Preservation Planning Comes of Age

By A. Elizabeth Watson, AICP

The list of tools for historic preservation is long: Section 106. National Register. Historic district. Architectural survey. Design guidelines. Landmark. Tax credits. CLG. Revolving fund. Preservation easement. Main Street program. Some states also have a list — usually woefully underfunded — of potential grant programs to tap.

Add to these tools the wide variety of historic resources themselves, coming from various time periods. There are residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, governmental, and religious places, just to name a few, and they're located in communities of all sizes.

Then there are the preservation specialties: archeology, architecture, cultural landscape assessment, hazard mitigation, real estate development, structural engineering, and more.

Last — and far from least — is the intersection of historic preservation with a host of other planning issues. Think of historic preservation's important role in affordable housing, downtown revitalization, economic development, neighborhood conservation, the public domain, tourism, and transportation.

Historic preservation is complex, but its value is indisputable. A recent report from the National Park Service notes that historic preservation saves cherished places that make communities special, creates jobs, creates (or preserves) affordable housing, spurs community revitalization, enhances property values, and helps generate revenues for federal, state, and local governments.

In most places, we have a wide variety of strong advocates to thank for these benefits. And their efforts have paid off — with dividends. Developers have invested more than $78 billion in more than 41,250 projects since tax credits for rehabilitation of income-producing historic properties were established in 1976. More than 1,600 small towns, mid-sized communities, and urban commercial districts have adopted Main Street principles, a holistic approach that includes historic preservation. Since 1980 the National Main Street Center claims $65.6 billion in total reinvestment in physical improvements from public and private sources.

In some places, preservation and planning are fairly separate. In others, historic preservation and planning processes go hand in hand.

The planner and the preservationist

Planners and preservationists had formed an "uneasy alliance" by 1984, as Eugenie Ladner Birch and Douglass Roby wrote in "The Planner and the Preservationist: An Uneasy Alliance," in the Journal of the American Planning Association. They noted that "Historically, the planning and preservation movements have pursued distinct goals, served different populations, and experienced dissimilar patterns of organizational growth."

That has shifted in the 30 years since, says Bradford White, coauthor of the influential PAS Report, Preparing a Historic Preservation Plan, also published in 1984. "What's changed is that historic preservation has been integrated more fully into more planning elements, so that it's less necessary to have its own planning element."

White worries that "preservation [as a movement] has the danger of becoming irrelevant — it has been accepted by many communities. How they execute that priority, however, is still open to question." And he wonders, "Should there be specialized preservation planners, like transportation planners? Or should this be a part of any urban planner's toolkit?"

Definitely the latter, says Randall F. Mason, director of the University of Pennsylvania's program in historic preservation. "Preservation planning should be connected to the mainstreams of development and planning policy," he wrote in "Preservation Planning in American Cities" (Forum Journal, Winter 2009). In a recent interview, Mason added that the long-term ideal might even be that historic preservation should disappear as a specialty and movement, becoming an ordinary best practice undertaken as a matter of course by all planners.

A historic legacy

Fifty years ago this month, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act (preservation50.org) into law. The goal was to combat what preservationists and visionary urban leaders saw as an assault on cities through the twin scourges of unrestrained urban renewal and highway building. The act has had a major positive impact on the fate of historic resources affected by federally funded, licensed, or permitted activities.

With the stroke of his pen, Johnson established what is today a highly interrelated federal-state-local preservation system. Key features of the 1966 law were the new National Register of Historic Places — which gave important impetus to the historic district concept — and the establishment of state historic preservation officers, who administer matching federal funds and guide state coordination of federal preservation activities (see more definitions in "Historic Preservation Tools" below).

Today more than 2,300 American communities have some kind of local ordinance for historic preservation, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's William Cook. Of these, 85 percent qualify as Certified Local Governments — the third element of today's three-part federal-state-local system.

