SurveyLA Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey MYhistoricLA Guide to Public Participation in SurveyLA.

SurveyLALos Angeles Historic Resources Survey

MYhistoricLAGuide to Public Participation in SurveyLA

LOS ANGELES CITY PLANNING DEPARTMENT

Today’s Agenda

1. Welcome and Introductions

2. Survey LA Overview

3. MYhistoricLA Guide Overview

4. Beyond SurveyLA

5. Using the MYhistoricLA Data Table & Guide

6. Next Steps


What is SurveyLA?

•Managed by the City’s Office of Historic Resources (OHR)•First-ever systematic program to identify significant historic resources throughout the city

• Includes background research, field inspections and documentation

• Will be completed 2010-2012

•Multi-year grant agreement with the Getty for $2.5 million with a City match

St. Vincent de Paul Church - Figueroa and Adams


SurveyLA Overview

Professional surveyors will conduct field inspections from the public right-of-way to:

• Identify architectural, physical, and visual qualities and characteristics

• Assess the impacts of alterations

• Document properties with photos

• Survey identification does not mean designation


Here’s where we start: Year 1 Survey Areas (2010)

Year 1 Community Plan Areas to be Surveyed

1. Palms-Mar Vista-Del Rey (22,015)2. West Los Angeles (16,107)3. Harbor Gateway (7,790)4. Wilmington-Harbor City (13,628)5. San Pedro (17,803)6. South Los Angeles (50,722)7. Southeast Los Angeles (46,198)8. West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert (37,509)9. Central City North (2,920)10. Hollywood (43,369)11. Sunland-Tujunga-Shadow Hills-Lakeview Terrace-East La Tuna Canyon (23,945)


Why do we need your help?

You know your neighborhood best! Get involved to help us:

• Provide information to professional surveyors regarding resources of architectural, social, cultural and historical significance in your community

• Go beyond the obvious architectural significance– tell us the stories

MYhistoricLAis…


Benefits to Communities

• Community Plan Updates– Which areas should remain free of new

development?• Adaptive Reuse Projects

– Which structures should be renovated and put to a new use?

• Cultural Tourism– Are there original intact neighborhoods or individual

locations of cultural and historic significance that people would like to know more about?

• Economic Development– How can historic resources attract investment in

your community?


Benefits to Communities

•Filming Activity– Are there places in your neighborhood of interest

to the film industry?• Disaster Response

– After a natural or man-made disaster, which places should not be demolished?

• Academic/Community Research– Easily accessible information on the web about

places of significance in the City.• Identify a Sense of Place

– A tool for unifying communities through the identification of assets of historical, social and cultural significance


MYhistoricLA Guide

What is it? •A step-by-step instruction guide for communities to use in gathering and compiling information about important historic resources in your neighborhood

•Information will be directly used to conduct the citywide survey


MYhistoricLA Guide

• Provides a framework for understanding the type of information needed for SurveyLA

• Identifies and describes specific activities to help you gather that information

• Relies on a Neighborhood Coordinator and a Coordinating Committee to mobilize and organize the community to complete the activities


MYhistoricLA Guide

The Guide includes three activity categories:

• MYneighborhood: Neighborhood Walkabout and Photo Collection activities

• MYstory: Personal interviews

• MYplace: Specific research activities


MYhistoricLA Guide

The activities are designed to:

• Be managed as a community effort

• Build upon each other

• Allow you to choose which activity or activities work best for your community based on:– Existing information on historic resources– Amount and type of volunteers recruited– Amount of time you have


MYneighborhood

Neighborhood Walkabout Goals:

• Identify potential individual historic resources and districts to be included in SurveyLA

• Provide a specific list and photographs of these resources by address

• Identify research opportunities for additional information


MYneighborhood

Neighborhood Walkabout Process:

• Recruit volunteers to conduct a walking tour of the neighborhood to identify potentially significant properties

• Use maps and information in the Architectural Guide to Los Angeles (Gebhard/Winter, 2003) as a starting point

