Kern needs historic preservation standards
Kern County and Bakersfield haven't always done admirable jobs when it comes to historic preservation, but we see encouraging signs regarding the future of the Depression-era adobe house near the eastern boundary of Hart Park.
The 1,000-square-foot building, completed around Christmas of 1939 by the federal WPA, has housed Kern County park rangers for decades. The county evacuated the premises this past spring, and because of shortcomings in earthquake readiness, it might have been doomed to the bulldozer.
Enter Rich O'Neil and Bill Cooper of the Kern River Parkway Foundation. Cooper has asked the county to transfer use of the building to the foundation rather than raze it, and county officials are amenable, provided taxpayers are spared unnecessary liability.
The foundation wants to lease the fenced property for a "river center" that might be available to various community groups for meetings, and as a place where boxed saplings can grow until they're ready for permanent planting. A local developer has offered to assist in arranging for an adobe construction expert to study the building for safety retrofit recommendations.
"People at the county have said they want to work with us on it, but we have only so much time to get a plan, only so much time to raise the money, and we have no idea yet how much we need to raise," Cooper said. "But we don't necessarily have to bring it up to modern standards -- just historical standards," which mean looser restrictions.
Ideally, the county should be able to call upon guidelines from a historical preservation ordinance, but none exists. Many California jurisdictions, including Fresno, supplement their primary planning documents with such ordinances. But not Kern County, not Bakersfield.
Of course, some might not want to see preservation standards codified. "There are people who don't want things getting in the way of development," Cooper said, "and this might do that."
When there's no official guidance, however, cities and counties are forced to develop and refine policy on the fly, with all the attendant hazards and delays that might entail. How much better would it be to decide what sort of things we value and how we intend to go about protecting places that deserve it?
Kudos to those who want to preserve the FDR-era Works Progress Administration adobe at Hart Park. The next step: Declare once and for all that there's value in certain aspects of local history.
As Cooper puts it, "This is the stuff our grandfathers built. To tear them all down kind of of dishonors them."
