What is an historic resource?
Is there a connection between historic preservation and economic development?
How do National Register and Historic Districts affect property value?
The Federal Definition
The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (amended) defines historic resource, or historic property, as:
- Any prehistoric or historic district, site, building, structure, or object included in, or eligible for inclusion in, the National Register (of Historic Places); such term includes artifacts, records, and remains which are related to such a district, site, building, structure or object.
- The National Register, in turn, defines a historic property as a district, site, structure, or object significant in American history, architecture, engineering, archaeology, and culture. It may be of value to the Nation as a whole or important only to the community in which it is located.
What is Significance?
National Register Criteria for Evaluation (Title 36, Part 60, US Code)
The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and:
- that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
- that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
- that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
- that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation says:
"What Does Historic Mean, Anyway? historic preservation is simply having the good sense to hang onto something - an older building or neighborhood or piece of landscape, for instance - because it's important to us as individuals and/or as a nation."
Studies have shown that for every million dollars spent on preserving historic buildings 34 more jobs and $53,000 more dollars of household income are generated than the same million dollars on new construction.
In fiscal year 2000 Massachusetts ranked 8th in the nation for certified expenses in the federal rehabilitation tax credit program with $49,024,826 of private money used in the rehabilitation of historic buildings. This translated to $9,804,965 going back to the project sponsors in the form of a credit on their federal taxes. In FY 2001 the tax credit projects Massachusetts Historical Commission staff have been working on have a combined total project cost of almost $300,000,000.
New Jersey reports: Preservation generated $263 million in income and over 21,000 jobs.
Heritage travelers spend 60% more money than other overnight travelers
City officials in Chicago launched the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative in fall 2000. Their goal was not just to help preserve the 80,000-some homes that remain, but to revitalize entire neighborhoods. The bungalow initiative provides vouchers, matching grants, and tax breaks to those who want to rehab or upgrade their bungalows. Owners must follow design guidelines and have their homes registered as historic bungalows in order to be eligible. So far, 3,500 bungalows have been certified.
The place economics of the 21st century will be primarily quality of life based. The character of the built environment in general, and historic buildings in particular are critical in a quality of life equation. The senses of surrounding quality of life - sense of place, sense of ownership, sense of identity, and sense of community are all enhanced by our historic environment.
Annual direct economic effects, calculated conservatively, include $2.3 billion in historic rehabilitation spending and $2.5 billion in heritage tourism spending - for a total of $4.8 billion annually.
Using a variety of methodologies, conducted by a number of independent researchers, this analysis of local historic districts has been undertaken in New Jersey, Texas, Indiana, Georgia, Colorado, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, and elsewhere. The results of these studies are remarkably consistent: property values in local historic districts appreciate significantly faster than the market as a whole in the vast majority of cases and appreciate at rates equivalent to the market in the worst case. Simply put, local historic districts enhance property values.
In National Register Districts, when the properties are commercial, rather than owner-occupied residential, the eligibility for the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit can add economic value to the properties. Some developers have noted that in their communities, sellers of unrehabilitated properties were raising the price of listed buildings to reflect the tax credit opportunity potential of the investment.
In residential real estate markets that have a level of knowledge and sophistication among both real estate professionals and buyers regarding historic properties, National Register listing can have an economic premium attached. How do you know when the local market has reached that point? When the real estate ads say, "This house is listed within the XYZ National Register District" or "This house is listed in the National Register".
In real estate economics there are identified the Four Forces of Value, those factors in the marketplace that push the value of a given piece of real estate - historic or otherwise - up or down. Those forces are physical, social, economic and political. To the extent that elected officials and other political decision makers recognize and emphasize the importance of heritage buildings and correspondingly take public policy actions to encourage appropriate rehabilitation, the economic value of historic buildings will increase. [emphasis added]
|
