HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-29-11 Historic Preservation Advisory Board Minutes i
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Historic Preservation Advisory Board at HRDC —
29 September 2011
Members Present: Mark Hufstetler (Chair), Jennifer Britton, Bruce Brown, Lesley Gilmore (Secretary),
Angela King Keesee, Steven Keuch, Courtney Kramer (City Liaison), Ryan Olson, Paul Reichert -
Quorum was established.
Absent: Jecyn Bremer, Lora Dalton, Jared Infanger, Boone Nolte, Anne Sherwood
Guests: Tim McHarg (Director of Bozeman Planning Department), Richard Brown, Jillian Bowers
(board applicant)
I. Meeting was called to order at 6:41 pm. Introductions all around.
II. Minutes from prior meeting:
A. Motion to approve was made by RO, seconded by CK
B. Unanimous approval.
III. Public Comment: None.
IV. Ex Parte Communication: None.
V. Introduction of Invited Guests: Jillian Bowers (board applicant), Richard Brown, Tim McHarg.
VI. Project Review and Recommendations to Staff: None.
VII.Chair's Report (MH)
A. Introduction of potential new member, Jillian Bowers.
1. MH provided a quick overview of the board's tasks—education and outreach (E&O); policy
and planning (P&P), represented by two committees. E&O spreads the positive word about
historic preservation in Bozeman. P&P helps the city deal with planning and regulatory
issues. MH generally asks members to pick the committee that makes the most sense to
them. Committees meet once/month, on a more informal basis than the board.
2. Jillian —
a) Do citizens make presentations to the board for project review?
b) MH —the board only looks at demolition issues. Individual remodeling projects are
reviewed by staff.
c) The board also reviews requests for tax abatements.
d) Jillian — moved to Bozeman one year ago— her sister has been here since 1996. Jillian
has a Master in Architecture and practices at both large and small building scale.
Designed and built a building in North Carolina, which went through design review. Also
designed a residence in South Pasadena and went through the presentation and
approval process. Intrigued to understand our process. She works at MSU-Facilities.
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B. Montana History Conference was held in Missoula 9/21-23.
1. MH and CK attended the CLG (Certified Local Government) session in the morning:
a) CK: Demolition by neglect has come up at other MT towns
b) CK: Railroad depot issue shared by others as well —a few of the HPOs will get together
to ask the governor if he can exert pressure on Warren Buffet (50% owner of BNSF) -
Miles City, Haver, Hardin. The problem is that it is operated by Montana Raillink, but
owned by BNSF. Problem with leased land.
2. Attended afternoon session with NPS about NR nominations. MH explained the NR
nomination process — nominations to SHPO, the state Review Board, then the federal
keeper.
C. Speakers and other topics:
1. East Willson School tour happened today, prior to meeting. (4:30).
2. Neutra House Tour—Angie will need to check with Brittingham about timing. Best to visit
when there isn't snow on the ground. For October or November?
D. Downtown Conference in Bozeman: Oct. 13-15, 2011. There will be a session on historic
preservation and its economic benefits. Panel with MH, Randy Hafer, and Tim McHarg. All day
Wednesday, Thursday, and half a day on Friday. CK will email the agenda to everyone on the
board. McHarg encourages everyone to participate. The focus is on main street communities.
1. Angie noted that on 10/15, there is a Marlon Blackwell lecture at MSU (probably at 5:30) —
he deals with regional ideas in architecture.
E. Board members:
1. Accept and forward Jillian's application.
2. Boone Nolte is moving out of town, so has resigned from the board.
VIII. Policy and Planning Committee (MH)
A. Last met with AS, MH, and LD.
B. Tax Abatement: In a holding pattern at this point, but do need to focus on getting the tax
abatement material revised and submitted to the commission. CK has the most recent version
which she can email. PR would be willing to try cleaning it up.
1. CK to send it out to entire P&P committee, with PR to start the clean up, then pass on to the
next person.
2. Then ultimately it's a city decision.
C. Tentative meeting: October 11. MH might host, or it can be at BB's office.
IX. Education and Outreach Committee (RO)
A. Met on Tuesday.
B. Topics: Cemetery Tour, preservation awards, survey, future tours
C. Preservation Awards: As a group, they decided that the preservation awards would be moved
back until May 2012 (from October 2011). Solicitations for applications will be in January. AS
had expressed interest in organizing this.
D. Tours: Tour apps like in Billings. RO to pursue the opportunities at MSU, then will approach the
company that produced the Billings app.
E. Survey— let's revamp the effort and task just a couple of members to finish the district and
relook at how we've been doing it. Is what we are doing relevant to the end goal? Feel that the
entire board should discuss this. Open to discussion.
1. CK provided background. The intent was to ascertain whether properties contribute to a
potential historic district or not.
2. CK drafted the survey form — perhaps some items are not relevant to this goal.
3. Timing —would be great to complete the survey of the north side neighborhood by the end
of October.
4. RO —difficult to do with a group of this size—can be inefficient. This could be completed in
a few weeks, rather than as lengthy as the recent process.
5. CK - The real intent was to demonstrate how outdated the 1984 inventory was, and to
demonstrate that there is a potential historic district on the north side of Bozeman. The City
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of Bozeman hasn't nominated a historic district—or individual NR nomination - since early
1990.
6. MH did a very brief windshield survey last spring, which is what was used to generate the
dot map. What we're finding is that there definitely is a historic district here and we need to
quantify this.
7. MH has felt that the survey process has been a worthwhile effort, although it would be
helpful to spur the survey effort on.
