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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.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
All right. I think we’ve got our group here. It is past five o’clock the door. Maria is back. So we will call the December 1 2022 meeting of the historic preservation commission to order. Can we have the roll, please?
Unknown Speaker 0:19
Chairman lane here, Commissioner Sibley Here. Commissioner Barnard Commissioner guy, you
Unknown Speaker 0:29
Commissioner goon. Commissioner Jacoby. Councilmember Rodriguez. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 0:36
Right. So we do have a quorum. We’ll move on to approval of the October 6 2022. Meeting Minutes. Do any commissioners have any corrections or comments regarding the?
Unknown Speaker 0:55
If not, I’ll entertain a motion.
Unknown Speaker 1:03
Okay, I’ve got a motion to approve the minutes by Commissioner Barnard. Seconded by Commissioner guy. You all those in favor?
Unknown Speaker 1:13
say aye. Raise your hand Aye.
Unknown Speaker 1:16
Any opposed? None. The minutes are approved in you, Nana Miss Lee.
Unknown Speaker 1:25
Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:27
Report from the chair. I don’t have anything in particular personally here. But I do would like to take the opportunity to recognize Commissioner goon who unfortunately is on her last meeting here. So we want to thank you for your time on the commission. And I really do appreciate the the often sort of counterpoint arguments that you’ve brought in some different perspectives. It’s been it’s been very good to have you here. And we’ll we will miss you.
Unknown Speaker 2:04
Let me go ahead and give you the
Unknown Speaker 2:07
mic.
Unknown Speaker 2:09
Well, thank you very much. It was gonna have closing comments, thanking all of you, I’ve learned so much about all of this, you know, housing, architecture, and historical preservation, all of that. And I’ve learned so much from all of you. And it’s been a pleasure to serve here. Thank you. Thanks, I do have a little certificate of appreciation. So if you want a little photo op, we can do that right up front, that seems to be the thing that people like doing.
Unknown Speaker 2:53
We will send you home.
Unknown Speaker 3:33
Okay, next on our agenda would be communications from HPC, staff liaison.
Unknown Speaker 3:41
Good evening, I do have some additional items that will come up during prior business.
Unknown Speaker 3:47
However, just as a quick update, we are finally have some staff on board. And so I will be able to pay more attention to historic preservation and first order of business will be to put together a grant application for president for a survey plan to get that to try and make some progress on that. So still getting one person is still starting next week, I think, a couple of weeks. So I but we do have one new senior planner on board. So we’re throwing her into the deep end on development reviews.
Unknown Speaker 4:22
So yeah, so hopefully I should start to free up some my time so I can put in much more focus on historic preservation. So that’s I think, excellent news. For all of us. It is so and we did have an additional we have had an inquiry about landmarking a property. I don’t know if that’s going to go anywhere, but so stay tuned
Unknown Speaker 4:42
on that one. That’s pretty much all I have under just the general HPC communication. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Any commissioners have questions for staff at this moment?
Unknown Speaker 4:53
No. All right. Great. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 4:57
Okay,
Unknown Speaker 5:01
I don’t have the list but this is public invited to be heard. So if there is anyone in the audience who would like to come up and offer a comment, do we do we have anyone out there
Unknown Speaker 5:19
say so.
Unknown Speaker 5:22
Thank you for sharing.
Unknown Speaker 5:25
Thank you to all of you
Unknown Speaker 5:31
thank you for all your your hours and hours. And I’m ready to talk
Unknown Speaker 5:46
Okay, good evening historic preservation commission flux if
Unknown Speaker 5:52
you don’t think they can hear me Come on.
Unknown Speaker 5:55
Reset. Yeah. Thank you. Good evening historic preservation commission, Sharon Alarie 534 Emery Street. Sara was in here in October, I thought we both needed a vacation from one another. But then you stood me up last month well regardless, while I was on vacation, I could not stop thinking about you. I was in Yellowstone National Park staying at the Old Faithful Lodge. It was magnificent and the entire time I kept thinking how thankful I was of past generations that had the foresight and took responsibility to ensure preservation. Old Faithful lodge exterior represents the time period and the interior is a work of art. The preservation and care that has gone into that structure ensures that many generations to come will be able to enjoy its beauty preservation is vital. Without it we wouldn’t have national parks national forests, open space, historical buildings, churches, cathedral, small quaint homes, majestic buildings, and historical neighborhoods. A few weeks ago, neighbors were cleaning up the home where their father lived. And he too was a preservationist. In the historic east side. They gave me a box of papers and documentations from the founding ears, and reminded me of how we preserve the henna neighborhood. Back when then we were citizens for a sensitive revitalization. Our neighborhood formed because in 1961 Longmont city council did not give the east side the same zoning as the historic west side, our neighborhood received a combination zoning of our three and our four that allowed up to four unit development in certain sections of our neighborhood. And then in 1967, high density residential use permitted throughout the entire neighborhood, despite the fact that 80% of the housing was single family. After years of working and meeting on committees with city staff and council, we basically did the heavy lifting and received our le zoning. So here we are today, one year from when City Council instructed planners to come back with some sort of historic preservation guidelines, but not on the same level as historic designation. Our neighborhood gave the city planners a complete guideline and to this day, nothing has happened. There is a proposal that’s being worked on that would be a blanket zoning for the historic east side and West Side. But that’s doomed the day it comes off the printer, the east side has been preserved for close to 40 years, the west side has a different vision.
