Alright, we're going to get started with the meeting with the Historic Land Commission.
Today is Monday, April 10, 2023.
It is now 5.30 and we are going to start with this pledge.
So if y'all would all stand with me please.
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.
And now we'll do the Texas flag.
Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible.
Thank you guys.
Alright, we are going to go right on to item number two, which items for consideration.
Interested citizens, if we don't have any here to speak to us publicly, we're going to go to A, HLC 23-017.
Consider approval of February 13, 2023 minutes.
Did everyone get a chance to look at them? Any corrections?
We couldn't remember anything, so I'll move approval.
Thank you, Lenny. Do we have a second?
Second.
Alright, Lenny made the motion, Cassandra seconded.
Alright, all in favor say aye.
Aye.
Alright, that is unanimous. Thank you for that.
Alright, let's move to item B, HL 23-0001, hold a public meeting and determine whether the presented expenses resulted in a permanent improvement or restoration of a local historic landmark property located at 1314 North Locust Street.
This site is located on the northeast corner of North Locust Street and East Third Street, HL 23-0001, 1314 North Locust Street.
Thank you so much, Chair.
So as I say, this is at 1314 North Locust Street.
It's on that northeast corner of Locust and Third Street, highlighted in the red box there.
The owner is TJD Holdings LLC, and the applicant is Tim DePalma.
He currently operates his business out of the building.
So it is a local historic landmark.
It is the John and Annie McLaughlin House, and it's circa 1912.
So the application is for historic landmark tax exemption, according to section 10-128, which is that partial tax exemption for designated historic sites.
In your AIS, it lists a number of repairs and updates that were made, so it is broken down by company, the engineering, foundation repair, and the electrical services that were made, resulting in $48,772.78.
So these are just some before pictures of the foundation and crawlspace and drainage system.
As you can see, they're using cinder blocks, they're using brick, some of the piping is broken, so there's a lot going on down there in the crawlspace.
And then after, the applicant was not able to crawl under the house due to some injuries, but he did provide photos of the new water pumps and drainage system that is on this site.
So you can see some of that new piping that is running to the roadway, and then the water pumps here.
So staff's analysis was based on that section 10-128D.
I'm not going to go into detail, as we've heard this many a times at this point, but they do have to spend a minimum of $10,000 in a permanent repair or improvement.
So staff is recommending a favorable determination of the expenses presented, with the exception of the inspection and CAD drawings and report, resulting in permanent improvement and/or restoration of the landmark property at 13-14 local street.
Any questions?
Anyone have any questions for Cameron?
I'm the only person who wasn't injured working on my house.
No, no. They were not.
Cameron, the only question that I have on that is because it looks like it well exceeds the $10,000.
Could that go into, I know it's at 10 years' time, could they take some of that instead of giving us all of it at one time?
So they can only use work that is done two years prior to them applying to this, so they can only go back to 2021 in this instance, so none of us would qualify at the point they applied.
Any other questions?
All right. No other discussion? Do we have a motion to add the removal?
A second? All right. We have an approval and a second of HL23-0001. All in favor, raise your hand and say aye.
Aye.
We're going to turn now to our work session. We're going to hold a discussion regarding solar panels and the building safety review process. This is going to be HL23-006.
So I just want to make a quick introduction. We have Melissa DeVera from DME, and we also have some members of building safety here this evening.
So DME is going to kick us off here with the solar panel discussion, and then building safety is going to kind of walk us through that inspection process and that review process, but thank you so much all for being here tonight.
Thank you all for coming.
Yes, I just want to start off and say thank you guys for inviting us. Like she said, my name is Melissa DeVera. I'm the Solar Program Coordinator with Denton Municipal Electric, and I do also want to introduce a mention.
And we have Bill Sheppard. He's my boss, the Executive Manager of Business Services. So if I don't know the answer to the question, I'll just call up here and hope he knows.
We're going to throw him under the bus.
Yeah, I'm going to throw him under the bus. That's exactly what I'm saying.
So just to start off, it's a short presentation, but very informative. I'm hoping it answers all of the questions you guys may have, but of course, we'll have a question and answer following, or if you have questions midway through, throw them at me, that's also fine.
