West Palm Beach: "1926 home razed on weekend without permit"—813 39th Street...an irretrievable loss

Tony Doris at the West Palm Beat has an update to this story. Here is an excerpt from the original article:

     [West Palm Beach] City Commissioner Sylvia Moffett in a letter Tuesday to the Code Compliance Department, Historic Preservation Planner Frederike Mittner and to the magistrate, urged “severe” penalties.
     “When a historic structure is purposefully and brazenly bulldozed without applying for the proper permit, the fines levied should be severe,” Moffett wrote. “Indeed, had the owner applied for a permit to bulldoze the historic home at 813 39th Street they would NOT have been issued one and the home would still stand.
     “The stealthy and illegal demolition of 813 39th St., which took place over a weekend, could easily be repeated by owners of other historic structures who are unwilling to preserve the majestic homes that define a neighborhood.”

On last Tuesday's City of Lake Worth Commission agenda, there was an item related to civil and criminal penalties that could be issued by the Historic Resources Preservation Board (HRPB) for serious violations such as the one identified in this article. It was part of a package of various changes suggested by staff, and recommended for Commission approval by the Planning and Zoning Board and the HRPB, to the City's land development regulations. The Commission put off approving this and a few other items that were part of the changes, but approved others. I encourage you to watch the upcoming video of that discussion.

You will see the commentary, primarily coming from Commissioner Maier, but echoed by Commissioner McVoy, that they were uncomfortable with giving this power to an appointed board. Staff explained that more and more historic district regulations include these sorts of penalties in order to prevent egregious acts, like demolition of a historic structure without a Certificate of Appropriateness. Approval is needed before a demolition can occur within a historic district. This is true for West Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Delray Beach and essentially any community with historic structures or districts where changes have to be consistent with the Secretary of Interior Standards. Demolition and relocation requests must also meet specific criteria.

If penalties for illegal demolitions were weak or non-existent, one would expect more of these sorts of instances and soon cities would lose the integrity of an entire historic district, and a specific piece of a community's history. According to the city staff, more and more historic district ordinances are including this sort of penalty provision outside of the code enforcement/special magistrate process and with the board charged with regulating changes to structures within that district. Lake Worth's special magistrate's agenda is already full enough dealing with garden variety code violations and liens. That is the reasoning behind this penalty provision. It is not, as it was perceived by these two commissioners, some sort of unusual extension of authority to wield indiscriminately.

I would like to invite anyone to watch one of Lake Worth's HRPB meetings, or better yet, attend a meeting to see what goes on and how the board treats property owners who attempt to navigate through what can be a challenging and confusing process. And, clearly, we want to avoid examples such as the one reported by Tony Doris that happened in our neighboring city to the north.