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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-27-12 Historic Preservation Advisory Board MinutesBOZEMAN HISTORIC PRESERVATION ADVISORY BOARD Minutes of the September 27, 2012 meeting Members present: Paul Reichert, Jecyn Bremer, Lora Dalton, Ryan Olson, Lisa Verwys, Mark Hufstetler (chair), Jessie Nunn, Courtney Kramer (staff liaison), Cyndy Andrus (commission liaison) Absent: Angela Keesee, Steven Keuch, Jennifer Britton, Nicole Becker, Jillian Bowers Guests: None Meeting called to order Minutes from prior meeting Minutes have not been formatted for distribution and approval Draft minutes will need to be finalized before they can be approved Public comment- none Ex parte communication Jessie Nunn will be working as an independent contractor for MSU on their inventory project until September 2013 (34 buildings total) Intro of Invited Guests: none Project Reviews are Recommendations: none at this time Chair’s Report (Mark) Secretarial duties- No volunteers for permanent secretary since Lesley Gilmore’s departure Last month the Board had elected to rotate secretarial duties going alphabetically by last name unless someone would like to volunteer for the position Follow up Potential for tours at the armory or the Rialto We need to be careful about where and how we go on tours, as the locations could be projects that come to the board in the future Ongoing/upcoming activities (Courtney) Walking Tour Moving forward. Tour cannot be hosted on the city’s website because the tour was created using Wordpress software and the city uses a PHP platform. City could install Wordpress, but it is unlikely that they would be willing to do so. CK will check with Chris Naumann to see if the contract specified that the developer use PHP. A domain name will be needed. City products need to be ADA accessible, which means all documents and photos will need to meet this requirement. CK has 2-3 interns for the spring semester who will be drafting tours. At least 4 tours will be available by the tourist season next summer. Publicity- work with the DBA and use QR codes on kiosks, in windows of buildings on the tour, advertising in parking garage, business cards in hotels, social media, and on printed tours if the Chamber continues to print those (CK will check) Cemetery tour October 20th at 9:00 a.m. starting at Bozeman Public Library Jennifer Britton is coordinating and handling advertising. Room at library has been reserved, Jim Webster will be leading the tour, there will be an article in Bozeman Magazine. Staff Liaison Report (Courtney) SAT Grant City Commission decided on Sept. 17 to split the grant money: $70,000 to Emerson, $70,000 to Rialto, $10,000 to street lights. Money is contingent on approval from NPS. Organizations have been given 6 months to raise their match and complete architectural planning, construction must begin in 1 year Although the grant specified that the recipient be within the Main Street Historic District, the NPS allowed for the expansion of the geographic area if no other applicants from the historic district came forward. The Emerson’s application was allowed through the process in case none of the other applications were deemed eligible. NPS and Congressional Budget Office will decide if the grant monies may be given to the Emerson even though it does not reside in the geographic area specified by the grant criteria There was discussion between MH and CA regarding the city commission’s overrule of the recommendation of the grant committee and concern that public opinion/comment took precedence over grant criteria. CA felt that the city commission was not supplied enough information or any criteria. Grants, COAs, etc. NP Depot received grants from National Trust ($5000) and NE Urban Renewal Board ($15000) to have a structural analysis done of the building. Need three competitive bids, bids are due Sept. 28 at 5:00 pm. Work will start in February with estimated completion of April 1. Anticipated outcomes: report on how building evolved, materials used, historic elements, plans for the building/façade/site, current condition, approaches for adaptive reuse, engineering, possibly recommendation for soil analysis. Have budgeted $2000 for publicizing the information. COAs- somewhere around 270 so far. No longer require COAs for fences, sheds, or re-roofs. Attended CLG conference during the week of Sept. 17, discussed cell phone towers, 106 reviews, and who should be involved in that process. JB said that Gallatin County defers to state historic preservation office for those reviews. Also discussed tax abatements at CLG conference. Tax abatements in the state are basically terrible and really only benefit new construction on vacant lots, more effective for urban renewal than historic preservation. East Willson school had 5 responses to request for interest, responses are not yet public. School board will be discussing them on October 8. City Commission meeting Rescheduled for October 22 MH- last month we reached a general consensus to suspend the tax abatement process and that the board needs to refocus its mission to use our time more effectively and to complete projects that have impact. MH feels it is important to improve flow of information to and from city commission, currently it is too informal and results in work being done on a project that stalls. JB reminded the board that we have certain obligations that are required of the CLG, these requirements can be found in the Montana Code. Also felt that a to do list of projects would help focus the board. PR would like tasks to drive structure. One possible task would be to discuss what we can offer the city, for example: offer an analysis of the overlay district process and benefits. Work on projects that have an impact. Find out what would benefit the city commission and what types of projects would fit within the city’s goals. CA- board needs to make the city understand why the BHPAB projects are important, and also need to work with the city to have mutual goals. To get on a commission agenda, the board needs to have support of 3 commissioners or the mayor. In order to get that support, the board needs to find out what the city’s goals are and how the Board’s goals and projects can fit in. LD- the BHPAB can’t only be defined by what the city commission wants because the commissioners and the politics and the priorities change, so there needs to be some independence as to what the board represents. Agrees with PR that projects should drive structure and that the educations/outreach and policy/planning committees are too often working on dramatically different projects when they should be working together on different aspects of same project. Everyone agrees that we have too many bylaws and that as a board we should revise and potentially rewrite them. If they are rewritten, they will need to undergo a review process and be approved by the city. General consensus that we need to suspend the tax abatement process, that we need new/fewer/ better focused bylaws and better paths for communication with the city. The Board should meet the needs of the city, but doesn’t know what those needs/goals are. Board also questions what the commission’s commitment to historic preservation is, what are their expectations for historic preservation in the city and how do we fulfill those expectations?