1634 Ionia - owner requested demolition

[JaxUnicorn]

So this guy kind of just moved here from Philadelphia, and bought some redevelopment property on 7th street?  Then just decided to purchase and knock down a property in order to get rid of an eyesore?

wow.

Stephen, that about sums it up.  And he will be presenting another new construction build on E 7th at today's meeting.  This man is a developer which means he has the unique ability to restore these old gals for less than a non-developer could.  He just has to WANT to restore her.

[JaxUnicorn]

So this guy kind of just moved here from Philadelphia, and bought some redevelopment property on 7th street?  Then just decided to purchase and knock down a property in order to get rid of an eyesore?

wow.

Stephen, that about sums it up.  And he will be presenting another new construction build on E 7th at today's meeting.  This man is a developer which means he has the unique ability to restore these old gals for less than a non-developer could.  He just has to WANT to restore her.

and he knew for a fact that the property was historic when he bought it.

And no less than Wayne Wood has spoken on behalf of the structure?

Yes, he knew for a FACT that it was historic.  He's been building his new primary home for a year right behind it.

Yes, Wayne Wood spoke on behalf of the structure at the August HPC meeting.  As did many others, including myself.

[CCMjax]

At the August 26, 2015 meeting, the Historic Preservation Commission deferred the decision on the owner's demolition request to provide them time to gather additional evidence to support their request.  The September HPC packet has been published and there is nothing new relative to this structure.  Was additional evidence obtained, and if so, why was it not provided to Historic Planning in time to be included in the meeting book?

The day after the August HPC meeting I received a phone call from Tamara Baker with Baker Klein Engineering.  She wanted to know why Preservation SOS spoke against the demolition when her letter stated it needed to be demolished.  i asked her if she went upstairs during her inspection on July 1st.  Her answer was, "No" and I was shocked.  I shared with her that I have been inside this property and walked the ENTIRE structure and believe it is structurally stable.  At that point she asked if I would tour the property with her so that we could each expand on our views to the other.  We toured this structure on Thursday, September 3rd. 

I have a lot of respect for Tamara, the degree she holds, and her tireless work to improve our historic Springfield neighborhood.  She and I left the property agreeing to disagree on the suitability for restoration of this historic structure; I did not change her mind and she didn't change mine.  In this case, I believe she is wrong.  I believe this historic structure is suitable for restoration and should not be destroyed.

SAVE THE HOUSES!
EVEN THE UGLY, DAMAGED AND BURNED ONES.
THEY ALL MATTER!!!

I am also a structural engineer and am curious what the reasons were behind her conclusions.  Was there any report submitted?  I would assume it is not available to the public if so.  Can you give any more information on what the issues were that she saw?

CCMjax and others interested, the updated engineer report can be found on Preservation SOS' forum at this link:
http://forum.preservationsos.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=119&start=10#p17741

Please take a look.  I'd love to hear your opinion.  The meeting on this historic structure starts at 3:00 today.

Also take a peek at the photographs I provided at the August meeting.  They can be found here: 
http://forum.preservationsos.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=119&sid=ba563a3fe2eb6260cae1822249fc453d#p17685

I read the report and Baker is saying it is unsafe in its current state, which after reading the report and looking at the photos I would probably agree.  A site visit by any licensed engineer would probably yield the same conclusion.  She states renovation is pointless due to the extent of the damage.  That probably means from her observations every structural element requires reinforcing and that may be the case even for areas not damaged if they need to be brought up to current code.  A reinforcing plan would have to be done to get an idea of cost.  It would probably include doubling up every stud, rafter, beam, post, etc and reinforcing the foundation elements.  Sounds expensive but it looks like y'all have done that at other damaged properties.

[vicupstate]

I really don't think 'safe/unsafe' it the proper determination to be made.  If there is one nail exposed, it is technically unsafe, but that hardly justifies demolition.  The determination should be based on salvageable or unsalvageable.  It also should take into account whether the owner was negligent in allowing it to BECOME unsalvageable in the first place.   

For what it is worth, take a look at the Charleston house in the attachment. Clearly it is distressed but is being fully renovated.   

http://www.charleston-sc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/09232015-1623

See pg. 162-167 for pictures of the house in question. Pages 168-173 for drawings of what it will look like renovated. 

[sheclown]

Historic Preservation Commission just approved the demolition request.

Once again, the HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION is siding with developers over preservation. 

Anyone remember how they paved the way for Mack Bissett to orchestrate policies that decimated the historic district?

If only we could RESPECT the fact that it is a HISTORIC DISTRICT.

