River Forest moving in the right direction for historic preservation

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 10:00 PM

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By Editorial

The nadir of the housing decline is a fine time to consider the necessity of finally strengthening the historic preservation ordinance in River Forest. Now, while the market remains a margin below tepid, it is possible to have the complicated conversation about finding the imperfect balance between preserving what is historically or architecturally notable in the village vs. the rights of any property owner to do as they wish with a building even if that is to modernize it, demolish it or paint it pink.

Somehow, even as the market boiled for single family homes in River Forest during the 1990s and into this decade, the village avoided the plague of demolitions and monstrous rebuilds which afflicted similarly affluent towns such as Hinsdale and Elmhurst. It surely wasn't due to any preservation-minded energy in the village. It wasn't until 2007 that River Forest passed any sort of preservation ordinance, and when they did it was the most slack-jawed, namby-pamby, my isn't that a pretty house, sort of preservation ordinance we've every encountered.

So clearly setting some actual criteria on what makes a home, or a commercial structure, worth preserving and laying out a process to declare it such is a necessity in a community which values its roots and its stability.

The challenge is to do it in a way that doesn't stomp on the rights of property owners. Every structure isn't worth preserving. Genuine preservation does not mean turning River Forest isn't a museum. There need to be protections and appeals built into any review process.

The village board is now lining up the funding to conduct a baseline survey of every structure in the village. That is a wise start. Next, the whole range of voices need to be solicited and heard. And out of that will come a preservation ordinance that secures our history but does not bind us to it.