 Good morning. I'm Susan West Montgomery with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and I'm so thrilled to welcome you all here, all of those here in Denver, but also our audience outside of Denver watching the live stream and those who are joining us through the Forum Connect community. This Trust Live, Resaving Saved Places, is part of a series of Trust Lives which you've heard a little bit about. These plenaries were developed by the National Trust as a way to bring leading voices and new ideas to conversations around preservation. Generally we featured them as part of our conference passed forward. But we really wanted to broaden out our audience and expand the reach of the Trust Lives by taking it on the road, so to speak. And so we're thrilled to be here in Denver partnering with CPI to bring a Trust Live to this conference. And what's really sort of great about that is that our audience across the country but also around the world is getting a little glimpse of the conversations you're having here in Denver this week. So it's a win-win for both the audiences. The Trust Live is sponsored by Preservation Leadership Forum. Forum is a network of preservation professionals brought together by the National Trust. Forum provides cutting edge content and offers online and in-person networking opportunities and brings diverse new perspectives to the business of saving places. This week, throughout the conference, we're focusing on the next generation of preservation. And I think you will find our topic today, Resaving Saved Places, particularly on point. You will learn from our keynote speaker, Danielle DeSole, who is the Executive Director of Preservation Resources Center of New Orleans, and Annie Levinsky, Executive Director of Historic Denver, as well as the National Trust's own Associate General Counsel and Nelson, about places that they've been involved with that we thought were saved but in the end appear to be threatened once again by a new generation of threats. And this, of course, will require a new generation of tools and resources and advocacy to save them. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome Danielle to the stage. Good morning, everyone. It's such an honor to be here. My name is Danielle DeSole. I'm the Executive Director of the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans. We are the largest preservation nonprofit in the city of New Orleans. We have about 30 employees. We're an advocacy organization. We advocate on the local, state, and federal levels. An education organization. We have kids classes, adult workshops, all sorts of tours and events that help educate people on how to acquire and renovate historic buildings. We have a great communications department with a monthly magazine. We hold 127 historic preservation easements. And we have two bricks-and-mortar programs where we acquire and restore historic sites across the city. So we have a lot of work. We're very busy. And I'm going to start the presentation. So like I said, I'm the new Executive Director, relatively new. I'm only the fourth Executive Director in the organization's 45-year history. So there have been more U.S. presidents and there have been directors of the Preservation Resource Center. And I was so honored to have been chosen. I had been with the organization for seven years prior as the communications director and editor of our magazine. And, you know, I was happy to throw my name in the ring, but I honestly never thought that with over 200 applicants from across the country, they would choose the young woman sitting in the office, you know, 20 feet away. But it was a wonderful honor to be chosen. And I want to thank the National Trust and Colorado Preservation Inc. for inviting me here today. It's such an honor to speak with all of you. And it's actually, I want to just say really quickly, it's a personal honor to be here today. Today is my one-year anniversary of being on the job as Executive Director. So this is me a year ago telling the staff that I was selected. I'm here with my husband Ramsey and one of our two little girls, this is Helena. And as I was looking at this photo last night, I was kind of laughing to myself. You know that Facebook 10 challenge that's been going on where you look at a picture of yourself from 10 years ago and then your picture of yourself today. This is kind of like my ED one-year challenge where I'm like, okay, I've got more wrinkles, a few more pounds. But it has been such an incredible honor to be at a helm of an organization that is tasked with safeguarding the wonderfully unique and distinct architecture of our city of New Orleans. This is our building in New Orleans Warehouse District. I mean, what a sacred task we have safeguarding historic sites and bringing them into the future. In New Orleans cooking, we have what's called the Holy Trinity, which is green bell peppers, onions, and celery. And those create the basis for some of our most beloved dishes like gumbo and jambalaya, a touffé. I like to talk about the New Orleans Holy Trinity, which is, yes, our cooking, which is incredible. Our cuisine in New Orleans is the best. Music, we are the birthplace of jazz. And we are one of the only cities in the country where musicians can actually make a living in our thriving music scene. But the architecture is that third part of our Holy Trinity. Where would we have those wonderful meals? And where would we see that great music if we didn't have beautiful architecture and streetscapes for our special city? I mean, what would New Orleans be without our iconic shotgun houses or the iron lace balconies of the French Quarter? They create that feel that cannot be quantified. I mean, sure, you can quantify the tourist dollars of people who come to New Orleans and want to see our special places. Or you can even quantify the amount of money, the revenue that's generated when projects are restored using historic tax credits. But we need to look at our historic built environment much in the same way as our natural resources. They're irreplaceable. Once they're gone, they're gone forever. And so it's our job to protect them and bring them into the future. And what a privilege that is for all of us. You know, one of the things that people say to me when we talk about preservation in New Orleans is what could you all possibly have to do now? Preservation is one. Historic districts are beautiful. Downtowns are coming back and resurging. The creative classes came. And it's true. The work of our predecessors and preservationists for decades now have seen the rebirth of downtowns all over this country. Significant landmarks have been saved. New stories have been told. Cities and main streets across the country brought back to life. Downtowns are sexy from New Orleans to Memphis to Denver. We made historic districts desirable and brought people back to downtowns from the suburbs. And we proved our economic worth time and again as developers grew empires restoring historic buildings. The states and