Preservation Plan for Philadelphia report on focused conversations now available on line

Last year, Heritage Consulting Inc. was engaged to conduct a series of focus groups for the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia in their multi-year effort to develop a Preservation Plan for Philadelphia. The purpose of the Preservation Plan is to identify a vision for the future of preservation in the city and outline the means to get there. The Plan is being undertaken with the cooperation of the Philadelphia Historical Commission and Philadelphia City Planning Commission.

The focus groups were part of the initial stages of the research to identify how the stakeholders—preservation professionals, community groups, historic sites and museums, and advocates perceive preservation now and what it could be like in 20 years.

Stakeholder groups invited by the Preservation Alliance to participate were: architects and engineers, historical societies, historic district residents, community groups, Main Street organizations and commercial corridor organizations, community development corporations, African American historic sites, Design Advocacy Group members, preservation professionals and historic sites and house museums. Ten focused conversations were held in Philadelphia in mid August and late September 2008 and were attended by 69 people.

Stakeholders were asked to discuss their current involvement with preservation; the relative strengths and weaknesses of preservation in Philadelphia; any comments on their recent dealings with the Philadelphia Historical Commission; what incentives, policies or funding mechanisms are needed; and finally other people or groups that should be involved in the Preservation Plan. The discussions were led by Donna Ann Harris and had one to fourteen participants.

Each group’s concerns were summarized around the main themes or issues that were important to that group. The report contains unedited comments by group members to show the range of concerns expressed by participants. The report is dividing into two sections. The first part describes the major findings. The findings are issues and themes that came up repeatedly in the group discussions. The second section of this report contains summaries from the groups interviewed

The full report may be downloaded from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia at
http://www.preservationalliance.com/advocacy/currentissues.php#preserve

A second set of focus groups will occur this winter.