Marietta Residents Seek To Establish New Historic District

Historic Homes

Brian Binzer, the city of Marietta’s director of development services, said the half-mile stretch along Church and Cherokee streets is the corridor many people use to reach Marietta Square.

“People we found tend to really love that drive into town,” Binzer said. “You pass the hospitals. You see turn-of-the-19th-century-style houses. We have basically a Christmas pilgrimage that happens every year. The historic groups have folks open up their homes. People come in and look at the decorations. So from a tourism standpoint, people really enjoy that as part of the fabric of this community.”

Property Values

David Freedman, chair of the Marietta’s Historic Preservation Commission, said residents approach the commission because they want to protect property values and to have some control over how their neighborhood looks.

“The whole idea is that there’s historic buildings that were built in a certain time period that all relate to each other. It’s not just the individual structure, but the whole neighborhood,” Freedman said. “So if somebody comes in and builds something that’s incompatible, it does detract. People have to look at it and they say, ‘How did this thing get here? Who allowed this to happen?’”

Exterior Changes

If the area does become a local historic district, homeowners would not be able to make major changes to the front of their houses without city approval.

Binzer said he believes the Historic Preservation Commission’s rules would allow families to grow.  

“People certainly could expand behind the house with new rooms or wings,” Binzer said. “The [commission] does a pretty job of trying to respect the ability to add on to the front in some cases as long as it’s in keeping with the type of architecture and the design and the style that the prevailing homes in the area have.”

A Public Process

Binzer said that, unlike many cities and towns, homeowners in Marietta have a say in whether their area should become a historic district. 

After two public hearings on Feb. 29 and Mar. 9, more than 60 percent of the property owners must vote to be part of the historic district, before the City Council can move forward.

If property owners of the 124 homes do not vote within the 60-day voting period, it automatically counts as a ‘no’ vote.

Fourteen homes along Kennesaw Avenue were designated as the city’s first historic district in 2013.