NJ League of Municipalities Publishes H2M Historic Preservation Article

NJ Municipalities, the official publication of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, recently published an article on historic preservation planning by H2M Practice Leader for Land Use Planning Sanyogita Chavan, PP, AICP, and City of Jersey City Principal Historic Preservation Specialist Maggie O’Neill.

The article, titled “Beyond Landmarks: How to Leverage Historic Preservation for Economic Development,” outlines how creative and comprehensive applications of historic preservation planning strategies can yield a wide array of benefits for municipalities. For example, developing standards for adaptive reuse can encourage residential developers to revitalize older, underutilized structures into multifamily apartment buildings while preserving their historical aesthetic. Adaptive reuse standards help the developer make the most of limited space for housing, improving affordability while also creating new tax revenue from buildings that would otherwise lie vacant.

Other strategies that Chavan and O’Neill offer include codifying local designation criteria to better protect neighborhoods from inappropriate development, and creating transition area overlays that help blend historic and modern aesthetics to reduce the risk of scattered, incongruous development (e.g. a 21st-century building next to an 18th-century building).

To read the full article, visit the NJ Municipalities website or pick up the May 2025 issue of NJ Municipalities.