2.88.020 Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission.
A Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission is hereby established. The Commission shall consist of eleven members, one from each of seven Council districts and four at-large members. The membership of such Commission shall include at least one historian, one architect, one archeologist, one archivist, and individuals who have a professional or a vocational interest in historic preservation.
A. The Landmarks and Historic Preservation Commission shall periodically review, investigate, and make recommendations to the Executive on buildings, structures, places, or districts of historic or architectural significance which should be preserved or protected in Pierce County. The Commission may investigate whether there is federal, state, or other financial assistance for the acquisition and preservation of the site.
Furthermore, the Commission shall establish a list of buildings, structures, places, or districts of historic or architectural significance in Pierce County which should be preserved, protected, or enhanced in a hierarchy order of its value to the community and State based on the criteria provided below in this Section.
This list shall be referred to as the Pierce County Register of Historic Places and distributed to all County departments.
B. The criteria used to evaluate historic properties for possible inclusion in the Pierce County Register are based on those used for the National and Washington State Registers. These criteria are designed to serve as guidelines for all persons or organizations preparing a designation request to the Pierce County Commission.
1. The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects of State and local importance that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and:
a. that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
b. that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
c. that embody the distinctive characteristics or a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
d. that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in pre-history or history.
2. Cemeteries, birthplaces, or graves of historical figures, properties owned by religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures that have been moved from their original location, reconstructed historic buildings, properties primarily commemorative in nature and properties that have achieved significance within the past 50 years can also be considered eligible for the Pierce County Register. However, greater priority will be given to those which fall within the following categories.
a. A religious property deriving primary significance from architectural or artistic distinction or historical importance.
b. A building or structure removed from its original location but which is significant primarily for architectural value, or which is the surviving structure most importantly associated with a historic person or event.
c. A birthplace or grave of a historical figure of outstanding importance if there is not appropriate site or building directly associated with his or her productive life.
d. A cemetery which derived its primary significance from graves or persons of transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design features, or from association with historic events.
e. A reconstructed building when accurately executed in a suitable environment and presented in a dignified manner as part of a restoration master plan, and when no other building or structure with the same association has survived.
f. A property primarily commemorative in intent if design, age, tradition, or symbolic value has invested it with its own historical significance.
g. A property achieving significance within the past 50 years if it is of exceptional importance.
3. Below are categories of properties eligible for the Pierce County Register.
a. Historic structures or sites in which the cultural, political, economic, or social history of the nation, state, or local community is best exemplified and from which the visitor may understand the patterns of American and Pierce County heritage. Integrity is an essential basis for deserving recording.
b. Sites and groupings representing historic community developments and patterns. (One room schools, county seats, crossroads, stores, agricultural settlements, seaports, railroad, and water transportation.)
c. Early or abandoned transportation facilities. (Lighthouses, covered bridges, ships, ferries, railroad stations, milestones, trails.)
d. Old commercial structures and sites. (Warehouses, brick factories of the 19th century, iron furnaces, shipyards, logging, and mining camps.)
e. Structures related to the civic life of a community. (Town hall, jail, bank, tavern.)
f. Buildings of great architects or master builders and important works of minor ones. Noteworthy examples of various architectural styles, periods, or methods of construction. Architectural curiosities or very rare survivors of its style or period.
g. Homes of notable persons during their active years, or associated with important events in national, state, or local history.
h. Structures or sites of pre-historic or historic archaeological significance.
4. Archaeological properties do not have to be large, impressive, or rich in artifacts or categories of date to qualify for the Pierce County Register. They do not have to be suitable for public interpretation. Any archaeological resource is potentially eligible if it can be legitimately argued that it is associated with a cultural pattern, process, or activity important to the history or pre-history of its locality, the United States or humanity as a whole.
Some properties that have little significance as individual entities may be eligible as segments or archaeological districts. In some cases, an archaeological property or district may also qualify because of an association with a particular event or person, or on the basis of its intrinsic historicity or utility as an interpretive location. Properties that have lost their integrity by being completely excavated or otherwise totally disturbed do not normally qualify, unless they are of particularly noteworthy historical significance for the data they have yielded.
C. The Commission will make recommendations on funding and monitoring projects and programs that receive funding from the County's one dollar portion of the five dollar per instrument surcharge charged by the Auditor for each document recorded under the provisions of RCW 36.22.170. The priorities for funding of these projects and programs include:
a. Promote public awareness and education of the historical and cultural heritage of the people and area of Pierce County and its communities;
b. Identify, preserve, and store documents and public records of historic significance, including conversion to electronic and other media;
c. Collect, acquire, catalog, interpret and exhibit historically significant artifacts and documents, including manuscripts, photographs, illustrations, maps, engineering and architectural drawings, art works, music, book reports, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, oral histories, and electronic media in all areas (social and cultural, artistic, scientific and technical, political, commercial and industrial, and natural history);
d. Identify, protect, rehabilitate, restore, excavate, and reconstruct districts, sites, buildings, and other structures, gardens, landscapes and other objects of significance to heritage, history, architecture, archeology, or culture;
e. Provide capital funds for capacity building projects to nonprofit historic and historic preservation groups that encourage cultural and historical studies and interpretive efforts.
D. The Planning and Public Works Department shall provide funding and administrative support to the Commission.
E. The duties of the Commission shall include the establishment of definitions, criteria, and procedures required to carry out this legislation.