PROVIDENCE — Since the demolition of the Harris Avenue produce warehouse in December by Carpionato Properties, the city has identified roughly 60 historic properties and complexes that have no local protection from demolition, despite many being listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Among the properties are well-known buildings such as the Gov. Henry Lippett House at Hope and Angell streets, Morris Brown House on Rochambeau Avenue, the Nelson W. Aldrich House — home to the Rhode Island Historical Society — and even the Roger Williams National Memorial on North Main Street.

Large campuses such as Moses Brown School and Butler Hospital, which has been the subject of sale talks by its owner, Lifespan, are also on the list of unprotected properties.

“We came up with a group of buildings that did not fall under any local jurisdiction,” said Jason Martin, principal planner for the city, who has visited most of the sites over the last few months to compile the list.

Among the buildings are numerous churches and synagogues, several libraries and even the Ladd Observatory on Doyle Avenue.

These buildings will now be incorporated into local historic districts and offered additional protection from demolition through new city regulations now under review.

The placement of a building on the National Register of Historic Places is a prestigious achievement, but it offers little protection from demolition by a private developer. National Register listing offers some protection from demolition for federal projects, but a private entity can knock down a building without review by the local historic preservation authorities if it can be proven that the building is a safety hazard.

Some of these sites, such as the Lippett House, are considered National Historic Landmarks, a rare citation but still one that offers no protection from local demolition regulations.

The effort to protect these buildings arose out of the December demolition of the Providence Fruit and Produce Warehouse Co. building, where city Building Official Kerry Anderson ordered emergency demolition over the protests of preservationists and the state. Issuance of demolition permits for the building were theoretically subject to approval by the city’s Historic District Commission, but because of the way the regulations are written, if the building is deemed a public safety hazard, then the commission’s approval is not needed.

In response to the produce warehouse incident, a group commissioned by Mayor David N. Cicilline has been working to draft new protections to delay or prevent demolition of historic buildings and force review by city boards in all but extreme emergencies.

The first new rule, expected to be signed by the mayor shortly, mandates that the building inspector must now convene emergency meetings of the Historic District Commission before issuing demolition permits in all but the most dangerous circumstances. In those cases, when the building is in imminent danger of collapse, the building official is still required to convene an ad hoc group at the site to evaluate the situation. A second rule change under consideration would prevent so-called “demolition by neglect,” which is the process in which a property owner allows a building to deteriorate in order to obtain a demolition permit.

But the buildings on this recently compiled list wouldn’t fall under those new rules because they don’t fit into any local historic districts or have local historic designation.

To make sure they are also protected, some of these properties will now be incorporated into existing historic districts, such as the Downcity district or the industrial-commercial buildings district. Others might be placed into an as-yet uncreated non-contiguous historic district that would cover buildings that don’t fit the current historic definitions.

The list of buildings is preliminary and might change somewhat before it is adopted. It could be six months before the list is finalized and the new historic district potentially created, said Robert Azar, the city’s director of current planning. The City Council would have to approve such action as a change to the city’s zoning ordinance.

dbarbari@projo.com