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 | MHPN Advocacy Day participants meeting with Senator Margaret O'Brien in 2016
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MHPN's Advocacy Day Returns
by Chris Fraleigh, Executive Director
The Michigan Historic Preservation Network is pleased to announce that the popular in-person Advocacy Day will be held on Tuesday, January 28, 2023. Like previous years, the workshop will be held in the Christman Building, 208 North Capitol Avenue, Lansing, and will include in-person visits to legislators in the Capitol Campus building.
This is the first in-person Advocacy Day hosted by the MHPN since 2020! The 2023 legislative session is just beginning and includes a number of new lawmakers from a diverse cross section of the state's population as a result of redistricting. It is MHPN’s goal to introduce as many legislators as possible to historic preservation, with members from their own communities carrying the message, about how preservation can benefit their constituent communities. Many of the new lawmakers have strong arts and culture backgrounds, predisposing them to your comments and ideas.
Please join MHPN as we host a day-long workshop, which will include information on current bills, talking points for your conversations, workshop speakers, lunch, and meetings arranged on your behalf with your legislators to be held during the course of the day. Come with your friends and make a bigger impression at your elected official meetings!
Coming soon! More information registration and cost!
Many thanks to Kelley Cawthorne, Michigan Municipal League, and Chistman Company for their part in making the program a success.
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New Chair for Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Named
For those of you who attended the 2022 MHPN Statewide HIstoric Preservation Conference in Holly, you should recognize the name of Sara Bronin. Ms. Bronin was our keynote speaker on Friday, who spoke about Taking Preservation Mainstream.
On December 21, 2022, we learned that the U.S. Senate confirmed, by voice vote, the nomination of Sara Bronin to the chairmanship of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). The ACHP is an independent federal agency comprised of twenty-four Presidentially appointed members from federal agencies, preservation organizations, Indian tribes, and expert private citizens. It has a staff of forty-two employees based in Washington, D.C. who carry out historic preservation case reviews, provide training in historic preservation law and policy, conduct outreach to the American public on the importance of historic sites and community preservation, and much more.
Ms. Bronin is a Mexican-American architect, attorney, professor, and policymaker whose interdisciplinary work focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. She is a Professor of the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, an Associated Faculty Member of the Cornell Law School, and a Faculty Fellow of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. In addition to her books and treatises on land use and historic preservation law, she has written over two dozen articles on renewable energy, climate change, housing, urban planning, transportation, real estate development, and federalism.
Professor Bronin is a board member of Latinos in Heritage Conservation and an advisor for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Sustainable Development Code. As the founder of Desegregate Connecticut, she leads a coalition that successfully advanced the first major statewide zoning reforms in several decades. Previously, she chaired Preservation Connecticut, served on the city of Hartford historic preservation commission, an led Hartford’s nationally-recognized efforts to adopt a climate action plan and overhaul the zoning code.
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LEGISLATIVE UPDATE:
Congress Passes Year-End Omnibus Funding Bill With Record Support for Historic Preservation
After weeks of negotiations and an additional week long continuing resolution to keep the government open until December 23rd, Congress passed a wide reaching year-end omnibus funding bill. The final bill passed the House and Senate and was signed by President Biden. The bill included a 10% increase in defense spending and 5.5% increase in domestic spending.
The bill funds the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) at $204.5 million, marking a record level of funding for the program for the 7th consecutive year and a 18% increase over FY22 enacted levels. This includes much needed increases for State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (S/THPOs). The bill funds SHPOs at $62.15 million, ensuring that no SHPO will receive a funding decrease after reapportionment. THPOs will receive $23 million, a substantial $7 million increase over last year. The final bill also includes funding increases for the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization grants, African American Civil Rights Grants and HBCU Preservation grants. Check out the full breakdown below:
Historic Preservation Fund FY23 Levels
$62.15 million for State Historic Preservation Offices ($4.475M over FY22)
$23 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Offices ($7M over FY22)
$26.5 million for Save America's Treasures (same as FY22)
$24 million for the African American Civil Rights grant program ($2.25M over FY22)
$12.5 million for Paul Bruhn grants ($2.5M over FY22)
$11 million for HBCU preservation grants ($1M over FY22)
$10 million for the Semiquincentennial grant program (same as FY22)
$5 million for the History of Equal Rights Grant program ($375,000 over FY22)
$1.25 million for Underrepresented Communities Grants (same as FY22)
$29.115 million in Congressionally Directed Spending for HPF Projects ($13.843M over FY22)
Total: $204.515 million ($31.443 million over FY22)
Preservation Action (PA) submitted testimony in support of $200 million for the HPF in March. Earlier this month, PA also joined several of our preservation partners on a letter urging support for $191 million for the HPF.
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Certified Local Governments (CLG) Updates and Grant Deadlines
Reminder! FY23 CLG Grant Applications Now Available—Due February 1, 2023
Applications for FY23 CLG Grants are now available. Application materials are available here. A copy of SHPO’s informational webinar on the CLG grant program is also available at the link. As a reminder, grants are available for both rehabilitation projects as well as planning, documentation, and education projects and any community entered into the CLG program by the application due date can apply for the funding. Applications are due February 1, 2023. Requests for preliminary review of applications are due by Friday, December 9. Preliminary review is optional and is not required to submit an application.
Upcoming Grant Deadlines:
January 15: Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Minigrants and Arts in Education. Round 2 of the MACC Minigrant Program as well as the Arts in Education grant program are open for application. The deadline for submission is January 15 for projects taking place between March 1 and September 23. For more information click here,
February 1: Michigan State Historic Preservation Office, Certified Local Government Grants. SHPO is accepting applications for FY23 Certified Local Government grants until February 1, 2023. Applications may be for planning, documentation, and education projects as well as rehabilitation projects. Additional details and application materials are available here.
February 24: National Trust for Historic Preservation/Partners for Sacred Places, National Fund for Sacred Places. The National Fund offers matching grants to rehabilitation work on historic houses of worship. Letters of intent for the 2023 National Fund for Sacred Places will open in January and be accepted until February 24. For more information click here.,
March 23: Michigan Humanities Grants: Humanities Grants emphasize collaboration among cultural, educational and community-based organizations and institutions in order to serve Michigan’s people with public humanities programming. More information is available at the Michigan Humanities program website.
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Upcoming MHPN Workshops
MHPN's monthly webinars are free and open to everyone to register. Miss the live event? Recordings on our YouTube channel.
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Preservation In the News
"Historic farmstead near Ann Arbor could be flipped to new owner with protections in place," MLive, by Lucas Smolcic Larson, January 1, 2023.
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Preservation Calendar
February 28, 2023: MHPN Advocacy Day, Lansing
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