Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan Update
CULTURAL HERITAGE STEWARDSHIP PLAN UPDATE
On September 28, 2026, Richmond’s City Council approved the Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan as an amendment to the City’s Master Plan Richmond 300: A Guide for Growth. The Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan is the City of Richmond’s first ever city-wide comprehensive plan for identifying, recognizing, and safeguarding Richmond’s valuable historic and cultural community assets.
The Richmond 300 Master Plan identified the development of a preservation plan as one of several priorities for the City of Richmond. The Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan (which was developed over several years between 2023 and 2025 with multiple rounds of stakeholder engagement and review by a subcommittee of the Planning Commission) includes a vision, goals and policy recommendations to: engage and educate; identify and recognize; and conserve and manage change.
The Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan outlines practical strategies and policy recommendations to enhance the City’s existing policies, ordinances, and programs to help us balance new development with the equally important goal of protecting existing communities, and the unique cultural and historical assets that make Richmond special.
The Plan is a reflection of broad community input over several years in a transparent public process, and provides a guiding philosophy for preservation activities and a framework for future policy development work by internal and external stakeholders.
The Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan identifies four priority “Big Moves” intended to guide implementation over the coming years. The Plan calls on the City to lead by example through proactive stewardship of its own historic buildings, parks, streetscapes, and other cultural resources; undertake a comprehensive citywide architectural and archaeological survey to identify and recognize Richmond’s historic assets, particularly those in historically underrepresented communities; implement new state-enabled preservation tools, including rehabilitation tax incentives and civil penalties for unauthorized demolition in Old and Historic Districts; and evaluate tax assessment and abatement policies to encourage rehabilitation, support housing creation through adaptive reuse, reduce displacement pressures, and ensure that historic resources are not inadvertently incentivized for demolition. Collectively, these initiatives establish a framework for balancing preservation, economic development, housing, equity, and neighborhood stability while providing a clear roadmap for stewardship of Richmond’s cultural resources.
One of the Plan’s “Big Moves” - the implementation of civil penalties for unauthorized demolitions in a City Old & Historic District - was successfully implemented earlier this year when Ordinance 2025-265 was adopted by City Council on January 12, 2026. The fines permitted by this new ordinance will provide a more effective deterrent against the willful or negligent unpermitted demolition of contributing historic structures throughout our City’s Old and Historic Districts.
The Cultural Heritage Stewardship Plan focuses on, celebrates and incentivizes Richmond’s historic resources and cultural heritage and acknowledges the role historic preservation plays in shaping Richmond’s urban form and character.
Thank you for supporting the effort to develop this plan!
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.