The Orlando City Council will decide Monday whether to suspend the protections for historic buildings downtown in its oldest historic preservation district.
At a meeting earlier this month, Mayor Buddy Dyer described the moratorium as part of an effort to revitalize Church Street, to address vacancies and blight.
City officials said development is impeded by "restrictive regulations" that include going before the Orlando Historic Preservation Board.
During the moratorium, plans to change the exterior of historic buildings or tear them down would be reviewed by staff. Owners of locally designated historic landmarks could opt in to be part of the new review process.
The historic preservation board voted to oppose the moratorium. Board chair Jeff Thompson expects a surge of new plans from developers.
"The district feels disproportionately large because the buildings are something you connect to so well and so vividly," he said.
"But instead of the cool character that you have on Church Street, and, you know, some of the other blocks, the two- and three-story buildings that have a very historic character, very pedestrian style, would all turn into the Plaza, which are soulless towers."
Thompson also questioned the city's rationale, saying the problem with vacancies downtown is not restricted to the eight-block historic district.
He points to modern towers downtown “with a lot of vacancies in this area, it's not just in the old buildings in the historic district."
The district
The Orlando Downtown Historic District is a relatively small part of downtown. It was created in 1980 and has about 80 historic buildings dating the 1880s to the early 1940s. It also has nine locally designated historic landmarks and a National Historic Landmark.
According to a staff presentation to the City Council, seven of the locally designated historic landmarks are along Church Street, including the Old Orlando Railroad Depot and the Kress Building.
Currently, changes to the outside of buildings in the district require a certificate of appropriateness. Major changes are first reviewed by a historic preservation officer and then require approval from the Historic Preservation Board, though the City Council can override its decision.
Thompson said the board hasn't rejected any application from the downtown district in the past five years.
Small changes to buildings -- like signs and windows -- need only a "minor review" by staff.
Proposed moratorium
The proposed moratorium would pause the need for a certificate of appropriateness, according to the city presentation. Instead, major changes would need to be reviewed by staff and by the Appearance Review Board, which does not take historic preservation into account.
Any demolition would get a staff-level review and the new building would have to get approval from the ARB.
Over the three years of the moratorium, the city plans to study its effect on redevelopment. In the end, the change could become permanent.
Later this summer, the City Council plans to take up an incentive program and includes Community Redevelopment District tax breaks for restoration projects within the district that preserve historically and architecturally significant elements of a building.
A warning from the state
On June 11, after the City Council passed the first reading of the ordinance to establish a moratorium, an official with the Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation sent Mayor Dyer a letter warning that Orlando could end up in "Bad Standing" for failing to provide 30 days notice of the change.
"This would make Orlando ineligible for grant funding match waivers from our office," the letter said.
The city is reviewing the letter and plans to respond.
"We anticipate the proposed temporary moratorium, which is not a code amendment, will go before city council at Monday’s meeting," city spokesperson Ashley Papagni said in an email.
