 All right. So good evening, everyone. My name is Rachel Walling. I'm a preservation planner with the City of Columbia. And I want to thank you all for joining us for this preservation month event. One of the first events as we kick off the month of May. So each May is National Historic Preservation Month. And every year preservation staff organizes a number of events to celebrate history, architecture, and of course historic preservation. So this year's preservation month activities, we are focusing on stewardship. So looking at the protection and responsibility for our built environment so that future generations can enjoy them as well. So that's really what our historic districts are all about. And the folks we have joined with us tonight have plenty of experience with that. We'll get talking about that in a moment. So tonight's event is based on Jane's Walk, which is an international organization of volunteers that lead walking tours each year around the first week of May. And the idea is to get people together to observe and share stories about their community and get people talking. This was started I think around 2006 after Jane Jacobs passed away. A group of her friends got together, decided to organize Jane's Walk in her honor. So if you're not familiar with Jane Jacobs, she was a writer and an activist who was active in New York City in the 1960s primarily. She went head to head with city planners at the time who were really doing planning from a top down very car centric approach to urban planning then. So she was very active in stopping through ways from being built through New York City, and which would have destroyed neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, which is where she was living at the time. So she got really involved in that and really turned planning on its head because she believed in the idea that the people who live in a community should have a say in how it develops. So which is really how city planning functions more today, it's more of a community based approach. And then taking a top down, look at it. And Jane believes that it was really important for people to get to know the places where they live. And because of that that's why they do the James walk, because one of the best ways to get to know places to walk around it, you know you see us so much more when you're walking on the street then you do driving in the car. So definitely since we are still not doing in person events. We are going to skip the walk but I do encourage everyone to get out and walk in neighborhoods and around the city as much as possible. But we are going to have the talk, the James talk instead. So, we're going to be talking about our city and neighborhoods with the help of a few residents and leaders from our historic districts. The planning staff on the call this evening lead to fourth is our comprehensive planner. She's recording the zoom for us, and Megan Mcnish, who is also a preservation planner is monitoring the chat box. So throughout the call, if you have a question you want to ask the group, please feel free to type that in a chat box, and we will come back to that at the end. Without further ado, I want to introduce our speakers or panelists or community leaders who have so graciously agreed to join us tonight to get this conversation started. We have Rusty socks from Cotton Town. Rusty. And then we have Joe Weeder and Bob Guild from Brandy Mill Village, and then Josh Shelton from Historic Melrose. So I want to thank you all for joining us. I'm really excited to get started to start this conversation. And just to kick us off and get us acquainted with one another. I'm just going to ask each of you to tell us a little bit about yourselves and how you came to live in Columbia, how long you've lived here just a little bit of background about who each of you are. And whoever wants to kick us off feel free. Bob, I see you first you want to go. Well, so I think I probably long the longest service in this group in my neighborhood. This is my 50th year living in this house and in the Grandby Mill Village. I'm a military kid. We grew up all kinds of places around the country, and never had a rootedness before I chose to live in Columbia. So this is my home of choice, both physically in Grandby neighborhood and in the city of Columbia. I'm an environmental lawyer and I started law school in this house and been here ever since. And, and, you know, I chose this neighborhood really by happens to answer it was simply the cheapest place I could find to live. And, you know, I spent most of my law school years living in a house with a couple of roommates we spent $60 a month splitting for a duplex, a half of a millhouse and, you know, it just was really cheap housing is by the line and I absolutely. came to love the people in my neighborhood who were a mix of Bohemian characters, retired and active mill workers, poor people, students, and, and I love the architecture and the, the feel of the neighborhoods we can talk more about that but you know this is a place I chose to stay and I'm here today. Great. Joe you want to jump in since you're in Granby to Joe you muted. There we go. I came here in January of 76 from New York City and artist filmmaker who came here to teach at the University of South Carolina, and did for about 10 years, and then left the university to pursue my own career as a documentarian mostly. I loved it here. The first draw, how I found the, what was then called Olympia, they called it all Olympia it was a, it was a wine, who was throwing Richard peach bottles in my bushes to inform me that this was not Olympia this was Granby, the Granby Hill. And so I mean it was a discovery but it was a fascinating place for inexpensive, lots of space cheap, and which is always draws artists and interesting types, and, and loved it here I couldn't imagine living in any other neighborhood. In the city, even to this day it's still, it's, it's suburban but it's, it's defies suburbia so I love it for that reason and the homes are beautiful. Hi. I grew up in Columbia. And in the Irmo area was born in Columbia. Went to Irmo schools and the University of South Carolina and moved away for a while right after college for for a job, but then ended up coming back. And, and when I came back that's when I decided to buy my first house. And, and that's how I ended up in in Cotton Town, where I've lived for the last almost 29 years. Attracted to sort of, you know, early 20th century bungalows and cottages that's really what I wanted and had targeted maybe Shandon or Rosewood or that area but at that time those houses were beyond my means and so discovered Cotton Town purely by accident. But there were homes for sale and the vibe was very similar but it was much more affordable here north of Elmwood Avenue and, and that's how I ended up in the house that I'm in and that I've been here ever since I do love this neighborhood. I've just adore the people here and, and the divide that we all create together as neighbors and friends and just, although I never imagined that I would probably spend the rest of my life in this first house that I ever bought. That's the way it looks like it's going to unfold and I'm perfectly happy with that. All right, well I'm Josh Shelton. I'm the most recent transplant to the city out of this group it sounds like I finally moved here in 2015 I've been in and out of the city since 2012. I was in the military in the Army and Army Finance Corps, which is headquartered for Jackson and so I came here for initial training came back here for subsequent trainings few years later, and then got an option for an assignment here in 2015 and we took it. It was able to stay here