So we're going to start off talking about the solar system size. So for D&E in 2022, the average system installed was about seven and a half kilowatts. That could be anywhere from 19 to 24 panels. And I know that's a big discussion for you all is the amount of panels that go on these homes.
The number really does vary. It's not a set number for every home. It varies on the size of the home, the annual energy usage for the home, and also the type of panel. There's different companies, obviously, now that are making these panels.
So they have different specs to them, but that's why it ranges from 19 to 24. It could even be more or less. That's just the average that we see here at D&E.
So continuing with solar panels. So there's several different factors that affect the efficiency of the panels. First off, I want to start talking about the placement of the panels. The panels must face south, east, or west.
Ideally, south would generate more electricity, but east and west is sometimes also used by some of the contractors. They also sometimes tilt the panels. So there's some sort of vertical tilt, depending on the location of the home.
I mean, the contractors will know how much to tilt in order for these panels to be more effective. These panels must also be non-shaded. And then, of course, the weather. So a hot summer day, bright sunny day will generate more electricity versus the day that it's raining, cloudy.
This is kind of a chart. It just kind of talks about the size of the system and how much it's expected to generate in electricity and kilowatt hours.
So as you can see, the 7 kilowatt system that we saw would be the average for D&E ends up generating about 11,000 kilowatt hours. So, of course, this is all estimated. All the factors we just talked about could change those numbers, but that's just the calculations we have. Any questions?
I do. Is the 7.5 number, are you saying that's the average that would be sufficient for residents? Sorry, no, that's the average that was installed by our customers. So we have systems that are much more big in terms of panels and the size, and that just depends on the size of the home.
The 7 is what we saw was the average that ended up being installed here in D&E. And that typically is pulled from 19 to 24. But I know that's just a rough estimate. Yeah, that's just the average that I pulled from our numbers. And so that is what we saw in 2022.
It's probably an obvious question, but when you say tilt, do you mean the panel actually lifts up farther at a greater angle off of the roof line? Correct. So depending on where the home is located, it'll tilt some more than others. Is that very common? It is common practice.
Maybe different, the pitch of the roof. Sure. Okay, thank you. Yeah, of course. Is there any other way to judge if somebody presents to us and they have 24 pounds, whether or not that 24 pounds is enough so that if we need to reduce it to make it fit in and not show to 17, say,
how can we tell whether we're making our system ineffective? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So it's based off of the specs of the panels. So 17 panels versus 24 panels of the same brand varies, you know, a good amount of electricity that will end up being generated.
So we could always look at the calculation of how much the home is using throughout the year, let's say for 2022, what that total amount is and see if that's enough. But really, it's just based off of the customer, how much they're hoping to offset their utility bill with.
Did I answer your question? But I'm not sure it got me where I wanted to go, which was when somebody comes before us and we're trying to decide if those panels on that side need to come off, they don't fit.
They don't fit our guidelines. Yeah, they don't fit our guidelines. Are we making, leaving them with a non-workable system? It would produce less electricity. So, you know, the more panels we take off, let's say it is a seven KW system, we're taking off five or six panels, leaving them at six or five.
You'll see that the difference, let's say 3,000, 4,000 kilowatt hours over the span of the year. So it will make a difference for them if you guys are deciding to take panels off.
So if I understand it correctly, Lenny, and please correct me, you guys, if I'm trying to understand here, but we need to start looking at, instead of just the number of panels, look at the number of panels, but what kilowatts that is producing versus the house, because I think, and I don't know that we've ever done that.
Do you recall Lance? How can we judge, because we don't have this expertise, what is cost effective for the owner? At what point are we turning an effective system into an ineffective system, right?
Yeah, and that would just be comparing, I don't know how much information you guys get when things are presented. I know in the plans, it'll show the system size, and then using this chart too, so you can see, you know, if we're taking off this many panels, it'll end up leaving the customer with that.
X amount of electricity generated over the year, and you know, it could make a difference if the customer decides to go solar or not, because it may end up being a little more expensive for what they're wanting.
In my opinion, from the commission's perspective, you're obviously looking at the panels and how they are placed on the structure and impacting the appearance of the historic structure and whether or not it's compliant with our design guidelines.
I think it is the responsibility of the applicant to be able to inform the commission as to ideally, where's the break-even point for that, right? So, it should not be the role of the historic commission to evaluate what's the kilowatt production associated with it.
