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PRESERVATIONISTS SELDOM PUT MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTHS ARE
A. Barton Hinkle. Richmond Times - Dispatch. Richmond, Va.: Aug 31, 2004
A place called Midgetville might seem an unlikely arena for a titanic struggle over development, but it has become one. And that struggle might seem unlikely to have parallels with a skirmish over the changing face of an urban medical college - yet that, too, is the case. People of Midgetville, meet MCV.
Nestled in a woody area of Fairfax County, Midgetville began in the 19th Century as the playground of a newspaper publisher who held fairs for area farmers. Gradually it became a summer resort for Washington's rich businessmen. By turns of inheritance the area, dotted with small rental cottages (small enough that they gave rise to a legend that midgets lived in them), came into the hands of four sisters. It has remained unchanged for decades - but perhaps not for long now. The family wants to sell it to a developer whose original plans would have put 29 houses of up to 6,000 square feet on Midgetville's several acres.
IN SHORT, the neighbors want the [Jane Nixon Leppin] family to maintain Midgetville at ruinous cost so they can continue to appreciate its aesthetic graces. They have not organized a financing campaign to buy the property. Nor, evidently, have they even offered the Leppin family financial help (though one opponent of the development plan says the community would entertain the idea). They just want the government to make the Leppins do what they want. Property, properly defined, is the right to the use, control, or benefit of some thing. The neighbors of Midgetville want to control and benefit from the Midgetville property. They just don't want to pay for it.
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Copyright Richmond Newspapers, Incorporated Aug 31, 2004
A place called Midgetville might seem an unlikely arena for a titanic struggle over development, but it has become one. And that struggle might seem unlikely to have parallels with a skirmish over the changing face of an urban medical college - yet that, too, is the case. People of Midgetville, meet MCV.
Nestled in a woody area of Fairfax County, Midgetville began in the 19th Century as the playground of a newspaper publisher who held fairs for area farmers. Gradually it became a summer resort for Washington's rich businessmen. By turns of inheritance the area, dotted with small rental cottages (small enough that they gave rise to a legend that midgets lived in them), came into the hands of four sisters. It has remained unchanged for decades - but perhaps not for long now. The family wants to sell it to a developer whose original plans would have put 29 houses of up to 6,000 square feet on Midgetville's several acres.
The family is not happy about selling. But it must deal with medical problems from a genetic kidney ailment, and finds the property taxes of $14,000 a year too burdensome. And then there are the teenage vandals who ride through the area to hassle the mythical midgets. "It breaks my heart to see it go," Jane Nixon Leppin says of the property. "But it's going to have to go, because my family cannot support it anymore."
Neighbors are displeased. As reported in The Washington Post, they convinced the county to delay approval of the project and jawboned the developer into withdrawing the original plan. They object for all the usual reasons: The proposed development is too big; the nearby streets might not be able to accommodate the increased traffic; Midgetville is a "jewel" whose development would "change the entire complexion of the area."
IN SHORT, the neighbors want the Leppin family to maintain Midgetville at ruinous cost so they can continue to appreciate its aesthetic graces. They have not organized a financing campaign to buy the property. Nor, evidently, have they even offered the Leppin family financial help (though one opponent of the development plan says the community would entertain the idea). They just want the government to make the Leppins do what they want. Property, properly defined, is the right to the use, control, or benefit of some thing. The neighbors of Midgetville want to control and benefit from the Midgetville property. They just don't want to pay for it.
What has all this to do with MCV? The school intends to tear down West Hospital, which it originally sought to renovate. Renovation estimates came in $5.5 million more than expected, so Virginia Commonwealth University went to plan B. This has upset preservationists, architects, and others who consider the West Building architecturally significant ("one of the finest art deco buildings we have," according to Jennie Knapp Dotts, executive director of ACORN, the Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods). Informed opinion on that score is divided. The Department of Historic Resources gave VCU permission to tear down West Hospital, even though the building is considered eligible for listing on the Virginia Landmarks Register.
Now because VCU is a public institution, the fate of West Hospital is a matter worthy of public debate. Nevertheless, it seems not to have occurred to advocates of preservation that they might volunteer more than their opinions on the subject. They might have said: "If money is a concern, we will wage a fund-raising campaign. Our architects will donate their time and expertise to the renovation. We will find HVAC companies to do the retrofitting work at cost. We will work with VCU to find options that will allow the West Building to remain standing." Instead, ACORN merely suggested writing to VCU's Board of Visitors, the Governor, and others.
ONE RECALLS also the battle over the Superior Warehouse building in Shockoe Bottom. Built in the 19th Century and long neglected, the building had fallen into serious disrepair. But when a developer suggested knocking it down to build a grocery store, preservationists rose in irate indignation to the imminent demise of a structure along "one of the few intact blocks of 19th-Century commercial building remaining in Richmond" - as one put it. (Does age automatically confer value? At some point in the future, will preservationists decry a Wal-Mart's demolition as the destruction of "one of the last examples of late-20th-Century big-box architecture we have"?)
The preservationists scored a point by noting that the building sat in a historic district, and procedures existed that ought to be followed. At the same time, they had shown little concern for the building until it was threatened by development that would benefit many others in the neighborhood. Nor did they step up and volunteer the money or the work, or part of either, to help restore the building to functionability.
To its credit, ACORN does sometimes make material contributions to preservation. A couple of years ago the group put up $12,000 to move a tiny house, once owned by a former slave, from Manchester rather than see it demolished. Similarly, the Nature Conservancy pursues its environmental goals by purchasing land or development rights. But these commendable examples serve as exceptions to a norm. Madison declared that "the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted." Two centuries on, many seem to think he said perdition, not protection.
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