Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

preservation matters and, in particular, to conduct studies in the areas of legislative and administrative statutes and regulations. In accord with this mandate, the Council monitors preservation activity at the Federal level and regularly compiles the information gathered in reports to the preservation community. The present report, outlining the activities of the Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, is intended to provide up-to-date information on the variety of legislative proposals affecting preservation that are now pending before the Congress and to relate these proposals to the current philosophy and direction of the national historic preservation movement.

The year under review, from the convening of the First Session on January 14, 1975, until adjournment on December 19, 1975, provides evidence of a growing congressional awareness that preservation, creatively applied, can coexist with, and often bring new vitality to, efforts to deal with pressing national problems. The many proposals introduced not only call for continued commitment to preserving the national patrimony but also encourage contemporary use of cultural resources to help achieve broader objectives of economic development, employment opportunity, resource conservation, and community improvement.

INTRODUCTION

Historic preservation has traditionally been viewed in "monumental" perspective as the saving of isolated sites and structures, such as battlefields, mansions of the wealthy, and imposing public buildings that have been enshrined as museums or parks. Hence, the public has regarded the preservation movement as outside the mainstream of national life: to preserve a Gettysburg, an Alamo, or a Hyde Park might be worthwhile, but such activities were rarely assigned the same importance as issues of war and peace, the economy, and urgent social problems. As a result, preservation assumed a relatively low national priority. During the last decade, however, historic preservation has come to be viewed more broadly, and now infuses many areas of national life in which it previously played little or no role. The basis for this change has been the broadening by preservationists of their concept of properties worth saving, as the result of a more sophisticated perception of our past and the advent of new ideas about why and how old buildings may be saved.

Attention is still paid to monumental sites and structures. But the movement now emphasizes attention to a variety of properties reflecting all aspects of our heritage: a working class residential district in an old mill town; an area associated with a particular ethnic group, such as San Francisco's Chinatown, or the Greek fishing villages around Tampa Bay in Florida. Likewise, sites important to newer fields of historical inquiry, such as medicine, technology, and urban planning, may be regarded as legitimate objects of preservation concern: the launching pad from which originated man's first flight to the moon, or the unique town plan of 18th-century Savannah. The saving of groups of properties has also become important. Historic districts-which may encompass the buildings and archeological sites of a sprawling farm community that survive unspoiled from an earlier time or the early skyscrapers in Chicago's famous loopare now given the same attention as that previously reserved for the single landmark property. The relations of sites and structures, their esthetic harmony, or the way they all perform complementary roles in some overall function, are now seen to be important aspects of our physical heritage, which in turn has been recognized as playing a major role in the overall quality of life in America. Thus, for example, preservation now pays greater attention to neighborhoods where architectural unity or strong cultural patterns give an area rare character, and where the intangibles that stamp the area make the value of the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Modern preservation philosophy has also been marked by growing awareness of the importance of historic properties as resources that can be turned to practical use. One of the more exciting discoveries, for example, has been that of the economic potential of such properties. Throughout the United States, it is now common to find historic areas, once declining as tastes and living patterns shifted, revived as shopping complexes, tourist attractions, and innovative office or residential centers. In these instances, preservation has created jobs, revitalized downtown areas, attracted out-of-town investment, and brought extra tax dollars to the local treasury. In many cases there has also been a saving of energy and raw materials. The public has discovered that rehabilitation of existing buildings can meet our nation's growing need for additional housing units and commercial structures, and can lessen the need and the costs of constructing anew. Frequently, old buildings use less heat and electricity. Retaining

old structures also avoids the waste of energy and raw materials that would result from demolition. Similarly, reuse of neighborhoods makes it possible to take advantage of existing utilities and services already in place.

Economic benefits and savings of energy have not been the only practical results of historic preservation. Another recent development has been growing recognition of the role preservation can play in creating more orderly, more harmonious communities, an idea which reflects the growing awareness among planners of the social benefits to be gained by structures and communities that exhibit a human scale and sense of continuity with the past. Preservation now plays a role in land-use planning, an increasingly important activity as the population grows and our activities as a people require more orderly use of available space. Thus, it is not unusual to find localities preserving and rejuvenating their Victorian commercial or residential cores or their old courthouses to bring a sense of place and visual amenity to their growing communities. Given these new opportunities to wed historic preservation to broader social and economic objectives, it is not surprising that more and more Americans have been attracted to the field. Where active support for preservation was once limited to a concerned few, today one finds broad community support for local preservation projects. Urban conservationists, residents concerned with neighborhood property values, high school students, ethnic groups, businessmen of Main Street, mayors, city councilmen, and even real estate developers may become involved.

