First meeting held to examine historic guidelines

Historic Ad Hoc Committee members got their first look at what will be expected of them during the committee’s first meeting Wednesday.

For those committee members unfamiliar with how the historic district was created, a quick overview was given.

In 1999, Warren County Heritage Alliance organized Main Street McMinnville. One of the first things Main Street did was draw boundaries for the downtown historic district and adopt design guidelines.

At that time, petitions were circulated to owners of buildings downtown regarding who wanted to be included in the district. According to Rachel Killebrew, who helped with that, 98 percent of the owners responded to the petition.

The importance of establishing the district was to preserve history and increasing funding for the city.

‘The state of Tennessee has put a program together that recognizes the importance of trying to preserve history,’ said city administrator David Rutherford. ‘One of the things that means for us is it allows us to participate in a greater level of funding. If we don’t have a historic district we loose a lot of points in that area.’

Not only is having a historic district a financial plus for the city, it also helps out financially for those within the district. Those within the district get a 10 percent tax credit and that number is increased to 20 percent if the building is historic.

The purpose of the ad hoc committee will be to look at the guidelines and work on simplifying them in a way that takes out interpretation. While doing that, committee members will be looking at what they would like to see preserved from the past.

Historic Zoning Commission chairman Jimmy Haley has been asked to collect a pictorial history of the buildings downtown so the committee will see what the city currently has in the area. Once that is received they will go building by building and identify what needs to be preserved and from what era.

While taking a look at downtown buildings, the committee will be asked to decide which buildings are historic and worth saving.

‘Is it every building downtown or is it five buildings’? said Rutherford. ‘I don’t know. I can’t tell you. This is one of the things you have to do in government. Like it or not, there is lots of compromise. You have to pick the ones that are worth saving and will be the jewels of your city.’

As for the committee, they will also be asked to pick an era for downtown, as there are several decades represented downtown including 1920s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, and streamline the Historic Zoning Commission process by offering a list of revitalization options for those who want to change their buildings. If the list isn’t acceptable, the property owner will then go before the HZC.

According to Rutherford, once the committee is through with its findings and presents them to the board, he will be pushing for code enforcement for people to fix their buildings.

The committee will meet again Sept. 19 at 5 p.m. at city hall. Between now and then, members were asked to do some homework on what has worked for other historic districts.