Indianapolis Historic Neighborhoods after Indiana Senate Bill 177 - Authored by Pat Miller - passes.
"I'm sure if we had just appeased her by sacrificing the Historic St. John Church in Cumberland she would have left us alone."
Indiana State Senator Patricia Miller authored Senate Bill 177 that would have the effect of gutting the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission (IHPC). Part of what the IHPC does is enforce the Historic Preservation Plans that neighborhoods themselves establish when 70% of the property owners vote to become a Historic Conservation/Preservation district. The communities set the guidelines and it’s the IHPC that enforces them. It’s why you can’t put vinyl siding on a house in Lockerbie Square, for example.
The opposite of being a an over-reaching bureaucracy, Historic Conservation/Preservation districts provide a great deal of self-determination by a neighborhood, and apparently that doesn't sit well with Mrs. Miller.
Here’s the issue: Homes in a Historic Preservation/Conservation district are valuable in a large part because of the enforcement of their Historic Preservation Plans. Lockerbie Square, the Old North Side, Herron Morton Place, and more recently Irvington, Woodruff Place, Cumberland, etc. would be devastated by this move.
Thanks in part to our state legislature's cozy relationship with the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis (BAGI), there's almost a 50 year excess inventory of homes in the Indianapolis area. Urban neighborhoods have to contend with overbuilding, aging housing stock, bad schools, crime, crumbling infrastructure and vacant and abandoned housing. A Historic Preservation/Conservation district is the one bright spot that makes these neighborhoods work and make it reasonable to invest the large amount of money to restore an old home.
By contrast, any new suburban development comes with covenants and a homeowners’ association that’s often far more strict than these Historic Preservation Plans. I don't see Pat Miller interfering with them.
The poorly conceived legislation has been offered in part because some people have made alterations to their structures in a conservation district without a permit – and then didn't get the forgiveness they expected afterward.
Pat Miller has also said that it’s in response to the battle over the Historic St. John United Church of Christ in Cumberland. It's a high-stakes poker game and this appears to be a shot across the bow for preservationist: If you dare try to save the historic church from being bulldozed so that CVS can put a drugstore right across from Walgreen's she will dismantle everything that we've worked hard for over the last 50 years - no matter what the cost to the city.
The truth is that this isn't the first time Pat Miller has offered legislation to destroy historic neighborhoods in Indianapolis. She will not be appeased by sacrificing St. John's Church.