federal government have reaped the economic benefits as places are revitalized. And local economies thrive with construction, new jobs and, you know, as newly renovated structures employ millions and reawaken long sleeping nodes. But our successes have birthed new challenges. Suddenly sites that we fought to save generations ago are threatened again, but in new ways. What are the new challenges that face the field of preservation today? And how can we start to address them? I have some unique insight into this topic as the Preservation Resource Center spent the whole last year considering the ways that our organization needs to evolve in New Orleans to address the new threats the buildings and neighborhoods in our city faces. The PRC's board just this past December approved a new strategic plan for our organization and it was the culmination of many months of deliberation, community outreach and soul searching. So I'm going to talk a little bit in a few moments of some of the ways we're evolving our work and scope. But first I want to tell you about one of the first times I personally understood firsthand the new challenges that we are facing as a city. So I live in a neighborhood called Uptown. Here it is. We have universities, we have parks, we have the zoo, we have beautiful residences and shops and locally owned businesses. And Magazine Street, which is the yellow line running kind of towards the bottom, is an incredible six mile stretch of mostly local locally owned independent shops and restaurants and cafes. And on the north side between Magazine Street and St. Charles Avenue, which everyone knows for its live oak trees and streetcar and mansions, that's the nice side of Magazine. The lower side of Magazine Street between Magazine and the river, which is where the port is located, is the more working class side of Magazine Street. And it's a wonderful neighborhood with a variety of housing types, people of all income levels, all races and creeds. It's just a great diverse area. Our city has long been known for its affordability. And so I got the shock of my life one day when walking my dog. And I had long walked past this house, the one on the left. It was a very dilapidated single shotgun with Greek revival details. And I'm sorry, I know this picture isn't great, but it's literally the only picture I can find of this little home. But I loved it because I knew that if someone had bought it and restored it that it could look just as beautiful as this. It would look identical to this, which is on Magazine Street less than a mile away. So I knew the potential it had. And it for sale sign went up one day. And so I raced home and looked it up and almost had a coronary when I saw that this 890 square foot home was on the market for $319,000. I just couldn't believe that it was possible. I didn't believe that it would ever sell, but sell it did very quickly. And guess what? It was demolished. A new house was built lot line to lot line. And it sold for $715,000. I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that this one tiny lot could be worth a million dollars. But here is a new 2600 square foot home in its place. I'm more in that Greek revival shotgun, but it was far from the last. This vanilla new construction model is a cookie cutter mold that has popped up on every few uptown blocks now. Why? Because real estate and our historic districts have become so valuable. The popularity of many of our big city historic districts have made them virtually unaffordable for everyone, save the very wealthy. And as prices rise and affordable and smaller homes are lost, residents who can't afford to stay are displaced. And the character of our neighborhoods changes forever. So it's not just the sites themselves that are at risk once more, but now the entire cultural identity of places. This trend drives out people who made the neighborhood special in the first place, whose daily frequenting of the schools and churches and businesses and stewardship of their own homes, many of which are passed down for generations, made them special. So what happens then? Well, as we lose architecture and we lose original residents, the businesses also have to adapt. This is Matassas, which is a family owned grocer in the French Quarter that's been there for many, many years. And just this past year, Matassas had to make the difficult decision to stop carrying fresh produce and foods because most of the homes in the French Quarter surrounding the grocery are now second homes. They're only occupied on the weekends, and so Matassas can really only survive by selling cigarettes and liquor. So if we're losing our architecture and our residents and now our original businesses, that's a holy trinity of authenticity now that's at risk. Maximizing square footage is also a problem that threatens our larger historic buildings. Suddenly, downtowns are valuable, and our historic three and four-story structures are threatened with being topped by enormous towers that are out of scale and threaten the historic character and scale of a district. We fight this risk frequently in New Orleans, and this is our latest proposal. This is an early 20th century theater, the Low State Palace Theater. The developer wants to build a tower on top, a hotel tower. This isn't the way that the theater originally looked. This is a theater today. It's been empty since Katrina, but you can see that even though it will take significant investment, it can come back and be gorgeous once more. It's located on Canal Street, which again historic three and four-story structures save for a few intrusions that buck the 70-foot height limit, and those were mainly built in the 70s, and they're important because they employ the people that live in our neighborhoods and they house the tourists that come to visit. But these intrusions actually led to the imposition of 70-foot height restriction on Canal Street. So as we consider proposals like this one, and of course they want a height variance to build this hotel tower, we have to be very careful. Perhaps building this many rooms really is the only way to revitalize this structure. I don't know, but we have to be very intentional as we consider every request to buck height restrictions because you let one developer do it and they all will want to. At the same time, our historic districts are more desirable and expensive than ever. They're also threatened new ways due to climate change. Every part of our country is threatened by extreme weather events. In New Orleans, we proved in 2017 that you don't need a named hurricane to experience devastation. This was the result of a rainstorm one August afternoon, August 5th. A rain cloud parked itself on top of New Orleans and dumped 10 inches in some neighborhoods, wreaking havoc to many buildings and homes and cars. So how will we adapt? Okay, that's a lot of problems they know, and it led to a lot of drinking. Like I said, we've been thinking about all these issues for about a year now. But it really, you know, once we sobered