My home is listed as a "historic home" within a historic district in my town. Such a home has numerous limitations imposed by the local government to preserve and protect the historic integrity of the district. These limitations on property rights are very costly in that they often require homeowners to limit the type of materials they can use on one's home, and limits the type of maintenance/construction one can perform on the home as well...
I'm a big proponent of respecting and promoting historic preservation--It's what makes our town unique. But the burden/cost on the homeowner can be onerous. That's where my badassity came in....
As a historic home, I learned that there are programs (tax breaks) available to those homeowners that are willing to contract with the City to maintain the historic integrity of their home...Finally, I thought: A corresponding benefit to the restrictions imposed by the city. The problem was, the City had not enacted the program....And it would take the City Council to enact such a program.
It took me 5 years of lobbying City Council members, electing more favorable council members, getting the City Manager onboard, and creating a ground swell/grass roots effort to get the City to "put it's money where their mouth was." After 5 long years, the City enacted the program....and now I"m saving 65% on my property taxes AND my home is looking better than ever. Others followed in my footsteps, and we now have over 30 homeowners participating in the program.
Politics on a local level is very, very interesting!
