Establishing a historic preservation ordinance is an important milestone for any jurisdiction, but merely having an ordinance in place isn’t enough to protect important places.

To truly benefit the community, a jurisdiction should promote its ordinance by encouraging residents to nominate significant properties for landmark designation. 

A few jurisdictions in Los Angeles County have historic preservation ordinances yet have designated few or no landmarks.

In some instances, a community’s most recently designated buildings were landmarked years ago. In these cases, a community may have created an ordinance at the height of a prominent preservation issue as a way to protect a significant structure, and then abandoned it as a preservation tool once the initial advocacy threat was resolved.