Why a Citywide Survey?

The groundbreaking citywide Historic Resources Survey will serve as the primary planning tool to identify, record and evaluate historic properties and districts within Los Angeles, and will form the foundation for a comprehensive and proactive municipal historic preservation program.

Because 85% of Los Angeles has never been surveyed, City officials, preservationists and community leaders cannot know all significant historic resources throughout the city. Frequently, preservation advocates or neighborhood associations initiate a last-ditch effort to save a historic building or structure, often at the point when a demolition permit is pending or a planning entitlements process is already underway. When this occurs, property owners or developers understandably feel blind-sided, having already performed due diligence on a property and found no indication of historic designations. Property owners and developers frequently maintain that they want greater certainty -- if they have information about a site up-front, they can plan accordingly.

The Marquez Filling Station, in the Santa Monica Canyon neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, was the oldest continuously operating gas station in Los Angeles. Because it had never been identified as significant through a historic resources survey, it became threatened with demolition before an eleventh hour preservation effort resulted in its historic designation.

Without a survey, many valued historic resources lack any identification or protection. For example, in March 2006 the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center in Boyle Heights was demolished suddenly for the construction of a new Federal Social Security Administration building. The Soto-Michigan JCC had been a significant work of the noted early Modernist architect Raphael Soriano, and served as an important social and cultural landmark of Boyle Heights when it was a thriving Jewish community in the 1930s and 1940s. In part because the building had never been surveyed, the demolition occurred with no notification to the Boyle Heights community.

The City’s Cultural Heritage Commission and City Council also suffer from the lack of comprehensive survey information. They must engage in piecemeal decision making on nominations of properties for City Historic-Cultural Monument status. For example, when considering a nomination for a 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival style courtyard apartment, the Commission and Council today must evaluate this resource in a vacuum, with no information as to whether other similar properties may be more significant or more representative of this architectural style and building type. The citywide survey will provide decision makers with a framework for evaluating relative significance.

HOW WILL SURVEY INFORMATION BE USED?

As the survey data becomes available, it will have a number of important uses to support City policy goals:

• Community Plan Updates: The Department of City Planning has initiated new Community Plans that will provide communities with more specific, detailed guidance on potential land uses. Critical to the success of these plans will be an inventory of historic resources to ensure that proposed changes to these communities do not adversely affect historic resources. Planners will be able to overlay maps of historic resources onto maps indicating the areas of greatest proposed changes in land use.
• Zoning Decisions and Plan Approval: It is critical that all staff with responsibilities for reviewing individual projects and development proposals have access to accurate, detailed information on historic properties.
• Environmental Review: The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires local governments to analyze the impacts of proposed projects on cultural resources. The survey will provide a more objective, comprehensive basis for the City of Los Angeles’ conduct of environmental reviews as they affect potential historic resources.
• Cultural Tourism: One of the fastest growing segments of the tourist market is in travelers who seek out culturally significant experiences in major cities. The survey will enable a variety of users, including LA Inc. (formerly the Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau), cultural organizations, and potential visitors to the city to conduct their own searches for architecturally and culturally significant resources that may interest them.
• Disaster Response: After a major disaster, such as the 1994 Northridge earthquake, thousands of buildings and structures may be “red-tagged” or “yellow-tagged” due to unsafe conditions. When these assessments are made, it is imperative that the Department of Building and Safety’s inspectors have ready access to detailed, accurate information on the locations and significance of historic properties, so that demolitions do not occur without appropriate review or consideration.
• Film Locations: The film industry is an important economic resource for Los Angeles. Location scouts are constantly seeking new and interesting places and buildings that can be used as settings for films, commercials and television. The survey data would enable scouts to complete research online for particular property types by construction date, architectural style, location and other criteria.
• Potential Future Designation: The survey will identify potential historic districts and individual properties eligible for designation under the City’s Historic Preservation Overlay Zone and Cultural Heritage Commission ordinances as well for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources. Designation enables property owners to take advantage of financial incentive programs which may include the City’s Mills Act program, Conservation Easements, and Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits (for income producing properties). Identification in a survey does not mean that a property or a neighborhood will automatically become a designated landmark or historic district; it merely provides information that would support such designation, if desired, at a later date.