Historic Lafayette Park, Tallahassee, Florida

Mr. Michael Hines sent the City Planning notice with this email to several interested neighborhood residents. I encourage everyone who has any interest in preventing a repeat/reactivation of what happened to us in Lafayette Park to get involved, and provide comments to the City, the LRTI committee and come to the meeting and provide comments there on January 19, 2011:

PUBLIC OPEN HOUSE HISTORIC PRESERVATION DISTRICTS:

The attached Notice appeared in the Legal Notices Page of the Tallahassee Democrat today, Sunday, 09 January 2011. There has been no other notice formal or informal to my knowledge.

This Public Meeting was requested by the Long Range Target Issues Committee of the Tallahassee City Commission. Commissioner Mark Mustian is the lead commissioner and Mayor John Marks is the other member of the LRTI. It is my understanding the Planning Director Wayne Tedder will be lead staff person in this process supported by the City Attorney's Office, the Architectural Review Board and the Tallahassee Trust For Historical Preservation and the Tallahassee Trust Officer Mr. Michael Wing. It is important to note, that the information furnished to me is that Mr. Tedder is in charge of this effort and will be supported and advised only by the other parties. This is the first formal step in the review and rewrite (amendments) to the City of Tallahassee Land Development Code revising the current process for designating Historic Preservation Districts located in the City of Tallahassee. I would urge each of you to attend this Open House and provide any input that you feel appropriate from lessons learned in the recent Lafayette Park HPO soundly rejected by the residents and property owners of the Lafayette Park Neighborhood. This is your opportunity to explain to the lead participants the fundamental changes required to the Code, the Process, the Procedures and the Governmental Structure (ARB, Trust For Historical Preservation, Planning Commission) to put in place a fair, transparent, inclusive and constitutionally sound Historical Preservation Ordinance that will recognize appropriately vetted HPO requests that have followed a strict regulated process of public and property owner awareness and education and that also has built in due process protections for private property owners.

I will be submitting a letter to Planning Director Wayne Tedder, Mayor John Marks and Commissioner Mark Mustian summarizing the recommendations that have been previously made to the City of Tallahassee to amend the City of Tallahassee Land Development Code, restructure the membership of the Architectural Review Board and the Tallahassee/Leon County Planning Commission, mandate a formal vote of all property owners within a proposed district where the proposal imposes conditions of use on an area through the historic district or overlay process, unambiguous requirement that a unanimous or super-majority vote of property owners affected must by recorded before proceeding with nominations and that each parcel within the proposed district must be included in the ballot and must be allocated one vote. (One parcel/One vote Ballot).
The letter will also include recommendations for the makeup, balance and transparency of the Historical Preservation Committee to be appointed following the Public Workshop. In this list of recommendations will be a request that any and all pending Nominations and HPO zoning requests should be dismissed with prejudice and if a new application is formulated and submitted it must begin anew and be vetted under a lawful and rational process to be determined and developed by the aforementioned Historical Preservation Revision Committee.

The input that I provide will be to insure that the end result of this process will be acceptable to the vast majority of the citizens and property owners of this community and that any lingering doubts about the fairness, integrity and transparency ot the City's previous handling of these matters can be laid to rest.

Please let me have any comments you may like me to have and direct any written comments or recommendations to Planning Director Wayne Tedder at Wayne.Tedder@talgov.com or 300 South Adams Street, City Hall, Tallahassee, Florida 32301.

I have had the personal assurances of Mr. Tedder and Assistant City Manager Jay Townsend that this process will be open, fair, balanced and not come under the influence or control of any singular advocacy group.
TMH/dba
T. Michael Hines
E-mail: t.michaelhines@embarqmail.com