The applicant has to be able to inform the commission, well, based upon the system that we're having designed and installed on our house, you know, it's our understanding that optimal performance, or the minimum that we need to have optimal performance is 15 panels.
We're, you know, we're actually pursuing 20 panels because we wanted to try to get a little more, right, out of it. But in my opinion, they should tell you what's their break-even point, right, in order for it to be beneficial, because then you're able to make a decision regarding, you know, it could be that in that case, 18 panels is appropriate to put on that structure because it's not impacting the historic resource itself, or maybe it's not as visible from the remainder of the neighborhood.
You know, but if you're concerned regarding that, yes, those panels are obstructing the structure or the character of the neighborhood, and hence why you want to push them to the, what's your minimum break-even point, to me, that's where your role lies.
So, to get into this level of analysis with respect to the kilowatts and what have you, to me, that's not the purview of the commission.
But we have to take that, what they say at face value.
Yeah, we do. I mean, just like any application that we receive, we take it at face value that they're communicating the information correct to us.
And we can try and vet some of that through our review of the application and reach out to our colleagues at DME as well.
But I think from a legal perspective, again, you're charged with the impact to the historic resource, what's the impact to the character of the neighborhood, does it comply with our design guideline requirements?
You're not charged with evaluating the amount of kilowatts that are being produced as a result of this.
Sure, but it does seem invariably to come up and be intertwined with that issue.
But if we could ask, you know, Cameron, you know, for example, for assistance with that, I mean, I think that's great.
Right. We can do our ability to request that information from the applicant as to what is their minimum break-even point for performance related to that, and to further justify why they're exceeding that, right?
I mean, at this point, I don't think we've asked in the past.
Exactly. I think that's a helpful one.
I understand. I agree. That's very helpful.
Are there certain directions that you said that the panels can be placed? Was it east, west, and south?
Southeast and west.
I think we have looked at that in the past.
So we've looked at that, and that's kind of what my recommendations have been based off of.
But as we've kind of determined during this conversation, kilowatts have never really played into it. It's been more the panels and everything.
And we had questions on how many panels do you use?
Yeah, exactly.
Sir, did you have something to share?
No, I was just going to say what Tina said, but she said it much more eloquently.
This is really one of our inspectors, by the way. We've got many supports out here.
Okay, good. Well, in fact, frankly, one reason I'm asking some of these questions, we have a commission member who has asked many detailed questions about she's not present, about these solar panels, and I'm trying to kind of anticipate it.
Yeah, okay.
One of her questions also, if you're trying to channel your inner Mary, was particularly with respect to trees, because I know in your presentation, you made a point of shade obviously affects the optimal performance, but I know she had questioned trees because we did have a site that had a fair amount of canopy, and there was going to be some tree trimming associated with it.
But just really trying to understand how much of an impact do trees have on the functionality of the solar panel system? Is it substantial? Is it minimal?
And I'm sure there are a variety of factors depending upon the denseness of the canopy, but just didn't know from y'all's perspective if trees really are that big of an implication to the solar panel installation or not.
I mean, we do ask for the panels to not be shaded, but I will say our solar companies that are in town, which now there's, you know, crazy amount of companies, but they will look at the areas of the roof that aren't shaded.
And that's usually the area that we'll focus on, just because the tree trimming that's an extra cost to the customer so they're trying to minimize costs of this customer, you know, is able to get these panels, so they do focus on the parts of the roof that aren't shaded first.
And that's a good point, too, about the fact that there's cost involved in trimming trees, because there has been a concern expressed here that if we allow more panels, that's going to result in taking out more of these old trees.
And I don't know that, I don't think that necessarily follows, but anyway, thank you for mentioning that. That's a good point.
And one other question to that's come up a couple of times is that DME buying back the electricity.
And so, that's been when we look at the number of panels versus what a homeowner needs is, do you see a lot of that, of people putting in extra panels for DME to buy back?
I don't know that that's the number one reason why people are installing larger systems. The seven kilowatt system, I mean, that's about 11,000 kilowatt hours, which is about what, a little bit less than what customers end up averaging for the year.
So, I don't know how big of a factor that plays into it, but we do have a buy back program right now that will purchase energy, excess energy that's generated.
