City of Los Angeles Historic Designation

Overview

The City of Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Ordinance provides a process for recognizing a site, building, or structure as a Historic-Cultural Monument (Monument).

An entire neighborhood designated as a historic district in the City of Los Angeles is called a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ). Go here and here for details on HPOZs.

Nomination for Monument status requires submission of various forms and a report submitted to the City’s Cultural Heritage Commission (Commission). To be eligible for designation, a site, building or structure must meet at least one of the following criteria:

it is identified with important events of national, state, or local history, or exemplifies significant contributions to the broad cultural, economic or social history of the nation, state, city or community;
it is associated with the lives of historic personages important to national, state, city, or local history; or
it embodies the distinctive characteristics of a style, type, period, or method of construction; or represents a notable work of a master designer, builder, or architect whose individual genius influenced the designer’s, builder’s, or architect’s age.

All of these criteria are ultimately derived from the National Register for Historic Places, whose standards of proof are subject to stringent guidelines. To know whether your property is eligible for landmarking, be sure to engage a qualified historian.

Process / Timeline

A landmark nomination application generally takes 4-6 weeks to prepare. It is then submitted to the City’s Cultural Heritage Commission, which reviews the case and makes inspections if merited. If the resource in question is deemed to conform with the definition of a Monument as set forth in Section 22.171.7 of the City charter, then the Commission submits a report and recommendation to the City Council, who vote on the matter. See City Ordinance No. 185472 for a complete description of the process. The ordinance does not indicate expected timelines, but the process will typically take many months and perhaps years.

Incentives

Mills Act and Other Incentives in the City of Los Angeles

The main incentive for designation as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) is eligibility for Mills Act tax benefits — a potential property tax reduction to help offset substantial rehabilitation and restoration costs. The current valuation caps for Mills Act eligibility are a maximum of $1.5M for a single-family residence, and $3M for income-producing multi-family, commercial or industrial properties. For an overview of the Mills Act program as administered by the City of Los Angeles, go here and here.

Other incentives of HCM designation include:

potential benefits of up to 20% qualifying historic rehabilitation expenditures from the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit

entitlement to use the California Historical Building Code (CHBC), providing some code standard flexibility in the rehabilitation of older structures

expedited approval process and zoning/code flexibility thanks to the City’s Adaptive Reuse Ordinance

conservation easements, offering owners of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places a one-time federal income tax deduction for the donation of a partial interest in a property to a qualified preservation organization or government agency

For more detailed information on City of Los Angeles HCM incentives, including links to relevant online resources, go to this page on the Los Angeles City Planning website.

Who Benefits from the Mills Act Incentive?

Participation in the Mills Act program is voluntary and is restricted to owners of designated historic properties. Property owners with comparatively low property taxes, such as those benefitting from Proposition 13 limits on assessed value change over time, will not likely benefit from a Mills Act contract because the assessed value under the Mills Act will likely be higher than the current base-year value of the property. In general, owners who benefit most from a Mills Act contract are those who have acquired their properties in the last 10 years.

Further Advantages of Historic Assessment

Beyond the incentives listed above, there are other potential benefits to having a property formally assessed by a qualified historian. Uncovering the property’s story —including its architects, builders, occupants and renovation timeline, as revealed in a range of textual and visual records — can be helpful for:

Establishing historic significance for buildings of note, thereby facilitating heritage designation; access to preservation resources including restoration grants and tax incentives; and protection from unwanted alterations;
Guiding restoration efforts by ensuring that the materials, construction methods and style are historically appropriate, thus preserving the property’s character and maintaining or increasing its value;
Adding market value by demonstrating its association with significant people (e.g. architects, builders, owners, occupants) or events;
Legal and planning benefits including facilitation of zoning issues, building permits, or disputes about property modifications, especially in historic districts.

I’m a Pasadena-based architectural historian who has written hundreds of assessments for properties throughout Los Angeles County.

If you own a property that is more than 50 years old, schedule a consultation to find out whether historic designation is right for you.

If any of the above links are broken or incorrect, or if you would like to suggest other resources for preservation in the City of Los Angeles, please let me know.

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