Even though St. Augustine is synonymous with historic preservation, hosting the state’s most prestigious historic preservationists is nonetheless a very special event.

For the second time in just six years, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation will hold its annual meeting in St. Augustine. Set for the week of May 13, 2013, the conference will be preceded by a Certified Local Government training workshop made possible by a grant to the City of St. Augustine from the Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation.

The CLG workshops follow guidelines set by the Bureau and have been held in various locations across the state to educate and train historic preservation commissions and their related professionals that deal with identifying and regulating historic and archaeological resources.

St. Augustine received its Certified Local Government in 1986, the initial year of the program in Florida, because of its strong historic and archaeological preservation ordinance. City staff and the Historic Architectural Review Board are responsible for carrying out the CLG responsibilities.

Over the years, the city has been the beneficiary of numerous grants available to it because of it being a CLG, grants that haves supported the research necessary to inventory thousands of historic resources and develop nominations for seven National Register Historic Districts.

The training workshop will cover a variety of topics that include basic operations of a CLG as well as regional issues and challenges facing historic preservation commissions.

Following the training workshop, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation will hold its annual conference. When St. Augustine last hosted the conference in 2006 it drew over 500 attendees, a record for the organization.

Topics range from historic building technologies and management plans, archaeological preservation and interpretation, and cemetery and landscape preservation using the culturally diverse resources of St. Augustine and St. Johns County for tours, venues, and interactive opportunities.

Both the CLG training workshop and the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation annual conference are certain to draw the most knowledgeable preservation professionals from across the state and region as well as several national figures in the field from both the public and private sectors. And certainly, there is no more appropriate setting for historic preservation professionals to meet than in St. Augustine.

For more information, contact Jenny Wolfe, Historic Preservation and Special Projects Planner, at 904.209.4326.