Despite the fact that NC Central owns the rickety house near campus, the anti-property rights group known as the Durham Historic Preservation Commission “unanimously denied a request” from the university to exercise its ownership right.
Instead, the misguided group in Durham, along with like-minded people at the state, have decided the house must be preserved, even though the civil rights-era journalist they’re supposedly trying to honor, didn’t want the house preserved. Now NC Central is left with a run-down piece of property and the potential for costly renovations. From the News & Observer (emphasis is mine):
The university, which now owns the house, says its condition is decrepit enough to constitute a public hazard.
“That house is unsafe, unsafe, unsafe,” Abegunrin said.
The university also says that renovating the house would be prohibitively expensive.
However, commission member Eddie Belk said renovation would increase the property’s value.
“If ‘unsafe’ were the only criterion, a lot of rehabilitated buildings would have been demolished instead,” Belk said.
Rivera, who died Oct. 23, also established NCCU’s public information office. He sold the house to the university in 1997, expecting it would be torn down.
In 2007, he wrote the university saying, “It is not a historical home, and I am strongly in favor of it being demolished.>”
There is nothing unclear about Mr. Rivera’s view or intent. The preservation board should honor his wish, and the current owner’s rights.