up, we really came to some conclusions about how we as an organization at the PRC can adapt to address these new issues. The first key is to inspire and engage the next generation of preservationists. The passionate people who founded the PRC and have financially sustained us all these years are getting older and if we don't have a new generation of people to carry our cause forward, not only will our organization be lost, our whole field will be lost. There won't be people passionate about saving our historic places. But like the State Historic Preservation Officer mentioned earlier today, we have to make it relevant to people. We have to get them to care in new and innovative ways. You know, looking at the numbers, it's just not that exciting to all people. And technology has changed. People's attention span have changed. So how are we as preservationists going to make our cause sexy and interesting and memorable to people in the modern day? At the PRC, we've done this by becoming our own newsroom. We're telling our story and we're telling people why they should care. In the past year alone, we have doubled our Instagram following. And that is really significant to us because yes, we post pictures of pretty buildings and people love it. But we also do posts on advocacy issues, on the history of our city, and people interact just as much with those as they do with the pictures of the pretty buildings. So we know that we're getting people's attention, we're educating them, and we're getting their buy-in. We use our social media accounts and our print magazine preservation and print to really help people make the connection of why they love preservation. Like was said earlier also, people love the historic streets of our city. That's why they come to visit. They want to go to the chic new bar that's in that cool historic building. But they might not call themselves a preservationist. We make that connection for them. If you love these things, if that's why you're here in this city, if you're in Larimer Square because of the feel of it, you're a preservationist. And so our articles really tailored to making that connection with people because that gets their buy-in and that gets their engagement. And engagement is absolutely crucial. Another way we're trying to engage people in the past year is we're hosting photo contests on Instagram. Instagram is such a great medium for community participation. And to celebrate the city's tri-centennial, New Orleans turned 300 last year, we launched a hashtag called Preserve NOLA 300. And in the spring, we asked people to tag their favorite photos of the places that made them love New Orleans. We got over 2,500 entries in just a few short months' time. And we were so excited about that that we decided to have an exhibit opening at the PRC. We invited some locally famous Instagram celebs to judge the photos. And we gave the winner a free night's stay at a boutique hotel. It was a great way to engage people, to get people to our building, to get people on our accounts, and to be thinking about preservation as they're just walking down the street taking photos with their phone. So we decided to replicate it again. And this year, we've launched the NOLA Photo Challenge hashtag. And each month, we have a different theme. This literally launched just last week and we already have over 100 entries. So we know this kind of engagement and participation works. We also are looking to new ways to engage people with topics they might not think about. So in New Orleans, mid-century modern architecture is not really appreciated because we have so much incredible historic revival architecture and Spanish colonial and French architecture. People don't think of New Orleans and think of mid-mod. But we love mid-mod. We were architecture nerds at the PRC. And so we decided two years ago to host a mid-mod series. And we had five events throughout the summer that celebrated mid-century modern architecture. Well, lo and behold, literally five times as many people came to each event as we had anticipated. We were blown away by the response. And so what that told us is that we had struck a new nerve. We'd gotten a new audience of people to participate by exploring a new topic. So we decided to repeat it again this past summer, of course. And we had a home tour with just four houses, a two-hour event. Over 700 people came. So it's really about exploring new topics in innovative ways and fun ways in getting people out to engage. And this is a photo of some of our staff members at one of the homes at the home tour. We also, as part of that series, hosted a virtual reality exhibit, which was really fun. And that was a great new way to utilize technology in an innovative way for us. So the picture here you're looking at is the Rivergate. It was a wonderful building built in 1968, organic modernism. And unfortunately, it was demolished in 1995. But we worked with architects to create five vantage points of the building, from the inside and the outside. So you could come to PRC one night, put on your virtual reality goggles, and you felt like you were there. And that was really a fun way to explore new technology. Finally, we're just keeping things fun and keeping it young. These t-shirts are a fundraiser that we have participated in the past year. They're cheeky. Preservationists keep it up longer. The cool part is that these t-shirts were actually first created in 1976. This is one of PRC's first fundraisers. And we unearthed the t-shirts, and we loved them, so we reprinted them. And now I see them all over town. And yes, it's great. We made a few bucks doing this. But way more importantly, I know that every stranger I see that has this t-shirt on looked up the PRC. They said, you know, this is funny. This is cute. What is this organization? And I know that that's going to help sustain us into the future. So again, getting the new audience engaged and bought into your mission is critical for moving forward. Now let's talk more about some of the specific issues I raised earlier. In neighborhoods where real estate is rising astronomically, we have to keep people there. We have to keep people who have lived in these neighborhoods for generations where they are. There are so many factors at play to displace people in neighborhoods where real estate is rising rapidly, and preservation does not need to be one of them. So we at the PRC are creating a program called the microgrants program this year, which is seeking to directly mitigate the impact of historic districts, any negative impacts of historic districts. So in New Orleans, we have 18 historic districts that have city oversight. So let's say your house has, you know, the rotten windows or door that needs to be replaced are gutters that don't comply with the historic district standards. The city is going to come and they're going to issue you a fine. Well, in a lot of these neighborhoods, the people who get fines not only cannot repair the things the city is asking them to repair, but then they