Throughout much of the process involving tweaking the demolition delay ordinance to better facilitate the preservation of historically significant properties, much has been made of the time and age parts of the issue. The time being, what is right amount of time it should take someone to decide to tear down a building and actually roll up the wrecking ball. The age being how old does something have to be in order to be considered historically significant?

While the ordinance committee treads water, the arguments in favor of, or really in opposition of, never really get fleshed out. Let’s start with time. The Demolition Delay ordinance is essentially a time out period which states, unequivocally that there is a time period that the wrecking ball can’t start work. Strangely, unless someone was intent on demolishing buildings to create open lots, the flip end of the process is the permit to build something. And that permit takes time to get. I don’t think anyone goes around suggesting that the time period for building is such an onerous process. In fact, it sometimes includes things like public hearings and gasp public comment.

I think the onus is on the city to modernize its various departments so that the anyone can come into city hall and pull up all records for a property with a simple search. I’d further say they should be able to do it through the magic of the Internet, but I’ll try not get to far ahead of myself here.

Meanwhile there’s the age issue. The hue and cry over a 50 year criteria set off all sorts of dire predicaments that people wouldn’t be able to demolish their 2 bedroom cape because of this. Age of course, is one of many criteria used to define historically significant, and not the sole criteria. There is still a vast misperception that every property in Norwalk would be subjected to a delay. The argument rests on the language of the existing ordinance which can in fact be interpreted that way. But that’s what lawyers, or those that play them on TV, argue about, interpretation of language. And too often political flunkies get mired in the spirit of the interpretation of language argument instead of the intent of what everyone wants to accomplish. The age criteria serves as a guideline of when to start looking to see if a building might be historically significant. The last 50 years represents the dawn of the Computer age, and someone should be concerned that the Norwalk history in the history of Computing be preserved. 100 years ago, Norwalkers were proud of the revolutionary era history, and sought to preserve and erect monuments. Our generation must add to that legacy.

The old adage, the devil is in the details is always the crucible of policy. It is interesting that Kelly Straniti is floating the idea that the Common Council be a part of the process of arbritrating historical significance. I’d be more concerned that the common council actually recommended/voted on people with historical expertise to the historical commission, but that’s just me. Perhaps this a way of saying that perhaps there’s a lack of qualified expertise on the commission these days?

source: The Hour, City mulls updating historic inventory; Norwalk Preservation Trust says last inventory of historic homes performed more than 30 years ago By ROBERT KOCH, January 16, 2008