No Regulation Over Interior Design, Lack of Enforcement and Need For Employees: St. Croix HPC Calls For Help

The HPC calls for closer cooperation with lawmakers to extend their jurisdiction inside historic buildings, aiming to preserve critical heritage

Last week’s meeting of the St. Croix Historic Preservation Committee highlighted the pressing need for a collaborative effort to strengthen the entity as well as update legislation surrounding how historic districts are administered. During a lengthy debate about signage requirements for businesses and the plethora of signage and other violations dotting the historic towns of the Virgin Islands, territorial Historic Preservation Commission Chair Kurt Marsh emphasized how impossible the task of enforcement was with that responsibility delegated to a board composed of volunteers with only one paid employee.

Mr. Marsh reminded that the HPC’s responsibilities extended not just to the historic districts, but to all National Register sites. “So the ruins across each of the islands, the mills, Buck Island – we have much more that we are responsible for than just the historic district,” he said. “But because of capacity, most of the activity has been held to the districts for at least the past 20 years or so.”