Consultant kicks off Arkansas City downtown historic district update, offers tax-credit help after storm damage

Christie Davis, principal of Davis Preservation and a former head of the State Historic Preservation Office, presented a public kickoff for updating Arkansas City’s downtown historic district nomination and described outreach she has done to help property owners recover from recent storm damage.

Davis told the preservation board she has used the 2018 downtown survey as a backbone for the update and that the district has not been revised since 1983. She said she has met many property owners, worked with the chamber and city staff, and held an ad hoc meeting in early August to walk owners through the historic rehabilitation tax-credit application process. "The survey that Brenda did in 2018... took the existing historic district and then tried to think about some changes that have happened over time," Davis said. She added the state tax-credit program "has leveraged about over a billion dollars in private investment in Kansas, which has had an economic impact of about $10,000,000,000."

Davis described a new problem raised by recent storm damage downtown: many insurers now set deductibles as a percentage of building value rather than a flat amount, and owners told her carriers were placing high replacement values on buildings, increasing out-of-pocket costs. Davis said she decided to spend time in Arkansas City to help property owners navigate tax-credit eligibility and the application process, and that she had personally assisted owners with forms and follow-up meetings.

She summarized the update process: a new historic context, parcel-by-parcel evaluation of contributors and noncontributors within proposed boundaries, and preparing a draft nomination this fall with a goal of presenting an initial draft to the board around December (the timeline may slip into January). Davis explained eligibility basics discussed in the meeting: properties typically must be at least 50 years old to be contributors; evaluations consider historic integrity; and the state rehabilitation tax-credit program is transferable so nonprofits or owners without tax liability can sell credits. She said the state program has a low threshold (historically noted as $5,000) and that the preservation office can review scopes of work and tax-credit applications.

Board members asked questions about appeals and local review. Davis reminded the group that the board acts as a local certified government reviewer under state law and noted owners unhappy with a review decision can appeal to the city commission. She also discussed windows and storefronts as common technical issues that require building-by-building review under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and said her practice is to provide practical alternatives where possible.

Davis also said she has been offering short-term, largely pro-bono assistance to downtown owners to prepare applications for the state program and to expedite reviews with the state preservation office because of the emergency caused by storm damage. She noted some ambiguity in the record about which repairs are eligible for tax credits (the transcript includes both statements that roof projects are straightforward to document and a later statement that "you still can't get tax credits for, like, roofs and HVAC systems because we don't have to review that"). The board and Davis agreed to continue outreach; the consultant will prepare a draft nomination to present to the board and hold a public meeting when the draft is available.