Video Description:
Historic Preservation – October 6, 2022
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
Read along below:
Unknown Speaker 0:07
Okay, let’s we’ll go ahead and call to order the October 6. Meeting of the historic preservation commission. Can we call the roll, please? Yes. Chairman lane. Here. Commissioner Sibley Here. Commissioner Barnhart Here. Commissioner guy you Commissioner Norton Here. Commissioner goon. Commissioner Jacoby. Councilmember Rodriguez. Thank you. Thank you. All right. First order of business would be approval of two sets of minutes, the first being our August 4 2022. And the second being September 1 2022. We’ll take those one each at a time. So are there any corrections or comments relating to the August meeting? None if so, I’d entertain a motion okay, I’ve got a motion to approve from Commissioner Jacoby and a second from commissioners. Sibley All in favor, please. say aye. Aye. Any opposed? None. Okay. Those minutes are approved. September, September 1 2020. Any comments or corrections on those minutes? No. Okay. Motion. Right. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Okay. I have a motion to approve this September minutes for by Commissioner Barnard. Seconded by Commissioner Jacoby. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? None. Okay. Those minutes are also now approved. Thank you. All right. Report from the chair. I don’t have anything in particular other than we would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of our unfortunately no longer Commissioner, Mr. Lee Hardee’s. And so we have I’ve got to come up here and have Abby come up. I’ve got a little certificate of appreciation for you. Yeah, come on up here. And
Unknown Speaker 2:45
and you can have your, your plaque. And appreciate all your efforts on behalf of the commission. Get a picture. Do you Do you want a picture? Sure, yes, that’d be great.
Unknown Speaker 3:35
We do appreciate your your time. And this commission in particular is a little different than many in the in the city because we do require not quite half, but but a decent amount of 40% of the commissioners have to have some professional background and preservation. And so you know, having that expertise on the panel is always really valuable. So again, thanks. Thanks for coming down. All right. That is all I had. We’ll move on to communications from the HPC staff liaison.
Unknown Speaker 4:09
Sure, as a primary, I don’t really have too much to report at this point. The primary thing that we have coming up is it’s time to prepare our CLG report to send to the State Historic Preservation Office. So we will be getting that taken care of this month and sent in.
Unknown Speaker 4:28
Okay, I know last month, we had, I don’t know five or six folks come down and speak about things going on at the bone farm. And I wonder if you could give us a little update on what is just sort of happening out there and if we expect to see something in the near future.
Unknown Speaker 4:50
Sure. So currently, we don’t have an application in place at this point. The project has gone through a pre application meeting as well as a neighborhood meeting that was quite well attended by the public. So the applicant is currently preparing their application, their application package making revisions to the site plan. They were originally proposing about 75 townhome units, they are looking to scale that number down a bit in, you know, basically in response to some of the community concerns. So, as far as where that is in the process, they haven’t actually entered the process yet, aside from the pre application, meetings and neighborhood meetings, I do anticipate receiving an application a formal application package later this month from them. So okay,
Unknown Speaker 5:43
and are there? Forgive me, I’m not 100% up to speed, are there properties there that are landmarked? That that would require a certificate of appropriateness for modifications? Or is it just the fact that it’s kind of a their district
Unknown Speaker 5:56
there are no Landmark has there are no locally designated landmarks, it is not a locally designated district of any sort. There is a farmhouse on the property that did have a cultural cultural survey, performed on it several years back, and it would be eligible for local listing did have some local significance. But the owners at this point aren’t interested in pursuing that there, there will be a small kind of city on pocket park on the property, but it’s not on the side of the property where the farmhouse is and the city parks department has not they don’t have interest in owning and maintaining that particular property, they don’t think, you know, it’s an appropriate that particular park is an appropriate location for the for it. And at this point, there really isn’t a good opportunity or good option for relocating the house at this point either. So in a nutshell, it would be sad to lose it. But it does not have it has not been designated. And it’s not part of any sort of landmark property. It’s not part of a locally designated historic district.
