Historical Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. Roll call. Board member Hernandez. Present. Board member Bevan.

Present.

Board member Crotty.

Present.

And Board Member Brito is absent. So we have a quorum.

Okay, let's proceed. Non agenda public comments. Do we have any public comments either in person or online?

We do not.

Okay, swell. Next agenda item is meeting minutes. These are the minutes from the September 4 meeting. Just point of order question for staff since one of our members was not present during that meeting, he would abstain from approving said minutes. Therefore, because there's only two of us, can we actually approve these minutes?

No. So we'll hold those over for the next meeting.

So let's continue that to the next meeting. Item four, regular agenda items. I believe this is a return for 1711 Arbor Street. Is there any staff comments on this?

Staff will provide a brief sort of reiteration of what we discussed last meeting and and provide an update on the historical evaluation in DPR form.

Okay. Great.

Board members, thank you very much for your time on this item this afternoon. The item before you is a continued item from our last meeting. This is a request for a certificate of approval for demolition of the existing structure located at 1711 Arbor Street. My goal here just to give you a little bit of a quick roadmap is to give you a brief summary of the project just to remind you of some of the information we went over last time, identify the updates to the historical evaluation and DPR form that were requested by the board members and give you folks an opportunity to speak on that a little bit and then provide you with some additional information and open it up to discussion. So just a little bit of background, the subject property is located at 1711 Arbor Street.

It's an existing two story, 1,300 ish square foot single family residential building. It was originally constructed in 1889 and has been substantially modified since. The applicant has conducted a historical evaluation to review any significance that the subject property may have. The conclusion of that now updated historical evaluation, it continues to posit that the subject building does not have historical significance or integrity to convey that significance. And so during the last HUB meeting, it was identified that criterion one and two of the statewide historic register were not adequately reviewed for the subject property.

And so the applicants coordinated with their historical consultant Garavaglia to produce an updated version of their historical evaluation memo as well as a DPR form to record the structure prior to its demolition rehabilitation addition, the proposed work. The updated evaluation did look into both former residents of the subject property as well as information around the original builder. It did continue to conclude that there is not sufficient historic significance or integrity on the site for eligibility on inclusion on a state or federal historic register. And so the updated information was provided to the HAB members and is included as exhibits on this staff report. I know that some of our HAB members have had an opportunity to review that and have provided some additional guidance.

The intent of staff is to because that guidance couldn't be updated in the exhibits in time for this meeting, the suggestion of staff is to move forward with this application to include a condition of approval that would state roughly prior to the issuance of any building permits for the project, the applicant will provide staff with an updated final memo and DPR form subject to the approval of the clerk of the historical advisory board. And in doing so would give the opportunity for staff to provide adequate updates based on the board members input to make sure that we have any relevant information that remains outstanding in those updates before they were recorded with the Northwest Information Center. And with that, I will just remind you folks that the finding that we are asking you to make regarding the subject property is to find that the resource no longer meets the criteria therefore or has become a detriment to the community and that the condition making it a detriment can no longer readily be cured. The argument the staff follows for that finding is that because of the condition of the site, any level of rehabilitation, restoration, demolition or addition to the subject property will almost certainly result in an excess of 30% or more of the removal of the value of the structure which meets our criteria for a demolition and therefore will require a certificate of approval to move forward.

If there are specific questions regarding the updated evaluations or any information that any the board members consider outstanding, we do encourage you to provide that information to staff so that we can get that updated in a timely manner. That way the project will continue moving forward with the suggested condition. With that, I think I'd like to open it up to board members to give you folks an opportunity to discuss a little bit more and maybe continue the conversation we had last time and certainly if you have any questions for staff, I'm happy to answer those.

Great, thank you. Thank you.

And were there any public comments or any folks either in the audience or

I'm sorry, you opening it up to public comment?

I was just curious, were there any? I'm getting a no from Yeah,

we did not receive any emails or letters for a public comment for this project.

Okay, got it.

Questions from I apologize for missing last month's meeting but I would be curious what were the issues that were discussed that it sounds like you had to revise your report based on issues raised the last time. What were the issues that were raised?

