Despite strong support from many Southside residents, Columbus City Council voted 4-2 Tuesday against applying for a federal grant to survey buildings in the neighborhood, the first step to designating the neighborhood as a Local Historic District.
It appears the council rejected the measure over what would have been an out-of-pocket expenditure capped at $10,000, though it likely would have ranged between $5,000 and $6,000.
The Columbus Historic Preservation Commission recommended the designation for the area from the Mississippi University for Women campus to First Street and from College Street to Seventh Avenue. Designating it as a Local Historic District would have ultimately required a city ordinance that would have regulated certain exterior changes to homes in the neighborhood.
The designation would have made Southside the city’s second neighborhood to earn the status after the downtown district became the first in 1996. Joe Boggess, member of the Columbus Historic Preservation Commission, said districts in 2,300 towns and cities across the country have earned the designation, including 55 in Mississippi.
The status would help elevate the city’s image and boost the economy, he said.
“We want to keep the old neighborhood properties from becoming gradually torn down one by one,” Boggess said.
Columbus Arts Council Executive Director Jan Miller, who spoke to the council Tuesday as a Southside homeowner of 40 years, said Local Historic District status helps maintain property values within the district and preserve the neighborhood’s integrity.
“If someone wants to come in and tear down a historic property because they want to build a metal building, they can (without the status),” Miller said. “There’s no preservation ordinance that would keep them from doing that.”
Miller said the grant application would only kickstart the process to earn the status, and it would be at the city’s discretion whether to take the next steps.
The grant, once awarded, would require a 50-percent match, capped at $10,000, from the city to conduct the survey of properties in the proposed area. Boggess estimated between 300 and 400 buildings would be surveyed at a rate of $32 per building — a range of $9,600 to $12,800 for which the city would be responsible for half.
That money, which Chief Operating Officer David Armstrong said is not included in the city’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget, was a sticking point for several council members.
Ward 3 Councilman Charlie Box, who voted against applying for the grant, said making exceptions for unbudgeted expenses merely months into the new fiscal year (which started in October) would be problematic.
“That’s what’s got us in trouble with finances before …, doing things that we didn’t budget for,” Box said. “We’ve got the money. It’s just the principle of the thing.”
Councilman Joe Mickens of Ward 2, who also voted in opposition, agreed.
“The city is just getting back on its feet,” Mickens said, referring to consecutive years in 2017 and 2018 in which the city’s general fund operated at significant deficits, triggering a “spending freeze” on unbudgeted items in Fiscal Year 2019.
“I don’t feel like we need to be spending unnecessary money at this time,” Mickens said. “We are trying to be frugal with our spending. … We need to be.
“We’re not saying we can’t do that for later on,” he added. “But right now, our income is coming in pretty good, and we want to keep it flowing.”
‘It’s a travesty’
But grants are rarely budgeted, said Miller.
“Grants come available as per the money comes available,” she said, “You don’t know that you are going to apply for a grant until you apply for it.”
Councilman Stephen Jones of Ward 5, who along with Ward 1’s Ethel Taylor Stewart voted in favor of the grant application, said it would have given the city more time to gather public opinions while waiting for the money to be approved.
“We could amend the budget if it had come to that,” Jones said. “We were just applying for the grant, not to spend the money.”
Boggess said he was “disappointed” by the council’s decision.
“Maybe the council didn’t realize how broad of a support it had in the neighborhood,” he said. “We had a big petition that was signed by over 100 houses (in support).”
The majority of the crowd gathering at a Columbus Historic Preservation Commission meeting in early January also voiced support for the designation, Boggess said.
Ward 6 Councilman Bill Gavin said he is in favor of the idea of historic preservation, and the commission meeting had left him with the impression that most Southside residents liked the idea. But, he said, he received several phone calls in opposition thereafter.
“By applying for the grant, we are pretty much accepting the grant,” Gavin said. “I would like to have heard from all the citizens in that area to find out if they really did want this or not.”
Miller said, if the city had applied for the grant, it would have at least kept the conversation going.
“It’s a travesty,” Miller said of the vote. “I hate that it happened, because now we don’t even have the opportunity to have the public input or to have the discussion. We ended the discussion tonight with the no-vote.”
In other business, the council hired Doran Johnson as assistant police chief and Rick Jones as captain of investigations. Johnson had previously served as chief school resource officer for Columbus Municipal School District. Jones has worked part-time for CPD since 2017.
Conflict disclosure: Managing Editor Zack Plair took part in editing this article. He is currently involved in legal proceedings with the city of Columbus.
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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