long term and then I made the decision to transition out and staying here long term. So, we first moved to Columbia I was living closer to the to the base and then in 2016 when I knew it was going to stay here longer term. We started looking for a house did not know the city at all. Just browsing around on Zillow and the house we end up settling on I think I hated it online and loved another house in the neighborhood and we came in for this this other house open house and I decided it was too small and we went one street over to the other open house and once I saw in person. The windows were the first thing that stood out to me and me and my wife both knew right away that it was it was our first house and we knew we have found our place and so we've been here ever since. And just recently undertook another move inside the neighborhood I'm a wild man, we decided we needed more space after the pandemic spending a year on top of each other. And we knew we needed a bigger place, but the requirement was to stay within Melrose, which was a tall order because there's not always a lot of big houses that go up for sell in the neighborhood. But we're able to make it work out and just last week moved into a new house here in Melrose so been here since 2016 and love everything about our neighborhood. I did not know at the time the group of people I was going to get to know here in Melrose but have fallen in love with these people. They feel like family. I actually mentioned the neighbors when we felt like it was time to move. If I had to move away from Melrose I was ready to move away from Columbia altogether because we were that passionate and Melrose was my sense of community and in our family here so we just have fallen head over heels for the neighborhood and love grows every day. That's great. I mean, all of you have touched on what what Josh was just saying about, you know, he moved and he, he wanted to stay in his neighborhood. So I mean, didn't you want to expand on, you know, what keeps you living in the neighborhood I know for Rusty Bob and Joe you know it was the price tag at first they got you there. But what is it that that keeps you staying there and like why why haven't you moved or why don't you want to. Let me just say that, you know, I didn't appreciate what unique character the Granby village had until I was, you know, here for a while and enjoyed the neighbors and thought the diversity and rich culture of the population living here was, you know, the most attractive thing. And then I began to, you know, get involved in neighborhood activities and city planning work and I began to appreciate that Cotton Mill Village is really represent the cutting edge of sort of new urbanist design. Ironically, these turn of the 20th century communities were built without referenced automobiles, you know cotton mill workers didn't have cars and so it's inherently a walkable community that ironically designed by the mill company itself had this integrated community that was walkable to to schools and churches and sports facilities stores and of course your place of work, which is the Cotton Mill and that walkable character and that intimacy of the neighborhood we walk down the street and the front porches are all open and I'm used to in certain days past before lots of air conditioning, you know people sitting on their front porch interacting with, you know, with passersby. So to me, that character was just ironically something that people now build into new designs for communities and I realize it really needed to be preserved and those mill communities were not thought of as highly as the grand houses that got most of historic preservationist attention and so it required, you know, a little bit of advocacy and education, as well as reinforcement from historic preservationists that this neighborhood was worth saving and I think that's been the start of Joe and my and many of our neighbors efforts trying to do, I think we've managed to do and that's preserve the architectural integrity of this really special place. Jared, did you want to add? Yeah, the neighborhood for me was fascinating, because it was my first exposure to sudden culture. So it was really fascinating, but I also in as a child was raised in, you know, my family was working class and my parents were on a first generation American life parents were both born in Europe. And so all of my aunts and uncles they all worked for living in various, you know, laboring jobs, wage earners and stuff like that. So it was very easy for me to feel comfortable here, even though I was the first college educated, you know, graduate degree member of my family. It was nice being here. Everyone was very friendly. It was very easy for me to relate to the folks, even though there was an obvious accent barrier. I remember I was at a local, I walked over to the Rosewood market. You're in New York, I didn't have a car or anything when I first came here. I just went a mile here, a mile there, a little bit, you know, we'll just stuff it. I walked over to a little convenience store in Rosewood Drive to get some beer, and they had Reingold there. And I was going, oh man, I got Reingold, and I was showing him what to do about it. That's crazy. Plus I had a weird accent. It was fun. But what was neat was I really got to know a lot of the folks who were either retired or actively working in the mills. Because of my ethnographic background, it was very easy for me to gain their trust, even though I was, you know, the Yankee. And it was fun. I loved it. And we became dear friends. I mean, it helped a lot of them through some very difficult patches in their lives, you know, and help them. And when they had to sell our homes and move on, I helped them sell our homes. So it's been a very, as Bob said, yes, there are a lot of issues. You know, we had to transcend the preservation by neglect, the rain that we had inherited, and move beyond that. And I think we've done that. So it's been engaging. It really has. And, you know, in Columbia, you really need, for me, I need that kind of engagement. I really need to be involved in my neighborhood. And this certainly requires that our neighborhood really does require that there are two or three or four really caring people. Otherwise, I don't know what would have happened to this neighborhood. You know, I think the city and the university early on had visions of this just being mowed down. You know, the intermural athletic fields and, and it was horrible. I mean, here's the, this was the economic engine for the city. I mean, this was the beginning of the industrial age for this community. But if you look at all the postcards you'll find from that era just feature Olympia Mills and mill villages as being the brightest spot economically in the history of the cut of the state for that matter. And it was at the turn of the century, more than one third of all white people in the state of South Carolina work in textile mills. I mean, it was, it was in. It's, it's, it's fascinating to me, and it doesn't have for for people like Bob and myself, who aren't from South Carolina, it doesn't have that stigma attached to it, you know, being a limp head, and having to, you know, raise up to the to the middle class from the mill villages. And it's more more than willing to abandon it because of the stigma of the no village but you know, it's, it's just an insecurity issue, I think for most folks. So yeah, we love it here. We truly do we've got some issues that we're, we deal with every, every, every stage of our development has as pluses and minuses but I'm sure with all of you, it's, it's the same. Do you want to add anything. Yeah, I'll add, Bob