Feb 13, 2023 Historic Landmark Commission on 2023-02-13 5:30 PM

that's a good thing all right you're ready to get started let's go all right i'm going to call the regular meeting to order on monday february 13th 2023 at 5 31 p.m and our first order of business is the pledge of allegiance and it's in the u.s and it looks like a pledge of 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 honor the texas flag i pledge allegiance to be texas one state under god one and indivisible all right all right um our first item up is we don't have any one for the two speak okay so first is item 2a hlc 23-01213 to consider approval of the january 23rd 2023 minutes any discussion on that or any corrections anyone i'm of approval second we have a approval and a second all vote please with raising your hand and all abstain and all opposed raise your hand okay so passes forward to and one of one statement and then we'll move to item 3a hlc 23-011 to discuss chapter 2 article 10 and 12 of the code of ordinance pertaining to the historic landmark commission appointee qualification so i don't have a presentation for this so this was related to kind of the past discussions that we had towards the end of 2022 um in regards to property uh historic property ownership and and what qualifies as being part of the hlc and the commission so i was just bringing back because that was part of the matrix or that had been voted on to be part on the matrix um so that's staff's bringing that back to kind of have that discussion as to why property owners or historic property owners was not originally included um so in march 2022 uh if you guys all read through the ais basically it had been presented to hlc we're talking about it being the clg requirements in terms of following those certified local government requirements for membership towards a historic landmark commission so as part of that they mentioned architecture history architectural history planning prehistoric and historic archaeology curation etc so there was a bunch of different fields of interest or that people had had degrees in that could be met or could qualify them to sit on the commission but as part of the clg program it does state that the requirement can be waived if you're not able to meet that but you feel that other members need those same qualifications additionally city council did remove the ownership requirement to be on boards and commissions so that's why owner of real property has been removed from all boards and commissions um so that's also why that historic property ownership was removed as well but the clg requirements do not keep anyone who is a historic property owner from being on the board first of all if 60 which is part of that requirement for clg um qualifications if 60 percent of the board were to meet those qualifications for clg then the rest of the board could be whatever city council wanted to fill those positions with i think that's a real problem i really think that is a correct issue is that you're leaving out people that have a real vested interest in the areas that are covered the city council i think did a big mischief doing that that was why we brought it up a year almost a year ago now that if there is no property owner of a historic property there is you know you can i mean how many people here are we going to get 60 percent to qualify in architecture history architectural history money prehistoric i mean just i mean are we going to find people right now in this room that qualify on any of these i'm just asking because i don't think so for any of them conservation is any is anybody a conservator i mean uh cameron you'd probably qualify but or curation or cultural anthropology or folklore prehistoric art i mean are any but is anybody really good under those qualifications i don't think so so i think that that's an issue i don't know where you're going to find people to do it as i previously stated 60 percent but then if you don't have to have that requirement but that's four people or or a little bit over four to five out of seven okay we have five here i have two history degrees well that's okay that's one good okay how about you i got half as many as you got one the three degree okay uh i'd like to see a broader specificity than history i mean okay lawyer types and stuff so cameron when you say that that's the recommendation from the city when you said that others could still be on it they're saying that's the recommendation so is that a requirement so others can be still on it it's just yeah so clg their recommendation is to have at least 60 of your board be meet those qualifications however if you cannot get 60 of your board to meet those qualifications then i just explained to thc or city council just saying hey we're not able to meet those qualifications but we have a lot of other great candidates who are out there who are willing to serve on the commission so basically it's just to provide guidance because prior to that we had no guidance and there was no guidance there was guidance that one person had to be like into finance accounting one person had to be a builder one person had to be a resident i mean there was right but city council had removed the accountant in finance they didn't feel it was necessary for hlt to have that yeah exactly but they don't feel it's necessary for people to live there you know do we just not vote i mean you know i'm saying the voting oh gee you don't need to live in the city that you shouldn't vote i mean there's an issue about voting and i think that the people that are majorly impacted by what's going to go on here should have a vote in hlc or at least representation as i say you can't it doesn't mandate that there is one though there's no guarantee that there is one person here that will be connected to historic districts i think if that's a case then that's something that you share with your city council members and state moving forward that you really do think a historic property owner should be required but as it currently states in terms of