| Versagi Voice | |
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CPR: Citizens for Property Rights |
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Citizens
for Property Rights is an informal coalition of citizens dedicated to the preservation of property rights, |
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CPR's dialogue with the City Commission
These continually updated excerpts from CPR comments before the City Commission illustrate the content and tone of CPR's campaign to repeal Royal Oak's four historic ordinances. Click on a link below to jump directly to a particular date or browse through all the records.
| 12 July 2000 | 19 June 2000 | 05 June 2000 | 01 May 2000 | 17 April 2000 |
The Historic Dialogue Expands
The Sunday, June 25,
issues of the Detroit News and the Daily Tribune published stories about
CPR's campaign to repeal Royal Oak's historic ordinances. Even if just
skimmed, the headlines and opening paragraphs project CPR's message to
thousands. About the photo of Frank with an axe accompanying the News's
piece, Frank had hoped the caption would read more like, "This is the
image many preservationists have of those who oppose mandated historic
designation."
Click
here for the Detroit News story.
The calls have begun, so here are some thoughts which may help CPR supporters comment on some points raised, especially in the Trib's story.
| Point raised in story | Comment |
| Royal Oak's City Commission is very protective of property rights | CPR is not attacking the City Commission. We are seeking and distributing pro and con information about historic districts, no matter who serves on the Commission. |
| "Demolition by neglect" is a common concept which applies to all property, historic or not. | Exactly. So why do we need a separate ordinance for historic property? |
| Local historic ordinances give people the right to restore structures as long as they follow agreed- upon national standards. | Great for a property owner who wants historic designation, but historic designation should not be forced on anyone. |
| Repeal of the historic ordinances will deprive people of the right to get historic designation. | Let's follow this Orwellian logic: Forcing someone into historic designation is the price we have to pay to make it possible for those who want such designation to get it. Amend the State law! |
| The City has received no feedback from residents about CPR. CPR is a "fringe group with an axe to grind." |
There are
three-and-a-half comments here: 2) After years of effort, except for the eleven "preservation pioneers" have we seen any demonstration of support for the historic ordinances? 3) Are we to assume that historic preservationists have no "axe to grind"? 1/2) It is always rewarding when one's opponents in a debate feel compelled to resort to name-calling. |
City releases list of ‘preservation pioneers'
Responding promptly to a request made at a City Commission meeting, City Manager Lawrence Doyle has provided Citizens for Property Rights the names of the eleven individuals who are seeking historic designation of their homes. CPR has no intention of publishing the names. The request was made in the interest of keeping the tax-funded process for seeking historic designation transparent to the public.
City Commission Meeting - 19 June 2000
The threat to property rights is real
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Tonight, CPR begins informing Royal Oak citizens of specific threats to their property rights posed by the City's four historic ordinances. The City Commission has said that seeking historic designation is "voluntary." CPR wants Royal Oak property owners to know that the City's historic ordinances authorize the government to enter one's home, make city-specified repairs, and charge the homeowner for the costs. Here's how it happens. Ordinance 95-13 uses the phrase "demolition by neglect." That phrase is common in ordinances around the country but is interpreted differently in Washington, DC, say, than in Palo Alto, California -- which are among the cities CPR has researched. If someone acting under the authority of Royal Oak's ordinance decides that you are not properly maintaining a property which has been designated historical or a non historic property within the boundary of an historic district, the city may mandate repairs -- or else. Listen to the specific language in the ordinance: |
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If the owner does not make repairs within a reasonable time, the Commission or its agent may, upon obtaining an order from the Circuit Court, enter the property and make such repairs . . . The costs of the work shall be charged to the owner, and may be levied as a special assessment against the property.* (Bold face emphasis in CPR's.) Does granting the government the right to enter your property and to force you to make specified repairs sound "voluntary" to you? Think about that language the next time someone tells you that Royal Oak's historic ordinances do not restrict your property rights. It is easy to make the process of seeking historic designation truly voluntary and to make all the public controversy go away. Just repeal Royal Oak's four historic ordinances. *Section 10(A)2 |
City Commission Meeting - 05 June 2000
Fact-finding Report Nbr. 2
In the spirit of open fact-finding, CPR wants to address the matter of so-called "hidden agendas."