said is absolutely true. I don't think I ever understood it or appreciate it until it in this neighborhood about how an architect architecture of a home in the, in the way a neighborhood is laid out changes the people in the neighborhood, and it does make you it does cultivate a community, because people are walking in the neighborhood people are sitting on their front porch, and there's more organic conversations and relationships built because of that and I think that the sense of family that I get in this neighborhood, I would never gotten that without the way these homes were built and the way this neighborhood was laid out and the way it was preserved, because it does build it lays the foundation for community. I think that is what keeps me saying here is because it just got everything creates that sense of belonging that I desire. And I like Joe said, I'm not from here, I don't have family here. I desire that pretty heavily and so I get that from this neighborhood. And I would agree with those comments from Robert and Josh and Joe as well. The, you know, it's really about the people and the relationships that you develop with with those that live nearby. And the, the design of the neighborhood and the architecture of the, the buildings really support that. And, and, and keep it going. And, and I think that's really, you know, a great reason to stay part of the neighborhood. And I think in Cotton Town, we've, we've come together as a neighborhood around challenges at critical times in our neighborhood's history. And, and many times, those issues have been about threats to the neighborhood's health or design or preservation in one way or another. One of the earliest examples I think are when a connector was proposed that would connect to Interstate 277 over to 126. This has been back in the, I think maybe in the in the 80s. That connector was proposed to cut across the north end of the neighborhood. And it would have, if not destroyed that end of the neighborhood it would have certainly undermined it in some really significant ways, and it was a serious threat to the, the well being of this community. And that was really the beginning of, I believe, the neighbors coming together around an issue and really making a strong case for maintaining the neighborhood. And that project was eventually shelved. Although I will say that there are many days when I wish there was a connector from 277 over to 126, but just not over Cotton Town or over anybody's house for that matter. But, but, and there have been other examples since then where, you know, the neighborhood has really come together to fight for its well being. And those are the types of things where times where you, you get to know who it is you, you live with and, and, and, and for good or ill you get to know your neighbors and, and you, you move forward together as a community. I mean, so, so rusty it sounds like preservation was, you know, kind of reactionary in the neighborhood because you saw a threat. You were able to rally around that and try to get some protections in place and you did eventually, you all, all the, all the neighborhoods we're talking about today are historic districts. Bob and Joe were involved in the early creation of their historic district. Josh, you're a little bit newer, but I know I know y'all recently became a national register district. So, I mean, do you feel like the preservation of your neighborhoods was more reactionary to something negative coming. And then over the time, has that evolved. You know, I think that the historic preservation I saw always as a tool of promoting healthy neighborhood, not just from the perspective of architectural preservation which is really important. And in terms of building a sense that these were affordable homes for families for people to live in, you know, I came as a student renter and never thought much of a sense of stewardship about my house until I spent time and became a homeowner and I think Joe and I've always had a vision of trying to see these modest houses as being ideal, affordable family homes. And, and so it was a positive vision that was associated with preservation. But of course, you know, as rusty says those challenges really are what motivates you the threats are you know when the mills closed. They were active cotton mills as Joe mentioned when we first moved into the neighborhood. And when the mills closed because you know cotton textiles move offshore. The development community told us the mill buildings were too big to granted enterprise to preserve and adaptively reuse the university acquired them for a time and they were going to tear down the Olympian grandi mills and put the strong firm and wellness center there and they're sort of offered of the neighborhoods will leave the towers behind as a memorial to the cotton mill. And you know the neighborhood leadership and the folks in the community generally dug their heels in and said no we have high expectations for these beautiful structures to be adaptively reused and you know fast forward. And the mills have been turned into, you know, magnificent loft apartments, the 701 community center of the mills likewise a little center community center for the entire city. And that I think took, I think determination on the part of the neighbors to resist, you know, poor alternative choices that would have sacrificed neighborhood. And one last thing I was going to say is rusty mentioned, you know, highway threats as being a motivating portion when I first saw commercial maps of Columbia in the mid 70s. They showed that North that same North South freeway that rusty you're referring to that would come off of 77 or 277 swinging along the riverfront and literally obliterating our neighborhood with a new bridge at Waley Street, which goes right through the neighborhood. And it didn't even show the middle village on the map. The village had simply been excised from from the commercial map and so, you know, recognizing that, you know, the city did not value or develop, develop an interest in value the middle neighborhood. I think that was another strong motivating force for us to get national register status and then with a lot of help from the city preservation staff. Thank you very much guys. Getting very specific design protection standards written for the mill villages that finally, you know, recognize a mill mill house zoning classification with lot sizes and setbacks and square footages that reflect the historic character of the neighborhood and, you know, we feel secure now we're we've been recognized as a valuable acceptable housing type neighborhood that's deserving of architectural conservation. Yeah, the, the interesting thing about the neighborhood early on was that the homes were so affordable. Like the people just didn't feel like they were worth anything. I remember there was this one house on South William Street that the city had been harassing, rightly so because it was, you know, a blight issue. And these people just went, well, we'll show you, we'll just go ahead and tear it down. This is before we had any recognition of any sort, I think. And, and they didn't realize that they didn't realize that the houses were worth more than, you know, they just thought they were worth maybe three or $4,000. So we weren't able to get about a dozen people in early on to buy home and to renovate them so we kind of had like neighborhood block captains, people that bought in and renovated, but it's, it's a lot of work, you know, it's a lot of work and a lot of money. In a red line neighborhood, it was a challenge because a red line neighborhood, you know, that was questionable by, by anyone's standards. And so