California Preservation Foundation

Education - The 2023 Annual Conference was held at Fort Mason, from April 19-26, 2023, featuring 7 tracks and 30 sessions, attended by 602 participants, including 124 speakers. This was our first hybrid conference, with sessions broadcast live. We continued our conference student scholarship program with 2 recipients, each receiving financial support for their attendance and presentations of their research topics. We resumed our in-person awards programs at the 2023 Conference. The 40th Annual Preservation Design Awards at Fort Mason honored 16 project teams. Doors Open California saw significant growth with over 87 unique sites and 690 attendees, a 63 increase from the previous year. Los Angeles led in attendance, with 47 visiting Southern California sites. FY 2022-2023 online education program offered 17 programs, including a boot camp on the Secretary of the Interiors Standards, a holiday series, and special interviews. The Home Safe Home, a FEMA-funded series on residential seismic safety, is available online, along with over 500 recorded programs.

Research - Our first Underrecognized California grant recipient was awarded in the late summer of 2023 and we began working with Chattel, Inc. to complete the nomination of Lenchitas as a Los Angeles HCM Historic Cultural Monument. Work on this project is ongoing and we hope to complete it by 2025.

Advocacy - Our Strategic Plan around Advocacy prioritizes a focus statewide issues. Last year, we sought to amend the Coastal Act to protect historic resources but faced certain challenges. In May 2023, we supported a bill to establish a statewide Legacy Business Registry. Since June 2023, we have been working with housing advocates to ensure protections for historic resources in new legislation that would streamline adaptive reuse of buildings to housing.