New Ideas For Preserving Old Charleston

"The city [of Charleston] is gearing up to revise its 32-year-old preservation plan, a document widely admired but one that time is gradually passing by.

At stake will be whether and how the city extends its preservation ethic and laws into its 20th century suburbs, into sensitive archaeological sites, possibly even into the interior of homes.

'We live in a different city than we did 30 years ago and the challenges to preservation have changed accordingly,' Katherine Saunders of the [Historic Charleston] foundation says. 'Many issues simply need to be refined, while new issues, like archaeology and the preservation of the city's environs, need to be addressed.'

The city has chosen Page & Turnbull, a San Francisco-based architectural and planning firm, to come up with a new preservation plan, and that firm has brought aboard Charles Chase, Charleston's former preservation architect and current executive director of San Francisco Architectural Heritage."