Alright, shall we call the meeting to order? Today is Monday, May the 8th. It's 530 and
we get to do the Pledge of Allegiance. First, we'll stand and find the flag.
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.
On the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.
Everybody's here, we've got a quorum, excellent. And I think our first item of business is to consider, let's see, we don't have anybody here, to approve the minutes for the April 10th meeting.
Can I have the motions to approve or corrections? I will move the roll.
I'll sign.
Okay. Alright, so does everybody agree? Anybody disagree? Alright, the minutes are approved and now we have a work session that I think Cameron's going to tell us about the 2023 camp training down in Fort Worth.
Hi Cameron.
Oh no, you.
Sorry, it's okay, today is Marcella's show.
You got this.
Yeah, so y'all know me, but my name is Marcella Lin, I'm the senior deputy city attorney with the city attorney's office and I'm here to talk about the 2023 camp Fort Worth training that I attended about mid-April.
So just a brief overview of what camp training is, is camp is a association that's called the Commission Assistance and Mentoring Program that is the training program organized by the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions.
So the national group of CLG's like RHLC, basically camp is its goal is to kind of provide this mentoring opportunity and education opportunity for commissioners to learn more about their role as in historic preservation.
So they came down to Fort Worth and kind of gave a discussion about different aspects of preservation and then these are some of the key points that we talked about, kind of the framework of local preservation, what preservation laundry process looks like, kind of planning, surveying and designation items, design review and design guidelines, and then public education and outreach.
So just my legal lawyer caveat, we're going to talk a little bit about the law, but we're going to talk about the law in a really general framework kind of way, not really specifically related to the Denton code or you know kind of how we do things here, like just kind of a more general overview of how preservation law works.
So it's not really legal advice as per our direct Denton code of ordinance, but if you have questions based on this presentation that you want to talk more about, I'm happy to take those back and provide like legal opinion about any questions you might have or issues that come up based on the information we're going to talk about today.
Okay, so our first section kind of talks about where local preservation comes from. So as with most local laws, everything kind of trickles down from our federalist structure, so there's the general federal government that has certain enumerated powers under a constitution and things that aren't enumerated under the constitution are left up to the states.
But in preservation, there's also kind of this national push to preserve important historic landmarks, so that's where we get things like the National Historic Preservation Act and other kind of landmark preservation incentives that come from places like the National Park Service and places that are wanting to preserve landmarks throughout the country.
At the state level, we have the Texas Historic Commission, which then flows through to local CLG programs, which in this case is a historic landmark commission.
In terms of our state power and the reason we can regulate things is it comes from the police power of the states. So essentially, anything the federal government doesn't touch is left up to the states to regulate and unless the kind of overarching state statutes provide that the state governs everything entirely, the local municipalities have kind of the ability to legislate within the space.
And so that's where we get things like the Denton Code of Ordinances or more applicable to us, the Denton Design Code or the Denton Development Code, different D word.
So generally, land use restrictions are considered kind of part of that police power and we'll look for things that show that they're for the public good, that they're not arbitrary or unreasonable, things that show they're for public safety or peace and quiet,
or basically the general welfare of the locality in which the regulations are being made.
So that's why when we pass ordinances at the council level, we usually refer to some sort of public purpose, but why of doing these things is to provide for a public purpose that can be effectuated through the decisions and legislation that the council is making.
Some of those include enhancement of our local landmarks that are necessary to safeguard and promote public welfare, some economic development reasons, and preserving history and the culture of Denton.
So that's where we kind of get to the concept of preservation law and then things like procedural due process, which we kind of touch on a little bit in some of your boot camps that Cameron has prepared for you, but just more directly,
state enabling legislation usually creates a basis and a floor for what historic landmark commissions can do or what states or cities can kind of provide protection for and not a ceiling.
So you'll mostly see state regulations tend to be a little broader, a little less specific and a little less focused on the kind of day to day regulation of historic preservation.
And then local ordinances will detail more of the prescriptive how to preserve that landmark, so things like a CMA or getting designated locally.
This then gets supplemented by commission or city pass design guidelines, commission bylaws and other rules and procedures that govern how historic landmark preservation happens in the city.
One of the interesting things about historic preservation is it doesn't happen in a bubble. There's so many other laws that get impacted by the decisions that we make, even things as simple as making sure we have quorum before we start our meetings so that we're in line with the Texas Open Meetings Act, but also our zoning planning subdivisions.
So I'm from Houston originally, and we don't have zoning. So historic preservation there looks a lot different than it does here. There's different kind of processes that are in place, and so they're kind of working through deed restrictions versus applicable zoning action.
