Stewarding Historic Properties: Preserve, maintain and encourage the adaptive reuse of historic districts, landmarks and historic resources, especially in locations that historically have experienced disinvestment.
THIS POLICY SUPPORTS GOALS:
THIS POLICY RELATES TO TOPICS:
Minneapolis has over 1,000 designated historic properties that embody significant events, development patterns, architectural styles or people. These landmarks and districts consist of buildings, districts, landscapes, bridges, streets, water towers, objects, monuments, and sculptures, often referred to as historic resources. The City must help steward these citywide assets for generations to come. Effectively helping to steward these properties requires expanding the public’s understanding and appreciation of the significance of the properties, including the importance of materials, details and designs that convey a property’s identity. It also means allowing historic properties to evolve while protecting them from identity-changing alterations.
ACTION STEPS
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to preserve, maintain and encourage the adaptive reuse of historic districts, landmarks and historic resources, especially in locations that historically have experienced disinvestment.
- Protect historic resources from alterations that are not sensitive to their historic significance.
- Require new construction in historic districts to be compatible with the historic fabric.
- Encourage new development to retain historic resources, including landscapes, integrating them into the development rather than removing them.
- Ensure maintenance of properties through regulatory enforcement of City code, specifically as it relates to historic resources.
- Encourage retrofitting existing buildings to increase resiliency to climate change, reduce energy use, increase long-term sustainability and retain historic character.
- Protect known and potential prehistoric and 19th- and 20th-century archaeological sites and artifacts.
- Preserve historic materials typically found in public spaces, such as street materials like pavers and lighting.
- Protect historic resources from demolition and explore alternatives to demolition.
- Develop and explore mitigation policies, tools, and strategies such as deconstruction requirements, when removal of historic properties or historic fabric can’t be avoided.
- Incorporate heritage preservation in early land use and planning evaluations including federal reviews, such as 106 Reviews and Environment Assessments, and City processes such as Capital Long-Range Improvement Committee (CLIC) and preliminary development reviews.
- Encourage property owners and developers to consider historic resources early in the development review process by promoting preliminary review and early consultation with preservation staff.
- Identify and remove barriers that hinder the protection and maintenance of historic and cultural resources.
- Explore strategies to recognize and steward historic resources while encouraging continued evolution of the city fabric.