can't pay their city fines. And if you can't pay your city fines, you cannot pay your taxes on your home. Okay, that is a very real threat to homeowners, not to mention the stress of having to go to city hall and plead poverty, because you have to choose between buying your medication that month or buying any door for your home. It's a terrible situation and the city until now has really been struggling with what to do with it. We've been working directly with city officials to create a program where the PRC will come in, we'll get donated windows and doors and gutters will raise the money to make these specific fixes on people's homes who have been cited. And the cities agree that if we do that, they will wipe clean their slate of fines. And so this is a way that we are going to put our money where our mouth is, and we believe in historic districts. They protect the integrity of our neighborhoods, but they do disproportionately affect low-income homeowners and we want those people to stay in place. We don't want historic preservation to be a reason that they have to leave their homes. We also have a program at the PRC, I'm going to skip ahead here, called Rebuilding Together New Orleans. It's part of a national nonprofit called Rebuilding Together, and there are over 130 affiliates across the country. Rebuilding Together New Orleans is within the PRC, and I would encourage all of you who are in preservation organizations to look towards other affiliates like Rebuilding Together New Orleans, or there's many similar nonprofits that do work that help low-income homeowners. We specifically help low-income homeowners who are elderly, who are veterans, who have disabilities, or single heads of household. And what we do is we catalyze teams to come in on weekends and do builds and fix their homes for them. These are more safe at home repairs, so we'll build wheelchair ramps. We'll secure the envelope of their homes so there's no leaks. Make sure that their AC and heating is working, all of that. So it's not the cosmetic repairs that the city might find them for, but their repairs keep them safe at home, and that is vitally important. So if your preservation organization can partner with organizations like these, it helps send the message and show people that we care not just about the buildings, but we care about the people who live within them. The PRC is also innovating in terms of utilizing spaces that were previously empty, and so going back to Canal Street, you'd be shocked to learn how many of the upper floors of these buildings are actually completely empty. Why? Because the upper floors are small square footages by and large. Look how narrow each of these buildings are. And for modern building homes, you need to have two means of egress to use that space legally. You need to have an elevator, you need to have two ways to get it in now. But that costs a lot of money, and so for that much square footage, it's not going to make sense for you financially to retrofit your building to meet modern code. However, if you are able to connect the upper floors of several buildings at once, you still only need two means of egress, and now you've tripled the amount of square footage that you can get rent on to offset your finances. So that is literally reusing space that's just sitting there and can help alleviate some of that pressure on density. Documentation is critical in elevating people's histories and stories in neighborhoods that are changing rapidly helps bring awareness to why these neighborhoods are special in the first place. This is 1423 North Claiborne Avenue. It's in the Tremay. It's a building that we acquired about a decade ago, and it took us a long time to raise the money and renovate the structure. But we did, and we're very proud of the work we've done. But along the way, we documented the history of the building and its importance. So this is actually the last remaining building of Strait University. It's the last remaining building of any of the three first African American colleges or universities in the state of Louisiana. And we were so excited to find that out after acquiring the building. So it was called Strait College, and so we launched a campaign called Straight Up History. And so as we were restoring the building, we told the story of the people who made it great, the alumni, the teachers, and how they shaped the neighborhood through time. So let's talk about protecting buildings. Preservation easements aren't new. We hold 127 of them, and we have for years. But I just want to emphasize to everyone that this is the best way to protect a historic structure that we know of. I want to tell a story about what we call the little building that could. So Harris Hotel and Casino came to the PRC with this proposal in the early 2000s. All the lower-level historic buildings there, they wanted to demolish all of them to build their tower and casino in downtown New Orleans. And the Historic District Commission said no. They denied that proposal. But the city council overturned them and gave Harris permission to demolish everything, which was devastating for us. However, we held an easement on this building. And so Harris came to us and they said, how much will it cost? We'll give you anything. And we said, not for sale. And they said, well, fine, we'll build over it. We said, you can't. We own the air rights as well. So what we did was we worked with Harris to incorporate the building into their new development. And we watched very closely. We made sure they braced the building because all the demolition and new construction around it was really worried us that this little 1830s building was going to suffer mightily. But it didn't. They restored it. They incorporated it into their new building. And what happened at the end? They came to us and they said, we are so proud of what we've done. Will you nominate us for a national award? And we said, sure. And we did. And they won. So I just want to emphasize one more time. Preservation easements are critical. And here it is today. Sticking to height limits is critical. The French quarter has very stringent height restrictions. And that is the reason that people come to the city of New Orleans. That is the reason that 18 million people came and brought their dollars to our city is because we have that authenticity. We look like New Orleans. We feel like New Orleans. We have the history of the city of New Orleans. It's historic downtown Denver. It looks and feels like historic downtown Denver. And that is so economically valuable. And we need our politicians and policymakers to understand that. Finally, we have to show what's possible. We can't just ask people to save buildings without actually telling them what could happen and talking about the dollars and cents. This was a local, a recent win for us. Again, people don't really appreciate Mid-century Modern architecture in New Orleans. This is an Edward Dreyle Stone Building. city music hall among other buildings and it's called the World Trade