At tonight's HPC meetings, Mr. Killingsworth announced a conditional moratorium on all demolitions in Historic Springfield. This may not be able to include those demolitions already let out for bid, but will stop 95 % plus of the demolitions of the houses put onto the formal track.
Mr. Killingsworth said this moratorium is to allow the city and the preservation groups to come up with a plan to mothball these at risk houses. While it may be that Springfield is the pilot program, this is an issue that potentailly effects all of the communities of Jacksonville and so what is done here now will be used to help protect not just the houses in the historic districts but all of the neighborhoods.
Some ideas are to have Board and Secure permits and partnering with a non-profit to mothball and monitor houses.
Thanks must go out to Lisa Sheppard, Joel McEachin and the rest of the Historic Preservation Department for the research and ideas they have helped us with.
A special thanks also to Nicole, Gloria and all the rest of Preservation SOS for the hard work these past few months.
The biggest thanks to Mr. Killingsworth and all those in his departments, including Kimberly Scott, the city council and the Mayors office for not only hearing us, but taking action.
Yeah Springfield!
Sheclown asked me to post something, but she is still at the meeting and I am sure will have more details.
strider...........a hearty "Boo Yah" to all involved! A long time in coming but you and everyone have done their part! Maybe now Johnny will have a Legacy to be proud of and he should take pride in this one!
This is FANTASTIC news!!!
Hurrah!
Good job!
Each of you has good reason to feel proud. You walked the walk and talked the talk. At the end of this day you succeeded in slowing this craziness. Take a bow and then make this program work.
Congrats everyone!
You guys rock!
The work is just beginning. Keep checking in to see what will be needed.....
It was great meeting and talking with Mr. Killingsworth yesterday, and he clearly 'gets' it. I also offer my gratitude to the HPC committee for understanding and working with us. This is indeed, just the beginning of great things for Springfield.
Well, Bill Killingsworth never used the word "moratorium". He did say that code enforcement has agreed to not bring any actions on Springfield properties, except those houses that have been put out to bid.
He was AMAZING tonight.
He spoke about board and secure permits, the benefits to the neighborhood and to the city. He spoke about working to make Springfield a pilot program on mothballing.
He also said we shouldn't demolish buildings "for social reasons." According to him "every effort needs to be made to maintain the historic fabric."
I almost lost it right there in the second row. Cryin' like Nicole.
Haha sheclown. Now you know.
The man is magical, isn't he?
I'm still a bit dumbfounded. But excited as hell.
Holy Crap!!!
Stay of execution on the 139 condemned properties.
Fantastic! Simply amazing!
Progress and full steam ahead. Great job to everyone involved.
Best Wishes,
Scott (your Riverside friend)
Quote from: sheclown on September 22, 2010, 09:32:24 PM
He also said we shouldn't demolish buildings "for social reasons."
Well then, this guy clearly gets the root of the problem and realizes what's been going on.
Bill Killingsworth sounds like a real asset to COJ, as he's the first person involved with Code Enforcement who appears to understand the issues and what's really been going on "behind the scenes" here. Over the past several years, David Roe, Kimberly Scott, and that horrible Greco guy ran around destroying almost a third of a designated historic district by falsely finding that structures were dangerous to public safety and formal-tracking them, often because of SPAR's habit of having it's members man the telephones to call in dozens of bogus C.A.R.E. complaints.
These properties may have been unsightly, with broken windows, peeling paint, or unkpempt yards, but by and large there was little structurally wrong with them. Yet they were routinely labeled structurally unsound and hazards to public safety, and the owners were ordered to immediately "RESTORE OR DEMOLISH" the entire structure in order to regain compliance and stop fines from running, despite it being obvious that the property was not unsound.
When the gentleman on Walnut Street tried to challenge one such finding by having 5 different contractors inspect the property (and all of them said it was structurally sound) Kimberly Scott actually threatened him with legal action, telling him that he had no right to be on his own property or even to allow contractors to look at it in order to refute her findings, because she said so.
