private-public partnership, resource survey, historic preservation, community participation, data management
I picked this topic because SurveyLA is a monumental project for the field of historic preservation. No project of this scale and scope has ever been undertaken and the findings from the project can have vast implications for planning and historic preservation in Los Angeles. The methodology and tools developed for this project can be used by others in the future to conduct their own historic resource surveys. Historic resource surveys must serve as the basis of any historic preservation efforts because an inventory of what is worth saving has to be performed first before any plan can be conceived for saving it. I hope to find some key elements and lessons learned about carrying out such an ambitious project.
Fitch, James Marston. 1998. Historic preservation : Curatorial management of the built world. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
Hayden, Dolores. 1995. The power of place : Urban landscapes as public history. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Ford, Larry R. 1974. Historic Preservation and the Sense of Place. Growth and Change. Vol. 5, NO. 2: 33-37.
Gazley, Beth, and Jeffrey Brudney. 2007. The purpose (and perils) of government-nonprofit partnership. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 36, (3): 389-415.
Williamson, Ray A. and Jannelle Warren-Findley. 1991. Technology Transfer, Historic Preservation, and Public Policy. The Public Historian, Vol. 13, No. 3: 15-32.
Howe, Kathryn W., and Getty Conservation Institute. The Los Angeles historic resource survey report : A framework for a citywide historic resource survey. in Getty Conservation Institute [database online]. Los Angeles, 2008.
SurveyLA: Preserving Los Angeles. [video online] http://www.preservation.lacity.org/survey/videos
The National Trust for Historic Place- Non-profit dedicated to historic preservation in the United States
http://www.preservationnation.org/
The LA Conservancy- Non-profit dedicated to historic preservation in Los Angeles (with good links to other historic preservation resources)
http://www.laconservancy.org/
The National Register of Historic Place- Information about historic preservation from a federal level
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/
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More than 40 years after the Cultural Heritage Ordinance was adopted in Los Angeles, the proposed citywide inventory of historic resources had still not been carried out, making the development of a comprehensive preservation program unattainable. In 2000, the Getty Conservation Institute conducted a study to assess the potential of a citywide historic resource survey and presented their finding to the City government of Los Angeles. The Office of Historic Resources was created within the Department of Planning in 2006 to implement the framework which resulted from the study. In this paper, I examined SuveyLA as a process model for historic preservation by a large municipality and identified three elements which I thought would contribute to its success- the partnership between the Office of Historic Resources and the Getty Conservation Institute, community involvement and data management. I examined the intended goals of SurveyLA and then conducted interviews with the Deputy Manager in charge of SurveyLA and a planning activist from the community to assess whether it was meeting the intended goals. I found that while this ambitious project is proceeding as well as it can despite a budget crisis at the city, some people believe that it is not living up to its intended goals.
Although adopted in 1962, the citywide historic resource survey which the Cultural Heritage Ordinance calls for has never been carried out. These surveys are the backbone of historic preservation because they catalog the historic assets which require consideration. The Getty became interested in helping with a survey for Los Angeles and formed a partnership with the Office of Historic Resources (OHR), created by the city to implement the project. Years were spent researching the best methods and tools for conducting the survey which became named SurveyLA. Through reviewing documents and interviewing key players, I looked into three key components of SurveyLA- the private-public partnership between the Getty and the city, the level of community participation, and the employment of technology- to see how they will contribute the success of such a project. I found that the private sector has been critical for providing the expertise and funding, making the project possible despite a municipal budget crisis. Despite difficulties encountered in outreach to the diverse communities of Los Angeles, the short staffed project has received the help of over 200 volunteers, without which it could be adversely affected. The OHR has not received the enthusiastic level of response they wanted and some people are disenchanted with SurveyLA for not meeting expectations. Regardless, SurveyLA will leave a contribution to the field with the use of technology to advance methods of data collection and to make accessible the data from the survey.
The fact that SurveyLA was finally underway was not sufficient proof of its success as a process model. It was only proves that there was enough support to finally move the project forward. I compared the state of SurveyLA as it was at the time of writing this paper against the goals and methodology originally set forth by Kathryn Welch Howe in The Los Angeles Historic Resource Survey Report: A Framework for a Citywide Historic Resource Survey. I assumed that the published report was a statement of the intent of the GCI for the project and the adoption of those guidelines as the acceptance of the OHR of that intent. My aim was to find out whether SurveyLA had succeeded in meeting its original objectives.
First, I looked into the partnership between the Office of Historic Resources (OHR) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) because it was the critical force which had made SurveyLA possible. I wanted to understand the dynamics of the public-private partnership that exists between the OHR and the GCI and how that might have contributed to the success of the survey effort. Then I investigate the community outreach efforts by the OHR because public participation and outreach strategies were supposed to be a key component of SurveyLA. I wanted to know what strategy for community was used and the results which have been met. I also want to know whether the people within the communities have been receptive to the survey and what is the level of participation have been. Finally, I examined how technology would be used in the survey and what the data management strategy would be.
I interviewed Laura Meyers, a community and planning activist from the West Adams Heritage Association, who was openly disappointed with the project and Janet Hansen, the Deputy Manager for SurveyLA at the Office of Historic Resources (OHR). I had been a little surprised by Meyer’s disappointment with the project, so I was glad to speak to Hansen to find out whether her feelings were warranted. Out of the small staff of four people, Hansen had become the only person at the OHR dedicated to working on SurveyLA. As an official representative of SurveyLA for the city of Los Angeles, I wanted to find out from her about the partnership between the city and the Getty. In response to the Meyer’s critique about the perceived lack of community outreach, I asked Hansen about the community outreach strategies and the responses which they have received. I inquired about the data management strategies and whether there could be problems with finding the resources to carry them out. Lastly, I raised the concern over the budget crisis at the city and posed the question about the viability of the project.
The spatial component of my project is that this is about cataloging the built environment so that planning decision can be made with consideration to preserving culture.
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