Unknown Speaker 7:13
So in effect, there’s no jurisdiction for this commission with respect to that project, pretty much. Nevertheless, as things move would appreciate, an update, if we absolutely could, on that. In that same sort of vein, I was curious, I noticed a while back and meant to mark this 356 main is undergoing some renovations. And that’s not a landmark, but it is a contributing building in the national district. And so again, I recognize at least the way that our current ordinance is written, there’s no obligation for those folks to come before the Commission for a certificate of appropriateness. But being the fact that it’s actually in a district, I wonder if there was any discussion when that application was received, whether there would be, you know, whether it was presented that to the the applicant that might be of some value to come before the board and, and get any kind of feedback or in the absence of that, if we could, again, just be kind of informed as a body, it’s, I think it’s good for us to, to be aware of what the development applications are happening in, especially within districts, you know, Main Street, obviously pretty, pretty prime location, pretty visible.
Unknown Speaker 8:52
So as we start to take a look at that proposal, when it came in, I know, went before the DDA board. And the applicant is really looking to undo some of the non contributing aspects of alterations that were done over the years. So restoring the original brick, doing some work on the storefront itself, that to make it more in line with its original, its original appearance. So because it’s not a landmark, it didn’t it did not need a certificate of appropriateness, per se, but staff did take a look at it. And, you know, we felt that it was that the alterations they were proposing, were ultimately a very good thing for that building.
Unknown Speaker 9:40
Okay. Yeah, I guess it would be great if we could, again, and we have done this in the past. I think part of this is maybe just staff change and that kind of thing. What when there was a project that wasn’t necessarily up in front of us for a COA. Often we staff might just include that in their report to say this is how pending, it’s within the district. It’s not an action item for you. But we like you to know that this is what’s going on, and that we’ve reviewed it. And we’ve actually had a discussion about historic preservation with the client. And, you know, just, I think it’s better for everyone, we get to know what’s going on. And if the client and if somebody wants to come in front of the board, and just just get some feedback, again, because we’ve got some pretty, pretty smart people on this board. That’s something they can do that isn’t binding.
Unknown Speaker 10:28
Sure. I appreciate that feedback.
Unknown Speaker 10:30
Great, thank you. Are they aware of,
Unknown Speaker 10:36
I gotta, I got to this, this, this is not an incident process.
Unknown Speaker 10:41
Or they’re aware of the potential for tax credits, and that sort of thing as well, considering it isn’t. And I forget, if it’s a state district or a national register district, it’s a national register, though, they would be, you know, they could avail themselves of both state and federal tax credits if they’re doing the work appropriately. Sure. It’s a pretty significant,
Unknown Speaker 11:02
I would have to touch base with Brian on that, because he’s, he’s been more involved as our staff liaison to the Downtown Development Authority. So he’s been a bit more involved in that particular process. So I know, you know, they’ve been working closely with the DDA. and such. So I just don’t know that they felt I don’t know, if they’ve decided to pursue any sort of grants or if they would pursue landmark designation to avail themselves of grants. So
Unknown Speaker 11:28
what would they they’re already in the districts don’t have to do anything to get state federal
Unknown Speaker 11:33
true, that is true, are pretty significant. Absolutely, absolutely. I’m pretty certain that somebody has mentioned those to them as well. So
Unknown Speaker 11:44
yeah, because I think if if they if they do if they came back and actually became became before us and actually requested a landmark, like said, Hey, we’re going to do these improvements. These are historic, you know, we’re going to take steps that would be consistent with the Secretary of Interior standards, in our, you know, rehabilitation of this building, and we want to landmark it, even under the current ordinance, they would be eligible for a waiver of permit fees. And there’s, there’s a decent amount of carrots out there, that if they’re going to do everything, right, anyways. You know, I mean, then then then it can be a case of helping, absolutely, you know, versus this doesn’t always have to be the place where the hammer is thrown. Right. I mean, it can be also the place where we’re, you know, we have some characters,
Unknown Speaker 12:33
we have some care. So I’ll touch base with Brian, because he’s been more involved in that process than I have. So and see what discussions I’ve had regarding the tax credits.