John & Mary Ritchie House, Topeka, Kansas, Listed 2015

The John and Mary Ritchie House was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for its local significance in the areas of social history and architecture. Under Criterion B, the property is significant as the sole surviving property associated with John and Mary Ritchie, who were important figures in the founding of Topeka, the regional network of the Underground Railroad, and in local reform efforts concerning temperance and women's suffrage.

The building is a rare surviving example of vernacular architecture associated with the formative years of Topeka and Kansas history. Although its date of construction is undetermined, the property is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city. In 2014, a ramp that complies with historic preservation rules was added to make the facility accessible to all users.

"Ritchie House," National Register of Historic Places, Flickr.com.

Planning's role

Fast-forward a half century, and relatively few communities with historic preservation programs have undertaken formal preservation planning.

Mason looked into the extent of historic preservation planning in 2008, when he studied preservation planning in the 100 largest cities in the U.S.

"Historic preservation activity has become a key ingredient of successful cities and city planning. Yet distinct, free-standing preservation plans — providing guidance for linking and expanding the different parts of this infrastructure — are rare," his report says. "Too often, historic preservation planning is pursued as a separate activity, not linked to core planning and development functions, and relegated as an adjunct to urban planning policies dominated by economic development concerns."

‘It's more than just protecting a building. How do you use planning to help tell the story of our history and culture?'

— BILL FIANDER, AICP, TOPEKA PLANNING DIRECTOR

He did find some notable preservation plans, in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Fort Worth, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; Kansas City, Missouri; Seattle; and Salt Lake City. Charleston, South Carolina, where the historic district was invented in 1931, has one of the nation's most celebrated preservation programs, which includes formal preservation planning.

"Preservation planning is the best way to set priorities," says Asheville, North Carolina, planner Stacy Merten. "Especially when you have limited resources and lots of ideas." Merten oversaw Asheville's preservation plan in cooperation with Buncombe County. Completed last year, it was a first for the joint city-county historic preservation program. Before that time, Asheville, like most U.S. communities, approached historic preservation by starting with the standard processes and rules. "We simply used the state law as our sole guide until then," Merten notes.

Plans undertaken in the first couple of decades following the NHPA tended to be compilations of survey information and explanations of preservation tools and processes. That approach fails to account for the strategic planning and collaborative dialogue needed to tie those tools to other planning processes and set priorities. This is where planners, and good planning, come in.

Preservation planning 2.0

Topeka, Kansas, completed its second preservation plan in 2013 (topeka.org/planning/histpre.shtml). Bill Fiander, ACIP, Topeka's planning director, describes its first, adopted in 1998 with the launch of the city's landmarks commission, as little more than that commission's work program. "We were just trying to get going, to fight inertia and establish some preservation culture in the community.So it was the cradle plan but a little regulatory," Fiander says.

"For our second plan, we graduated into a different realm. As we got a little more sophisticated and serious, we began to see that we really are less of a regulatory body for preservation matters and more advocacy preservation planners," he adds.

Topeka planners asked themselves: How would we embed preservation in other city activities, such as code enforcement, economic development, and tourism? "It's more than just [protecting] a building. How do you [use planning to help] tell the story of our history and culture?"

As one result of its preservation plan, Topeka decided to pursue National Register status for the entire downtown, and is now at work on downtown design guidelines. The initiative complements the Kansas Avenue Redevelopment Project, a two-year arts-andinfrastructure project. The historic downtown's new entry in the National Register is already drawing developer interest in rehabilitating older buildings to take advantage of federal tax credits. The lively new arts backdrop helps.

Asheville's experience

Mason says that when preservation planning occurs, either a community includes it in its comprehensive plan — the more common approach — or it creates a freestanding plan.

The latter is the route taken in Asheville, North Carolina. Like many preservation commissions, the Asheville-Buncombe County Historic Resources Commission is responsible for a broad mission of encouraging historic preservation throughout the city and county.

In North Carolina, as is typical nationwide, all-volunteer, appointed historic preservation commissions study and recommend designation of local historic districts and landmarks, inventory historic properties, remove historic designations, and review and act upon proposals in historic districts or designated landmarks.