These people should have worked with the neighborhood to allow property owners sufficient time to conduct repairs, which with these large old homes is a process that can take many years, not just days or months, and they should have accepted mothballing as a proper substitute for complete renovation. This neighborhood has for the past two decades been slowly overcoming deep-rooted economic and social challenges, and given the circumstances, Code Enforcement should have worked with property owners instead of allowing themselves to be used as a tool for harrassment by the whopping 39 people at SPAR.
Gentrification is not an overnight process, as anyone who remembers Riverside in the 1990's is familiar with. You can't have all these mini-napoleons running around demolishing historic structures for no good reason, or there will be nothing left when the neighborhood finally turns around.
What happened in Springfield is really a travesty. What has been lost is now lost forever. But at least this stops the ongoing damage. So props to Bill Killingsworth for stepping in on this issue, it's been really bad since about 2003 and I'm glad to see it come to an end. I hope, moving forward, that COJ re-trains its Code Enforcement employees that it is not appropriate to take out personal grievances on historic properties, and nor is it appropriate for Code Enforcement to allow itself to be used as a harrassment tool to settle neighborhood politics.
It is also not appropriate for Code Enforcement to be combative and rude with everyone they encounter. They aren't police, and we aren't criminals. Bruce Chauncey is a good example of an effective code inspector, he is impartial, fair, and genial, and works toward a solution without becoming part of the problem.
Chris, there has been a lot of pain inflicted on the residents of Springfield for the last 10 years. I know, I had that particular bull's eye painted on my butt a couple of times.
Code enforcement reacted to what the local preservation organization wanted them to do. Kimberly Scott is not a preservationist -- never claimed to be. What she wants is public safety. If she is told that these buildings are a threat to public safety, her department is going to clean up this town.
But that was yesterday. But that is also how we got into this jam.
Today... there is every indication that code enforcement is going to whole-heartedly follow and even support this plan. There is also every indication that the HPC is going to put its foot down and once again become the protectors of our historic fabric.
We are seeing the seeds of new policies and great leadership. We can't fail.
You nailed it SheClown. It is the right thing to do to preserve our history, but also fiscally responsible. With the economy they way it is, it is also visonary and something the other depts in the city can use as a pilot too. Govt is going to have to start working with the public in partnership to get things done, not only mothballing, but park maitenance, crime watch, the list goes on and on.
Quote from: sheclown on September 23, 2010, 06:55:14 AM
Chris, there has been a lot of pain inflicted on the residents of Springfield for the last 10 years. I know, I had that particular bull's eye painted on my butt a couple of times.
Code enforcement reacted to what the local preservation organization wanted them to do. Kimberly Scott is not a preservationist -- never claimed to be. What she wants is public safety. If she is told that these buildings are a threat to public safety, her department is going to clean up this town.
But that was yesterday. But that is also how we got into this jam.
Today... there is every indication that code enforcement is going to whole-heartedly follow and even support this plan. There is also every indication that the HPC is going to put its foot down and once again become the protectors of our historic fabric.
We are seeing the seeds of new policies and great leadership. We can't fail.
Well, yes, it was literally just yesterday that all this was still going on. Hence my concern.
It is not my intent to dwell in the past. Rather, my concern is that the Code Enforcement process has been so grossly perverted by a variety of irrelevant factors, mainly personality confilicts between individual Code officers and property owners, bogus code complaints, SPAR, etc., that were never relevant to the decision to destroy hundreds of historic properties, that in my mind some kind of re-training on these issues is warranted for the Code officers.
The police realized many years ago that there are a certain subset of people who have personality problems, both in their own ranks and in the general public. They have training in place for their officers on how to conduct themselves professionally with the public, and on how to avoid letting their personal biases or likes or dislikes cloud their professional judgment. Additionally, there are measures for dealing with members of the public who habitually call in false complaints or file false reports in order to use law enforcement as a tool to settle petty personal conflicts.
