On August 7th, the Demolition Evaluation Task Force met again to discuss a new ordinance to match the needs of preservation with the desires for development.

The outcome was no new legislation, but the results were nevertheless promising. The historians in the discussion, especially West Washington Park residents Lisa Purdy and Malcolm Murray, raised some excellent points about the need for advance notice, public input, and removal of CPD control over the process.

Peter Parks remains adament about staff control over preliminary review. As discussed previously, this "filter" is designed to provide such a cursory review that more than 90% of the demolitions would be approved just by looking at a single photograph. He doesn't want demolitions to be posted because the city might receive calls with neighbor concerns.

The big push seems to be for a city survey of potentially historic properties. Discussion centered around Chicago's historic survey (which took 12 years, cost $1 million, and identified 17,000 properties), as well as a previous survey project in Denver and the ultimate costs. Yet Peter Parks pointed to the crux of the matter, which is that "a survey creates a false sense of certainty on both sides." WWP resident Lisa Purdy saw as well that the survey's proposed legal ramifications is what makes it so dangerous.

At the end, Councilwoman Robb "summarized the concepts that need more discussion:
• Parallelism between the filter and the certificate processes, particularly the timing of any posting;
• The question of 10 or 30 day process;
• How to accomplish a survey;
• How to utilize a survey; and
• How to identify the places that are of the highest priority."

The taskforce will reconvene on August 24th.