Comments due today: Proposed changes to the National Register of Historic Places should be opposed

Ironically, on the eve of May, which is "National Historic Preservation Month," Preservation Maryland calls our attention to significant changes proposed by the Trump Administration to the process for nominating properties to the National Register of Historic Places which would make it much harder to landmark properties and districts in some situations.

-- "Action Alert: Proposed Rule Changes to National Register Pose Serious Threat"

The action alert from PM was first posted 4/19/2019 and evidently I didn't open that email. Comments are due by midnight tonight.

According to PM:

The most alarming proposed changes include:

Under the new rules, the owners of “a majority of the land area” within the proposed district would be needed to defeat a nomination. This means that the democratic principle of one person, one vote would be contradicted, allowing those who own the most property to control the vote and not the majority of property owners.

The changes would establish a de facto pocket veto for federal agencies desiring to block nomination significant historic places. The changes would designate federal agencies as the only channels for any National Register nominations of federal property. Therefore, if an agency were to oppose a designation, it could prevent the National Register nomination from forward by choosing not to act.

The proposed changes would ultimately restrict the availability of the Historic Tax Credit to revitalize neighborhoods. To use the Historic Tax Credit, the property must be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Along with the worrisome policies, these rule changes were also proposed without any meaningful tribal consultation, even though the new rules would significantly impact tribal cultural sites on public and private lands.

The webpage provides a way for people to sign onto the Preservation Maryland comments as well as a direct link to the Federal Register webpage for this particular matter:

-- National Register of Historic Places proposed regulatory changes, Comment form, Federal Register

One point I made in my comment is that the 50th anniversary of the Act was in 2016 and the proposed changes were not identified in the various conferences and papers written about the act suggesting possible improvements.

-- "The National Historic Preservation Program at 50: Priorities and Recommendations for the Future, PRE-DECISIONAL DOCUMENT—DRAFT—NOVEMBER 2016, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

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Note that this illustrates something that frustrates me about people's understanding of historic preservation.  Except for federal tax credits, day-in and day-out, national landmarking only puts strictures on federal undertakings--although this is why giving agencies veto power over landmarking of their properties would be a negative change.

Most negative acts concerning preservation are committed by non-federal entities.

Only with strong local and state laws can such actions be, if not prevented, at least mitigated.