I doubt any equivalent training or remedial measures are presently available for Code Enforcement, or else this whole debacle would not have happened. Part of the problem here is that the entire C.A.R.E. system is basically an honor-system, which assumes each complaint is valid and Code Enforcement is forced to "close" each complaint by taking some form of action, ranging anywhere from property inspections to citations and fines, regardless of whether or not there is a pattern of harrassing complaints about the same property which were previously investigated. Depending on how badly things go wrong, demolition is sometimes the final result. Additionally, the timelines and methodology that work in Ortega or San Marco do not necessarily work at all in slowly gentrifying areas like Springfield. The current system makes no differentiation, and "one size fits all" does not work in this context.
The biggest problem that contributed to this mess is that there is no method for preventing abuse of the system, or for identifying and flagging bogus repeat complaints. The system lends itself to the rampant abuse that has occurred here, because each new case entered in the system requires investigation, regardless of whether or not similar complaints from the same people have already been investigated. Some property owners faced code inspections every few weeks for years, because of the same complaints getting called in over and over again. SPAR took full advantage of this with its mass code-enforcement call-in campaigns, which tried (and succeeded in many cases) at harrassing people they didn't like out of the neighborhood.
Silas Jones' open letter to COJ is a perfect example, because it includes the C.A.R.E. complaint information showing that a group of SPAR-associated people had called in multiple complaints, and several of them had each called in 3 or 4 separate complaints in a single day. One of them called in 3 separate complaints within the span of 20 minutes. That clearly demonstrates an intent to abuse the system, but C.A.R.E. isn't able to identify that type of pattern, and this flaw allows the City of Jacksonville to be used as a tool for harrassment while shielding the people behind all of the B.S. from any liability.
My concern is that, without some kind of re-training on these basic issues, and without some additional mechanism in the system for dealing with C.A.R.E. complaints that would allow bogus repeat complaints to be identified moving forward, this whole thing may eventually repeat itself. This debacle was not any one person's fault. The whole methodology of the C.A.R.E. system is somewhat flawed, as I've described above, and were it not for these deficiencies these very serious behind-the-scenes problems in Springfield would not have happened.
The system should be a tool to assist well-trained officers in performing their duties. The officers should not be slaves to some computer system that forces them to reinspect the same property again and again, even though the same complaints from the same people were already investigated. COJ would do well to address these deficiencies, so there is not a repeat of this disaster. Just a suggestion, but Code Enforcement could pick up a thing or two from JSO on how to fix these issues with its crrent system. Police departments developed procedures that largely resolved these same problems long ago.
This is such great news. I'm still interested in doing a presentation of befores and afters but have received only a couple of photos. If you own a home that looked pretty ragged or was condemned when you bought it and it has since been restored, I'd love to have the photos. Monica and John are a perfect example. Looking at their home in the state it was before restoration and now would make a believer out of anyone. So please send your photos my way.
@ Chris.
I agree. The system is flawed.
If you call in bogus complaints to DCF, you get yourself in hot water really quickly.
If you call in bogus complaints to INS, same deal.
Same needs to happen here.
After last night's HPC meeting I have such high hopes for the future of Springfield!
Thanks to Gloria, Nicole and others involved with Preservation SOS for all of their efforts. We wouldn't be here without you.
I spoke to Mr. Killingsworth during the meeting. It was my first time meeting him and I was thrilled by his obvious grasp of the issues. When I thanked him, he said something that really summed things up:
"It's the right thing to do."
^ +1
I have a very tiny hand in Preservation SOS but I have still been walking a bit taller today. :) Congratulations to those who stood their ground many times very late into the night at HPC and Council meetings. I believe iloveionia has a nice little saying about persistence.
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
-Calvin Coolidge
Quote from: iloveionia on September 23, 2010, 05:37:32 PM
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
-Calvin Coolidge
+1 - Excellent Quote. My college fraternity requires all pledges to memorize this, as Calvin Coolidge was a Brother in my fraternity
I'm speechless - in a good way. Congrats Springfield, this is VERY good news for you guys.