Health and safety codes, environmental laws, which we talked about a little bit a long time ago, but that's the Religious Land Use Protection Act, ADA obligations, tax code, and even ethical obligations of me as an attorney, Cameron as a professional, and then you guys as commissioners.
So generally certified local government organizations are considered to be like a partnership between federal, state, and local laws to kind of all encourage preservation together.
In terms of where the law comes from, we're generally written at some limitations that come from our Constitution, so the 5th and the 14th Amendment. The 5th Amendment establishes this concept of takings, which is when states or government actors come in and take property from individual citizens, and there's a couple of different types we'll go over in a minute.
And there's also the 14th Amendment, which is kind of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. At the state level in Texas, there's very similar provisions in our state Constitution there, if you're ever interested in reading the state Constitution.
Takings essentially relate to this concept of eminent domain, which is a state can or government actor can take property it needs for a public purpose if it follows a certain kind of formula to, you know, take that property.
Generally a government entity can take possession of land that's needed to achieve a public purpose. There's a lot of court restrictions on that and how that process actually works that we won't go into, but just so if you hear the term eminent domain or taking, that's kind of where that all comes from is from the 5th Amendment.
Interestingly, economic development alone is not considered a public purpose, but historic landmark preservation is considered a public purpose. There's several court cases that have kind of found that.
Another kind of interesting part of takings law, not to bore you with the details too much, but there's a concept called regulatory taking, and that's when the government isn't coming in and taking ownership or possession of the land. They're making zoning actions or historic landmark commission restrictions, C of A requirements that essentially deprive the owner of the land, all economic use of the property.
So generally that's what you're going to be looking at is that the economic benefit or use of the property is just impossible after the government regulation has come into play. So it's a pretty high bar, pretty rare that regulatory takings get sustained, but just a concept so that you kind of have it in the back of your mind when you're thinking through, especially some of our guidelines or updates to our code that these are some of the barriers we're working within.
So the Texas court test generally looks at what the value of the property would be after the regulation was put into place.
If they're depriving the owner of any reasonable use of the property, if they're losing, if there are reasonable investment backed expectations that are being impacted by the change in regulation, and if the change in regulation requires acquisitions of resources so essentially an expenditure that is unreasonable for some reason that, you know, it's overly burdensome, other neighbors don't have to have the same kind of expenditure, things like that.
And it generally doesn't look into a loss of anticipated gains. So, if you had bought a house and you'd wanted to use it as a hotel and all of a sudden, they say no hotels in this area or something.
It's a very simple, simple definition, but you couldn't necessarily say, well, I had planned on making all this money from running a hotel on this property. So that zoning is inapplicable like there would be general, you know, you wouldn't necessarily find that as a reason not to let that regulation go into place.
But again, very high level regulatory takings more applicable to kind of how our guidelines are interpreted and that's kind of where we'll place like barriers on things we want to do like we want to make sure people can still use and enjoy their property.
Another concept that we talked about was to process.
And we talked about this a little bit is basically their substantive due process, which is basic fairness, you don't want to be arbitrary or unreasonable.
There are several court cases, particularly the Euclid case land use is generally presumed a valid use of police power and therefore you're not being deprived of your substantive due process. But there's another concept, which is called procedural due process.
The right to a process that the government treats everyone fairly because we have this specific set of things someone has to accomplish to get a CFA done, for example, everyone has to fill out the same application.
You know, have the same review done, come to HLC if applicable, the same way, and it's a repeatable process that treats every applicant fairly.
That's the goal. So essentially things that we're looking for in particular are adequate notice so that's why we have our agendas posted, we give notice to homeowners about rulemaking that might be happening that affects them.
We have an opportunity to be heard, which is where you know our public meeting format comes from, so that people can come and speak we have on every agenda the opportunity for the public to start off our discussion with, you know, a remark if they'd like to.
And then there's also places during public meetings where we make sure the applicant is going to be heard and any people who might be objecting to the project are also able to be heard.
The procedural due process and related to your role as commissioners is the concept of an unbiased decision maker so we want to make sure everyone is making their decision on the same set of facts that's being presented through that process that is the same for everybody.
So things like ex parte contacts which is kind of a term of art but essentially what it means is if you're talking to an applicant without the rest of the body present are things we need to be concerned about and that's why when we talk about like site visits or
driving by properties you just have to be careful that you're not engaging in any sort of contact with the owner that's not through the appropriate means that we're all making decisions based on the same set of facts.
Another part of due process is the concept of equal protection.
Generally, under property law, every property every piece of real property is considered individual, there's something about this house that makes it unique from the house right next door to it.
