Weigh In On Richmond’s Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan
CULTURAL HERITAGE STEWARDSHIP PLAN UPDATE
The Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan was approved by the Planning Commission on Tuesday, November 18, 2025 with a few minor changes. The Plan will next be sent to the City Council for a vote. Historic Richmond plans to be in attendance, and will be sharing meeting details as soon as we have them.
We appreciate the energy and efforts of all who engaged with the development of the plan over the past two years. We will need you to continue to be engaged as the Plan moves forward to City Council. We recommend that you:
1. Reach out to your City Council representative to express your support for the Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan and its aspirational goals of stewardship of our important historic and cultural community assets.
2. Stay tuned for updates from us about when the Plan will appear on the City Council Agenda.
3. Stay engaged!
City Council Contact Information
Andrew Breton, 1st District
804-646-5935
Katherine Jordan, 2nd District
804-646-6532
Kenya Gibson, 3rd District
804-646-6055
Sarah Abubaker, 4th District
804-646-5646
Stephanie Lynch, 5th District
804-646-5724
Ellen Robertson, 6th District
804-646-7964
Cynthia Newbille, 7th District
804-646-3012
Reva Trammell, 8th District
804-646-6591
Nicole Jones
804-646-2779
About the Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan (CHSP)
The CHSP will be Richmond’s first ever city-wide comprehensive plan for identifying, evaluating, and protecting valuable historic and cultural community assets. The City’s consultants, Commonwealth Preservation Group, spent the last two years engaging with stakeholders in the community and compiling strategies and policy recommendations to help us balance new development with the equally important goal of protecting existing communities, and the unique cultural and historical assets that make us special. The plan’s recommendations should inform the ongoing Zoning Code Refresh initiative, which is a re-write process to develop new zoning categories and descriptions, and then map those categories to every parcel in the city. The CHSP outlines successful strategies and policy recommendations to enhance the City’s existing policies, ordinances, and programs, designs practical strategies and achievable goals, and acknowledges the role historic preservation plays in shaping Richmond’s urban form and character.
Why is preservation important?
- New construction can’t keep up with housing demand, and most of it isn’t affordable to low- and middle-income residents. Older neighborhoods often offer a mix of housing options, including smaller multi-family buildings and smaller homes that tend to be more affordable than newer ones. Tearing down these smaller, older homes to build luxury housing reduces the amount of naturally occurring affordable housing available.
- Areas composed of older, smaller, more age-diverse buildings have more jobs per commercial square foot, more businesses with women/minority ownership, and more non-chain establishments, keeping a higher share of generated revenue in the local economy.
- Preservation is inherently sustainable—reusing existing buildings reduces carbon emissions by keeping tons of building material out of landfills and reducing the need for new construction.
- Preservation creates jobs, encourages investment, and keeps money moving in the local economy by focusing spending on labor rather than materials. Nationwide the rehabilitation of existing buildings represents nearly $85 billion every year. Between 2015-2020 HRTC projects in Virginia created $2.2B in private spending, $4.1B in economic activity, and 28,850 jobs (including rehab and post-rehab)
Why do we need the Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan?
- Richmond is a unique and authentic place whose historic structures and neighborhoods contribute to its distinctive character. Retaining that sense of place is important to our city’s prospects for future growth and vitality.
- People come to Richmond for the history and the built environment—both tourists and new residents.
- Historic sites and landmarks, restaurants, and museums have been the most important motivators leading visitors to select Richmond as a destination
- Heritage/cultural tourism is one of the fastest-growing segments of the global tourism industry. Cultural/heritage tourists tend to stay longer, spend more, and travel more often than other tourists.
- The story of Richmond is told through its built environment– but a huge portion of that history is currently unrecognized and unprotected. The CHSP calls for a city-wide survey to identify and recognize historic and cultural resources.
- Existing protections are insufficient—we have lost so much and are losing more every day. These losses disproportionately affect specific portions of the Richmond community.
- Archaeology helps us understand the history of a cultural resource where issues of integrity are in play. The City of Richmond currently lacks any kind of protective measures regarding archaeological sites, leaving them vulnerable to rezoning and potential development.
- Richmond is a city of neighborhoods, each with its own intangible resources – people, our culture, and our traditions. These also require protection and support as communities move and change.
- The combination of logistical support, regulatory protections and financial incentives laid out in the Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan are necessary to help direct investment and development in a manner that retains what makes the City special as we continue to grow. These include:
- a demolition review process to build in transparency and opportunity for community engagement BEFORE something irreplaceable is torn down,
- an updated tax abatement program and other financial incentives to encourage adaptive reuse over demolition,
- an improved spot blight program to prevent demolition by neglect, and
- the development of new zoning districts and tools that support, protect, and enhance neighborhood character.