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221 S Historic Landscape Preservation Saving Community Character Annaliese Bischoff Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got ’Till it’s gone They paved paradise And put up a parking lot —Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi” o laments the popular songwriter from the sixties about the aftermath of insensitive development and poor planning. When my favorite radio station first played this song, I was a child living on an apple orchard soon fated to become a new parking lot for the Fine Arts Center at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. At that age I felt quite powerless over the future land-use change that would take away my childhood stomping ground. To this day visiting the parking lot on the campus in Kingston evokes haunting memories of this personal loss. However, apple orchards can still evoke for me the precious memories of climbing a carefully selected tree, of sketching the gnarled limbs of an old friend, or of snacking on a freshly fallen apple. The experience of losing an apple orchard to a parking lot helped direct me as a young adult to discover the process of landscape preservation within the profession of landscape architecture. From childhood through adulthood, the experience of place can shape our destinies and provide us with very powerful connections. The connection between who we are and where we are can help ground us within our communities. Looking after and guarding the valuable places near us contribute to our sense of well-being. Such stewarding of the land helps strengthen not only our sense of place, but also our sense of self. In every community there are cherished places in the natural and the built environment. Children as well as adults form close attachments to outdoor places richly vested with memories . Sometimes the loss or threat of loss of such a beloved place can be a galvanizing experience 16 222 Keeping the Best for a community. Residents can rally together to preserve the fabric of these beloved places, and community members can initiate important conversations about the qualities they value and why they find them significant. Through the use of tools of historic preservation, the future of these places can be ensured. At the same time that preservation planning can provide care for the historic and cultural gems in a community, intelligent and creative planning can guide change and new development compatibly. Preservation and development need not be mutually exclusive. This chapter showcases Sholan Farm, an apple orchard in the City of Leominster, Massachusetts, 40 miles west of Boston. The story of this orchard, recently rescued from the fate of becoming a residential subdivision, offers hope and direction for saving open space from development. Attained by means of creative solutions and strategies for protecting valued places, this success can inspire other initiatives. To this end every community should consider first: What are the threats to their valued places? What are the historic roots of the community? How are these expressed in the built environment? What are the opportunities to connect to those roots and celebrate them? Through the search for answers to these questions, community members can also learn about the steps in the historic landscape preservation process. The relationship between the history of a site and a discussion of community needs can lead to a program of new uses for the site with a connection to the historic uses. Before we look at one specific apple orchard in detail, it is important to be able to identify all the resources within the broad range of landscape types that contribute to community character. Often when citizens first think about the features that make such a contribution, they identify historic buildings. An awareness of what can constitute a historic place can be expanded by a review of the broad range of resource types. The particular threats to these resources within a community can also be identified and discussed. The Office of Historic Resources within the Massachusetts Department of Environment suggests a useful set of categories to help identify resources and what threatens them. This list certainly includes buildings as one category. However, other sorts of structures and objects also need to be considered. Canals, bridges, stone features, memorials, markers, gazebos, and fountains within a community may be important contributors to character. Downtowns in the form of village centers, formal town centers, streetscapes, or central business districts might also be considered. Under the category landscapes, river corridors, agricultural...

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