Shared from the 7/29/2020 LUBBOCK AVALANCHE-JOURNAL eEdition

Council OKs first vote to loosen protections

The Lubbock City Council voted on first reading Tuesday to amend the ordinance protecting the historic red bricks in downtown Lubbock.

The amended ordinance, which will require second and final approval at the next council meeting, is less protective of the brick streets. And it’s broad, which the council acknowledged is by design.

The vote passed 4-3, with council members Jeff Griffith, Randy Christian and Steve Massengale, along with Mayor Dan Pope, voting in favor. Councilwoman Latrelle Joy made a motion to postpone the vote until September, after the annual budget is passed, but it failed by the same vote.

Joy said the city shouldn’t be rushing this vote.

Five members of the public spoke against the amended ordinance during the public hearing, and even more were in attendance to show opposition. They argued to preserve the brick streets, not just cast them aside. The citizens argued for stronger language and the continued oversight.

Per the amended ordinance, only five existing brick streets in downtown Lubbock will require brick streets, “in a manner consistent with one or more designs adopted by the city council which shall respect the original brick aesthetics.”

Meaning the original bricks are no longer required, but something similar. The city has previously discussed hybrid streets, where just the center land is made of red bricks. There are also portions of Broadway, before the strict ordinance went into place, where the asphalt looks like red bricks.

Citizens argued this is too vague, and some members of the city council agreed.

The streets with this protection are:

• Broadway (between Avenue Q to Avenue E)

• Crickets Avenue (between 19th Street and Broadway)

• Buddy Holly Avenue (between 19th and 7th Streets)

• Texas Avenue (between 19th and 7th Streets) and

• Avenue J (between 16th and 9th Streets)

The neighborhood brick streets in South Overton are offered more protection. The amended ordinance says brick streets in South Overton shall remain consistent with the Historic District (South Overton is a designated Historic District) requirements.

The new ordinance says all other brick streets, the other brick streets downtown and the other neighborhood streets, shall be replaced with asphalt if disturbed for any reason.

However, this is all subject to review. And according to the amended ordinance, requests to remove any of the brick streets will need to be approved by the city’s director of public works, which was also a point of contention.

Protection of the historic brick streets are currently in the hands of the city’s Urban Design and Historic Preservation Commission, a council-appointed board, but this amended ordinance gives that decision to the city’s director of public works. Citizens argued that oversight should remain with the Urban Design and Historic Preservation Commission.

After nearly two hours of public discussion, the council approved the amended ordinance on Tuesday. It’s set to be back in front of the city council for the final vote on Tuesday, August 11.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the condition of Lubbock’s brick streets, and the cost to fix them.

Loosening the protections on the brick streets was recommended and approved in the city’s newly adopted Downtown Lubbock Master Plan. The new downtown plan suggests only keeping a portion of the iconic red bricks, and to make them hybrid streets with only a portion brick. Proposed hybrid streets would feature red bricks in the center turning lane and the curbside parking spaces, but asphalt for the driving lanes.

Another of the many recommendations in the downtown master plan is to get rid of the one-way streets, which tend to cause confusion.

There’s history in the red bricks. The bricks date back to the 1920s, and the bricks have since become a visual representation of Lubbock’s historic downtown and South Overton neighborhoods.

There are about 9.7 linear miles of bricks in Lubbock, about 4.5 miles of which are downtown.

Wood Franklin, the city’ director of public works, previously told A-J Media the brick streets have been neglected, and he said it’s because of the cost to maintain them. Franklin estimates the cost to replace or repair the bricks to be $150-200 per square yard.

Franklin estimates the cost to fix Broadway, from Texas Tech to Interstate 27, to be $28 million, including utilities. To fix Texas Avenue from 7th to 19th Streets, the city estimates it’ll cost $15 million.

Based on when the bricks were put in, Franklin also said the bricks throughout downtown are different sizes and there’s different layering underneath. When the bricks are dug up for maintenance, he estimates about 30 percent are damaged in the process

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The red bricks paving the streets around downtown were designated a historical landmark on Oct. 29, 2019.

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The red bricks paving the streets around downtown were designated a historical landmark, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019, in Lubbock, Texas. [PHOTOS BY BRAD TOLLEFSON/A-J MEDIA]

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The red bricks paving the streets around downtown were designated a historical landmark on Oct. 29, 2019.

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Pope

Although the bricks are protected under historic preservation rules now, that wasn’t always the case. Because of that, there are patches of asphalt or concrete where bricks used to be. Whenever utility work was done in the past, Franklin said the norm was to replace the bricks with another material. The same whenever a brick street got too bad to drive.

In 2006, the Lubbock City Council deemed Lubbock’s red streets a historical landmark. The ordinance says any utility cuts or other disturbances to brick street surfaces must be repaired in a manner consistent with original construction.

Prior to his vote on Tuesday, Mayor Pope said he wasn’t fully on board with the amended ordinance. He said there’s time in the next few weeks to discuss changes.

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