The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON—The Dayton City Council authorized ordinance No. 1899, following a Public Hearing at a special meeting held in council chambers on Monday night. The Ordinance will allow for the repeal of the south side local register historic district, and the Washington Street local register historic district, and their zoning overlay restrictions, according to city officials.

Between March, 2016 and July, 2016 property owners in the local register historic districts cast two sets of votes in regards to retaining or dissolving the districts, and two thirds of the ballots were in favor of dissolving the districts, according to City Planning Director Karen Scharer.

At the meeting Councilwoman Christine Broughton said she felt the historic districts should have been retained but in an advisory capacity in order to help property owners living in the historic districts.

Councilman Dain Nysoe said he felt the democratic thing to do would be to dissolve the districts based on the majority votes of the property owners. “They resoundingly turned it down,” he said.

“The districts were formed by majority vote of the property owners, so the same should be applied now,” Nysoe added.

Scharer briefly discussed written testimony received from Greg Griffith with the Wash. Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, who cautioned that delisting the local register historic districts will not remove them from the National Register of Historic Places, and that measures should be taken to mitigate the negative impacts of repealing the designations, if the ordinance is adopted.

Scharer pointed out language that has been added to the ordinance stating that individual properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places would not be affected by adopting the ordinance.

Scharer said written comments were also received from Chris Moore of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, who expressed some of the same concerns as Griffith, and from local historic property owner Matt Johnson who expressed his desire to see the districts delisted due to the high cost of homeowner’s insurance in the historic district.

Scharer said that property owners have been advised that insurance carriers differ in their policies for historic homes, and that one insurance carrier in Dayton offers reasonable rates.

Oral testimony came from SSHD property owner Marchand Hovrud who spoke to the council about her desire to proceed with dissolving the local register historic districts.

Several steps need to be accomplished in order to implement Ordinance No. 1899, Scharer said. A State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review needs to be performed. The Dayton Historic Preservation Commission needs to help craft a policy on which to base the code revisions, and the revisions must be sent to the City Planning Commission for review and recommendations. There will be more public hearings before the City Council makes its final approval of code revisions, she said.

“We are going to hurry up and wait,” said Scharer about the process which should take until December to complete.

Scharer also said, “The city does not have a work plan established for implementation of Ordinance No. 1899 and a process needs to be established for removal of recorded notice on title for the dissolved district properties.”

Scharer said that five days after publication of the ordinance, property owners may choose to submit nominations for individual listing of their historic property on the Dayton Register of Local Historic Places. Scharer said interested property owners can obtain forms from her at the Dayton City Hall at 111 South First Street.