The city of Charlotte said Friday it previously released incorrect information to the media when explaining why City Council wasn’t given an opportunity to vote on whether a 110-year-old house near the airport is a historic landmark.
In December, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission voted unanimously to recommend the Steele Creek Presbyterian Manse be a historic landmark. The manse housed ministers from the nearby church, which was built in the 18th century and is being preserved.
Typically, the commission’s landmark recommendations are sent to the City Council, which can then vote on whether to give a building or property additional protections.
For the manse, that never happened. The house was demolished last week.
Commission Chair Brian Clarke said he was upset that the City Councill never got a chance to decide whether the house could be saved. He said the city could have easily moved it somewhere else, possibly near the Presbyterian church.
“My biggest frustration is that the HLC made its recommendation in 2023 and it was never presented to City Council for action,” Clarke said. “And the (state) statute is very clear that the HLC makes its recommendation — to this City Council. Not to city staff, not to the airport, not to the property owner. (We make the recommendation) to City Council and that never happened.”
The airport bought the church and surrounding land in 2017 as part of a noise-mitigation strategy to prepare for a new fourth parallel runway under construction. CLT would like to develop the area, possibly with warehouses.
The airport and city said they did nothing wrong by not putting the commission recommendation before the City Council — and pointed the finger at the commission.
In a statement to the media earlier this week, city spokesperson Lawrence Corley said “The HLC never contacted CLT and informed them it was studying the Manse site. The HLC also did not inform CLT of the recommendation and CLT did not learn of the historic designation until the HLC meeting, which is not open to the public, but CLT happened to be in attendance due to a separate item. Because the HLC did not follow its standard procedure, CLT was not given the opportunity to formally object to the recommendation.”
He added: “Given that the HLC did not follow its standard procedure, CLT was not involved by HLC in the process and the preexisting federal and state agreements were not acknowledged, the item was not brought to council until further discussions could be had with staff.”
But Clarke said that wasn’t true. He had copies of emails with city officials from 2018 that showed he told them the HLC was considering designating the house a landmark. The Charlotte Ledger published those Friday morning.
Soon after that, the city backtracked. A new statement Friday clarified that the city had been informed.
“Upon review of last year’s emails and correspondence, it was found that the HLC notified an Airport staff member two business days before the meeting that the designation would be added to their December 11 meeting,” Corley said. “The Airport staff member responded the next day (December 8) that this item was unexpected and contradictory to previous Airport/HLC discussions (as recently as a November 7, 2023 meeting with the HLC chairperson and director) as well as in conflict to the agreement between the Federal Aviation Administration, NC State Historic Properties Office (SHPO), and Airport. Airport staff attended HLC’s December 11 meeting which is in-person for Commission members and their staff and online for all other attendees (Airport staff did not have the option to attend in person).”