Both those supporting and those opposing Royal Oak's four historic ordinances have used the term "hidden agenda" to suggest that something other than the debate about historic districts is driving the dialogue. Briefly:
- Those who oppose the historic approach to property rights suspect that the hidden agenda is to place roadblocks in the way of any and all development.
- Those who support matters-historic suspect that partisan politics is at work.
Let's expand on those two no-longer hidden agendas.
CPR supporters are uneasy that many of the same individuals who repeatedly expressed anti-development sentiment during the Master Plan debate serve on the several Royal Oak historic agencies. That uneasiness becomes greater when an Internet search about historic ordinances makes clear the negative view of developers held by many historical proponents. Not always. Certainly in old New England, preserving the truly historical character of streets and waterfronts and colonial structures is a valid goal.
On their part, Royal Oak's historic buffs see that several of their opponents during the Master Plan debate are involved in this current controversy about historic districts. And their suspicion is that those business-type guys and gals are politically motivated, that they are out to defeat specific City officials.
Some of the people on that side of the argument are suggesting that CPR is simply a front for such politically oriented business owners.
Now that we've unhidden the agendas, a minute or two of clarification about CPR.
CPR is a work in progress. After only one public meeting, we already have support cards signed by almost as many homeowners as apparently have orally asked for historic designation. As far as we now, each of the few business owners who have offered support is also a Royal Oak homeowner. A handful of home-owning business owners have chosen not to join CPR so as not to restrict their individual freedom to use other than CPR's fact-finding approach to fighting historic designation.
Fewer than a handful of CPR supporters have suggested that the group also take an early political stand, but CPR's founding mothers and fathers maintain that any political stance must come later, if at all. Like politicians, CPR will be counting votes, but partisan political action must not come at the price of compromising our nonpartisan goal to repeal Royal Oak's four historic ordinances.
Suggestion One
Starting in September, CPR challenges city-appointed spokespersons to a series of debates before a succession of neighborhood associations. In those debates, Royal Oak property owners, residential and commercial, can hear all the arguments pro and con and can ask any questions they wish. If any or all of the city-appointed historic agencies agree to participate, CPR is ready to work with them to develop the debate format which will best serve the public.
Repeal the four historic ordinances. Then, working with the same dedicated historical people who now staff the several Royal Oak historic agencies, create a totally voluntary Historic Advisory Council. Using the knowledge they already possess, those volunteers can help guide property owners through the admittedly cumbersome state process for seeking historic designation. They can also assume the responsibilities specified now in Ordinance 95-14.
Knowledgeable and dedicated volunteers helping willing homeowners work through a truly voluntary process. What could be less controversial?
City Commission Meeting - 01 May 2000
During the commission's April 17 discussion which led to the Resolution to make historic designation "voluntary," Mayor Cowan seemed to distinguish between residential and nonresidential property.
CPR has been unable to find such a distinction in any of the definitions of "resource" or of "historical resource" in the four Royal Oak ordinances or in the enabling Michigan Act.
You may not be able to pull the citation from memory tonight, but by the next Commission meeting can you refer us to the language upon which the City Commission will base a decision to treat residential and commercial property differently in this historical context?
Fact-finding Report Nbr. 1
From time to time, CPR will report the answers to questions which have been asked of us or by us. If helpful, CPR will comment on its finding.