So, when we're making kind of C of A determinations we're usually not setting precedent because it's a very unique set of circumstances, and you're looking at how that property is impacted specifically.
However, we do want to treat properties that are similar, similarly. So there was a decision that was made in the past, you know that related to something we talked about that's why we'll sometimes bring up.
A similar C of A for this property was brought up, you know, but it expired and here's the information about the similar C of A. So you guys have the same set of facts that the previous commission was working under so we can make sure there's continuity in our decision making process.
We basically want to look out for intentional different treatment without a reason.
So for example, if one house was getting the exact same solar array put on as its neighbors, and we were happy with the neighbors solar array, and there were no substantive differences between the two houses, and we made a different decision.
For no reason, that would be kind of an arbitrary decision. If there was a great reason like this house has a beautiful oak tree that's a heritage tree that would have to be, you know, cut in half to allow for the solar.
Then we can make a different decision.
So essentially yeah we're looking at reasonable decision maker precedent so what a reasonable person in your shoes would be doing.
And we want to treat similar communities across the city similarly so not just similar houses, but similar kind of populations want to treat similarly.
And we also want to think about the concept of contributing versus non contributing structures, which we discussed in terms of the, some of the garage demolition permits we've gotten throughout the last 10 years so just kind of an interesting thought on that.
And then last just ethics. We want to make sure we're not ruling on people we that have either director indirect financial interests or personal interests so there's kind of two different types of conflicts where you would have a relationship because your
currently, you're married, anything like that, or you have a relationship because of a business interest or other financial interest in the applicant coming forward so if you think any of that is the case, please feel free to talk to me or camera and we're
happy to, you know, at least discuss it with you. Generally, I believe because you are subject to the ethics ordinance.
If you wanted a full opinion on whether or not you should recuse the ethics board would be the appropriate body to give you that opinion.
And so generally, Cameron the nice comment will be like, do what feels right, but we're happy to discuss it with you.
So that's kind of that piece of where preservation law comes from and kind of the hard, black letter law that we don't always get to talk about but I find fascinating so thank you for indulging me.
What we deal with a little bit more directly every day are these design review and design guidelines. So overall, we're kind of looking at those Secretary of the Interior standards, which we talked about every week we have a CFA or any sort of designation.
And then the guidelines that we're working on are kind of tied to those how we interpret those standards as a group.
So, essentially what we're going to be looking at is the quality of significance so the quality of the building the quality of what we're trying to maintain, and then the elements of integrity so what is present in the building that can still be preserved
and keep the historic integrity of the location.
And as we've discussed, you know preservation is the concept under the interior standards of maintaining the status quo, and in some ways people use the term arrested decay, which it's kind of allowing the building to stay in the state of decay it was in when
it was supposed to be even preserved so it's not necessarily updating or fixing the issues that have come into play but it's kind of stopping any further issues that happen and reconstruction is the concept of those like new old buildings
kind of like colonial Williamsburg out there. A lot of those buildings aren't actually historic they were remade to look historic, based on kind of old drawings of colonial Williamsburg.
I know there are actually some historic buildings, but I don't think any of the ones that you actually go into and as part of the recreation are historic.
It's a really good job of reconstruction. And that's the point rate of the historical interpretation is that you feel like you're experiencing what was present in the past without having the delicacy of those kind of ancient materials.
And then restoration is taking a building back to how it looked in a specific period. So for example Cameron had a great example of a potential kind of restoration project in Denton, where like the 70s they've kind of put this facade over a cornice.
It's possible that if we took that facade off that cornice might still be under there so we would be taking the 1970s building and putting it back to like the 1950s building so that's what restoration is.
And then last year, the most used probably 99% of the time is rehabilitation. And I really liked how the presenter defined rehabilitation was basically we're making it livable and usable for the current use, while preserving the features and characteristics that make it historic.
I thought that was a good kind of guiding principle to look at to summarize the 10 standards that we talked about a lot but generally those 10 standards deal with the use, retaining versus preserving characteristics, features, and what kind of appropriate changes can be made to these historic buildings to preserve them.
And another thing that was really interesting to learn about was the concept of local guidelines and that's something we're working on creating for our group. We don't currently have kind of a local interpretation document of the standards, but a lot of communities do.
And those are things where you really get like into the weeds of what sort of material we want to see people use, what type of repairs we want people to try to be making under the Secretary of Interior standards, and just some recommendations for those since y'all might be
tasked with working on them is pictures are really helpful. And they should be used by everyone, and even like Cameron would use them when making her recommendations in our staff meetings and you guys would use them when reviewing the COAs and discussing them in the meetings.
