Historic Districts Vote: Next Week

HISTORIC DISTRICTS VOTE: NEXT WEEK Yesterday’s scheduled city council vote on the latest version of revisions to Houston’s preservation ordinance was postponed for a week — but not before 7 council members offered their own separate amendments. Among them: a proposal by mayor pro tem Anne Clutterbuck that would allow historic districts to keep their current rules — or submit an application to be governed by the new stronger protections. But Mayor Parker doesn’t want a tiered system: “The mayor argued that leaving the ordinance unchanged would allow districts to be weakened ‘one house at a time,’ such as when owners legally could proceed with demolition even after their request to do so was denied. ‘We may lose some of the footprint of existing historic districts, but we’ll have an ordinance that actually protects them,’ she said.” [Houston Chronicle]

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