qualifications we cannot add that in terms of ownership of a property my understanding due to the fact that city council removed that from every single boarding commission so it was a blanket it was blanket and done it wasn't done yes it wasn't just hlc it was everyone removed ownership of a real property so any change would take a city council action as a as a board you're subject to the decisions that the city council makes regarding the makeup and that's why camera provided the ordinance to see that you can see kind of what i'm not blaming camera but i'm just saying that this is a a silly rule but for many boards it doesn't matter but it's kind of like so no it's okay if you're the mayor pro tem or the you know the mayor you don't have to actually live in city limits of denton i'm just saying it there is no requirement in here in fact that you should be living in denton well i mean you could bring somebody in for dallas i mean there is no requirement that the board for hlc is even from here and i think that's a problem i think is what poorly thought out from that point of view i mean before along the city council took all the point people would have no bearing at all and make it a full exception well it does say in the ordinance that they have to be residents of state it's on the first page of section 2 just 288 um but i i do see where where you're coming from um married i understand your concern but also you have to look at the perspective of that we had these are from 1981 originally these this ordinance and for a long period of time these actually weren't active so we were just kind of doing it over the last i think i think it was like 20 years these were kind of inactive these or these um hlc in terms of qualifications so the best thing since we are part of a state programming of which we are a certified local government entity that provides the makeup of a commission and their expectations that seemed to be the most organized and well thought out because one we're always trying to meet clg requirements i have to do a report annually as staff to make sure that we can stay within that program so when i talked to other cities and hpos they said that was kind of their guiding light so that was kind of where we got this base but then of course when it came to the makeup in terms of seven versus nine when originally had nine that was just based off past experience of not being able to get reach forum very often and having um run-ins with attendance so that's kind of where we came up with that seven four and then obviously the clg requirements were kind of the leader for how we'd make up hlc moving forward so that city council had an idea because when we specifically said an architect and an owner of real property and denton county barn association dent county historical commission it really limited people in terms of what you had to get to be on commission these are all or or or statements now in the ordinance so it allows for a broader category of people to be reached for city council so i mean is there a line of people waiting to jump on the board i mean i don't know why we talk about the possibility of making it more owners i think it's probably uh not an issue as is at least one i would love to see at least one person that lives in this historic district just so they know some of the issues that are faced uh because if you don't if you haven't lived them a while you may not appreciate the uh the battle zones and how much how much the property owns you instead of you owning the property and i definitely agree and i think that's where you all come in as the commission especially if you're leaving your position saying hey you really should put in an application for this position you're a historic property owner we seem to have this this this covered on the board right now but we don't have a historic property owner i was the last one to be you know on the commission in that kind of role i really think you should run so that's kind of where you all come in as because i'm not going out there getting people city council members some of them will but not always they're waiting for people to turn in applications so that's kind of where that education outreach that we talked about in the past is really important is that you know you all getting out there so that people can see your faces and have that interaction but also to say well it's really important that you take part in this and you play a role on this commission and if you have interest in to you know if you're a historic property owner or you're a professor at unt or whatever it may be um you know i think these requirements that were put forward in march 2022 and were passed by city council actually a lot allow us more leeway than our old ordinance so are we may as are we kind of moving toward making some discussing a possible recommendation makes it more communicate with them somewhere we just discussed it was just more of a discussion because there had been a concern that i had heard just through discussion in the past um about the historic property owners not being part of that ordinance and that had been something that we'd actually added to our matrix in november on november 14 2022 hlc meeting so i was bringing that back just kind of for discussion so that um you know i guess we can kind of get all on the same page i don't know if that's but just so that we kind of have a better understanding of what the ordinance allows us to do and that it really doesn't keep people who are historic property owners from participating it just gives us a base and if we can't meet that base it's not saying you can't have a commission if you don't need that it's just i just need to write a letter to you today saying hey we've really been struggling to meet this but we still have great commissioners and this this this and this is what they can bring and it's usually not an issue okay any other questions so as we are now we have two you and me okay i think there's value and just just because it's a different perspective