it was a difficult job. So the people that moved here loved it. When they, when they came into the neighborhood realized it was an old textile mill village from out of state, of course, they loved it and they, we had a waiting list of people wanting to buy homes to renovate them and they did. And they did, did beautiful jobs. So it's, it's been, it's been fun. It really is. It's been rewarding. And now we've got another, the people that developed the mills. You forgot to mention they also wanted to put the Greek village in front of the strong for them and fitness. In our neighbor. But I'm not here that would have been the poor mills would have been gone forever. I think they were going to tear Randy down entirely and turn into the mural fields. It's just a horror. This is the university. And then, but we now have PMC the people have developed the mills. They are buying up a lot of the houses and turn them into single family residences. And they're buying them for top dollar and then investing another 200,000 and renovating the interiors. But the important thing is they're turning them into single family residences, but as student housing rental housing. But we're hoping that when the student bubble bursts that will have flippable single family residences available to anyone that's interested in this community turnkey. Did you want to, did you want to add anything on that or Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways our protections were a little reactionary but I think the more recent national register was more preparing for the future. And there is a little there's always going to be a little bit of reactionary to it because you always will have someone, whether it's university a city, or any type of developer who just, it will never live in that neighborhood has no vested interest in the long term success of that neighborhood and they're just there to extract rent or extract money from it. And so you are trying to discourage that you want the neighbors to dictate the future. And so I think a part of that definitely plays into it. But, yeah, I think Bob mentioned something earlier was being a steward, and that I think that's more of where it comes from me is it's about preserving this neighborhood for future generations. You know, I want them to be able to appreciate the brick not not have the brick painted but appreciate the brick for the brick sake. And so I want everyone that comes after me to love this neighborhood for the same reasons that I loved it. These things are timeless so Yeah. That's great. So I mean, Joe and Bob and even rusty y'all talked a little bit about kind of being part of that original push for preservation was there anything that made you know you had to be a leader that you had a step up where you recognizing the need. And Josh and you came into it when there was something a little bit more established in your neighborhood. But what is it that that got you interested and really stepping up and for your neighborhoods. Well, I used to, I used to go to cities, what used to be the landmarks commission that was the predecessor to the design development view commission. They spent a lot of their time talking about the lace house and the big houses the grand houses. And I think it's just at the point where Elwood Park was the first listed design protection neighborhood that was not individual grand houses. And the chairman of the landmarks commission was a former professor or professor emeritus, John Brian who was an applied history and author and very well thought of authority on historic preservation. And he took me aside one time and said Bob you know you live in one of the most intact cotton mill villages left in the country. And you know the cutting edge of historic preservation is communities like yours not just the grand big house and you know you need to realize that you know professionals in this field are are recognizing the worth of preserving neighborhoods like yours. And I must say it took somebody like that to kind of light a fire under me and make me appreciate you know that I didn't have to make excuses for why am I why I love my neighborhood and why it was worth worth preserving and you know we found that it really just took a handful of folks I mean you name this event after Jane Jacobs but the reality is there are just no millions of Jane Jacobs and Jacob chains out there who essentially take an interest in their community and you know sort of inherit the mantle of leadership whether they like it or not because somebody has to do it. I think that's been our experience. You know people people's talents come to the fore when you know those work to be done and Joe's that in our neighborhood, Joe's the jack of all trades for knowing how to restore these houses he's done it with his own hands. And so he knows what kind of paint to put on and how to replace the sills in the windows and you know how to do a good inspection to see what other house is more of a challenge or less to repair and and that that talents mirrored by lots of experience we've had with others who have similar or different takes on how to contribute to their community so. I'm sure that's a similar experience to in in in Cotton Town and know those as well. You know people come forward and share their talents. Well, for me. At the time that let's see in the mid 90s when Cotton Town decided to try to go for the national register district designation. I was working at the South Carolina Department of Archives and history so I was familiar with that process and the. The research and the materials that needed to be put together in order to be successful, and I had access to some people that could help us get it done that way to so it just sort of made sense to join that effort on. Along with many other people who who jumped in and helped Patty Maranelli in Cotton Town, Jeff so tongue at the time and and and other people to contributed to that effort but I just happened to be in a unique position at that time to to to get involved and and help as I could. And it just made sense to stay connected to the preservation track with the neighborhood as we moved from there it took 12 years to progress to getting the the city's. The federal conservation district designation but we all sort of just hung in there together and and push that through as well. Yeah, one, one, one thing that motivated me more than anything else is that even though when I first moved here, there are the people that were the older residents. The homes were pretty good shape, but a lot of the rental properties were in horrible shape. If you think our neighbor looks a little rough now it was, it was wild and woolly. And, and it didn't matter to me that the rest of the neighborhood look like it was going to fall collapse on upon itself for like a house of cards but it's pride of place. And no matter where you live. I mean that was for me. I just started, I just made sure that the place I live was clean painted. I don't care if I was running or not. When I first got here, I mean I just had a garden, you know, and flowers in the yard and I mean just, you know, this is where you choose to live. You know this is where you're, even if it's temporary. So, you know, that's carried on then when I finally water place. I, you know, I just said this is it, you know, I'm invested here, and, you know, I want to make the neighborhood better as best I can. Same with Bob Bob is going to be beautiful. And that's part of just having some pride and self respect more than anything else. And so, even if your neighborhood is a little on the rough side. I just loved it here. I'm a minimalist. When I was when I stopped making more minimal art was my