A Lack Of Stewardship
Hartford Courant
f you buy a significant historical home, you should take care of it, become its steward. Sadly, many buyers feel no compunction to preserve a piece of the past. They tear the houses down as fast as they can.
In recent years, tear-downs have become an increasingly troubling phenomenon, often in the state's wealthiest communities.
Greenwich, for example, has become known as the state's tear-down capital. In each of the past three years, more than 70 homes — half of them from the 19th century — have been purchased and razed to make way for new, larger edifices....
...n this instance, as in many of the Greenwich tear-downs, the new owners are hedge-fund millionaires who wanted the location and had no interest in the building. This pattern is being followed in Westport and other shoreline communities, as well as in other towns. ...
...In these situations, the community ought to have a say. The best way to do that is to create a local historic district, says Christopher Wigren of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. These districts need to be created by a two-thirds vote of property owners. Once done, any alternation or demolition must be approved by a commission.
Listing on the National Register of Historical Places can sometimes prevent demolition, though this can involve lengthy and expensive litigation with no guarantee of victory.
Zoning might be another option. The Massachusetts Supreme Court recently held that Norwell's zoning board could deny a developer's plan to build a larger house if the new structure did not fit in with the characteristics of neighboring houses. Town officials were worried about losing older, smaller affordable houses to a wave of McMansions. It's not clear if there's a similar situation in Connecticut, or if it would withstand judicial challenge....
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