i think sure you can actually share about maybe we're talking to people that come in here with uh different things to ask them you may want to say on this yeah good idea all right we're ready to move on i don't need all right we're going to hlc 23-012 receiver report hold the discussion and give staff direction regarding prioritization prioritizing the historic land smart commissions work plan actually for 2023 okay so i wanted to just give you all a brief overview of our 2022 which was awesome um and then kind of go on to the goals for hlc moving into 2023 so a 2022 overview certificates of appropriateness we received a 16 in total uh you all reviewed and took action on 10 of those um myself as hpo i reviewed and took action on six of those those were mostly paint um and some lighting i think it was paint lighting and i think someone wanted to replace like two boards and i said okay so it was very very minimal um you all reviewed and took action on three historic tax assumptions we only received three all year um and then in terms of special topic items covered we looked at 14 so this was kind of just us having these kind of open discussions topics of interest so a couple of the topics we covered were done in 2040 comprehensive plan code enforcement our 2019 historic preservation plan public outreach and education and so we covered a lot of topics this past year so moving on to 2023 as part of the preservation plan it really talks about the commission having an annual list of goals basically for each year um so based off our discussions based off what we already kind of have in place in terms of you know the ad hoc commissions um in terms of discussions with property owners that i've had when i've been reviewing coas or historic landmark tax exemptions all that kind of come um came together and going through the historic preservation plan these are the different goals policy and recommendations that i ended up coming up with um that i wanted to present to you all today these are not in any particular order um i actually that is what i'm hoping you all can have during your discussion today is to prioritize these in the order that you see fit um so i'll just go through them real quick goal one is prepare an annual study list of potential landmarks and districts where you all are starting that that was implemented in november of 2022 starting to talk about designations of interest and kind of creating that living list um so added that to the year uh brought on the tax exemption eligibility criteria for improvements to historic buildings that's something we've also been talking about is looking at ways to improve our tax exemptions everyone that we've heard from the public here um doesn't feel like they're really that strong especially for uh residential property owners so that um was one of the goals i brought on uh form an ad hoc historic landmark commission subcommittees to manage and implement various tasks related to survey and education efforts currently right now we have the definitions ad hoc committee and we also have the historic marker committee um but basically getting those kind of moving they're established and there's goals in place but kind of trying to figure out the trajectory for the next year and just see where those lead um goal number three also complete designation reports for landmarks and districts that kind of connects to goal one so kind of getting that living list going um and see if there's maybe potentially you know towards as we're coming towards the end of 23 say oh my gosh you know i talked to this property owner they seem really interested maybe a goal of one or two this year who knows maybe just one but i added that goal on here as well um and then also goal number three update the debt and historic preservation ordinance promote clarity and certificates appropriateness procedures and historic landmarks commission responsibilities among other ordinance enhancements so this is also something that we've been talking about um obviously this really lays a lot with the definitions ad hoc committee but it also is shared with the wider commission um you know that that committee will be bringing recommendations forward and then conversations and decisions have to be made as a whole um so that is why i added here as well so now it's basically just discussion um and obviously we can continue this into next meeting but i did want to bring this forward so that we can kind of get a work plan in place for this upcoming year all right anyone have a question i think i'll let go to myself i think it's a way of incentivizing people to maintain the historic home i kind of like the goal too on the broaden the exemption eligibility criteria for improvements to historic buildings because otherwise people may see it as a burden to maintain an old house it's easier just not to do it so they can have some some kind of carrot instead of sticks so the idea of maybe putting that first because we're going to try and prioritize them so we're going to probably we want to label them one two three four five i would go for that as one but i you know that's something that does also have to go for city council for any changes because that's that's where i would look right uh yes correct i think it's the only way to get people i mean right now we can do a commercial property because of the tax incentives and that's helped a lot and then designated properties specifically but only designated not historic district assembly even right so i mean if there's something for older units help renovate help just maintain them in some way shape or form i think would be a really great bonus because i think didn't you did you do the calculation who's doing the calculation it was you on how how you know my husband was like man it's kind of a toss-up whether it's worth the effort to do because it's so such a small amount on the tax bill in the end it's all relative but you know if it's only ten dollars i mean or you know i think it was thirty dollars based on how much time the