The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced this week a major plan to put resources toward the preservation of Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, the architecturally distinctive heart of the city's vibrant Cuban community. The group also named the neighborhood to its list of National Treasures, a list of 75 neighborhoods threatened by outsize development or neglect.

Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado is teaming up with the Trust on this endeavor, which aims to protect the neighborhood from large-scale developments, historic demolition, and creeping gentrification through a new city plan that might result in a new special zoning district for the neighborhood.

The announcement is reassuring to neighborhood advocates; just this week, the city scrapped a proposal that would have upzoned much of East Little Havana to encourage redevelopment.

After extensive planning and analysis, in seven months the Trust plans to deliver a report that will detail existing conditions in the neighborhood and put forth recommendations for preservation and revitalization strategies.

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A plan to save Little Havana from big development? [Miami Herald]