By Sandra Lane —
A joint meeting of the Fredericksburg City Council and the Historic Review Board (HRB) on Tuesday, Jan. 12 attracted more than 50 people at Fredericksburg City Hall.
Realtors, builders, architects and concerned citizens talked about large and oversized houses already built or proposed to be built in the historic district and other areas of the city.
“The whole story is that pretty much every member of the city council has been getting phone calls from residents who are concerned about a lot of people buying summer homes in town and making them so big, they don’t fit in with the community,” said councilman Graham Pearson. “We’re trying to find out if this is a broad-based concern or if it just mirrors the opinions of a few people. If it’s broad-based, we need to do something about it.”
Fredericksburg’s HRB meets once a month on applications concerning new building and renovations to existing homes in the historic district.
Board members said they recognized the need to maintain the size and appearance of historic district homes, but felt they had little strength in enforcing rules and that the city council needed to give them more authority. Presently, committee members can only approve or disapprove size and scale and are limited in what they can say “no” to. Its members expressed a need for more “teeth” in the ordinances.
A fear voiced by one participant is that people might not build here if the restrictions were too strict.
Another participant asked, “Why do we have to accept what people want that is contrary to district guidelines?”
Others felt that the problem is that there are not enough guidelines for builders to know what to expect.
“We need new building projects, but we also need to have some well-defined guidelines,” said Karen Oestreich, alternate board member and a local realtor.
Board member Mike Penick observed that homes in the central area of town are smaller, probably 800 to 1,000 square feet. He said most people want to build larger houses.
“We need to allow larger houses, but find a way to minimize the effect,” he said. “We need to make sure about aesthetics and consider the compatibility of a new home in the surrounding neighborhood.”
However, he added, “We don’t want to run people off.”
One example of concern is a large two-story home built in the last few years that, according to tax appraisal district figures, contains a total of approximately 8,500 square feet. Although it was not built in the historic district, some felt that the house was much too large for the existing neighborhood. It was not favorably perceived by neighbors.
Some people said they felt there needed to be a way to blend new construction with the old.
Architect Stan Klein, an HRB member who has worked for the Texas Historical Commission, shared that opinion.
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