Can you say, generally speaking, that these panels, whichever company manufactures them, that they are removable? For example, if you put panels up in a historic district, if a later owner wants to remove them, can you remove them without damaging, you know, potentially the historic home?
I don't know exactly how much damage it would cost on the roof itself, but for the most part, I mean, we have had customers remove their solar panels, even themselves, and I haven't heard back that there was much damage to the roof at all.
It doesn't seem like to me that they would inherently damage, you know, something that's inherently historic about a given structure.
And I was going to say, to that point, Billy, Angela, have you, we'll see anything for your, because you're out in the field and you're inspecting properties, and obviously the commission is concerned about the integrity of the historic resource when these panels are installed, or if they are removed, is there any concern from a structural standpoint or just deterioration to the historic resource structure?
No, once the panels are placed on the roof, if they're removed, that does not compromise the structural integrity at all. As a matter of fact, when the solar panels are installed, part of the service that comes with that from the solar company is when that house needs to be re-roofed, the solar company will come out, remove the panels, once the re-roofing is done, they'll reinstall the panels at no charge.
That's good to know. So do you see damage on the solar panels themselves, like due to wind or hail or that, you don't?
They're built for, I forget what they said, the hail damage up to a certain velocity, certain size, so they're built to be, to withstand large impacts.
They're like being very helpful, thank you. Like this is just like, it's great to know.
Any other questions?
This is enlightening, isn't it?
Thank you for coming.
I will leave my cards with you guys, so if you guys have any other questions or want to invite us back over here, we'll come back, okay?
You don't have to wait for an invitation.
Thank you everyone.
Things that you think we need to know that we don't need to ask, that's good too.
So I'm going to invite Angela Adams up from Building Safety, and she's going to run through kind of the different types of submittal requirements, checklists and reviews that are, that Building Safety undertakes.
Good evening.
I'm glad to be here, glad to explain our process, because I know possibly from a customer's perspective, it's tedious, it's crazy, it doesn't make any sense.
So I'm here to kind of explain that so that maybe when you have these citizens that can relate.
I want to start with, we review both DME and non-DME. There are multiple energy providers in the city.
Typically, we see co-serve, encore, and then the majority being dead municipal electric. So we have processes for both.
They're a little different, and I want to kind of explain a little bit that we can get into the different slides.
Main reason they're different is DME and its co-electric has adopted the ordinance that dictates how they need to be submitted, how we review them, different submittal requirements and things like that.
On the flip side, another energy provider, we wouldn't review for that.
So on our building safety side, we're just looking at the energy provider approved it, and they're good, and then our building, our international code requirements.
So there's two different processes there, depending on which energy provider they have.
The first, do I have the...
You can just use the arrows.
Oh yeah, okay.
So this is just a breakdown, and we can send this out to you guys.
Each of these different things links to different documents within there.
We'll start with the DME side.
The submittal is through that ordinance. So through that ordinance, there's an application, there's an interconnection agreement, we have a checklist so that we know that they have submitted those required documents.
It goes into review, it's reviewed by building safety, it's reviewed by municipal energy services, Melissa reviews for the things related to the rebate, interconnection agreement, things like that.
And then DME engineering, they do a review of that.
On the other side of it, if it's not DME, it's just going to be like a regular residential operation application.
So they're going to submit that application along with the necessary requirements.
Building safety will be the only reviewer. We're relying on their energy provider to notify us that, yes, we've looked at this, we've approved it.
Right now we deal with CoServe and Encore. Encore doesn't require us to seek that out.
They must not have a process. CoServe on the flip side, we have a good relationship with them where they notify us, send something through the applicant so we know they've looked at it.
Fees are the same. There's no difference in fees. Inspection process is the same. Well, I take that back. Inspection process until you get to the point of releasing it to the utility provider and then it's either going to be DME or non.
So this just again is another detailed breakdown of what we need you to submit if you're a municipal electric and then kind of the differences here.
I'll just kind of correlate a couple of things. One thing in the ordinance for DME is they require their electrical plans to be sealed by a Texas Registered Electrical Engineer.
We on the building safety side can't require that for others. So if it's a CoServe, we're not going to require that. So that's just kind of one example of something that we may or may not look at.
