If you decide to pursue tax credits, make sure your architect has experience with tax credit projects and is aware of your intention. He or she can provide advice, application assistance, and make sure that required items are included in the plans.

Standards for Historic Rehabilitation
In order to receive either State or Federal Historic Tax Credits, a project must conform to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Rehabilitation. Applications are reviewed in detail by knowledgeable staff in accordance with these standards. This section is adapted from the Illustrated Guidelines (1997) published by the National Park Service. The full text is available online at: http://www2.cr.nps.gov/tps/tax/rhb/.

The following is a summary of the Secretary's Standards.

1. Properties will maintain their current use or be given a new use compatible with any distinctive features or spaces
   In most cases a conversion (2-family to single family home or warehouse to loft condos for example) will be considered acceptable if the character defining aspects of the building are maintained.

2. The historic character of the property will be preserved - Spaces and architectural features that are deemed to be essential to the overall historic character of the building must be retained, repaired, or replicated.

3. Buildings will be recognized as a physical record of its time, place and use - Adding conjectural elements or artifacts from another building is discouraged.

4. Changes to a property that have acquired their own historical significance will be preserved - If a later addition or renovation is determined to be significant in its own right, it will be considered character defining.

5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved - Typically this can include moldings, windows, doors, built-in cabinetry, porches and dormers, cornices, and other historic elements.

6. Deteriorated historic features will be repaired rather than replaced - In cases where the original feature is too far deteriorated, it must be documented and replicated.

7. Treatments that cause damage to historic materials will not be used - It is necessary to use the gentlest means possible when cleaning or treating any historic element.

8. Archeological resources will be protected and preserved in place.

9. Additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction will not destroy historic materials, features, or spatial relationships that characterize the property - New construction must be differentiated in design from the original historic property and should be designed and constructed in a way to protect the integrity of the historic property.

10. New additions and adjacent or related new construction will be undertaken in such a manner that, if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.

Historic tax credit applications are reviewed “as a whole.” No single action in and of itself will cause an application to be rejected. The question that the reviewer asks him or herself is whether the project as a whole meets the Secretary’s guidelines. The guidelines recognize the need for some alterations to be made in order for most projects to be successful – any changes must be made without negatively impacting the building’s overall historic character.

It is important if you intend to pursue historic tax credits, that you find an architecture firm and contractor who is familiar with these requirements.