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GUIDELINES POR SURVEY AND PLANNING GRANTS TEXAS HISTORICAL COMMISSION PART I: INTRODUCTION TO SURVEY AND PLANNING GRANTS With the enactment of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966, the Secretary of the Interior was directed to expand and maintain a national register of historic places and to give maximum encouragement to state governments to develop statewide historic preservation programs of their own. The Act recognized that one of the prerequisites for an effective national preservation program was the identification of historic resources across the country through comprehensive statewide surveys. A grants-in-aid program established by the Act made limited funding available through the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior for such survey work at both the state and local levels. Surveys and their resulting inventories form an important basis for planning decisions that affect the quality of our community life. In order to plan for the preservation and enhancement of the historic environment, it is necessary to determine what properties make up that environment. Broad and thorough coverage of the environment in a survey generally leads to a multiple property nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Therefore, the effectiveness of the National Register as a planning tool depends upon the quality and thoroughness of the preceeding survey activity. Survey and planning grants in Texas are administered through the National Register Programs office of the Texas Historical Commission (THC). They are distributed as 50-50 matching grants, which, with the exception of General Revenue Sharing and Community Development Block Grant monies, must be matched with non-federal funds. These grants can be used to hire a professional (see Standards for Professional Qualifications) preservation planner, historian, archeologist, or architectural historian to conduct a survey, prepare National Register nominations, or formulate strategies for preservation planning. What Is a Survey? Surveys are a process of identifying and gathering data on a community's historic resources. Generally as comprehensive as possible, surveys record all pre-1945 historic and/or archeological sites, buildings, objects, structures, and districts within a given geographical boundary and assigning high, medium, or low priority rankings to these rankings. The initial identification is followed by a phase which concentrates on all high priority properties that may be eligible for inclusion in a National Register multiple property nomination. This includes all resources that are of significance in American history, architecture, archeology and culture, and which are generally more than 50 years of age. As locally significant neighborhoods and properties are also of concern and, since the passage of time will bring an increasing number of properties within the 50-year time range, the THC recommends that more recent properties and properties of local significance be included in a survey. The following are suggestions about the range of resources that may be considered significant within the context of a survey.