VIRGINIA BEACH — The city’s Historic Preservation Commission and the Planning and Community Development Department will be hosting a public information session on an upcoming architectural survey update project for the southern half of the city.
The session will be on Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Creeds Ruritan Community Complex, 1057 Princess Anne Road.
“The public is invited to learn about the project and provide suggestions for properties to be considered for the survey,” said Historic Preservation Planner Mark Reed. “The reconnaissance level survey will help to update the City’s inventory of architectural resources of historical interest.”
The study area in the city will be south of North Landing, Princess Anne and Sandbridge roads, and the northern section of Sandbridge, Reed said.
Virginia Beach has contracted with Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc. to perform the architectural survey, officials said.
CRA has brought on Debra McClane, architectural historian, as part of their team.
It is anticipated that they will survey approximately 250 individual resources to update the city’s cultural resource database.
The team will specifically be looking to include homes built in the 1950s and 1960s in Sandbridge; properties listed in a 1993 survey as identified resources not surveyed; agricultural support buildings like barns and smokehouses; and the surveyors are especially seeking rare and disappearing resource types, such as sweet potato houses, officials said.
CRA will also be looking at areas of concentrated settlement for their potential eligibility for listing as a Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places.
The potential for larger land areas to qualify as National Register-eligible Rural Historic Districts will also be evaluated.
Localities coordinate their cultural resource database with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and conduct surveys to state standards, officials said.
Buildings 50 years or older are candidates for inclusion in a locality survey, officials said.
The city completed its first comprehensive survey of architectural resources in the southern half of the city in 1993 through a grant from DHR.
An architectural survey update was recently completed for the northern half of Virginia Beach.
Copies of those surveys may be found on the Commission’s webpage here, just click under the Certified Local Government tab to find them.
Contact Mark Reed at mreed@vbgov.com or 757-385-8573 for additional information about the Aug. 14 public information session on the upcoming southern Virginia Beach architectural survey update.
