The Getty Conservation Institute has published a guidebook, Incentives for the Preservation and Rehabilitation of Historic Homes in the City of Los Angeles, to assist homeowners and prospective owners of older homes in Los Angeles in identifying financial, tax, and regulatory incentives of benefit to owners of older residential properties. It is designed to help property owners to learn whether they might be eligible for such incentives and to understand how to gain access to them. While focused on incentives for homeowners in Los Angeles, the publication contains information and ideas with broader applicability.

In recent years, cities across the United States have created incentives through government sponsorship, foundation initiatives, and local organizations to provide regulatory relief, funding, and technical assistance for owners of properties identified as historic or culturally significant. The GCI's guidebook describes important and useful incentives currently available in Los Angeles which contribute to the pride and benefit of historic home ownership.

The guidebook is a component of the Institute's Los Angeles Historic Resource Survey project. Through this project, the GCI is collaborating with a diverse group of agencies and organizations, including the City of Los Angeles, to develop a comprehensive, citywide historic resource survey—a process by which Los Angeles's historic properties might be identified and incorporated into the community's conservation and revitalization goals.

In addition to the guidebook, the GCI has completed research undertaken as part of its involvement in the Los Angeles survey planning project (see Conservation, vol. 18, no. 1). The report on this research is intended to inform decision makers on the development of a historic resource survey. It identifies the elements of a survey process and lays out the framework for a citywide survey that would be developed according to professional standards and that would provide clear, reliable, and accessible information on the range of historic properties and districts throughout Los Angeles. While not making recommendations or intending to limit the city's options or decision making process, the GCI research sets forth the issues that might be considered in the formulation of a comprehensive survey.

Copies of the guidebook, Incentives for the Preservation and Rehabilitation of Historic Homes in the City of Los Angeles, are available free of charge in PDF format on the Getty Web site at: www.getty.edu/conservaton/field_projects/lasurvey/
lasurvey_publications.html .