Smart Guidelines for Restoring and Renovating

If you’ve read your city’s Design Guidelines or Historic Preservation Ordinance, they likely make reference to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards. These standards are applied by owners of historic places- public and private, residential and commercial- all over the US. If you want to "rehabilitate" or make changes to your historic property follow the example of hundreds of thousands of historic properties throughout the country. In the language of the Secretary of the Interior, emphasize "repair over replacement" and "limited rather than wholesale change to accommodate new uses." 

Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation and Ilustrated Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings

About Those Windows

Nothing takes up more air time in discussions among historic home owners and city planners than the subject of window replacement. Before contacting your city planning department, consult some of this great background material from expert resources.

• 10 Reasons to Repair Your Old Windows: City of Anaheim

• 13 Things You Should Know About Retrofitting Historic Windows: National Trust for Historic Preservation

• The Repair of Historic Wooden Windows: National Park Service

• Saving Windows, Saving Money

Nominate Your Property to the California Register or National Register

Particularly if your city or county do not have a preservation ordinance with a local landmarking program (local historic register), we recommend nominating your property to one of the state or national registration programs. To obtain a tax credit or to pursue the tax incentives of a conservation easement, your property must be formally listed. You may also wish to honor the property by listing it. There may also be long-term benefits for maintaining the historic nature of the property by pursuing a nomination. Nominations are technical documents but you don’t have to be a professional historian or preservation consultant to prepare one. For more information and a few relevant links, please click here and scroll down to “Nominating a Property.”

Incentives for Commercial Property Owners

The rehabilitation of an historic building that is income-producing can be eligible for the Federal Historic Tax Credit (HTC). The tax credit represents 20% of all qualified rehabilitation expenditures. If you’re converting an historic building such as a train station, warehouse, or school into a new use, and your project team is following the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation, your project may be eligible. Since 2002, only one building in Orange County- the Old City Hall in Santa Ana- has taken advantage of the tax credit. In 2003, the project owners received credit for $2,000,000 in eligible expenses. Today, Assyrian sentries adorn the entrance to this Art Deco gem that functions as an office building. Between 2002 and 2016, there were 169 HTC projects in California with over $450,000,000 earned in tax credits! Historic buildings from Eureka to Merced to San Diego were adapted and are now being re-used as offices, hotels, housing, mixed-use operations, and commercial enterprises.

For owners of a historic property in California, another incentive to restore or adapt it to a new use while meeting the state’s health and safety laws is to follow the California Historical Building Code.