They also help give people notice of what the decision making process would look like. So they can kind of give you give guardrails they wouldn't, you know, have every situation laid out but for things where we have a strong
sense of what we want to accomplish like, I know one of the areas we want to talk about was windows, for example, that can give us kind of a basis for what we're going to be looking for, and what a successful application might have in it.
And then, if you're interested in looking at published guidelines just for your own edification, the camp mentor recommended Fort Worth Plano and Waxahachie has some good go buys in our area.
So the next kind of section we talked about was preservation incentives which we've gone over a lot. And our community is kind of unique because we do have a lot more residential preservation and commercial preservation.
And most of the incentives at the federal and state level are geared towards those commercial properties or nonprofit uses.
So usually we don't see a lot of applications that come through related to that but we talked about them a little bit so I just wanted to flag them.
And then it's basically your role as commissioners, if people are discussing historic properties, is to, you know, remind the public that financial incentives exist, and that preservation has an economic development benefit, just as the concept of preservation,
people are interested in seeing historic neighborhoods and historic buildings.
Another point that was made was that preservation tools and benefits can be layered.
So, the concept of like this Main Street USA program versus federal tax credits, Texas state preservation tax credits, and then grant programs and local nonprofits that might be interested in aiding historic preservation.
Okay, so the last thing I wanted to do really quickly before we move on was y'all should have this little two pager right next to your agenda.
I guess it's really four pages or three pages but it's two sheets of paper I guess I should say.
There was a really interesting handout that was presented by the actual, actually the legal representative who was giving the presentation, but just thinking about kind of do's and don'ts, particularly don'ts for historic commissions.
And I kind of just wanted to run through them, just run through the bolded text and then we could maybe discuss them if you guys have questions or if you wanted to think about how we can implement, you know, anything to avoid some of these pitfalls.
So, kind of number 18 is what I was talking about earlier just kind of concept of ex parte communication, discussing things separately, without the other commissioners or kind of outside of your role as a commissioner or without Cameron's knowledge or my knowledge
things like that just making sure that we have the fair playing field for everyone who comes to the meeting.
Number 17, coming to the meeting unprepared.
It's very helpful to, you know, read the backup, know where Cameron's recommendation is coming from, so that you're ready to discuss the presentation as a group.
The 16 is key when we have applicants come, if you are, you know, personally related to them or know them or have any sort of kind of social relationship, it's kind of better to separate that from your role as a commissioner.
When you come in here, you know, just, we are, you're a quasi judicial board, so the kind of concept is you're acting as a court slash judge so maintaining that appearance of impartiality, which also goes to number 15, which is conflicts of interest and important
to be aware of them and review the agenda ahead of time to make sure you're catching them before the meetings.
And number 14, and we don't always have public at our meetings, but when we do have members from the public, I think just as the chair, making sure that we're acknowledging them and letting them speak when they're interested.
Again, side conversations or kind of texting during the meeting, want to avoid that. Anything that we're discussing and want to discuss openly so that, again, everyone is making their decisions based on the same piece of information.
Number 12 is not participating. Commission decisions are better when different opinions are heard and thought through and, you know, people raise different types of questions and concerns so please always participate.
Number 13, this is again focusing on the application at hand and not the applicant. Denton is still a pretty small town. We know a lot of people, we've seen a lot of the same types of people who come to meetings so focusing on what the application actually says versus the person who has submitted it.
Denton is again kind of related to like keeping on track with what the applicant brought forward and keeping focused on what the important issues are for the commission to review versus things that might be outside of what our kind of guidelines are.
Number nine, if people bring experts.
Questions. I think one of the things we've talked about a lot in relation to the solar energy panel situation is that we need maybe more information from experts but if we are able to get that information, feel free to talk to them and ask questions
when they're here presenting to us. Don't, you know, leave the session with an unanswered question after you've already made your vote.
Number eight, Cameron would never let you guys do this but don't review an incomplete application.
Cameron will review everything beforehand and everything will be either complete, as complete as possible, or if something is incomplete, Cameron will let us know why it's incomplete and why we're reviewing it, but we want to make decisions on the most complete set of information possible.
Number seven, when you're giving a motion, try to make it as simple as possible.
So if you're motioning to approve a C of A, motion to approve the C of A. If you're motioning to approve a C of A with conditions, motion to approve the C of A with conditions and then clearly state what those conditions are, because the more complicated the meeting kind of record is, the more complicated it will be for Cameron to go back and make sure that she's expressing your desires on the chair, on the C of A letter that we sent out.
And Lacey for writing the minutes.
So that's sometimes why you'll hear me like restate things, it's mostly so we're making sure we have a clean record.