We always are looking at that structural letter. We need to know that that house can support these solar panels. We're looking at the configuration, the fire access, the electrical. We're reviewing everything according to the building code, the international residential or building code and the national electric code that we've adopted.
And we're looking for the manufacturer specifications of the panel so that they're installed in accordance with that. We're looking at how they're attached. And then we're also looking for that approval from the utility provider.
It's just kind of breaking down those different reviews. We already kind of talked about that.
And then we get on to permits been approved, issued, now they're ready to start installing and start doing inspections. They cannot do any installation until they have their building permit. Once they get it, once they start installing, this just kind of talks a little bit about the process of inspections.
Typically we see, well used to, we'd see the first one. More often now we see the second one. The second one is if they're putting in a box, then they need to do a service update. So that's going to result in two inspections.
If they're just adding a breaker into the existing panel, they just have one inspection.
Typical, and I didn't put this on there, but typical turnaround times, this type of permit review, we run about three to five business days for residential. The commercial side may take a little bit longer.
Once it's approved and issued, it's really on them. Once they're ready, they call for an inspection. We do inspections up until five fifty nine AM for that same day. So it can get through the process. I would say in two, two weeks, you know, if they're already on the schedule. So our timeframe shouldn't hold them.
Shouldn't hold them up.
Well, of course we deal with older homes.
Have you guys ever seen where you've gone out to inspect and electrical wasn't up to par?
I'm going to let Dave respond. The quick answer is yes. And then there's steps that have to be taken to meet that.
Yes, David Powell, one of the inspectors. Yes, I mean, on rare occasions we do inspections and the electrical that was existing wasn't quite represented correctly or honestly perhaps to plan review.
So, therefore, it's kind of up to the inspector in the field to catch it and say, hey, look, you're going to have to actually upgrade some other items in order to make the whole system safe. But, you know, it's that's pretty rare.
Actually, most of these contractors are responsible enough that when they're there, they realize what they're going to have to fix. So usually by the time I show up, they've pretty much got it in order.
I will piggyback that to say that Dave is looking at what we approved. And so the approved plans are not matching what's installed. We require those solar companies to resubmit plans that match. And then, of course, once they're approved, then they can continue and pass inspection.
And do you ever see solar panels not on roofs? We've heard, this is what we've been told in years past, that they can go on a fence or they can do different things. Do you guys ever see that?
We have seen ground mount, but we would not have approved them on a fence. We've had someone, I think, try to do that and we did not because there's required setbacks. And so on the fence, it's typically on a property line. And then the fence is not appropriate to support those solar panels.
A fence is not considered a permanent structure. But they could do, what do you call it, ground mount. You do see those? They could do a ground mount, but they would still have to maintain the side yard and rear setbacks to meet the same purpose as the building setbacks.
And they could do a separate garage.
Is that what you're talking about?
A detached structure.
Yeah, we have seen them put them on a detached garage. I've also seen them build canopies designed to support the solar panels.
Patio covers designed specifically to support the solar panels.
So there are alternatives to putting it on the roof.
Is that what you mean? Yes. Okay.
I would say, I would say yes. I mean, if they, they would have an alternative. Yes, if they have that room in their space, that that structure would be able to be permitted because of spacing or building coverage or things like that.
So are there occasions when they could put part of them on the house and part on a separate structure or garage or some other kind of outbuilding if there wasn't enough sun hitting the roof of the house?
The same system, right, David? Yes, most definitely. You could scatter it pretty much however you saw fit.
And over the past couple of years, do you all have any idea what the percentage increase has been of solar panels being installed?
And just for the City of Denton?
Do you have any numbers?
I don't have any numbers.
Dave is my solar expert. He does the majority of the solar inspections in the City of Denton. Dave's been here five years. Four years.
When he was hired, we were doing probably three, maybe two or three inspections a week.
David, how many are you doing a week now? I'm going to do 15, 20. Some days we can have 8 or 10 in a day. It's definitely increased greatly.
I would agree it's increased greatly, but I can get you some numbers. I can run reports and get permits and get you some numbers for sure.
I mean, it's gotten really popular. I can just comment about that. Bill Sheppard with DME. So in the last probably four or five years, we've seen an increase, seen probably about 50 or 60 percent increase.
