 Hi, welcome to Historic Districts 101. I'm Amy Moore, preservation planner here in the City of Columbia in the Planning and Development Services Department. Since we're not able to meet in groups in person at the moment, our preservation team here thought we'd put together a series of short videos to talk about different aspects of historic preservation in Columbia. This particular video will briefly cover the different historic districts in the city, the staff who work within them, and a little bit of information about what is reviewed. And now here are the other preservation planners who work in Columbia. Hi, I'm Rachel Walling, preservation planner. Hi, I'm Megan McNish, preservation planner. Hi, I'm Christina Poston, preservation planner. So giving a quick rundown of our historic districts, we have 15 historic districts spread out throughout the City of Columbia and over 180 buildings that are considered individual landmarks. We're going to get into what all this means a little bit later, but just to give you a quick look at it, we have four different types of historic districts. One landmark district, one historic commercial district, seven architectural conservation districts, and six protection areas. Out of our 180 individual landmarks, we have three different levels that they may be designated as. We have group one, two, and three. And there are four members of planning division staff that are assigned to these historic districts and we're the ones with you today. This is a quick look at the city as a whole and where our historic districts are located within the city. You see them in the different shades of blue spread from the north and sooner ridged down by the river and the mill districts over to five points area. So as Rachel said earlier, we've got four different types of historic districts in Columbia. One of the more common types of districts we have in the city is the architectural conservation district. That's a geographic area of the city that collectively contains a number of historic buildings that were either constructed in a similar architectural style or share a general time period of construction. The intent in these districts is to preserve both the form of the neighborhood as well as the character of individual structures. So generally speaking, these districts highly prioritize the retention of original historic materials. One of our other more common types of districts is the protection area. And protection areas contain some historic buildings or landmarks, but also a large number of either non historic or altered buildings as well. And the purpose of these districts is to protect the form of the district as a whole rather than individual structures. The next type of district that we have is a landmark district. We currently only have one in the city. That's the kind of Robert Mills area around the Hampton Preston mansion in the Robert Mills house. But landmark districts are a geographic area that contains a number of landmark buildings or other historic buildings that are intact, highly intact, or from and from kind of roughly the same time period of construction. And what makes a landmark district really distinct is that these are all really high quality, high style buildings. So it's an area that contains a lot of buildings that are really important to our city's history. Then lastly, we've also got the historic commercial district. And that's a geographic area of the city that contains a large number of historic buildings that were constructed for commercial use. And we currently only have one historic commercial district in the city. And that's the West Jervais historic commercial district, which is the area of Jervais street kind of west of assembly street down towards the river. So in addition to our historic districts, we also have over 180 individual landmarks. And these are buildings or properties that are designated due to their importance to our city's local history, the state's history, or even the national history. And there's three different levels of landmark designation, the first being group one, which is primarily architecture found in the city of Colombia that is a higher style or a rare style of architecture, or has to do with a nationally or state recognized historic architect, or may have to do with people or events that were particularly important to the state or national history. And examples of that would be the state house or the Robert Mills house. And then examples of group two landmarks, which would be buildings or properties that are still important architecturally to the city of Colombia, but maybe not as rare or high style, but may still have associations with important people's events. Examples of these would be the Villa Tranco or the Siebel's Bruce Insurance building. And then last but not least, we do have group three landmarks, which also have unique architecture for the city of Colombia, as well as associations with important people or events. And examples of those would be the Palmetto building or the North Carolina Mutual building. So in addition to all of these 180 landmarks, we still take applications for landmark designations. So if you think your home or your business or your property is historic, reach out to your preservation planner and we can help you through the designation process. So we're just going to run through which preservation planner handles which district. This is any more speaking right now. And I handle the West Dervay Historic Commercial District, the commercial district we have downtown. I also handle a lot of projects involving individual landmarks. These are not shown on the map because as we just said, they're over 180 and they're scattered throughout the city. But you can contact me if you know you're in an individual landmark building and our plan changes. And again, I'm Rachel Walling. I currently oversee the Landmark District, which as Megan mentioned is also known as the Robert Mills District. It's around the Hampson Preston and Robert Mills House, right off of Taylor Street. Another district I oversee is the Melrose Heights Oakland Architectural Conservation District. And that district is roughly between Trenham and Millwood. I also oversee the Oakwood Court Architectural Conservation District, which is one of our smaller districts, kind of at the intersection of where Devine and Millwood meet. And last but not least, I oversee the Wales Garden Architectural Conservation District, which is a residential neighborhood just south of Five Points. As I said earlier, I'm Megan McNish. I oversee the Cottontown Bellevue Architectural Conservation District. This is an area that's kind of north of Elmwood Avenue in between Bull Street and North Main. I also oversee the Elmwood Park Architectural Conservation District just across North Main from Cottontown. I also oversee the Granby Architectural Conservation District. That's one of the Mill Village areas that Rachel mentioned earlier. And another Mill area, the Whaley Street Protection Area. And lastly, I also oversee the Waverley Protection Area. And again, I'm Christina Poston. And some of the districts I oversee is the Earlwood Protection Areas, both A and B, which is kind of located in the north, along the northeast, north main corridor. Another district I oversee is the Governor's Mansion Protection Area, which is located around the Governor's Mansion. Another district I oversee is the Old Chandon Lower Waverley Protection Areas, A and B, which is located east of Five Points. Another district I oversee is University Hill Architectural Conservation District, which is located near the historic core of the University of South Carolina. And then last but not least is Seminary Ridge Protection Area, which is probably one of our most northern districts, and it's located near the Lutheran Seminary. So a common question that we get is, what exactly is reviewed in my historic district? So there are different levels of review. And our DVRC, which is the Design Development Review Commission, which is the Architectural Review Board for the city, quasi-judicial board responsible for reviewing certain things that's laid out in our city ordinance. So they typically review all new construction additions that are visible from the public right-of-way, exterior changes to contributing buildings in most districts, preliminary certification for the Bailey Bill, which is tax incentive for historic buildings, and then they review demolition or relocation of contributing buildings. As staff, we can review several things, but it's generally limited to smaller projects than those that go to the DVRC. And so we can handle things that are just minimally visible from the public right-of-way. So in addition, on the back of the house, that's still visible from the side, perhaps, that might be something that staff can review, just not highly visible. We can review changes to non-original features or changes to non-contributing buildings. We review fences and driveways, and we also talk over general maintenance and repair projects if people are planning on their homes. So that was a really quick look at what we do as preservation planners. We, as we mentioned before, we all have historic districts, historic areas that we oversee. They're listed here underneath our contact information. And would say, you know, if you're planning a project for your house, please just get in touch with us. One of us can point you in the right direction, more than likely. And for updated information, updated, occasionally we do have shifts in the districts that we oversee. Someone might be out. Our updated information is available on the website. So be sure just to check us out and make sure you stay in touch. So thanks for joining us for Historic Districts 101. We hope that this little video helped provide you with some information. As Rachel said, you can find how to get to our contact information on this slide here. And we're going to be planning some additional videos. So if there are topics you'd like to see us cover, please feel free to email us at preservation at columbiasc.gov.