The Atlanta Zoning Review Board (ZRB) voted at its meeting on Nov. 5 to approve an application to allow the demolition of 811 Ponce de Leon Place NE, the site of the historic arrest of Michael Hardwick.
Hardwick was arrested in the home in 1982 and charged under Georgia’s anti-sodomy law for having sex with another man. He took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986, challenging the law on privacy grounds. The Supreme Court ruled in Georgia’s favor, but the decision was overturned in 1998, seven years after Hardwick’s death.
On Nov. 2, the Atlanta City Council unanimously approved a resolution requesting, but not requiring, the City of Atlanta’s Urban Design Commission (UDC) to consider the property as an historically designated site.
If the Department of City Planning pursues the nomination, the commission will have 120 to 180 days to review the property and deem if it is worthy of historical preservation. During that time, the home would be protected under the city’s preservation ordinance, prohibiting demolition or other significant alterations.
Related story: Atlanta City Council approves resolution to begin landmark designation process for LGBTQ+ historic site
If the home is deemed an historically designated property, it would then be rezoned by the city council.
More than 90 LGBTQ+ advocates and community members encouraged the ZRB to deny or defer the application in an open letter, and NPU-F voted to defer its own consideration until its November meeting.
However, the ZRB voted to approve the application, save for a request to increase the height of a privacy fence, with board members arguing that because the UDC has not yet decided to pursue the nomination, there wasn’t a significant enough reason to keep delaying the owners.
Stephen Rothman, the lawyer representing owners Paul and Penny Gutierrez, said during Thursday’s meeting that rehabilitating the house was more cost prohibitive for the couple than demolishing it, citing black mold, deferred maintenance, and poorly constructed renovations.
Around 2016, the home was renovated to include a second story and enclose the front porch. Because of these renovations, Rothman argued that the house did not resemble its original structure during the 1982 arrest and said it didn’t make sense for the home to be preserved.
“To say you’ve got to preserve the house because of an event that occurred in a different kind of structure is as silly as saying, ‘We’ve discovered at the Walmart on Howell Mill there was a Civil War skirmish, so you’ve got to save the Walmart,” he said. “It’s the historical event and the thing that’s there now [has] no relationship.”
The owners have indicated that they are open to placing an historic marker near the property if the home is demolished. The property is included in Atlanta’s 2023 LGBTQ+ Historic Context Statement, which identifies historically significant sites for potential preservation.
Fred Smith Jr., a member of the NPU and an advocate for preserving the home, told Georgia Voice he was “disappointed” in the ZRB’s decision but is hopeful for a path forward.
“I’m still very hopeful that the memory of this site will be protected and that the owners will live in a home they love,” he said.
