Preservation Pays
I have long been an advocate for historic preservation. My passion began when I was young, walking among beautiful old buildings. I loved the extensive details they had, especially in the Queen Anne houses, and was drawn to the field of architecture as a result. It took me until the end of my bachelors degree to find the field of planning, and as a result preservation planning. As an architect I could save one building at a time, but as a planner I could work with a whole city of buildings. I quickly switched from a Masters of Architecture to Community and Regional Planning, starting out after college in the government section. Over the years I processed applications for changes to historic buildings through heritage preservation commissions, researched old structures for inclusion in the National Register, and surveyed cities for their historic resources, but it was not until I began preparing my presentation for the Nebraska Planning Conference that I realized the wealth of economic benefits preservation holds. I had always been interested in the field because old buildings are gorgeous representations of our history and someone at some point spent their time and money to erect them and if we tear them down, we will never be able to rebuild such masterpieces. But as it turns out, their are dozens of fiscal benefits to cities that make it a no-brainer to include preservation as an integral part of a city’s operation.
As city planners, administrators, or elected officials our goals are to create a better city for the residents of our communities and future generations. We look to create healthy lifestyles, increase jobs and incomes, efficiently use our infrastructure, grow our economy, create a positive city image, supply quality, affordable housing, and work towards a sustainable future. There is not a single new neighborhood that can meet all these goals. Even if it meets nearly every goal, an existing older neighborhood will always beat the new neighborhood when it comes to efficient infrastructure and sustainability because new water or sewer lines are not needed in an existing neighborhood and the buildings are already there so no new materials need to be used to build the neighborhood. So it makes sense to invest in your existing historic downtown’s and residential neighborhoods. It’s cost effective to do so.
In this post I will go through eight main benefits of historic preservation. These categories include affordable housing, small business support, job creation, economic boost, growth, downtown revitalization, sustainability, and identity. It used to be that we studied only the most obvious benefits of preservation like job growth and economic boosts through tourism, but more recent studies by firms such as Place Economics have shown the economic benefits to cities extend far beyond these basic areas.
Cost Burdened Households in Nashville, TN
One of the most important impacts historic preservation has on a community is providing affordable and varied housing options. The most affordable house is already standing and was built more than 50 years ago. It is impossible to build a house for less than $130,000 today without heavy subsidies but that is the price point of many first time home buyers in the Midwest. Older neighborhoods are home to what has been labeled missing middle housing—duplexes, triplexes, and small scale apartments. We struggle to get developers to build these units today and even getting established neighborhoods to accept them. But my old neighborhood in Minneapolis was filled with duplexes and adorable four unit brick buildings from the 1920s and 1930s creating a very interesting character. It took me nearly a year of living there to even realize we had so many of these missing middle housing types because they fit in so well. Older neighborhoods are also more affordable. One study done by Place Economics in Nashville showed historic district households, both owner and renter, were far less cost burdened than the rest of the city.
The second major benefit of historic districts is their ability to serve as a small business incubator. Older buildings have more affordable rents than new buildings which have to recoup the cost of their construction. Small businesses have to keep costs as low as possible, especially rent, to focus on their actual product. Another interesting fact from the Place Economics study is that small businesses (50 or fewer employees) account for 96% of all employees in the U.S. Therefore, we should be maintaining our older buildings to help small businesses, which in turn employ most of our workforce.
In line with supporting small businesses, historic districts also support job creation. Anyone that has worked on an old house knows how much more labor goes into it compared with a new home. It’s much easier to throw up new drywall on a stud wall than it is to repair 100 year old plaster. Which is why preserving an old building has a greater impact per dollar. Historic districts draw more businesses and a large percent of accommodation and food service jobs as well.
“In Savannah, it was found that each historic building creates 1.2 more jobs and $62,000 more in income. ”
Its been long known that heritage tourism is an economic benefit of historic preservation, but more recently property values and stability have been studied too. In Nebraska alone, heritage tourism accounts for $196 million and 3,000 jobs annually. Heritage tourists stay longer, visit more places, and spend more per day than other tourists.
Property values in historic districts appreciate faster than other parts of a city. In Indianapolis over 14 years it was shown that a single family home in a historic district averaged a 7.3% rise compared to just 3.5% in a non-historic district. And while city leaders like to see the rise in property values to support the budget, many property owners do not like to see the increase in their taxes. However the Place Economics study showed that on average, the increase led to between $15 and $25 more per year in taxes for the historic home owner, pretty small when considering the $1,000 rise in wealth the home owner saw. Another really interesting comparison done by Place Economics showed two neighborhoods, one historic and one not. The historic district produced almost four times the amount of taxes over the same number of acres as the non-historic district, but offered more affordable homes to its residents. So while each homeowner paid less in taxes than the non-historic district homeowners, there were far more homes in the historic district, creating a much greater impact.
The third economic benefit is property values which rise faster when the market it up, but they also fall later and less steeply when the market is down in historic districts. They also recover quicker from economic downturns in many communities. In Raleigh, single family home sales between 2011 and 2012 rose 68% in historic districts compared to only 13% citywide. Tied to this is the stability of construction activity during a recession. Construction activity fares better and foreclosure rates are lower in historic districts. In New York City, Place Economics showed that new construction fell by 30% during the recent recession, while rehabilitation projects suffered only a one year decline and recovered sooner. Quantified, this would have led to 1,600 unemployed people between 2008 and 2012 if rehabilitation projects fared the same as new construction jobs.
Supporting growth is a major component of historic neighborhoods. In 2019 Millennials passed the boomer generation as the largest age cohort. So our buying decisions are beginning to matter and according to a study completed for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 44% of Millennial’s want character rich, historic neighborhoods. And while many Millennials are not buying homes yet, those that do are buying older homes at a much higher rate than the rest of the population. Other studies have shown historic districts support population growth in general, regardless of the age group. Philadelphia actually lost population in their non-historic districts, but saw tremendous growth in the historic districts in 2010.
Disney Worlds recreated main street (Image courtesy of Unsplash)
Speaking of Millennials, we also like older historic downtown’s. Downtown revitalization has been a major component of my profession since the 1980’s when the Main Street program was created. This program focused on revitalizing downtown’s has created $79 billion in investment, 285,000 building rehabs, 640,000 new jobs, and 144,000 new businesses over the years. It seem silly that people pay thousands of dollars to go to Disney World and see recreated main street environments when we have the old buildings and brick streets that people can walk up and down for free, they just need some reinvestment.
“One single family dwelling put into a land fill creates the same amount of waste that one person will generate over 80 years.”
The historic mills that contribute to Minneapolis’ identity
One of the greatest benefits historic preservation has on a community is environmental. Saving an old building instead of demolishing and starting over is one of the most sustainable acts a city can support. The most sustainable building is already standing. It would take a green building between 10 and 80 years of operating savings to recoup the negative climate change impacts of its new construction.
The eighth and final benefit is the one that drew me to the field in the first place. Preservation creates identity for a community. Each city is filled with a different make up of historic buildings in a different configuration. It tells the story of who was there to found the town and what their priorities were. A Dollar General, McDonald’s, Walmart, and every other box store looks the exact same in every single town across America (unless you are one of the lucky few that somehow managed to make one of these rigid conglomerates bend), but the buildings constructed 100 years ago are not. Even the 5,000+ Carnegie libraries, all funded by one man, but spread across the U.S., are all unique, telling the story of their specific community. So if the other seven financial benefits to your community are not enough to save old buildings, they should be saved to make your community yours.
