Section 10. Definitions

Part I. Definitions; Applicability

The following words and terms, when used in this chapter, shall have the following meaning, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:

"Board" means the Virginia Board of Historic Resources.

"Building" means a structure created to shelter any form of human activity, such as a house, barn, church, hotel, or similar structure. "Building" may also refer to a historically related complex such as a courthouse and jail or a house and barn.

"Chief elected local official" means the mayor of the city or town or the chairman of the board of supervisors of the county in which the property is located.

"Department" means the Department of Historic Resources.

"Designation" means an act of official recognition by the Board of Historic Resources designed to educate the public to the significance of the designated resource and to encourage local governments and property owners to take the designated property's historic, architectural, archaeological, and cultural significance into account in their planning, the local government comprehensive plan, and their decision making. Designation, itself, shall not regulate the action of local governments or property owners with regard to the designated property.

"Director" means the Director of the Department of Historic Resources.

"District" means a geographically definable area possessing a significant concentration, linkage, or continuity of sites, buildings, structures, or objects united by past events or aesthetically by plan or physical development. A district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. A district includes local tax parcels that have separate owners. For purposes of this chapter, a historic district does not mean a locally established historic zoning district pursuant to § 15.1-503.2 of the Code of Virginia.

"Nomination form" means the form prescribed by the board for use by any person in presenting a property to the board for designation by the board.

"Object" means a material thing of functional, aesthetic, cultural, historical, or scientific value that may be, by nature or design, movable yet related to a specific setting or environment. Examples of objects include boats, monuments, and fixed pieces of sculpture.

"Owner" or "owners" means those individuals, partnerships, corporations, or public agencies holding fee simple title to property. "Owner" or "owners" does not include individuals, partnerships, corporations, or public agencies holding easements or less than fee interests (including leaseholds) of any nature.

"Site" means the location of a significant event, a prehistoric or historic occupation or activity, or a building or structure, whether standing, ruined, or vanished, where the location itself maintains historical or archeological value regardless of the value of any existing structure.

"Structure" means a man-made work composed of interdependent and interrelated parts in a definite pattern of organization. In addition to buildings, structures include bridges, dams, canals, docks, walls, and other engineering works.

"Virginia Landmarks Register" means the official list of properties designated by the board pursuant to § 10.1-2204(1) of the Code of Virginia, or by the board's predecessor boards, as constituting the principal historical, architectural, and archaeological resources that are of local, statewide, or national significance.

Historical Notes

Derived from VR390-01-03 § 1.1, eff. February 9, 1994.

Statutory Authority

§ 10.1-2205 of the Code of Virginia.