Anthropology 645
Historic Preservation
Week 5

How are the objectives of NHPA are put into effect through the issuance of regulations?

Recall the five main provisions of NHPA and associated regulations. They are:

1. National Register: applicable regulations include 36 CFR 60 & 63

2. Advisory Council: 36 CFR 800

3. Grants Program: 36 CFR 68 also Archaeological and Historic Preservation, Secretary's Standards and Guidelines

4. Organization: spelled out in the law where Advisory Council and National Register and Grants Program would go

5. Review Process: 36 CFR 800

6. Should include at least one other provision that occurs in amended NHPA, as Section 110 (not part of the original act, it incorporates much of the thrust of EO 11593)

Briefly review: states that heads of all federal agencies assume responsibility for preservation of historic properties controlled or owned by agency. Must use historic properties to the fullest extent. Must also undertake program to locate, inventory, nominate all properties under agencies purview to NR. Assure caution that eligible properties not destroyed or otherwise affected. If undertakings are likely to affect historic property that sufficient records made of or developed for the property. Federal landmarks should always be minimally affected by federal projects/agencies. Build into agency budgets all provisions for implementing this section.

7. Protection of historic properties: Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines. Not a regulation as such but guidelines developed by Interior to help agencies identify their responsibilities under Section 101 and 110 of NHPA, amended. Much discussion among federal agencies now about using this and Sect. 110 as primary planning and management under NHPA. Objective is to make agencies more proactive; to integrate planning at large scale and not on a project by project basis. Big picture, rather than one dominated by individual sites. Will examine the standards and guidelines next time, in conjunction with our discussion of site protection.

Let's look at the these aspects of implementing NHPA, in turn.

National Register: what's included--districts (geographic area with significant concentration or linkage of properties), sites (location of significant event or structure, often abandoned and in partial ruin), buildings (structures to shelter human activities), and objects (portable material culture) significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture. Should identify the nation's cultural resources and indicate what properties deserve protection from outright destruction.

NR as a planning tool. Advisory Council afforded a reasonable opportunity to comment on undertakings that have an effect on a listed or eligible property. Listing makes property owners eligible for grants-in-aid and for certain favorable tax provisions.

Process for inclusion, includes a nomination form (although properties can also be included through act of Congress, Executive Orders, designation as Natl Historic Landmarks by Secretary of the Interior). Nominations can come from SHP Programs to SHPO to National Park Service, person or local government (when no approved SHP Program), from federal agencies submitted by their respective Federal Preservation Officers, to NPS.

What are the criteria used to evaluate National Register nominations? What objective is being addressed here? To include a wide diversity of properties. There is no "ideal" historic property.

The criteria are:

• The property must possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and

2a. be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history, or

2b. that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past, or

2c. that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction, or

2d. that have yielded or may be likely to yield information important in history or prehistory.

There are some important exclusions/restrictions to NR eligibility. What are some of these? 1. less than 50 years old (although keep in mind that like the rest of us historic properties get older every year and those that would not have once qualified, now do. E.g., World War II sites), 2. cemeteries, birthplaces, or graves of historical figures, 3. religious properties, 4. properties that have been moved or reconstructed, commemorative properties, except when they are integral to a larger district or when they meet the following criteria:

3a. when a religious property also has architectural, historical, or artistic value, (e.g., Father Damien's Church on Kalaupapa on Moloaki),

3b. a moved building also has architectural value, or is the surviving structure most importantly associated with a historic person or event. What would be an example of this?

3c. a birthplace or grave of a historical figure of outstanding importance and if no building associated with that individual (e.g., any examples-birthplace of Kamehameha),

3d. a cemetery whose significance include aspects of its age, design features, or associated historic events (e.g., ? ), or

3e. a reconstructed building when done in suitable manner, and when no other building with same association has survived (e.g., any ideas?)

3f. commemorative property when also has historical architectural, age, traditional, symbolic value (e.g., any ideas?)

3g. a recent property with exceptional importance (e.g., The U.S.S. Arizona became a historic property the day it was bombed) .

Discussion about these criteria, exclusions, and exclusions to the exclusions.