So it's on a pretty good ramp up. And with the federal government providing the 30 percent tax credit, investment tax credit, you're going to continue to see that trajectory.
Well, thank you. Anyone else have any questions? Linnie, I can see your mom going.
I'm just running around to see if we get all the questions answered. So the next person appears will go something.
It's really helpful, everything you'll share today, because we've been trying to do this based on we didn't know. We just didn't know.
So we can get these all get these PowerPoint presentations printed out and we can definitely have them available for future solar panel projects that come through that you all can utilize during our discussions.
And one document that's within the generate distributed generation manual that's specific to DME is a flow chart. So it really just it's a really good breakdown of that process that if you do have questions, this would be helpful even for other citizens.
And I think the other issue we've had is we have applicants come, but usually not the contract. And the applicants are trying to answer questions that they don't know. And I don't know why the contractor puts them in that position, but I think that's been an issue.
I like to make an offer that you have something that you're going to be looking at is going to be on your agenda. So if you have questions, reach out to Cameron, and she can let us know we can have someone available to possibly answer any questions that way.
Because it's not going to be a spur of the moment idea on your agenda. We can know ahead of time, because when we deny something they have, they have to wait a year to come back to us.
And so that's, we hesitate sometimes to do that, because we, for people to have to wait that long. But then we can do it with, we can put different guidelines on it okay well three but these conditions, changing this and this and this.
We need to know what to change if that makes sense. Absolutely. And we can, especially they've already applied for a building permit we can kind of bridge that gap between them and their contractor and make those plans available.
So you can help make a better.
Thank you all so much.
Early evening for you see.
Five.
So as you all know this is kind of our reoccurring item does anyone have a copy that they want to present on this.
Okay, I don't.
I don't have a specific property, but, and this will probably be on the agenda for next month, stemming from a chronicle recent article about African American churches that are probably, I shouldn't say presumably but likely eligible.
So I don't know if that would be something.
I think that'd be something that we can put on the matrix and have a vote for.
Let's move on.
So we have our matrix. We covered the solar panels energy savings location everything this evening so that will come off our matrix.
So that all will have left at the economic impact, the benefits for preserving historic properties and then preliminary guidelines related to property features. So those will be the three remaining items. We still have items for HLC consideration, which is a walking tour of the districts and landmarks just review current property maintenance.
We do have an option of doing a notice letter to them to inform them that there might be structural integrity issues everything like that. We also have a discussion of potential updates to our demolition code for historic properties.
We do have some annual updates later on. We have these 2023 work plan goals. I did add those to this and so we can kind of keep updated on those and then we will have the TWU and UNT designation research provided at a later date by legal.
But this is the opportunity if you want to suggest sorry.
Yes, so recently there was an article didn't work the Chronicle I'm talking about I think it's focusing primarily on five churches with roots.
Designation that apparently none of them have a city and I've spoken with some really helpful information about, you know, whether there have been applications made what the qualifications could be, you know, for example, the city, the buildings don't have to be more than 50 years old.
Unlike Texas state requirements. There are other factors at play. And I was just thinking about that because you know Juneteenth is now a federal holiday.
Right, and there's there seems to be an uptake among members of the public in what Quaker town what happened. You know, I think the city has partially funded a documentary that I believe is going to be a production about it.
And that's something that I would like to just ask you know is there a discussion that we should have about this and what does that mean what would we reach out to these churches, you know, I don't know, but it surprised me to find to learn, none of them have this designation,
I don't understand why they don't. And they may, who knows they may have the reason that they don't. I don't.
We kind of put this out there to you guys.
I think we need to put it on the matrix to how many people have to say, we need a minimum of four or two.
We would need everyone here tonight to vote to do it. Yes.
So can you provide me with the exact request so that I can make sure that is everyone in agreement to put that on the matrix.
Yes, yes, yes. I thought, you know, if we were hauling those structures down to the park as examples of old structures, surely some of them would qualify that are still at their site would qualify for designation.
I don't think they've all had so much change that they wouldn't. Are you guys aware of if there are already state designation of what if there would be a value of any kind for them to go to a city.
I mean, there's a lot of value for the city. Right. But I'm wondering about that. And then, because, or is it more restrictions for them? And I would think with a state designation that it would be.
