight that was far more valuable than any Ming vase: a tall standard bearing one of our precious hallmark flags of freedom: Our Property Rights. Without taking the time to think or research or investigate other solutions from thousands of other communities which have met similar threats, the City of Tallahassee used the only law on their books which might work. They may have altered their historic preservation law right then, or it may have been waiting, like a poisonous snake ready to bite unsuspecting persons, I don't know for sure. But a clause is now in that development code which allows anyone to rezone an entire neighborhood without the permission of the occupants or property owners of that neighborhood. The applicant doesn't even have to be from the United States, let alone the City of Tallahassee or from the neighborhood in question....Osama Bin Laden, himself, could send in the application online from the mountains of Pakistan, as long as he certified that he owned so much as "an object" within the neighborhood.

Traditional Old Myers Park was redefined in the application to include the nearby "invaded" neighborhoods. This increased the number of homes to about 230, and the number of "historic" properties to about 150, while roughly quadrupling the area involved. Even the word "historic" underwent a transformation. The newly included tracts were from an entirely different era, by several decades, and had nothing in common, historically or otherwise, with the true original Myers Park. The City forces were acting with a mob mind in the emergency--no room for truth or reason. The application went forward to full ratification with all the zeal of any witch hunt.

This battle was fought in Myers Park, and maybe sort of won on a technicality, although the developer somehow seemed to get all his planned homes built. The citizens of Tallahassee cheered their grand fight, ignoring the precious and badly damaged flag they had used. No one remembered history enough to appreciate the irony of a Phyrric Victory. Look it up.

And, thus was borne, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the City of Tallahassee, Florida, a new (but old) form of government: Tyranny. The few dictating to the many. And, along with this Tyranny, came an addiction that has destroyed so many for so long, and has been the scourge of all people, everywhere: ABSOLUTE POWER! No one can handle it without becoming the first victim to its infection. It is heroin for the soul. No lie is too outrageous, no act is too invasive, no one's rights will stand in the way of its exercise. Power knows no bounds. Like the gold fever that insanely lured tens of thousands across five thousand miles of roadless wilderness to frozen Alaska in the 1800s, the hope of wielding power is luring neighbors to destroy neighbors in Lafayette Park, attempting to crush their private property rights and dictate to them what they may or may not do with their own homes. Power--the insatiable destroyer of civilizations since more than two families shared a campfire a million years ago. Tyrannical Power--the flip side of democracy.

Today, we are watching that same kind of power out of control in Lafayette Park--lets hope it ends better, and Tallahassee can begin the process of recovery from unbridled use of power.