Unknown Speaker 8:26
We helped save the Carnegie Library when the city was selling it for $1. Then we reuse these signs to make signs for in front of homes for carriage rides that ran the week before Christmas for the next six years. We are preservation is what I’m asking you to do tonight is to please make a motion and and second it and asked to have a conservation overlay zone for the historic east side and send it to city council. You have the ability to preserve. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 9:12
Seeing no one else in the audience, we’ll go ahead and close the public invited to be heard and move on to new business, which is planning for the coming year.
Unknown Speaker 9:26
Good evening, Chairman. So
Unknown Speaker 9:30
this is just the item really to start thinking about 2023. So moving forward in terms of priorities for the year I wanted to pose the question of
Unknown Speaker 9:44
how you would prefer to go about setting your priorities.
Unknown Speaker 9:50
How you go about wanting to go about setting your priorities, whether it be in a regular, regular meeting or doing a retreat we haven’t done
Unknown Speaker 10:00
This commission has not done a really focused planning retreat since 2021. So wanted to present that item
Unknown Speaker 10:10
to to the Commission for consideration and to discuss as a business as basically a business item to discuss another option. Another item that would could be should be considered either as part of an agenda or part of a retreat would basically be a refresher on Open Meeting rules, Cetera as we have new commissioners coming on board.
Unknown Speaker 10:33
And just really kind of refresh everyone on kind of what the rules and guidelines are. And that could either be incorporated into us into a meeting with our city attorneys coming to just kind of brush everyone up on that or as part of a larger retreat. So wanted to pose those suggestions and questions to the Board for discussion.
Unknown Speaker 10:54
Or commission, I should say, right.
Unknown Speaker 10:59
As always, I have my own opinions, but I’ll defer to the commission to if anybody’s got any thoughts or questions. Commissioner Barnett? It gets you there.
Unknown Speaker 11:14
All right. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 11:16
No, you are seat three, so
Unknown Speaker 11:21
no other button. There you go. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 11:26
I took a look at the when I first came out and took a look at the retreat minutes. And from 2021. And I’ve just found them to be extremely valuable. And I think
Unknown Speaker 11:41
I’ve always been in favor of those of those types of ways of dealing with planning issues of taking it because it takes time to do something like that. And it’s a big time. It’s a big time investment. But I think it produces good results.
Unknown Speaker 11:56
The only thing I would ask is that if we do something like that, that we have come out with, we came out with clear points in the in the 2021. Retreat. And I’d like to just see that that how the points be extended a little bit with timelines on them. Because there were like seven or eight points. But you know, when would we do each one? And when would we accomplish each one? Because there’s no way we can accomplish all of them at the next meeting. That’s That’s what and so some of them just get get laid aside until sometime when they just might come up again and of course of business. But if it’s so part of a plan of a retreat, I would support would be one that had specific timelines coming after.
Unknown Speaker 12:45
Thank you, other Commissioner.
Unknown Speaker 12:56
Yeah, I’d certainly be in favor of a retreat, if we can all get together and make a time I think between the goofiness of the interruptions of, you know, the pandemic, and then new staff and most, you know, many new commissioners, I think it would be really valuable to just kind of
Unknown Speaker 13:17
sit back, refocus, plot out some courses of action, and have some resources available to guide those courses of action. When we say, well, we’d like to do this and somebody says, Well, it can’t look like that. It has to be, you know, to be steered one way or the other so that we we can be effective, I think that would be very valuable.
Unknown Speaker 13:43
So if we can,
Unknown Speaker 13:45
if we can, what so what would be the the mean, we’ll have a meeting the first part of January, that’s typically the you know, who who’s new, new officers new, you know, ratify the bylaws, so on and so forth. So I would say sometime, you know, late January, or at the latest in February would be an appropriate time to have that happen.
Unknown Speaker 14:11
That seems reasonable. I’ll I can work with Maria. And we’ll see if we can identify meeting space and such and come up with some possible dates.
Unknown Speaker 14:21
It seems like the last one was May and I don’t know if there was any magic to that, or that’s just what worked out. Yeah, I think it just took that long, you know, to get over. Yeah. So earlier would be better. Right.
Unknown Speaker 14:40
All right. So what I’ve got on that. Great, thank you. Any other comments on
Unknown Speaker 14:46
coming up? Nope. All right.
Unknown Speaker 14:49
Okay, well, let’s go on to talking about a few things from past business.
Unknown Speaker 14:58
Update on
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Commissioner interviews I guess. And for those, I will
Unknown Speaker 15:04
recuse myself since I was one of the interview ease.
Unknown Speaker 15:09
So I think that means, Commissioner guy, you have the floor as the vice chair of the meeting
Unknown Speaker 15:24
those interviews, I’m not sure what I could say about that.
Unknown Speaker 15:29
Is there someone who had tended those interviews?
Unknown Speaker 15:35
I will,
Unknown Speaker 15:37
I will give you the floor.