interest. So I love repetition. I looked at the small box hasn't there remind me of the photographs of Dan Graham. I was so excited. I can't believe it was some wonderful arms of the same. And it appealed to me sorry. But yeah, so it, I just love that he was so close to the university right on the river. It was like, wow. Yep. I love and cheat trifecta. Yes, so mine is more recent. I think for me it's always been a sense of duty. I think Joe, you mentioned something pride in place is definitely important. We are invested here. I mean, generally speaking, your home is your largest investment in your life. And so take care of what you've got. I've always had this attitude of make things better. Leave them behind better than I found them is always been my attitude. And, you know, it's and it also is like if it's not me who else is going to do it so step up. Yeah, it's your duty to step up and lead and part of that's maybe the military side of me that's what I was ingrained in me as a military officer, you always step up and you lead. But it's just, it's just a pride of place. I think Joe spot on saying pride of place and just being passionate and and trying to do right by your neighbors in your community. Well, I think some of you have touched on this a little bit already and Joe and Bob, you know, you've been in your neighborhoods for a long time we've seen people come in and go out you know what what the original residents have probably moved on by now for you guys. Do you have any strategies when people are coming to the neighborhood for getting them acquainted with the preservation, or do you have any efforts like that or do you find it's it's difficult with people coming in over time to kind of bring them on board with the goals of the neighborhood. My experience with that is usually particularly earlier on is unusually there the very first day. I had to start the renovation efforts in this one house in particular it's right behind Bob's was so bad with a chimney leak that the center sills had washed away from the chimney which was working as a peer for the center sills. The floors downstairs were all going inwards towards the hearth, and they were like, what do we do. There you go. But that was it for me. I get get go to blue stains get a crawl suit, and we'll start tomorrow morning at 8am and it'll take us all day and get go get a bunch of center block. We could get jack everything up and get a crop up until he could get a proper brick Mason in there do the. But I mean it's, that's what it's been like for me is just helping everyone get started, because, you know, no matter how good you are when I bought this place, I had no carpentry skills in terms of, I never used to hammer. I was more of a cabinet maker was building giant stretchers and boxes, and they had to collapse like a cabinet and fit in the boxes to be shipped for artists. So I mean, I rarely used a hammer ever so it was like, I couldn't even drive a nail straight. I mean really it's how that's how. But you got to help people gets, I mean, with on the renovation side, you got to help them get down. Yeah, I imagine not everyone is as hands on is Joe. Joe has been, you know, the go to source for advice about how to find somebody if they can't do it themselves. And Joe often helps of course but you know who can do a good job painting these places and, and who has the kind of materials that you need to replicate the, the wood siding that is historic and in the houses. It's a matter of dogging people to you know, thanks to you guys on city staff, you know we have real good workable design guidelines architectural conservation district standards that are very specific and while you know there's always some room for interpretation because we have a base of of in in ordinance that we can point to not only gives people a guide on how to manage renovation other houses, but establish as a floor below which we just want to allow people to go you know you want to put in cheap windows no I'm sorry you just can't do that you've got to save the ones they're there, or replace with like design. I just want to make and one other reference that I collected earlier you know when. When I moved into the neighborhood like Joe I got to know a lot of retired and working people who had history in the middle community. You know there's a tremendous sense of pride amongst folks who grew up in the middle village and I worked as a frame carpenter for Jackson is law school summer and I rode with a plastering crew one day. They dropped me off at my house on Paul Wall Street and the guy said, I was born in that house can I come in and take a look at. He walked me around the house and showed me where you know he poked a hole in the plaster wall and stuck a $5 bill high for his mother on the front brick peers on the porch. He'd written his name and I'd seen that years before when I was renovating instead of trying to remove it I left his name JJ why on the on the brick and low and behold years later he came and claimed it. So folks have a tremendous sense of pride about having come up in the middle community and a lot of the work that went into keeping bad things are happening in the neighborhood. I really want to credit of the late Jen Jacob and Larry Gates or Larry was a supervisor in the middle. And he's since passed away but he was president of the way the street neighborhood association, former a retired police officer with a city tough tough guy wasn't going to let people get away with anything in terms of threatening his neighborhood and Jim's family of Jacobs were associated with the corner of a tavern across from the fairgrounds and you know long extended family and so the loyalty to the mill community has met a lot in terms of the willingness of folks to protect the neighborhood even for folks who long since moved away. And you know that's a real feature that we've been able to depend on in the neighborhood. And cotton town. You know we've we've tried a lot of different vehicles for educating our residents on on what it means to live in a designated historic district and what the expectations and requirements are. And I'm not sure we've hit on exactly the best way to do that yet but we keep, we keep at it. We have a, you know, a good, a good newsletter that comes out three or four times a year and we always try to make sure that there's something in that newsletter that references the, the, the history of the neighborhood and the importance of protecting it and the, the fact that you know there are requirements. We use our social media. A lot to. Well, both in proactive and reactive ways. There are several of us in the neighborhood who will if someone gets on Facebook and our community page and says, I need recommendations for someone who can, I don't know, name your project that may affect the front of your house or there's always one of us usually who's willing to jump in the comment and say, be sure to check this out with the city before you start, you know, we're sort of the neighborhood nudge to, to, to remind people that there's a responsibility there to just not get the hammer and start wailing away before you make sure that, you know, you, you're, you're, you're good to go. But it's a constant effort and one that I don't think we can ever, you know, fall back on. And in Josh, we, we just awarded the Mabel Payne award to your neighborhood this year for some of the efforts that y'all have been making for for stewardship and getting the word out. Do you want to talk a little bit about that. Definitely. I think our experience is probably similar to Rusty's and since that we have, we've tried many vehicles, we still do. I don't know if anything's