Jefferson City Council to vote on temporarily suspending demolition in East Capitol Avenue area

Next month, the Jefferson City Council is set to vote on temporarily stopping demolition in the East Capitol Avenue area.

The bill is aimed at preventing historic buildings from being bulldozed in the urban renewal plan efforts until stronger regulations are passed.

If approved, the city would suspend the issuance of demolition permits for buildings 50 years or older in the area for four months.

Thursday, the city’s Historic Preservation Commission met to continue work on a new demolition ordinance.

The city is also working on putting together an overlay district for the area that would include demolition provisions.

One resident who lives on East Capitol Avenue told ABC 17 News she did not think the current process was doing anything to preserve historic buildings in the city.

“Hopefully when this ordinance is revised, we’ll have a better way to guard against important buildings being demolished,” Cathy Bordner said.

“Sometimes the person who wants to tear down the building does not understand that there is some historic significance,” she added.

One major change in the new demolition ordinance draft discussed Thursday was having the city give some form of public notice to the community when someone applies for demolition.

Another change would double the fine for demolishing without a permit and ban that person from building on the property for a year.

The commission also discussed increasing the demolition application fee from $53 to $210.

And if the commission recommends denying a demolition application, the City Council would vote on the issue rather than leaving the final decision up to the city’s planning and protective services director.

“We’ve been working on this for well over a year,” said Art Hernandez, the Historic Preservation Commission’s chairman. “And we’re hopeful that this will have some sort of conclusion in the next couple of months.”

The commission only recommended denying two out of 65 demolition permits from 2009 to 2014, according to the commission’s annual reports.

The City Council is set to hold a public hearing and vote on the demolition delay at its next meeting.