Unknown Speaker 12:43
Great. Thank you. That’s all I have. Okay, thanks. All right. Next item would be public invited to be heard. So if there’s anyone in the audience that would like to speak to something that is not on the agenda, this is your moment to come on up and state your name. And you’ll have a few minutes to know. All right, everybody’s here for the party. Okay. All right. Very good. I’ll close the public invited to be heard. And we’ll move on to the public hearing. So this is a hearing for a certificate of appropriateness for a new accessory dwelling unit at 320 9/5 Avenue. Staff I mentioned you we have a presentation,
Unknown Speaker 13:30
we do have a presentation it should be up on your screen. Make it fullscreen. Alright, so this is a continuance of the public hearing for 320 9/5 Avenue from the September meeting. As you recall, may recall from the last meeting, they were presenting a certificate of appropriateness package that included. Porch alterations are really porch restoration to remove some non contributing aspects of the front porch, and also to construct a garage with a second storey accessory dwelling unit. We did continue the accessory dwelling unit portion of the public hearing to this meeting because there were some last minute changes to the design in response to certain zoning requirements for accessory dwelling units and accessory structures specifically. So in terms of your vicinity here just to give everyone a refresher, this particular property is at the southeast corner of Fifth and Emery. So this is the HS Webb house. It was built in 1907 designate in 2019. The request is to replace an existing single storey garages not contributing with a two story addition that includes a two car garage or workshop and a second storey adu. This is gonna shift has shifted from an X Is restructure to in addition in order to comply with setback requirements under the zoning code. So rather than a freestanding accessory structure, they are proposing an addition whereby the garage is effectively connected to the main house through mudroom, through small mudroom. So planning staff has reviewed the accessory dwelling unit it meets our adu standards that are in our land development code. As I mentioned, the original proposal was modified to be an addition versus an accessory structure, as well, historic Eastside Neighborhood Association has provided a letter of support for this project, both in it in its current design. So they are happy that they expressed, you know, approval of the design that they were they they liked the fact that it was in character with the house in the neighborhood. In terms of staff recommendations, we do approve, recommend approving the addition as proposed. And with that, I am going to turn it over to the applicant to talk through the specifics of the design proposal.
Unknown Speaker 16:30
Good evening, my name is Danielle Lin. And I’m the architects I work with for myself, but in context architecture. And one of the homeowners, truly a stone is here with me as well. So we’ll just give you a quick run through. So up on the screen is the site plan, Emery Street is below Fifth Street is to the left, the image up here is the front of the house as address from Fifth Street. So that’s looking from the left side over here. And this dashed line is the new garage. And this is the mudroom attachment piece that we’re talking about. utilizing existing driveway and the previous garage sat in this corner as well as kind of a mock up of the previous single storey garage, and where we are replacing that with the new two storey structure. So this is the view from Emory Street, again, here’s the existing garage below is what’s proposed. And in the back is the mudroom connection. And we push that to the back of the property and tried to minimize that as much as possible. So we felt like we were willing to do that successfully without detracting from the historic character of the house. And we have tried to complement the design with colors, materials, similar roof lines, similar window proportions. The Windows also have to meet egress, so they had to be a little bit wider to make that work or there’s a bedroom up here on the front. And here’s another view just with some of the proposed details. Top left is an existing detail over there destroying wood lap siding, they’ve got black trim, white siding, and grade doors, and we’re matching that color scheme on the house. And we have an accent of kind of some square shakes shingles up in the gable, Gable portions of this new structure at the new edition. And the existing house has shingles that have more of the rounded detailing. So we’ve got some compatible design features. But we’re we’re not trying to mimic the existing structure. So you can still differentiate old from new. Any questions?
