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9 AGENDA ITEM#5: PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING: NATIONAL REGISTER NOMINATION OF THE CEDAR GROVE RURAL CROSSROADS HISTORIC DISTRICT Linda Edmisten,National Register Coordinator,NC Division of Archives and History, address the Commission. Ms. Edmisten summarized the areas of significance under which a district is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Cedar Grove is significant in that it represents historical patterns of agricultural land use. In Cedar Grove, areas of cultivation have remained relatively unchanged since the 19th century. This is extremely rare in North Carolina. Cedar Grove is also significant in that it represents the vernacular architecture of the 19th century rural Piedmont. Ms. Edmisten further explained the National Register listing process. National Register listing is an incentive program,not a regulatory one. Listing bears no restrictions on land uses or the actions of private property owners to modify their structure in any way. National Register listing also makes property owners eligible for federal and state income tax credits for rehabilitation work. These credits apply to both non-residential and residential properties. Effective January 1, 1998,North Carolina will allow a 30% state income tax credit for qualified rehabilitations. Combined with a federal income tax credit for rehabilitation,North Carolina now has one of the most attractive historic preservation incentive programs in the nation. National Register listing also ensures a state environmental review of any federally-funded project that could affect a National Register property or district. The next step in the National Register process will be a consideration of the Cedar Grove nomination at the meeting of the National Register Advisory Committee at the Museum of History in Raleigh on January 8, 1998. Then,the nomination will forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register,National Park Service. We could expect to hear of the listing by early April, 1998. Ms. Kaye Graybeal presented some slides of the Cedar Grove district and reviewed the "statement of significance" from the nomination document. Several areas of significance for Cedar Grove were illustrated by the slides. The Cedar Grove Rural Crossroads Historic District is eligible for National Register listing under Criteria A and C. Criterion A of the National Register evaluation process states that "property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. " Cedar Grove has significance in four areas under Criterion A: Exploration and Settlement. Cedar Grove exhibits the historical pattern of development in North Carolina's rural agricultural communities which manifested in the emergence of commercial and social centers along the intersections of primary roads. The district embodies the characteristics of a once-prevalent rural agrarian landscape that evolved as a result of human activity and use. Of the half-dozen or so rural crossroads communities that evolved during the nineteenth century in Orange County, Cedar Grove is among the most intact and least altered examples among this disappearing genre. 2 Attachment (3)