Legislation in Charlottesville

According to Professor K Edward Lay who served as Chair of the HLC, the new director of the Board of Area Regents in 1973, Satyendra Huja, started the movement to establish protective legislation for the city of Charlottesville. Huja graduated from Cornell's Preservation Planning Program and arrived in Charlottesville with an interest in historic preservation. Huja sold the legislation to the community and the council at a time when few other communities in the country had such ordinances. The only opposition to the plan came from business and property owners who feared the possibility of added expense and constraint on their livelihood such legislation could have caused even with the tax incentives the national and state programs offered to historic home owners (Lay, 2002).

In 1993, the city dissolved the local Historic Landmarks Commission and passed new legislation to further define demolition laws. This change came after several incidents in which developers and landowners clashed with the Board of Area Regents and Commission's insistence on protecting historic sites. In one instance, after the Baptist Church at Queen Charlotte Square burned down, the property owners wanted to tear down what remained of the Church and two other historic buildings in its vicinity to save money. Although the BAR rejected the plan, the owners appealed to the city council and the council overruled the board's objections. Only when a developer came in to develop the site, did Charlottesville members sue the city, developer, and architect in order to stop the project. The case was only settled when the developer gave up his plans for the block (Lay, 2002).