Cape Girardeau's Historic Preservation Commission wants to know how city residents feel about plotting the past.

The commission will hold a public hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday to gather input for a preservation plan that may lay the groundwork for historic districts in the city.

The meeting will be held in the City Council chambers at City Hall.

The hearing, which will feature members of the commission and Philip Thomason of Thomason and Associates of Nashville, Tenn., will be the first step in carrying out the preservation plan.

Thomason and Associates were awarded a city contract earlier this month to put together the historic preservation plan.

The plan is funded through a $20,000 grant from the Missouri Historic Preservation Program.

The hearing is being held "so we can get some input as to what people think should be done with historic properties in town," said Brian Driscoll, vice chair of the Historic Preservation Commission.

Historic preservation efforts can be a touchy subject for some property owners, Driscoll said, and any plan has to take their views into account.

"The whole property rights issue comes up," he said.

After the hearing, Thomason will carry out a survey of the entire city to identify potential historic sites and neighborhoods and to identify sites that might be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Thomason said he'll carry out a reconnaissance-level survey.

"We drive down just about every street in the community and look for properties that may have historic or architectural significance or areas that may have historic or architectural significance," he said. "That helps us get an idea of where to concentrate our planning efforts for preservation."

Thomason's survey will be the first community-wide survey of Cape Girardeau.

Several sites around the city have been designated as local historic landmarks by the City Council, and there are also several sites on the National Register of Historic Places.

Thomason said he hopes to have the survey completed within the next three to four months.

But nobody has looked at "the big picture" until now, Driscoll said.

"What we're really trying to do is get an overview picture of the city to see what is here, what might be significant and look at how those properties can be protected in the future," he said.

The preservation plan will identify potentially significant sites to help city officials understand what impact future development might have on historic areas before development actually starts, Driscoll and Thomason said.

And the plan, which should be completed by the end of the year, will allow preservationists in the city to be proactive, rather than reactive, when a historic site is threatened by development.

Last year, local preservationists could only watch when the Oscar Hirsch house on South Frederick Street was demolished. The house was the site of the first radio broadcast in the city.

"That has happened several times," Driscoll said. "The whole idea is to get more proactive, because it doesn't make anybody look good to have to jump in there in the middle of the project, and say, `Wait a minute.'"

It will also outline strategies for preserving or restoring those sites, and explain how preservation can benefit the city economically in terms of tourism and other issues, Thomason said.

The plan could also be used to set up historic districts around the city which would be designated for preservation, Driscoll said.

"That also, I think, is a goal. We have to identify where those districts might be and the boundaries of them," he said.

Once a site or a neighborhood has been identified as historically significant, that significance has to be taken into account before any project utilizing federal funds can proceed.

That doesn't necessarily mean the site or structure will be saved, but federal regulations do require that the site be documented so people will know it once existed.

Driscoll said it's also important to know where to look for history, including in areas newly annexed into the city limits.

"A lot of times the focus is on downtown Cape, but resources are being brought in in the surrounding area, and I think it's important that we look at those as well," he said.

Thomason has carried out surveys in several cities around the state, including Poplar Bluff, Joplin, Kansas City and Springfield.