Council adopts historic preservation ordinance to provide greater flexibility to property owners

The Common Council today (Tuesday, May 9) adopted file #230005 – an ordinance relating to issuance of certificates of repose to owners of properties subject to the city’s historic preservation code provisions. The ordinance, authored by Alderman Robert J. Bauman, authorizes the Historic Preservation Commission to issue a certificate of repose to a property owner whose property is in violation of the city’s historic preservation code provisions, and the violation occurred before the current owner closed on the property. Currently, there are no provisions providing an exemption for an owner in possession of a historic property with violations of the historic preservation code where the violations occurred before the current owner purchased the property. The certificate of repose exempts an owner from remediating the violations, provided each criteria is met.

“The Historic Preservation Commission and the Council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee continue to see property owners applying for a retroactive certificate of appropriateness for work that happened before they bought the property. These owners often argue it is unfair for them to have to update the property after the fact, and this ordinance change allows for more clarity and flexibility in the process when these situations arise,” Alderman Bauman said.

The full text of Council file #230005 can be found here.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.