It is time Chestertown jettisoned its one-size-fits-all approach to our downtown marketplace zoning.
For the past year our architecture firm has been researching the economic plight of Park Row, and more broadly, what can be done to nurture our downtown economy. That research has led us to realize Chestertown’s current commercial zoning has been undermining the preservation of some valuable historic structures and the economic viability of certain neighborhoods downtown.
Zoning is arguably local government’s greatest power to shape our future. Zoning restricts private property rights by defining what activities a person may conduct on one’s property. These restrictions act like a spigot on the local economy, which can flow only through the channels zoning expressly permits.
Communities should shape their zoning restrictions with laser focus on the benefits they intend to produce and an eagle eye out for their harmful consequences. Some do. Others stumble along with outdated restrictions and deleterious consequences to the local economy. Chestertown falls into the latter camp with regard to its downtown marketplace zoning.
Our downtown is a pedestrian marketplace populated by buildings of many different use-types and dates of origin. We should be shaping our zoning, neighborhood by neighborhood, to nurture the microeconomics of preservation, and promote diversity of small business downtown, but we aren’t.
Our downtown marketplace zoning C-2 (Central Commercial District) is generally appropriate in Chestertown’s downtown core (High Street & Cross). Most of Chestertown’s core commercial buildings were built or remodeled after the fire of 1910, which burned much of downtown. These are typically storefronts on the ground level with offices or residential above. Not surprisingly, that is exactly what C2 zoning was created to allow.
Chestertown’s C2 zoning dates from the era of suburbia, before historic preservation was commonly understood to bring value to the public realm. Suburban zoning shapes “progress” by opening the economic spigot only to the (somewhat subjective) “highest and best use(s)”. It segregates uses, for example to prevent dwellings from taking up street frontage in a retail district. This segregating approach is not a good fit with an historic marketplace that has grown organically into a rich mix of building types and uses.
Chestertown’s C2 zoning identifies its “Purpose” as “compact and efficient development.” There is no mention of historic preservation, nor any concern shown for:
- Whether the business uses C2 allows are likely to damage their historic environment, or
- Whether one of the uses C2 prohibits might be necessary to fund historic preservation
Yet Chestertown’s historic fabric is the most-often cited reason visitors come downtown. It is the trading base of our downtown economy. Shouldn’t its preservation be a central zoning concern?
C2 zoning governs areas of 18th and 19th century structures as well as 20th, but does not take into account the uses these historic buildings were built to accommodate. For example, the five dwellings between Andy’s (now Lulu’s) and Mill Street (pictured below) are all zoned C2 Commercial, which prohibits any residential occupancy on the ground floor.
Some are “grandfathered” and so are still inhabited as houses, the first floor included. Others have been remodeled for retail with storefront windows, their porches removed. The Chestertown’s Historic District Commission (HDC) now prevents owners from removing their porches or putting in storefront windows. That’s a good thing for the integrity of the Historic District, yet it impinges on property values and revenue streams since it prohibits exterior alterations that are essential for retail. Zoning restrictions are taken seriously by prospective buyers, and as a result, our High Street owners of intact dwellings get a double whammy: their property value depressed and their revenue opportunities restricted.
Let’s consider Park Row. Last June my wife, Gale Tucker, and I purchased the stucco a building there, the stucco one with half moon windows (pictured below) last June and Since then we, Chesapeake Architects, have been studying Park Row extensively. It is a neighborhood spiraling downward that creative zoning can help revive.
Park Row fronts on Fountain Park, a hub for visitors and locals alike. The Maryland Historical Trust has deemed all five of Park Row’s 19th century dwellings to be of “High Value” (although they no longer use that term). These historic houses, fronting on a park, should be prime real estate.
According to “Chestertown: An Architectural Guide,” the yellow building (pictured below) on the corner of Park Row, across from the Post Office, was “Probably built by William Slubey, local merchant, in the late 18th century or early 19th … [It] is the oldest along Park Row … [and] one of the few remaining five-bay, 2 ½ story clapboard dwellings in town”.
This historic house has suffered serial remodeling in vain attempts to adapt it for commercial use. The building has good visibility but its historic windows and small rooms are not suitable for commercial use. Tenants have come and gone. As often happens when zoning prohibits a building from being used as historically intended, the property value declines, which in turn depresses neighboring property values.