Again, we talked about this a little bit but treating similarly situated properties differently. If something is similar, we want to treat it as similarly as possible, or if it's not similar, or we don't want to treat it similarly, raise the objective reasons why those kind of decisions are being made.
Like, related to that, making decisions that might be appeared as perceived as arbitrary things when you say, I just don't like that, or this change doesn't work for me. I don't understand why the homeowner would want to do this.
Versus, you know, under, you know, Staff Secretary of the Interior standard number 10. I think that this is not, you know, maybe fulfilling the desires that we have under that section.
They're in Cameron's backup every week.
No, no, not at all.
I think they're also drafted in the AIS. Yes. Yeah, they're referenced in the AIS as well.
Also, you know, speaking of Cameron, forgetting that Cameron is here to help you guys make your decisions, or kind of flippantly reviewing Cameron's recommendations. So she's the expert.
She knows a lot more about this, even than I do, so she's probably sitting here like, Marcella, stop talking. But she's your expert, and she's going to have a great opinion and a great review of the CFA, and, you know, trust but verify. You know, do your review of the application, but trust that Cameron's research and review is done from a place of the best interest of the city, as, you know, your guys' decision making process should be done as well.
So, the last couple, don't redesign the application at the hearing, review the application as it came in.
It can get really complicated if we start trying to change entirely what the CFA came in to accomplish.
In that instance, it might be better to say, maybe we need to continue this and get additional information and continue it to the next meeting to allow time for Cameron and the applicant to work together to provide a design that might better meet the standards and guidelines that you're reviewing.
So, this is mostly on staff, but just so you guys know as well, we want to make sure applicants know what happens next. Usually Cameron will reach out to them after the meeting, walk over to them, let them know what's going to happen, and then we'll send the follow-up letter.
But if you get any communication from an applicant as a commissioner, the applicant doesn't seem to know where they're at in the process, please make sure you're forwarding it to staff so that they can respond appropriately.
The last thing at least is just making sure we're updating things based on new alternative materials, current secretary recommendations, and other things like that.
And so that's kind of this document, and the other stack of papers on your table are just interesting kind of background articles that were provided by the camp mentors from different preservation resources of all different topics kind of related to some of those main focus areas that we talked about at the beginning.
And I will stand for any questions.
Why is this printed backwards?
Oh, it just made from 18 to 1. I don't know why the presenter wrote it that way.
I guess they prioritized it from their perspective with number one being the most important about keeping your guidelines correct.
And it relates to the different throughout the course, I guess I'm an old timer here, but throughout the course of this, when I first came in in front of the commission to get a color approval or roof approval, we denied everything that wasn't exactly perfect.
I mean, I came so far as to bring the original shinkle and say that's what I'm doing.
Otherwise, I would have been turned down. Nowadays, states and you can't do any of that you can use whatever material whatever color so I'm kind of confused who gets what order of priority in the law.
So, our local guidelines would be the first ones we would look to. And those are promulgated under the state law. And so those specific those state laws kind of an umbrella, and those specifics are going to come from the development code.
Kind of an English on paint color, for example, or roofing materials, it got down to the fact that you couldn't turn down somebody if they wanted to put aluminum siding up put on the aluminum building up in their backyard.
I'm just trying to think. I guess I don't know what lawyer talking about. Well, at some point, we were told that we couldn't dictate what people use as materials for their building stuff, and there was this whole rigmarole so I'm kind of confused now as to whose priority because the state said you can't do X, Y, and Z, and therefore our codes weren't the same thing as that we had to ditch that.
So, Tina Fergans, Deputy Director Development Services so there was a statute passed in 2019, it was House Bill 2439, but don't quote me on that. But anyway, it was a major piece of legislation that came out that cities are not able to regulate extra building materials, other than that, which is allowed in the one of the last three international code adopting cycles.
So typically cities use the International Building Code series and they publish cycles, I think usually on the auditors for the most part, but that was significant because so for example if a city said that the extra building had to be 75% masonry, we can no longer dictate that.
We can say the ground floor has to have 60% of windows and doors. You cannot have a blank wall void of any architectural enhancements and might provide some grammars but I cannot say that, you know, you shall use masonry or you must use wood siding, we can't dictate that.
There may be some limited carve out for historic preservation, because we'd have to back and look at this but I know that was one of the concerns when that legislation was passed is what it was, what is the impact on historic preservation, and I think that's really where our local
guidelines come into play as to what do our guidelines lay out in terms of historically appropriateness for projects within our community, and then the materials probably come in second with respect to that but that's something that we can take a closer look at.