Unknown Speaker 19:06
Your presentation? Yes. I mean, I just just saw your recorded just for clarity. So you had to increase the square footage of the building. And you’re gonna have to obviously remove some historic material from the main house in order to be able to do this, even though it’s the same footprint that you would have built as a separate building.
Unknown Speaker 19:33
So the story behind this actually is not a setback thing, but it’s a area of detached structure that’s allowed versus if it’s an addition, and so the adu complied with you have to be under 50% of the area of the main house and we’re at 35% but with the garage, the garage itself also has a 50% requirement but the two of them together have To be 50% or less. So by connecting it with this tiny mudroom piece, it’s now in addition and not a detached structure. So, kind of a funny zoning code,
Unknown Speaker 20:14
I would have hoped that you could have gotten an exception to that considering, again, this is a historic home. And now you’re actually going to have to take a chunk out of it. And you essentially end up with the same thing, right, you just now have a little.
Unknown Speaker 20:29
And we actually are don’t really need it, there’s an existing back door back there. So we’re connecting to an existing back door, it already has a little flight of staircase in inside of the home back there. So really just kind of tapping into that existing door and the VAs,
Unknown Speaker 20:44
that’s just one of those things that I think probably annoy a lot of people.
Unknown Speaker 20:51
Yeah, and we did, we did talk with planning staff to see and they were willing to exempt it, I’d like a teeny increase, but we would have had to chop this thing down substantially to meet the their 50% requirement for entire detached structure. I’m sorry about that. So that was the revision we found out at the last minute, which bumped us to this month. But other than that the structure is the same.
Unknown Speaker 21:27
Any other questions or comments from commissioners?
Unknown Speaker 21:41
I’m not sure of the importance of you know, the the cutting back of getting into the historic house, I personally just got a variance I have a garage is bigger than my house. In Old Town. It’s not a in my house is not, you know, an official historic house, but it is it was built in 1906. And I just needed a big garage, not a big house. So I know it was pretty easy to get the variance is that something you would prefer? Or you’re now wanting to do the mudroom,
Unknown Speaker 22:15
I would have to defer to homeowners to see if they wanted to try and pursue additional options that we did talk pretty thorough thoroughly about any alternatives and alternate routes to get that approved with with planning for the site review process. And he said that they would be able to, I can’t remember if he said that maybe like 10% Extra. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t even close to getting us the garage plus the adu above unfortunately.
Unknown Speaker 22:51
That’s just
Unknown Speaker 22:53
thank you. Other questions or comments? No, I don’t personally have a huge heartburn over over this tiny little connection, especially if there’s already a door there that you’re connecting to. I mean, it’s a little weird that you’ve had to go through this, but maybe it’s okay. I don’t think that’s too terrible. And I think you’ve done a nice job of of designing something that with the appropriate scale. And and I appreciate even the notion of the shingles, it’s one of the first things I saw that they were square and one of my points, one of my questions would have been, are these really going to be squared, not a fish scale mimic? And so I appreciate you clarifying that.
Unknown Speaker 23:52
All right. Well, if there’s no other questions for the applicant, we will least although I don’t know that we have public comment. Well, we’ll we’ll we’ll go ahead and and ask for any public comment if there if there is any. I’ll open. Thanks for Thanks for the information and the presentation. Just with the homeowner, Would you like anything to say before I close this section? Are you good? Okay, thanks. All right. So we’ll go ahead and open public comment. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this item? Seeing none, I will close the public comment, and then open it up for any further discussion by the Commission. Any
Unknown Speaker 24:40
comments or discussion? If not, I would entertain a motion Go ahead. Go ahead. So you’re on the record here,
Unknown Speaker 24:52
prove this application as is.
Unknown Speaker 24:56
Second, okay. So I have a My Motion for approval of the certificate of appropriateness from Commissioner goon seconded by Commissioner Norton. All those in favor, please say aye. All right. Any opposed? None. All right, your application is approved unanimously, thank you for coming down and spending the time with us tonight.
