Nakita Reed
2026 Fitch Mid-Career Fellow
Navigating Historic Preservation Approvals for Climate Adaptation
The climate crisis demands urgent action across all sectors of the built environment, yet historic buildings—which constitute approximately 50% of the building stock in many American cities—face unique regulatory challenges when owners and architects attempt to implement climate resilience measures. The Secretary of Interior Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, state and local preservation ordinances, and federal, state, and local review processes create a complex regulatory landscape that practitioners must navigate to upgrade building envelopes, install renewable energy systems, improve energy efficiency, and implement flood mitigation strategies.
Currently, no comprehensive resource exists that maps these approval pathways or documents how different preservation authorities interpret and apply standards to common climate interventions. Building owners and architects across the United States struggle to understand what sustainability measures are allowable under the Secretary of Interior Standards, local preservation ordinances, and state/federal review processes. This confusion delays essential climate adaptation work and perpetuates the false narrative that historic preservation and environmental stewardship are incompatible goals. By equipping decision-makers with clearer pathways to compliance, this project has potential to strengthen preservation practice, reduce friction in reuse projects, and ultimately expand the number of stakeholders who can successfully and confidently engage in historic building reuse.
Unlike existing guidance documents that explain regulatory text, this project will reveal how regulations are actually applied, what negotiation strategies succeed, where flexibility exists within standards, and where regulatory bottlenecks consistently occur. This project addresses an urgent professional need while advancing scholarly understanding of the intersection between historic preservation policy and climate adaptation. By documenting real-world approval processes and identifying patterns in regulatory decision-making, this research will provide practitioners with actionable guidance that accelerates climate adaptation in historic buildings while maintaining preservation integrity.
Image: Nakita Reed