Historic Roser Park Neighborhood Association

Preserving Our Corridor by Kai Warren

Apr 05, 2003

The Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) voted for the Corridor Improvements to move forward but with an exception to the street widening and removal of the sidewalk. It was a fortunate reversal of our expectations that the unique features of the narrow road width and sidewalk were going to be lost. But that doesn?’t mean that their safety is guaranteed. If the City wants to contest the decision of the HPC then it could go before City Council. However there appears to be a good argument that the recommended changes are inappropriate for an historic district, and for the City Engineers to fight the decision could just be a waste of time and, of course money.

Simply the improvements involve replacing the retaining walls, repairing drainage behind the retaining walls and under the street, relaying the Augusta block along Roser Park Drive, and repairing the creek walls where it is needed. The projected cost is around $4 million and should take a few years to accomplish because of budget limitations. As money becomes available more work will be done. At this time there is about $800,000 set aside to begin work on the retaining walls.

We have been waiting for years see work begin on the Roser Park Corridor. It was exciting when back in 1997 a study had been completed. It showed a projected cost of $6.8 million and involved a more complete restoration of our creek walls and bridges. Unfortunately the study proposed some dramatic changes that were not in keeping with our historic district. The worst of these changes would have been to the 6th and 8th Street Bridges. They would have been widened from their current 20 feet to 40 feet, to allow for cars to pass and a sidewalk on each side. They would also have been realigned to make a smoother transition from street to street. What was obvious to us, besides the loss of the bridge?’s character, was that this would enable cars to speed up. It isn?’t clear if it was neighborhood dissatisfaction with the plans or a lack of money but the project never proceeded beyond this point.

A couple years ago the subject of "improving" only the bridges was put back on the table. First, room was made on in the City budget for replacement. That was followed by the neighborhood requesting that the HPC refuse a Certificate of Appropriateness because of the unnecessary change in width. We even asked the Council to prevent it. Somewhere along the line the engineers looked into alternatives. They did an inspection of the bridge?’s condition by taking sample cores of concrete out of the pavement and walls. The findings showed them to be in good enough shape to have an extendable life of maybe 20 years. However, the problem of keeping these bridges in their current style and proportion will return when it is deemed that they need to be replaced. Hopefully when that happens our City engineers will be more preservation conscious and we won?’t have to fight for keeping our historic character.

The situation with the corridor was similar to the bridges in that the new proposal, though cheaper by a few million dollars, was still focused on bringing Roser Park Drive up to current engineering guidelines; preservation be damned. Again "safety" is the reason for removing these historic features and we were told that there were "guidelines" that had to be followed when such major plans were to be undertaken. In other words if only the sidewalk needed to be replaced, then there wouldn?’t be much debate. The sidewalk would simply be replaced. But because of the enormity of the job [what is that word for ?“a turning point?” or ?“cut off point] we were told "guidelines" for safer roads had to be met.

Normally this directive would not be surprising if it just came from the City?’s Engineering Department. The City has some very talented engineers but, like much of the country, they are not sensitive to preservation. That is why the City?’s Development Services Department has preservationist on staff. When we asked them if our status, as being a National Historic District, didn?’t allow us some leeway around the Engineering department?’s guidelines they told us that unfortunately it didn?’t. It appeared that when it came to "safety" the engineers didn?’t have to bend ?– the historic district did.

Thoughts of other preserved historic structures, like old covered bridges, or historic narrow roads in Boston, or Savannah, or New Orleans, come to mind and one wonders how they have managed to keep their dimensions through the years of "improvements". And with so many neighborhoods in St. Pete asking the City to help them with new traffic calming plans, where roads are narrowed, one wonders why the City was compelled to widen a historically narrow road so cars could go faster. It seemed senseless and irreverent.

Suspecting that there was some weakness in the City, where there was greater interdepartmental cooperation rather than interest in maintaining the features of our historic corridor, we went up the ladder and made calls to The Florida Heritage Trust in Tallahassee to check with them on traffic guidelines in an historic district. But we received no satisfaction there either. It seemed that ?“safety,?” as the engineers defined it, was the overriding concern when it came to repairs of historic infrastructure.

While most of the neighborhood residents were ready to accept this compromise there was still a contingent of old time residents who felt uncomfortable with the alteration to this scenic part of Roser Park. After our General Neighborhood Association Meeting on January 20th, when we met with city representatives to discuss the ?“Corridor Improvements?”, and voted to accept the changes, we had another general meeting to nominate new candidates for an upcoming election. At this meeting a concern was expressed that there might and should be other avenues open to allow the improvements to proceed without the recommended changes of street widening and sidewalk removal. A motion was made, and supported unanimously, to ask the Historic Preservation Commission to permit a Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) with the exception to these two changes.

In part the motion read:
The homeowners of Roser Park request that the Historic Preservation Commission or appropriate policy making body grant a special exception to the design guidelines regarding pavement width to allow the maintenance of the existing historic road alignment and sidewalk along Roser Park Drive.

At the HPC hearing a number of neighbors spoke of their concerns for preservation and the irony of imposing ?“safety guidelines?” on an historic and safe road. Old postcards were shown of the corridor with people walking along the sidewalk showing its function for allowing people to socialize near to the creek and park. Other opinions testified to the difficulty of preserving such important features in a small neighborhood and the possible loss of historic status due to progressive picking away of those features. We also presented some heretofore elusive evidence that engineer ?“guidelines?” were only meant to give direction to improvements but were not ?“standards?” that had to be followed ?– especially in an historic district.

This last bit of evidence was what we were looking for to substantiate our arguments that what engineers might like to see happen didn?’t have to happen. Roads didn?’t have to be widened, sidewalks didn?’t have to be removed, railings didn?’t have to be installed if the sidewalk stayed and there was actually very little evidence that leaving things as they were would expose anyone to future litigation.

The HPC agreed with us, as stated earlier, and now we have to wait and see how progress develops. While there may be people who don?’t care about what changes are made in our neighborhood it is good to know that many do. It is unfortunate that we don?’t have greater allies in preservation working in the City. The defense for keeping our physical character shouldn?’t have to be made by the residents of Roser Park but it is unrealistic to think we would be better off by not being involved and not supervising the action of outsiders. Our neighbors are the best check for what happens in the neighborhood. The threat of losing historic features should end on the desk of a City preservationist. They have knowledgeable and good people in place and they should be educating their cohorts in the Engineering Department rather than compromising with them. But, in the long run, it is our responsibility to make sure that our character is preserved.

It is good to know we have neighbors who will stand up and speak for protecting those things that make Historic Roser Park more valuable. While we all want to see these improvements happen we all also want to make sure that the least amount of damage is done to our old character. Thanks to the involvement of concerned neighbors we will preserve our unique beauty.