Colors to because there used to be this very, you know, rigorous thing about the paint the only allowed paint colors you could use an historic district for x, y, and z and now that seems to have been removed so I'm just kind of asking because I feel a bit of saying like I'm walking and saying that
and that's, that's in some ways why we have right right right commission because there are gray areas and how the laws react to each other.
If Williams historic paint color palette, you know as provided for and adopted that, you know, then that's one thing we're reviewing that based upon that requirement if that's what we have adopted it, if we don't have something as specific like that adopted,
then, then is we tried to work with the applicants and encourage them to use certain paint color selections like for example I know there was a property in one of our districts that was painted that use paint colors that are, were not deemed as
historically appropriate, but we were able to work with the property owner to choose some paint color palettes that were deemed to be more historically appropriate and working with them from that regard.
So that's the state statute, and how best we can influence without dictating if we're prohibited from dictating. So I'd say from y'all's perspective, if it's in our guidelines and in our code which camera kind of reference throughout the application review,
then we're making that determination based on those guardrails. So that kind of more esoteric question of what should be governing is more Tina Cameron and I looking at things that making sure our codes are up to date with current legislation.
If it was passed in 2019 I'm not exactly sure time wise if it was passed before after that legislation went into effect. But, yeah, it was, it was around the same time because in 2019 they also made due process changes.
So that was happening simultaneously with our adoption that we're going so we've since gone back in and had to update our development code since then we passed ordinances that acknowledge that if there was a conflict between the state statute or development code that we would adhere to the state statute so we've got that in much better position now that we did.
But the building materials item, that's, that's one we have to be very careful of now and like I said we can look into it more to see if there were some carve outs from a historic preservation standpoint, but we have to be very careful with that because many cities,
commonly regulated exterior building materials. And so, now we in some cities, they just, they may have proactively amended their codes to make sure it's more in alignment with state law or they just don't enforce those aspects associated with the state law.
I know in a previous community I worked in, we just, we had a lot of plan development districts that regulated building materials and so we would just cite the state statute you know per house bill, whatever the correct code citation or the number citation was.
You're correct, I Google it 2439. Okay, good. So we would cite that you know cities can no longer regulate extra building materials except that which is allowed within one of the last three international code cycles so we work with our building code teams to make sure what's being proposed is allowed.
The party board used to be a left, and now it is I know it has to be allowed in your building code, but it depends upon in our case with historic preservation, we're evaluating it for consistency with our design requirements, and if it is, if it meets our design requirements
then we should be approving it. If it doesn't, then we should not be approving it. That's why it also goes back to the importance of keeping our design guidelines current and appropriate for the community.
Sometimes communities are keeping up with the times and the changes right and so it makes it much more difficult to be able to administer programs but here and then we've done a good job of trying to make sure our house.
Any other questions from our seller.
districts I get a little confused on how that works. Yes, so the National Register we don't have any jurisdiction over.
National Register Landmark, and there's a lot of different kind of guidelines related to if it's just a natural National Register Landmark, versus it also has a county, state or local designation.
So state, I know if it's a registered state landmark we still review exterior changes.
Right, so when it comes to National Register Landmarks and recorded Texas historic landmarks, we have jurisdiction reviewing that with this along with their review in a COA.
If it's a National Register District we do not have jurisdiction, and at the state level there are no historic districts. So there's no historic districts at the state level.
So it's only local and national where there's historic districts. So, you all as an HLC you have jurisdiction over the local historic districts, the local landmarks, the state landmarks, the national landmarks, but the National Register historic districts
you all do not have jurisdiction. However, if there is going to be a demolition that demolition can come will come in front of HLC.
So there's a demolition according to our EDC, or Debt and Development Goals.
That was very informative. Sounds like you had fun. Was the whole day or two days? Just one day.
If I could just interject one thing to me, I think the important thing to remember is reviewing the applications based upon our adopted guidelines, right. So, depending upon the type of project that it is, and then also having had the opportunities to do camp training in Cincinnati last year, you know, avoiding the I loves or I would like, right.
If we're making those kind of statements, then in all likelihood, we're making those statements out of our lane when it comes to evaluating those applications based upon the criteria.
And then the other thing is, is, again, remembering it's, Cameron's role is Cameron's, Cameron is the buildings, the historic buildings best friend, right, she's not looking at it from who the property owner is she's looking at what the application is, does it comply, just like the
historic commission, historic landmark commission is are the buildings best friend, right, you're evaluating the application based upon the adopted criteria or design guidelines that we have in place, regardless of who the applicant is.
And then also, avoiding from redesigning the application during the meeting, I think it's important that if, if, especially if a request does not meet, and then we take action on on denying the request that's before us, because it does not meet.
