When a property is a locally designated historic landmark or is located in a local historic district, the property owner is required to receive prior approval for planned exterior changes. While some changes are considered minor and need no approval, such as painting a previously painted surface, others need to be approved by the Planning staff administratively or by the Durham Historic Preservation Commission. This approval is called a Certificate of Appropriateness, and it is required whether a building permit is needed or not. The commission is a nine member, quasi-judicial board that is appointed by the governing bodies. The commission’s decisions are based on the design guidelines of the preservation plans for each district. Their decisions may be appealed to the Board of Adjustment and then to the court system.
All applicants are required to set up a pre-submittal meeting with Planning Department staff to go over the application requirements and review process. This meeting can be conducting any time as long as the application is submitted between January 1 and April 1. Planning staff will review the application for completeness at the time of submittal.
The application will be reviewed internally following submittal. Staff member will generate a report with their recommendation on the application which will then be forwarded to the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) for their 30-day review. Once SHPO makes a recommendation, staff will incorporate this recommendation into their staff report.
The updated staff report and full application will be forwarded to the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) for its review and recommendation. If both staff and the HPC recommend against the application, it will not be forwarded to the governing body for review.
Once HPC provides a recommendation, the staff report for all applications that have received a recommendation of approval by staff and HPC will be updated for governing body review. A public hearing will be set for the appropriate governing body to review the landmark applications and make a final decision.
Once the governing body has made a decision staff will notify property owners and applicants of this decision in writing. If the application was approved, staff will forward a memo to the owner including the designation ordinance, application for property tax exemption, and a copy of the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. At this time, the owner will need to provide a check to the Planning Department to cover the cost of recording the ordinance of designation in the Register of Deeds Office. The cost is currently $17 but this should be verified with planning staff of the Register of Deeds prior to issuing a check.
Once a property is designated, any modifications to the designated portions of the property require a Certificate of Appropriateness to be issued by the HPC prior to making these modifications. Failure to make modifications in keeping with this process may result in the property losing its landmark designation.
For information, contact Lisa Miller in the Planning Department at (919) 560-4137 ext. 28270 or lisa.miller@durhamnc.gov.
Work Requiring a Certificate of Appropriateness
HPC Resolution on Application of Landmark Criteria
Historic Landmark Pre-Submittal Request