Unknown Speaker 25:24
Okay, new business would be next on our agenda. And it does not appear that we have any new business that aren’t action items. So they will move on to prior business, which involves looks like a couple of updates. First being an update on the status of our barn or Dickens barn.
Unknown Speaker 25:48
So we have good news on the on the good news. So we have come to an agreement with the applicant, we’re in the process of figuring out how best to get that memorialized to where the barn will be dedicated, conveyed to the city with a stipend for stabilization, as well as basically all the outlets on the property will be conveyed to the city as well. So there will be that intact resource with the barn. At which point we will be figuring out exactly what we’re going to do with it and how we’re going to maintain it. But once we have it in our possession, we can come up with some more concrete plans.
Unknown Speaker 26:36
Well, now, the other thing I understand is I believe it’s still going to be on the Parks and Rec Advisory Board meeting on Monday. So I think it’d be good if you can make it Mr. Chair, and it’s at 630. And I don’t know where
Unknown Speaker 26:54
I believe it’s that the sunset Drive service center direct parcel. Yeah, so the Parks and Rec facility is my
Unknown Speaker 27:01
south of the river. All right, I’ll get you more details on that. But staff is on board, we have the applicant on board. I think everything looks good.
Unknown Speaker 27:13
Okay, at this point, it’s just a matter of getting everything memorialized. And, and such. So but we have we have we have a solution. So
Unknown Speaker 27:23
that’s very exciting. Excellent. Any Commissioner questions or comments on that one? Yeah, great. Well, thanks. I want to thank staff for working on this because I know we kind of threw it at it. And I like to call out the commissioners do for, you know, kind of pushing back on this and, and making this happen. I think it’s a big win for everyone, honestly. So.
Unknown Speaker 27:49
Yeah. And back at you make it at an issue. And yeah, we had to push some buttons and get it to happen. But I think everybody realized it was the right thing. So
Unknown Speaker 28:03
great. That’s excellent. All right. Wonderful. And then our second set of updates would be on HPC code amendments.
Unknown Speaker 28:14
Yeah. And what I wanted to update the myths that so I’m sure it was snide. I just said, Could we go to for today? Well, we’ve been trying to get back on the council agenda, I am going to meet with our staff team to see if we can maybe separate this into a little smaller bites rather than throw everything at the council and yourselves. And I know, it really started with concerns about the demolition process and criteria that’s in the code. So I think that’s my suggestion is maybe we pull that aside, and we work on that and bring it to council in smaller pieces. So at least from a staff team, we’re gonna be figuring out how to move it forward in smaller bite sized pieces, I guess.
Unknown Speaker 29:11
Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. Thanks. Just, just for clarification, does that mean that it would be added to the it would be added to the code in bite sized pieces or like, does that change what our overall processes are? Would we wait for the whole package to be done and then it would be voted on?
Unknown Speaker 29:38
I’m gonna have to kind of dig into that a little bit. I think I would prefer to actually do amendments in yes unless but one of the big pieces you know as pulling out chapter two and put it into 15 and then creating the overlay and everything. So if if we can get section In two, so it’s in good shape and then make the big move. That might make sense. Okay, thank you. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 30:10
So should we is it a value to bring that back here as a discussion item for the commissioners to kind of review that language? And just go over it internally? Before? Do we need the city attorney to come here? And what’s what what is the right step? Neck? You know? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 30:39
that’s what I’m going to talk to city attorney about. And that would be my recommendation is we kind of get a format that hpcs happy with. And then we maybe do another work session with City Council on the regular agenda. And just, you know, figure out a plan of how to bring it in pieces forward. So.
Unknown Speaker 31:01
Okay. Any other comments or questions from commissioners about that? Okay. The other one that sort of looped into this is, is status or grants for serving?
