State Historic Preservation Office briefs Landmark Commission on Secretary of the Interior preservation standards

Jansen Bennett, preservation architect with the Utah State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), briefed the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission on the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and guidance from the National Park Service.

Bennett summarized four broad treatment approaches — preservation, rehabilitation, restoration and reconstruction — and emphasized that rehabilitation is the most commonly applied standard in local practice because it allows compatible new uses while preserving character-defining features. He walked commissioners through the 10 rehabilitation standards, highlighting recurring issues: retaining and repairing character-defining materials, avoiding alterations that create a false sense of history, preferring repair to wholesale replacement, treating masonry and windows carefully, protecting archaeological resources, and making additions discernible and removable.

Bennett used case studies to show how the standards are applied in practice. He noted that projects seeking federal rehabilitation tax credits must meet National Park Service review and that many local design-review programs align their criteria with the Secretary’s Standards. He also addressed commissioners’ questions about multiple periods of significance, explaining that National Park Service guidance evaluates which historic period or alteration is most significant for the property or district and that the decision often rests on the property’s documented history and the period that best represents its significance.

Commissioners asked practical questions about common conflicts—such as whether to retain later 20th-century alterations or to restore an earlier appearance — and Bennett said the standards require evaluating a property’s full history and the period(s) of significance rather than automatically reverting to the earliest form. He advised staff and commissioners to consult National Park Service guidance and SHPO when a project’s period-of-significance analysis is ambiguous.

Bennett closed by providing resources and links to the Secretary of the Interior Standards and National Park Service preservation-by-topic guidance. The commission then adjourned the formal meeting and moved to a short break before the training session continued.