About the Plan
A PRESERVATION PLAN FOR PHILADELPHIA AND A CITYWIDE SURVEY OF HISTORIC RESOURCES
The Preservation Alliance, in collaboration with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, the Philadelphia Historical Commission, Penn Praxis and other partners, is at work on the first phase of a preservation plan for Philadelphia.
Although Philadelphia is widely recognized as a city with abundant historic buildings and neighborhoods, the city has never had an historic preservation plan or a citywide survey of historic resources.
There was no historic preservation component in the 1960 Comprehensive Plan for Philadelphia and, although plans have been made subsequently for Center City and some neighborhoods, no new Comprehensive Plan or preservation strategy has been created. Equally surprising, no citywide survey of historic resources has ever been undertaken. According to a recent study for the Preservation Alliance only 4 percent of the properties in the city have ever been evaluated in terms of their historic significance. Data about historic resources in Philadelphia is woefully inadequate for setting preservation priorities and integrating historic preservation into planning and development decisions and neighborhood revitalization.
To fill this gap, since 2006 the Preservation Alliance has been exploring how to create a preservation plan for Philadelphia and how to undertake a citywide survey of historic resources. With the support of the William Penn Foundation, the Barra Foundation and the Heritage Philadelphia Program of the Pew Center for Arts and Culture, the Alliance has completed the first phase of work toward the creation of a preservation plan.
A Strategic Preservation Plan
A preservation plan begins with an evaluation of the current state of historic preservation in the city followed by the creation of a vision for preservation in the future. This includes examining the attitudes of city residents toward historic preservation and neighborhood conservation, as well as assessing the resources and organizational capacity necessary to accomplish such a plan. Working with Penn Praxis and the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania, the Preservation Alliance engaged a wide range of organizations and individuals, including the general public, in a discussion of the state of historic preservation in Philadelphia and a vision for the future. Click here for key plan reports.
A Statement of Historic Significance
Historic resource surveys need to be guided by a framework that outlines the significant themes in the history of the physical development of the city. The Alliance has engaged a group of historians, coordinated by Emily Cooperman, PhD, to identify the key themes in the history of the development of the city and to develop initial statements of significance related to several of those themes, as models for further work to be done. Click here for historic context statements and other plan reports.
A Citywide Historic Resources Survey
Current technology, such as GIS mapping and digital photography, makes it much more feasible to undertake a citywide survey of historic resources than has been possible in the past. The Alliance has been experimenting with a technological approach to historic resource surveys for several years. The Preservation Design Partnership and the Athenaeum of Philadelphia assisted the Alliance in refining the use of technology and a methodology for undertaking a citywide survey. Read more about the survey.