Unknown Speaker 15:40
Well, one candidate was
Unknown Speaker 15:44
removed himself from the list. Before our interviews, one candidate was unavailable for the interviews. So we had two candidates for two positions. And they both have experience already and I think they were both well received, but I haven’t heard the official
Unknown Speaker 16:06
rules.
Unknown Speaker 16:08
Determination as far as
Unknown Speaker 16:11
the board this year. Commission. Sure. So staff, me, I forwarded the recommendations of the interview committee to the City Clerk’s Office. So Commissioner lane and Commissioner Barner should be either if you haven’t received an invitation for council interviews, you should want to be forthcoming. So we did recommend that council interview both of you for regular Commission, the full Commissioner position. Mr. Fenster was unable to attend his interview. But we did interview him back in May as part of the mid year nomination cycle. And we did find him to be qualified as well. So we did recommend that he be considered and interviewed for the alternate position so that we would have an alternate.
Unknown Speaker 17:05
And I think counsel is doing the interviews on next Saturday, not this coming Saturday, and then it’ll be on a council agenda, and they’ll make appointments on it, and that’ll be in December. I’m not sure what that agenda is, but I believe that’s December 10 10.
Unknown Speaker 17:25
Okay,
Unknown Speaker 17:28
we have not received those materials.
Unknown Speaker 17:34
Okay.
Unknown Speaker 17:36
You should be receiving them at some point, because I knew I knew Michelle was frantically putting everything together this week.
Unknown Speaker 17:48
Okay, great. So there is no real action here. Right. This is just a discussion item discussion. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Well, unless anyone else has any other comment, we’ll move on.
Unknown Speaker 18:00
So
Unknown Speaker 18:03
that includes everyone that’s here. Obviously, Commissioner Norton is absent but she’s still in the commission. Commissioner goons seat would then be filled
Unknown Speaker 18:13
by Mr. Lester as an alternate or Fenster sorry, your your pusher goons regular.
Unknown Speaker 18:23
Hold on, I would be
Unknown Speaker 18:27
proven.
Unknown Speaker 18:29
So.
Unknown Speaker 18:31
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 18:33
Take my secret. The ultimate
Unknown Speaker 18:41
Yeah, so I see. So you’re on the alternate right now. Okay. And then Mr. Fenster would take mine and then I would take Terry seat as regular right. Okay, fair enough. Great.
Unknown Speaker 18:57
Okay.
Unknown Speaker 18:59
Next item is the dickens barn.
Unknown Speaker 19:04
What do we have for new news on that? So I’m still working on it. We our staff and which I would be the staff is reviewing the site plan and plat for this project we are
Unknown Speaker 19:16
the applicant is still planning to dedicate the barn and some adjacent properties to the city. So the barn can be
Unknown Speaker 19:26
preserved. I’m still I’m working with our legal staff to determine the best mechanism for doing that. So we’re just working through the procedural issues at this point. So once all of that is is finalized, it would probably be in the first quarter upon approve me and once the final plat is final is finalized.
Unknown Speaker 19:49
Then we could look at pursuing additional grant opportunities to further further further rehabilitation and stabilization of the barn. Part of the dedication would in
Unknown Speaker 20:00
include a basically a cash in lieu dedication as well, to specifically for stabilization work
Unknown Speaker 20:08
from the developer.
Unknown Speaker 20:10
So will we see them back here at all? Do they need to come back for any kind of a final approval?
Unknown Speaker 20:17
Yeah, ultimately, you have to make a action on because the plant Well, ultimately City Council’s said HPC has to approve the preservation plan. We didn’t really define what that is. So we do envision that you’ll have to take an action on that. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 20:38
But, but that it’s essentially a more or less a done deal. The Parks and Rec is already accepted.
Unknown Speaker 20:47
We hope it’s done deal.
Unknown Speaker 20:50
Okay, as done, preserving the barn would be his the ultimate reservation plan from staff standpoint. Right. Okay. Questions from commissioners?
Unknown Speaker 21:10
Is there any update on the status of the outbuildings and the rest of the property? Not? Last time I asked about that. That was still premature. But have you made a determination on that?
Unknown Speaker 21:23
Well, the original farmhouse and some of the other outbuildings are underneath the future 711. So they are going to go. And then I think the only other ones there was a chicken check that I think is pretty much collapsed on itself. So
Unknown Speaker 21:42
as of now it’s really leaves the barn that’ll be preserved. So as you know, what we originally presented, if if we still want to do something symbolic for the original farmhouse, that potentially is something you could still consider. They were proposing outlining the foundation, I think, in the parking maneuvering areas, and maybe doing a couple other things. I think there were some commissioners that that he you know that maybe that’s not the best way to do it, but we can certainly discuss that when it comes before you.
Unknown Speaker 22:26
All right.
Unknown Speaker 22:28
Okay, then let’s move on to the next item, which is HPC code amendment status. And
Unknown Speaker 22:37
looks like we have a kind of outline.
Unknown Speaker 22:42
From Glenn here
Unknown Speaker 22:46
to discuss.
Unknown Speaker 22:49
You need to go into Edit document.
Unknown Speaker 22:53
stored.