Jennifer Mansfield was the only hold out.

[strider]

In my 15 years experience as a contractor in Historic Springfield, I can tell you that a complete house evaluation by a professional engineer is seldom accurate.  It is not that they are bad people or that they are incompetent, it is, I believe, because they seem to only see the houses in black and white while these old ladies are very, very grey.

This same engineering firm recently told a client that a house was never built to support a clay tile roof and that the garage needed to be re-framed to handle the clay tile roof it has. This potentially either chased off a prospective buyer due to possible added costs or insured a lost historical feature would never be returned to the house.  The facts are that the main house had a tile roof for over 80 years and the garage is in great shape and has been supporting it's roof just fine for the last 100 plus years or so since it had been built.  I'm sure it was not purposefully deceptive but rather that the engineer failed to understand the strength of the old materials and how the construction was done then.

We had an engineer do the load calculations on a large old beam on a Springfield project. As it turned out, even with 30% or so of the beam eaten away, it was still more than double the strength needed to do it's job. That saved a lot of work and money for the client.  Unfortunately, the engineer also told the client that all of the stucco would have to be removed, the structure totally sheathed and the stucco done to current code.  The former shows the value of a professional engineer but the latter shows that they do not understand the codes that deal with the historic structures. There is no requirement to bring a historic structure to 100% of current code.

In this last report for the house Ionia, the wrong codes are being quoted.  While the codes would be applicable to a house NOT a contributing structure within a historic district, they are not applicable to this house. The writer of this report needs to do some more homework and find the codes that actually apply here.  She can start with 501 (601 in the 2014 version) and read what it has to say about what you need to do if a historic structure is considered "dangerous". 

But, as I have just been informed that this demolition passed, I have to say hurrah!  Now I do not have to worry about that concept that the HPC can tell a client they must put back a expensive historic feature or not use the less expensive window or door because they no longer have any credibility as a preservation commission. You can not tell a home owner it is fine to demolish a house because it is too expensive to make right ("too far gone") and turn around and tell a client he must spend thousands more to install the "right windows" or that clay tile roof that only costs three to four times a regular old roof does ($30K more).

I'm glad to see we are back to whatever a developer may want, professional engineers always write very accurate reports when they are hired expressly to get a house demolished and that staff agrees that demolition is OK again.  Let's keep up with the current one contributing structure every month demolished since we have been a historic district.   Heck, half the people here didn't even know Ionia was part of the historic district so why worry that it is heading for a 45% loss of historic housing stock.  We need more empty lots.  After all, we only have about 200 of them now and at four or five new houses built a year, we'll run out of them before we know it.

Years ago, a developer/ savor of Historic Springfield said the way to save a historic district is to demolish all the ugly old houses and build new ones.  And the last Springfield resident that was on the HPC said about ten years ago that all the house worth rehabbing had been done already.  Happy days are here again!

Sometimes it is just so hard to remember that a Historic District exists as does the HPC to preserve and protect the houses for future generations.

[CCMjax]

In my 15 years experience as a contractor in Historic Springfield, I can tell you that a complete house evaluation by a professional engineer is seldom accurate.  It is not that they are bad people or that they are incompetent, it is, I believe, because they seem to only see the houses in black and white while these old ladies are very, very grey.

You are making a pretty bold blanket statement about all professional engineers and if you feel they don't have a good handle on historic homes maybe you are dealing with the wrong engineers.  If you feel you are right and the engineer is wrong you can always get a second or third opinion from another engineer.  The reports are seldom accurate?  How do you know they are not accurate?  Have you done analysis yourself to find they are wrong?  Look I don't necessarily agree with her conclusion that it is pointless to repair the house because I don't think that's her place as an engineer to make that call, and pretty much anything that is still standing with most of the framing in place is repairable, it's just a matter of cost.  There are other creative solutions as well.  But to make a statement that we engineers are naive and only see things in black and white and aren't very accurate in our analysis and reporting is very very naive in itself my friend.  I haven't been to the house and walked through it but typically evaluation reports include methods of investigation, findings from investigation, analysis performed, results from structural analysis and conclusions.  If repairs are required there is usually a general description of a repair plan or plans, maybe several options but not too in depth unless the engineer is hired to do a comprehensive repair plan (which many times is the next step).  That is what was lacking from hers, not sure why, she just said repairs would be too expensive (usually the client determines that).  I've written reports describing general repair options that were cheap, moderately expensive and up to very very expensive that we knew the owner would not do but we still typically include all the options.  If you're not getting these kind of reports that are detailed and helpful and make sense even if it is something you don't want to hear (and especially if you the contractor are finding errors in their reports) then I suggest you find new engineers to work with.