• Record potentially significant properties

• Identify important characteristics of potential historic districts

Tips and step-by-step instructions are included in the MYhistoricLA Guide


MYneighborhood

Community Photo Collection Goals:

• Collect historic photographs that can provide valuable information about historic resources in your community

• Generate interest and broader involvement in SurveyLA

• Help the community preserve their history

• Identify properties that may need additional research


MYneighborhood

Community Photo Collection Process:

• Identify a location in the community to hold an event to scan or collect copies of historic images

• Create a set of scans or copies for submission to SurveyLA

• Capture addresses and other valuable data from the photograph or source



MYstory

MYstory - Interview Activity Goals:

• Capture the stories about individual buildings or neighborhoods from people who live there

• Create a richer understanding of the shared history of the community that can help inform SurveyLA

• Identify properties that may need additional research


MYstory

MYstory - Interview Activity Process:

• Recruit volunteer interviewers• Identify potential interviewees (long-time residents,

neighborhood historians, participants in important social or cultural events, etc.)

• Using the template provided, create a series of specific questions for the interview

• Don’t forget that interviewees are often good sources for historic photographs and other materials



MYplace

MYplace - Research Goals:

• Conduct research to provide property-specific information regarding potentially significant buildings and districts in your neighborhood

• Confirm or provide additional information about properties or neighborhoods identified in MYneighborhood and MYstory activities


MYplace

MYplace - Research Process:

• Compile existing information about properties or areas in your community to identify research tasks that need to be completed

• Recruit volunteers to divide the research into smaller, more manageable tasks

• Review the Research Assignments and provide volunteer training as needed

• Prepare all data gathered during MYhistoricLA for submission to OHR

Tips and step-by-step instructions included in the MYhistoricLA Guide


MYplace

MYplace - Research sources may include:

• Assessor Data• • Historic Building Permits

• Historic Maps

• Newspaper and journal articles

• Historic Photographs


MYhistoricLA Guide

How do I record all the information gathered during MYhistoricLA activities?

Each activity has accompanying forms for recording the

relevant information:

• Neighborhood Walkabout Survey Form• Photograph Identification Form• Interview Questionnaire


MYhistoricLA Guide

MYhistoricLA Data Table:

• A Microsoft Excel data table was developed to organize information collected by MYhistoricLA activities into a consistent format

• Following each activity, the property-specific information on the forms should be recorded in the Data Table

• The Data Table and instructions for use are included in the MYhistoricLA Guide


MYhistoricLA Guide

This seems overwhelming – How can our communityaccomplish these goals?


MYhistoricLA Guide

Tips and Resources:

• Remember that you can choose to do as many or as few activities as you like, depending on the needs, expertise, and interest within the community

• Any information submitted through MYhistoricLA is valuable to the survey effort, even if you don’t have all of the data outlined on the forms or in the MyhistoricLA Data Table


MYhistoricLA Guide

Tips and Resources:

• Additional information about SurveyLA and MYhistoricLA is available on OHR’s website

• Office of Historic Resources staff is available to answer questions or provide additional information

• A lot of research can be done through online sources available from the Los Angeles Public Library and other places


Next Steps

Ensure SurveyLA reflects the architectural, cultural, and

social history of your neighborhood/community

Encourage the participation of your neighborhood/ community in SurveyLA

• Establish Coordinating Committee• Select and plan an activity• Implement the activity• Submit information/data to OHR


SurveyLA Contact Informationwww.SurveyLA.org

For more information about SurveyLA:Office of Historic Resources200 N. Spring Street, Room 620Los Angeles, CA 90012Janet Hansen, Deputy Manager(213) 978-1191 or

[email protected]

For copies of the MYhistoricLA Guide and to participate in SurveyLA:

Rita Moreno, Public Participation Coordinator

(213) 978-1192 or [email protected]

http://www.surveyla.org/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

SurveyLA Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey MYhistoricLA Guide to Public Participation in SurveyLA.

Documents

city matchst

west los angeles

southeast los angeles

south los angeles

wilmingtonharbor city

central city north

historic significance

resources of architectural