Registration

Introduction

Registration is the process of identifying and nominating historic resources to the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places. Our Registration staff assist citizens with all stages of the process. We guide the public through …

1. Preliminary applications
2. Nomination forms
3. Consideration by the State Review Board
4. Submission to the New Jersey Register
5. Review by the National Park Service

Resource inventories and references

What is a listed resource?

There are two separate but similar registers at the state and federal levels. Both registers use the same criteria for eligibility, nomination forms, and review process.

New Jersey Register of Historic Places (a.k.a. “State Register”)

The New Jersey Register is closely modeled after the National Register program. It is also a required first step before we can recommend them for national listing. This registry was established through the Register of Historic Places Act of 1970 (N.J.S.A. 13:1B-15.128 et seq.).

National Register of Historic Places

The official list of the nation’s historic resources worthy of preservation. Resources can include districts, sites, structures, buildings and objects. These can be of local, state or national significance. This registry was established in 1966 through the National Historic Preservation Act (80 Stat. 915, as amended).

Nearly every municipality in New Jersey has significant properties. These can be noteworthy for one or more of the following reasons:

• Architecture
• History
• Archaeology
• Engineering
• Culture

What makes a resource eligible for listing?

Criteria and Criteria Considerations

The following are the National Park Service’s explanations of the Criteria for Evaluation and Criteria Considerations:

Criteria for Evaluation

The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, and:

• A. That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or
• B. That are associated with the lives of significant persons in our past; or
• C. That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or
• D. That have yielded or may be likely to yield, information important in history or prehistory.

Criteria Considerations

Ordinarily cemeteries, birthplaces, graves of historical figures, properties owned by religious institutions or used for religious purposes, structures that have been moved from their original locations, reconstructed historic buildings, properties primarily commemorative in nature, and properties that have achieved significance within the past 50 years shall not be considered eligible for the National Register. However, such properties will qualify if they are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria or if they fall within the following categories:

• a. A religious property deriving primary significance from architectural or artistic distinction or historical importance; or
• b. A building or structure removed from its original location but which is primarily significant for architectural value, or which is the surviving structure most importantly associated with a historic person or event; or
• c. A birthplace or grave of a historical figure of outstanding importance if there is no appropriate site or building associated with his or her productive life; or
• d. A cemetery that derives its primary importance from graves of persons of transcendent importance, from age, from distinctive design features, or from association with historic events; or
• e. A reconstructed building when accurately executed in a suitable environment and presented in a dignified manner as part of a restoration master plan, and when no other building or structure with the same association has survived; or
• f. A property primarily commemorative in intent if design, age, tradition, or symbolic value has invested it with its own exceptional significance; or
• g. A property achieving significance within the past 50 years if it is of exceptional importance.

Period of significance

In a separate bulletin, NPS describes the period of significance for a historic resource and how it relates to the Criteria for Evaluation:

Definition of period of significance

Period of significance is the length of time when a property was associated with important events, activities, or persons, or attained the characteristics which qualify it for National Register listing. Period of significance usually begins with the date when significant activities or events began giving the property its historic significance; this is often a date of construction. For prehistoric properties, the period of significance is the broad span of time about which the site or district is likely to provide information; it is often the period associated with a particular cultural group. …

Guidelines for selecting the periods of significance

• Criterion A: For the site of an important event, such as a pivotal five-month labor strike, the period of significance is the time when the event occurred. For properties associated with historic trends, such as commercial development, the period of significance is the span of time when the property actively contributed to the trend.
• Criterion B: The period of significance for a property significant for Criterion B is usually the length of time the property was associated with
  the important person.
• Criterion C: For architecturally significant properties, the period of significance is the date of construction and/or the dates of any significant alterations and additions.
• Criterion D: The period of significance for an archeological site is the estimated time when it was occupied or used for reasons related to its importance, for example, 3000-2500 B.C.

Additional guidelines

• The property must possess historic integrity for all periods of significance entered.
• Continued use or activity docs not necessarily justify continuing the period of significance. The period of significance is based upon the time when the property made the contributions or achieved the character on which significance is based.
• Fifty years ago is used as the closing date for periods of significance where activities begun historically continued to have importance and no more specific date can be defined to end the historic period. (Events and activities occurring within the last 50 years must be exceptionally important to be recognized as “historic” and to justify extending a period of significance beyond the limit of 50 years ago.)

Registration and property owners

Listing in the New Jersey or National Registers of Historic Places does not place restrictions on private property owner rights. They can utilize, renovate, alter, sell or demolish their property as long as their activity …

• Is within the limits of municipal zoning laws.
• Does not involve federal or state license, permit or funding.

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