8. CK—we did notify the neighborhood, so we've had some really good conversations with
property owners; this has generated some good information.
9. RO — let's reduce the task to a few people and let's ask for volunteers.
10. CK—the "dots project" lives on her desk, so she could help. MH and AK could work on it.
MH — LG and MH could modify/shorten the form.
11. RO — happy to have the E&O committee still organize this effort.
12. MH —this effort needs to be more exact and have a little more information than what he
provided last spring (this map is less than what he would have provided a client).
13. CK—we talked about updating the 1984 property record forms; trying to navigate what's
necessary for this survey. MH —this will also reiterate the need for a full survey ultimately.
14. MH — comparison of these results to the 1984 survey would be helpful and interesting.
15. LG — let's keep the same number of the people on the ground,just in smaller groups. Will
get more done this way.
16. CK—availability of all? Sat. 10/15? Survey on 10/8 — pass the progress on to the next
group.
17. PR— remember what's important— it's not in the details.
18. JB — it's still important to bring in the landscape and character of the street. It's pertinent to
historic preservation today. Definitely defines the character of the neighborhood. This
would be contemporary with what's going on with historic preservation in the nation. Look at
the character of the neighborhood —on a streetscape sort of basis. Does the streetscape
still reflect its significant character—take overall photos of the streetscape.
19. Two dates for finishing up the inventory— 10/8 and 10/15. JB, LG, and MH to meet to revise
the site form.
F. Next E&O meeting will be held after the cemetery tour— RO will contact people re email.
G. Cemetery tour on 10/22, starting in the small meeting room in the Library 9am — 10am. Budget
of$400 which includes refreshments and advertisement.
1. Dale Martin will give the tour this year, stemming from a discussion about seeing a decline in
attendance in the last few years (due to the same script being used annually?). Dale has
volunteered to write the new script—will focus on the military - "Names in Stone: Veterans
Memorials and Graves in the Sunset Hills Cemetery."
2. MSU Veterans Club might participate in some fashion — perhaps an honor guard.
3. Jennifer will design the poster and give it to the paper.
4. PR—there are free psa's on KGLT; PR can handle this.
5. RO also contacted Blake Maxwell who's the editor of the Bozeman-Magpie.com — Maggie
will write this article.
H. Next meeting: none scheduled.
X. Staff Liaison Report (CK)
A. Grants: How do we want to address understanding modernism.
B. Certificates of Appropriateness—Staff has reviewed 280ish since January; these are mostly due
to hail damage. The number will decrease next year, due to our revision in policy.
C. Armory— First Interstate Bank is working on cleaning it up and making it weathertight. May be a
good property to add to our tour list.
D. Future events: already discussed.
E. Outline for Evaluation of Bozeman's historic preservation program presented by CK:
1. Conservation overlay has benefited the city— it's gone well.
2. Our whole program is all predicated on the outdated inventory.
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3. How to approach this evaluation? What is the role of a city's preservation program?What
should be happening? Where should the focus lie?
4. Would like to get through stakeholder discussions by the end of 2011.
5. Complete the process in May, if possible, as it coordinates with Preservation Week.
6. BHPAB — review the list of stakeholders? Does the board want to participate in the
discussions with stakeholders? What has worked well at other preservation programs?
7. MH —we could spend some time brainstorming on this next month —devote time at the next
meeting to focus on it. The potential benefits and pitfalls of this process. To benefit the
preservation program as a whole. Good to ponder on it a bit.
8. TM —we hope the board understands the goal to accomplish — so the board can apply
critical thinking to it. Does the board buy into the goal on a conceptual level?
9. Third set of stakeholders— staff, board, and other preservation — and other related entities in
the community. To understand who's doing what— being sure we're not overlapping, but
working together efficiently. Like E&O, which is often organized by a non-profit and handled
outside of the board —fundraising and advocacy. A strategic plan for all historic
preservation activities in the valley and how we can engage people in the valley to be more
focused. Get more bang for the buck with our resources and get a more positive image of
historic preservation out into the community. Is this too ambitious?
10. MH — in looking at the outline (which is good), one thing that comes to mind is the
comparison of the program here with activities elsewhere. This is a discussion that
communities all over the country have all the time. Perhaps compare to other "success"
stories to learn from them. MH's overriding perception is that— in comparison with other
CLGs in MT—we're actually fairly successful and proactive.
11. PR—one thing that stuck in his mind from the last annual retreat, was that we need to focus
on what we'll do proactively. It's harder in this slower economic time, but what replaces that
immediate need?—what's the new proactive thing? We started the survey. What about the
depot—we care about it— is that something we want to deal with? It will take focused
dedicated effort. Can we be a board that helps to develop solutions? Identify natural allies.
12. CK interested in meeting with the Gallatin Valley Land Trust for their model —they do site
documentation, but not building documentation. What about the county? They have a
preservation board too— how can our boards be effective together?
13. MH — any ideas need to be tempered with realism. Counties and cities are often split on
historic preservation — such as Helena, where the city is pulling out of the combined
arrangement. NTHP has gone through this process and are doing a fair amount of
retrenchment, due to decline in membership.
14. CK is trying hard not to impose her agenda; she wants this to be a reflection of the
community's goals. Collaboration.
15. JB: Relevant and timely to look at pooled resources and what other people are doing.
16. Look over the outline — brainstorm next month. Email any thoughts and ideas to CK...
XI. Motion to adjourn at 8:00 pm — by JB, seconded by LG.
END OF MINUTES
Secretary: Lesley M. Gilmore
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