The City of Ventura Community Development Department is working with Historic Resources Group to develop a historic context statement and to complete a comprehensive historic resources survey. The survey will focus on properties over 40 years old that are not designated historic landmarks.

The preparation of a comprehensive Citywide Historic Context Statement is currently underway.

We are looking for feedback! Read the Draft Historic Context Statement and submit your comments here.

We welcome your input - at any time during the project, tell us about the stories and places that matter most to you. Help us tell Ventura’s story!


A historic context statement:

  • Places built resources in the appropriate historic, social, and architectural context so that the relationship between an area’s physical environment and its broader history can be established

  • Highlights trends and patterns critical to the understanding of the built environment

  • Serves as a guide to enable citizens, planners, and decision-makers to understand the built environment

  • Provides a framework for the development of a comprehensive historic preservation program

  • Provides a framework for the continuing process of identifying historic, architectural, and cultural resources in the city

  • Is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the City of Ventura

  • Identifies the various historical factors that shaped the development of the area, including:

    • Historic activities or events

    • Important people

    • Building types

    • Architectural styles

    • Patterns of physical development

  • Links with tangible built resources through the concept of “property type,” a grouping of individual properties based on shared physical or associative characteristics

For more information, see the Historic Context Statement Outline.

Draft Historic Context Statement coming soon!

 
Project Timeline. Steps 1-3 are complete (Background research, Reconnaissance fieldwork and research, and Draft Context Statement); the project is on step for (Community Engagement).
 

Banner photo: Early Ventura Chinatown, 1890
Source: Black Gold Cooperative Library System