This same engineering firm recently told a client that a house was never built to support a clay tile roof and that the garage needed to be re-framed to handle the clay tile roof it has. This potentially either chased off a prospective buyer due to possible added costs or insured a lost historical feature would never be returned to the house.  The facts are that the main house had a tile roof for over 80 years and the garage is in great shape and has been supporting it's roof just fine for the last 100 plus years or so since it had been built.  I'm sure it was not purposefully deceptive but rather that the engineer failed to understand the strength of the old materials and how the construction was done then.

Again, if you think they don't understand the materials they are dealing with then find new engineers.  That should not be a problem with a good experienced engineer.  I'm not sure from what you stated why they were even looking at the roof unless there was a change of use or it was proposed to support additional loads so I can't really comment on that.

We had an engineer do the load calculations on a large old beam on a Springfield project. As it turned out, even with 30% or so of the beam eaten away, it was still more than double the strength needed to do it's job. That saved a lot of work and money for the client.  Unfortunately, the engineer also told the client that all of the stucco would have to be removed, the structure totally sheathed and the stucco done to current code.  The former shows the value of a professional engineer but the latter shows that they do not understand the codes that deal with the historic structures. There is no requirement to bring a historic structure to 100% of current code.

Was the stucco in poor condition?  Was it unsafe, ie cracking, spalling dangerously so that it could potentially be a hazard and he had to raise the flag?  If it wasn't I'm not sure why a structural engineer was even commenting on the stucco since that is not a structural element.  It is part of the building envelope that is typically handled by an architect.  But again, you mention with absolute certainty that we engineers know nothing about codes that deal with historic structures.  That is part of the engineer's job to be, or become, familiar with these codes so if the ones you are working with are not, FIND NEW ENGINEERS!!!  The good ones may be a little more expensive (because they are busy and clients keep hiring and re-hiring them, because they are good) but in the end typically worth it.


I'm glad to see we are back to whatever a developer may want, professional engineers always write very accurate reports when they are hired expressly to get a house demolished and that staff agrees that demolition is OK again. 

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that we formulate our results and professional opinions based on client desires but if so that is not true in the slightest for us responsible engineers abiding by the code of ethics.  You can get your license taken away for that sort of unethical practice and do you know how hard it is to get it back?  Sure there are some bad apples but I've never knowingly come across any that just come to their evaluation of existing structures conclusions based on what the client wants to hear.  That is very bad practice and will get you in trouble.

My conclusion . . . you need to find new engineers to work with if you think they are not accurate and are misleading yourself and your clients.  Keep in mind, licensed engineers study engineering for 4 years, typically 5 at the undergraduate level, then typically a master's degree, they have to pass the 8 hour long FE exam which covers every aspect of engineering you learn at the undergraduate level, you then have to practice for 4 years minimum as a structural engineer under a licensed structural engineer in order to take the PE exam to get your license.  The PE used to be 8 hours but is now essentially the same thing as the old SE exam and is two days and 16 hours long and has somewhere around a 25% passing rate for first time takers depending on which sections you're taking.  I have worked with Ivy League graduates who have failed it multiple times, some who have never passed.  The old structural PE was easier but still an immense amount of information to know and no easy task.  My point is, it is difficult and is a long process to become a licensed structural engineer so most of them are a little bit more than some community college grad living with their parents that somehow found themselves evaluating historic homes.  There are many good engineers out there that are plenty smart enough figure out what needs to be done to an existing building whether it's repairs or nothing at all so shop around and go back to the ones that you feel do a good, complete and accurate job.

[mbwright]

Another senseless demo.  SOS would save it, but not given the opportunity.  Why can't he just buy up an existing vacant lot?  There are plenty to choose from.  These engineers do not appear to be qualified to evaluate historic homes.

[CCMjax]

Another senseless demo.  SOS would save it, but not given the opportunity.  Why can't he just buy up an existing vacant lot?  There are plenty to choose from.  These engineers do not appear to be qualified to evaluate historic homes.

Baker Klein is qualified to do this work.  Not sure what happened on this one, if they were overly conservative or justified in their conclusions.  Can't really get the whole story from just the photos for those of us who haven't been in the home. 

[JaxUnicorn]

CCMjax, thanks for your response.  I believe you make good points.  There was no real report provided.  There was no testing conducted (I was present during the engineer's 2nd inspection).  There was no structural assessment conducted at all.  The letter is written as though the author is the owner who wants to tear the building down. 