How to nominate: SHPO responsible; nominations should be consistent with priorities of state and historic preservation plan (this is one of the responsibilities of each state to develop a plan and to update it regularly). Consultation with local authorities and property owners. Must notify owners and provide comment period. If property owners object, must provide written statement. If you determine that majority of owners or a single owner of a property object, then a nomination is forwarded to NR but not listed, only a determination of its eligibility, then leave it at that. For federal land holdings, the federal preservation officer for an agency prepares, and copies provided SHPO for review and comment. Also local officials given opportunity to develop nominations. From the State, nominations are forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register. Within 45 days the Keeper makes a decision.

Sometimes there are changes to National Register properties, including boundary changes and location changes and procedures for this are detailed and how one determines if the changes require reevaluation of listing status.

There are procedures for removing properties listed: 1. ceased to meet criteria, 2. new information shows the property does not meet criteria, 3. error in professional judgment, 4. procedural error.

National Register as the list of properties worth preserving. Collectively the Register represents part of the nation's patrimony, is a tangible aspect of our history.

What are the positive benefits of National Register properties?

• improves community interest and pride (identification with local areas)
• increasing awareness of history and prehistory (i.e., identification with the state)
• develop interest in revitalization of neighborhoods and commercial areas
• stimulates economic development and private investment
• stimulates planning for preservation (i.e., more rational approach to development)
• identifies properties suitable for preservation, i.e., stabilization, rehabilitation, restoration etc.
• promotes and supports tourism both as improving a community's aesthetic as well as providing structures for different kinds of activities and businesses. Bed and breakfasts, house museums,

8 creates jobs and thus contributes to on-going economic development

9. provides housing that might otherwise be lost

What are some of the issues raised by National Register?

• Number of properties listed. Some believe on the best, largest, earliest should be listed. Elistist perspective. Note that there is no upper limit on the number of sites which can be placed on the register. Nor are properties limited only to the extremely important, one objective of the National Register is to represent the entire diversity of American experience, not just wealthy, poor, middle class. Not just residential, but commercial, industrial, educational. And not just historic, i.e since arrival of Europeans, but native Americans. Not just buildings, but landscapes, places of note, gardens, trails, roadways, artifacts, statues.
  
• Decentralized nature of review process. While the Register is part of NPS, and the listing is compiled in Washington, the emphasis has shifted to states and they are the major beneficiaries of the Register. States involved in making determinations about significance. Why? They have the knowledge and perspective and individuals from the states should know what is regionally and locally imporant. Gives them role in national historic objectives and also makes them part of the front end of the planning process. For properties listed on the NR are those we want to be additionally careful of when undertakings are proposed which might affect them.
  
• Economic considerations. Along with tax incentives there are advantages to listing and rehabilitation of historic properties. Generally will increase property values, maintain neighborhoods.
  
• Why nominate properties, when eligibility to the National Register provides the same level of protection under the law that properties receive which are already on the NR? Pride, interest in showing that we care about history, and because once on the Register, these properties do receive an additional symbolic measure of protection. Public discussion can take place about what's important in history.

Takes us to 36 CFR 63 which pertains to determinations of eligibility for inclusion on the National Register. Note that listing is different than eligibility. Question of eligibility comes up during federal undertakings (or undertakings in which federal agencies have some input). This regulation is designed to structure the process of identifying and evaluating property eligibility, without having to go through the listing process. At the same time, the same criteria listed above are applied to all potentially eligible properties. If deemed eligible, the agency submits letter and statement which includes substantive information on the property to the National Register, and an explanation of why the property is eligible. Additionally, any property once listed on the NR but removed for procedural deficiencies is automatically treated as eligible.

Let's look at the nomination process; important if only for the procedural issues it raises.

• SHPO responsible for identifying and nominating eligible properties. Forms prepared under officer's aegis. Should consult with local authorities, provides notice of intent to nominate and solicits comments, especially on significance. Must notify property owners, and provide them with opportunity to comment (differs in particulars depending on number of property owners--this in reference to district nominating). owners can object to a listing, and prevent it from occurring. State Review Board reviews nominations before sending them to NPS. Even if owners object, the Keeper will still issue a determination of eligibility.

Significance and National Register criteria

I assigned a number of readings on significance in historic preservation, all of these from the perspective of archaeologists (both historic and prehistoric). Tendency among archaeologists to intellectualize their concerns, and certainly significance is an important concern to those who work in cultural resource management and historic preservation compliance. Why is that? Significance, or how significance is determined can affect the likelihood of a property being eligible for the National Register. Thus, there are real world effects associated with the concept of significance. In short, our intellectualizing meets the road of implementing the criteria for inclusion on the National Register.