Center building in New Orleans and there was an RFP issued a few years ago to redevelop the site. Well some of the proposals proposed redeveloping the structure but one in particular proposed tearing it down and creating some sort of green space with some sort of weird attraction I don't know that's the one the one label tricentennial consortium I don't even know what that thing is but it was basically just going to be an amusement park on the site right and we were very worried because the mayor at the time was for that proposal as were many prominent business leaders so we knew it was going to be a tough fight but what happened dollars and cents spoke we fought to save that building and luckily this proposal won it's going to turn the building into a four seasons hotel why is this important not only did we save this mid-century modern building and keep it from going into a landfill but now this 450 million dollar project is creating 1600 construction jobs 450 permanent new jobs in New Orleans an estimated annual tax revenue of 15 million dollars to the city and the state in addition to two million dollars in rent to the city of New Orleans that is huge economic boon for us because this building was saved and restored that is so great for us so let's go back and talk about climate change briefly we are engaging in with new partners in dialogue and that's one thing I really would emphasize to everyone is that we have to be talking with other professions other fields to come up with solutions for how to combat the extreme climate incidents is that we are having all across this country at the PRC we're educating people on what to do if your house floods in a free grain storm what can be salvaged what you need to do to dry out your your your home your wood floors what can you know what can you save and so I would encourage local preservation organizations to do the same to how can you protect your historic buildings and what do you do when when these catastrophic events happen we're also talking with people about what's acceptable and what's not in terms of weatherproofing buildings in Mandeville which is right across like Pontchartrain from New Orleans if you look to the north here they're experiencing annual flooding that's just getting worse and worse so this is a home in old Mandeville that was built in 1903 and the woman who lives there currently pays $12,000 a year for flood insurance and unless she elevates her home that's going to go up to $22,000 a year by 2025 so are we okay as preservationists with you know changing the historic integrity of buildings to keep them safe against extreme climate I don't know is there conversations that we really have to focus on moving forward we're also working with the city of New Orleans and elevating the work there that they are doing to hold water in our city because that work is critical to his to protecting our historic buildings this is work that's going on at the city right now the top picture is an image of the Higgin Le Feet corridor in New Orleans this is how it floods in a bad rainstorm right now and so the city on the bottom picture is putting infrastructure under the streets into the purple boxes to hold water and that's how it's going to help mitigate flooding moving forward we need to tell that story to all constituents and get as many people on board because that is as important to saving our historic buildings is all the work we're doing to finally we're really investing investing in documenting as much as we can while we can because we know not everything is going to be saved so we're at the PRC we're launching a new oral history campaign and we're becoming a true book publisher so that when things unfortunately are lost we have record and we have memory of of who we are and where we've been so we're at the starting line of this new journey but we've codified our intent through our new mission statement previously our new our mission statement was that PRC advocates for the preservation restoration and revitalization of New Orleans historic architecture neighborhoods now we preserve New Orleans historic architecture neighborhoods and cultural identity through collaboration empowerment and service to our community we're inspired about the future of our work and of our field and I hope you all are too thank you so much thank you Danielle so it was great to hear such a wonderful recap of all the amazing work that's happening in New Orleans a city that we thought we had saved and are still saving but now we're able to focus in on a couple other examples of resources that have been saved so it's really wonderful to welcome Annie and Anne here and we'll talk about two particular case studies briefly and then maybe a more general conversation but the Ashley River Road outside of Charleston and Larimer Square which you all know so well both represented really iconic preservation victories and both actually proved precedent setting at the time of how we would go about saving places can you guys share just a little bit of the background of these original original threats to these places and the strategies used to save them so many of you are familiar with Larimer Square just down the street and Larimer Square is Denver's first local designated historic district so designated in 1971 just a few years after the National Historic Preservation Act and a few years after Denver became a CLG and started a preservation program but really it was saved even a few years before that when our local preservation leader Dana Crawford really contended with the forces of urban renewal like so many Denver was scraping huge blocks of downtown and Larimer Square was one of the blocks intended for demolition and Dana sort of through sheer force of will and creativity was able to convince the authority to sell her the buildings and to begin to assemble the entire block which was the most intact block in terms of the number of remaining historic buildings and begin to turn it into a destination that people would want to return to in downtown and so that was really the beginning of the story and was really the first time our city affirmed a commitment to heritage and historic places after spending several decades sort of turning our back on historic places so it really inspired a whole new generation of folks you know historic Denver was created right on the heels of this our membership surged and people really embrace the idea that our city was only going to thrive if we held on to the places that made us unique and different and that inspired not just residential historic but also the lower downtown historic district which folks are also probably familiar with the station is and this idea that historic buildings were good for economic revitalization good for the community itself brought residential living back into our downtown for the first time so really inspired what has gone on to become Denver's preservation victories actually River Road is a slightly different story but please share that good morning it's a little bit