Dave Ferguson, one of our most prominent preservationists, recently told me he had wanted to buy this building some years ago to restore it as his home. However, as previously noted, C2 zoning prohibits occupying it as a house. Since then, its historic interiors have been removed in yet another remodeling for retail. C2 blocks restoration, in favor of commercial remodeling.
The Pippin Hotel next door (on the right above) is built in the Mansard style as a boarding house. Typical of the late 19th Century, it has a porch across its front. Porches attract visitors downtown, but C2 zoning pressures for their removal since first floor spaces behind porches lack commercial visibility. C2 zoning forces dwellings to compete for commercial tenants without being able to offer the assets commercial tenants need: the storefront windows, signage opportunities and high visibility. As a consequence, our historic houses bring in so little revenue their owners are hard put to fund their upkeep. Shabbiness results, and that’s bad marketing for business.
Along Park Row, the offices and the retail tenants are, in aggregate, open for business less than a third of normal hours. Park Row is an economy in failure mode.
This is the perfect time to address both issues – how zoning can nurture historic preservation and support the economy of our marketplace neighborhoods; Chestertown’s Planning Commission is busy revamping our zoning now. There are two fundamental questions our planners could be asking to promote our downtown economy:
- Does our downtown zoning encourage as many different types of small business as possible? We need as diverse a mix of Businesses and Business Owners as we can get downtown to appeal to as broad a spectrum of customers and clients as possible.
- Does our downtown zoning offer alternative revenue streams for building owners? Our historic buildings are the trading platform of our downtown marketplace. They are our most compelling asset – the economic structure we have inherited, our biggest marketing draw in the present, and what we need to preserve if we are to thrive in the future.
Instead, on March 17th and again on April 28th Chestertown’s Zoning Administrator told the Planning Commission he recommends: “RB (Professional Office) for Park Row.” Chestertown’s RB Zoning permits single family houses side by side with professional offices. Clearly the Zoning Administrator sees no reason to prohibit first floor residential on Park Row.
The only use that already exists on Park Row which RB zoning would not permit is retail. However, two of the property owners on Park Row are deeply invested in retail operations. These existing uses would be “grandfathering” under RB zoning, but that still entails a taking of Park Row’s rights to retail which have prevailed for decades, for example, the right to expand their operations in the future.
A prohibition of retail would have a chilling effect on all retail in the vicinity, for the Town Arts building on Spring Street, for instance. These businesses are invested in the growth of an Arts Community. No one can tell how that future will unfold, but what justification can our planners have for prohibiting it? We need more creative investment opportunities, not less.
After all, art galleries are one of the few retail businesses that can inhabit a house without damaging its historic fabric. Art galleries can be an instrument of historic preservation. And they contribute to making Chestertown interesting to experience, which is key to drawing visitors downtown.
Thriving Historic Districts everywhere — Annapolis, Frederick, Hagerstown, Alexandria – are solving such zoning troubles by creating mixed-use neighborhood zoning shaped to nurture their historic buildings. What exactly that mixed-use zoning allows varies widely because planners begin by identifying the particular resources (on-going businesses, historic buildings, etc.) present in a specific neighborhood, then figure out how zoning can be shaped to help them thrive. Creative zoning can help these properties become sufficiently attractive investments, so their owners can fund their upkeep. Historic buildings require substantial cash flow for preventative maintenance.
Shouldn’t historic structures be allowed to be used as historically intended? The original use – full residential, for example – adds to a building’s potential revenue stream, which aids historic preservation and maintains the historic district’s vitality.
From the point of view of Invested Capital, Park Row consists of:
- Two historic dwellings (on left) suitable for residential use, but not for office or retail
- Two units which have been remodeled for retail use, the duplex with storefront windows
- And two buildings (on the right) both of which have office tenants
Park Row’s owners have almost unanimously requested a new class of downtown zoning in their written application to the Town, as follows:
Chestertown should consider creating a new zoning class for downtown business neighborhoods like Park Row. To reflect its applicability, it might be named:
HD-MU: Historic District – Mixed Use
The purpose of this HD-MU zoning is to enable income-producing occupancies in neighborhoods of the Historic District that are composed of historic houses of “contributing” value, within and adjacent to Chestertown’s Downtown commercial district (adjacent to C2 Zoning). HD-MU would give the owner the option of residential occupancy on all floors, as well as office and limited retail. That additional residential use will help sustain the preservation of the historic structures, whether owner-occupied, or rental. Park Row is a case in point, but HD-MU zoning can help nurture other downtown neighborhoods, too. Some of Cannon St? South Queen St? Calvert St?