Increased public participation and recognition of preservation benefits has led, in turn, to increased sophistication in techniques for achieving preservation objectives. These include legal tools, such as easements and zoning regulations, and financial tools, such as tax incentives and revolving loan funds. Together, such techniques have made preservation a growing force in the professional community and in the marketplace.

The broadening philosophy of historic preservation has been reflected in Congress, where earlier conceptions of preservation as a rather esoteric speciality have been replaced increasingly by an awareness of the relevance of preservation to all aspects of national life.

Congress committed itself to the cause of preservation as early as 1906, when it passed the Antiquities Act, which extended protection over antiquities, mostly prehistoric and Indian sites on Federal property, and empowered the President to set aside portions of the public domain as National Monuments. Further commitment to historic preservation came with the creation of the National Park Service in 1916 and passage of the Historic Sites Act of 1935, which authorized a comprehensive program for identifying, preserving, and enhancing nationally important historic sites. The importance of Federal stimulus to the private sector was affirmed in 1949, when Congress chartered the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which today has over 75,000 members.

Then, in the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, Congress took an important affirmative step to strengthen the preservation movement. Enacted in response to the accelerated pace of historic site destruction brought about by rapid social and technological change, the measure expanded the historic sites survey authorized in 1935 into a National Register of Historic Places. The act also established the President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and for the first time provided a degree of Federal protection and grant assistance for historic sites other than the nationally significant. In effect, the act extended the policy of historic preservation to every Federal agency and acknowledged Federal concern for historical values of State and local, as well as national significance.

Throughout the 1960's and 1970's, this broader view of preservation has been expressed by Congress. Through other grants programs, such as that of the National Endowment for the Arts, also inaugurated in the mid-1960's, Congress further encouraged historic preservation by including preservation-related endeavors among the activities eligible for funding. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires Federal agencies to evaluate and disclose project impact upon historical resources as part of their assessment of environmental consequences of Federal actions. The Archeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1974 permits the use of project funds to mitigate adverse effects upon historic and prehistoric sites. Expressing the new and growing emphasis upon preservation through renovation and reuse and upon preservation as a vital factor in the quality of American neighborhood life, the Emergency Home Purchase Assistance Act of 1974 allows use of low interest loans to rehabilitate historic structures. The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 lists historic preservation as one of the act es for which localities may earmark

their share of Federal community development funds. The dominant trend in all of these acts has been an ever widening congressional awareness of the applicability of historic preservation to many areas of national life, beyond the isolated enshrinement of a building or site as a memorial to the past.

This trend continues in the activities of the First Session of the Ninety-fourth Congress. One theme running through all the bills described in this report is a commitment to continuation and expansion of existing programs, such as those of the National Park Service, and the grants programs of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, both of which assist historic preservation. Another theme in the legislation of the Ninety-fourth Congress is the desire to continue to stimulate private preservation activity, as evidenced by the matching requirements of most preservation grants legislation and by those bills that would give more planning grants to localities to stimulate survey of historic resources and increase citizen awareness of their possible uses. Some bills reflect the broader definitions of cultural resources that are currently espoused in the preservation movement. An example is the effort to establish a national program for preserving American folklife. Several pending bills reflect the pragmatic application of new preservation concepts to current problems, both to enrich our surroundings and to achieve definable socioeconomic gains. One pending bill, for example, would stimulate reuse of historically or architecturally significant buildings for Federal office space. Besides saving the buildings, the measure offers a number of important fringe benefits: savings of energy and raw materials, use of job producing construction methods, an infusion of workers into economically declining inner city areas, and a firm, visible commitment to stem the decay of many urban centers. Likewise, pending bills proposing reuse of America's ubiquitous railroad stations .offer an imaginative range of possibilities. Under the provisions of these bills, old railroad stations could become offices, commercial centers, or cultural centers -hubs of local activity prompting conservation of existing structures and economic renewal of the surrounding area. In a similar approach, abandoned railroad rights-of-way could become parks and recreational areas, bringing needed recreation facilities to communities while serving as a reminder of the impact of the railroad on the growth of America.

The proposals to recycle historic resources are indicative of growing congressional awareness of preservation as a means for attaining the objective of other national programs. Perhaps this idea is most readily accepted in the area of housing and community development. "Neighborhood conservation"-using the existing social and physical fabric to maintain a viable community-has been reflected in a number of legislative items. Similarly, the House Committee on Banking, Currency and Housing has recognized that historic preservation has become sufficiently important as an aspect of national housing and urban development policy to justify a subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Historic Preservation and Coinage.

