SPOKANE, Wash. — The city of Spokane is hoping to preserve its oldest neighborhood.
Megan Duvall, Spokane's Historic Preservation officer, said the City now has the nomination for Browne's Addition to become a locally registered historic district.
Browne's Addition is already a nationally registered historic district but the Spokane Historic Preservation Office is working to make it locally registered as well. This would mean incentives for property owners and that changes to the neighborhood would only be made if they fit a certain design standard.
Picturesque places in Spokane's oldest neighborhood
“The neighborhood asked us to do it,” Duvall said. “They said, 'You know, we've seen a lot of tear downs in our neighborhood, we've seen a lot of construction that maybe we don't think is appropriate for our neighborhood. How do we get our arms around this?'”
"I think the biggest thing is, if you are in support, come to City Council, come to planning commission, come to the landmarks commission meetings and let us know that you are in support of this," she continued.
The "Landmarks Commission" will review the documents once they are finished and then it will be up to the neighborhood's property owners to vote.
More than 50 percent must vote in favor for the next step to happen. The decision would then go to the City Council and residents could see Browne's Addition become a locally registered historic district by April of 2019.
The neighborhood will have its first workshop event at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture this Thursday to talk about new construction and what that might look like in the district.
For more information on this event, and if you would like to continue to follow this entire process, you can visit the Historic Preservation Office website.