perfect. It's a constant stay on top of it, you know, stay kind of stay in front of the, like mentality, you know, you can never slack on it because when you slack is when someone will, you know, start to net that it and in some ways there's maybe like a carrot in the stick approach. We do try to take the approach of sell the benefits of preservation, especially with tax incentives the Bailey bill. Now that we're a national registered district with the state preservation tax incentives. We try to sell that benefit. And then some of the non financial benefits in some ways, just like the sense of community and stuff like that. So just sell them on that but then when someone is not going to listen to it is you know, doesn't care about going to DDRC doesn't care about the guidelines for the neighborhood. That's a quick and we have a lot of vigilant neighbors and, you know, we see something that doesn't conform we're, we're not going to let slide. And some people hate that, but that's just, you know, you can't let things like that slide like give a mouse a cookie attitude and so when you see something you see we're going on you email the city hey is this permit is is this approved by preservation just checking on it and just being proactive that way I think helps. One of the approaches we've really taking as a late was definitely with social media we had a complete social media restructure to make it more just kind of modernize it a little bit to utilize. There was a switch in Facebook recently make it more focused on groups and pages and kind of getting with that as well was as important for us so that there was a public page out there for people to see that. Also we, we hosted a website and we maintain that now and I love the website it's a great library of information, both on preservation but also the history of the neighborhood and, and just other little tidbits stories here and there about the neighborhood. And, and what's really great about the website is when you're doing a Google search of the neighborhood, it's going to pop up at the towards the top of of the Google search which is really important, especially for, I think going forward is people my age millennials Gen Z years, they're going to be doing research online about the neighborhood before they come in or at least you hope they will be. And then, and then the last thing we did was a rebrand. So, storage Melrose is not one neighborhood it's a collection of three neighborhoods we have fair view we have Melrose Heights and we have open. I moved from fair view to Oakland, I never truly lived in Melrose Heights. But it was understanding that that nuance wasn't brandable. It wasn't ever going to catch on and so we had to come up with the one name and the most common recognized name was Melrose okay now make sure you throw historic in front of it so clear that this is a historic neighborhood. And then with that rebranding we made sure that all the neighborhood most of them there's still some neighborhood science that needs updated but at all the entry points there's neighborhood science saying historic Melrose is very clear that this is a historic neighborhood. So just kind of different methods. Maybe it's a shotgun blast but you try as much as you can and you see what works and you see what doesn't and you adjust going forward. And then the vigilance is not lacking in historic Melrose I know that I don't work in the other neighborhoods anymore so I can't really say but I, I know I know historic Melrose you're always on top of that. So, all of you are obviously really interested in the preservation of your particular neighborhoods, and you'll have seen changes come and go over time. Is there anything that you're recognizing. Well, I mean the past few years that could possibly cause issues over time, or maybe you know kind of a newer, I don't know what's a threat but issue to your neighborhood that you are going to have to address. I mean let me just say that the preservation couldn't be more effective than it is right now in our neighborhood. We're adding infill, historic compliance, compliant solid box houses and, and supervisor houses in Grammy so the missing teeth are being filled in with new structures that are fully compliant with our neighborhood design standards with a lot of good support from you guys at the city staff. And that's just a tremendous improvement I lived in a house before I moved to rent the one I'm in by the one I'm in now that was burned down years ago and it's been replaced now by fully authentic solid box house. And then, as Joe mentioned a number of the houses that were rentals that are really in terrible shape. The falling off final sighting have been authentically renovated by the mill developers who have as Joe mentioned, turn them into back into single family residences really upscale interior and exterior fully compliant. The drawback is that with that success. Unfortunately, our rate of single family home ownership is not kept up and you know what makes money right now through that investment is student rentals and, and so the university spread into the community has our long term desire for increasing home ownership has been forwarded for the time being. And then we contend with a lot of the behavioral issues that go along with having a lot of young kids and these rental houses that just don't see the difference between three o'clock and a morning for having a sort of a shouting match in the front yard or loud music or Saturday after versus a Saturday afternoon. So, you know, enforcing the city's rental ordinance in terms of tenant behavior is a challenge for us and but I think we're all in it for the long haul and we appreciate that, you know, the, the preservation of the physical plant of the neighborhood is, you know, the prerequisite to its long term viability as a community. And, you know, we'll contend as best we can with with the new the transit neighbors who come and go from university. As I did my wife reminds me you are students to live in those houses. What do you think Joe that school. You know, I think the thing is that we were stuck. And some of the folks that had renovated their homes 20 years ago weren't keeping up. And, and it was just this quagmire of things going on that weren't going anywhere so when the when Megan called and said, Josh Harding with PMC was interested in wondering whether it was okay to turn a duplex into a single family residence. God, you got to come here and pinch me. I just couldn't believe it. Right. I mean, that what I tried to do, although the folks I recruited to buy homes here is I, I tried to get them to turn it permanently into a single family residence. Why because that's, that's kind of the antithesis of the rental property model. You know, usually you take a single family residence and divided up and then rented out and get more money out. So, for us, it was like, wow, great. And because our problem was finding people who are hardy enough to undergo a reno. Number one, and undergo reno in a challenge neighborhood number two. We had a class as class as stigma. Right. And then, and then, and then finally, you know, we're just having just having this opportunity, you know that a third of the lousy I mean the low end rental property and stuff that you know every 10 or 12 years, it gets sold again to another slum ward and, and, and, you know, it's, it's sick me when you see some of these the house next to Bob's. I wouldn't even, I was the guy who was the assistant corner here and set in Richland County wanted to live here he loved it here and we're trying to find them a home, and I showed him that house. It was, it was so disgusting, like, I talked to him out of it. I