Page 9 - Plano, TX Heritage Preservation Plan

CHAPTER 2:
WHY PRESERVE?

WHAT IS HERITAGE PRESERVATION?

Preservation means keeping properties and places of historic and cultural
value in active use, accommodating appropriate improvements to sustain their
viability, and maintaining the key, character-defining features which contribute
to their significance as cultural resources. This does not mean, however, that
buildings must remain unchanged and in their original form. Maintaining
properties in active use is the immediate objective to ensure that they will be
available for the benefit of future generations.

Heritage preservation is an integral component of other community initiatives 1012 E. 15th St.
in neighborhood livability, sustainability, economic development, and culture.
With this understanding, the term “heritage preservation” includes the specific
methodologies associated with maintaining integrity of significant resources
(individual buildings, groups of historic buildings, and cemeteries) and
educational programming.

Strong preservation programs throughout the country do not operate in
isolation, but instead are supported by a variety of groups at the local, state, Bowman Cemetery
and national levels. Plano’s heritage preservation program is no different.
Its connections at each of these levels create a program that is sustained
by the work of preservation advocates, financial support, and educational
programming throughout the country and in the Plano community.

Heritage preservation is an integral component of
other community initiatives in neighborhood livability,
sustainability, economic development, and culture.

Tombstone restoration with the Plano Conservancy

Cultural Resource
A cultural resource may be a tangible
entity or a cultural practice and
typically greater than 50 years of
age. Tangible cultural resources
are categorized as districts, sites,
buildings, structures, and objects for
the National Register of Historic Places,
and as archaeological resources,
cultural landscapes, structures,
museum objects, and ethnographic
resources for National Park Service
(NPS) management purposes. By their
nature, cultural resources are non-
renewable. Source: Secretary of the
Interior National Park Service.
NOVEMBER 2018 chapter 2: what is heritage preservation? 9