Allowable retail occupancies can be limited in size and intensity, for example, to (only): craft stores, art galleries, jewelry stores, anything trading in small objects that doesn’t require large truck deliveries, masses of customers and won’t generate trash by the dumpster load.
Professional office occupancies can be allowed as in RB zoning. Most residential occupancies can be allowed, including small apartments and boarding. B&Bs might be a conditional use because of their parking needs.
It’s worth remembering, almost all of what’s good about Park Row came into being before Chestertown had any zoning (before 1974), most notably the five 19th Century buildings of high historic value. As the attached drawing SE/5 shows, what has hurt Park Row’s historic structures most is the 20th Century remodeling for retail merchandizing. Otherwise, Park Row has continued to be a mixed-use neighborhood of residences, retail, and professional offices. That these occupancies co-exist side by side is not the problem. The problem is, the Town’s C2 zoning does not permit the five 19th Century dwellings to be occupied as historically designed. Three and a half decades of C2 zoning is one of the reasons Park Row is in trouble. That may be true for other neighborhoods downtown too.
Neighborhoods are the product of their own micro-economics and micro-history. C2 zoning, a pretty good match for the 20th century storefronts in our downtown core, can be reworked to be better at encouraging business diversity and at nurturing historic preservation. However, at the fringes of our downtown core we have retail and office activity overlapping high-value historic dwellings (Upper High Street, Park Row, and the 200-300 blocks of Cannon). These areas are well placed to act as transitional neighborhoods between the bustle of downtown retail and the peace residential neighborhoods seek. HD-MU zoning (if that’s what it gets called) can provide the desirable transition between the two.
As a community of small businesses in a historic marketplace, we can help minimize the drag zoning places on our delicate economy. Our Planning Commission can provide leadership by asking downtown business owners, property owners, and preservationists for their input:
- What restrictions are truly necessary to nurture our businesses? And where?
- What sources of income to preserve our trading base? And where?
A democratic review of these different points of view will slow the re-zoning process, that’s true. It will also help our business owners’ and property owners’ bottom lines. These financial improvements will last decades – short term planning pain for long term economic gains.
In a Historic District, every neighborhood should have zoning that supports its economy and heritage. Our downtown marketplace will flow more efficiently with the zoning faucet is turned on.
Peter Newlin is past-Chair of the Kent County Building Code Committee, and a past-member of Chestertown’s Historic District Commission. He has been a downtown property on Church Alley since 1978, practicing architecture. Peter and his firm, Chesapeake Architects, have won regional, state-wide and national awards for town planning, energy conservation, historic preservation and contemporary design. Copies of the Park Row Study can be found by clicking here (slow download)
Greg says
As a historical restoration/renovation contractor who has worked with Peter Newlin since 1982, and has restored and renovated many of the fine downtown Chestertown Historic Distric properties and homes, including the Town Hall and Imperial Hotel, Peter is right on with his statement that zoning should support the local economy and its heritage. it seems to me, in these difficult times, ecomomy wise, we need to attract more people to our local business owners by providing leadership by asking local business owners, property owners, and preservationist for their imput. Peter asks some very important questions and we need, as a communtity, to respond and support our local merchants.
Steve Payne says
Mixed use makes good sense. The entire concept of a vibrant city/town is a mix of residences stores and services.
M. says
What downtown Chestertown needs are more useful businesses, like a grocery store, a hardware store .How many times a year does a resident buy an antique, or a work of art? Why should we have to get in a car for a loaf of bread or bottle of milk? Oh for the days of McCrorys where you could get anything!
Gren Whitman says
This thoughtful proposal shouldn’t vanish — poof! — into the Internet ether!
It should be preserved for full consideration by the Mayor, City Manager, City Council, etc.
It should be re-printed and available to citizens at City Hall, the county office building, the public library, the Chamber of Commerce, to name a few.
Rich says
I went with my wife and kids to “First Friday” this month since there was music and food in the Park for the 4th. Park Row? Looked like Skid Row to me. No wonder it has problems – it looks like crap. The art place was real nice inside but the rest of the area looks horrible.
