Deciding an architectural style for the city

Historic City News has learned that the question of style goes to a City Commission public workshop at 3:30 p.m. July 13th, being held before its regular 5:00 p.m. meeting.

The workshop is the result of the commission recently overturning a 2003 resolution which allowed styles compatible with surrounding buildings in Historic Preservation (HP) District One, south of the Bridge of Lions.

Somehow, HP 2 and HP 3 later appeared in the resolution, though commissioners of that time can’t remember including them.

HP 3 is the restoration area north of Hypolita and HP 2 is the area between the others.

City Commissioner Don Crichlow is in the middle of the style issue as he gained HARB approval, then commission denial, to recreate the turn of the 20th century Bishop’s Building that stood at St. George Street and Cathedral Place.

Crichlow promises to stand his ground in the style workshop.

“Certainly HP 3 should be colonial,” Crichlow says. “And HP 1, even though it’s our city’s earliest area, has long since been developed in Victorian and other styles. But HP 2 is a mix of time periods, and the Secretary of the Interior’s standards state that new architecture should not be conjectural, but fact based.”

“We are a city of more than four centuries,” Crichlow says. “We should highlight our different eras in architecture.”