The Ninety-fourth Congress, then, has before it a number of important legislative initiatives that promote historic preservation objectives. Following are brief summaries of these proposals along with notations of their status at the -opening of the Second Session.

RECENT CONGRESSIONAL ACTIVITY

Proposed creation of National Historic Preservation Fund

On January 23, 1975, S. 327 was introduced by Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.). Title II of S. 327 would amend the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965, as amended, and the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, to establish a National Historic Preservation Fund with revenues obtained from Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leases.

A similar bill, H.R. 2763, was introduced in the House on February 4, 1975, by Representative Roy Taylor (D-N.C.), with 24 cosponsors. Like Title II of the Senate bill, Title II of H.R. 2763 would amend the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act and the National Historic Preservation Act to establish a National Historic Preservation Fund with revenues obtained from Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leases. The basic concept of the two bills is identical; they differ primarily in the size of the fund. Where S. 327 would immediately authorize $150 million annually for a grants program to continue until June 30, 1979, H.R. 2763 would authorize à $75 million grants program for Fiscal Year 1976, $75 million for Fiscal Year 1977, and $100 million for each fiscal year thereafter until 1989. During the Ninety-third Congress, legislation to create a National Historic Preservation Fund was passed by the Senate (S. 3839) but not by the House (H.R. 17346).

Having already passed the Senate in the Ninety-third Congress, the Senate bill moved ahead quickly. Hearings were held February 11, 1975, with testimony from a number of concerned preservation groups, including the National Park Service, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Preservation Action, a private citizens' organization formed to lobby on behalf of historic preservation. At its meeting of August. 8, 1974, the Advisory Council had formally endorsed the concepts embodied in Title II of S. 327. On September 10, 1975, the Senate Interior Committee voted that S. 327, with amendments, be reported favorably to the floor of the Senate. Discussion on the floor of the Senate took place on October 29, 1975, and on the same date, the Senate passed the bill by voice vote.

Hearings on H.R. 2763 were held July 28 and 29 before the Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Organizations and agencies represented at the hearings included the National Park Service and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Further meetings of the subcommittee were held October 21 and 28, 1975, for markup to incorporate concepts emerging from testimony of the July 28-29 meeting.

At present, the policy of the Office of Management and Budget is to withhold support of S. 327 and H.R. 2763 on the grounds that the bills might be inflationary.

Bills containing historic preservation provisions identical to H.R. 2763 are H.R. 10570 and H.R. 11241, both pending in committee.

Reauthorization of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966

It is expected that S. 327 and H.R. 2763, discussed above, will be the subjects of lengthy debate, since they propose substantial increases in the Federal historic preservation grants program, which currently operates with an authorization ceiling of $24.4 million. To assure continued operation of the program at this authorization level, the Administration asked that appropriate legislation be introduced. Accordingly, S. 1921, to reauthorize funding provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, was introduced on June 11, 1975, by Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.), at the request of the Secretary of the Interior. The bill would continue the present historic preservation grants program for fiscal years 1976, 1977, and 1978 at the current $24.4 million authorization, rather than the larger amounts of S. 327 and H.R. 2763 (see above). No hearing date has been scheduled.

Tax incentives for historic preservation

S. 667, the Historic Structures Tax Act, was introduced by Senator J. Glenn Beall (R-Md.), with eleven cosponsors, on February 12, 1975. An identical bill, H.R. 8224, was introduced in the House by Representative Gladys Spellman (D-Md.), on June 25, 1975, with eighteen cosponsors. Both S. 667 and H.R. 8224 contain the historic preservation provisions of the Environmental Protection Tax Act that was introduced in the Senate in both the Ninety-second and Ninety-third Congresses. H. R. 6225, introduced by Representative Barber Conable (R-N.Y.) on April 22, 1975, is a complete reintroduction, with only slight changes in wording of the Environmental Protection Tax Act. H.R. 6225 contains all the provisions of S. 667 and H.R. 8224, but adds natural resources provisions making coastal wetlands eligible for the tax incentives as historic structures. The bills would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1964 to encourage preservation and rehabilitation of historic buildings and structures used for the production of income (stores, residence rentals, office buildings and the like). Under the provisions of both bills, the owner of a historic property would be provided favorable tax treatment on rehabilitation expenses, through accelerated depreciation or short term amortization, while tax deductions presently granted for demolition of a historic structure and accelerated depreciation for new construction on the site would be denied. Changes are also proposed for tax treatment of donations and bequests of interests in historic properties, such as easements. The provisions specifically define historic properties as those included in the National Register of Historic Places or located in a National Register district.

