Pinellas County, FL Historic Preservation: Historic-Cultural Monuments (2026)

The designation process starts under Section 146-6(a): the property owner, an appointed agent, or the county's housing and community development director, with owner consent, files an application, and the historic resource database serves as the initial reference. The Historic Preservation Board must hold a public hearing within 60 days of a completed application, evaluate testimony and survey information, and forward a recommendation, and it may defer if the record is incomplete. The Board of County Commissioners then holds its own public hearing and can approve, approve with modifications, defer or deny, after which an approved landmark is recorded on the official zoning map.

Under the Section 146-6(e)(1) criteria quoted above, the board can designate a resource for its integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship or association where it is tied to distinctive cultural, social, political, economic, scientific, religious, prehistoric or architectural history in the community, county, southwest Florida, the state or nation; is associated with a person significant to the county's past; embodies a distinctive type, period, style, method of construction, or the work of a master, or possesses high artistic value; has yielded or is likely to yield information on history or prehistory; or is listed or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Subsections 146-6(e)(2) and (e)(3) add companion tests for historic or cultural significance and for architectural or aesthetic significance that county staff apply alongside the primary criteria. Once a designation application is filed, Section 146-6(f) suspends the issuance of building, demolition, relocation or excavation permits on the subject property until the Board of County Commissioners takes final action, and any permit already issued may be suspended.

A designated landmark also triggers a certificate of appropriateness before any building, demolition, relocation, excavation or new-construction permit under Section 146-7, and non-compliant work can be halted with a written stop-work order under Section 146-10.