Repairing a Burned House Is Work, and Work Needs a Permit
Michigan's Local Historic Districts Act, 1970 PA 169, is short about this. Under section 399.205(1), a permit shall be obtained before any work affecting the exterior appearance of a resource is performed within a historic district, and where a local ordinance requires it under subsection (4), before work affecting interior arrangements.
Work is defined broadly in the Act: construction, addition, alteration, repair, moving, excavation or demolition. Putting a burned house back is squarely within that.
Does It Matter Which Side of the House Burned?
The full position is on our page covering the certificate and the neglect.
And Doing Nothing Is Also Demolition
This is the part that catches Grand Rapids owners, and it is written into the definitions rather than inferred.
Under section 399.201a, demolition means the razing or destruction, whether entirely or in part, of a resource, and includes but is not limited to demolition by neglect. And demolition by neglect means neglect in maintaining, repairing or securing a resource that results in deterioration of an exterior feature of the resource or the loss of structural integrity of the resource.
So a Burned House Left Alone Is Being Demolished?
Which Leaves an Owner in an Unusual Bind
Securing the building is what stops the neglect. Securing the building is also work affecting the exterior appearance, which is what needs a permit.
That is not a trick and it is not a reason to freeze. It is a reason to talk to the commission early rather than to choose between two things you believe you are not allowed to do.
Is There a Quicker Route for Basic Protection?
What a Fire-Damaged Grand Rapids Property Is Actually Worth
The Terms That Move the Number Here
Whether the property is in a district. The first question, and most owners are not certain.
Whether the building is secured. It bears on the neglect question and on the structure.
How many winters it has stood open. Freeze and thaw does to a damaged frame what the fire started.
What the commission has already said, if anything. A denial is not the same as a delay.
Which jurisdiction. The city, the suburban cities and the townships each permit separately.
Anyone quoting without asking about district status has priced a repair they may not be permitted to do.
A Denial Stops You Completely
Worth knowing before an application is made rather than after. Where a commission denies an application for a certificate of appropriateness, the applicant may not legally undertake any exterior work, including demolition, unless the decision is appealed and is ultimately modified or set aside by higher authority.
The appeal route under section 399.205 runs to the State Historic Preservation Review Board, an agency within the Michigan Strategic Fund, and from there to circuit court. It is a real process with real timescales attached.
Winter Is a Factor Here in a Way It Is Not Elsewhere
Water that gets into a fire-damaged structure freezes, expands and thaws, repeatedly, for months. Charred timber that would have been assessable and retainable in October can be considerably less so by April.
That is why the securing question is urgent in this city even where nothing legal is pressing. A house that has been through two or three winters open is a different building from the one the fire left.
How the Timeline Runs
An open claim does not prevent a sale. What costs a Grand Rapids owner is a winter spent waiting for permission nobody asked for.
If you are weighing several offers, how to tell local cash buyers apart covers the checks that separate them.
Questions Owners Ask
Am I in a District?
The city holds the boundaries and will confirm it for an address. Age alone does not decide it and being near one is not the same as being in one.
Can I Board It up Without Asking?
Ask first, because boarding affects exterior appearance. There may be a delegated route for minor or emergency work, and that question takes one call.
Can I Sell With an Open Claim?
Yes. Who keeps the proceeds is a contract term rather than a legal barrier.
Does Designation Lower What It Is Worth?
The evidence generally runs the other way. In Heritage Hill, where whole blocks were once slated for demolition under urban renewal, property values rose 1200 per cent between 1974 and 2002.
The Districts Have Not Cost Owners Money
Worth stating because the process can feel like a burden in the middle of a fire file. Studies across Michigan and several other states comparing property values in designated local historic districts with comparable undesignated areas have found values do not decrease and typically increase.
Heritage Hill is the local case. Whole blocks were once slated for demolition under urban renewal, and values there rose 1200 per cent between 1974 and 2002.
Sources
- Local Historic Districts Act, 1970 PA 169; MCL 399.201 and following
- MCL 399.201a — definitions of alteration, certificate of appropriateness, demolition and demolition by neglect
- MCL 399.205 — permit required, appeals, delegation of minor work, demolition by neglect
- Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, 36 C.F.R. part 67
- State Historic Preservation Review Board appeal procedure; Administrative Procedures Act, MCL 24.201 and following