property is it's huge yeah it was a lot it's huge for commercial but it's not for for private and so i think we need to improve that for private owners because there's a lot more private owners i mean so there were three this past year that went for exemption i have to do it uh every 10 years how many total have requested or that currently have it do we do we have a total um i would have to pull up my excel sheet so i can try i don't have sorry but yeah i could definitely bring that back to you all next i didn't know if it was like a dozen or so it's not well we have 65 designated landmark buildings right now we have one that is a historically significant site so it's not designated at the local level but it's historically significant so remember we have those two tax exemptions that's the fair haven retirement right right so that has one right now the rest that are designated historic landmarks i think we have i would say out of the 65 we probably have at most 20 and we're getting to the expiration of some of those okay i would say at least 20 and i wonder how many of those know about this that's a problem just getting them out to know about it i heard of at least so are we thinking goal two would be our number one would be the commission's number one anybody else i still i still like the one that you have is number one looking for uh you know additional sites that doesn't take away from number two but so maybe simultaneously yeah i mean um it's like ranking your children you know yeah i don't have any kids both of you ladies what i'm wondering is in order to do one which i think is very very important because i think they're slipping away from us but i feel like in order to do that i don't want people to feel like we've singled them out and to have to in place to feel like there's that carrot for them to go with landmark districts so that's why i kind of think some attainments are going together i don't know what chicken or the egg i mean i'm not sure you know which i think there's a pretty good list out there i mean you've done a pretty good job of collecting all those already we have the properties that are eligible but those range over 30 plus years so at this point are they actually eligible um more eligible now well depending on how much work's been redone um den seems to have a very high rate of alterations let's just put it that way at least that we've been able to see so um so we we do have technically a starting list but what the goal of i guess like our item 3c is is to create an actual list that you all think could be designated tomorrow or should be designated tomorrow based off their integrity or whatnot um but i definitely agree i definitely think goal one and two they are very simultaneous because that's the biggest thing when i try and sell it to people is they go well the tax exemptions are not that great so why should i go through the trouble of that paperwork exactly and that's why i think if you if you elevate too because i think one is ongoing forever it's never going to be finished right i would think right yeah that's true you know that it's gonna it's it's a constant thing that will keep you employed for a long time right yeah even in turn you know um so i was thinking if you could just get somebody a reason why they should do this i think it would be really important there's so many people to just like the lady on the solar panel right you want you want people to feel like there's some benefit in being part of it right and then if we just constantly you know update the list i don't know about the other three though i'm not sure what order i was trying to read those but so then the last the policy 3.2 that's just been obviously an ongoing discussion that we've had with sub chapter 2 and definitions ad hoc committee in terms of creating goals um and then goal or the policy 3.1 i threw that in there because if we're creating a list the hlc the hpo as we we have the authority to put a report together and then basically just say hey get the owner's permission but say hey we already did all the paperwork for you we just need your signature if you want to be a designation here are your green tax incentives if you want to do it and we can file it for you and review it so we have that authority to do basically that paperwork and then just have them sign off so that's kind of why i just threw policy 3.1 in there because it'd be fun to have at least one designation in 2023 because i think the last designation that went through hlc planning zoning and city council was 2019 i have one for you though i think later okay i don't know it's not the work i don't like at some point for us to discuss when we do that is um giving them a little certificate and having them come to a meeting to make it a bigger deal yeah does that make sense oh yes okay we want to invite you have you know anyways a little celebration yes i think so yeah that's nice so put the name in the paper yeah there you go there's no paper anymore but you know what i mean but as i say if you all don't want to prioritize it and you think all these are important it was just more to start a discussion um you don't have to prioritize it tonight but if you guys are okay with these being y'all's goals for 2023 then i can just make sure that these kind of live in our matrix as annual updates at the annual updates section of our matrix um and something that i obviously just keep in mind and that you all i can add that to your binder if you want to put it to your binder just so that you kind of have um that visual reminder i guess each month but um yeah so do you have any thoughts i think that's a wonderful idea yeah okay well i think everybody thinks it's a wonderful idea cameron thank you very much okay sounds good we'll move on to item 3c hlc 23-009 receiver report holds a discussion to give staff direction on the historic landmark commission's request for local historic designations of eligible historic properties do we have anyone who wants to present one i have a thank you for sending me stuff