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TextStewardship Cutural Resources
Stewardship of cultural resources is a broad Park Authority responsibility. In addition to the many historic sites owned and managed by the Park Authority, responsibility for assessment and protection of archaeological resources on parkland and Countywide lies with the Park Authority's Cultural Resource Management and Protection team. Human activity and lack of adequate financial resources are major threats to the condition and preservation of cultural resources in Fairfax County.
Trends related to this theme: Best practices for historic buildings now recommend the rehabilitation and/or restoration of buildings rather than mothballing. A trend with the Federal government (Section 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act) is to conduct active resource management for cultural resources through assessment, survey and National Register evaluation of properties upfront, before they are threatened by impacts. Technological advances, such as the use of GPS, digital imaging, infrared and aerial photography, remote sensing and special analyses of findings are being incorporated into the documentation of sites.
Countywide objectives related to this theme:
- Stabilize, restore, repair, and renovate significant historic structures in the Park Authority's ownership to ensure their preservation and availability for public viewing and interpretation.
- Identify, assess and evaluate threatened cultural resources prior to any proposed construction activity.
- Avoid impacts to National Register eligible cultural resources where feasible. If impacts cannot be avoided mitigation level documentation or data recovery should occur.
- Provide new, expanded and upgraded facilities to preserve, restore and house museum and artifact collections to ensure their preservation for future generations.
District-level Cultural Resource Stewardship strategy suggestions include: restoring and preserving specific historic buildings, reconstructing historic outbuildings, and conducting archaeological surveys.
To address Cultural Resource Stewardship needs, district-level strategies in the Great Parks, Great Communities Plan incorporate recommendations from the Cultural Resource Management Plan.
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