With Bowling Green Council set to continue work to finalize a historic preservation ordinance, the
Historic Preservation Commission on Friday recommended a series of proposed changes.
“I see this whole ordinance as something that’s still going to be changed down the road,” said HPC Chair
John Sampen during Friday’s meeting, noting that some wording could someday be found to not work once it
is in place. “No matter how careful we are with the way we word this, it’s still not going to be
perfect.”
Council held a three-hour session on Feb. 22 to work on finalizing the ordinance, which has proceeded
through a series of commissions and committees, as well as a number of drafts, in recent weeks. Council
is scheduled to continue discussions Monday, with the goal of voting at the March 15 meeting.
Among the discussions Friday was Section 158.08 of the ordinance, which concerns landscaping provisions.
HPC Secretary Les Barber and Vice Chair Will Roudebush presented amended language, which will be before
council on Monday, stating that landscaping shall be provided and maintained by contributing properties
and other properties within a historic district; those properties must maintain appropriate foundation
plantings, such as shrubs and/or small trees, across the foundation frontage at intervals of no more
than six feet. The plantings must be pruned and weeded, and other appropriate landscaping must also be
maintained. A proposed amended definition of landscaping went into more details as to what might
constitute a landscaping element.
Barber said that, in his discussions with Roudebush, his argument was they should be so specific about
appropriate foundation plantings “basically to deal with bad apples, and to set things up so that the
obvious bad apple examples in our community would have to meet some minimal landscaping” standards. He
pointed to properties that do no pruning of foundation shrubbery, and others that have let such
plantings die and not replaced them.
“If we could do something to mitigate that in historic districts and with other listed properties, I
think we would be doing a real service to the community,” Barber said.
HPC member Chris Mowen, however, pointed out that there could be certain historic properties that come
from an era in which such plantings were not historically accurate.
“So, I just don’t want us to create a situation where we’re requiring landscaping that maybe doesn’t fit
the historic nature of the building,” she said. “That’s the tough part with that specific definition.”
Asked about enforcement of landscaping issues by Planning Director Heather Sayler, Sampen said “I think
what we’re trying to prevent is a really outlandish situation … because I don’t see us as being
policemen and women on this, but at the same time there should be some way of monitoring how that space
looks.”
He noted that Section 158.09 states that owners who fail to provider “reasonable care and maintenance”
shall be fined no more than $500.
“Maybe we should consider changing ‘shall’ to ‘may be’ fined,” Sampen said. “We’re not wanting to do
this, there’s no desire to collect money from making people plant shrubs, but we’d like them to take
care of their space.”
Roudebush suggested adding the word “appropriate” to the definition, stating that landscaping is “used to
preserve the appropriate historic relationship between buildings and the surrounding landscape.” Barber
proposed that the portion of 158.08 additionally include “as appropriate to their historic era.”
The suggested changes were unanimously approved for council’s review.
The HPC also recommended that council add back into the ordinance the definition of “listed property.”
Listed property – meaning, essentially, any property included in a historic district – was switched out
from a draft of the ordinance under consideration by council by Councilman Jeff Dennis in favor of the
more extensive use of two other terms in the ordinance, “contributing” and “non-contributing”
properties. In essence, a contributing property is one that contributes to the qualities that give a
district historic significance; a non-contributing property does not.
Of why “listed property” was removed, Barber said “I think it’s basically (Dennis) going through the
document and trying to find ways to make it – my words now – legally more precise or efficient. So when
I was talking with him about it, he did convince me that, logically, using ‘contributing property’
instead of ‘listed property’ made sense and, logically, it still does. But there are still all these
other issues of more practical import that remain and I wish now, in retrospect, I hadn’t agreed to it.”
Both Barber and Mowen said they felt using listed property made things simpler and easier to understand.
“Personally, I think you have to have all three” terms, said Roudebush.
“We’d like to make (the ordinance) as agreeable to the state board when we present this, so we don’t have
to go back and redefine things, or at least redefine that particular term,” said Sampen.
It was unanimously agreed to recommend that council add “listed property” back into the document, and to
define it as “any property designated pursuant to the process outlined in Section 158.06 and listed in
the local register, individually or as part of a historic district, including non-contributing
properties.” The HPC also asked that a memo explaining the proposed change be forwarded to council with
the recommendation.
“I like this because it uses the approach that Jeff Dennis has proposed,” said Barber, “so it’s kind of
taking advantage of the direction council has already been going, but it gets ‘listed property’ back in
the definitions.”
He also acknowledged that the change would mean changing most of the uses of “contributing property” in
the current draft of the legislation to “listed property.”
Also during the meeting, members offered praise for council’s efforts.
“I do feel like it’s encouraging, our work with city council, and I appreciate their interest and
diligence in really participating with us and really working on the document,” Sampen said.
Barber said that overall “I think it’s looking good,” and noted possible procedures for Monday’s meeting.
“It looks like we can rely on council at this point to finish the job.”
“It was a long session” on Feb. 22, Sampen said, “but we really appreciate council’s interest and
concentration and working with us on trying to make this a better ordinance. And I think we’re getting
there.”