but of course um do you want me bring up the picture of it please do you have that excellent i was just trying to pull it up on my phone but yeah no worries and this is a property that most everybody should be familiar with especially given all the goodies that are over here oopsies it's on elm don't i don't want to rename it i just want to type something in okay and it is zoom in oh cool we can go down oh weird cool beans okay there it is this is the house you had an old picture of it as well uh that you sent me and it looks remarkably similar i know eric just finished all of his renovation on the house he's been working on it forever in five days and i think he finished it just before the pandemic arrived at the edge of the pandemic and i think cameron you said it was built in 1888 yes and had some kind of renovation path in between or update and we both decided it maybe it had moved but i have to say i went to look at the plat and there's something wrong with the reload on the plat on the city's website it kept just saying it crashed but it was there for a second when i looked and it was there there but if you look at the the gis map it's not clear to me which piece of property the house is actually on they list that they live on 214 but 214 is like a on the behind the creek behind that house oh sorry y'all that's okay that's the original i'm just trying to bring it he did a great job he really did he did all the most all the work himself he was his general contractor and look at that i mean is that not remarkable how close is i don't know i can't see the windows too a little diagonal ones but he worked at it really hard and and cameron is showing you the picture that i saw too and it looks like we both agree that it was moved back from elm and now the address their home address is listed as 214 west prairie which is the other street but this is clearly i thought on elm so i'm a little confused the good news is all three past owners listed are all people i know and so i just haven't had a chance to catch up with eric because i try to avoid the bakery if i'm not trying to eat food it's and they're not open on monday which is my relatively free day but i think if we talk to eric and hello they might be interested i mean they're very great in the community they might be interested in having a declarable landmark if they especially since part of the property is a business they may actually benefit even more in that regard and the previous owner and i somehow remembered when i was talking to you about you know i think i know you still live there because it just was an old topic of conversation i think randy and aneta hunt owned it in the past iterations i went to denton cad to find that and i was right she was the last owner he was the owner before don't ask me why okay the land if you look at it on the on the property area it's really weird if you look at the denton cad roll it's hard to figure out which property belongs to where it's it's totally messed up we don't know when that picture was taken this was in the 1940s so every foot tax card that the county has um all the photos were taken in the 1940s so if your property does not have a photo it was likely built after the 1940s so this was like 1942 1943 there's a fire when these were taken and the other were destroyed except these little tiny thumbnails was elm ever rerouted uh no so i actually looked at historic aerials and everything it looks like they just pushed it back because they wanted to build this so they just moved it back because they didn't want to demo it and whoever owned it just was trying to keep the house but build this at the same time because the house is 37 square feet and it's huge yeah and this actually is a pretty important so i had to do i did research on this property so this actually has a really interesting history this was one i think the first buick card like dealership um and they the original owners had owned uh they had owned this property they grew out of that property wanted to actually sell more cars so they built this property and i have a whole email i need to pull it up um but i did research for eagle surveying because they were thinking about originally going for a destination so i pulled up some newspaper but so all this history is pretty interesting but um so do the folks who own the bakery also own the old car dealership that's what i wanted do you know are they leasing that i did not do that research do you know commercial tax break for them for work on the old car dealership which is a fantastic structure oh they own both they own all of that property if you okay but i can't quite figure out which one is actually where they live and which one is part of the commercial or all of them it's not it's not clear to me um but i just did a quick dead and cad search because i had some of their addresses listed was 214 south elm and then there was 216 south elm and 214 west prairie the three addresses that i came up with and so and if you look at how the map it's really kind of weird it's just it's weird camera what what kind of architectural style is that house this house sure yeah that house oh my gosh that's like a classical revival it's probably the only example we have in denver okay and so something and you know i took care a couple of weeks ago before so they okay so they own both it's just split into two lots so it was because this i think there used to be a house here and it faced prairie and then there used to be obviously their house up here and then there was another house here based on aerials but then this was constructed this is moved back and then i don't know what happened yeah i don't either so but they but you didn't let me go into depth in that so he actually knows since he owned it before yeah he probably did research on it i would imagine no so he would be it would be worthwhile also talking to him and seeing if he knows what's going on yeah who the original owners we have that in our tax cards so the last one was somebody named keys or something the