Barbara Parker says
Peter,
Thanks so much for sharing your article with me – it is an eye-opening introduction to the issues surrounding any re-zoning of the downtown area, and I think should be a wake up call to the Commission as it considers the future of Chestertown. It is true that there are areas of downtown (Park Row most notably) that are looking progressively more seedy even as the Town is looking for ways to preserve the past while planning for an uncertain future. If the future of the country is linked to small business, then it is a good thing to favor small business, it is true, but preserving the sense of Chestertown as a “live-able” place is every bit as important.
I have noted in my travels that those preserved towns that are the most vibrant and most appealing are those that are preserved as communities with private dwellings cheek by jowl with small business and craft. Some of these, granted, are private residences now on tour, but the important thing to me is that they are not designated within a district as “either-or” but are allowed for use as they were originally designed. As a visitor, I am certainly not offended to see a residence next door to the florist or the antiques dealer or the gallery. I have seen this kind of use in historic districts from Cape Town to Williamsburg and would love to see Chestertown adopt the same kind of attitude toward preservation. Preservation then, becomes less about buildings and more about people with the vision and the flexibility to maintain the past within the context of a very present and futuristic view.
The charm of Chestertown will diminish if there are unreasonable limits placed upon the use of existing buildings – there is no clear reason why any house on any street in the downtown district cannot be used as either a residence or a store front – or apartments or a boarding house for that matter. If an historic building is not worth the upkeep required, the upkeep will suffer, and the effect on the neighborhood is exponential. As you have pointed out in your article, alternative revenue will foster better care of the structures within this district – making it a more appealing and viable place to either live or to establish a business. Your points are clear and make a lot of sense.
Thanks again!
Barbara Parker
Interior Design
c.g. says
A TERRIFIC explanation. Wouldn’t it be great if a copy of the entire article, including the graphics, could somehow go to every property owner within Chestertown’s limits? It would reach folks who’d never thought about the big picture before, generate concern and get more people thinking. Is there any sort of grant money, or any organization, willing and able to afford to get this word out to the people who don’t see the Spy?
George Lehmer says
I read Peter Newlin’s rather lengthy but well thought-out request for a thoughtful consideration of modifying the type of zoning which applies to Park Row, parts of High Street, and other transitional areas in Chestertown.
I totally support Peter’s recommendation to introduce a type of zoning which would allow structures originally designed as residences to be used as such. I continue to be mystified at the apparent resentment and extreme reluctance on the part of at least some of the members of the Zoning Board to consider a type of zoning which has been successful in community after community where preservation of historic structures creates issues.
Let me assure you, I have no financial stake in this discussion. My wife and I own 308 Park Row and it is precisely the kind of property that we want for our business. We have no desire to alter the structure, and furthermore, would vigorously resist any change to the streetscape other than replacement of the sidewalk with a slightly wider brick one.
It is, however, a “puzzlement” to me that my decision to have the shop open to the public on a comparatively few days of the week indicates a looming fiscal failure for my business.
George Lehmer
Park Row Curmudgeon
legredin says
It is nigh universal wisdom that urban areas benefit mixed residential/commercial uses. I am really surprised to learn that Chestertown does not seek that in the designated downtown area. Get on board guys!
Vanessa Smith says
Peter Newlin’s ideas and proposal are a sound and well thought-out strategy for Park Row. As someone who is involved in the conservation/preservation field, and a former resident of Chestertown, I am in complete support. In a recent visit to town, I was struck by how Park Row had not changed at all since I left over 20 years ago– however, I did note the improvements having occured on the other side of the park on High Street, making the drab appearance of this block more apparent. Mr. Newlin’s proposal has so closely resonated with my own feelings that it has inspired me to consider an investment in the project so to promote, uncover, and ultimately reveal a more appealing side of historic downtown. Well done, Peter.
Judy & Bill Loller says
We are the owners of the Pippin Hotel, located at 312 Park Row, since the early 1960’s. This property has been owned by three generations of our family beginning even before that time.
We have rented to many individuals over the years. Most of our tenants are individuals who need housing at a modest cost, sometimes because of disability. Many value Park Row because they can live without having to own a car. They are already downtown.
We have tried commercial rentals but retail tenants have been unsuccessful for the most part because the first floor rooms are not spacious nor easily adaptable. Ever since Park Row was first zoned C2 Commercial it has prohibited the flexible use of our property. C2 zoning prevents us from renting our downstairs apartments to anyone who wants to live there. Consequently we have had a lot of vacancies year after year.
