Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation
The federal yardstick the Commission is required to apply to CA review for HL-overlay properties (Appendix G §7) — which includes every contributing structure in College Street Historic District. The city distributes its own copy (Document Center) and the Design Guidelines Manual appendix A3 reprints them.
The 10 Standards, compressed
- Use a property as intended or with minimal change to distinctive features
- Retain historic character; avoid removing distinctive materials/features
- No false history — don't add conjectural features or elements from other buildings
- Respect changes that earned significance in their own right (a 1920s alteration to an 1890s house may itself be historic — echoed in the College St criteria's "preserve older renovations" rule)
- Preserve distinctive features, finishes, craftsmanship
- Repair rather than replace; when replacement is unavoidable, match the old in design, color, texture, materials — substantiated by evidence
- Gentlest means possible for cleaning (no sandblasting — the College St criteria say this explicitly)
- Protect archeological resources
- New additions/alterations: don't destroy historic fabric; new work must be differentiated yet compatible in massing, size, scale, proportion
- Reversibility: additions built so removal wouldn't impair the historic form
How the Commission actually uses them
The Standards give commissioners their vocabulary — expect "repair rather than replace," "compatible but differentiated," and "character-defining features" in findings. Window replacement requests are the classic Standard-6 battleground (see Voting Patterns and Tendencies once the corpus is parsed). The Standards are principles, not measurements — which is precisely why the district-specific College Street Preservation Criteria (Ord 93-58) and Grapevine Pattern Book (2025) usually decide close calls.
Sources: Source Index §SOI-standards-PDF, §Municode App-G §7.