said it's mold and it was just like four cycles of slum housing, you know, which constantly cludging, you know, and just, you know, making do another cut of pain. And that's what our, I mean, it's so much of that and that's like gone. I mean they gutted it and, and we did it so it's a contributing home. So, you know, our feeling is, as we've known over the years, all of us here in Columbia, know that student housing is kind of fickle. And what's popular now might not be popular later, particularly with these wonderful tax abatements, the city's been giving these developers. So, so we're hoping that eventually some of that's going to fade and they have PMC supposedly has an exit strategy and they're, they're feeling their work with this dedication towards renovating the neighborhood. They're thinking that, you know, in four to five years he says it's going to be worth four or $500,000, and they can sell them to property owners. Right. That's their goal. That's their exit strategy. And they ask for better than that, you know, what, you know, we're kind of rolling the dice here, but at least these people have deep pockets, and they're committed to upgrading the overall quality of the neighborhood. So we're, we're hoping for the best and we're trying to figure out ways now of meeting with the university and the city in dealing with some of these behavior issues. And some, some teeth, some enforcement value. Rusty, are you seeing any, any issues or threats currently. Well, I've cotton town is surrounded by commercial corridors on at least three sides. Possibly soon to be four from an announcement that was made earlier this week or last week. And, and several of those corridors are really taken off right now. You've got the Bull Street district, which is to our east. There's the north main street corridor, which is showing signs of ticking up on our west, and there's Elmwood Avenue on our south. And, and, and we just learned that the property that the state had purchased with the intent of putting that connector on it back in the 70s. And that is looking at offering that property up for development. Now, which will sort of seal us in on the north end of the neighborhood if that comes to fruition. So, you know, Bull Street is really starting to take off. North Main is really starting to take off. So, so that's going to put pressure on the neighborhood. The neighborhood leaders are all already and have been for a while, very engaged in trying to, you know, work with those developers that are coming forward with proposals and be proactive about anticipating issues. So far so good. But those are the kinds of things that will potentially have a real impact on the neighborhood. Traffic is a major concern, especially with traffic cutting through to get from one major commercial corridor to the other. And we anticipate that, you know, that will just increase so there's a concern. So, so I think those are are probably the, the most current things that we've got that will be with us for a while as we learn to sort of anticipate and manage the impact of that that growth. And let me say that that the the commercial development near Cotton Town, much of it has been very, very positive. It's brought amenities to our neighborhood that have not existed until very recently. The little commercial district that's developed along Sumter Street where into coffee and a crossfit and we've got the war mouth restaurant and we've got curiosity coffee and all of these really wonderful locally owned businesses that are really providing benefit for the residents of our neighborhood and we appreciate that very much. We're, but of course we just want to watch and be aware of the potential impact of future commercial development. Right. Yeah, good good opportunity but you have to say vigilant for sure. Josh. Yeah, so I think Milrose is lucky because there's a fairly low runner population, most of our neighborhood is single family owned by you know owner occupied homes, which is really beneficial. But like kind of what Rosie was talking about it's more I guess more of an opportunity than threat is the middle work corridor is starting to get some attention. And, you know, I think, not just our neighborhood but all the neighborhoods along the middle work corridor have a vested interest in its success and we want to see it become successful because it's local. It doesn't, you know spur on gentrification or anything like that that we do not want to have happened. So in some ways that couldn't they as it develops it could introduce a threat. But right now it's seen as potential and this opportunity. And there's a lot of hope in in the corridor developing. I think right now. So probably some of our biggest issues that we face right now is just as homes turn over. Generally speaking the homes are turning over to younger people, typically people in my generation. And so, I think I mentioned this. It's more like preventing fads from nipping at preservation efforts and from neighborhood guidelines. So if anyone here has done tick tock me and my wife has gotten into tick tock this past year during the pandemic, but there's surprisingly a really strong preservation culture inside of tick tock. And it just does give me hope that the generation coming up behind mine has a love and appreciation for older homes and they understand the importance and significance of them. But one of the things I saw just recently was painting brick and how that is a millennial fad and it's equivalent to a baby boomers. Fascination with throwing carpet over wood floors problem is this painting break is a lot less reversible than taking up the carpet. And so, you know, just kind of like managing the fads and talking to people and helping them understand that the whole point of preservation is to resist these fads so that this timeless aspect of the architecture in the neighborhood is there for future generations. And I think another potential threat is just loss of skill in taking care of older homes, especially around windows. In my, in our original home, it was metal windows and that is a very hard skill to find someone's willing to work on metal windows and the majority of the homes here would windows. But I think a lot of issues people have with maintaining their homes is because it's not super easy to find someone you have to build a little extra effort in the finding that person that can actually come out and repair that window and stop looking and they just go to whatever persons on the top of the list selling a vinyl window. And, and so I think that's probably a threat for probably all older neighborhoods is as those skill sets are lost. I'm not lost but as, as people get older at those skill sets aren't passed down to younger generations, you lose that ability to work on these older homes, and you start to introduce maybe more modern techniques that are not in keeping with the neighborhood and maybe are detrimental to the house, because they're not done in those techniques that tend to hold up much more, you know, much more longer than maybe a modern product or technique. So, those are some of the threats we're seeing. Yeah, definitely. That's definitely one for sure that's throughout the city. So, we're running out of time a little bit of one more question. I know, Joe and Bob talked a little bit about wanting to see some more single family in the neighborhood. So is there any, any goals for preservation that you have for your neighborhood, any goals for the future that you want to see happen. And, and can you tell us a little bit about that. I just say one of the things that we're actually working on now have been for 10 years is trying to build more connectivity