If we want to give the applicant specific direction as to how we believe the application could potentially be modified to be able to address the design criteria, then it's important to give that direction.
So just be careful of not redesigning the project. During this setting, it's evaluating that application based upon the criteria that have been presented. And if you find yourselves in a position where you cannot approve it, but that you want to be able to give some additional direction on as to how you believe that request could meet, then I think that is appropriate.
Because to me, that's helpful for the applicant, right, at the end of the day, we want the property to be reinvested in we want the historic resource to be preserved, obviously we want it done in accordance with our requirements.
So any direction that we can can give applicants so that they can go back and figure out how they need to modify their project to make it more consistent with our design guidelines is the appropriate path for them.
Yeah, that's a great summary. Another way to think about it is that you're building a record of your decision making process in the meeting so we want to make sure you know when we're asking questions, when we're asking for follow up questions that are kind of staying in the lane of the application, and that our questions are directly related to how your decision is ultimately going to be made.
So, anything we're talking about should be related to making sure you feel comfortable in the decision that you're ultimately going to make, and that you're clear on why you're making that decision.
And again, tying it to the kind of standards and guidelines that Cameron puts in the AIS is a great way to show that we're using kind of a rational basis to make our decisions on our property applicants.
Learned a lot. All right, so now there's none. Should I move on to HLC 23-021? Receive a report, hold a discussion against staff directions on the Historic Landmark Commission's request for local historic designation of eligible historic properties.
So does anyone have a property to present? I don't have a presentation, but we've talked about one.
Correct. So this would be for any new properties.
If not, it just serves as a reminder.
May I ask, so the one you brought up, instead of the matrix, or is that?
I don't know, we talked about it.
So it's on the active list that we have for designations, and Mary did make initial contact to tell them about the designation process and the different tax incentives and everything.
They didn't seem to be knowledgeable about the tax incentives, so I'm doing a follow-up with them.
Mary talked to him, because I've tried to hear it coming out. So I guess it's our vice chair made contact. My apologies. They kind of thought that it would really hinder them, and I kept trying to say that they would actually get beneficial stuff out of it.
And they have a lot of interesting stuff related to the old dealership that used to be there.
So I think it would be great, and they're great neighbors to the city, so I'm hoping you can kind of politely twist their arm to move that direction.
No more? Nobody has any other ideas? Okay, how about going on to HLC 23-022, hold a discussion regarding the Historic Unmarked Commission project matrix.
So this is where we are at currently with our project matrix. We have the economic impact, and the benefits for preserving historic properties that is scheduled for a later date.
We do have the Southeast Denton discussion regarding the historic churches and congregations, as well as a historic resource survey.
Staff will be presenting that at the June 12th meeting, so next month we will be presenting that.
And then we have our other items that are still here, and you all will be receiving a memo from legal regarding that TW and UNT destination research.
Also, just to make an announcement, we do have the, in regards to Denton Revealed, Preservation Month has officially launched.
We had a successful event on Saturday, we had 35 people in attendance and about 55 people viewing online, and that has grown to about 145.
It was a great discussion regarding preservation planning and the importance of preserving Denton and different communities and neighborhoods within Denton, so everyone seemed to have really good feedback.
Marcella did attend that, and I was saying, I don't know if you want to give a quick follow up of what you learned, I don't know.
Sorry, that was where I learned about the kind of reconstruction example, like, you know, changing a building, taking it back to a different time period.
And then one of the other buildings, Cameron talked about, had a log cabin inside of it.
That was really interesting.
So you should definitely watch the presentation, it's fascinating.
It started with a trivia game as to whether a building is now a parking lot or an apartment complex.
So if you need to feel a little bit more excited about your roles and like the idea of doing more community outreach about buildings you don't want to become parking lots.
It's kind of a great bunch of little pictures of Denton and just to learn more about like the changing Denton neighborhoods and kind of the landscape of where historic buildings are.
So I definitely recommend watching it, it's super informative. Yeah, I was going to say, I will definitely send that to you all tomorrow.
I'll send the link, it is on Facebook.
It was through the Denton County Office of History and Culture, they did a Facebook live.
So you can watch it after the fact.
So I'll send that out tomorrow morning.
I hated to miss that, but I don't know why that's coming.
Yeah, no worries, it was filmed, so you can still watch it.
But tomorrow we do have the IAAF Cemetery Tour that starts at 630, we'll be meeting at the front gates and that will run until about 8 p.m.
But that should be really, really interesting, so hopefully I'll see some of you all there.
If not, we also have our Cemetery Conservation Workshop on Saturday that starts at 10 a.m.
We'll run to approximately 1 p.m., but you're able, if you can't come stay the whole time, that's fine too.
