Hello! My name is Sarah Hilbert, and I am the moderator of the Preserving Bungalow Neighborhoods Forum. I hope to see conversations, networking, and traffic here in the months to come. Please take a minute to introduce yourselves and let us know about why you are interested in this topic.

My story: I grew up in a historic neighborhood in Denver, lived in a bungalow in Seattle, and then moved with my husband and children to Pasadena, California 7 years ago and settled in a 1912 craftsman home in Bungalow Heaven Landmark District, one of Pasadena's first historic districts and one of the first of its kind nationwide. My neighbors and I will be forever grateful to the preservationists that made Bungalow Heaven possible back in 1989.

In 2007, my neighbors and I engaged in a preservation struggle of our own when we learned that the City of Pasadena was about to rezone a thoroughfare that directly abutts our backyards to allow for 48-foot high mixed-use housing and commercial development. That kind of development would have loomed over our backyards and destroyed the quality of life my Bungalow Heaven neighbors and I enjoy on our historic street.

After months of intense research on zoning and attending countless city-level meetings, we were successful at getting the city to agree not to rezone the thoroughfare. We also got the city to agree that it needed to fund a consultant with expertise in historic resources to develop comprehensive design guidelines and development standards - documents that, when completed, will guide Pasadena's future development so that it's in scale, character, and harmony with the city's historic neighborhoods. We were thrilled with the outcome!

I am very interested in hearing about neighborhoods in danger throughout the US and what folks are doing to protect them. It's my hope that soon, the website can feature a section that profiles preservationists and their efforts. We'll need “fodderâ€Â