Town commissioners attempt end-run

An article in Sunday's The Waxhaw Exchange (which was not delivered to me by the way) discusses the town commissioners' (or at least some of them) attempts to do an end-run around their current inability to control the destiny of historic properties in town. It involved attempting to modify the open burn ordinance to 300 feet which would've prevented any houses in downtown Waxhaw from being burned in a controlled fire.

The goal, detailed by town commish Erin Kirkpatrick, was to modify the town's open burn ordinance to prevent historic properties from being destroyed. Sherri Phengchard writes:

"However, I had hoped to accomplish to protect structures that were 50 years or older, but our town attorney advised that we couldn't put in language such as that," Kirkpatrick said.

The concern about training fires on historic homes began with the Player house, a historic home burned in a training fire.

The burn upset Waxhaw Mayor Daune Gardner because she first heard about the Player house training fire from angry residents, rather than from the fire department.

She said she also wanted to add communications improvements to the ordinance to better protect downtown homes and historic structures.

"The ordinance addressed training fires, but no part discussed the process that required coordination between entities," Mayor Gardner said. "It was very vague. The intent was there, but it was not a defined process."

See pages 1 & 12 here for the whole article. While the mayor refers to "protect[ing] downtown homes", it seems obvious that the chances of a non-intended structure being damaged by a training fire gone amok are slim to none considering the fire department is obviously on-hand to prevent that from occurring. The unlikelihood of this happening seems to suggest that preventing the destruction of historic homes was the main goal of the debated revision to the open burn ordinance.

Whereas town commissioners could not or would not blatantly attempt to ban the destruction of Waxhaw's historic homes, it appears they made significant efforts trying to ban it for all attempts and purposes by modifying the town's open burn ordinance. When politicians attempt this kind of end-run around the limits of their power, it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when this solution seems rather piece-meal.

Had they gone ahead with the ordinance change, as far as I can tell, the only protection it would have afforded historic homes is the fact they couldn't be burned down in controlled burns. The changes to the ordinance would in no way protect these homes from being razed in other ways, thus making the local firefighters and the realistic training they receive the obvious casualty.

Of course, it is important to note that the town commissioners abandoned this course and have left the open-burn ordinance regulations in the hands of someone more qualified. In the unsigned words of The Waxhaw Gazette paraphrasing Commissioner Joyce Blythe:

[W]ho were they to even be able to determine that. At that point it was unanimously agreed that the Fire Chief should probably make that decision for each burn. I would imagine that he would probably know what’s best.

For what it's worth, I have no desire to see Waxhaw's historic buildings get razed one by one, but think the tedious process of gathering private money to purchase and restore these properties is the way to go.