Should Athens revive tax breaks to beautify uptown?

Way back in the day – to be a bit more exact, we're talking about pre-2006 – a local civic group in Athens was working to achieve a uniform, attractive look for uptown Athens buildings.

When it still existed, the Community Design Group (CDG) relied on a document called the Zarney Plan. The plan was drawn up in 1978, and recommended a consistent style for uptown building fronts that was based heavily on the town's classic architecture from the late 19^th century.

Back then, the CDG was able to entice at least some building owners into doing renovations in accord with the Zarney Plan, by offering them an abatement of their county property tax on the value of the improvement. That program lapsed about five years ago, however, and hasn't been revived since.

Some uptown business owners, however, think the city should bring back the old incentive program, or something like it.

Ron Luce, director of the Athens County Historical Society and Museum, and a member of the Athens Uptown Business Association, recently made a pitch to AUBA to get back into the uptown renovation business. He believes that while the organization is trying to promote and beautify the uptown shopping area, those efforts would be more fruitful if they were more wide-angle.

"What I tried to suggest is, it might be more valuable if the Athens Uptown Business Association adopted a plan that looks at the bigger picture," Luce explained.

The question to be asked, Luce said, is what kind of image Athens wants to present to people from other areas who might want to visit, dine and shop in the city.

"I suggested that we need a strategic plan, one that takes into account all of the various issues, and that includes the look of uptown Athens," he said.

Currently, Luce said, the looks of buildings on the town's main drag of Court Street are a mixed bag. "Some of them are very nice, and some of them are, to be frank, very tacky," he said. The tacky element, he added, is generally on the street-level floors; when a spectator looks at the overall structure, a different picture emerges.

"These are truly beautiful old buildings," he said.

Luce argues passionately that "if we did more, and if there were more of a commitment to a particular vision of what we want the community to look like," this would pay off in the form of more visitors and shoppers coming to Athens.

This was part of the logic of the CDG and the Zarney Plan. That initiative, however, petered out several years ago.

The Athens NEWS reported in 2006 that the local tax-abatement program had lapsed, and that the CDG was considering disbanding.

By two years later, the paper was reporting that an attempt to move the CDG's uptown renovation mission into AUBA had failed, and that for all intents and purposes, there was no longer any concerted program to try to keep uptown building renovations in line with the Zarney standards.

That doesn't mean, however, that such an effort can't be revived. Luce very much thinks it should be, as does Guy Philips, a part owner of The Athens NEWS as well as of some uptown real estate.

The old program, he said, helped make the town's central shopping district attractive.

"It was effective. It helped a number of buildings return to their historical beauty," Philips argued.

Other uptown building owners suggested they might be amenable to bringing building renovations into line with an overall look if there were some financial incentive.

Joe Krause, owner of Krause Rentals, said that his renovations are usually for functional reasons, aimed at keeping the facilities structurally sound. If there were a tax abatement available on faithful historical renovation, he said, "that would gauge my interest."

Krause agreed that imparting a nice consistent look to the Court Stree area would probably help boost its trade.

"People will want to come and fill empty spaces we've seen for years," he predicted.

John Wharton, who's both an uptown building owner and president of AUBA, said he wishes the old tax abatement program had never been allowed to expire. He's used it in the past at a number of sites; the last was for Broney's bar and restaurant at the corner of Court and Carpenter, which was renovated about five years ago.

"It's a shame, because it's a significant incentive to revitalize the town and restore buildings," Wharton said.

Philips noted, however, that even without the local program, a federal program still exists that can offer building owners some incentive to make their renovations consistent with historic standards.

The Federal Historic Rehabilitation Investment Tax Credit provides a financial incentive to those who rehab historically significant buildings. It gives them a dollar-for-dollar reduction of the federal income tax they owe, equal to 20 percent of the cost of restoring buildings that qualify as historically important.

City officials report that they are already looking unofficially at updating the Zarney Plan for possible future use (see related story). Luce said he believes the plan could be brought back into action and benefit the town.

"I think the Zarney Plan would be a good place to begin," he suggested. "It might need to be looked at again… but the basic concept is a good one."