Historic preservation body questions parkway’s effect

A federal historic preservation body says there should be more discussion of how historic properties could be compromised by the construction of the Meadowcreek Parkway’s terminus, an interchange at the U.S. 250 Bypass.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation wrote a letter last week to the Federal Highway Administration outlining its concerns, saying it was troublesome that the overall outcomes of building the diamond-shaped interchange have not been included in project’s memorandum of agreement. The memo is supposed to outline measures that the highway administration will take to lessen the harmful effects of the interchange’s construction.
“They are the keepers of historic preservation and are concerned for all eligible properties,” said Peter Kleeman, a Charlottesville resident and a member of the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park, of the advisory council. “The buck stops with them.”
Including the council, five parties are signatories to the memo. But because the agency felt the consultations so far were “incomplete,” they were not yet ready to sign the document and have instead recommended that stakeholder meetings continue to resolve issues. The highway authority, which did not respond to requests for comment, had stopped holding those meetings.

The letter, written by Charlene Dwin Vaughn in the agency’s Office of Federal Agency Programs, said the council appreciated some of the changes already made to the agreement. But the letter continued to say that officials are “disappointed” that the agreement doesn’t address the “cumulative adverse effects” on McIntire Park.
“FHWA’s unwillingness to include stipulations in the MOA documenting the city’s commitments to minimize the impact of the interchange on historic properties … is also problematic,” the letter states.
Parkway opponents have long argued that review of nearby historic properties should have been done earlier in the process so that a more sound interchange design could have been developed.

“This is what we’ve been asking for all along,” Kleeman said, adding, “There are avoidance possibilities we believe [have] not been addressed.”
While the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation is a federal agency tasked with promoting historic preservation, the interchange can still proceed even if the group does not sign the memo. The four other parties that would have to agree or not agree to sign the document are the FHWA, the Charlottesville government, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
“Anything we do is advisory,” said John Eddins, a program analyst for the council. “We can’t stop any projects, we just either make comments or we will or won’t sign a memorandum of agreement.”
The proposed interchange at the U.S. 250 Bypass and McIntire Road is primarily funded with federal dollars, unlike Albemarle County and Charlottesville’s sections of the 2-mile Meadowcreek Parkway. The historic properties mentioned in the memo include two already listed on the National Register of Historic Places — Hard Bargain on Park Street and the Charlottesville and Albemarle County Courthouse Historic District — plus three others that are eligible: McIntire Park, the Covenant School and the Rock Hill Landscape.

Changes have already been made to the memo to help preserve some of those properties, such as requiring the city to come up with concept, reuse and planting plans; conduct an archaeological treatment plan on the Rock Hill property; and document, photograph and post interpretive signs in McIntire Park and on the Rock Hill gardens.
Councilor Satyendra Huja said councilors chose the diamond-shaped design alternative so that it would minimize the influence on areas such as McIntire Park and the Rock Hill Landscape. He added that he did not think the interchange would damage those areas.
“This is the smallest alternative of all,” he said.