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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-23-15 BHPAB minutes1 Bozeman Historic Preservation Advisory Board April 23, 2015 meeting minutes 6:30pm Upstairs Conference Room of the Stiff Professional Building 20 East Olive Street, Bozeman, Montana Present: Lisa Verwys, Merri Ketterer, Mark Hufstetler, Kelsey Matson, Courtney Kramer (Preservation Officer), Cyndy Andrus (City Commission Liaison) Meeting called to order at 6:35pm by Board chair Lisa. I. Disclosure of Ex Parte Communication A number of board members communicated with elected officials regarding the demolition of the house at 402 West Koch Street. The emails are archived in the City Commission communication files of the City Clerk’s office. Mayor Krauss discussed the matter with Lisa specifically. Mark mentioned the issue during a Design Review Board meeting. II. Changes to the Agenda There were no changes to the agenda. III. Approval of Minutes Minutes were not provided to the Board prior to the meeting, and thus not available for approval for this meeting. IV. Consent agenda There were no items on the consent agenda. V. Public comment There was no public comment. VI. Action items There as no action items. VII. FYI/ Discussion A. Discussion of the evaluation of the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District HPO Kramer introduced John How, project manager for KLJ, the consulting company handling the evaluation of the NCOD. John called Pat Jacobs, a Preservation Board member absent from the meeting, so that she could listen to the meeting on speakerphone. Pat is also on the KLJ team, and will recuse herself from BHPAB discussions and votes on this matter. 2 JH discussed the April 14, 2015 meeting about the NCOD and presented the initial feedback. Asked the BHPAB to focus on infill, if the NCOD is working, if it’s not and what it could be replaced with. They want to offer solutions. Introduced the idea of having more district-specific review criteria. JH posed a question to the board: Why have no new historic districts been created? MH responded by saying that new new districts have been created because it’s not tied to specific planning goals. Historic districts are honorary and a good thing to have. The comparison of historic districts and a conservation overlay district is an apples to oranges discussion. He noted the mis-understanding of the National Register process. NR nomination doesn’t carry obligation to protect. MH expressed concern with tying Historic Districts to design review because it would create a disincentive for NR participations. And, Bozeman’s list of historic districts is incomplete and not representative of the best and the highest. JH: Posed another question: How do we define “appropriate” modifications? Do we need more robust design guidelines? MH responded to say that eclectic design is important. The issue is more one of creating design guideline that respect the rhythm of neighborhoods and the scale. JH: noted the ongoing discussion of the mass and scale happening in the B-3 “bubble” area. MK: noted that protecting the rhythm of neighborhoods is important. And that the preservation program needs to recognize mid-century modern. She really liked the best practices approach. JH: As a board, what do you guys want to see happen? MK: Identification of mid-century neighborhoods. MK asked how expanding the NCOD would work. CK responded by discussing the NCOD, the b-3 “doughnut” around Main Street and where Homeowner’s Associations begin to fill the gap. MH: Create a criteria in which the guidelines would apply, exclusive of if 2/3 of the street was over 50 years old, to enable organic growth of the program. JH asked: How does the community character affect what the Boartd looks at? KM: Community character is crucial and can be a nebulous concept. About how different pices of the physical landscape fit together. MH: It’s tied to the gentrification of the town. Overlay has helped accelerate gentrification. JH: They’ve heard from multiple stakeholders that the NCOD inhibits development. He challenges the assumption, and is interested in how to incentivize infill. MH: May result in a 2-part NCOD./ Residential doesn’t have many natural infill opportunities. Commercial has a lot. Commercial NCOD may be less successful. 3 JH: Discussed the dynamics of a minimum lot width, lot size, and height restrictions on infill in the NOAD. MH: the DRB discusses this a lot. Their goal is to encourage quality design of whatever architectural style. JH: Do you want to see more dricts? Is it important to save past-their-useful-life houses? LV: Many people are very confused that they’re not in a historic district, just that they’re in an overlay district. Would like to clear the confusion and help people understand what it means to live where they live. MK: Wants to see new districts and save anything with useful life saved. MH: The whole overlay should be 1-5 districts. Thinks there will never be a complete answer to that question. The City needs to do a better job of explaining what the NCOD is. It’s different from a NR n terms of keeping historic districts that sometimes goes past the planning process. The City has long experience reviewing COA demolitions where the applicant argued no economic life. The real issue is economics. Preservation of modestly sized houses is suffering from gentrification. CK: S. Grand example, Code doesn’t allow for horse-trading. JH: Billings tried to look at house/ parcel values and identify places where the value of the land exceeded the value of the structure on the land. KM: Struggles with the rigidity of the boundary-making process, both as residences and lending character to the city and being a source of historic information. It’s important to recognize how inhabitants of the district are relating to the urban geography. To incorporate how people use the city space. In terms of the topic of demolishing, the “end of the useful life: is a tough issue. Many such described structures are not at the end of their life, and use can be extracted, both as residences and lending character to the city and being a source of historic information. It’s sympathetic to the needs of real people. The build landscape changes and that’s important. MK: Are the parks protected? CK: Yes. When a City-owned property is in the NCOD, the City applies for COAs. CK wants to push the City to look at city-owned cultural resources. JH: Prompts the Board to discuss the issue of affordable housing within the NCOD. What if an entire block was non-contributing, not eligible. If demolition of the block occurred, what would they want to see rebuilt on the site? MH: Focus on maintaining the streetscape and neighborhood character. LV would rather see historic houses subdivided on the inside to provide multiple dewelling units than have them demolished for new structures. 4 CK: noted how the R1-R4 zoning creates inflated property prices, as well as public confusion of what’s allowed on certain sites. MH: The City needs a transiton zone. Right now the tall buildings under construction are building a wall between downtown and the adjacent neighborhoods. We don’t want office park buildings downtown or a 19th style hotel downtown. They key is figuring out how to encourage development of dense zoning that encourages a walking lifestyle. He pointed to the redevelopment of Berlin after the war. MK: Bozeman’s downtown is kind of like a sea-sized city. We’re land locked and need to go up while maintaining walkability and the city’s character. JH: evaluating the NCOD is a three-legged stool of Preservation, affordability and density. LV: Is the city prioritizing any of those right now? Thus ended the preservation board’s discussion of the NCOD evaluation. The next community meeting is planned for May 21. B. Preservation Awards program The board checked in on assigned tasks for the Preservation Awards on May 19. Things are coming together beautifully! C. Discussion of upcoming meetings Lisa mentioned that the 6:30pm start time of the Board meetings was difficult for some board members. She feels like her brain is fried by 8pm. Posed the idea of moving the board meetings, or holding them earlier. The board decided to move their regular meetings to the second Tuesday of the month, beginning on June 9. The meetings will begin at 6pm. VIII. Historic Preservation Officer Report: (emailed before hand) 1. Preservation Policy and Municipal Code development: a) Ghost signs: b) B3/ Design Guidelines conflict 2. Update on Gallatin Heritage Consortium: 3. HPO Kramer’s public outreach over the last month 4. Reconnaissance survey work is continuing 5. Certificate of Appropriateness updates IX. Adjournment MK moved to adjourn the meeting at 8:10 pm. KM seconded. Motion passed and the meeting adjourned. Minutes taken by Courtney Kramer.