Local Historic Districts
Achieving the status of historic district designation is one way
for a neighborhood to enhance its uniqueness, to maintain its quality
and stability, to revitalize older homes and to capitalize on its
historical and architectural heritage. Historic district designation
sets apart an area by defining its character and safeguarding its
heritage. The historic districts in Charleston, Miami Beach, New
Orleans, San Francisco and Savannah are distinctive historic districts,
which immediately conjure up particular images. Each district offers
a broad spectrum of interests while supported by its residential
population.
Historic designation status may be achieved in different ways,
depending on whether the recognition is national or local. The Larchmont-Edgewater
Civic League is currently working to obtain status as a local historic
and cultural conservation district.
Local Recognition
Local designation of a historic district is in the form of a
Historic and Cultural Conservation District. This designation
process is not as detailed as that required for federal statues.
It relies more on local research, compilation and an established
system of review.
Once a local historic district's boundaries are decided and supported
by the residents, it becomes a historic district through a city
ordinance. Designation as such a district provides for exterior
alterations in the form of design guidelines. The guidelines are
recommendations for rehabilitating a structure; they are standards
by which to guide the character of change, and they are the means
by which to maintain the neighborhood's stability.
If a structure is within a historic conservation district and
requires exterior work, there is a review process. The City Council
appoints the Design Review Committee, which reviews projects with
regard "to the goal of achieving coordinated and harmonious
development in order to promote the health, safety, order, convenience,
prosperity and the general welfare of the city." The committee
makes a recommendation to the City Planning Commission, which
is the final step in the approval process.
The review process for changes to exteriors of property in a
historic conservation district is a simple process that can take
two weeks and requires no application fee. The review committee
meets every two weeks and looks at applications in a timely manner.
Project review is of exterior work only for structures located
within the district's boundaries. Work may cover items such as
new construction, additions or any type of work that the neighborhood
and committee deem important; some projects are reviewed administratively.
The designation process produces, along with needed research,
a neighborhood map, which delineates contributing and non-contributing
structures. If a structure is not contributing (i.e., newly constructed),
it does not require the same level of review as a contributing
structure. A contributing structure may be significant due to
its age, architectural style or history.
Three Norfolk Districts
Norfolk has design guidelines for three historic conservation
districts. The design guidelines are an information resource for
rehabilitation and general "how-to" projects. Guidelines
address issues such as new construction, rehabilitation, fence
construction and repairs of porches or windows. Listed below are
the websites for the local historic districts:
A historic conservation district may also be listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. The designation on one does not exclude
it from designation on the other. There are 30 sites in Norfolk
that are listed on the National Register. The following Norfolk
neighborhoods are on the National Register of Historic Places:
Ballentine Place; Berkley North; Chesterfield Heights; Colonial
Place; Downtown; Ghent; Jamestown Exposition Site; Lafayette Resident
Park; North Ghent; Riverview; West Freemason; and Winona.
The following Norfolk neighborhoods are historic and cultural
conservation districts: Downtown, Freemason, Ghent and West Freemason.
Of these four districts, only Freemason is not on the National
Register of Historic Places.
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