Suggested Activities in Support of the State Plan

Develop a strategic plan for the California Historical Resources Information System (CHRIS) to help it better serve the needs of its customers and the general public.

Prepare technical bulletins for California, based on National Register bulletins, that speak to California’s resources and issues (e.g., post-World War II development; resources associated with California industries such as agriculture, film production, or mining; consulting with California Indian groups, etc.).

Provide up-to-date information about built environment resources online at no cost.

Disseminate information about the CHRIS and the use of and access to its inventory, including information specifically directed towards tribal groups.

Create a citizen’s guide to historic preservation in California.

Research other states’ outreach to the education community to find models to use in California; e.g., Colorado’s HistoriCorps program.

Work to have historic preservation integrated into the K-12 history curriculum where appropriate.

Working with the Green Building Council, strengthen LEED points for preserving historic buildings.

Help more local governments achieve Certified Local Government status, address cultural resources in general plan updates, and adopt comprehensive cultural resource ordinances and processes for CEQA compliance.

Create forums where traditional and non-traditional preservation partners can share information and discuss questions, problems, issues and best practices.

Focus preservation awards programs on projects that have made significant contributions to their communities, and discuss these contributions during awards ceremonies and in promotional and press materials.

Educate property owners about historic preservation incentives available to them at the federal, state, and local levels; and assist local governments in establishing new incentives.

Implement changes that will make project review processes and procedures more efficient without sacrificing effectiveness.

Promote the Teaching with Historic Places program and make curriculum development experts aware of the program as a resource—consult with professional educational organizations to inquire how the preservation community can assist them in teaching our state’s history in the classroom.

Develop educational and outreach materials in languages other than English.

Actively participate in the California Cultural and Historical Tourism Council and work with the Council to develop a pilot program to demonstrate the value of heritage tourism along a selected heritage corridor.

Develop tribal consultation guidelines for use by public agencies in carrying out CEQA and Senate Bill 18 responsibilities.

Reach out to the professional planning community, including the American Planning Association, to provide training materials on integrating historic preservation into land use planning processes and programs.

Train local government historic preservation commissioners, planning staff, and officials in historic preservation goals and practices.

Develop technical assistance that provides guidelines for identifying and evaluating cultural landscapes as a means of helping decision makers see the bigger picture when assessing project impacts.

Teach public agencies that consultation is a relationship, not just a process, and should be ongoing and regular, rather than project-specific.

Have a preservation presence at statewide and regional conferences of advocacy and professional organizations of potential partners including environmental advocacy organizations, local and regional planning agencies, and economic development and travel/tourism conferences and meetings.

Invite representatives of these organizations and agencies to attend and speak at preservation functions and forums.

Hold workshops or roundtables devoted to landscapes issues and invite land managing agencies and organizations to participate.

Create training programs aimed specifically at non-traditional partners and/or the general public—ensure the programs are understandable and speak to the issues important to their intended audience.

Use various communication methods and media to put forward examples of approaches and projects that can serve as models for future preservation efforts and focus on these specific successful examples in newsletter articles, training, and conferences.

Support the use of language in land-conveyance documents to ensure preservation of cultural resources if the land is purchased by a public agency for open space or mitigation purposes.

Create communications/outreach plans in order to strategically use various communications methods, avoid duplication of efforts, and maximize the reach and impact of messages.

Promote the preservation of resources for more than interpretive purposes by educating organizations and agencies about other types of uses that might better serve a community’s needs.

Provide more information about how adaptive re-use is allowed for under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.

Celebrate and provide examples of successful “outside the norm” nominations and adaptive re-use projects that can serve as models for others.

Update older nominations to include more information about groups traditionally under-represented in nominations.

Increase the number of contexts (statewide and community-specific) to assist in conducting surveys and preparing individual nominations (e.g., contexts associated with groups of people such as women’s history or specific cultural groups; contexts focused on California industries such as agriculture or mining; or contexts associated with a type of development such as post-World War II housing or military installations).

Conduct surveys that focus on resource types that haven’t been adequately identified and evaluated in the past.

Develop a formal tribal liaison position within the Office of Historic Preservation.

Update the DPR 523 forms based on feedback from users of the forms.

Create a formally designated tribal seat on the State Historical Resources Commission.