Behre: Demolition by neglect remains a problem, even in the BAR’s front yard
This house at 29 Henrietta St. has been abandoned for years and was damaged in a fire in 2019. The city plans to demolish it soon. Robert Behre/Staff
By Robert Behre | The Post and Courier | January 15, 2022
I still remember the sign in my childhood dentist’s office: “There is nothing the dentist can do to overcome what the patient will not do.”
It’s fixed in my memory not so much because it added a subtle layer of guilt to my already traumatic experience of getting cavities filled but also because the thought extends to so much else in life.
Even old buildings.
The city of Charleston is often lauded, understandably so, for its leading role in historic preservation, and its residents, architects, engineers, contractors, craftsmen, building advocates and city staff all have played crucial parts in saving thousands of historic buildings downtown and beyond. Many of those saved would have faced the wrecking ball if they were in another city or town.
But not every one is saved. And that may never be possible.
Take the case of 29 Henrietta St., a historic single house that sits just behind Emanuel AME Church, only a block from where Charleston’s Board of Architectural Review meets to do its work preserving old buildings and trying to ensure new ones fit in.
The house sits there now, but it soon will be gone. Despite Charleston’s preservation ethic, despite efforts to highlight the problem of demolition by neglect, despite sometimes very visible locations, some old buildings still deteriorate to the point where they pose a safety hazard to the public.
And when that day arrives, the city orders them torn down (and does the work itself if the owner doesn’t, placing a lien on the property to recoup the city’s cost).
Charleston Chief Building Official Ken Granata is the one who makes that call. While razing a dilapidated historic building is regrettable, he notes, “It’s better than losing life or property.”
The house on Henrietta Street hadn’t been occupied in a while, and while there are some historic homes surviving on the east end of Henrietta, near Elizabeth Street, it stood out in a sea of surface parking lots. Its relatively desolate context certainly didn’t help stir interest in the costly job of fixing it up. Three years ago, a fire broke out inside, likely caused by squatters.
That fire damage still is visible: Most of the roof is gone, and a mesh fence has been placed along the sidewalk to discourage pedestrians from getting too close. Compounding difficulties was that it was owned by several heirs, not a single person.
This story of this home is only the most recent chapter of the city’s attempts to address its “demolition by neglect” problem, a problem that dates back more than 50 years. A nonprofit’s 2019 survey found 180 Charleston buildings at risk of being lost to neglect, from tiny houses on dead-end streets to mansions in long-gentrified neighborhoods. A city survey around that time identified about 255 vacant ones. But only a dozen or so are so run-down that they face the risk of being torn down.
While city livability inspectors monitor these deteriorating structures, and not just those downtown, they can only require that the buildings remain boarded up to minimize any safety threat and further deterioration. They can’t require an owner to renovate.
Erin Minnigan, director of historic preservation with the Preservation Society of Charleston, has watched the home at 29 Henrietta go from something easily saved to the hard case that it is today.
“It’s really upsetting because this could have been prevented,” she said. “We’re lucky in recent years with market conditions, the stock of our neglected buildings is being reduced, but we still have outlying properties that continue to sit there, and we are just so worried about them.”
Still, the dentist sign comes to mind. In the end, there ultimately might be nothing the city can do to overcome what an owner will not do.