Local or Regional Government Employees, Elected Officials, or Commissioners

Suggested Activities in Support of the State Plan

Create community-specific contexts to assist in conducting surveys and preparing individual nominations (e.g., contexts associated with groups of people such as women’s history or specific cultural groups; contexts focused on California industries such as agriculture or mining; or contexts associated with a type of development such as post-World War II housing or military installations).

Conduct surveys that focus on resource types that haven’t been adequately identified and evaluated in the past.

Provide up-to-date information about built environment resources online at no cost.

Celebrate and provide examples of successful “outside the norm” nominations and adaptive re-use projects that can serve as models for others.

Get involved as early as possible to work with community groups to identify options for adaptive re-use of a resource.

Provide more information about how adaptive re-use is allowed for under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.

Have a preservation presence at local and regional conferences of advocacy and professional organizations of potential partners including environmental advocacy organizations, local and regional planning agencies, and economic development and travel/tourism conferences and meetings.

Invite representatives of these organizations and agencies to attend and speak at preservation functions and forums.

Create communications/outreach plans in order to strategically use various communications methods, avoid duplication of efforts, and maximize the reach and impact of messages.

Create forums where traditional and non-traditional preservation partners can share information and discuss questions, problems, issues and best practices.

Hold workshops or roundtables devoted to landscapes issues and invite land managing agencies and organizations to participate.

Create training programs aimed specifically at non-traditional partners and/or the general public—ensure the programs are understandable and speak to the issues important to their intended audience.

Reach out to the professional planning community, including the American Planning Association, to provide training materials on integrating historic preservation into land use planning processes and programs.

Issue press releases that highlight successful preservation projects and focus on the larger community the resource serves and benefits.

Invite public officials to ribbon-cutting ceremonies and other events where historical resources are being honored.

Focus preservation awards programs on projects that have made significant contributions to their communities, and discuss these contributions during awards ceremonies and in promotional and press materials.

Use various communication methods and media to put forward examples of approaches and projects that can serve as models for future preservation efforts and focus on these specific successful examples in newsletter articles, training, and conferences.

Include a “preservation seat” on local and regional economic development planning and advisory bodies.

Develop educational and outreach materials in languages other than English.

Actively participate in regional tourism councils.

Create events and activities at historical and cultural resources that are specifically designed to make the resources a part of the community’s everyday life (e.g., farmers markets, neighborhood meetings, outdoor concerts, community gardens).

Provide training for local government historic preservation commissioners, planning staff, and officials in historic preservation goals and practices.

Create positive, proactive working relationships between advocates and agencies that endure outside the confines of any specific project.

Educate property owners about historic preservation incentives available to them at the federal, state, and local levels; and look for new local incentives that could be put in place.

Support the use of language in land-conveyance documents to ensure preservation of cultural resources if the land is purchased by a public agency for open space or mitigation purposes.

Implement changes that will make project review processes and procedures more efficient without sacrificing effectiveness.

Work on achieving Certified Local Government status, address cultural resources in general plan updates, and adopt comprehensive cultural resource ordinances and processes for CEQA compliance.