CITY HISTORIC PRESERVATION GROUP WANTS MORE INFORMATION

The city's Historic Preservation Commission wants a little more information about conservation zoning before making any sort of official decision.

The commission met Wednesday for 100 minutes and discussed conservation zoning and multiple nominations to the National Register of Historic Places.

Commissioners want to hear from cities of similar size that already have such an ordinance in place. Once the commission learns about the benefits of conservation zoning or how the process works, it can make a recommendation to the Planning and Zoning Commission about amending its historic preservation ordinance.

Conservation zoning is a means of preserving the look or historic significance of a neighborhood. It can prevent new structures that might not correlate with surrounding properties from being built. It also helps preserve the look of a neighborhood if property owners decide to remodel or tear down a building.

Creating a conservation zoning ordinance for Cape Girardeau was suggested in a historic preservation plan adopted last month by the commission.

Dave Rutherford offered to call Johnson City, Tenn., which has such a zone and ask for information about how their ordinance was created and why.

"We need to know what drove them to it and how the community reacted," he said. "Something must have drove them to make this decision."

Other cities with conservation zoning are typically much larger than Cape Girardeau. They include Philadelphia, Memphis, Tenn., and Omaha, Neb.

Conservation zoning is somewhere between not having any designation and the restricts of historic districts, said Barbara Port, a commission member.

"It's a little more palatable," she said. Neighbors can agree more readily about conserving the look of their properties than the can about becoming restricted by historic district designations.