The Ohio Historic Preservation Office has updated and published the latest edition of its five-year preservation plan. A Future for Ohio’s Past: A Historic Preservation Plan for Ohioans can be accessed here. The plan dives right into big-picture preservation policy: the goals, challenges & opportunities for advancement in the coming years. The plan also highlights successful preservation case studies throughout its pages. The restoration of a historic bridge, revitalization of traditional downtown centers, and preservation of local landmarks all get star treatment.
Simple, important goals inform the substance of OHPO’s preservation plan. How do we, as leadership of Ohio’s statewide preservation movement, accomplish goals such as: paying for preservation, educating the public, better identifying Ohio’s historic resources, and better promoting historic preservation to the public? With each goal, OHPO outlines both the difficult challenges we face and the beneficial opportunities that can help us achieve these goals.
As a staff member of Heritage Ohio, I’m proud to see how we accomplish, with our partners such as OHPO, important preservation goals everyday: the enactment and continued advocacy to continue the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit; bringing the Commission Assistance & Mentoring Program back to Ohio to provide design review training; demonstrating the connection between historic preservation and economic development using proven revitalization programs such as the Main Street Approach; and providing visibility in all parts of Ohio through our annual conference, Main Street trainings, tax credit workshops, Top Opportunities program, and historic theater seminars & networkings.
We hope you will take a look at the preservation plan, figure out where you fit in as part of the solution, and then contact the Ohio Historic Preservation Office (or, for that matter, us) with your offer to help. After all, a plan is only as good as the people who commit to implementing it. Only when the important goals become reality do we see the potential of the plan’s value realized.
