A movement to make new structures in Key West's historic district more compatible with older buildings has led to the re-writing of the city's rules.
On Tuesday, the Key West City Commission will consider the new rules for the Historic Architectural Review Commission, which must approve all building in the historic district known as Old Town. HARC reviews everything from the color of paint on window shutters to the design of new buildings.
In the last several years, a group of new buildings designed in a modern style has drawn public opposition and led to the founding of a community organization, Keep Old Town Old.
Most of those new structures are already underway, but the new guidelines — if approved by the city — will apply from now on.
The new guidelines call for new structures to be "sympathetic" to the historic district, which was built in the 19th and early 20th centuries and consists mainly of wood-frame houses ranging from cigarmakers' cottages to elaborate Victorian mansions. The Old Town District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The new rules are guided by "a conservation ethic that prioritizes the fabric and character of the whole over individual design preferences."
They say new construction should not pretend to be historic, but that "The purely 'modernist' styles (e.g. Bauhaus, Brutalism, European Internationalism, Minimalism, etc.) were intended to oppose that which preceded them and thus are unlikely to be compatible with an historic district firmly grounded in late 19th and early 20th century aesthetics."
The new rules also prohibit modular homes that lack the detail and proportion of the historic homes of Old Town.
The new rules have been approved by HARC and the city's Planning Commission and were approved by the City Commission on first reading.