At one level there is the question of whether significance pertains to historic properties as a quality of those properties, or is significance a quality that is imposed on properties? The Tainter & Lucas article takes up this issue, and they suggest a fundamental flaw in NHPA and its regulations implementing the National Register. For the law and the regulations indicate that significance is somehow an inherent quality. Tainter & Lucas argue the opposite position: it is something that we bring to properties through our conceptual devices--understandings of the world and history, interpretations and theories, etc.

What are the philosophical issues? The former is part of the positivist-empiricist tradition of Western philosophy, in which there are fundamental terms or statements which are known to all. Out of our common and universal experiences we all understand all of the world in much the same way. There are essential qualities which lie in the phenomena we study, and our goal is to identify these. Knowledge as immutable. This is the same tradition of understanding which Tainter & Lucas argue undergirds significance identification as provided for by NHPA and the regulations. They suggest it is faulty.

Significance as a moving target, subject to change. To them, meaning is assigned rather than fixed, and so too the attributes or qualities of historic properties. This is certainly the case for the last criterion-yielding information important to history and prehistory. These disciplines change. So if it is true, this suggests that NHPA and the regulations are using some implicit set of understandings or a theoretical perspective in order to assign significance to historic properties. Now this is not just hypothetical, there are some real world implications of this contention: for instance, it would suggest that how properties come to be on the NR can change through time, and that the value of properties can vary among different individuals. We don't all share the same set of cultural beliefs about what we regard as important in history. How then are we to establish significance: who gets to have the final say? As it turns out, the governmental agents and bureaucrats generally decide.

How to resolve this? One option, have T & L over-stated the extent to which inherent qualities of significance are assigned to historical properties. In other words, are these properties truly fixed as they suggest by the reading of the law and the implementing regulations. While it may be that the legislators who passed NHPA had in mind that properties were inherently significant or not, the implementation of the law has been written to suggest otherwise, that we devise and we can have changing views about what's historically important (note, we return to the value of historic preservation management plans again).

I would argue no, that while the concept of significance may be written as if it were fixed, in fact the significance concept is subject to considerable play in interpretation. (Although I do regard the possible institutionalization of fixed attributes by bureaucracies as a considerable problem). What I mean by this is that bureaucrats are not noted for their adaptability to change; they prefer a fixed world. Thus, new views on what is historically important may be difficult to get across to bureaucracies. We have diversified the NR considerably, but one wonders if there is much more we will ever do to change perspective on what is historically significant. For instance, the past 10-15 years have seen the rise of post-modernism in the humanities and social sciences and one would have thought that this new intellectual interest might have altered the view of what is historically important. Also, what are we trying to preserve by means of NR eligibility/nomination criteria? Individual things? Not necessarily for their are district/areal nominations. Why isn't this used more often?

Relative significance of significance criteria. As a whole they are fairly open-ended, however some are given more prominence to some properties than to others. If a property was occupied or used during the historic period in the U.S., it does have a greater chance of achieving significance, simply because there are more criteria which reflect this time period than times before European exploration and colonization. But again, this is changing as historians and writers debate the nature of American history and identify new individuals important in shaping our country. I think of Tony Morrison's new novel which is an outgrowth of her interest in African American utopian communities in Oklahoma at the turn of the century. None (or very few) remain today.

There are other aspects for evaluating significance that can play a role:

• What theoretical frameworks/perspectives are we using: humanistic (history) vs social science (archaeology as anthropology, creating lifeways), vs natural sciences (theories of natural science, particularly biology work well in archaeology)
  
• What kind of research linked to these frameworks do we think is possible, and hence significant. They have different requirements for properties that will significantly contribute to their views of history and thus what we regard as important. What are some of the ways they are likely to vary?
• Redundancy of information: variety, quantity,
  
• Geographical distribution: what scale, how much,
  
• Temporal distribution: typologizing
  
• Relevance to information yield
  
• Other issues relevant to historic preservation
  
• Traditional properties and how they are supposed to be evaluated for NR eligibility
  
• Symbolic--through links to same and to larger societal values
  
• Ideological or Nationalistic (i.e., political)--links to particular issues involving self-determination, freedom, etc.