Franklin County, WA Historic Preservation: Historic-Cultural Monuments (2026)

Franklin County's zoning code does not create a local historic register or a preservation commission. The county's one historic-preservation tool lives inside Title 17's special permits chapter: Section 17.82.030 allows a special permit for the 'preservation by adaptive reuse of an historic place, accepted on the National Register of Historic Places,' so the property must already carry National Register status before this permit applies. The permit lets the owner put the historic building to uses that the zoning district would not otherwise allow, which is the incentive meant to keep a historic structure standing and occupied instead of vacant or demolished.

Two conditions attach to any permit granted under this section. First, under subsection A, the permit is personal to the applicant: it cannot be assigned, transferred, conveyed, or passed to heirs or an estate's beneficiaries, so a sale of the property does not carry the adaptive-reuse authority with it. Second, under subsection B, the permittee must substantially preserve the intrinsic qualities that earned the property its National Register listing, and before the county issues any building permit for the reuse, it may consult the Washington State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation to confirm the project meets that standard. Because it is a special permit, an applicant follows the same procedure as any other special permit in Chapter 17.82: an application under Section 17.82.060, an open-record hearing before the Planning Commission under Section 17.82.070, findings of fact under Section 17.82.080, and a final decision by the Board of County Commissioners under Section 17.82.110, appealable to Franklin County Superior Court.