SALISBURY — The Salisbury City Council implemented a six-month moratorium on historic landmark designations back in October due to questions about the program, and on Thursday members of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission and the public held discussions on how to address or solve those questions.

The discussion on Thursday was officially a part of the meeting of the HPC’s Landmark Subcommittee, one of the two subcommittees tasked with looking at the commission’s regulations and procedures surrounding the designation of local historic landmarks.

The moratorium was implemented as a result of city council members’ questions, particularly Council member David Post, about whether the current ordinance provided stringent enough requirements and whether the tax rebate best served the city. Concern was also expressed about an “explosion” in applications, with six of the 13 total landmarks having been approved in 2023 or 2024. There are also five properties in the pre-application phase.

Community Planning Director Hannah Jacobson opened the meeting by presenting the efforts that had been made during the first two months of the moratorium, including speaking with representatives of other North Carolina cities that had implemented the program, the State Historic Preservation Office and the Rowan County Tax Assessor’s Office.

One of the major proposals resulting from that discussion was for a “two-pronged,” study and application process. One prong would be the current process, where the owners of historic buildings or locations perform their own studies and privately apply for the designation.

The other side would be a publicly-initiated process, where city staff would recommend a certain number of homes during every phase of a cycle to the HPC for designation. The recommendations would be given based on a study done by an independent contractor, said Jacobson, and would allow owners of historic properties who either do not understand the process or do not have the means to do it themselves to apply for landmark status.

Jacobson said that proposal to add a publicly-initiated designation would help allay the perception that “it’s only available for certain parts of the city.”

“One of the concerns I have is that I think there is a perception out there that landmark status is an elite designation,” said HPC member Will James.

Currently, the program is viewed by some residents as having an “over-representation” of homes in the West Square Historic District. Thirteen buildings have received landmark designation with nine of those being in the West Square.

However, Jacobson did point out that adding the public designation process would increase costs for the city somewhat, although she did not have any specific numbers yet. She also said that it would increase the amount of time that staff spent working on the program, although she noted that staff already spend time reviewing and commenting on the designation reports as well as ushering the public and commission through the process.

Another of the proposals was for the landmarks in the program to be utilized for either education or tourism purposes. Ideas included placing publicly-funded plaques at each of the properties or having an online guided tour.

“You can drive down the street and not know that John Schaeffer’s home is a landmark or that the Bonaparte Castle is a landmark because there’s no plans, there’s no sign, there’s nothing. So, I think we need to start to do that, where we actually let people know this is a landmark, in some fashion,” said HPC member Sue McHugh.

However, several of the landmark owners pushed back against the idea of an online-based tour, saying that it invited people to trespass on their properties and invade their privacy, as most of the landmarks were also private homes.

“Driving by based on an event, that’s kind of cool. The county did that with a drive-by for the churches. But, if you start to set up these things through the (Rowan County Tourism Development Authority), what’s going to keep people from walking through your yard or my yard? That’s a violation of privacy,” said Karen Lilly-Bowyer, former Rowan County Historic Landmarks Commission member and owner of a historic landmark.

Later in the meeting, Lilly-Bowyer took from her experience as a member of the county HLC to say that both the county and city’s historic departments and boards should be combined, which would allow for their separate training and resources to work together. She said that when she was on the Rowan HLC, members were trained to write up the application reports themselves.

“We’re talking about going out and hiring a consultant and spending more money, more money, more money. As the state office said a long time ago, the landmark commissions for Rowan County and the city should combine so that it was just one commissioner that had one person that was paid jointly by the city and the county to do just the landmark program because it’s so important,” said Lilly-Bowyer.

Another idea that received serious pushback was the idea that potential landmarks that are already inside a local historic district, which provides some protections to the integrity of historic features, would need to be notable for characteristics outside of what the district is already known for.

“There are several great examples of Greek Revival architecture in the West Square, and I’m using that example because that is the one we know the most, but there may also be three or four great examples of Craftsman-style homes in Fulton Heights, and all of them deserve to be a landmark because they may have all of the qualities that make them a unique piece of architecture,” said HPC Chairperson Marcelo Menza.

John Schaeffer, who owns a landmark-designated home in the West Square, said that making it so that only the “best” example of a specific characteristic could be designated would make the program a competition instead of an achievement.

“Achievement says if I’ve met these requirements, I’ve met these requirements. That’s kind of the way the process has gone. If I go through all of the things that I’m supposed to prove about the house and the HPC agrees and SHPO says I’ve got all of the information needed to make a decision, I’ve achieved it. If now I’m competing with everyone else in the West Square, I don’t know. There’s my house and there’s this house and there’s 235 other West Square propertiesI think you have to be careful when you look at how you’re going to implement this. What’s the goal? Is it achievement because we want a certain level or do we just want people suing each other,” said Schaeffer.

HPC member Spencer Dixon posited that instead of focusing on which properties are the “best,” the HPC could look at properties that truly showcase the history of the city of Salisbury.

“What is the goal of the landmark program? It’s to showcase the history of Salisbury. Some of the architecture that is amazing here in Salisbury isn’t local. It was built by someone who showed up, built a house and then dipped. Is that really our history? I wonder if the landmark designation as a whole might be better served exclusively as a cultural landmark designation,” said Dixon.

Jacobson noted that Dixon’s idea also worked to solve another potential issue, that every local landmark outside of two was designated for its architecture. Only the McKenzie-Grimes House, which was designated for being the first property purchased with the Historic Salisbury Foundation’s revolving fund, and the Napoleon Bonaparte McCanless House, which was designated for its association with historic entrepreneur McCanless, have received landmark status for their cultural impact.

Towards the end of the two-hour long discussion, Historic Salisbury Foundation founder Ed Clement, who has been one of the most vocal and prominent members of the local historic preservation movement since its inception, spoke, saying that he thought it was a blow when the Salisbury City Council approved both the current and the 2021 moratoriums. However, the more he thinks about it, he said, the more he sees the current circumstances as an opportunity.

“We’ve hit two bumps, I think, where we’ve had two times that it’s been sent back to look at. And I thought that was terrible. Now, the more that I think about it, I think that it’s an opportunity for us. And I think that Hannah has laid it out, pretty much, and I think the commission is on the right track with what has been laid out. Seeing the opportunities tonight and we’ve heard objections and we’ve heard answers to the objections. The objections are very good and the answers are better,” said Clement.

At the end of the meeting, the members of the HPC agreed to schedule another subcommittee meeting for 5:30 p.m. on Jan., 14, 2025. The moratorium expires on Apr. 1, 2025.