Unknown Speaker 23:00
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and commissioners. Recently, I had a conversation with Chairman Lane in talking about the code amendments, and we’ve had some good discussions with counsel in executive session and public meeting. But I think I realized that maybe we shotgun to a whole lot of things and everybody. And it got to be maybe a bigger project than
Unknown Speaker 23:27
what we had originally or what HPC may be originally envisioned. So I thought it might be a good idea to kind of go back to, I think it was 2021. And it started in the retreat, where you were revising the code. And I took directly from one of the agendas of your meeting, what you felt were the major issues. And then I thought I could walk through these and then say, our attorney that worked on it, identified some key legal issues, staff through kind of our wants in there. And there were certainly some things that came out of counsel. So
Unknown Speaker 24:09
I’ll walk through this, I thought I’d kind of lead you in a prioritizing exercise to say what are the key things with the idea of let’s maybe hit your really top items first. And then perhaps as we do a more overall, a more thorough overhaul of the land development code. We can do some of the other things. And then my intent is, I’ve talked to our city attorney about it, he thinks maybe it’s a good idea. I’ll go back to city council at some point and say, do you agree with this approach to address these things in this way? Maybe more of a smaller amendment, but I know I heard from HPC that you had some priorities, probably around demolition.
Unknown Speaker 24:58
But I thought
Unknown Speaker 25:00
I kind of walked through this cheat sheet that I provided for you I have up on the screen. And the first thing was demolition by neglect. I didn’t put these in any kind of order. So don’t get biased by what’s number one. But there was certainly a concern that just somebody’s neglecting their historic property would just succumb it to being torn down. So how do we kind of halt that?
Unknown Speaker 25:29
There was a feeling by HPC, we need to define what’s an extraordinary historic significance. You know that that was a good call, because our attorney said the same thing. We need more criteria of what is potentially historic. We added in, we do identify in our code right now we talk about archaeological significance, but we don’t have a definition for that.
Unknown Speaker 25:54
And I think the big one was revised the demolition review procedures.
Unknown Speaker 26:00
Right now, I think it says anything in the original town site. And then the code also says if we have a survey that identifies something as significant outside that area, that potentially it would go through a review process. And right now, the code the process is it gets reviewed by the liaison and a council member,
Unknown Speaker 26:25
which I think would be our council member Rodriguez, would look at that and decide whether that demolition should go up to the HPC, or whether it’s should it’s not significant enough. And maybe it should just be approved as far as for demolition.
Unknown Speaker 26:45
And HPC thought it ought to really just go to the historic preservation commission. So that’s really I think, the meat of that matter.
Unknown Speaker 26:56
There was question about city owned properties and did the same process apply to them. I think we had recently gone through the silo designation, that was brought forward by a resident
Unknown Speaker 27:14
there was a concern by the HPC, that maybe we restrict the ability to revoke your designation. And if you’re a landmark property locally landmarked, you should stay that way, there shouldn’t really be a process to undo that. That was one thing.
Unknown Speaker 27:38
We didn’t really address in our code enforcement or penalties if somebody goes ahead and ignores the code and,
Unknown Speaker 27:48
you know, tears down a property that’s potentially been designated. And then I think there was something about notice of certified neighborhoods, if we have a certificate of appropriateness. Or you’re creating a new district, or you’re creating a landmark that we had widen the scope of that notice. I left a couple of blanks because maybe I missed a few if some of you have a better memory of that draft code, or do you think that kind of hits the big ones?
Unknown Speaker 28:25
Thanks, I think I think that does I think you had a really good summary of the demolition piece for sure that I mean, that really captured at least what I recall from, from all those discussions, right. And some of the ancillary stuff is filled in, in the time since right.
Unknown Speaker 28:45
So what what I recall from that those earliest of meetings was
Unknown Speaker 28:54
the very first
Unknown Speaker 28:56
item on boards was, was just revising this demolition
Unknown Speaker 29:01
code, because at currently,
Unknown Speaker 29:06
it’s really low bar for somebody to take a building down. And once it’s down, it’s done. And we felt like we wanted to get that bar raised up a notch or two or three. And so relative to demolition, by neglect, and the demolition review procedures and the associated enforcement’s and penalties. I think that’s where that’s where this all started.
Unknown Speaker 29:28
And then other things I’ve sort of conglomerated on to the process
Unknown Speaker 29:36
to a definition of mission creep pipe up. And part of that certainly is
Unknown Speaker 29:43
Well, we did bring in outside counsel who identified some legal issues with our code the way it is right now, really having to do with due process,
Unknown Speaker 29:54
which was if I have a property that
Unknown Speaker 30:00
that’s in the original town site. It’s 50 years old. I don’t necessarily know that and I don’t know that there’s potentially land use restrictions on it. So that started a whole nother train. That was how do you do that? Well, we do that normally through rezoning. And that’s where they created the historic preservation overlay.
Unknown Speaker 30:24
So that in those areas, we’ve created an overlay so that if we’re rezoning your property, you’re aware of what the rules are.
Unknown Speaker 30:34
So it really grew quite a bit. And then as I mentioned before, they identified just being 50 years old, maybe isn’t enough, maybe it can be a little bit tighter, as far as what those criteria are. And then we added on Oh, well, why Miranda? Why don’t we look at the certificates of appropriateness? And is there a staff level versus an HPC? level?