It will start at the American Legion Hall and that will start at 10 a.m.
It will run from 10 a.m. to about 12 or 1130.
That will be a lecture and kind of talking about genealogy research and why it's important to conserve cemeteries.
And then starting around 1130, we'll then move to Oakwood Cemetery and walk over there and start cleaning headstones.
Cleaning?
Yes, learning how to clean headstones appropriately.
So you don't make it worse.
Correct. Yes, and that will be led by Christopher Goodmaster, who is a senior archaeologist with Integrated Environmental Solutions here in Denton.
Cool.
And that's it.
Is there anything you all want to add to the matrix?
The only thing I have an interest in is just more dissemination to people on how to go about.
I mean, I don't know that it's that easy to find. I mean, the city's got a really great website, except it's hard for me to find anything.
And so I just wonder if there's not an easier way or how to disseminate to people that live in historic neighborhoods.
Being that I moved in and I was told, "Oh, it's historic," I didn't know what that meant.
Granted, this was a long time ago, but I don't think anybody new also has that feel.
So do you mean, so just to provide myself clarity, you mean to designate a property or just let them know that they're in a historic neighborhood?
I mean, is there just something very quick that they can find online about it?
Because I don't think real estate agents want to tell people because some people may be frightened off.
So I mean, it's a quick hunt for people outside to do that. There she goes.
So historic preservation. So I've been working on a lot of updates to the preservation website.
We do now have this kind of landing page, which does show the full Discover Denton landmarks map with all our local, national, and state landmarks.
So we do have that. I'm not sure everybody would think about calling historic preservation.
If I move into a neighborhood, that's not what I would think of.
You know, when I moved in, I had no clue as to where to even begin hunting.
I don't know that anybody today would come in and they wouldn't look at historic preservation.
They would probably look at historic neighborhood or something like that. Is there a way of looking to forward it that way?
So I think if we did, we could probably change the search words.
I could talk to the Webmaster and ask if we can do historic neighborhood and add that as one of the search word categories, historic Denton neighborhoods or something.
So I can add that as something that we can add to the matrix, making it easier for people when they move in are pretty stressed anyway.
So it's I think just so they have a clue. I mean, they have nice little sign toppers. Okay, right. Okay.
No, I think that's helpful. And that is one something that I discussed with Tina as well as Marcella.
There is, you know, I'm working on kind of getting a flyer together of something that I can send out again, similar to what was done last year.
But also resending out something if you are in a historic. So it would be sent to like National Register districts, you know, kind of talking about the tax incentives also be sent to people in local historic districts.
I'm putting it on the every month. I get something with my utility bill. I mean, it's not quite necessarily to the owners of some of the rental properties, but maybe there it could pop up or even in the tax rolls or something.
You know, the tax something that pops up instantly when they click on their own property that might say, you know, right now it's tax.
It's now let's go file our tax protest. Right. So I would say I know the county has it on if your property or it has an historic tax exemption.
There's something that might pop up. You're in a historic neighborhood, would you consider? That would have to be through the county.
So that is something definitely I would say you're more than welcome to put that towards the county. I don't have jurisdiction over that.
But just to let you all know, I am working on the page to have historic landmark designations and historic districts added.
We just haven't had one done in a really long time, so I haven't gone through that process necessarily, but I am looking at that application process and do have one example that was done within the last couple of months.
They decided not to continue with the designation process. So, but I do want to get that up because that is becoming more of a discussion. That's something that I commented on on Saturday at the revealing lost 10 and more people just seem to have more interest in what these historic tax exemptions are and how that relates to getting designated.
So, just so you all know that that is a page that we are working on. And as part of that page, we will kind of have it laid out as to whether or not you can have those destinations because we do have those people who come and say, can I just need a property?
So, we will kind of list all those preliminary rules prior, but just so that you all know that is in the process so that hopefully we can have everything living under this page and it can be something that can be given to people who are interested.
That you all, if someone contacts you, can just say, hey, everything you need is on this page. I can help direct you.
Anything else? I just, one of these days I want an update on garage demolition and I don't want to go any further. Okay. Yeah, since it's not on the agenda, we can't officially, I think Marcella would tell me to talk about it.
See, I already know when she's got that one color page. Yeah, I just wanted the update on that. Any other comments? Any other questions? It's been a nice and very productive, but short meeting for us.
All right, well, if there's no other business, I will re-adjourn. Thank you, Lenny. Thank you, Cassandra. All in favor? Anybody opposed? All right, thank you all.
Maybe I'll see you on the next one. Maybe it depends on how that road trip goes from San Francisco to here.