Despite an outcry by several residents, Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources has designated the Charlottesville neighborhood Fifeville a state historic district by a unanimous vote of the State Review Board.
“I’m disappointed,” said Antoinette Roades after the hearing in Richmond. She has been one of the most vocal critics of the Fifeville historic district [PDF], which was first proposed by the city’s Neighborhood Development Services in 2006. “We were not listened to during the process and today. If we were listened to, we weren’t heard.”
 After a contentious hearing, this and other properties in Fifeville, roughly bounded by Cherry Avenue and the train tracks, will be eligible for historic tax credits. |
Because state historic designation doesn’t limit property owners’ ability to alter or demolish their homes, it is rarely opposed. Its chief benefit is to people like Jane Covington, a Fifeville homeowner who is interested in the state and federal tax credits that come with historic designation in order to help pay for renovations.
But Covington was the only member of the public present who asked the Board to approve the district. From the start, some Fifeville residents were suspicious that the state designation would later bring local design control by the city’s Board of Architectural Review, which can impede a property owner in demolition or renovation. But even when City Council voted in December to move forward with state designation only if a local design district is taken off the table, the details of the proposal and concerns about the process have spurred steady opposition.
One of the chief complaints is that the district is misshapen, encompassing both too much and too little. Early in the process, state staff broadened the proposed district’s name to “Fifeville-Castle Hill,” in order to appease those who considered eastern Fifeville a distinct neighborhood, and also as a way of putting a touch of the area’s African-American heritage in the title. “Castle Hill” derives from a resident who remembered that locals called the house of Benjamin Tonsler, a prominent African-American educator at the turn of the 20th century, “the Castle.” Roades and others objected to the name, arguing it’s an anachronism. The State Review Board conditioned its vote on staff reconsidering the name.
Another condition is that the staff look to beef up the district report’s encapsulation of black history. That touch came after former city councilor Kendra Hamilton asked the Board to vote down the district, arguing that it did not include enough on the subject, with only three references to slaves and slavery.
“This is not the definitive nomination on resources associated with the African-American community,” says Margaret Peters, the preservation consultant hired by the city to put together the nomination. “What we’re registering is buildings. We’re not writing history.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