As our income has decreased, our expenses have increased annually (insurance premiums, cost of repairs, maintenance and taxes). This year alone we need a new roof estimated at $8,000 to $12,000. Our septic and water lines, failed on the Town’s side of the meter (on Town property), but we had to pay the cost, $7,000.
Because of the economics we are quite in agreement with Peter Newlin’s assessment that Chestertown should consider creating a new zoning category for downtown dwellings. We agree with his suggestion that consideration be given to the development of a new “HD-MU Zoning” in the Historic District. We think this would give owners the ability to use their property for residential, professional and limited retail. This should help keep property producing income with a greater occupancy which should be beneficial to all concerned.
We appreciate the efforts Chesapeake Architects and specifically Peter and his wife, have made in preparing the extensive analysis of Park Row and proposing solutions. We owners of historic buildings need alternatives for how we can find rental income to fund their upkeep. Our hope is our town officials will be willing to consider these recommendations with an open mind.
Kathleen James-Chakraborty says
I didn’t check out Park Row on my recent visit to Chestertown, but I can confirm that many of these commercial spaces were very marginal already in the 1960s and seventies. One way to chart this is to see what is rented out by political campaigns, a very temporary use. Allowing residential uses here seems appropriate, not least because there is a long history of it here. Also important is the provision of apartments in centrally located buildings that maintain an appropriate scale, something that boarding houses long did (at least one of these houses was used that way relatively recently).
I grew up in a house on a residential street that nonetheless fronted the back of the movie theater, and what were then apartments in what is now the Imperial Hotel, as well as the back of the commercial building on the corner of High and Queen. The boundaries between residential and commercial have always been blurred. What is important, I think, is that commercial uses do not chase people out of what are now homes on Calvert Street, and that the addition of residents downtown does not impinge upon functions that belong there (the restaurant in my apartment building in Germany has a delicate relationship with apartment owners who want to be able to eat downstairs without smelling the cooking or hearing the cleaning up).
Chestertown, like all historic communities, cannot adopt a one-size fits all solution to planning developed with varying degrees of success for communities largely constructed over the last sixty years. Although some residences (mostly those built since World War II) are located far from businesses, no downtown businesses have ever been very far from residences. One must thus be creative and sensitive about the interface between the two uses.
Ray Diedrichs says
Certainly Park Row is in decline, and Peter’s article identifies a key reason why. I can’t think of a downside in changing the zoning for Park Row to mixed use. And, as he points out, it may well show the way for other sections of Chestertown that could benefit from the same zoning change.
Carla Massoni says
Nice job.
Bill Noll says
Peter Newlin’s excellent summary underscores the need for fresh, inovative thinking to improve the economic environment in Chestertown if the town is to thrive in the 21st century.
Steve Frohock says
Peter Newlin’s work is clear and concise. Anything that will help the commercial state of downtown should be embraced by anyone who cares about the health of downtown businesses. Mixed use makes all the sense in the world!
Lauren Ames says
There is no point in preserving the existing zoning for Park Row if it doesn’t work well for the owners of those buildings or for the town as a whole. Park Row, as it stands now, is ugly and under utilized. This plan makes sense for the future.
Bart Stolp says
How much more detailed, well researched and constructive does Peter Newlin have to be in presenting this cause which is at the heart of a significant problem our beautiful Chestertown must confront with all vigor if it is to emerge within the near future as a viable, sustainable and energized historical jewel on the Chester River.
With all our economic problems, how can we not be responsive to the ideas of mixed use zoning? Besides, this is a proven concept in many other small and large towns in the USA and certainly in many European towns and villages. Are the decision makers looking across our borders ( beyond Middletown, DE) to learn ?
Downtown Chestertown can not thrive as an alternative “shopping center” . It will continue to suffer for the same reasons Washington Square and Kent Plaza are beginning to look like deteriorating storefronts facing increasingly vacant parking lots appropriately decorated with dead plantings.
The difference between our shopping centers and downtown Chestertown is people – those who work and live in and close to downtown. The emphasis must on the “living community of downtown” in contrast to the private seclusion of suburbia. Mixed purpose zoning allows living and working to coexist and nurture the needs of both.