ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512060036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
Four years after preservation efforts started, Roanoke's oldest neighborhood may become the city's second residential historic district.
City planners have recommended that a two-block section of homes in Gainsboro between St. Andrews Church and the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center be designated a Neighborhood Preservation District.
The recommendation will be taken up by the city Planning Commission today.
"We're very pleased and excited," said Evelyn Bethel, president of Historic Gainsboro Preservation District Inc., a neighborhood organization that has lobbied for the designation for four years.
"Official historic designation will indicate to everyone the true significance of this area," she added. "Hopefully, it will be used to encourage the rebuilding of this neighborhood like the Old Southwest area" - the city's first residential historic district.
The district would encompass a small residential community on the south side of Patton Avenue east of Jefferson Street and both sides of Gilmer Avenue east of Jefferson, as well as the east side of Jefferson between Wells Avenue and Patton.
The blocks contain 65 mostly residential lots. Included within the proposed historic district is the old First Baptist Church, which was destroyed by a fire set by two youths earlier this year, and the city library at Patton and Gainsboro Road.
If the Planning Commission and City Council approve the recommendation, the historic zone would be in place early next year.
"What is left, we hope, will be cherished and revitalized - as a residential community, I hasten to add," Bethel said.
A preservation district offers a number of advantages to property owners. One is a 10-year moratorium on tax increases that result from major residential improvements.
To be eligible for the moratorium, owners must spend at least 40 percent of a home's assessed value on improvements. That means the owner of a home assessed at $20,000 would have to put at least $8,000 into renovation.
Assessments on the homes in the proposed district range from $8,000 to $49,000, according to records in the city assessor's office.
For a commercial property to be eligible for the moratorium, an owner must invest 60 percent of its value in rehabilitation.
Another advantage is home appreciation. A statewide study published this year by the Preservation Alliance of Virginia found that, in general, property values in neighborhood preservation districts around the state rose significantly faster than properties in the same city outside the historic zone.
City Planner Evie Lander said that in recent years, properties in the Old Southwest historic district have appreciated about twice as fast as the average house in Roanoke.
But historic status also brings with it some concerns about property rights.
If the two-block section of Gainsboro is designated a preservation district, property owners would have to receive permission from the City Architectural Review Board for major exterior changes to any building or demolition of existing structures.
Minor changes such as painting or routine maintenance and repairs could be done without first submitting an application to the review board.
"Some people feel like they are having their property rights affected," Lander said. "A lot of people don't like to be told what they can and cannot do with their property."
Bethel and some other residents of the mostly black community began pressing for historic status in 1991. A recommendation actually went before the City Architectural Review Board in the spring of 1992.
That became stalled and took a back seat to other projects in the Gainsboro vicinity, such as the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center; the realignment of Wells Avenue; and plans for reviving Henry Street (now First Street Northwest), a mostly boarded-up block west of the proposed preservation district that was once a thriving cultural and arts center in Roanoke's black community.
Lander said Gainsboro is becoming increasingly vulnerable to unchecked development now that the Hotel Roanoke is open and proposals are on the table for a major redevelopment of Henry Street and a higher education center in an old Norfolk & Western office building adjacent to the hotel.
"Any time that you have an area where you've got a lot of investment around it ... you're going to get people who are interested in speculative development," she said. "That can be good, but you've got to guide it."
For instance, a ranch-style home built on Gilmer within the past five years is out of character with other homes around it.
"It doesn't fit in at all and does not enhance property values," Lander said. "But without [a preservation district] you can't prevent construction like that."
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff.by CNB