Sarah, see the following response from my colleague at the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
I hope this helps.
ROBIN McCLEA
Artist Services Program Manager
Arkansas Arts Council
Division of Arkansas Heritage
1100 North Street
Little Rock, AR 72201
p: 501.324.9348 | f: 501.324.9207
From: Catherine Barrier <Catherine.Barrier@arkansas.gov>
Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 at 10:50 AM
To: Robin McClea <Robin.McClea@arkansas.gov>
Cc: Greg Phillips <Greg.Phillips@arkansas.gov>
Subject: RE: historic districts & public art guidelines
Robin—
You know, there is a discussion of this going on right now on the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions’ list-serv! In my experience most historic district commissions try to stay out of actually reviewing art for content/design
and review it for placement/scale, but most don’t have specific guidelines related to art, so they fall back on guidelines for street furniture or similar. Here is an example of that:
https://www.cityoffrederickmd.gov/DocumentCenter/View/18232/Public-Art-in-the-Historic-District Or, in the case of murals, they default to not allowing non-commercial murals to be painted on unpainted masonry (painting unpainted historic masonry is not
allowed in general), although some have size-type guidelines or may prohibit murals on contributing (historically significant) buildings, as opposed to buildings that have been altered or newer buildings. A lot of bigger cities have separate public art commissions
if they do review public art for “quality” or subject matter, which is definitely the preferred approach, both in my experience and from what I can tell in the discussion that’s going on in the list-serv right now. There may be some (smaller?) cities that
have older HDC ordinances that regulate things according to some more subjective or taste-related process, but those are probably older ordinances and I have not encountered any myself while working in a number of different states. The City of Russellville
adopted public art guidelines in the last few years that are probably representative of the more detailed current approaches that I have attached to this email.
There are, of course, first amendment issues related to reviewing content. There was a pretty well-known case a few years ago in Annapolis, MD, where the HDC, which doesn’t normally regulate paint color, stopped a property owner from painting
a mural on the front of a historic commercial building on the grounds that it actually altered the perception of the historic architecture of the façade. I think the City won the litigation over that, but it was challenged on first amendment grounds.
https://www.capitalgazette.com/maryland/annapolis/ph-ac-cn-mural-lawsuit-0428-20170427-story.html However, the City did not have any mural guidelines.
I hope some of this helped. If you need anything more detailed or other examples of city guidelines there are probably some out there on archived list-serv discussions that I could dig up with a little effort next week.
Catherine
ROBIN McCLEA
Artist Services Program Manager
Arkansas Arts Council
Division of Arkansas Heritage
1100 North Street
Little Rock, AR 72201
p: 501.324.9348 | f: 501.324.9207
From: <public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com> on behalf of "Minnaert, Sarah" <sarah.minnaert@pittsburghpa.gov>
Reply-To: "public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com" <public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com>
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at 1:38 PM
To: "public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com" <public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com>
Subject: historic districts & public art guidelines
Does anyone know of instances where historic district design guidelines include public art guidelines? Happy to chat off line and/or get general direction to cities where such policies
exist.
Many thanks
Sarah
Sarah Minnaert
Public Art & Civic Design Manager
City of Pittsburgh, Department of City Planning
sarah.minnaert@pittsburghpa.gov
C: 412-389-8015
200 Ross St., 4th Floor
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
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