The City of Kalamazoo is in the process of updating the Standards and Guidelines for Local Historic Districts in Kalamazoo. Historic preservation guidelines are intended to provide residents with guidelines for work which would affect the exteriors of buildings in Kalamazoo’s historic districts.
The goal of updating the guidelines is to make them easier to understand and use, allow for modern technology to be used in alignment with historic preservation, and also align them with the Imagine Kalamazoo 2025 vision.
The existing guidelines will be reviewed to determine their effectiveness and what challenges they are creating for neighborhoods and property owners in historic districts. The guidelines will be updated to strike a balance between preservation of Kalamazoo’s historic character and making the guidelines simple and achievable for residents.
Community input is sought at a series of upcoming engagement activities to help inform these updates:
· Kick-Off Meeting: Monday, February 13, 6 – 7 pm at Kalamazoo Public Library’s Central Branch in the Van Deusen Room (315 S. Rose St.)
o This meeting will include a review of existing standards with time for input.
· Neighborhood Meetings: A series of neighborhood meetings will be held in May to review the first draft of updated guidelines:
o Stuart: Tuesday, May 9, 6:30 - 7:30 pm at the Station #5 Community Center (619 Douglas Avenue)
o West Main Hill: Wednesday, May 17, 7:30 pm – 9 pm at Kalamazoo College in the Olmsted Room in Mandelle Hall
o Vine: Saturday, May 20, 12 - 4 pm at the Vine Neighborhood Association (806 S Westnedge Avenue) – This meeting will be part of the Vine Annual Meeting.
Residents can also complete an online survey to share their feedback at any time after the Kick-Off meeting when the project has started on the Imagine Kalamazoo website.
Kalamazoo has six local historic districts including Haymarket, Rose Place, South Street, Stuart, Vine, and West Main Hill and 11 single resource historic districts. The existing historic standards were last revised in 2014 and are available online. Full details on this project are available at www.imaginekalamazoo.com/projects/historic-district-standards