We should not apologize for asking Beaufort to grow beautifully | Opinion

Beauty unites Beaufortonians and is our common ground. Whether we moved here for it, or ended up here and now appreciate it, the natural beauty of the landscape, and the rich fabric of the historic streets and buildings have touched us all.

I am only a 12-year sojourner here, but I am raising three Beaufort natives, which all the more motivates me to help their hometown remain beautiful.

Keeping Beaufort beautiful doesn’t mean Beaufort should remain as-is; it should not be encased in glass, unable to grow and adapt to the needs of the current time. Change is inevitable, and change can be good.

However, change must be carefully curated to ensure Beaufort is able to maintain its authenticity.

This is especially true when we consider changes to the Beaufort Code, the development code that governs how the city of Beaufort can grow and develop, and when we bring in outside consultants to evaluate and audit how the code addresses major city corridors.

The Beaufort Code, adopted in 2017, was developed with much scrutiny and public input over a period of three years. Each word was carefully selected, debated, and often rewritten to craft a document that will help Beaufort grow while reinforcing the historic development pattern established over the past 300 years.

After three decades of careful, incremental, and deliberate decisions to set a clear vision for city growth, and the ensuing establishment of a development code to uphold that vision, it has been disheartening to observe recently-proposed changes to the Beaufort Code coming from the city over the past several months.

These changes, which would degrade the standards governing how buildings should respond to their specific contexts, and how such design and building form standards should be administered, threaten to diminish certainty for neighbors, builders, and the community as a whole.

These building standards are especially important in a few specific areas: the Historic District, established residential neighborhoods, and the primary commercial corridors that are ready to accept more development and redevelopment.

It is tempting to reduce or remove building form and design standards to permit more, albeit lower-quality, development that may result in short-term tax base increase. But that is not how timeless places thrive. Buildings should be designed as permanent pieces of the built environment that contribute to the character of the area.

Beaufort is once again in the national spotlight, not for a film or an author this time, but for its important role in the Reconstruction period. Reconstruction significantly impacted our built environment, leaving Beaufort with structures marked by physical beauty, craftsmanship, and respect for their context and traditional building patterns.

Landmarks, such as Penn Center, and many cottages, such as those ardently preserved in the Northwest Quadrant, remain examples of how Beaufort’s buildings should be designed today.

We should all be conscious of how small changes to any code (for example, changing the word “shall” to “should”) can compromise the integrity of our community. If clear building standards, reinforcing the historic pattern of Beaufort, are suddenly negotiable, Beaufort will suffer.

It will be impossible to administer these standards with integrity and equity, and developers will clamor at the opportunity to build generic structures in the city’s most prominent places. Rather, any necessary changes to the Beaufort Code should be done thoughtfully, and with the care this town deserves, given its rich history.

We should not apologize for asking Beaufort to grow beautifully. Beauty is why many of us are here, and why our tourism industry thrives. Requiring that buildings be designed to complement their context should not stifle development; but rather, vision for a cohesive community should be touted to potential investors and developers, inducing great building that sets the stage for 300 more years of growth.

Lauren Kelly is a local architect, town planner and urbanist, who formerly served as the City Architect and Senior Planner for the city of Beaufort.

This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 9:57 AM.