Mayor Fischer Announces Historic Preservation Advisory Task Force

To seek better ways to honor our community heritage, Mayor Fischer announced the formation of the Historic Preservation Advisory Task Force. The Task Force will seek to create policies to address preservation planning strategies that anticipate and identify areas where historic preservation and/or adaptive reuse should be identified.

“One of the most basic ways that we honor our history is by preserving the historic architecture and properties in the neighborhoods our citizens call home,” Mayor Greg Fischer said. “With the creation of this task force, we as a city will now have a better, proactive way to catalog our historic resources and identify best practices for adaptive reuse.”

The Task Force will consist of Mayor Fischer or his representative, a Metro Council member as appointed by the Metro Council president, and no less than 14 and up to 21 citizen members as appointed by Mayor Fischer. Appointees include developers, Landmarks Commissioners, and representatives from Kentucky Heritage Council, Louisville Downtown Partnership, Samuel Plato Academy, and Institute of Healthy Air, Water, and Soil. The Task Force will be staffed by the city’s Historic Preservation Officer and Louisville Forward.

The Task Force has four objectives:

• Defining a system to inventory and prioritizing the historic building stock of Louisville
• Identifying historic buildings from endangered lists and developing a treatment plan to achieve the best outcomes
• Recommending financial or policy incentives that support redevelopment and historic preservation
• Suggesting best practices in redevelopment and historic preservation which can inform the Comprehensive Plan update.

“There cannot be a better time to announce this effort to forge new relationships and opportunities between all segments of our community to cherish our past and to embrace the opportunities for our future,” Keith Runyon, co-chair of the Historic Preservation Advisory Task Force, said. “Mayor Fischer has assembled a strong committee to address these issues, and we can all look forward to the opportunity to expand Louisville’s reputation as a model to create a livable, compassionate and healthy city in which to live, work and play.”

“We are delighted that Metro Louisville and the Advisory Task Force are taking on this important and timely initiative,” said Jim Lindberg, Senior Director of the National Trust’s Preservation Green Lab. “Louisville’s older and historic buildings and blocks are valuable assets for creating a more prosperous, sustainable, and healthy Louisville. We look forward to bringing our expertise to this process.”

The creation of the task force is one part of a thorough Historic Preservation Initiative which includes research and data collection by Develop Louisville staff, a partnership with Preservation Green Lab, an update to landmark design guidelines and a Repurpose, Reuse, Revive work group which focuses on documenting, archiving and repurposing disassembled historic building elements and facades.