in the, in the city that, you know, we've got this amenity Granby Park and the city riverfront that's been my backyard as long as I've been in the neighborhood. And we've been promoting a rocky branch greenway. That's one of the greenways identified in the county's penny tax project under funded unfortunately and way behind schedule but we're very, very optimistic about it. And just to point out that the historic Columbia capital city ball field on assembly street is under contract for redevelopment and mixed use residential commercial project that would be a destination for that greenway that ultimately then could go up through the university to five points of the course of Rocky branch and taking people from the university and central city down to the riverfront through the capital city mill district through Granby Olympia. Wayley Street neighborhoods and so connecting people to our neighborhood is and I am connecting our neighborhood the rest of the city is one of our long term goals that we're working on. The other thing that's also interesting is, you know, Melrose and in cotton town both have their, your art crawls, but what we're going to have more working on now with 701 CCA is they received the grant from the night foundation to create a mill district art trail. And since our, our neighborhood is the more tangible the more walkable of all the neighborhoods in the middle district. We're becoming more of a focal point for that with the riverfront and all. So soon we'll have a bunch of, I've noticed also people taking the five points greenway five points to the river greenway. During coven, we've had like 10 times the number of people who are walking through our neighborhood so it's, it's kind of getting there and with with the added thing of new pieces of sculpture and murals. Happening month and quarterly. We're hoping that it's going to bring a lot of interest people, you know, finding the neighborhood more interesting and a different vibe. So that's what we're working towards trying to attract younger folks who are more interested in the more artsy artsy experience and in the historic neighborhood, you know, to bring the neighborhood together around the issue of historic preservation. I think we've we've done a lot of good work and think we will continue to bring the neighborhood together around the issue of historic preservation. I think we've we've done a lot of good work and think we will continue to do that. We too have been doing some branding work for the cotton town neighborhood and historic preservation is really you know, part of our image and part of our branding and part of our identity as a neighborhood so I think we'll continue to see that grow as we, you know, really what we want to do is, is promote the value of the quality of life that one can enjoy when you live in one of these neighborhoods. And and historic preservation is one way of demonstrating that and and promoting that so I think we'll continue to use historic preservation for the benefit of the neighborhood and the more we can demonstrate the value that that's providing to the neighborhood. And I think that will give us more, more to work with when we're engaging members of city council or city staff engaging in and negotiations or or conversations with potential developers about the importance of of our neighborhood. Not just to the people that live here but the importance of the neighborhood to the city and helping tell the the story of Columbia and and how it is has become what it is today, because all of these neighborhoods played a role. That's, that's why I think historic preservation is is important and and so useful for for all of us that are trying to establish a good strong quality of life in the neighborhoods where we live. Um, I think there, you know, I really think for me as the neighborhood gets younger, maintaining what has been built here by previous generations is is for me, probably my number I feel like my number one responsibility. Um, you know, taking all that work that was done to make this a National Registered District, and making sure that as people come in they, they want to be a part of that right that they, they're not coming into to change or reverse that to reverse course. I mean, they're here because they want to be here. They're here because they love historic neighborhoods they love old homes, and they want that sense of community that's that comes from those houses I think for me it's just preserving not just preserving the neighborhood but preserving the community that's been built here and what I fell in love with and what I fell on. That's great and I've really enjoyed talking with with all of you I think this has been a really great conversation, hearing all of your perspective. I think we do have a few comments if Megan you want to you want to jump in. We do we have several comments, and I'll go through all of them a little bit. We've got a couple from Patty she said a documentary on several historic neighborhoods could be a cool tool for preservation, perhaps a project for you Joe. And then she said, Bob you make a good point that the design of the homes and and the neighborhoods with porches sidewalks etc support more social interaction that seems to be something that everybody really echoed about their neighborhoods. And the john Brian survey from 1993 the citywide architectural survey was an inspiration to her Patty said, we were able to use information to help support the Bellevue, aka cotton towns application for national register designation, which rusty submitted in 1997. And she also noted, it would be great to have a list of contractors who are used to working on historic homes and a list of providers for special historic materials. And we actually do have a list of contractors that we maintain that folks like you guys recommend to us when you have worked on on your houses so we're constantly looking to add to that list. So if you know anyone, you know, feel free to email any of us that's preservation at Columbia sc.gov. So if you if you know folks that can, that can do specialized, you know, work or have experience working with historic homes we always appreciate adding, or being able to add to that. I think this has been a really great conversation I think, you know, it's clear that there are commonalities between all the neighborhoods that these type of conversations can can really, you know, show and highlight how much you all have in common. Personally, I find it very interesting to hear how everyone kind of came to their neighborhoods and found preservation and has kind of really stuck to that and embrace that because everybody's experience is different. So I really enjoyed this. I really thank you all for for being a part of it. Hopefully we can do this again. And I hope everyone online enjoys this as much as I did. This is great. Thanks for all your hard work. Congratulations, Rusty and Josh for your work in your neighborhoods. Thank you. Yes, great job guys. Your neighborhoods are beautiful. We're getting there. Yes, well, we have a lot of great historic districts and Columbia so all have a lot to add to the city so it's really important to have these conversations to highlight that so. No one else has anything to add or feel free but I think we'll sign off and and again thank you all for for joining and being a part of this and be sure to check out our other preservation events for the month. We've got lots planned. We'll have another opportunity for for some virtual interaction on May 20. We've got a historic preservation trivia setup. So we'd love to have folks join us for that as well. That's my my plug for this evening. All right, thanks guys.