Can I just clarify that real quick? Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, we don't want to get into too much of a discussion.
Yeah, so what do we want the discussion to be about do we want the discussion to be about historic churches that might be eligible for local designations.
We change that to structures.
So historic churches and structures that would be eligible for local designation.
Yes, I would request that if that's an addition, I just don't want to be restricted just to the physical structure.
So we already have the reoccurring agenda item, which we just moved from, which is talks about just designating different properties.
So I think if we want to actually have a discussion, I would be more specific and say specific or hold a discussion and discuss the historic churches of the former Quaker town and have a discussion of whether or not they're eligible for local designation based off that discussion.
Can I ask? I just want to make sure that I understand this correctly. It's the group that is coalesced to form each church. It's not the physical structure. For example, there is the St. James AME that I believe was founded in 1875.
And of course, the building is different. Though I've noticed in grooving around recently to look at some of these churches and some of them do have cornerstones that clearly predate the current structure. But I mean, I think that's the idea is that if a community is coalesced, it's not. And it may also be the structure.
So a discussion regarding the potential design, local designation of the historic black churches in their communities.
Okay, for purposes of the matrix, that's probably good enough. And I think probably what you're going to find, and I apologize, I shouldn't identify myself for the purpose of the video, Tina Bergen, deputy director to all the services. But I think for purposes of the matrix, I think this gives us a fair amount to go on. And then I presume there's maybe a little bit of latitude as a result of the research findings to bring back to the commission to be able to share with you what we've learned.
And then that will allow you to formulate what next steps, if any, that the commission want to take. So, Marcella, would you agree that we've got a little bit of latitude to bring back based on the research findings?
So we don't have to say today that we're going to make that determination, but we're going to get the data to present to the churches for them to determine if they want to.
So, I think it would be something that we would start here and then once that information is compiled and you all have a discussion amongst yourselves regarding the churches and it's their history, then I think those information that you all as a commission can then take to the community and present to the different churches.
Is that is that fair? I think it's always their choice to, we would just be doing our homework to find out if it looks like they would qualify and how it might benefit them and then it's up to them to say yes or no.
So then I guess as part of that discussion, staff, myself, would need to kind of bring those eligibility requirements and those histories to have those larger discussions and formulate it.
That's probably going to be a much larger discussion and formulate into five different sections talking about each church and their congregations individually and having that larger discussion of eligibility going through that checklist.
Does that work? If we did it that way, just so that I have a good sense so I don't come in and just present a history and then we're like oh well then we need to bring it back and talk about eligibility.
If we have just a kind of larger work session regarding both the history and eligibility at once.
I think that you're right.
Just wanted to confirm.
There may be structures in southeast end that were not in Quaker town.
But we're built shortly thereafter.
Or even other than churches that were moved from Quaker town, are we certain that there are no more houses in southeast end that were in Quaker town?
I don't know the answer to that.
The one house that the county moved some years ago.
I don't know if there are other similar houses that are not.
I would say it would have depended upon the 1996 historic survey, city survey, because for the preservation plan they didn't actually do a survey, they just based it off the visuals.
They based it off of architectural integrity and the preservation plan itself.
It mainly geared towards individual landmarks and maybe a conservation district kind of discussion in certain areas in eastern Denton and southeast Denton.
But I think that's something that we would have to look into because, like I said, the preservation plan was based mostly on that architectural integrity and not really delving into the actual history of each of the structures individually.
Correct. Yes, correct.
So then I guess, do we start specifically with the discussion of just the churches and their congregations and then potentially bring back at a later time a discussion regarding a survey or something of southeast end?
Based off just kind of what Lenny stated in terms of, well, do we know any other existing properties there that were original to Quaker Town?
I would say, so that might be a question we can answer with the next steps discussion at our next presentation. I don't want to get too far.
Well, that's exactly what I was going to ask if that's something that we would also add to the matrix as a separate item.
See, it's the names of not the actual buildings, it's the names of five churches that were in Quaker Town that transferred over.
But there were other churches formed very shortly thereafter that might meet the historic criteria.
And I don't know that it's limited to five. This is a newspaper article.
Well, it was five that existed. Quaker Town was a fairly small geographic area and five was even a lot, it seems to me, for that space.
