PRELIMINARY PAPERWORK NOW SUBMITTED FOR NATIONAL REGISTER HISTORIC DISTRICT

The process has started. With the submission of our preliminary paperwork to the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), the effort to create a National Register Historic District in Goodyear Heights is now fully underway.

The process begins with a preliminary questionnaire, which gives a general overview of the nominated area and requires the submitter to provide detailed information about the proposed district. This information generally covers four different criteria, which describe an area’s significance in terms of:


a) Historic significance in terms of key national or local historic events
b) Association with important people of national or local importance
c) Definitive characteristics, representing the work of a master, or distinctive features that make it representative of a type, period or method of design/construction
d) Association or potential for archaeological discovery

While many historic districts have been deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places using just one of these criteria, Goodyear Heights can claim to have significance using three of these criteria; a, b, and c. That provides a distinct advantage in pursuing our application.

Our preliminary paperwork also included a number of photographs, including houses, streetscapes, parks and other images which will provide our SHPO evaluation team with an image of the neighborhood’s current condition. Also important were maps of the proposed district and historic maps of the original phases of the allotment.

It’s a long evaluation process; once the materials are reviewed, a site visit to Goodyear Heights will be made by the SHPO to further research the neighborhood and, providing the submission is approved, they will provide recommendations and guidance for preparing the final application for the National Register of Historic Places. This will be submitted to the National Parks Service.

So – our work has just begun! If you have questions, or would like to offer help if it is needed, we would certainly like to hear from you. In the meantime, be sure to sign our online petition, which will help us as we pursue obtaining assistance from the city of Akron on this project.