212 STATE GOVERNMENT SUMMER, 1965 years, and it operates today on a modest annual budget of approximately $170,000, or $3,400 for each of the fifty states. (For $3,387.52 the New Haven, Connecticut, Preservation Trust recently conducted an inventory which identified 750 buildings, and from these selected 150 New Haven landmarks.) An HABS request for a budgetary increase to $260,000 has been made since 1960 but this has never been allocated. Because of the lack of funds HABS is reduced principally to giving advice and aids to others undertaking surveys, keeping records, and assigning several summer measuring teams to areas and buildings of national importance.

STATE-LOCAL-PRIVATE TASKS

This highly regarded federal program, in my view, should be strongly augmented financially. But to achieve the needed goal-surveying of all historic American buildings--the task will have to be divided with the states. I would suggest that the states investigate the technique developed over the past thirty years in the federal work, for use on the state level. After evaluating the needs, each state should initiate, reactivate or extend a state survey program, delegate an appropriate agency within its system to take the responsibility, and coordinate and direct related private programs.

In 1964 the state-financed Maryland Historical Trust and the Association for Historical Societies of Maryland asked for HABS assistance to develop a comprehensive program in the state and coordinate county projects. HABS cosponsored an especialy arranged workshop"A Survey of Historic Maryland Buildings and Sites;" two HABS staff members spoke at the conference. They presented a list of all Maryland buildings already recorded and surveyed, displayed a selected photographic exhibition, distributed survey forms, bibliographies, manuals, etc. Similar assistance is being given to the newly organized Massachusetts Historical Commission and to all states requesting such aid.

States should share the financial burden of the surveys and induce the counties to participate with matching funds in order to undertake programs and complete others. A dramatic illustration of the need is a New York City sur

vey. When this six-year project was conclude: in 1957, with 300 buildings designated worth of preservation in the city's five boroughs, i was also noted that nearly a third of the build ings scheduled for the listing had been tom down while the survey was being made. After three years of study, New York City adopted preservation measures this spring but duratz this period, as one summary put it, "her buid ings continued to fall like leaves."

Public funds effectively managed will gener ate several times the appropriated amounts i new private support, as they have done in bus ness, science and agriculture. Just as privat and public support exists for libraries, healt services, education, scientific research and the performing arts, it is appropriate that publ. support be available for the preserving artsbroadly known as historic preservation.

Many groups and individuals are availab to assist in such work, and many have con ducted surveys-historical societies, preserva tion groups, universities, the American Institute of Architects Preservation Committee and its local chapters. Many efforts, however, have floundered in well-meant attempts, frustrated because of the extent of the work and its com plexities of research and identification. Whe the Joint Landmarks Committee of the Na tional Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts set out to invented Washington, D.C. landmarks in the spring of 1964, it had to coordinate fifteen lists resulting from that many earlier attempts.

In addition to being culturally significant. these historic and architectural landmarks are the gold-bearing ore of the tourist industryboth domestic and international. They must be mined on the basis of a professional, orderi systematic study, as any natural resource.

PRESERVATION LEGISLATION

As the survey is the first essential in a successful preservation program, the second is legal protection which can be obtained through state enabling legislation and local ordinances. His toric preservation legislation was upheld na tionally by the United States Supreme Court in Berman v. Parker in 1954. But, although

Charleston, South Carolina, developed controls as early as 1931, only fourteen states today have enabling legislation, and only seventy municipalities protect their buildings and areas under ordinances, acts and resolves.

In 1962 North Carolina's State Department of Conservation and Development used a "701 Planning Grant"1 to survey the historic area of Wilmington, as a part of the future land-use plan. The study identified thirty-five structures as worthy of preservation because of their historical and architectural importance. The area not only contained these scattered historical buildings, but many community facilities and other houses constructed after 1900 which contributed to its character. The entire area had a homogeneous nature, and the report recommended that organizing it as the "Wilmington Historical District" would help preserve its identity.

The study also proposed an amendment to the Wilmington zoning ordinance to create the historical buildings district, establish regulations for the preservation and protection of the buildings and provide for creation of a board of architectural review. This amendment subsequently was adopted. The report further indicated need for additional state enabling legislation to empower local governments to play a stronger role in preservation-permitting them to acquire structures about to be demolished and to grant tax exemptions in certain cases. It emphasized preservation as a cooperative effort of individual property owners, local government and community organizations.

FEDERAL-STATE COOPERATION

Bureau of Outdoor Recreation. Directly and indirectly the cause of historic preservation I can be greatly advanced through federal aid. With the establishment of the Interior Department's new Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, the federal government has issued an invitation to the states and other entities to work with it in "the race for inner space." The broad spectrum

'Grants for two-thirds to three-fourths of the cost of preparing comprehensive urban, regional and state plans are made by the Urban Renewal Administration of the Housing and Home Finance Agency under Section 701 of the Federal Housing Act of 1964.

of prospective outdoor recreation opportunities involved includes historic and cultural sites.2

One of the aspects is provision, under the Land and Water Conservation Fund which became effective last January, for matching grants to the states to stimulate recreation planning, acquisition and development. States may allocate portions of the money they receive to political subdivisions.