different in that we're not talking about a city or a town but we're actually talking about a rural district that's located about 16 miles outside of Charleston just up the Ashley River and the Ashley River is paralleled by the Ashley River Road which was first started in 1691 as a Native American trading path and off that road 300 years of history has developed from the rice fields and the plantations to the history of the enslaved people the phosphate mining industry afterwards and that rural context of this historic district which was first listed as a 7000 acre district in 1994 has been expanded to include 23,000 acres so that's a lot of historic resources and a lot of land so as Daniel was saying we're looking not just at the historic resources but the natural context and the natural resources of that area and the battle there has been fought for over 40 years the National Trust owns Straighten Hall a national historic landmark that's located within the district and there's one other national historic landmark Middleton Place that is in the district along with the Ashley River Road that is actually individually listed on the national register and there's been a movement over the last four decades to put protections in place whether those be private ownership preservation easements conservation districts ordinances that require buffers and vegetative barriers to protect the context and the natural vistas and the viewsheds and the historic resources in this district and I'd say every five date years there's been a new development challenge and it's it's been threatened by suburban sprawl and changes to the road so we've we've worked throughout the years to put these protections in place but they come up again they come up again and that's why we're here so we wouldn't be having this conversation today if Larimer was secure and Ashley River Road was secure so what's sort of the modern threat to Larimer Square as you perceive it well I think the theme of this conference is so fitting be a call to action for a new generation because I think all historic places need reinvestment every generation or every two generations and so Larimer Square is facing that the buildings do have needs but a proposal came forward last year that the way to address those needs would be to rescind those height limitations that Danielle was talking about for the French quarter because that is part of what has protected not just the buildings of Larimer Square but the context of Larimer Square and lower downtown to build towers on and behind the historic buildings and so that really I think lit a fire under the community to understand you know to really reaffirm our commitment to these places and to understand what challenges we need to address going forward but how we hold on to what makes them you know their authentic selves and what's the modern threat in at Ashley River in Ashley River I think I just in Ashley River there is a new annexation that's been proposed of a 23-acre parcel of property that's located just up the up the road from the entrance to Drayton Hall and it's proposed to be annexed into North Charleston which would likely permit more intense development opportunities higher density developments residential developments and the annexation is being challenged by both the National Trust and the City of Charleston based on South Carolina annexation law and due to our efforts in the past the National Trust acquired a buffer strip in 1980 that is 100 feet wide along the Ashley River Road and that buffer strip has been annexed was annexed into the City of Charleston almost a decade ago and that buffer strip is the land that is between land that's been annexed by North Charleston and this proposed development so we have a municipal barrier and we have property that is owned by someone separate in between the two municipalities so that a forethought in the 1980s has allowed us to challenge this current annexation that would likely allow more development to come in to the district I think it's fascinating when that was acquired the idea was well here we put in this protection this can't happen and the experience I think at Ashley River and maybe with the new development here and certainly what you're seeing in New Orleans is this questioning from the development community or from others who say well let's try a new thing let's buck the regulation and challenge the regulation so can you just speak a little more specifically to what is unique about what they're trying to do that questions the protections or the saving that we thought we had put in place and if you want to speak to an example in New Orleans because it's they're subtle you know they're not the same the same threat that we face before it's a new threat well in New Orleans I mean our threat has always been someone actually wants to redevelop this you know so we have different challenges than here in Denver where you know we actually have when developers come in and say we're gonna give you all this money just let us do what we want it's really hard to convince the local you know policymakers that that we can turn that away and wait for the right proposal yeah and here in Denver I mean the specific things that you're mentioning the you know Larimer Square was put in place with a height limitation and I think one of the things that is sort of most interesting about this new threat is it's it is a threat in part to the fabric itself because the proposal would have impacted several of the historic buildings directly with some partial demolition but also to that sense of context and the idea that the context is part of the story it's part of the identity it's part of the place and so scale matters as much as fabric the two things are intertwined and so that height limitation was helping to ensure that not only were the buildings protected but also that larger context and that the develop the real estate values wouldn't then speculatively drive up the cost of the land to a point where it no longer made sense to hold on to the historic buildings so I think we see that that threat is very real and as Danielle mentioned if you were to say to historic district number one okay we'll amend the regulations and the height is no longer a factor it essentially sends a signal because Larimer Square is such a precedent-setting place that all of our historic districts could be treated in that same way and that that integrity is no longer a high value it feels like such a reactive you know this sort of defensive thing which which is absolutely legitimate and I think you know Danielle hit it home too but can you speak a little bit to a proactive you know way to address some of these threats is that something that you've thought of rather we have to we have to defend the the policies and procedures that we have in place now but is there a proactive way to approach some of these threats have you thought about that in the Ashley River one of the things that we've been thinking about in the Ashley River are are there additional