Preservation leader explores the contentious issues surrounding saving older homes and managing a conflicted past

Ben Leech, Executive Director of Preservation Action Council San Jose explains how the current historic preservation process works, and advocates for including a broad discussion of a building's past when considering historic status. An Opportunity Now exclusive interview.

Q: In San Jose, when houses come up for historic preservation review, what are people looking at? What's the criteria?

A: Generally speaking, the structure is being reviewed for its architectural and cultural significance. The City will ask: are these buildings eligible based on a rich and historical legacy that has integrity? Is there a cohesive look and feel to the place? Is there something distinctive that can be identified, different than the places that surround it?

As we currently view it, the historic designation is about the building and the look and feel around it. It's not about the lot or any policies associated with the lot. But I believe, going forward, historic usage is something that we should look at.

Q: Are those criteria changing?

A: Typically architecture has been pre-eminent with historical preservation. And that has led to charges, from some quarters, that historic preservation privileges affluent neighborhoods.

Only in the last generation of public policy has there been an attempt to look at other things.and to consider structures like worker housing and industrial buildings like canneries. This has been happening nationally, not so much locally. The last historic district that was approved was Lakehouse back in 2007.

Q: Councilmember Arenas made some waves when she suggested that the Schiele Avenue historic designation was flawed because it didn't consider race-based covenants that were associated with the property lots when they were developed in the 1890s through 1920s. And Arenas suggests that those covenants still cast a shadow of segregation across the neighborhood, even though those covenants were deemed unconstitutional more than 70 years ago in 1948. She implies that the neighbors requesting preservation are extending racist policies of the past.

A: I absolutely support the Schiele neighbors in preserving the homes in the Schiele Avenue area. I believe they do not have racist motives. Theirs is an effort to keep the wrong buildings out of their neighborhood, not the wrong people. The designation does not mean we are endorsing past racial policies which we applied to the property lots a long time ago.

I take the neighbors' motives at their face value.

But I also take Arenas' concerns about racial history of the neighborhood at face value. I would ask the question like this: is preservation as a public policy equitable in its benefits? This is a conversation the city needs to have because we just don't do it enough and if we add it to our toolkit we can potentially help potentially greater and more diverse sections of the city.

Q: Let me kick this conversation upstairs for a moment: How can the preservation process encompass a discussion of a building's construction and usage history without disqualifying the vast majority of the world's built environment? Almost all of human history is racist and tribal and segregated and full of violence and oppression. But does that mean that everything previous societies created is suspect? I guess the Great Mosque, the Great Pyramids, and the Temple of Heaven would all be cancelled. They were built by slaves.

BL: I believe the history of the usage is a relevant topic. I get it and endorse it, But usage should not be disqualifying in terms of preservation--we should not be forgetting about buildings that have conflicted histories.

If the concern is over whether or not the preservation designation on Sciele will perpetuate the covenants, of course it won't. The covenants have been unenforceable since 1948 and have been, and should be, swept into the dustbin of history.

Establishing a historic district should be the celebration of the qualities of a place. If we are doing that by ignoring a racist history, that is not good. But if we can do it by acknowledging that racist past, and articulating the ways we have moved on--or haven't--we can get it right. It is the responsibility of the preservationists to make sure that preservation is for everybody.

Q: So, to sum up, can a building be racist?

A: That is a good question. One of the metaphors that i invoke, probably too often in my line of work, is that we are the public defenders of houses. That doesn't mean the houses are all innocent or guilty, they all deserve their day in court. One of the things preservationists do is provide a public defense for those buildings. But that's a metaphor, not reality: A house cannot be guilty or innocent, that's a human construct. But that doesn't mean that polices that can or cannot be racist could effect the house and its history. The house itself is an artifact of a time and place and that has value. But it also has contemporary value and impact.

If there is one thing this process will benefit from is having a higher bar for what kind of information we have when considering historic designation. This is not to judge, but if this is an exercise in celebrating history let's put the whole history down so we know about it and consider it and can talk about it.

Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity.