On 31 May 02, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) approved the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) Program Comments for all Capehart and Wherry Era (1949-62) Housing, Associated Structures, and Landscape Features, which the Army had requested.

The Program Comment provides a one-time, Army-wide NHPA compliance action for all Capehart and Wherry Era housing (19,000+ buildings) for the following management actions: maintenance and repair; rehabilitation; layaway and mothballing; renovation; demolition; and transfer, sale, or lease from Federal ownership. The Comment is effective immediately.

This is a major achievement for the Army and is directly beneficial to the Army's housing privatization initiative. The Program Comment allows RCI privatization to proceed without further NHPA compliance for the entire class of properties. Additionally, it allows installations to proceed with renovation, or demolition of Capehart-Wherry era housing without any further project-by-project NHPA Section 106 review. The Program Comment mitigation includes a revised historic context, Neighborhood Design Guidelines, and video documentation. The sole obligation that remains for installations is to consider the Neighborhood Design Guidelines when conducting actions that will affect Capehart-Wherry housing, and to document that consideration in an appropriate place, such as NEPA documentation. Further details can be found in the Memo to the Field on the Capehart-Wherry Program Comment (64.3kb PDF).

The revised historic context and neighborhood design guidelines can be downloaded directly by DoD users and contractors via DENIX:

Housing an Army: The Wherry and Capehart Era Solutions to the Postwar Family Housing Shortage (1949-1962)

• A Historic Context (48.6mb PDF) DENIX User Account Required
• Neighborhood Design Guidelines (13.2mb PDF) DENIX User Account Required