Is my Indianapolis home in a historic district?

Indianapolis has a robust historic preservation framework administered by the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission (IHPC). If your home sits inside a designated district, any visible exterior alteration requires a Certificate of Appropriateness (CofA) from IHPC before DBNS can release the underlying building permit, even for work as small as a porch railing replacement or a front-door swap.

The formally designated districts include Lockerbie Square (one of the oldest preserved residential pockets downtown), Ransom Place (a historically Black neighborhood near IUPUI), Herron-Morton Place (north of Mass Ave, late-19th-century mansions), Fountain Square Commercial (the eastside commercial corridor), Chatham-Arch and Mass Ave (the entertainment district), Old Northside (Italianate and Queen Anne mansions north of downtown), St. Joseph (a small near-northside enclave), Meridian Park (early-20th-century bungalows and Tudor revival), Meridian Street Preservation (the grand Meridian Street corridor north to roughly 40th Street), and Woodruff Place (the only intact 19th-century residential park in the Midwest, with three esplanades). Individually landmarked properties scattered across Marion County are also subject to IHPC review even if not inside a district.

What triggers CofA review: window replacement (especially anything other than wood-clad replicas with matching sightlines), siding changes, roof material changes (especially asphalt to metal or vice versa), porch reconstruction, fence installation visible from the street, demolition or removal of original features, ADU additions, and exterior paint color in some districts. Interior-only work, mechanical equipment hidden from public view, and pure maintenance with matching materials are typically exempt.

Review at the staff level (administrative CofA) typically takes 2 to 4 weeks and handles most repair, maintenance, and like-for-like replacement. Full Commission review (typically required for additions, demolitions, and material changes) meets monthly and takes 6 to 10 weeks from application to approval letter. IHPC staff are usually willing to do a pre-application conversation, which is worth the call before you finalize plans.

If you are not certain whether your address sits inside one of the designated districts, AskBaily can pull the IHPC overlay status, or you can check the IHPC interactive map directly.