Further detailed analysis and accurate design value determination for a scenario similar to this structure (and the amount of structure anticipated to remain) is not typically feasible or practical for any individual to hire someone to calculate, unless there are un-limited funds available or the owner has the experience and knowledge to do it themselves.  Therefore, in general, the public typically relies upon an educated and experienced professional to provide their personal opinion of the structure without detailed and investigative analysis, calculation, or detailing.  I believe this letter/report clearly provides to the commission Baker Klein's opinion of the condition of the main gravity and lateral load-resistance systems.

In fact, she said to me during our inspection, "If the owner wants to pay me to do a structural analysis on it, I might, I might not.  At this point he probably needs to find somebody else."  I relayed this to the HPC commissioners as an admission that a full analysis was not done and they ignored it.  Last night was a tremendous disappointment by body appointed to protect our historic fabric.  Jennifer Mansfield was the only one who voted NAY.  Perhaps it's time to put folks on this commission that will do the job they were appointed to do.

CCMjax, if Preservation SOS is afforded the opportunity to assess this structure, would you be willing to do that? 

[JaxUnicorn]

Preservation SOS is currently considering an appeal of the HPC's decision to allow the demolition of this Springfield contributing structure. 

[sheclown]

from Facebook:

Terry Whisler:   After nearly two years of no demolitions, this was a truly sad and procedurally sloppy capitulation by the Commission. I will not say every house in the District must be preserved. But this one did not meet any reasonable standard of inquiry on the part of the Commission, who has vast authority to require very detailed supporting information. Chpt 307 stipulates that the Commission shall make no decision that imposes undue financial hardship on an owner. However, no substantive demonstration of structural failure was made by our local Baker Engineering hit team. Testimony of local contractors experienced in renovation of these homes was ignored in preference to a single contractor from somewhere in South Florida who provided an inflated estimate of the cost. No real estate appraisal of renovated value was sought by the Commission. Baker's hit piece was allowed at the meeting without review by citizens in opposition to the request, (constituting a Sunshine Law violation I believe), much less meaningful review by staff or Commission members. No hearing was held on the three required points ..."First, the Commission shall determine if the owner would be entitled to a certificate of appropriateness [for demolition] without consideration of undue economic hardship [No] Second, the Commission shall determine whether the owner demonstrated an undue economic hardship ..." Houses in far worse shape have been economically renovated in far less favorable economic climates. This Commission has just mapped the pathway for any and all vulture investors to tear down the fabric of our community, and suck up the benefit of our investments even as they diminish them.

[sheclown]

The owner circulated this petition:



A direct threat to historic properties which are in need of renovation.

[whislert]

To CCMJax:  If you'd read the thread you'd understand that "the developer" got exactly what they paid for, which was a declaration that demolishing the house was the only logical option. Maybe they really believed it. Strider's point was that the Commission failed its obligation the the District and its mission by accepting an engineer's letter of opinion that lacked credibility. Rather than balance that letter against the opposite opinion of professional contractors who know the characteristics of the old houses and the applicable code, they blindly accepted an engineer's opinion despite its obvious ignorance on these matters. The Commission has authority to require very detailed information when it comes to a claim that demolition is an appropriate fate for an historic home. This Commission failed in its duty and has created a blueprint for speculative demolition of the District to recommence. Shame on them.

[CCMjax]

To CCMJax:  If you'd read the thread you'd understand that "the developer" got exactly what they paid for, which was a declaration that demolishing the house was the only logical option. Maybe they really believed it. Strider's point was that the Commission failed its obligation the the District and its mission by accepting an engineer's letter of opinion that lacked credibility. Rather than balance that letter against the opposite opinion of professional contractors who know the characteristics of the old houses and the applicable code, they blindly accepted an engineer's opinion despite its obvious ignorance on these matters. The Commission has authority to require very detailed information when it comes to a claim that demolition is an appropriate fate for an historic home. This Commission failed in its duty and has created a blueprint for speculative demolition of the District to recommence. Shame on them.

The owner paid a small fee and got a small fee response from the engineer from the looks of it, just so happened that the response heavily favored what he was hoping for, although the letter (not really a report) did have an odd tone to it coming from an engineer and I thought made suggestions that aren't really up to the engineer.  A more detailed analysis could have been done but at an additional cost which is where the commission I guess would come in to require the owner to do.  What I stated before was that I agree there should have been a more detailed description of potential repair options without going too in depth so the commission, owner and others could understand what it would take to bring it to a safe condition.