Unknown Speaker 30:59
And And while we’re at it, let’s just move the whole thing into land development code, because it’s a it’s a land use process. So then we have this great big animal. So what I thought we would do, and and maybe it’s not going to take long is what we normally do when we have a list like this with with a group or a board, what are your top three? And what do you think would be, as far as timing wise, the most important not that we’re going to ignore them all. And then our hope is we can kind of come up with an idea of how to kind of move forward on those changes, talk to counsel about it, and see if they’re willing to go that direction. And then
Unknown Speaker 31:43
we can be very close to addressing some things.
Unknown Speaker 31:47
So you’ve got nine, eight.
Unknown Speaker 31:51
If you were to pick your top three, we can just go around the room and and see what they are. If that is agreeable.
Unknown Speaker 32:02
Okay, perfect.
Unknown Speaker 32:05
Michigan, I remember back in that, in that retreat that we had, when we were talking about demolition by neglect, one of my major concerns was
Unknown Speaker 32:17
Eastside historic neighborhoods are is a, it’s a it had been in affordable neighborhood.
Unknown Speaker 32:26
So you’ve got a lot of you have a lot of poverty there. I live there. And I owned my home forever, before I could fix the foundation.
Unknown Speaker 32:35
So I, I’m not quite sure how that reads, you know, and we’re talking about
Unknown Speaker 32:41
a developer purposefully neglecting an old shed in the backyard that they don’t want to use anymore. And they want to tear it down. And so they think that they can get away with something versus somebody who just can’t afford to fix the old shed. And they’re kind of waiting until life changes. And, you know, it becomes the priority kids are out of house or whatever it is. And so that one really bugs me, I know I’m leaving.
Unknown Speaker 33:08
That really bugs me. Because I live there. It’s it’s been my life, I pay for things as they go along, I save up buddy and then fix them. But priorities are always you’re constantly balancing them. And for us as a commission to determine because you live in this house, we get to set your priorities bothers me, just FYI.
Unknown Speaker 33:31
And, and I might add, there’s nothing to say you can’t come to one of these meetings.
Unknown Speaker 33:38
express your opinion during any of these processes. So please, you are welcome back.
Unknown Speaker 33:47
Commissioner, partner, get your mind out and get this summary. And also looking back at the May fifth memo on what the Commission’s ideas were made of the 2020 22. And then also my memory of the retreat and also the recent joint meeting with City Council demolition seem to be fairly big deal.
Unknown Speaker 34:12
And it was one where there didn’t seem to be good communication back and forth between the city and staff and, and the commission.
Unknown Speaker 34:22
So I’d say that if we want to start, I would rather than have three things. I think we’ve there’s enough under the issue of demolition, whether it’s here you’ve you’ve got demolition procedures include original town site remove liaison and council member review, the May memo you talk about demolition permit review, applicability, procedure and criteria. That’s I mean, that alone, I think, would take through the end of the year to resolve just because it’s tough, they’re tough issues. And I think if you if you try to my feeling is to try to tack on more stuff.
Unknown Speaker 35:00
Then we’ll lose our focus on what appears to have been a major issue for us for the last several years.
Unknown Speaker 35:10
Thank you, other commissioners.
Unknown Speaker 35:15
Pressure than that I can get you. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 35:19
All right, Commissioner go.
Unknown Speaker 35:22
I mean, I, I’ve been on the commission for, I don’t even know, 10 trip magically for like, 10 years. Now, I don’t know how that happened. But
Unknown Speaker 35:33
I remember when we were talking about that when this when I came onto the, onto the commission. So it’s been a long, long time. And, and I would say, I mean, to be honest, I think under the enforcement and penalties part of it, you could also just, you know, bracket a lot of these demolitions because that’s kind of the heart of it is, you know, the demolition by neglect the procedures, the oversight of it is, a big part of it is that, you know, if you tear your house down, it costs like $50 It’s like a $50 Fine.
Unknown Speaker 36:09
Even if it’s on the National Register, it’s it’s you know, and locally designated, and everything else, it just, you know, until we have a piece where there’s actually some consequences for doing that sort of thing. It’s, it’s, you know, we can put all the codes, you know, and definitions of demolition by neglect, which, generally speaking is never going to be somebody you know, not painting their house in time. It’s going to be, yeah, a developer buys a house, lets it sit there for a couple years, till it falls down so that they can scrape it.
Unknown Speaker 36:45
So for me that the number one issue would be the enforcement impound please, which would actually bring some action?
Unknown Speaker 36:55
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 36:58
Just simply here.
Unknown Speaker 37:02
Hopefully, yeah, it’s
Unknown Speaker 37:06
basically
Unknown Speaker 37:08
after
Unknown Speaker 37:10
all that, sorry. Oh, sure. See, it’s like red means go instead of green. I’m sorry.
Unknown Speaker 37:18
I’m no I was gonna say I that Yeah. Demolition is sort of the top thing too, because really, once those places are gone, they’re gone. And so yeah, I think that is probably biggest on my list. I’m, but I don’t know how it in going through those kinds of things. Like with the overlays and the zoning and all those kinds of things. I would imagine that all has to tie together. So in my head, I’m like, Okay.
Unknown Speaker 37:48
There’s your basket.
Unknown Speaker 37:50
So,
Unknown Speaker 37:52
yeah, so I guess I’m with everybody here with the demolition is kind of being a priority. So
Unknown Speaker 38:00
thank you.
Unknown Speaker 38:03
Okay. Commissioner Jacoby, thank you. Yeah, I agree demolition, you should be number one. It just just,
Unknown Speaker 38:12
yeah, irreplaceable loss is our priority, before we get the rest of our stuff in order here. So revising demolition review procedures, I think is definitely important. demolition by neglect is a very thorny issue. Properties rights I agree with Terry is very important. But I do know,
Unknown Speaker 38:32
again, there was a property on Atwood about 10 years ago,
Unknown Speaker 38:37
when of the original colony homes, that was stripped down to basically framing and then left for two years. And then they decided, well, we got to build something here. And because what they had was no longer usable. And so demolition by neglect is a definite issue. I think it’s thorny, but I think it can be worked around, but that it’s such a big issue right there. How do you define that getting the lawyers involved, that making that part of it is is going to be? Yeah, that’s going to be enough for you to chew on. But again, enforcement and penalties is part of that. Because, you know, if we don’t have reasonable teeth behind all this, everything you put on papers, kind of they’ll laugh it off. And getting back to that includes revocation of designation, I think you could make a simple penalty for revocation of designation. I don’t know what amount that would be, but I think we could just include that. And that that wouldn’t take a lot of brain power. And that would give a little teeth to people maintaining their historic designation. Again, I think when we looked at that subdivision of the farm property a couple of months ago, we had really no say in it because they could just revoke their designation and subdivide if we didn’t agree
Unknown Speaker 40:00
to some sort of plan for them, I think if we had a little bit of teeth, behind revocation, with a little bit of a penalty, at least of some kind, I think that would help out. So I think all of those are kind of intertwined and connected, but that would be more than enough.
Unknown Speaker 40:18
Right now, revocation is in your purview. That is something that has come through HBC. It’s not something somebody can just decide and let it go.
Unknown Speaker 40:30
What they were asking on the property that Jennifer worked on is, can we move those buildings, they were moving historic buildings, right. So yeah, there. Once you’re designated, they have to come back to you. I think what the HPC was thinking is, let’s, let’s shut that door. Perhaps if somebody’s a landmark, so that would be a change, that’d be a pretty serious change.
Unknown Speaker 41:01
All right. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 41:04
Yeah, I would just wrap up by saying, again, I think if you’re going to, obviously you see the demolition is the big one, it was what started this all as I mentioned, and then I don’t know that you can parse out anything associated with demolition and handle only that, you just have to take on the pieces that include demolition. So that means talking about demolition by neglect, talking about the review procedures, talking about the enforcement’s and penalties and coming up with a comprehensive direction for that.
Unknown Speaker 41:38
Component, right. And, and I think if we can, if we can do that as a focus, and we can get some surveys, Grant surveys, grants for surveys started, and then have a retreat, it feels like we have the retreat can handle the bigger pictures, because we’re not going to handle it, we’re not going to, we’re not going to make, you know, we’re not going to create an overlay district tonight
Unknown Speaker 42:02
is not going to happen. That’s a huge project that needs public involvement. But if we can get some direction on the demolition piece, and really dial that into what we want to accomplish, and then there’s been a lot of work that’s been done already. So I think it’s really circling back putting this together understanding what what city attorney perspective is on what has already been drafted, and then getting this commission to refocus on it. I think that I don’t know that it should take,
Unknown Speaker 42:35
you know, a massive amount of time. Right? Yeah. And I think the key to the demolition is refining that criteria to so that was kind of part of my discussion with our city attorney may.
Unknown Speaker 42:50
So I think we could do something a bit scaled down, that would address the
Unknown Speaker 42:58
demolition part of it. But again, we’ve we have had this discussion with council, I’ll return some way back to them and see if they agree with that direction and will hopefully address the demolition
Unknown Speaker 43:14
much quicker than the whole rewrite, moving it into the land development code. Right. That was going to be my question, this would not be this would not involve any kind of move into the land use code at this point, we just do we just revise that ordinance and write it for now. Yeah, in my mind, I’d still work within that chapter 2.5 of the municipal code where it is now.
Unknown Speaker 43:40
But I appreciate the conversation. And it helps me because I was just coming in as you’re doing that. So I’m just going back through notes without any flavoring to it, trying to figure out what was key. So it did kind of blossom into a very big project. So I think this might help us get off the dime and at least addressed I think your principal concern. So I appreciate that. Great, thank you. Any other Commissioner questions or comments on this?
Unknown Speaker 44:16
Perfect, thank you. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 44:21
Commissioner,
Unknown Speaker 44:22
I would also recommend
Unknown Speaker 44:25
incentives. We you know, we don’t I’m not creative enough to come up with what people want or what they like other than money. You know, what do we have the tax incentives so you know, something that that would
Unknown Speaker 44:38
make people want to not demolish their homes, you know, carrots. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 44:52
All right, Commissioner Barner? Yes. One thing I think would be helpful to me, since you’re in the early stages of preparing
Unknown Speaker 45:00
And what you’re going to do here is if we had some comparables, we don’t have to necessarily invent the wheel, we have an old code, a lot of codes have been revised since then neighborhood County, other other cities in the county that might have specific ideas that they’ve perhaps more recently adopted into their codes. And just going through this briefly, I just saw that boulder has a one page explanation of what a demolition is, it’s one page with pictures. And if it meets that criteria, it’s a demolition, then it probably has a lot of other words to go along with it. But it seems pretty simple. We don’t have I don’t, I don’t think we need to limit ourselves to the county, there might be some
Unknown Speaker 45:48
smart cities out there that you might know about that, like Austin, Texas, or or Madison, Wisconsin, or others that are comparable cities that have been through this process. I know it doesn’t take much searching online to find a lot of historical preservation code references.
Unknown Speaker 46:12
And I think would be helpful going in if we saw what you’re proposing and how it fits in with what the general tone of these types of solutions is.
Unknown Speaker 46:24
Not that we can’t do something unique. But let’s see where we are with respect to others, because those others have also survived the private partnership, and the the in the public partnership issues to get where they were.
Unknown Speaker 46:43
Sure, yeah, we’re certainly not unique. But I think just about every city in Colorado, at least has a historic preservation requirements.
Unknown Speaker 46:52
Yeah. Thank you. And and I do remember that I think planners Schumacher had brought
Unknown Speaker 46:59
a couple. Yeah, we had like a whole list of different
Unknown Speaker 47:04
cities with different requirements, mostly Colorado Center.
Unknown Speaker 47:09
Certainly.
Unknown Speaker 47:12
Cool.
Unknown Speaker 47:15
We’ve done that already.
Unknown Speaker 47:19
At least.
Unknown Speaker 47:24
We can handle that we can find something in a file, right? Might be as much work to find it as that find it again. But that’s how those things go.
Unknown Speaker 47:35
Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you appreciate the effort.
Unknown Speaker 47:40
Okay, we’ll go unless there’s any other comments.
Unknown Speaker 47:49
Were just thinking about Terry’s comment about carrots rather than sticks, which is always a much easier way to approach things. Another carrot, it’s something I brought up multiple meetings ago was this certificate of merit. And it’s it follows kind of the Federal Rules of as being making houses notable, and I know other cities, builders use it a lot.
Unknown Speaker 48:17
But if it had some carrots attached to it, maybe we can’t give tax breaks the way the rules are written, but maybe we could forgive permitting fees city permitting fees for in exchange for some control of development of the house. So it says, you know, but their certificate of merit, we could put some carrots in and use more because I don’t think the city’s used it very much here. I may be mistaken. But right now it’s a worthless piece of paper that says, nice try bucko. But your place isn’t landmarked. And I think we could do something with that. So I like that idea. Right. Yeah. It’s, if you don’t hit the landmark, then you get a certificate emeritus kind of. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 49:07
So basically a landmark light.
Unknown Speaker 49:12
Yeah, I think we actually talked about giving someone I can’t remember, maybe maybe it was in a, I think, actually, it was somebody that we ended up the Commission decided to landmark. But there was discussion back and forth about whether it was worthy. And it was sort of on the edge. And that was something that we were talking about as a, you know, potential stepping stone of encouragement or something. I mean, I think there’s, there’s opportunity to throw that out there and discuss it and try to figure out a way to, to, but it’d be it would be good to make it worth something more than just a nice dry stamp. Right? I mean, because everybody knows what the reality of that is.
Unknown Speaker 49:51
All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you for the comments.
Unknown Speaker 49:55
All right. We’ll go ahead and close that portion of the meeting. And
Unknown Speaker 50:00
And then we are on to just comments from the HPC. Commissioners.
Unknown Speaker 50:12
Commissioner goon
Unknown Speaker 50:14
I’ll just reiterate. It’s been a pleasure working with you guys and getting to know you all a little bit. And
Unknown Speaker 50:19
it’s, it’s been fun. Thank you for all of your knowledge and for listening to me kindly.
Unknown Speaker 50:32
Commissioner go. I was just wondering if you knew whether you were gonna get any scholarships for the CPI conference in February for can commission members?
Unknown Speaker 50:48
Yeah, I’m sure we can. We do have a pretty healthy budget as far as for training. So I don’t know, is that what we call them scholarships for? Wow. You can actually apply for money to give scholarships to commission members registration fees. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 51:08
well, if we can’t get money, we’ll we’ll find it. Okay. Is there is there maybe a possible headcount of people interested in?
Unknown Speaker 51:20
Yes, Suzanne, Doug,
Unknown Speaker 51:24
its history, Colorado’s
Unknown Speaker 51:27
its CPI. So Colorado preservation. They have an annual conference.
Unknown Speaker 51:34
So there’s lots of different
Unknown Speaker 51:39
yeah, there’s some fun ones and some very highly technical let’s talk about you know,
Unknown Speaker 51:46
stucco.
Unknown Speaker 51:52
Important. Yep.
Unknown Speaker 51:58
For sure, Bart.
Unknown Speaker 52:01
When I, one of my first
Unknown Speaker 52:05
Okay.
Unknown Speaker 52:07
Take care, but keep doing that to me.
Unknown Speaker 52:10
One of my first meetings, there was a discussion of a brochure.
Unknown Speaker 52:15
And I know it went back to staff and I know you’ve been short staffed. I think he used Lewisville was one of the examples that the Commission said they liked. And I was just wondering, but I haven’t heard anything about that at the last few meetings, and I was just wondering where that stood as far as staff, time staff work.
Unknown Speaker 52:36
It’s I remember, I think it was we were discussing a historic preservation plan
Unknown Speaker 52:43
of which Lewisville has done and then they’ve collapsed the major points into a handout.
Unknown Speaker 52:52
So I think we need to plan first. And that’s something that we are trying to find funding for, through RCL G. So but it’s it’s definitely a good idea. And we did like I think Lewisville did a very good example of what a plan could look like.
Unknown Speaker 53:15
So the short answer is, we haven’t done anything
Unknown Speaker 53:19
yet. But it’s definitely on our to do.
Unknown Speaker 53:25
Commissioner to Kobe? Here’s the red light. All right.
Unknown Speaker 53:31
Just to address Sharon O’Leary’s concerns, I mean, she wants us to make a motion for conservation overlay zone for the historic east side. I’ve mentioned that before as a possibility. And we had the RLA one zoning
Unknown Speaker 53:48
that was restrictive and did help preserve the neighborhood for a long time.
Unknown Speaker 53:53
I think it’d be easy to seems easy to me very being naive and not working through all the channels, but to just reinstate that until we get somewhere. But I think that would take energy and time away from making the larger conservation overlay that we are trying to work on. And we were the last time it was presented, it was going to be individual houses. And in the joint meeting with city council, I think everybody agreed that this would be better in districts rather than houses. And I’m just wondering, do we have any update on when are we going to get another presentation on where that’s going? Or where is that at now?
Unknown Speaker 54:32
What whereas when I’m sorry,
Unknown Speaker 54:35
that the proposal to make a conservation overlay of just the individual houses was pretty much
Unknown Speaker 54:44
done to by everybody. But where is that at now? Are we looking at making districts and or should if we are looking at districts, I don’t think we should pursue? Sharon’s suggestion as that would be just taking time away and valuable.
Unknown Speaker 55:00
resources for making better districts. But if we’re not looking at districts, I think what she requests has some merit, and maybe we should pursue it. So I’m just wondering where that discussion is at now.
Unknown Speaker 55:13
Yeah, so that’s where the historic preservation overlay came from. Right? So and that’s the reason why I want to have this discussion, we don’t necessarily have to do that, to initially address the demolition issue. Now, our code does have conservation districts, and it’s really geared towards a neighborhood that wants to put special rules in their neighborhood, and then requires a certain percentage of everybody to sign on to that. So that is a much bigger deal. And and
Unknown Speaker 55:45
it is kind of geared towards a community doing that, working on that, and not necessarily the city coming in and putting in a conservation district. So it is a much different animal. Now, part of the code amendments, were referencing design guidelines. And that’s something we told council we would do. I think that addresses part of the issue, but
Unknown Speaker 56:10
there are some some of these beginning code amendments that need to happen first. And then we do have money in the budget to do the design guidelines as far as appropriate additions in certain areas. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 56:25
All right, well, maybe not as heavy handed as conservation district. But I think it’s, it would probably address a lot of the issues, I think their concerns.
Unknown Speaker 56:38
I guess it depends on how you define the conservation overlay and what you put in it. And you know, how heavy handed it gets.
Unknown Speaker 56:44
Maybe I’ll talk to you more about that again, and after the meeting and and see where we can go with that. All right, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 56:52
And might just add, I think that’s the perfect thing for retreat. Right. That’s the perfect so we can really talk just in a more fluid way hash things out, talk about what directions the commission really wants to spend time on. So hold on to it for sure.
Unknown Speaker 57:11
Any other Commissioner comments? No. All right. I will just conclude again, by thanking Commissioner goon for your time. I really do appreciate your time and your perspective. It’s very good to have different perspectives on this commission. It makes it richer,
Unknown Speaker 57:29
and result.
Unknown Speaker 57:31
Okay.
Unknown Speaker 57:34
Okay. All right. Just getting my attention. You’ve been working me today. I’ve been hitting this thing a lot tonight. So I just want to make sure I’m not missing anybody. Okay, comments from our city council representative.
Unknown Speaker 57:48
First of all, I would also like to extend my thanks to Commissioner good for your service.
Unknown Speaker 57:55
Also, always my next entire commission for your service. It’s definitely beneficial.
Unknown Speaker 58:02
You’re getting to do a lot more now that the council is looking at the HPO and those kinds of things that normally we’ve done historically.
Unknown Speaker 58:10
And outside of that, I’d like to wish everybody happy holidays. And also thanks to the staff and Happy Holidays to you as well.
Unknown Speaker 58:19
Thank you. All right. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.
Unknown Speaker 58:31
Okay, moved by Commissioner goon. In her last act, seconded by Commissioner Jacoby. All those in favor, say aye. Opposed none. We are adjourned. Thank you all. Good night.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
December 1, 2022 meeting