On May 23, 2025, a
fire damaged one of the two historic homes of the former Japanese nursery at Miraflores. In my
E-FORUM of May 23 2025, I wrote,:
Today, a fire seriously damaged the historic structures at Miraflores. I have been asking repeatedly (while I was still mayor)
and warning (after I was no longer mayor) that these structures are endangered and that the City should take responsibility for protecting them. See the email below that I sent to Shasa back on October 4, 2024, I wrote, “What is going to happen is what happened
to the International Hotel; someone will burn them down, and the problem will go away.” The only thing that surprises me is that it took so long.
Unfortunately, neither the City nor the City Council has any interest in preserving the City’s historic resources. It is
lack of City code enforcement that led to the fire that destroyed the International Hotel.”
On June 16, 2025, the
Richmond Standard described how Councilmembers Bana and Robinson, concerned about the May 23 fire at Miraflores, introduced a resolution to address risks to historic structures. The item was continued three times and finally passed on July 1, 2025.
DIRECT City staff to work with the Historic Preservation Commission and community groups to:
o
Formalize and publicly share a verified list of city-owned historic buildings and historically significant locations.
o
Create a process to accept nominations, review and if warranted, install commemorative signage on City-owned historic structures and
important locations of cultural memory (e.g., the former site of the International Hotel). Additionally, the City should offer to coordinate and assist with the installation of plaques or historical markers for privately owned historic buildings and sites,
provided the property owners are willing. This will help commemorate important places regardless of ownership and ensure the community’s history remains visible and celebrated.
o
Develop and implement basic preservation measures to protect city-owned historic buildings from vandalism and fire damage.
o
Explore grant and partnership opportunities to support preservation efforts, with support from the Historic Preservation Commission and
local history organizations.
o
Create a staff led and City Council approved process to evaluate whether any of the identified historic buildings require additional
site-specific protection measures that would involve new budget allocations. Rather than mandating uniform maintenance rules, evaluate each structure’s preservation needs individually, based on historical significance, community interest, and available resources.
o
Provide a status update to the City Council within 180 days on progress made, challenges encountered, and next steps for implementation
–
Councilmember Soheila Bana (510-672-3490)/Councilmember Doria Robinson (510-672-1387).
See
City Council Discovers Historic Preservation, June 20, 2025.
Well, neither the City nor the property owner did anything, and this morning, one of the two historic houses at Miraflores
was destroyed by fire.
I visited the site late this afternoon, and observed that it was still unsecured, weeds posing a continued fire hazard
and trash dumped all around.
Figure 1 – Entrance to the site. No fences, no gates, no security.
Figure 2 – House destroyed by fire
Figure 3 – House destroyed by fire
Figure 4 – breached fence and trash
The property is owned by Artes Capital, 2829 Townsgate Road, Suite 100, Westlake Village, CA 91361, Scott Taylor Founding Principal, CEO,
Scott.Taylor@artescapital.com, 805-234-7999 cell.
Under multiple Richmond Ordinances, the owner has a responsibility to secure and maintain the property, but the City has failed to enforce any of them. So much for historic
preservation.
Want to receive TOM BUTT E-FORUM delivered to your email address?
Click here to sign-up to receive the E-Forum. Tom Butt is the former mayor of Richmond, CA, having served 27+ years until January of 2023, eight of those as elected mayor. Tom Butt is an architect and founder of the 50-year
old Richmond architecture-engineering firm Interactive Resources. He serves on the board of two Richmond nonprofits,
Rosie the Riveter Trust and
East Brother Light Station, Inc. Visit the
Tom
Butt website for additional information about Tom Butt’s activities and a digest of past E-FORUMS going back to 2000,
http://www.tombutt.com. Subscription to this service is at the personal discretion of the recipient and may be terminated by selecting “unsubscribe from
this list” at the bottom of this email. This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental,
political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section
107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|