During the Ninety-third Congress, a number of agencies, including the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, were asked to provide analyses of the Environmental Protection Tax Act. These analyses were reprinted in the Congressional Record (Vol. 121, No. 20, February 12, 1975). The Advisory Council will provide its analysis on request.

S. 2021, introduced by Senator Robert Taft, Jr., (R-Ohio), on June 26, 1975, would allow a Federal income tax credit for the costs of maintaining or restoring the exterior or structural soundness of historic buildings and structures.

The bill has specifically been described by Senator Taft as a companion measure to S. 667. Where S. 667 would provide incentives to preserve rather than demolish historic commercial structures, especially those in urban areas, S. 2021 is aimed at providing tax deductions for costs of restoring, rehabilitating, or maintaining all kinds of historic structures. S. 2021 not only benefits commercial structures, but also nonbusiness buildings, such as private homes. H.R. 432, introduced on January 16, 1975, by Representative Hamilton Fish (R-N.Y.), and a companion bill, S. 80, introduced on January 15, 1975, by Senator Charles McC. Mathias (R-Md.), would permit an alternate valuation of historic properties for Federal estate tax purposes. The bills are aimed at protecting areas on the edges of rapidly expanding cities, where development pressures cause rising land values, which make it difficult to preserve historic sites and structures. Because current estate tax laws require valuation based on potential for development, the resulting tax bill frequently forces sales of the property just to meet this inflated tax burden. The pending legislation would allow a lower valuation for historic property, based on current use if the building or property is preserved. Similar bills are: H.R. 536, H.R. 935, H.R. 1349, H.R. 3091, H.R. 3831, H.R. 4441, H.R. 5131, H.R. 5286, H.R. 5596, H.R. 6955, H.R. 6965, H.R 7134, H.R. 7440, H.R. 7768, H.R. 7776, H.R. 8420, H.R. 8482, and H.R. 8625.

Tax measures introduced in the Senate are referred to the Committee on Finance; those introduced in the House to the Committee on Ways and Means. All of the tax bills described above are presently pending in committee, and no hearing dates have been scheduled.

Reusing old railroad stations and rights-of-way

S. 2056, to amend the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 to clarify programs for promoting re-use of railroad passenger terminals, was introduced by Senator Vance Hartke (D-Ind.), on July 8, 1975. S. 2056 would authorize the National Endowment for the Arts to make and administer grants for planning cultural projects taking place in railroad stations of historic or architectural significance. Authority for such a grant program is now placed in the Federal Railroad Administration of the Department of Transportation, as called for by the AMTRAK Improvement Act of 1975 (P.L. 93-496), which amended the original Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970. Supporters of S. 2056 feel that the present program for reusing old railroad stations would be implemented more effectively if its cultural aspects were transferred to the National Endowment for the Arts.

The AMTRAK Improvement Act of 1974 declared a policy of giving preference to using railroad stations of historical and architectural significance and establishing a program to convert railroad stations into intermodal terminals and to use the stations adaptively for nontransportation purposes. The act authorized a demonstration program in which no less than three stations on the National Register of Historic Places would be adapted as transportation centers. Funding is authorized at $15 million on a 60-40 matching basis. An additional $10 million is authorized to fund the preservation of threatened stations pending the development of re-use plans and to stimulate States, localities, and private parties to adapt railroad stations for intermodal terminals and/or civic and cultural centers. The Department of Transportation's supplemental appropriations bill, recently enacted into law as P.L. 94-134, provides $5 million for the program.

Hearings on S. 2056 were held July 10, 1975, before the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation of the Senate Committee on Commerce. Agencies and organizations represented included the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Transportation, AMTRAK, the National Park Service, the Greyhound Corporation, and representatives of the city governments of Baltimore and Cincinnati. No date has been set for further hearings or markups. H.R. 1118, introduced by Representative Thompson (D-N.J.), on January 16, 1975, and a companion bill, S. 251, introduced by Senator Scott (R-Pa.), on January 21, 1975, would provide funds for making unused rail passenger depots available as cultural centers. Unlike the existing program, these bills would place the entire program under the direction of the National Endowment for the Arts. The bills are aimed at cultural activities that would relate to the Bicentennial. H.R. 1118 was the subject of hearings held October 31, 1975, by the Subcommittee on Select Education of the House Committee on Education and Labor. No hearing date has been set for S. 251, which is pending before the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare.

71-509-76-8

« AnteriorContinuar »