Real Estate Development

A Call for Replacing the Secretary’s Standards with a Model Historic Building Code

By Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq.

“… The Stan­dards are nei­ther tech­ni­cal nor pre­scrip­tive, but are intend­ed to pro­mote respon­si­ble preser­va­tion prac­tices that help pro­tect our Nation’s irre­place­able cul­tur­al resources.  For exam­ple, they can­not, in and of them­selves, be used to make essen­tial deci­sions about which fea­tures of the his­toric build­ing should be saved and which can be changed.  But once a treat­ment is select­ed, the Stan­dards pro­vide philo­soph­i­cal con­sis­ten­cy to the work.”  Intro­duc­tion to Stan­dards and Guide­lines.  Nation­al Park Service.

     On Jan­u­ary 25, 2013, for­mer U.S. Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or Ken Salazar asked the Nation­al Park Ser­vice (NPS) to con­duct an inter­nal review of the Fed­er­al His­toric Preser­va­tion Tax Incen­tives Pro­gram (HTC) to “… make sure that we are doing every­thing we can to work in part­ner­ship with local com­mu­ni­ties, devel­op­ers and oth­er stake­hold­ers to pro­vide guid­ance and pro­mote restora­tion efforts.”

     At the time, this was wel­come news, though as a for­mer Illi­nois State His­toric Preser­va­tion Office (SHPO) staff archi­tect charged with inter­pret­ing the Sec­re­tary of the Interior’s Stan­dards for Reha­bil­i­ta­tion (Stan­dards) for the HTC and oth­er his­toric reha­bil­i­ta­tion tax-incen­tive pro­grams and now as a pri­vate prac­tice attor­ney, I tem­pered my expec­ta­tions.  Con­struc­tive gov­ern­men­tal reform is rarely a swift or rev­o­lu­tion­ary process.

     And, in 2024, more than ten years after for­mer Sec­re­tary Salazar’s request to the NPS, lit­tle, if any­thing, has been done to accom­mo­date that mandate.

     Many of this coun­try’s his­toric preser­va­tion laws and pro­grams are near­ly old enough for their own his­toric des­ig­na­tions and are in dire need of reha­bil­i­ta­tion.  The his­toric prop­er­ty-own­ing pub­lic would cer­tain­ly appre­ci­ate a lit­tle reg­u­la­to­ry stream­lin­ing of the HTC pro­gram, start­ing with elim­i­nat­ing appli­ca­tion fees for the redun­dant SHPO and NPS review process.

     Mean­ing­ful reform also includes reform­ing how his­toric prop­er­ties and com­mu­ni­ties attract rein­vest­ment cap­i­tal for busi­ness growth, job cre­ation, and local eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty. This reform should start by rel­e­gat­ing the Stan­dards to their stat­ed and intend­ed role of sim­ply pro­vid­ing philo­soph­i­cal con­sis­ten­cy for his­toric reha­bil­i­ta­tion efforts. It should not con­tin­ue to serve as a de fac­to his­toric build­ing code enshrined as fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions and incor­po­rat­ed direct­ly into fed­er­al and state his­toric preser­va­tion laws and pro­grams, nor local his­toric preser­va­tion ordi­nances, includ­ing those of Cer­ti­fied Local Governments.

    Hard­ly changed since their incep­tion in 1977, the Stan­dards com­prise a ten-point man­i­festo of his­toric preservation’s essen­tial reha­bil­i­ta­tion doc­trine as enforced by fed­er­al, state, and local his­toric preser­va­tion reg­u­la­to­ry enti­ties. Though most of the Stan­dards have retained their rel­e­vance in vary­ing amounts, some have not. The sec­ond part of the unloved Stan­dard No. 9, for exam­ple, is the prod­uct of an equal­ly unloved 1970s Mod­ernist bias and should be eliminated …