In practice, however, the Asheville HRC had been focused on the monthly barrage of applications for proposed changes to properties in the city's four historic districts. One district, Montford, includes more than 600 buildings.

Also fueling the need for a more comprehensive approach — a plan — was concern about educating the community, maintaining a supportive constituency, and being ready for change.

"The preservation plan was an opportunity to step back from our day-to-day responsibilities and think about our needs," says Stacy Merten. The plan (tinyurl.com/jxyd7nc) is clear about the importance and role of history in the city's future. "Over the next thirty-five years, the practice of historic preservation continues to offer much of value as Asheville and Buncombe County enter a new period of growth," it reads.

Asheville's vaunted Art Deco downtown was one special issue identified early in the planning process. Although it is a large historic district listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the area was not a locally designated historic district and thus did not fall under the purview of the HRC.

Asheville's Montford neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also designated as a local historic district. Montford has more than 600 buildings, most of which were built between 1890 and 1920, and includes a variety of architectural influences reflecting the cosmopolitan character of Asheville during the turn of the 20th century. This late-Victorian Queen Anne style house was built in 1908. Photo by Peter C. Benton, courtesy Heritage Strategies.

Local preservation leaders worried that the city's separate downtown design review commission lacked the proper tools to address increasing development pressures. Many downtown property owners, however, were reluctant to accept what they saw as potentially more onerous regulations as a local historic district.

Also at issue were the historic neighborhoods outside the four existing local historic districts — some 2,000 buildings across the hilly, spread-out city could qualify. Moreover, some were already listed in the National Register without the protections offered by local designation.

The National Register does not address adverse change that can result from privately funded projects and the actions of private owners. A special local historic preservation ordinance often is needed to gain the level of control that will encourage high-quality private investment.

Merten says the preservation plan has helped reinforce the value of good design."There are so many different viewpoints about what preservation is supposed to be. Working with the downtown more [now], I see that some people believe preservation is about enshrining something forever. I think it's important to recognize the evolution of good design, and preservation is the way to educate people about that concept."

A view of the Kansas State Capitol building in Topeka's magnificent dome. Courtesy Aaron Dougherty Photography/Treanorhl.

The historic preservation firm Heritage Strategies, LLC, guided the planning process, working with Merten and other planning staff to ensure that conversations addressing the definition and role of preservation took place as the plan unfolded. The final plan included chapters dedicated to Asheville's downtown and neighborhoods, the needs of rural Buncombe County, public outreach and advocacy, and heritage tourism.

The plan also addresses the "preservation context" — that list of preservation tools without which no plan would be complete, and highlights the critical economic benefits encouraging more developers to use the historic tax credit.

The plan notes how valuable historic preservation has already proved to be. Between 1979 and 2014, combined federal and state tax credits helped rehabilitate more than 173 income-producing buildings and encouraged the rehabilitation of more than a hundred homes. In the Downtown Asheville National Register Historic District, 68 buildings have been rehabilitated, "at a reported value of nearly $142 million in 2014 dollars," the plan states.

In the end, the plan did not create a new downtown historic district. But it does offer developers and planners a number of ideas for refining design and demolition permitting in the downtown and other commercial areas.

The bottom line? Merten says the plan has "had the effect of, at least within the planning department, elevating preservation's role in planning. Over the past 10 years or so, it had felt more isolated. [The plan] brought preservation into the eyes of the city."

The renovation of the Kansas State Capitol building in Topeka and its magnificent dome was completed in 2014 at a cost of more than $325 million. The renovation also updated the building's infrastructure and office space. Courtesy Aaron Dougherty Photography/Treanorhl.

A. Elizabeth Watson is a regional planner with Heritage Strategies, LLC. She led the planning team for the Asheville-Buncombe County Historic Preservation Master Plan and participated in the Topeka Historic Preservation Plan. She also coauthored Saving America's Countryside.