When Saving the Past Means Ignoring the Now

In Princeton, a powerful commission for preserving historic buildings faces climate realities. Cue the absurdist theater of watching good people lurch between procedural rules and common sense.

There’s a guy in my town whose house is next to a flood-prone brook. It’s not his fault. The house was built 300 years ago, back when waterways trickled through towns in charming and predictable ways. Even when this guy, Steve, bought the house in 1993, there was no talk of the brook ever breaking its banks. 

But as we know, times have changed. These aren’t our grandmother’s storms anymore, and those living near water now have reason to worry. It’s not just coastal dwellers who should be on guard. Hurricane Helene is the only the freshest, grimmest demonstration of the flood risks faced by inland communities. 

As for Steve, he knows his house could be washed away in the next storm. He’s been flooded three times already, and each deluge has been progressively worse. 

I wrote about his ordeal for TAPinto Princeton, my town’s community newspaper. (TLDR: during the last flood, Steve barely escaped the house before the swollen Stony Brook burst through his doors.) 

But I don’t want you to worry about Steve. He’s a plucky guy who came up with the very American idea of putting his house on rollers and dragging it up the hill. This way, he gets to move out of the floodplain while also keeping a piece of Princeton’s history safe.

Yet to make this plan financially viable, he has to think of his home as an asset. That’s because, like many affluent towns, Princeton’s real estate market is totally bonkers. Buyers purchase modest homes here for more than $1 million in ca$h. Some waive home inspections while others knowingly buy property in a floodplain. 

As I said: bonkers. 

So once Steve moves his little house up the hill, it makes sense to expand it so that when he eventually sells, it will appeal to today’s buyers. Us modern folk really like downstairs powder rooms, it seems, as well as ceilings high enough for us to stand up straight. 

In a hot property market, only a fool would not make his asset sweat. 

But remember: Steve’s three-century old home happens to be in a town that’s extremely proud of its history. Enter the Historic Preservation Commission: an august body established by state law to protect community heritage. The commissioners work hard to ensure old buildings stay authentically, splendidly old.

Look how lovely historic Princeton is

After the last flood, Steve filed paperwork with the Commission to be allowed to both move the house and make it bigger. That was three years ago. He’s met with them several times over the years, as well as with other local regulatory bodies because of the complexity of his case. 

[The details of his convoluted file are outlined in my news piece, in case you’re wondering].   

Steve met with the Historic Preservation Commission again this Monday. I dialed in, curious to see how a powerful committee designed to save the past deals with the weirdness of guarding against the future. 

What I found was a Zoom screen of the absurd. 

The chair of the committee acknowledged Steve’s bureaucratic odyssey over the years. 

“I feel very sorry that all of these regulations have conspired against you,” she said. Her chagrin seemed genuine, especially when she laid her hand over her heart.

Steve, his lawyer, and his architect then proceeded to explain how the planned home expansion would respect the original building’s historic character.  There was much back-and-forth about facade angles, siding materials, and historically-pleasing paint samples. 

Steve smiled politely as he bounced nervously in his chair, a poster child for the Ideal Hearing Applicant.

A commissioner then noted the urgency of allowing Steve to move his house away from the brook. He could have lost the house during Hurricane Ida, the commissioner said, adding that this fate had already befallen other Princeton homes. This man told how he had gone to check on Steve’s house the morning after the storm.

Steve’s home before and after Hurricane Ida passed through town

All commissioners proceeded to engage in impassioned crosstalk about what flooding from Hurricane Helene had done to homes in Asheville, North Carolina.

Then a soft-spoken commissioner took the mic. He spent several minutes reminiscing about how he used to play on Steve’s land as a child. He had particularly fond memories of rolling down the lawn toward the Stony Brook. 

I expected him to echo his fellow commissioners—that while history was all well and good, it was time to get this house away from the water. 

But instead, he lamented Steve’s expansion plans, saying that the new house would no longer be cozy. He wondered if the extension needed to be quite that big.

"I can’t help looking at the drawings of the house and everything looks like it’s on steroids,” he said. 

Steve leaned forward and looked earnestly at the man.

“I would have loved to just move my little red house,” he said.

But the costs of the relocation were so great that he had to max out his asset by extending it. It was either that, or give the house up to Blue Acres, he said. 

Blue Acres is New Jersey’s answer to managed retreat, whereby the state buys homes stranded in floodplains and destroys them.

I imagine a collective shudder passed through the room.

“Fair enough,” replied the commissioner, and he moved on to questions about landscaping.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the chair again told Steve how she worries about him during every storm. Others nodded vigorously. Discussions again turned to Asheville. 

It’s like the end of the world out there, one commissioner observed.

Everyone voted to approve Steve’s case, even those concerned about the scale of the addition. This means Steve can now proceed to another regulatory board in a few weeks. There he’ll be flanked by his lawyer, his architect, and his civil engineer. This time, he’ll be asking for a different set of permissions.

The Historic Preservation Commission chair concluded by assuring Steve that she was sure the other board would look sympathetically upon his case.

“We’re going to get this done … some day,” she laughed. “Thanks for hanging in there.”

I clicked away to check the weather. Several new storms are taking shape in the Atlantic ocean, but so far none are yet forecast to hit the east coast. Maybe, just maybe, Steve will be lucky for one more year.