New boss Murray Miller may have some great strategies, but Landmark commissioners and stakeholders feel he’s gone about his proposed changes all wrong.
This quiet but about-to-boil-over fight at City Hall sounds preposterous only if you aren’t familiar with the decades that preservationists have spent trying to overcome Dallas’ reluctance to ensure that its past remains a part of its future.
Given our tear-it-down town’s long-held dedication to development — even when that means taking a wrecking ball to its history — it doesn’t take a lot to spook local landmark advocates.
Only this time, they believe the enemy is the boss of the office created two years ago specifically for historic preservation’s protection.
Yes, it’s just so Dallas. And at stake is the future governance of its 21 historic neighborhoods and more than 130 individual landmarks.
Murray Miller, who became director of the new Office of Historic Preservation just as COVID-19 hit, has an impressive resume of 35 years of experience in 11 cities across four countries.
His mandate in Dallas: Streamline procedures, update ordinances and create the time for the office to also focus on City Hall-wide goals such as economic development and affordable housing.
Miller may well have great ideas, but his unflinching resolve to change the way historic preservation works in Dallas has caused local advocates to lose their minds.
Advocates describe a new sheriff in town who — without listening to the people whose opinions should count — is messing with the sacred third rail of Dallas’ hard-fought-for community-based historic preservation practices.
They are most concerned about two big changes Miller is determined to make: Empowering his staff, not local task forces, to make case-by-case decisions on what’s allowed and consolidating criteria that govern individual historic districts.
Miller maintains he is baffled that advocates have missed what he described to me as extensive outreach on his plans and the reasons behind them. Yet among the 17 public speakers at last month’s Landmark Commission meeting, 15 complained about poor community engagement.
Wherever the truth lies in these competing narratives, the growing distrust has left historic-neighborhood stakeholders and residents — as well as the Landmark Commission — at loggerheads with the guy who should be their most important partner.
I’m not sure Miller completely understands the force of nature that is Dallas’ historic preservation community, a hypervigilant group well accustomed to doing battle at City Hall.
After talking to folks on both sides of this face-off — and reviewing dozens of documents and archived meetings — I suspect this conflict is about to explode.
This estrangement has become more tense with every month since Miller, most recently Fort Worth’s historic preservation officer, began his Dallas stint. If City Council members’ phones aren’t already on fire with complaints, that’s just around the corner.
Amid the current drama and the myriad priorities Miller says are piled on his plate, I worry about whether we have a relentless champion at City Hall who is doing the right thing on behalf of historic properties. Effectively leading this office requires pulling together stakeholders and neighborhoods while also navigating 1500 Marilla St.
Miller assured me Wednesday that there’s no need for those worries.
“In 35 years, I’ve never taken a position where I was not passionate about historic preservation and making sure that we only make the best recommendations for the community. And Dallas is no exception,” he said.
He ticked off a list of worthy work that his office must accomplish: Updating historic resource surveys that are central to land-use decisions yet decades out of date. Reinvigorating decaying neighborhoods such as the Tenth Street and Wheatley Place historic districts in southern Dallas.
Miller also reiterated that the preservation office must accomplish the overall planning, equity and development goals that City Manager T.C. Broadnax has mandated.
In addition to preservation work, Miller said, his job is “to demonstrate the role historic preservation needs to play in virtually every aspect of city life,” including the comprehensive plan, the climate action plan, affordable housing options and economic development.
None of that can happen, Miller told me, unless the preservation office changes how it does business. That means some big adjustments to the unique community-specific framework under which Dallas handles historic preservation issues.
While most cities base their protection criteria solely on federal standards, Dallas does this and more. When each historic neighborhood formed, property owners, city staff and preservation experts gathered to create custom-made rules governing that district.
Property owners in historic neighborhoods know that any exterior changes they want to make must first go through a “certificate of appropriateness” process.
Each neighborhood also has a designated task force that reviews these applications and makes recommendations to the Landmark Commission, which is charged with protecting Dallas’ historic structures.
For more than a year, the same painful episode has repeated itself as Miller tries to make his changes to both the task forces’ power and the specific governance issues: He makes his strongest arguments to the Landmark Commission. Commissioners respond with alternative ideas. Miller tries again.
He told the City Council’s Economic Development Committee in May that 86% of his staff’s workday is spent dealing with certificates of appropriateness, and the vast majority of that time is doing reports and research for the task forces.
Miller maintained to me that he wants to “use the task forces and Landmark Commission strategically — not exhaustively — and have both their time and staff time to advance some of these more important things.”
In regards to streamlining the individual neighborhood criteria, he said consolidation will correct outdated items and reduce redundancies and conflicts — while still recognizing the distinctiveness of each neighborhood.
“Synchronizing where it makes sense doesn’t mean watering everything down and treating everything the same,” he said.
Local preservation architect Norm Alston’s assessment of Miller’s plans sums up what I heard and read from dozens of advocates: “These are all just terrible ideas.”
Alston acknowledged that policy tune-ups are needed, “but we feel he is putting an ax to the roots of this thing. And he never wavers, no matter what feedback he gets.”
Alston’s decades of historic-community work include serving on the Landmark Commission and chairing the task force for Peak’s Suburban Addition historic district for 15 years.
He strongly believes the current process respects individual communities’ characteristics and supports neighborhood self-determination. “That’s what makes us better than other cities.”
Alston also detailed how the task forces are a valuable bridge between City Hall and residents, especially those intimidated by bureaucracy.
For example, someone comes in with an application for a fence that the task force knows doesn’t comply with the district’s criteria. “We show them another reasonable alternative that works,” Alston said.
He also noted that creating regulations tailored to each neighborhood and creating hyper-local individualized boards addresses critical equity issues, especially in lower-income historic neighborhoods.
Alston was one of the 17 speakers at the Landmark Commission’s Nov. 1 meeting, the latest contentious showdown between Miller and his preservation-community opponents.
Speakers, including Preservation Dallas’ David Preziosi, and commissioners offered blistering assessments of Miller’s plan — lack of communication and engagement, loss of neighborhood distinctiveness, insufficient checks and balances.
They overwhelmingly favored the recommendations of the Landmark Commission’s ad hoc committee, which spent the first half of 2021 meeting with residents before submitting its counter ideas.
By meeting’s end, it appeared Miller can count only on the support of commission chair Katherine Haskel, who briefly raised equity concerns and said “that a program we are calling model program doesn’t support all communities.” Miller has said much the same.
The meeting ended with commissioners calling for more answers before they vote on the disputed proposals.
In my conversation with Miller, he remained politely adamant that his office, like every other one at City Hall, must change and adapt. He also acknowledged that Dallas needs its preservation community — and his office needs its trust.
Gaining that trust this late in the process is going to take colossal effort given that local advocates feel Miller has bulldozed their perspectives since day one.
But I suggest he try. These preservation advocates were part of building this system. They should be at the table for the renovation.