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The Question This report concerns the obvious confusion about who asked for historic designation in the first place. The number mentioned on several occasions has ranged from 30-some to 40-some, but there has been no documentation either of the number or of the identity of those homeowners who are interested in becoming part of an historic district. Because of the confusion, CPR wrote simultaneously to the chairs of three City-appointed historic agencies asking for a copy of any list of such homeowners and whether they had made their request in writing or orally. CPR sent e-mail copies of the letter to the Mayor and City Commissioners. The spouse of one of the chairs called CPR to state that there is no list, that the number cited is the result of informal discussion among like-minded homeowners. City Manager Doyle called and said there is no list. For the record, Mr. Doyle took exception to the phrase "historic designation" in CPR's letter, although that phrase appears in the Mayor's letter to homeowners. CPR will follow up on the proper use of the term. So the Found Fact seems to be that there is no list of homeowners seeking to become part of an historic district. |
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CPR's Comment Obviously, some of the confusion has been generated because the public has the impression that when the historic leaders proclaim those numbers in public meetings the leaders are speaking officially, not simply as individual homeowners. In any case, we have here a City-financed project based on the impression that "a number of property owners . . . desired . . . to have their home studied"-- in the words which Mayor Cowan used in his April 17 letter to homeowners. Which leads to another question or two. How, in what form, was that desire made known? To whom? Without a list of names, without a document of any sort, one can understand the uneasiness of those who suspect the requesting citizens may be mostly members of the several City-appointed historic agencies. The Mayor speaks of this first try at establishing an historic district as a "pilot." In that spirit of experimentation, CPR suggests that the process needs to be less casual and more transparently accountable if the public is not to suspect that the aesthetic preferences of an appointed few are not being arbitrarily imposed on the unwilling many. |
City Commission Meeting - 17 Apr 2000
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My name is Frank Versagi. I live at 25975 York, in the lovely but decidedly nonhistoric Huntington Woods section of Royal Oak. Since 1994, the City of Royal Oak has enacted four ordinances related to historic districts.* All four derive their power from the State of Michigan Local Historic Districts Act. That Act allows, it does not mandate that cities enact such ordinances. A common phrase in the Act** and in the ordinances seriously threatens property rights. That phrase is "proposed historic district," and it makes it easy for proponents to ask the City Commission to impose restrictions on property which is merely ". . . under review by a committee . . ." It would seem, for example, that Ordinance 96-15 was rushed to amend 95-14 with language which applies "the same powers that would apply if the proposed historic district was an established historic district." And, of course, the City Commission added its favorite control device — a moratorium. Add to that the fact that the now notorious Windshield Survey contains this sentence: "Almost every street in the City of Royal Oak boasts at least one historic resource that has achieved the minimum age requirement of 50 years." |
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As a humorous aside, Elaine Robinson's report several times uses the word "contagious" where it should be "contiguous." I only hope "contagious" is a mistake, not an expression of hope about how far and how fast historic districts will spread. For the benefit of all the homeowners in Royal Oak, not just those in the currently targeted neighborhood, I encourage all individuals and groups who oppose mandated historic districts to mount and sustain a campaign — in their neighborhood associations, in the media, through service clubs, fraternal organizations, church groups, civic organizations, at the ballot box, in the courts — to repeal Royal Oak's historic ordinances. Let us preserve for individual homeowners the power to seek historic designation; let us preserve for the City the power to control only those historic properties the City owns, like the charming Starr House. *94
-21, 95-13, 95-14, 96-15 |
The public dialogue about historic districts is going to continue for a long time. Think years, not weeks or months. Because the issue involves property rights, emotions will occasionally run high. Individuals and the groups to which they belong may not always agree. Individuals and the several groups may differ about how to address a specific controversy.
For the record, Citizens for Property Rights — operating as a fact-finding and informational group — will not engage in personal attacks upon those with whom we disagree. And CPR will never distribute a piece of literature which does not contain at least its name and a phone number.
Two examples are being distributed here tonight: The first is a statement of CPR principles; the second lists the names and telephone numbers of those individuals serving on the several City-appointed historic agencies.
Whenever possible, CPR's literature will appear on green paper. Green symbolizes our grassy lawns and the money we have invested in our property.
