Consultant presents update to Boise’s historic preservation plan; public survey launched

Katie Pratt, an architectural historian and co-owner of Northwest Vernacular, presented a draft framework for a citywide historic preservation plan to the Boise City Historic Preservation Commission during a work session and public hearing. Pratt said the update will document Boise’s history and built environment, assess current preservation policies and recommend goals, strategies and an implementation plan.

Pratt said the project is funded in part by Certified Local Government (CLG) funds from the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office, which originate with the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior. She described the plan’s four main chapters — an executive summary, historic context, current status of preservation, and goals/strategies/recommendations — and showed GIS maps of local and National Register designations across the city.

"Preservation plans are looking to the past, the city's history, its historic built environment, and understanding past practices to think about our present and how we want to leverage, acknowledge, and in a lot of instances, celebrate the past as we work towards a future that's good for the city," Pratt said.

Pratt announced an online public survey (www.surveymonkey.com/r/boisehistoricpreservation), which she said is live now, will take about 5–10 minutes to complete, and will remain open through March to allow multiple outreach waves. She described planned in-person outreach at community events and meetings with neighborhood associations; staff and commissioners discussed supplementing online outreach with mailers or targeted outreach to older residents who may not use social media.

Pratt outlined a project schedule tied to grant reporting: an initial draft of the plan is due in April, a second draft in July after public input, and a final plan in September. She said some recommendations may include ordinance language or redlines to the city’s certificate-of-appropriateness process, which would require city council adoption and then become part of the city’s implementation program and related plans.

Next steps: staff will coordinate outreach planning and host additional work sessions as drafts are prepared. The commission encouraged members and neighborhood associations to fill out and share the survey.