The city of Dayton is working to update its historic preservation guidelines, including imposing civil penalties for violations rather than criminal ones.
Dayton’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved two ordinances on Feb. 15; one was to add historic preservation guidelines to the official zoning ordinance, and one was to impose civil penalties for violations consistent with current code enforcement violations.
“They’re essentially the exact same regulations that we use now; they’re just not written down in black and white,” Assistant City Manager Jerrod Barks said. “So this is just transposing all of those rules that they’ve had for a long time and actually putting it to paper so people can have it and see it.”
The city’s historic district was incorporated in 2011 and is primarily located along Sixth Avenue but runs from O Fallon Avenue down Sixth Avenue into Main Street. The historic district overlay zone covers both residential and commercial structures.
The Dayton Board of Architectural Review oversees the exterior alteration, new construction, demolition and relocation of all structures in that area. A Certificate of Appropriateness must be completed and approved before any exterior changes in the district. These rules do not apply to the interior of a structure.
“Until now, the city has had limited regulations under its ordinance, and we believe that the city needs to provide more guidance on this issue to people who own or purchase property in this area,” Dayton City Administrator Jay Fossett said. “As a result, city staff prepared updated regulations, which are similar to those found in other historic cities in our region, like Covington and Bellevue.”
The only significant change that Barks said was included was for chain link fences in the front yard. Should someone in the historic district have a chain link fence and want to replace it, they cannot do so with another one; however, if they already have the chain link fence in their yard, they don’t need to replace it.
Another difference Barks pointed out that differs from some cities’ historical guidelines is that if a person has an unpainted brick building, the board will still allow them to paint the brick.
Some instances listed by the city that may require a property owner in the historic district to go in front of the Board of Architectural Review include:
- Painting with colors not on the Sherwin Williams or Porter Paint historic color pallet.
- Replacing a door visible to the public.
- Construction and replacement of fences.
- Proposed changes to a porch or construction of any new porch.
- All new decks and exterior stairways.
- Any change in color, style, or types of materials to the roof.
- All signage.
- All awnings.
Additional guidelines can be viewed on the city’s website here.
The planning and zoning commission also voted to change any historic district guideline violations from criminal to civil so that the city could enforce them through code enforcement.
The city can cite a $50-$100 violation every day that the property owner does not correct the problem. Fines cannot exceed $5,000 per violation. A citation issued for violation may be appealed to the city’s code enforcement board.
Dayton Planning and Zoning Commission member Bob Schrage said switching the penalty from criminal to civil was a good idea. He said criminal penalties given by the city tend to be a low priority for judges and get lost in the system.
“The current ordinance doesn’t have any fees associated with it, and the enforcement portion of it is really lacking,” Barks said. “So typically, we’ll catch people in the rear, meaning they’ve already started on the project, and then we discover it, and then we have to go through the process. If they’ve done something incorrectly now, they have to pay double essentially to buy something else. So, we just want to get in the forefront and make sure people are aware of what the regulations are and that they do have to ask permission for a lot of things.”
Though the planning and zoning commission approved the guidelines and civil penalty aspect, the items will still go before the city council for final approval.