destinations that we can place on the property or are there plans comprehensive plans new overlay ordinances that we can put in place that promote development appropriate development responsible development we don't want to stop development we know there's going to be development but how can we do it in a way that is not going to negatively impact the natural and historic culture of this district so can we look back at some of the county ordinances the city ordinances and make sure there are those buffer requirements or how can we strengthen those tree protection requirements and are there opportunities now that allies and our local partners have rallied around this current annexation battle what can we what how can we be proactive can we get additional property owners to place buffer easements on their properties can we as the National Trust acquire more property in the area or our local partners there and and we've got a really strong group of partners both historic preservation partners and conservation partners that have been working there and have really been supportive in this effort I am so glad that you turned it to partnerships because I think Danielle touched upon it in her speech but the idea of innovative partnerships and and I think you know when Brian speaks I'm always struck by the intersections between what we're doing and such a larger community so maybe a little bit talk a little bit about what maybe is this threat at these sites or and you all are you know participating in threats to other sites that we've saved what are the opportunities in this time of you know threats that are promulgating new new relationships and new approaches that are that are kind of optimistic and exciting because you're reaching your new partnerships I'll say that in New Orleans at PRC we're really working proactively to engage a new set of developers people that wouldn't have worked with us before and so we are actively looking for sites where developers compare historic tax credits with low-income housing tax credits because we know that affordable housing needs are such a you know put so much pressures on density in our historic buildings so if we have glided buildings that could be simultaneously restored in the way that we love but used for low-income housing units what a win-win and so that's engaging a whole new set of partners in that in that regard yeah I mean I agree we've seen some really great projects in Denver lately and we've had some languishing landmarks that have been vacant and are now being revitalized using that exact pairing of the affordable housing tax credit with the preservation tax credit and I think you know when we talk about new proactive ways to save these places thinking about our traditional incentives of course I mean the federal historic preservation tax credit would be tremendously impactful at Larimer Square is a tool really custom-made but what other tools are there like housing or other incentives at our local level that can help recharge that place and get the reinvestment done that does need to happen and then I think there's also this opportunity to catalyze a new generation of people to care about it Danielle mentioned complacency as a piece of the threat and I think that that certainly happens when you have these beloved places that have been protected for four and five decades lots of people in Denver didn't live here four and five decades ago we're a growing city we have a big new population and so having to re-engage and I think that also goes to what Brian was talking about this morning with what stories are we telling and how do we not become complacent about how we're talking about these places and what matters about them and really having our community have a chance to engage with them and understand all the layers that make them significant the the pretty ones and the and the not so pretty ones all important to understanding who we are as a city and really embracing our identity as different from these other places because that's so important to our community and would you talk a little bit about the potential of a new national register designation do you feel comfortable talking about that sure so this is this is just something that we've started to to throw around in our national treasure team at the national trust and we've had some conversations last week with our partners in Charleston but as I mentioned the district is listed on the national register for its national significance and it includes a couple of national historic landmarks and individually designated structures along with a scenic byway a scenic river so there are a lot of protections there but as we look proactively to the future about what other threats are going to come down the path we know that traffic due to increased suburban development around the area will likely impact the use of Ashley River Road it's a two-lane road that goes through this historic district that is lined by moss-straped oaks and it's just it's pristine it's like going back in time but we know there's going to be a need for a new road and there have been discussions in the Charleston area about expanding a parkway and the preservation community has started to have conversations along with the conservation community about what what would be the best path and one of the things that we're considering now is what opportunities are there to put designations additional designations and protections in place now which may be a national historic landmark district for a portion of this larger national register district because under our federal laws we have additional protections for NHL since there are most significant historic resources under the National Historic Preservation Act and under section 4F so that's something that we're just trying to consider as we work with our partners to see what we can do now to help ourselves down the road as we save this place again right well and the opportunity I just would also add the opportunity in a new national register designation for the entire district as a whole is to consider the broadest possible history including beginning with the indigenous pathway that began the whole story through the enslavement period and the continued occupancy in that whole area it's it's not a fully told story at this point and if it's going to be relevant in the 21st century the full story so it's sort of like this threat has again sort of initiated a reimagining of that entire space telling a much fuller story yeah exactly yeah I'm going to get a little philosophical here but in your experience all of you and you could be thinking about this yourself is a place ever truly saved truly protected well you know this kept me up at night yeah I kept and stayed awake last night contemplating this which is and and and I will say it depends I'll give I'll give the legal response I think it does really depend but I think as long as a place is being used and is being appreciated by the community which can be a local community or an international