The Cultural Resources Office was established by ordinance in 1999. The ordinance is codified as Title 24 of the City Code. The Board is the successor to the Heritage and Urban Design Commission, which in turn succeeded the Landmarks and Urban Design Commission. That board was a successor to various City Beautification Committees that had existed since the 'City Beautiful' movement in the early 20th century.

Division staff work with elected representatives, citizens and building owners to:

• establish historic districts and landmarks;
• to administer the various design standards established by law for the City's 14 historic districts and 114 landmarks (each historic district has its own ordinance with a separate set of design standards);
• review all applications for demolition permits in the 19 City Preservation Districts Demolition only review districts), evaluating the applications in light of criteria established by law; and
• review all encroachment permits and all public works projects developed by the Board of Public Service.

By law, the Board also must advise the City administration and the Board of Aldermen on matters pertaining to preservation and suggest preservation policies and design standards.

SEE THE DESIGN STANDARDS FOR THE HISTORIC DISTRICTS

The Board generally holds a regular meeting once a month, at 4:00 P.M. on the fourth Monday, at 1015 Locust Street, Suite 1200. (The Board may occasionally change its meeting time and/or date due to holidays or other unusual circumstances, and will sometimes schedule a special meeting to review a particular application. Such changes are published on our web page and posted in our offices. A mailing goes out to applicants, City officials and those citizens who have requested to be on our mailing list.)

The Board normally reviews appeals by applicants from denials by staff of applications for building or demolition permits. The Board decisions are binding by law. A Board decision is appealable to the Circuit Court except in cases involving Board of Public Service permits such as encroachments or public works in which case the appeal from the Board is to the Board of Public Service. In certain cases, appeals from the Board may be to the Planning and Urban design Commission, which can hear some appeals at the Commision's discretion.

Under State law, the Preservation Board acts as an administrative law judge, and is governed by state administrative law. The City Counselor's office normally represents the Board and the Board members during any litigation.

The City of St. Louis is a Certified Local Government. As a CLG, the agency is eligible for special federal grants for preservation planning and other activities. Because of the federal grants the Office is now completing a Preservation Plan for the City of St. Louis, and surveying the City for potential National Register or local historic districts. The first volume of the Preservation Plan, "Historic Context and Building Types" is currently on the WEB. Go there

Under a Programmatic Agreement among the Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD), the State Historic Preservation Officer (MO-SHPO), the Federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the City of St. Louis, the office also performs many of the duties normally performed by the SHPO under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.

Section 106 review involves evaluating undertakings financed with Federal funds to determine if the undertaking will have an adverse effect on property listed or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as a single site or as part of a district. In that regard we evaluate every proposed demolition, new construction or rehabilitation funded by the City of St. Louis using federal funds. We work to reconcile the project with the Secretary of the Interior's guidelines on Historic Preservation. It is a Federal regulation that 106 review is completed before the project can begin.

The first year Plan is a written analysis of the history of the City (called an historic context) including documentation of all the property types that evolved from that history (141 property types).

The second year Plan describes a methodology for the Plan, explains the four different kinds of historic areas to be studied and explores some of the issues that the Plan hopes to resolve. The four kinds of areas include:

1. Established historic district with an population aware of, and interested, in its resources,
2. Established historic district with an uninvolved, unaware population,
3. Area of significance, not an historic distinct, with an aware population,
4. Area of significance with an unaware population.
   

The third year, is an in-depth analysis of four differing wards (3rd, 4th, 8th and 10th) including demographic analysis, results of public meetings and a description of how the elected officials and residents of the various wards wish to manage the historic and cultural resources located within the ward boundaries. The work in these wards continued into the fourth year of planning where we will worked in the 2nd, 5th, 7th and 11th wards.

During years three and four we also provided an overview of the other wards, however they will not be studied in depth.

During the work with citizens in the wards, we give them film and a short version of an historic inventory sheet and they document resources in the ward. We then analyze the results of the survey work and establish how they wish the resources to be managed (i.e. National Register nomination, local historic district, demolition etc.)