CHEYENNE - A loophole in the city's historic district ordinance is about to be closed.

By design, if an owner of a structure in one of the city's several historic districts wants to tear it down, he must justify his plans to the Historic Preservation Board.

However, if the owner wants to move the structure, all he has to do apply for the permit, which is reviewed and signed off by city officials.

This issue came to a boil late this summer when the new owner of one of six old, vacant houses behind the Historic Governors' Mansion applied for and obtained a moving permit for a house at 315 E. 22nd St.

Neighbors argued that moving the house would change the look of the neighborhood, which was contrary to the spirit of the historic district.

Technically, Chuck Lanham has said, the city can't block the permit based on that. Creators of the ordinance simply didn't consider that the structures could be moved, said the director of the Historic Preservation Board.

Like the neighbors, this struck Councilman Patrick Collins as wrong.

So he sponsored a change to the ordinance that would require an owner wishing to move a structure in a historic district to have a hearing before the Historic Preservation Board.

"We had a lot of feedback from constituents wanting to be part of the process when that happened," Collins said.

Besides that, the historic district documents talk about the structures that give an area a sense of place, he said, adding to its overall historic value.

Sure, moving the structure would preserve it, Collins said, but it leaves a hole in the ground in a historic district. That probably doesn't fit in with the neighborhood.

By design, the historic board procedure buys some time for old buildings in danger of demolition, Lanham has said. If the board votes no, a second city board hears an appeal, and from there, it goes to District Court.

The council will vote on the ordinance change at its meeting Monday. If it succeeds, the council will vote a second and final time at the following meeting.

The six old houses were a cause taken up by council members Pete Laybourn and Judy Case.

They pressed the city to examine the finer language of the city codes to see if they did, in fact, prevent the owners from moving the house without oversight from the Historic Preservation Board. The city hired an outside law firm, which found that the city's original assessment was correct.

Then Collins came forward with the ordinance change to keep this situation from reoccurring.

Though one house at 315 E. 22nd St. has already been moved, the ordinance change is unlikely to keep other homes in the neighborhood from uprooting. The city has already granted a permit to 2122 Evans, and a permit for 2114 Evans is in the works. It is unknown when the structures will be moved.

The controversy began this winter when the owners applied for demolition permits for the six houses behind the Historic Governors' Mansion. They had a contract with Cheyenne Regional Medical Center for $1.5 million to clear the houses from the site so the hospital could build a parking lot there.

First, the Historic Preservation Board denied the permits, then the Board of Appeals. The owners said they didn't plan to appeal the decision in District Court.

The contract with CRMC has since lapsed on Sept. 15, and the parking lot idea is pretty much abandoned at this point, hospital officials said.

Amid the removal of three houses, the owners sought a zone change for the other three homes on House Avenue. They sought a custom use that would allow for a variety of uses: residential, office, museum, retail and service. The houses, which are believed to have been built and then moved from the military base, would be preserved.

However, the Cheyenne Planning Commission rejected the zone change at its Monday meeting, due to a lack of specifics.

The applicants, Rande Pouppirt and Don Kougel, do not plan to appeal the planning commission's decision.

"We will bring the project back before the planning commission once we have a clearer picture of what type of project will be requested for the half block," says a letter to the city.