Blog Additions - Statewide Historic Preservation Planning

A Statewide Historic Preservation Plans (Northeast) section has just been added to the sidebar, below the Reading Room section. Included are links to the National Park Service's Preservation Plan Profile web page and online versions of all the statewide historic preservation plans we could locate. If your state is missing, refer to the Park Service's profiles or search the web; keep in mind we have only included links to eastern seaboard states between Maine and Washington, D.C. and not all states have posted electronic versions of their plans. These plans are a great way to become familiar with historic preservation in your state (and, obviously, other states) and to learn more about the range of historic resources, organizations involved, as well as available tools and incentives for protecting historic resources.

In accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, statewide historic preservation plans are prepared on an approximately five-year planning cycle by all state historic preservation offices. The National Park Service's Historic Preservation Planning Program web site includes information on The Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for Preservation Planning; an extensive list of Publications, including information on conducting local surveys of historic resources, public participation, planning and zoning tools, etc.; the Planning Companion, a "gateway for information about approaches, tools, techniques, guidance, and resources for historic preservation planning; and information about statewide historic preservation planning, including state plan titles and contacts and state plan profiles.

The state plan profiles provide useful overviews of each state's plan, typically including such information as the plan's title, number of pages, date the plan was approved by the National Park Service, planning cycle dates, contact information and link to an online version of the plan (if available), and summarized information from the plan, including mission/vision statement, public participation, issues, opportunities, and threats, goals and objectives, and implementation strategies.

We will be adding some of the Park Service's resource material to the sidebar's Reading Room section as time allows.