NPS RELEASES UPDATED BROCHURES ON EASEMENTS, SURPLUS PROPERTY

The Technical Preservation Services (TPS) division of the National Park Service (NPS) has announced the availability of updated brochures on two historic preservation planning topics. The Historic Surplus Property Program is a fold-out brochure with summary information about how to acquire federally owned historic properties (such as old courthouses, military properties, post offices) that are determined to be surplus to government needs. The brochure includes a case study of a building in Asheville, North Carolina that has been returned to private ownership and rehabbed as the mixed-use Grove Arcade.   Easements to Protect Historic Properties: A Useful Historic Preservation Tool with Potential Tax Benefits updates information about this often overlooked but sometime controversial historic preservation financial incentive. This brochure relates important information about how the incentive works and recent changes to federal tax law that has re-shaped the program.  While the brochure discusses qualified organizations for holding preservation easements (of which DAHP is one), the 2003 publication Historic Preservation Easements: A Directory of Historic Preservation Easement Holding Organizations, is not being updated or reprinted as a cost-saving measure.   DAHP has received a very limited quantity of the brochures for distribution. If interested in a copy, please contact Zee Hill at Zee.Hill@dahp.wa.gov or 360-586-3077 or email the TPS at NPS_HPS-info@nps.gov or write to Technical Preservation Services, Heritage Preservation Services, 1201 Eye Street NW, Washington, DC 20005.