National Register of Historic Places Totally Explained

Everything about The National Register Of Historic Places totally explained

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects worthy of preservation. The passing of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 established the National Register and the process for adding properties to it. Of the more than one million properties on the National Register, 80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing members within historic districts. Each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or through individual listings.
For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service (NPS), an agency within the United States Department of the Interior. Its goals are to help property owners and groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, they do provide some financial incentive to listed property owners. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics in the fields of history and preservation, as well as the public, and politicians.
Occasionally historic sites outside the country proper but associated with the United States (such as the American Embassy in Tangiers) are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts and Multiple Property Submissions (MPS). The Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties: building, structure, site, object, and districts. Historic districts consist of contributing and non-contributing property types. Some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they come under the aegis of the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks (NHL), National Historic Sites (NHS), National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials and some National Monuments.

History

On October 15, 1966 the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO). Initially the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Register's creation, as well as any other historic sites within the National Park system. The passage of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad based historic preservation policy. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law. Ernest Connally was the Office's first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register. The division oversaw several existing programs, including the Historic Sites Survey and the Historic American Buildings Survey, as well as the new NRHP and Historic Preservation Fund.
In February 1983 the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs. Jerry L. Rogers was picked to lead this newly merged associate directorate. He was described as a skilled administrator who was sensitive to the need for the NPS to work with SHPOs, academia and local governments.

Property owner incentives

Properties are not protected in any strict sense by the Federal listing. States and local zoning bodies may or may not choose to protect listed Historic Places. Indirect protection is possible, through state and local regulations on development of NRHP properties, and through tax incentives.
   Until 1976 tax incentives were virtually non-existent for buildings on the National Register. Before 1976 the federal tax code favored new construction over the reuse of existing, sometimes historical, structures. Aside from the 20% tax credit, the tax incentive program offers a 10% tax credit for rehabilitation to owners of non-historic, non-residential buildings constructed before 1936.
   Some property owners may qualify for grants as well, for instance, the Save America's Treasures grants that apply specifically to NRHP properties which were entered in the Register at a national level of significance or designated as National Historic Landmarks.
   The NHPA made no distinction between properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places and those designated as National Historic Landmarks concerning qualification for tax incentives or grants. This was deliberate on the part of the 1966 act's authors. Their experience had shown that categories of significance caused the lowest category to become expendable.| (49 USC 303)}} Any individual can prepare a National Register nomination, although historians and historic preservation consultants are often employed for this work. The nomination contains basic information on the type of significance embodied in the building, district, or site.]] For a property to be listed it must meet at least one of the four NRHP key criteria. Information on architectural styles, association with various aspects of social history and commerce, and ownership are all integral parts of the nomination. Each nomination generally provides a narrative section which describes the site or building in detail and justifies why it's historically significant. The NRHP criteria fall into four categories. To meet the "Event" category, criterion A, the property must make a contribution to the broad patterns of American history. Criterion B, "Person," is associated with significant people in the American past. The third criterion, C, "Design/Construction," is affiliated with the distinctive characteristics of the building through its construction and architecture, including having high artistic value or being the work of a master. The final criterion, D, "Information potential," is satisfied if the property has yielded or may be likely to yield information important to prehistory or history. The criteria are applied differently for different types of properties, for instance, maritime properties have different application guidelines than buildings. The National Register of Historic Places automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the National Park Service.
   Listing in the National Register doesn't restrict private property owners from the use of their property. Some states and municipalities, however, may have laws that become effective when a property is listed on the National Register. If federal money or a federal permitting process is involved, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 is invoked. Section 106 requires the federal agency involved to assess the impact of its actions on historic resources. While Section 106 doesn't explicitly mandate that any federal agency head listen to the advice of the ACHP, practically their advice carries weight, especially given the statutory obligations laid out in the NHPA that require federal agencies to "take into account the effect of the undertaking." In contrast to conditions relating to a federally Registered Historic District, often municipal ordinances governing local historic district restrict certain kinds of changes to properties. Thus they may protect the property more than a National Register listing does.
   The Department of Transportation Act, passed on October 15, 1966, the same day as the National Historic Preservation Act, included provisions that addressed historic preservation. The language of the DOT Act is much broader than Section 106 NHPA in that it refers to properties beyond those listed on the Register. Examples of MPS include the Lee County Multiple Property Submission, the Warehouses in Omaha, the Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia and the Illinois Carnegie Libraries. Before the term Multiple Property Submission was introduced, in 1984, such listings were known as "Thematic Resources" (TR) or "Multiple Resource Areas" (MRA).

Types of properties

Listed properties generally fall into one of five categories, though there are special considerations for other types of properties which don't fit into these five broad categories or fit into more specialized subcategories. The five general categories for NRHP properties are: building, structure, object, site, and district. Tainter and Lucas' view drew considerable response from the larger academic community.
Stephen Mikesell argued a similar position in 1986 in his paper, published in The Public Historian. Mikesell called the NRHP criteria "so broad as to be almost useless when evaluating specific properties." A 1987 paper by Jerry L. Rogers in The Public Historian criticized the lack of a "human touch" in the way the program was administered by the National Park Service. The author contended the process was highly decentralized. Rogers further noted that federal historic preservation officers didn't receive much training.
The National Park Service has since performed numerous Theme Studies which identify candidate landmarks in broad topic areas. The Theme Studies may have substantially alleviated the issues raised in these articles.
Limitations of the NHPA are obvious when historic properties are destroyed, as when the Jobbers Canyon Historic District in downtown Omaha, Nebraska was demolished in 1987 to make way for a suburban-style corporate campus. However, the NHPA program may have served its purpose in that case and others, by ensuring that the debate to keep or demolish the site was prominent and public, perhaps in part due to the NRHP listing of the site.

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