Or can I say, they liked their churches. So they had five of them in there. But when they moved to a larger area and besides that, part of that, there was already an area in existence in that section.
And there were two black settlements, so to speak. There was a one that was in Quaker Town, and there was another one that was already in Southeast Denton.
When they made these Quaker Town people, you go over there too. And because this was a, it was called Shack Town.
It was a much lesser settlement that had taken place here. People had come here. And that was a less desirable settlement.
But other middle class sort of people from that era inhabited Quaker Town, and they really didn't want to go over there.
But they were finally forced to go almost, I mean, it finally coalesced into one community. But at first it was two.
So if there's a committee, we put you on it. So it sounds like then, as part of Cameron's research to kind of focus this, and then put a bow on it, is the research, at least of the five black churches, the communities themselves within Southeast Denton, but also adding to her research if there are any other black churches that may have formed
previously that are in existence today. I mean, is that the goal? Because it would be to identify those communities, in particular if they're in existence today, to determine if there is any interest on their part to pursue local designation.
And I think specifically, can I ask, Lance, you mentioned, did you want it done? We don't have complete buy dates on here, but you mentioned, it just made you think about it with Juneteenth coming up. Is that something you would like to have done by a certain day?
Well, sure, but I mean, it's a big ask. Sure, sure. But usually we don't have, we don't do that. But I was thinking, it possibly could be done. I was just going to say, there's an artist in town, Ellen Frick, you know about Ellen's quilt, so she has already gathered a significant amount of information about where the houses were in Quakerstown, where they got moved to.
Sandborn mounts are a blessing.
Yeah, I was just going to say, do we want, going back to, are we wanting two items on the matrix to include a survey to look at churches in general, in that geographic location, as well as housing structures, because I know some of the things that came up back, we know we did the 50th anniversary of desegregation,
at UNT, there was some stuff that was revealed about certain homes back then, where the students, African American students had lived off campus and those qualified for a designation.
I think so. I think two separate ones, like we said, but start with the churches and then the other structures, as Lenny said, just to make it doable.
So we do need the four votes, just to make for that second item, just to make sure that we have everyone in favor.
Okay, cool, just one. So just to let you all know, just a reminder that for designations at the local level, it is a zoning action, so it will have to go through HLC, then the planning and zoning, and then to city council.
So it can take a bit of time, especially if we get into summer months with city council, so just wanted to make everyone aware of that and remind everyone.
I think what we can do is that we can work towards it as a priority and having the discussion for May or June.
It may take a long time to have people realize that there might be any advantage to them at all, correct, to participate in this too.
That's very true.
Anything else? Are we good? I'll take a motion to adjourn. Do I need a motion to adjourn?
Not technically, you can if you want to.
Anyone want to make a motion to adjourn?
Second.
Okay, all in favor?
Aye.
You didn't say anything about this.
Well, this is, so I sent out an email last week, so this is the Dent Revealed Preservation Month.
Lacey, our new Monica, she is our new administrative assistant. She printed these out for you all.
It has been put online on the historic preservation page as well as the city's annual events page.
These are just to hand out to friends, colleagues, neighbors.
We have a number of events coming up in May, which hopefully I will see everyone add a few of them.
But if you all want posters, we can get those printed for you as well.
But we just wanted to give you these quick little handouts because it's a little bit easier to manage.
It's a great set of events.
And I'm sorry about the rehabilitation and restoration event getting canceled with the residents,
but hopefully that's the number one priority we kind of talked about as a team that we really want to get that.
Because I think the county is feeling some pressure as well in their other cities with demolitions and not just Denton.
So I think it's definitely something the county at large really wants to focus on as well.
So that is priority.
Do these come in page size?
They do. Well, we can actually print out the poster, which has all the events listed.
I don't remember seeing one at the senior center. Is there one down there?
So we have about 40 posters getting printed right now.
The county is working on that. So we only have one up in development services thus far.
But the county informed me that they'd be either done tomorrow or Wednesday.
And then we plan to go out and just start posting them everywhere we could think of, including the senior center.
So don't worry. You'll see it.
I'll work from home, or I'll take one thing.
You put it on your front door.
I can put my awesome on.
Oh, there you go.
The Texas Historical Commission might see it and be like, what?
I got it going on up in Denton.
There you go.
Now we're done.