Here's how other Colorado cities handle involuntary historic designation attempts
While once exceedingly rare — and, in the case of private homes, formerly unheard of — involuntary landmark designation attempts on Fort Collins properties have been on the rise.
Since 2021, two private homes and one former restaurant have been nominated for historic designation against their owners' wishes. Another business — a former North College service station — was also deemed eligible for landmark designation following an appeal of that determination by its owner earlier this year.
None of these properties were actually designated as historic landmarks.
Fort Collins' former Old Town post office — which was saved from demolition by an emergency City Council ordinance in 1985 — remains the city's sole involuntarily designated property.
The city's uptick in nonconsensual designation attempts appears to be isolated to Fort Collins. Involuntary landmark designations remain incredibly rare — and, in some cases, impossible — in other Colorado communities.
Of the seven Colorado cities and towns the Coloradoan contacted for this story, six have historic preservation ordinances, including Denver, Boulder, Greeley, Windsor, Loveland and Timnath. All but Timnath and Loveland allow for involuntary landmark designation, with a mix of pathways including citizen-initiated nominations, city council control and input from historic preservation nonprofits.
How involuntary designations work in Fort Collins
In Fort Collins, a property can be nominated for landmark designation status by its owner, a member of Fort Collins City Council, by motion of the city's Historic Preservation Commission, or by three Fort Collins residents.
City staff then reviews designation applications to determine whether the property meets the city's criteria for historic designation. If it does, the application is forwarded to the Fort Collins Historic Preservation Commission for review. If all of the property's owners don't consent to its designation within 10 days of being notified of the nomination, the commission kicks off a pair of hearings where they determine if the property is historically eligible and, if so, if it is significant enough to warrant a nonconsensual designation.
If the commission determines the property is ineligible, the process ends. If it is determined eligible — and significant enough to warrant a nonconsensual designation — the commission sends that recommendation to City Council, which has the final say in the property's designation.
Here's how it works in other communities:
Windsor
In Windsor, a property can be nominated for historic designation by a member of its historic preservation commission, or by at least one Windsor resident. If the owner of the property does not consent to its historic review, the commission will hold a public hearing no more than 60 days after its nomination was filed.
From there, Windsor's historic preservation commission has 30 days to either approve, modify and approve, or deny the nomination. While involuntary landmark designations are possible in Windsor, one has never happened there. "The town recognizes private property rights and would normally work with the property owner rather than impose an involuntary designation," according to Windsor's culture supervisor, Laura Browarny.
Denver
In Denver, a property can be nominated for designation against its owner's wishes by the executive director of community planning and development, a member of Denver City Council, or three Denver residents.
If a group of three Denver residents decides to seek designation, a city-facilitated conversation ensues between the property owner and the applicants, according to Amanda Weston, of the city's community planning and development department.
"This process is designed to explore options that result in a win-win situation for all. Total demolition and preservation are not the only choices," Weston said in an email to the Coloradoan. While possible, involuntary landmark designations are exceedingly rare in Denver, Weston said.
Over the last seven years, the city has received one or two owner-opposed designation applications per year, on average, compared with roughly 600 to 750 demolition applications it reviews each year. Since 2014, Denver City Council has approved two owner-opposed landmark designations.
Greeley
Greeley's non-owner historic designation process is triggered when city staff reviews demolition permits and submits them to the city for review of potential significance. From there, the city's historic preservation planner, Betsy Kellums, has 10 days to review the property for potential significance, Kellums told the Coloradoan in an email.
If she finds potential significance, she passes the information along to the city's planning commission, the Greeley Urban Renewal Authority Board, the Downtown Development Authority and Historic Greeley, the city's preservation nonprofit organization.
Any of those groups can nominate the property in question for preservation, and it would go to Greeley's historic preservation commission, which would then make a recommendation to city council. Properties designated without owner consent have to meet a higher threshold of significance than properties that are nominated by their owner, according to Kellums.
To date, Greeley has 96 designated landmarks on its historic register and two historic districts. No involuntary landmark nominations have even been submitted through the city, Kellums said.
Boulder
The city of Boulder doesn't allow citizens to nominate historic properties against owner wishes. Instead, the city's landmarks preservation department — with approval from city council — or a historic preservation organization like its 51-year-old nonprofit advocacy group, Historic Boulder, is given that power.
If a nomination does make it through, however, it kicks off a public hearing in which the city's landmarks board determines whether the property meets its criteria for historic designation and that designation of the property would be in the public's best interest. The board can vote yes to initiate an involuntary designation process or vote no and terminate the process entirely, according to Boulder historic preservation planner Marcy Gerwing.
If a non-owner designation nomination has been submitted in response to a demolition application for a property, demolition review is done by the city's landmarks board, Gerwing said. They can either determine it's not historic or they can put a 180-day stay of demolition on the property.
"It’s a pause on the clock in order to look for other opportunities for the property," Gerwing said.
