Historic District

Our neighborhood is in both a National Historic District and a local one. The latter has a lot of implications for anything we may want to do to the house and garden. Athens has a planning department that issues historic preservation design guidelines (pdf file) that apply to houses and yards in historic neighborhoods. If one makes any changes that go beyond simple repairs, one must first file a Certificate of Appropriateness and have it approved by the commission, which meets monthly.

While this sounds like a huge hassle, and may be - we haven't experienced it yet - the design guidelines actually are relatively straightforward and do allow for flexibility. They are much more concerned with exterior views of the house than any alterations one might make on the inside, and do allow for additions and whatever wacky modernist gardening you might care to do in the back yard. I am especially happy to see that one thing that is explicitly allowed is the enclosure (with glass or screens) of a porch.



Our front porch needs some work - it has an inadequate foundation, so it is sloping, bouncy, and some boards are rotten or on their way there. Michael, who has been on the roof of it, reports that there may be some problems there as well. If we do a large-scale porch project, I definitely would like to screen it in. We could simply install large panels of screen between the existing brick pillars.

The other thing we might consider is when we need a new roof - soon, i.e. in 2-3 years - we might consider replacing our current asphalt shingle roof with a metal roof with standing seams. This would require a Certificate of Appropriateness (replacing the current roof with new asphalt shingles would not!) and would probably cost more than asphalt, but metal would be period-appropriate, it would last longer than asphalt, and it would probably help keep the upstairs cooler in the summer by reflecting rather than absorbing the sun's heat.