Unknown Speaker 31:22
Hello, Jennifer handle
Unknown Speaker 31:24
this has similar status update from previous meeting, we are still having some significant staff shortages right now. So because we’re wearing a ton of hats and trying to get development projects reviewed as expeditiously as possible, this has kind of been put on the back burner, but hopefully it will get moved to the front burner before sooner rather than later.
Unknown Speaker 31:50
Is there any? Is there an ability or possibility for commission members to potentially help with that process? If it’s just if it’s writing a grant? That is more we’re talking about non competitive grants, I think, for surveying property, I don’t know that that’s a particularly complicated. And so I mean, I might be suggesting a volunteering folks on this commission who don’t want to be don’t want to volunteer, but but we’re putting pressure on you and multiple proportion and everybody else. You know, is there an opportunity for for the committee, if there’s a commission member that’s willing to step in and help out a little bit or work, spend a few hours with staff? Is that, is that possible? Does that mean, I
Unknown Speaker 32:42
liked the idea of okay, I mean, we’re actually putting together just some backfilling planning help. We’re putting an RFQ out. But we’ll certainly take volunteers from anybody who doesn’t have conflict, which might be complicated, but we’d certainly love to talk about that.
Unknown Speaker 33:04
Okay. Well, I won’t put anybody on the spot tonight on the on the commission here. But if commissioners want to have a, you know, consider that if anybody’s got an interest in in helping the city, move this forward, which would help us just move our whole agenda forward. In some of these meetings are pretty short. So yeah, go ahead. Almost, almost. Not I’m not thrilled with this, to be honest with you. It says, seat for Mike on.
Unknown Speaker 33:48
Unfortunately, missed a couple of the past meetings. So which grants and what type of grants are we talking about?
Unknown Speaker 34:00
Going for a non competitive grant to do additional survey work?
Unknown Speaker 34:04
Yes. So we were, well, we were looking at putting together doing a survey, doing one of the non competitive grants to put together a survey plan for the for the city and figure out what we’re which ones we will be targeting for surveying the future.
Unknown Speaker 34:20
Yeah, this goes back aways and I think you was one of the meetings. I think you suggested and now that I recall.
Unknown Speaker 34:30
Let me let me take a look at it. And I will contact you about like what information I would need to put that together.
Unknown Speaker 34:40
Great. I appreciate that.
Unknown Speaker 34:44
Excellent. Thank you, Commissioner. All right. Any other comments or questions on the code amendments or grants or No? No. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Are those updates? So at this point, we’re just down to any comments from HPC. Commissioners. Anybody have anything they’d like to throw out? Commissioner Jacoby,
Unknown Speaker 35:16
you got it? There you go. All right. I have two comments. The first is reminder that there will be another historic walking tour this Saturday, if anyone’s interested in coming, you’re certainly welcome. It’s nine to noon. And it starts at the west side of the library. And I’ve been doing snaps. But let’s see what kind of numbers I get. But there will be another walking tour. The second concern I have involves Phyllis, reduction of property for designation that we encountered. And we approved it, and I think that was appropriate. But I think our backs were against the wall in a sense in that if we didn’t approve it, they would probably de designate their property due to economic incentives to subdivide. And I know of another property on Collier street that was the designated. And I don’t think, you know, just discussing with folks here earlier, I don’t think there’s any consequence to the designation. And while we’re talking about code amendments, maybe we should think about whether we would want to put something into writing about the consequences of D designation. If people are reaping benefits, economic benefits from designating and then they decide to D designate, I would think at a minimum, we would want to get that tax and permit money back. So I just throw that out there as a thought. I don’t know if anyone else has any comments about that or wants to discuss that further.
Unknown Speaker 36:55
All right. Thanks, Commissioner. Any other comments? Commissioners? All right. How about our city council representative for your service. All right. Thank you. Thanks for joining us here. All right. Well, at that point, we’re at the end of our agenda, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. All right. The second. All right, we are gonna go moved by Commissioner Barnett and seconded by Commissioner Sibelius, and so right next to each other, and all those in favor, aye. We are adjourned. Thank you very much for your time.
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