At the end of that 180 days, the landmarks board can either let the clock run out on the stay or initiate the landmark designation process, which, again, starts with a public hearing.
So how common are involuntary landmark designation attempts in Boulder?
"There are currently 212 individual landmarks in Boulder. Of those, 30 were originally proposed for demolition," Gerwing said. "But in the record I can only find three instances in the history of the (city's historic preservation) program when the property was designated over the owner's objections."
"I think that (this process) is what gives our program peace and has resulted in the designation of houses that otherwise would have been demolished," Gerwing added. "It's really important that we use it very carefully and very rarely."
What role nonprofits play in historic preservation
While some communities, like Denver and Greeley, give preservation power to established nonprofits, Fort Collins doesn't.
Historic Larimer County is the only historic preservation organization dedicated to protecting historic resources throughout Larimer County. It dates back to 1988, when it formed to raise funds for the rehabilitation of the Franz-Smith Cabin — a 1882 cabin that had recently been moved from south Fort Collins to a property in Livermore on Red Feather Lakes Road. It now sits with other historic buildings like Auntie Stone's 1864 cabin in Library Park's Heritage Courtyard.
Over the years, the organization hosted walking tours of historic Larimer County sites and was given an early 20th century horse-drawn school bus that was originally used in Laporte — Cache la Poudre school bus No. 1.
As time beat on, however, the organization's activities petered out and Historic Larimer County went dormant. It was resurrected by preservation consultant Ron Sladek and local historian Meg Dunn in 2017 and has been creaking back to life ever since.
"It's really a reboot," Dunn said, noting that the organization is still small and volunteer run. "We just don't have the bandwidth to do (what Historic Boulder does)."
Historic Boulder, Boulder's nonprofit historic preservation organization, was formed in 1972. In its early days, it bought older buildings in Boulder, restored them, got them landmarked and sold them after safeguarding them from possible demolition or major exterior alterations, according to Leonard Segel, the organization's executive director.
"We did that when it was affordable to do that in Boulder," Segel said.
Now it focuses on hosting tours, lectures and — perhaps most importantly — serving as a liaison between the public and the city, educating Boulder residents about the city's historic preservation process and weighing in on historic property reviews. While rare, non-owner-supported designation nominations can also come from Historic Boulder.
Ideally, that's the kind of role Dunn says she sees Historic Larimer County one day serving.
"But not anytime soon," she said. "It takes a ton of time."
What's next for Historic Larimer County
With involuntary landmark nominations on the rise in Fort Collins, Dunn said she thinks the city could benefit from a "preservation doula."
“You know, when you have a baby they have something called a doula who helps you go through (labor). We need a preservation doula," Dunn explained. "Someone who’s not (from) the city. Someone who’s not related to the property owner."
Someone who could explain the complexities of Fort Collins city code and shepherd residents through the city's historic preservation process, Dunn continued.
While Historic Boulder serves as a sort of mediator between Boulder residents and the city, in Fort Collins “a lot of times what we see is the brokering of those conversations is kind of missing," according to Fort Collins Historic Preservation Manager Maren Bzdek.
"Because we're the city, we can only go so far. We can inform people who are proposing redevelopment on a property and we have our ear to the ground enough to know when (involuntary landmark designation nominations) can happen in a case," Bzdek said.
The city's historic preservation office typically tries to make sure property owners know when a demolition or major exterior renovation they're planning may elicit a response from the community. They also remind property owners of the city's voluntary Old Town Neighborhood design guidelines.
"The problem is that the work we do with property owners is fairly reactive," Bzdek explained in an email to the Coloradoan. "By the time we find out what the property owner would like to do with their property, they are pretty far down the road in terms of investment in their ideas and their planning process. It is really important that buyers, sellers and real estate agents perform careful due diligence, and that has become much more challenging in today’s fast-paced real estate market."
While Historic Larimer County is far from taking a more active role in Fort Collins' historic preservation process, the organization experienced its biggest boon yet when Jim Burrill — the longtime owner of the Emma Malaby Grocery building at 313 N. Meldrum St. — donated the property to the organization May 5.
The building, which was built on College Avenue in 1881 and moved to Meldrum Street in 1906, served as a grocery store until 1943, but has largely been boarded up since then.
Eventually, Dunn said Historic Larimer County hopes to open a grocery store museum in the front of the building and use the rest of it as a meeting and office space in the organization's first physical headquarters.
"It’s kind of been hard because we’re a countywide organization, so we meet throughout the county, but we don’t really have a home base, so this gives us an anchor," Dunn said.
With extensive work to do on the building, Dunn said the organization has nominated the property for historic designation. If designated, Historic Larimer County will be able to draw on financial incentives like interest-free loans and grants to help fund its restoration.
The donation marks a step toward increasing the organization's bandwidth and expanding its offerings in Larimer County.
"A baby step," Dunn stressed.
Editor's note: This story has a correction. The Franz-Smith Cabin was moved to Livermore on Red Feather Lakes Road. Its location was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Involuntary historic designation in Colorado cities is rare
