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OIA wants ‘culturally sensitive’ CIP projects
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Posted on Aug 28 2005
The U.S. Department of the Interior is seeking to enter into an agreement with local government agencies to ensure that all federally funded projects in the Commonwealth receive thorough assessment of possible effects to the islands’ cultural and historical resources.
The other parties in the proposed agreement are the CNMI capital improvement projects coordinator, the CNMI Historic Preservation Office, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
The Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs said the agreement aims to delegate OIA’s responsibility to review individual CIP projects, in relation to compliance with the historic preservation law, to the local CIP coordinator.
The draft agreement notes that CIP projects can affect district, sites, buildings, structures, and objects included in or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and are therefore, subject to review under the National Historic Preservation Act.
According to the agreement, the local government in most cases submits CIP project proposals to OIA for concurrence in two phases: first, for architect and engineer design work and second, for actual construction work.
“OIA’s direct involvement in individual CIP projects makes it unrealistic for OIA to conduct the review of such individual projects under [the implementing regulations of the National Historic Preservation Law] and OIA has determined that a programmatic agreement is appropriate to provide an efficient mechanism for achieving compliance with [the regulations],” reads a portion the draft agreement.
Mainly, the agreement delegates the CIP administrator to act as OIA’s agent in carrying out the review of CIP projects under the historic preservation regulations.
The terms and conditions of the agreement were formulated based on consultation with HPO and the Advisory Council.
