Weekend News Roundup – April 22, 2022
Author: Starr Herr-Cardillo
Apr 22, 2022
Celebrate Earth Day!
PlaceEconomics staff members attended this webinar on Calculating Carbon Savings from Building Reuse and Retrofit hosted by the Preservation Leadership Forum. The tool makes important steps towards quantifying the benefits of adaptive reuse.
Pennsylvania is exploring a legislative solution to combat climate change and housing affordability through a Whole Home Repairs Act, which would provide eligible residents with grants up to $50,000 to make needed home repairs, and small landlords could apply for the same amount in forgivable loans. The bill would also aim to ramp up investments in workforce development, to address the growing shortage of qualified workers able to address the repairs.
Preservation News
The Washington Post Editorial Board weighs in on the ongoing controversy at Montpelier. After agreeing to share decision making power with descendants from those enslaved at the site, the predominately white board revoked their promise. The National Trust weighs in, condemning the actions of the board. Stay up to date on this issue and discover ways to take action here.
See our Director of Research and Data Analytics, Alyssa Frystak present on the Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing Panel, presented by Dumbarton House.
The Pennsylvania Downtown Center and Preservation Pennsylvania hosted a webinar about how you can use APRA funds for historic preservation and economic redevelopment projects in your community. You can watch the webinar here.
One of the oldest gay bars in the San Fernando Valley recently gained historic designation–a win for architecturally-modest structures with great cultural significance.
Much to preservation advocates’ dismay, Nebraska’s Historic Tax Credit is set to sunset in Dec of 2022.
The Campaign for Historic Trades and Preservation Maryland announced a cemetery workshop series across the state of Maryland, where participants will learn the basic preservation techniques of caring for a cemetery. In Brooklyn, cemeteries are also doubling as a training ground for aspiring stonemasons in the Bridge to Crafts Careers program, now in its fifth year.
Equity and Preservation
Crain’s Chicago Business looks at how housing rehabs could unlock more equitable wealth in Chicago’s struggling neighborhoods.
Tokyo’s iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower is being demolished, via CNN. An obituary to Kisho Kurokawa’s iconic structure from Architizer.
In an effort to fight displacement in L.A.’s Little Tokyo, a consortium of local CDFIs is buying real estate and working with long-term tenants.
An in-depth feature in High Country News looks at “What’s wrong with the Manitou Cliff Dwellings Museum and Preserve?” in Colorado. The dwellings were excavated, moved and inaccurately reassembled in the early 20th century. Today, its interpretation does little to highlight the problematic aspects of its history while perpetuating racist stereotypes.
Homeowners in Charlotte, North Carolina whose neighborhood was targeted by investors pricing out first-time home buyers found a creative way to fight back. Using the same legal authority that allows homeowners associations to punish people who fail to cut their grass, the Potters Glen board erected a hurdle for investors: a new rule required any new home buyer to wait two years before renting it out.