Historic Guidelines - City of Melbourne, Florida

General Terms Defined
Rehabilitation - The act or process of returning a property to a state of utility through repair or
alteration which makes possible an efficient contemporary use, while preserving those portions or
features of the property which are significant to its historical, architectural, and cultural values.
Relocation – When a building is moved, intact, to a new site.
Renovation - Modernization of an old or historic building that may produce inappropriate alterations or
elimination of important features or details.
Repairable – Structures or building features that can be fixed or restored without creating an imminent
hazard to public safety. For the purpose of this document, it is assumed that most damage, including
partial termite or partial fire damage, can be repaired. It should be the applicant’s responsibility to
demonstrate otherwise.
Resource - Sites, buildings, structures, objects, districts, and areas, public or private, single or in
combination.
Restoration - Act or process of accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a property as
it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of features from other periods in its
history and reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period. The limited and sensitive
upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make
properties functional is appropriate within a restoration project.
Revitalization - The imparting of new economic and community life in an existing neighborhood, area,
or business district while at the same time preserving the original building stock and historic character.
Right-of-Way – The strip of land owned or controlled by the City or another governmental agency
over which the public has a right of passage, including the streets, parkways, medians, sidewalks and
driveways constructed thereon. For the purpose of this section “right-of-way” should exclude alleys.
Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation - A set of guidelines produced by the United
States Department of the Interior that establish professional standards for the sensitive rehabilitation
of an historic property. The ten (10) standards generally address design issues which include: character
defining features; changes which have occurred over the course of the property’s history; desirable
approaches to the repair of damaged features; appropriate cleaning methods, and design approaches
to new construction.
DRAFT
Setting - The physical environment of a historic property. It involves how, not just where, the property
is situated and its relationship to surrounding features and open space.
Site - The location of a significant event, activity, building, structure, or archaeological resource.
Site Improvement - Includes, but is not limited to, walls, fences, signs, sidewalks, planters, driveways,
paving and exterior lighting.
Streetscape - The distinguishing and pictorial character of a particular street as created by its width,
degree of curvature and paving materials, design of the street furniture, and forms of surrounding
buildings.
APPENDIX
Structure - As distinguished from buildings, the term structure indicates those functional constructions
made usually for purposes other than creating human shelter.
Visual Compatibility Criteria - Factors dealing with height, proportion, rhythms, materials and color,
which the Historic Preservation Board uses to determine whether new construction and renovation of
existing buildings is visually compatible with the Historic District.
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