Protect our county’s historic resources

By Julia G. Costello |  Friday, March 20, 2015 6:00 am

Calaveras County’s charming Gold Rush towns, rolling ranch landscapes, picturesque historic homes, mining history, and nearly 10,000 years of American Indian presence are near the top of almost everyone’s list of county assets.

Yet Calaveras County is woefully deficient in instituting programs that will help protect and enhance these vulnerable resources. We have no official inventory of important buildings and sites, no control over new construction design in historic areas, and no procedure for reviewing proposed demolitions of historic buildings. While we in Calaveras are eager to promote our historic assets, we are doing little to protect them.

In full disclosure, Judith Marvin (historian and Murphys resident) and I (Julia Costello, archaeologist and Mokelumne Hill resident) have operated our cultural resources firm Foothill Resources for over 30 years. Our professions involve identifying and evaluating archaeological sites, historic buildings and historic districts throughout California, primarily for state and federal agencies such as the California Department of Transportation, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, but also for numerous county and city governments. We work with many smart and dedicated public servants who want to identify and protect their heritage sites. It has been discouraging to see our hometown historic resources treated with such little regard.

Marvin and I have contributed extensive comments on all drafts of the general plan since 2006 and have been gratified to see many of our suggestions incorporated in various versions. As Calaveras County is now at its latest, and possibly final, round of this process, we are reaching out to our fellow county residents for help.

Comments on the draft general plan are due today, and we hope some Enterprise readers will support some or all of the suggestions below. We propose that these be added to the admirable list of cultural resources programs found on page COS 19 of Chapter 6, which address identification of areas important to American Indians, mandate professional standards in identifying and carrying our cultural resource studies, and provide a process for addressing archaeological remains found during construction. These are all long overdue and we applaud the Planning Department for including them. In addition, we believe that the following programs should also be added to this list:

1. Establish a county register of historic resources.

This official register would guide heritage tourism, serve as a baseline to track cumulative effects of projects, and facilitate consideration of demolition requests (which would be faster and less costly to developers). Incentives for registration include use of the Mills Act (reducing property taxes for eligible properties) and use of the California Historical Building Code. Preliminary inventories have already been completed for Mokelumne Hill, San Andreas, Murphys, Copperopolis and Angels Camp.

2. Provide contractors the option of using the California State Historical Building Code for buildings 75 years of age and older.

The California Historical Building Code provides alternate building regulations for the preservation and restoration of qualified historic buildings. Until Calaveras County establishes its own register of historic resources, this proposed program would formally allow restoration work on historic buildings to follow these history-sensitive regulations.

3. Adopt and implement the Mills Act.

This statewide program allows property-tax relief benefits for the maintenance and restoration of historic buildings.

4. Require a cultural resource study prior to demolition of buildings 75 years of age or older.

Fifty years is the time established by both federal and California laws for assessing a building’s historical merit; 75 years seems more appropriate for our Mother Lode communities.

5. Establish countywide design review guidelines for all new commercial construction projects in areas with concentrations of historic buildings.

Tourism has been identified as one of our leading economic forces and new construction should be architecturally compatible. People are coming to see our historic Mother Lode towns and landscapes and new development can be sympathetic to this setting. Mokelumne Hill’s Design Review Guidelines could be used as a model.

6. Require that the developer be responsible for curation of artifacts recovered from a county-mandated study.

This would require that the cost of archiving important archaeological remains excavated as part of a project’s pre-construction studies be borne by the developer. Without this requirement, the cost of long-term preservation of significant artifacts would fall on the county.

7. Develop and adopt a cultural resource management ordinance.

These are all programs long established in most counties in California; they are not extraordinary or expensive. Inclusion of them in the general plan acknowledges that our cultural resources are important to us and these are worthy goals to work for.

If we citizens of Calaveras truly value our historic assets, we need to advocate for their better management. The comment deadline is March 20. Contact Planning Director Peter Maurer at pmaurer@co.calaveras.ca.us.

Julia G. Costello is an archaeologist. She lives in Mokelumne Hill.