last three they only show through i said all of them which i think i said so it was built by the armstrongs okay and then the next property owner was uh nacy or massie massie okay i love these little cards they're just do you think they ever added onto the home based on aerials it didn't look like they did um i definitely want to do some more research just via our community development but we would know most of the changes based off these tax cards at least up until like the early 1960s i mean they think that doesn't matter to me right yeah so i don't think they have that clean right there that they have and what it looks like today it looks like maybe two wings which i'm just thinking if not that was a lot to move yeah yeah i mean it was so much more common in the old days to move houses you know now it's not done it looks like it was i think um i think i emailed you mary that was built or it was moved sometime in the 1930s yeah because it was moved back from other building was built in like 1950 so and i thought it was like 33 you said or 30 yeah it was 30 it was between 33 and 35 something like that yeah but early early 1930s that's when it seems to have been moved back but it was originally built in 1888 so and i mean that they put it so close to that drainage ditch just so i know which makes me honors i know it's like is going to fall in but it's got that old style brick you know that the of walls the that are so pretty and wobbly and so maybe it's well done but you know the building land value is 10,259 in 1942 that's a lot of money actually no so i guess that's when the photo was taken was 1942 yes it's a great house so i i certainly think we should uh encourage uh eric and emma to do that and yeah when was the dealership built and the reason i ask is to ask them about that structure is what about the bakery as well when was it built and i mean he could get a tax incentive on that bakery if we want to give an incentive here the building that was put up in 1950 eric bought it about 2009 that was before that was 2003 i think i have to i well when was it built like from what she said 1950 the whole it was yeah because i think it's old enough to be designated as well and i mean if it was an original buick dealership i could have yes also tax benefits yes and i don't know what that building was before eric had it but certainly eric would know and uh randy should and another should know what it was because they owned it for a few years okay so they lived there for a while okay i figured it out okay good so mac massie so mac massie he was the car dealership owner and that's when he moved to his new plant which is now we're at home bakery and that was built in 1947 so he i guess lived in the building behind so i said mac massie motor could pierce up left the building sometime 1946 which he was originally at that gas station further up right now eagle surveying right um moving just on the street to 416 south elm street 1947 to their new plant um i attached some newspaper articles of the property sorry i'm not very jumbled in what i'm saying um but then also i know that um chuck boellinger from the library he sent a video on the ravelin bakery building itself but it seems that the owner of the house that we're interested also owned the car dealership in front of him sure and or his plant so that's a really neat story to tell huge huge significance going over a large period of time you're welcome well we got to have we have to have a minimum four votes to add it to the list it seems like everyone's there but we have to all right what is it i make a motion that we put on the uh on the uh list can we have a motion for married we have a second second second from lenny oh or discussion first oh wait discussion yeah this is just to put on the list of possible so yes just to put on the list so yeah is that unanimous all right okay that was easy that was easy all right yeah it's kind of exciting then you know think about that you drive by places all the time and you don't think about them so open your eyes as you drive by there's got to be some interesting stuff that we just don't recognize yep all right okay moving on to 3d hlc three dash three three seven hold the discussion regarding the historic landmark commission project links okay so um we are going to move that public outreach and education kind of that discussion that we had last in january continued that discussion in march so be thinking about that and some ideas and i'll be brief oh sorry thank you thank you bringing that forward back in march 6 so just keep thinking i'm going to bring the ideas as well forward and kind of have that discussion going um obviously we had the hlc's ordinance uh membership qualifications that happened today uh bringing back that uh quantifying the economic impact of preserving historic properties um both in the future and then kind of incentivizing proper or owners to design their properties um i still have this definition ad hoc committee presenting in 2023 for just presentation of preliminary guidelines i can move that back even further to mid 2023 but just to have that on there uh dme i finally confirmed with them they are coming on the march 6th meeting to discuss the solar panels and have that discussion they just need a little bit more time to get everything together um and they just didn't feel like they would still be ready for february so um so um historic landmark commission you know we still have those same items and then annual update i think marcel will be presenting that i don't know you can say it'll be vmo i'll just say vmo okay um and then in terms of all the goals that we discussed that you all discussed today i will add these to the annual update so that uh we can have updates and notes of where we're at in terms of progress um but that's it is there anything that you all want to add to the matrix or if you feel like we're at a good spot um right now if there's no other business i will entertain a motion to adjourn unanimous thank you all right thank you everyone