Delaware County Planning Department Historic Preservation

The Kriebel House, Chester City, now the offices
of the Chester Water Authority.

The reuse of existing buildings can revitalize a community. In most cases, the buildings that are intact can be less expensively rehabilitated than creating new structures.

Using the tools described above will help to preserve the historic fabric of a community, but adaptive reuse is the core of revitalization. The key to continued preservation is the active use of a structure. Once a resource is identified as historic, and special to the community, the action can then begin to encourage its reuse.

In most cases, an historic building is adaptable to reuse. However, if federal funding or federal tax incentives are involved with the reuse, it is strongly advised and often enforced that the ”Secretary of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation” be used as a guideline for improving and changing the structure. These guidelines encourage the reuse of original materials or replacement in kind. A summary of these guidelines is can be obtained from the National Park Service of Delaware County Planning Department.

Federal Tax Credits - Sites on the National Register of Historic Places (or those in a National Register Historic District) are eligible for federal tax credits for rehabilitation. This applies only to income producing structures but can be an incentive for revitalization of an area.
Property Tax Abatement and Freeze – The municipality has the authority to develop their own incentive for preservation. The municipal tax is lowered or frozen for a period of time for those historic structures undergoing a rehabilitation or reuse

Another source of funds for the rehabilitation of historic resources is the Community Development Block Grants. These federally sponsored funds are awarded each year by the Delaware County Planning Department to low and moderate-income areas, and there is also a provision for funding historic rehabilitation.

The Media Armory, Media Borough, now houses Trader Joe’s
(shown here) and the Veterans Museum.

Not all projects can be funded by one source, especially in revitalization areas. Many projects, usually the larger involving more than one building or an extremely large structure, are accomplished using funds from public sources such as state or federal preservation grants as well as foundation and corporate grants and local financial institutions.

The CLG program is a cost-effective, local, state and federal partnership. The initiative provides valuable technical assistance and small grants to local governments seeking to keep for future generations what is important and significant from their past. Funds are appropriated annually by the U.S. Congress and distributed from the Historic Preservation Fund, which is administered by the National Park Service and State Historic Preservation Offices in each state.

The more than 1,100 local governments that participate in the program are eligible to apply to their State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) for grants representing a minimum of ten percent of the federal funds allocated to their State. Projects eligible for funding and the criteria used to select them are developed annually by the SHPO. The State, not National Park Service makes funding decisions.

ADAPTIVE REUSE