A conservation district is a method to protect the existing character of a neighborhood from incompatible redevelopment. It’s intended to regulate new construction in ways that are consistent with existing patterns of residential development. A conservation district is a grassroots effort by residents who want to protect their neighborhoods from uncontrolled demolition and new infill development. The neighborhood decides what they want to look like in the future. It’s not a Homeowners Association or HOA, or anything like one. For instance, no one tells you when to mow your grass or what color to paint your house.
In a Conservation District, the builder obtains a Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) from the City’s Architectural Review Board (ARB) before construction can proceed. The COA is issued by the ARB when the project meets the district’s design guidelines. It’s an “ARB-Lite” process, because the guidelines are much more relaxed than what you see in the Historic District.
Design guidelines can cover things such as building height, exterior architectural details, building orientation, and building demolition – to name just a few topics that are typically covered. For example, at two conservation districts in Charlottesville, a COA is required not only for new buildings, fences and walls, but also for painting a previously unpainted brick home. This example – painting brick walls – illustrates the flexibility that can be baked into the design guidelines that the neighborhood decides should be followed.
Guidelines might also incorporate a pattern book, which can help ensure that infill dwellings are architecturally compatible with the neighborhood. It could be a pattern book off the shelf, or more likely one your neighborhood creates from scratch, that best reflects the prevailing architecture of your neighborhood. If you’ve ever picked up a turn-of-the-century Sears Roebuck Catalog and flipped through the pages of pre-fabricated Sears Homes, that’s a sort of pattern book.
Creating a Conservation District starts at the community level. Neighborhood residents petition City Council to create the district, adopt design guidelines and commit local government resources (City Staff and the ARB) to its administration and enforcement. The Conservation District must include an inventory of buildings that will be individually protected, known as “contributing structures”.
A majority of homeowners in the district must support it. By being community-driven at the outset, Conservation District residents have a strong voice in advocating for where the boundaries of the district should be located, which buildings should be treated as contributing structures, and the “look and feel” that the neighborhood seeks to protect. Residents also hold important sway over how the design guidelines are written.
A conservation district with its design guidelines (and pattern book) has many benefits: it reflects the will of the neighborhood, helps clarify developer expectations, protects against unwanted redevelopment, and helps foster community pride and a shared sense of place.
EXAMPLE: Charlottesville’s Historic Conservation Districts
=== GUIDELINES FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION AND ADDITIONS ===
Building Location – setback and spacing
1. Align a new building close to the average building setback line on the same street, if established, or consistent with the surrounding area.
2. Maintain average spacing between buildings on the same street.
Building Scale – height and massing
1. Keep the footprint, and massing of new buildings consistent with the neighborhood characteristics and compatible with the character of buildings on the same street.
2. Keep the height and width of new buildings within the prevailing average height and width. Exceptions up to 200% of the prevailing height and width may be approved by the BAR when contextually appropriate. 3. An addition needs to be perceived as an addition and therefore should not visually overpower the existing building in scale and design.
4. An accessory building should appear secondary to the main building in scale and design. 5. Larger buildings (commercial or multi-family) otherwise permitted by zoning should be designed and articulated to be compatible with the scale of the majority of adjacent buildings on the same street or block.
Building Form – roofs and porches
1. Roof forms should reference contributing buildings on the same street or surrounding area. Other roof forms may be approved by the BAR when contextually appropriate.
2. If many of the contributing buildings on the same street have porches, then it is strongly recommended that the design of a new residence includes a porch or similar form of similar width and depth.
Building Openings – orientation, doors and windows
1. A single entrance door (or main entrance of a multifamily dwelling) facing the street is recommended. 2. Window and door patterns and the ratio of solids (wall area) to voids (window and door area) of new buildings should be compatible with contributing buildings in the surrounding area.
3. Windows should be simple shapes compatible with those on contributing buildings, which are generally vertically oriented in residential areas.
Building Materials and Textures
1. The selection of materials and textures for a new building should relate architecturally to the district, and should be compatible with and complementary to neighboring buildings.
2. Long-lasting, durable and natural materials are preferred, including brick, wood, stucco, and cementitious siding and standing seam metal roofs. Clear glass windows (VLT of 70% or more) are preferred.
Building Paint
1. Painting unpainted brick or other masonry is discouraged because it is irreversible and may cause moisture problems.
Site
1. Fences or walls that abut a City street (or fences located in a side yard between a street and the front of the principal structure on a lot) should not exceed three and one half feet in height.
To learn more — and see how demolitions are handled in
Charlottesville’s Historic Conservation Districts — scan this QR Code:
