Sep 12, 2022 Historic Landmark Commission on 2022-09-12 5:30 PM

I call the meeting to order of the Historic Landmark Commission on today, Monday, September the 12th, at 5.36 p.m. Let's do the Pledge of Allegiance. The flag and the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible. So, only a few items today. We're rather lucky, I'd say. I think we need to look at the minutes and entertain a motion on the minutes. So, vote. Second. Excellent. All in favor, can we raise our hands? Excellent. Passes unanimously. Oh, I love that. Excellent. Well done. All right. And I think now we get to this. That was HLC 22-075. Now we're going to look at HLC 22-073. Discuss and determine commissioners to comprise the newly formed Historic Worker Ad Hoc Committee. And we have a little information sheet on this. So, I think we discussed a little bit last time about this ad hoc committee to look at looking at historical markers. And so, we decided that we wanted to have a minimum of three commissioners, a maximum of three, as I recall, that we wanted to work on. And we were looking for follow-up nominations or recommendations for who should serve on the committee. Like those who weren't here, maybe. That's how it works, right? No, I'm teasing. So, nominate or ask for volunteers. Does anybody want to? I thought we had volunteers last time. That was what I thought people were interested in volunteering. Does anybody remember? I remember some not interested in volunteering. Well, some of us are already on the ad hoc committee. So, I think it would be nice to have others do a different one. Who's the gentleman that usually sits next to him? Kacen. Kacen, yeah, okay. I thought he was interested or maybe I just remember badly. He does serve on the definitions ad hoc committee. I don't know if he had expressed interest last time or not. No, I can volunteer. Are you interested? Cassandra, do you want to volunteer? I will, but I thought we already had it. I did, too. That's just recollection, but it's not very good. And we only have, I mean, so we have Roy and Lenny. That's it, the four of us, right? Okay. Oh, dear. So, who shall we nominate? Come on. Anybody have any? I nominate you. Okay, I can do it now. I don't mind signs and that's, you know, for markers and stuff. I'll share with you. Oh, great. So, now who are we going to nominate for the who isn't here? Did Lenny recall if she was? She was not here last meeting. Oh, sorry. She didn't express interest. Correct. So, we said no more than three, so two could do it. Yes, correct. Oh, okay. I thought we had to have three. So, it would just be a maximum of three or we'd have a walking form of that. So, we do the two and then if Lenny wants to do this one. Yeah. Okay, that's fine. Do we need to vote or just, nope, nope. Just either of those actually. Either volunteer or nominate. Okay. We'd only have to vote if we had too many people who wanted to join or maybe selections. It didn't seem like we had that issue, though. Okay, so that was kind of easy. And finally, we have a work session, HLC 22-076 to hold a discussion on the Historic Landmark Commission Project Matrix. And is this closed or open or does it matter? This is open. Okay. So, just to, I removed everything that we discussed last time to remove regarding, you know, such as the HLC's benefits, everything. So, those have been removed. Did add discussion about potential for window standards that's still up there. I have that as sensitive for next meeting. And then we do have our public outreach, which has kind of been always a little bit of a discussion, but we haven't really started putting goals forward to doing public outreach. So, maybe that's something that can also be put on the agenda and actually have a discussion about and bring forward ideas of how we do public outreach to homeowners, real estate agents, et cetera. So, but these are just the two items. But if you want to add anything else to the matrix, we can. And as we kind of stated in the past, we do have to have a minimum of three votes to put something on the matrix, but we can add something if we want. Three out of four then. Seems to cover most of the things I remember that we talked about. I think the education thing is really kind of public education is kind of important. It's on there, right? So, we don't have to vote for that? Correct. So, it's just, you know, it's already on there. We can just make for certain stuff, can put it on October 10th meeting to say if we want to move it forward. Because it has been something that's been ongoing and it's just been more of a discussion, but there hasn't been an actual agenda item where we discussed specifically this. But I can bring that to the next session. It might be, it might be useful. I don't know. What does everybody else think? Sure. I know at least a lot of my neighbors claim ignorance. I don't know whether they are, but they will claim ignorance on knowing what the rules are. And then they seek forgiveness. But many times I'm not convinced, you know, that they didn't know in the first place. Hey, Cameron. Yes. There was, I remember some discussion about additional areas coming into historic. But deeming them historic, if they're preservation or conservation or whatever. I know there's been some discussion on that. And I know is that something that the city looks at or is that something this committee looks at? And is that something we want to do? So it is in our preservation plan as stated as something that is kind of overseen by HLC, where you all would have basically a living breathing list of maybe landmarks, individual properties or districts that you feel that need to be deemed historic. And we would be keep updating that as a yearly basis. It would be kind of those yearly goals that I previously mentioned when I talked about the preservation plan. So that would be a combination of staff and the committee working together. We do have areas that are of interest to be designated as both conservation and or historic districts. So I can bring those back in the future as well. We can add that to the matrix and that can be brought back as a work session to kind of go through. But just to let you all know that staff has pulled together from all the past surveys properties that are deemed high priority, medium and low priority in terms of designating. It is still, I'm still cleaning up the data. I am working with GIS to clean up that data, but that is something that I can kind of put more at the head of my to do list rather than at the back burner at the moment to get that data cleaned up a little bit faster because we wanted to include demolitions and historic properties that have been demoed from those past surveys as well. So that would be probably a good starting point for the commission, but it is part of you all's jurisdiction to kind of make those, I guess, suggestions for our landmark properties or historic districts. I think putting it on the project matrix makes sense to me. Yes, we'd have to have minimum three points. So I guess I can make a discussion on what everyone thinks about it. I think it's important to keep it in the forefront of our mission is to preserve and maintain. I think it's a great idea to bring it back on. So I was like, Do you mind specifically stating what you want as your request so that we can just make sure staff can make sure that we have that written down correctly for next time. I mean, and I think it's great that staff has already done that. That's why I was asking. I know there was some discussion with that. I guess. Just keep stay updated. Is that would that be the right you guys can help me out here. Do we need to stay updated on areas of possible historic districts or possible preservations that we want to potentially move forward on. Yes. And and properties and if you know, especially if staff thinks there's some that are high priority for that. I just think it might be that we might put it down. Okay. Do we need to add that and it's it's an item that remains on the matrix. It doesn't know law. That's something we want to keep on there because I will keep I think in our minds that a way of doing that and updates on that because a lot more on the matrix. Right. So that's a very good point. So staff as staff I could keep it on here and just make sure that I provide maybe a quick update each meeting. That is something that I've been thinking about in terms of demolitions, but we haven't gotten demolitions of any historic properties. They've all been 80s 90s buildings that we've gotten demolitions for. But that was part of what I wanted to provide you all as a commission updates about. So that could be similar process just providing all updates about that GIS map and then once it's complete, then I can provide that to you all and you have access to it. It is public. It is live right now. And I can send that a link to that after this meeting so you can see where it lives and can kind of see how it's working. But the data definitely needs to be cleaned up and we do need to add demolitions and alterations to that. But that can be kind of the basis for where you all build off of in terms of what you're interested in preserving potentially as a historic district as a landmark, as well as the preservation plan itself, which kind of outlines some of those areas of interest already. So if you want to talk about each meeting, you would actually have to be a just recurring agenda item. So just like the matrix. Just like how we have the matrix as recurring, we have another item that is just on every agenda that's like update on demolition or like global historic properties. It's kind of like a place for asking questions or for adding stuff. That way it's not far from mine, but it may just go like that. And it could be there's no updates. Right, okay. Yeah, I don't know if any of y'all watch pub or the public utilities board. They have an item that's kind of like management reports where the staff liaison for pub gives just kind of a summary of like related items that are going on. So I think it would be something like that where it's listed as an item. I think a nice report, and I don't know that it goes on this, to know those surveys on maybe the areas they're concentrating on on different ones. I've just been out walking and I'm thinking this is a beautiful community. This community should be. I mean, there's just some really neat structures and then that could maybe not, you know, I don't know. I don't know where they sit with it. So maybe right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, eventually to have a really beautiful online map that really is, I mean, that's, you know, a long term pie in the sky where you can click and get, you know, so I know that some of that has been started, but it's not. I was just say once the meeting you and during the meeting I can show you all real quick where that is and we can look at it briefly. So do we have a motion. I make the motion that I'm not sure how to orbit. Yeah, we have the, the update on. So, potential historic structure of potential historic districts and preservation and landmarks within the city. How about that. All in favor. All opposed. And I don't think do we have any other new business, I would like to discuss adding something to. Oh, good. And this is in regard to the subcommittee, the definition subcommittee that we've been working with the last few months that I would like to suggest adding it to the matrix. To talk about, not so much that we're going to come and report as a subcommittee to the commission as a whole, but rather to kind of turn that around and have all of us and seek some input from everyone particularly some experience more experienced members of the commission. What are our goals. What are we trying to accomplish with this committee because we kind of wonder, I think, I think that would be useful, and then we could go back as a subcommittee and work on that, but I think it would be a good idea to touch base with the entire group. And what, as far as what we would need before the October meeting for everyone to be prepared for that. I'd like to discuss that too and I welcome input. You know, from anyone that may be a camera since the word version of 2.3.6 and 2.9. One of the chat that shows comments from other folks. So this is what we potentially be revising it's I understand it, and so I started to think about just only tentatively, you know some suggestions but I really think that we might be able to move the focus. Any discussion. Sounds reasonable to me. All in favor. Okay, it passes you now. Cameron we might want to since I don't know case in Orleans or here when we meet you'll need the initial presentation about the question that was raised from Councilmember Davis kind of kicked everything off about that how committee defining the tax improvements. Oh, yeah. So the definitions committee came from a council request. Oh, and then it grew in a discussion here to incorporate other things out of kind of a desire to maybe have more clarity under our current enforcement procedures. Um, so I think maybe just adding that piece back in. Yep. So we make sure we're responsive kind of the background of whatever. Sure. And as far as suggestions about what you know what we would want to review maybe perhaps for the October meeting camera is this something that like our subcommittee would email back and forth to you is that something we want to talk about. That would be something that we email about in terms of what we're looking for and what you are looking for as a subcommittee and then that can be sent to the larger group. And then everyone kind of has an expectation of what is going to be discussed as part of that agenda item. Great. That'd be nice. Yeah, thank you. Other items to discuss. They're so quiet today. Well, if there is no further new business in the old business that we need to discuss, kind of cover the matrix right. So that's the case, I could be open to emotion. Yeah, sounds good. All in favor. Thank y'all that was great