Historic district rules
With Butler City Council preparing to finalize the laws that will dictate the city's second historic district — the area around Ritts Park — some residents worry the change will dampen economic growth while others welcome the move.
Efforts to designate the area around Ritts Park — including the Koch family-owned Elm Court or Phillips mansion — began last year when members of the Ritts Park neighborhood considered changing the neighborhood's zoning to R-1 from R-2, R-3 and C-2.
The efforts were completed on Sept. 27, 2018, with City Council voting to rezone the area as a historic district with only R1, according to a city zoning official.
Now, the ordinance that controls this district with more than 160 homes is being drafted. The ordinance will regulate what residents can and cannot do within the historic district, such as repairs or construction.The matter will go before the Planning Commission on Wednesday before going to City Council for a vote.R-1 designations set up strict rules that keep houses to single-family usage. R-2 allows for medium-density houses to be split into two-family homes. R-3 allows for one structure to be divided for multiple families.
“I think it's a great idea. We'd be preserving homes in the area, hopefully,” City Councilman Jeff Smith, who lives in the district, said. “Possible investors will see this is a great place to live. You won't have to worry about what will happen to the house next door being turned into a six-story apartment building or something.”Smith said the desire to designate the area as a historic district is a grassroots effort, but with the details of the ordinance being hammered out, some area residents have expressed concerns.“This whole thing has been a wild-goose chase with a solution looking for a problem,” said John Mossman, a resident of the Ritts Park area and a member of the city's Planning and Zoning Commission. He said that before the rezoning last year, the commission advised the city to make only minor changes to the area's zoning.
“It's created a huge amount of distrust between people in the neighborhood with regard to city government,” Mossman said, “because they're not listening to their constituency. This is supposed to be a representative government but it's not. Majority is telling them not to do it.”He also said that Smith should have recused himself from taking the vote since the councilman is a resident of the neighborhood.“But he doesn't want a duplex in his backyard,” Mossman said.Others also rejected the change.“Designating it as a historical area doesn't do anything for me,” said Jud Stewart. “We don't want the ordinance enacted.”Before Ritts Park's designation, the downtown area that includes parts of Main Street was the only historic area in the city.Pat Collins, who recently retired as director of Butler County Historical Society, noted that a historical designation doesn't necessarily change anything. The way the ordinance is written up and designed, she explained, will dictate the rules.In the case of the city's downtown district, restaurants and buildings there are free to break with the historic aesthetic of the neighborhood without breaking the rules since the ordinance doesn't stop them from making significant alterations, according to Collins.
Collins met the news of Ritts Park's designation with surprise. She noted the neighborhood was not part of the original city limits, and most of the houses there were built after the Civil War.“These houses are not Butler's earliest ones. And over the years, so many of them have been changed and added to,” she said. “I don't know why they want to be a historic district. They have to ask, what is to be gained by doing this?”Some residents are doing just that.Jusup McChesney, whose father lives in the area, said he supported the designation, but still had concerns and questions he wants answered — such as whether their taxes will go up, whether there will be mandatory zoning regulations to maintain the historic aesthetic of the neighborhood and, if there are additional regulations, whether the city would provide funding for residents to fix their houses.
Smith said taxes won't increase since the designation does not change the assessed value. He noted that most residents would not have to make changes to their property.“Most people won't notice the ordinance,” Smith said. “It will just be for some of the absentee landlords who don't care about the area as much as residents do. It will prevent people from taking big shortcuts and for those who don't care what it looks like.”He gave an example of one case in which a homeowner wanted to eliminate the windows in his home. To do this, Smith said, he put a piece of plywood to block the window. Under the ordinance, this kind of alteration wouldn't be allowed. The window would have to be removed, so that the side of the house would be one continuous wall.
Mossman said changing the neighborhood's zoning wasn't required to revitalize the neighborhood.“They are of the belief owner-occupied properties will be better maintained but the reality is that's not true. Look around the neighborhood; some of the nicest properties are multiunit properties,” Mossman said. “The city already has zoning laws and ordinances, and if they would be properly enforced, most of the problems they're trying to solve with the redistricting wouldn't be needed.”Smith contends that the designation will provide extra security to homeowners.“Property values tend to go up more than the surrounding area, and in economic downturns they tend to hold their economic value better,” Smith said.
Many residents welcomed the historic designation as a way to celebrate their neighborhood.“I've lived all over the place, but Butler has some very unique and pretty architecture,” said Kevin Caparosa, a Ritts Park resident. “I guess you would call me an old house nut. I like really old-style houses.”Caparosa hopes that other areas in the city will pursue a similar designation.“We believe in the long run this designation will cause the houses in that area to appreciate,” Caparosa said. “Here's a chance to do something that's different that has been done in other places and has shown a positive result. With time, there will be a very positive connotation with having your residence in this area.”