community and as long as a place is relevant to people I think it's saved but it has to evolve as as we're seeing with our cities and our rural districts to make sure it is relevant and appreciated by the people so when these threats come up there's a group of allies that are ready to take action again because we know it's going to happen so I guess maybe the answer is maybe not yeah and I'll I'll quote bar Paul who I think is out there who always says you know every generation has to recommit I think it's a different it's it's the same answer you're giving a different way to say it but that if we become complacent about them or we don't continue to build a constituency for these places we don't continue to love them then they won't be saved we have to continue to reinvest to recommit and to affirm why they matter to us or we will I mean we will probably always have threats but we won't be able to fend them off if we don't have that generation that is willing to both the developer generation as well as the advocate generation and the community itself yeah and I'll I'll I agree completely and I'll just bring it home again to say that it's the buildings it's the sites but it's the people too and so you know making sure that everyone knows whether they know what preservation is or not you know that they that they live this life that that's just as important so that that keeps it alive and I would add that with when we have the will so people care about the place it means something to them we probably can find the solutions it's tough and we need to be innovative and we need to be creative and we need to develop new partnerships but we'll have the will to actually find those solutions and conferences like this where people come together and hash these questions out are where we evolve the new generation of tools to save these places so thank you CPI for bringing us together for that I suspect everyone in the audience can think of a place once considered saved that is now or soon could be threatened all over again so as we sort of wrap this up a little bit as you fight the good fight to read to to resave or continue to save New Orleans and Larimer Square and the Ashley River Road what words of advice would you give to your fellow resavers out here I'd say just stay optimistic you know yes you have to engage people in new ways but the reason these buildings are still here is because so many passionate people came behind them to save them in the first place so as long as you know you're still fighting the good fight you'll win you really will yeah I think that's a great point I think the partnerships is a key piece so you know make sure you have sustained your long time partnerships but that you're also engaging with new folks because I think these places bring people together from all sorts of different perspectives and maintaining and building on those partnerships is essential and I'll be a bit repetitive but the partnerships and the collaboration I mean that is such a strong thing that we're seeing down the Ashley River Road and it's been there since the beginning 40 years ago can you each name a new partner that you're working with that you know conservation we we have worked with conservationists in the past you you mentioned new developers who are sort of are more in the development mindset than we are but is there a new constituency that you that surprised you well in New Orleans we are really talking about short-term rentals and how to do that responsibly we know that they're here to say so can we work with short-term rental operators who are compliant and respectful of you know our cities our historic neighborhoods so that we can help guide where these units go you know we don't want them in our neighborhoods we don't want whole house units in our neighborhoods can we put them on Canal Street what can we do and so I never thought that we'd be talking with short-term rental operators that we are because it's constructive yeah and on so many of our projects right now it is the affordable housing community and what in Denver is this the yimby movement the sort of the yes in my backyard is how do we find ways to accommodate the density that our city needs in a way that respects that building fabric how do we reuse underutilized buildings but not set those things up as competing priorities but as parallel tracks that can actually flow together towards the towards building a you know a inclusive and growing city yeah and in the Ashley River there are a few developers that are proactively engaging with the preservation and conservation community as they put together their residential development plans and they're sinking input on at the early stages on how best to lay out the buildings whether to cluster them and how they can put buffers in place to help protect the natural and cultural resources in that area and what's great about that and all of these examples but every time we do that successfully we figure out a way to cluster a development to lessen the impact we're setting a model or precedent for the next development that comes along so it's very encouraging you are all very encouraging and give give us great optimism for our ability to continue to save these places so we're going to kind of come to an end I encourage you to continue this conversation specifically we're thrilled to be able to have our three panelists be part of our forum connect community you can find it at forum it's up here it's forumsavingplaces.org connect and they're gonna we have it sort of ask the experts panel and they'll answer any additional questions you might have both for folks in the room people live streaming and people on the the the the forum connect community online please also go online and learn more about preservation leadership forum forum we have our trainings we have our networking online and in in person we do a very popular webinar series that touches on many many different topics so please go online and and find information about that and continue these conversations in that way and of course finally we really hope that you will join us this fall October 10th through the 13th we're working feverishly in partnership with CPI historic Denver history Colorado and many regional state and local partners to continue the conversation we've started here this week but with a special focus also on timely themes like women's history and rural and urban revitalization strategies Colorado and the work you all do and it was so wonderful to see Steve Turner summary of the last 10 years all of this is a wonderful model for the rest of the country and they're all going to be in your backyard this fall so I hope that you'll be there be teachers and mentors and peers to the people who attend the conference from all over the country and I hope you learn from them as well so join us October 10th through the 12th and again thank you CPI for making possible our second trust live on the road I hope it's one of many many more and we'll look forward to seeing you in October thank you