Langdon Oppermann and Laura Phillips are taking an inventory of Salisbury’s historic resources — the ones not already part of one of the city’s 10 National Register historic districts.

Their intensive architectural survey — the first phase of which started two weeks ago — will help identify properties that are perhaps worth including in expanded National Register districts or should be National Register nominations on their own.

Properties surveyed will be photographed, mapped and recorded, with architectural descriptions and brief historical information when relevant.

The women will provide the city with base information for future nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, which city officials see as a tool for historic preservation. Inclusion on the National Register is mostly an honor and does not affect what someone wants to do with his or her property.

But National Register properties offer important tax credits for owners who want to make significant restorations and improvements.

The first phase will look at properties that were within Salisbury’s 1951 city limits, what city planner Aaron Arnett describes as the “pre-World War II” boundaries, because the city limits didn’t change between 1927 and 1951.

Former Salisbury city planner Heidi Galanti secured a $20,000 grant from the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources toward the first phase, and City Council chipped in $14,600.

Oppermann and Phillips should have the first phase substantially completed by June 30 and are supposed to be totally finished with Phase I by year’s end.

Phase II will look at the remaining properties making up today’s city limits. Because they are newer, fewer of those properties are expected to have historical significance.

The second phase will cost $15,500. A third phase, costing $36,000, revisits the seven oldest historic districts, which were placed on the National Register before changes in state and federal standards.

For certain properties, the surveyors could be knocking on doors, looking for any additional information they might gather from the owners. They also appreciate the Salisburians who come up to them with tidbits of information about their homes.

The women will rely heavily on old Sanborn Insurance maps as part of the research.

Oppermann and Phillips form L&L Associates of Winston-Salem. Oppermann, a historic preservation planner, has worked as a consultant in preservation planning since 1987, after a 10-year stint with the State Historic Preservation Office.

Oppermann’s recent work includes an inventory of about 2,000 buildings associated with Winston-Salem’s African American history and an architectural survey of the 4,000-acre historic district in Flat Rock.

The Flat Rock district won a place on the National Register in 1973 but, as some of the districts in Salisbury, had never been inventoried to today’s standards.

Oppermann is a board member of Preservation North Carolina.

Phillips is an architectural historian who has done consulting work in North Carolina since 1978. She has written histories on Reidsville, Hickory, Surry County and Transylvania County. She currently serves on the Forsyth County Joint Historic Properties Commission.

Salisbury has 14 individual sites on the National Register of Historic Places. Its 10 National Register districts include Salisbury West Square, North Main Street, Ellis Street Graded School, Brooklyn-South Square, Livingstone College, Kesler Manufacturing (Cannon Mills), North Long Street-Park Avenue, Salisbury Railroad Corridor, Shaver Rental Houses and Fulton Heights.