Style Magazine’s cover story this week presents a fairly one-sided take on the effects of urban renewal, focusing largely on Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood. In this thread on Church Hill People’s News, area residents discuss this subject. Since Petersburg is starting to ramp up its own revitalization efforts, these same questions are beginning to surface here.

Indeed, in last week’s city council meeting, an elderly couple who owns a historic property appealed an Architectual Review Board decision requiring that they replace their failing tin roof with a new tin roof — this couple bought their home long before the historic designation was applied, and on their fixed income a new tin roof is out of their reach.

To the Council’s credit, several consructive win-win recommendations were offered for consideration (basically, a win-win Plan A, and in case that wouldn’t work out, a contingency win-win Plan B). Also to Council’s, the City Manager’s, and the ARB’s joint credit, it was recognized that this same question is likely to arise in the future and that some set of solutions or processes in relation to the provision of relief should be established.