Category: Uncategorized

CPF Webinar: Alphabet Soup: Preservation Acronyms for Every Occasion

Don’t know your CEQA from your NHPA? Has your Section 106 gotten you down? Confused by the dizzying array of acronyms associated with historic preservation?
California Preservation Foundation is hosting webinar on Tuesday May 22, 2012 from 12:00-1:30 to help de-mystify these acronyms. This 90-minute webinar will cover the most widely used and referenced preservation-related acronyms with a sense of humor. Designed for an interactive experience, submit your own mind-boggling alphabet soup for our panel of experts to decode. Preservation professionals from private practice, state and federal agencies will be on hand to help bring a little bit of clarity to the fog of environmental review and preservation lingo. Who knows, you may even LOL!

Fee for the Webinar if $40 for Non CPF members and if you are a member, it is free!

Speakers:
James Newland, Historian III, California State Parks
Jenan Saunders, Acting Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer, California Office of Historic Preservation
Becky Urbano, Preservation Services Manager, Garavaglia Architecture, Inc.

California Historic Building Code and New Sustainability Guidelines

Mike Garavaglia, AIA & LEED BD+C, President and Principal in Charge at Garavaglia Architecture, Inc., gave a talk on February 21st to members at the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation regarding the new California Historic Building Code (CHBC). The CHBC is a great tool to help home owners, architects, and contractors maintain and preserve historic structures by providing alternative building regulations for permitting repairs, alterations and additions necessary for the preservation, rehabilitation, relocation, related construction, change of use, or continued use of a “qualified” historical building or structure.

The CHBC also promotes sustainability by encouraging and promoting the reuse of historic buildings. Preservationists have long held the notion that historic preservation is an inherently sustainable activity and now we have some resources to back up this position. The National Trust for Historic Preservation‘s Preservation Green Lab is a fantastic resource if you are looking for just how preservation is “green”. We encourage you top download and read their latest: The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse.

The National Park Service has also just released its new sustainability guidelines, further reinforcing the position that sustainability and preservation go hand in hand.

For more information on the CHBC  visit the DSA’s Historical Building Code site:

http://www.dgs.ca.gov/dsa/AboutUs/shbsb/2010chbc.aspx

Advocating for a historic resource now can pave the way to successful projects

It could be said that there is probably no better friend to historic preservation than a recession.  With slowed development pressures, advocates are in a great position to start planning now for future historic preservation projects.

Do you know of an untapped or underused historic resource in your community?  Perhaps an unoccupied building that has fallen into disrepair, or an older or historic district that is in desperate need of revitalization? Now is the perfect time to begin advocating for your community, to initiate proactive planning, and to direct funding for future projects.

Garavaglia Architecture, Inc., provides a variety of services that are tailored to help launch your planning process including:

  • Strategic Planning
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Commercial District Revitalization
  • Grant research and support
  • Fundraising support
  • Use Studies for Fundraising
  • Stewardship Training
  • Visioning and Board Training

Please feel free to contact us to find out more about our services or to discuss how we can help.

Case Study:  In rural Amador County, a National Register listed juvenile reform facility had been abandoned since the 1960s. To save this unique resource, a group of local individuals initiated key steps to save the site.  Their efforts included:

  • Forming a non-profit foundation
  • Numerous successful fundraising & promotional activities
  • Securing grants including one from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for a rehabilitation study
  • The Foundation’s preservation efforts were recognized with a 2008 California Preservation Foundation President’s Award.

Garavaglia Architecture, Inc. was retained to assist the Foundation and to date we have provided services that include:

  • Rehabilitation planning, potential use consultations, core Historic Structures Report, National Register nomination update planning, identification of additional rehabilitation funding, and community visioning workshops
  • Guidance on maintenance and stabilization to sustain funding opportunities
  • Assistance and direction to the Foundation including board training and visioning services