Part 7: Protection of Historic Resources

Once historic and archeological properties have been identified and evaluated as significant, then decisions can be made about what to do with the resources. The common, and preferred goal, is to protect historic properties. This is a crucial aspect of preservation. "Protection," broadly speaking, is the process of determining and implementing appropriate actions to preserve and enhance those historic properties considered important. See below for specific, treatment-related definitions. Protective measures can take many forms. Those discussed in this publication include environmental review, Historic Preservation Fund grants-in-aid to selected properties, tax benefits for undertaking appropriate improvements to income-producing properties or the donation of historic preservation easements, and increased historic preservation education among key government officials and members of the public. Each of these activities is complex and important enough to merit a separate and independent examination in this publication. The following section outlines environmental review and compliance procedures for the careful consideration of historic properties in any project that uses Federal money, land, or oversight. To avoid delays and increased costs, it is essential that the historic properties be identified early in planning stages of the project.

Historic property protection has two aspects:

• Integration into land use planning (and at the local level, zoning) process, and
• Physical treatment

The planning aspects of protection are discussed in this and subsequent sections.

With regard to "treatment", the historic materials in buildings, structures, sites, objects, and districts listed in the National Register of Historic Places, like all materials, deteriorate over time; therefore, these properties require periodic work to preserve and protect their historic integrity. Properties that have deteriorated, and properties that have been unsympathetically altered or added to, require considerably more assistance to rehabilitate or restore them so that their historic and architectural integrity is preserved.

The "Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties" (36 CFR Part 68) define four appropriate treatments for historic properties in a hierarchical order, relating to the amount of intervention into the building's materials and form.

Appropriate treatments for work on historic properties (buildings, structures, sites, objects, and districts), as defined 36 CFR Part 68 are:

Preservation is defined as the act or process of applying measures necessary to sustain the existing form, integrity, and materials of an historic property. Work, including preliminary measures to protect and stabilize the property, generally focuses upon the ongoing maintenance and repair of historic materials and features rather than extensive replacement and new construction. New exterior additions are not within the scope of this treatment; however, the limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a preservation project.

Rehabilitation is defined as the act or process of making possible a compatible use for a property through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving those portions or features which convey its historical, cultural, or architectural values.

Restoration is defined as the act or process of accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a property as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of features from other periods in its history and reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period. The limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a restoration project.

Reconstruction is defined as the act or process of depicting, by means of new construction, the form, features, and detailing of a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object for the purpose of replicating its appearance at a specific period of time and in its historic location

SUGGESTED READING

The Heritage Preservation Services program publishes a variety of reports, case studies, and briefs on historic preservation planning and treatment. A complete list of these publications is available by writing: Heritage Preservation Services, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20240. E:mail: hps-info@nps.gov. Or go to the HPS web site: www2.cr.nps.gov and check out Book Store.