Among many state preparatory actions related to the work of the Interior Department's Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, Virginia has created its Outdoor Recreation Resources Commission, with a subcommittee on landmarks. Ideas reported from this commission include plans for a novel highway system to encourage travelers to reach destinations by slower, more roundabout routes. Reversing the trend toward high-speed freeways, the Virginia Travel Coordination Committee disclosed recently that it is preparing a report on "shunpikes"-scenic highways designed to avoid turnpikes and capture more tourist time and dollars. Scenic easements along such a highway could be obtained, using a tax deducation principle to make them more easily available.

701 Planning Grants. 701 Planning Grants may be obtained to plan statewide outdoor recreation programs. North Carolina availed itself of such a grant to prepare a "Strategy for Development," and a resulting study concluded in September 1964: "State policies in nearly all fields are affected by federal assistance, yet all too frequently we are unaware of the impact of this aid. So long as the state passively accepts federal programs, instead of planning for their best use, North Carolina will not realize its full power in the federal system. When the state does plan creatively for its own future, as in the case of North Carolina's 'war on poverty,' it can serve as a model for the entire nation.” A number of cogent recommendations for planning were made in the report.

Open-Space Land Program. Federal-aid funds for preservation also are to be found in

"Guidebook, Manual and Fact Sheet on the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation may be requested from the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240.

214 STATE GOVERNMENT • SUMMER, 1965 the three-year-old Open Space Land Program of the Urban Renewal Administration. In August 1964, Commissioner William L. Slayton announced that more than 100,000 acres of valuable urban open-space land had been saved for present and future generations in 177 communities throughout the nation since this program was initiated. It authorizes the federal government to make grants of up to 30 per cent of the cost of undeveloped land for recreational, scenic, historic and conservation purposes.

Those made to assist in the preservation of historic sites and areas of natural scenic beauty have included grants to Columbia, South Carolina, to assist in acquisition of Ainsley Hall Mansion, of importance in architectural history; to Alexandria, Virginia, to assist in the preservation of Fort Ward; to the State of New Jersey to help acquire Monmouth Battlefield; to Roanoke, Virginia, to help acquire 1,060 scenic acres in the Roanoke Valley; and to Portland, Oregon, to acquire the Pittock estate, with a fine view of the city and the Cascade peaks.3

Area Redevelopment Funds. In its efforts to provide long-term permanent employment, the Area Redevelopment Administration is also advancing historic preservation. At Pleasant Hill, near Lexington, Kentucky, a group of citizens succeeded in purchasing an entire early 19th Century Shaker village, Shakertown, by amortizing the payments for the property over a ten-year period. Having once secured their option, they appealed to the Area Redevelopment Administration for a low-cost, long-term loan to assist in the project. The agency is not interested in preservation but in the creation of jobs in depressed areas. Pleasant Hill, located in one of these areas, received a public facility loan of $2 million. It is estimated that the restoration will provide 285 new jobs and will be visted by 150,000 tourists by 1970.

A technical assistance project to determine the economic feasibility of the restoration of

"Other ways in which preservation and urban renewal may interact are discussed in Historic Preservation Through Urban Renewal, an illustrated booklet, published by the Urban Renewal Administration, United States Housing and Home Finance Agency.

Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and to develop a res toration plan for it, was announced in December by the ARA. Its investment of approxi mately $30,000 is to be supplemented by local funds, the project having been requested by the Ste. Genevieve Tourist Bureau.

Cooperation with Bureau of Public Roads Preservation can be accomplished through various cooperative programs of federal, state and private groups. In May 1964 the United States Department of Commerce announced a new Bureau of Public Roads Policy designed to pro tect parks and other recreational and historical resources in the location and construction of federal-aid highway projects. Federal Highway Administrator Rex M. Whitton declared it would be the responsibility of each state highway department to give public agencies with jurisdiction over these resources an opportunity to review federal-aid highway improve ment plans. The state highway department, he added, should make contact with these agencies at the earliest practicable time, preferably dur ing the preliminary stages, but in all instances prior to the holding of a public hearing to give interested persons a chance to be heard on proposed federal-aid improvements.

If officials of the public agencies do not agree with the state's proposed plans, Mr. Whitton explained, the reason for disagreement must be included in the highway department's plans, specifications and estimates for projects submitted to the Bureau of Public Roads for ap proval. It is the obligation of the state highway department in all cases to show that due consideration has been given to suggestions offered by the public agencies in question. The policy applies to possible effects of proposed highway projects on forests, park and other recreational, historic, scenic and wildlife areas.

Five years ago, long before Mr. Whitton's announcement of the federal policy program, Connecticut established such a cooperative pro gram on its own initiative. Its Highway Department appointed a liaison member to the major historical groups in the state to keep them aware of proposed new highway construction. A number of specific successes have resulted. Several old structures have been saved through

what has been inherited and recorded on the survey.

In all of this, state leadership and action are of basic importance. As summarized in A Report on Principles and Guidelines for Historic Preservation in the United States, published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation last year: "Every state should recognize historic preservation as a legitimate purpose of government and should have legislation on its statute books clearly placing administrative responsibility for the state's historic preservation program upon an appropriate state agency, and conferring upon that agency adequate powers and funds to conduct surveys, acquire and administer historic properties, publish information, and classify, register and mark historic sites and buildings having state-wide significance, regardless of ownership. The state program should be coordinated on the one hand with local voluntary and governmental efforts, and on the other with collateral national programs."

(A list of publications designed to aid in preservation may be obtained from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 815 17th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006.)