Advocacy Issues
SPA's Advocacy Committee has run
an ad in the Spokesman Review about
the 1909
Jensen-Byrd Building, applauding WSU's
efforts to
rehabilitate the building and offering our
assistance. For more information about the
issue, there is an
article and slideshow about the building,
with public comment, from the metro(spo-kan)
blog.
This building has been added to the
Washington
Trust’s
Most Endangered Historic Properties List
after being nominated by
the Advocacy Committee.
For the next year, the Advocacy
Committee will work on bringing several broad
issues to the public attention. One will
be to show how little taxes are paid on the
parking lots downtown, in an effort to keep
buildings from being demolished just to reduce
tax responsibility. The other issue will
be to connect historic preservation with the
comprehensive plan, and how historic
preservation helps to make our cities more
livable, can be a focus for growth, and can
enhance community vitality.
Also being considered is that
the city's removal of old trees
along South Bernard Street as part of street
improvement was ill-advised, and could set a bad
precedent as the city proceeds to reconstruct
other streets. The Advocacy Committee agreed
that it should participate in the effort to save
these trees by collaborating with other
neighborhood groups. Street trees will be
another focus of the Advocacy Committee in the
next year.
As for the
Rookery Block, although the effort to
prevent demolition by the owner failed, the
Advocacy Committee found the struggle to be a
learning opportunity, with the development of a
“rapid response” policy with regard to articles,
editorials, letters, and other items in the
press that take positions counter to the goals
of historic preservation, livable communities,
and downtown revitalization, such as a recent
letter to the editor that appeared in the
Spokesman-Review articulating a
pro-demolition position. The Rookery
demolition also was the catalyst for the 2005
change to downtown surface parking regulations
that makes it more difficult for existing
buildings to be torn down for parking lots; now
a developer must have definite plans to replace
an historic building with a new structure.
Committee Mission: Takes a positive stand
for preservation by providing a strong voice for
preservation issues within the Spokane
community.
Page updated
05/10/2008.
