The Coronado City Council deliberated for just under 2 hours on Nov. 21 regarding the process to determine whether a person’s property is a historic home and approved a draft proposal that will include further community input.
At issue was the city’s “historic context statement” that provides a framework for determining the relative significance of properties and evaluating their eligibility for landmark designation, according to categories assigned by the National Park Service and California’s State Office of Historic Preservation, according to a staff report.
Studies conducted by city staff found that there were three tiers of homes in Coronado that fell under the historic context statement.
These findings sparked strong feelings during the public comment portion of the meeting.
“The context statement’s analysis of potential historic districts in Coronado is misleading,” said Vickie Stone, curator of collections at the Coronado Historical Association. “The survey exclusively examines the architectural aspects of a property, neglecting the broader historical context and significance of these homes.”
Tiers of historic homes
The survey was broken into three tiers:
Tier 1 were properties that were potentially eligible for city designation under Coronado’s Historic Designation Criteria Guidelines (Criterion C) that requires a property to possess distinctive characteristics of an architectural style, and to have not been substantially altered.
Tier 2 properties retain aspects of a particular architectural style but lack the integrity or distinction for designation under Criterion C.
Tier 3 properties are heavily altered properties that retain little to no elements of a particular architectural style and have no potential for eligibility under Criterion C.
Although some public commenters showed support for the survey, there were many who asked the council to not eliminate any property, such as the 1,698 properties that were identified as Tier 3 locations.
“There are homes that have been designated that haven’t met the architectural criteria, but it seems to me there should be maybe a little more thought and maybe just some different ideas brought up before this is put into place,” said Coronado resident and architect Kevin Rugee.
Additional feedback from public
After council deliberation, Mayor Richard Bailey and Councilmembers Carrie Anne Downey, John Duncan and Mike Donovan voted to notify all residents regarding the three tiers of historical inclusion while asking the public for additional feedback on whether to move properties from Tier 3 to either Tier 1 or 2.
Further, the city would notify community members about additional decisions regarding their homes.
Councilmember Casey Tanaka voted against the plan.
“People that move here and buy here, have the right to expect that the city and historic homes aren’t going to be easily torn down, and there is going to be some kind of objective review process,” Tanaka said. “I don’t think this current process is broken…I would rather keep the systems that we have in place because they’ll have fewer mistakes with historic homes being taken down.”