Are you asking the board members or staff? I just want to clarify.

Who knows the answer?

We all do.

I'll ask staff.

Staff would describe the shortcomings of the historical evaluation to be centered around primarily criterion one and two of the statewide historic register criteria which is focused on the significance of the original builder of this structure as well as any significant persons or historical events that may have lived there or things that could have occurred there, larger sort of movements in the historical record. And so there were several updates to the evaluation including an analysis of the former residents and sort of their occupations and their significance to the history of Alameda, larger sort of patterns of the diaspora of various ethnic groups, and an analysis of the original builder and any contributions they may have made to sort of significant architectural buildings maybe in the city or elsewhere.

So just sort of digging in deeper to some of the more detailed questions for things. Out of curiosity, how does that impact sort of the schedule for a project like this? Is it like a one month per one month sort of delay or are they able to continue developing things you know, during this review period?

No development is allowed to proceed until after the issuance of a certificate of approval. We will not approve building permit for demolition until there's a signed certificate of approval on file and the appeal period has, ended. So no work is currently being done in line with the project as proposed.

Got it, okay. Other questions? I'll ask another question if that's okay. So I am curious what are the what's the hesitancy of the group to move forward a little bit more expeditiously? You know, it sounds like we are having this group sort of be delayed and I think we all know time is money, right? So what are the, you know, is the thought behind having to go through another round of review and conversations? And this is for the board.

Yeah, I mean I'm happy to chime in Josh you as well. One of the things we struggled with last time was in our draft resolution we were being asked to make some statements that we had no evidence because the historic study had not yet even approached the issue of who was the builder, who, you know, there were elements missing in the analysis. So we just were lacking information essentially to make our final determination based on the criteria that we have to evaluate against. We just we couldn't quite get there.

Right.

We were, I would say generally in agreement that the building itself didn't, you know, exhibit much significance as a piece of architecture but it was those other question marks of like, well who was the builder and who lived there and those other things that

And these are sort of required elements that the historic evaluation needs to respond to or address and the historic evaluation just didn't address these issues

essentially.

Right, yeah. And I think part of the issue was when we look at the properties on the study list, we have several different categories and they're defined variously from being potential landmark to a building that might contribute to neighborhood character or could potentially have historical importance. And I think this property in particular had an H designation. So the first pass at evaluating it was focused on its architecture. And from my perspective, when we're looking at how are historical resources defined under CEQA, there's other criteria that we would look at for the California register in particular that relate to those historical events or historic persons.

And and ultimately when we're coming down to the conclusion, when we're looking at integrity, integrity always follows historical significance. You have to be able to define what something is significant for in order to judge its integrity. So that was kind of the crux of the request for additional information from the last meeting. Yeah, I guess I could, since I'm already on the mic, I'll just say I did review the updated evaluation and I provided comments to staff via email. Some of them were just related to technical aspects of filling out a DPR form based on the Office of Historic Preservation Instructions.

And a couple others were based on some of the content in the updated evaluation. And I will say I really appreciate having the additional information about the builder. I feel like that sheds some light onto their body of work or lack thereof and some other colorful past here in the city. And that does help us come to a really defensible conclusion about whether they're a designer or a builder of merit. There was also there was public comment about potentially this area having a history of Portuguese settlement and that was kind of brought to light a bit more in the updated evaluation.

And again, I think there was some really good research there to help us understand where the Portuguese community was settling in Alameda and how this building may or may not fit into that context. So those were important aspects of addressing those criteria related to events and persons. The only, I guess, kind of major comment I had was in looking at the background information presented in the updated evaluation, just regarding the city of Alameda context, it's essentially boilerplate that was taken from an evaluation of the Alameda Marina and dropped in here primarily talks about shipyards and some maritime industry and understandably the Northern Coast or the Eastern Coast depending how you look at it of the city is pretty close to this property. But to me the lowest hanging fruit is this is a residential property. What was the residential development like circa 1889 in this part of the city?

That can really kind of round out the criterion one discussion. So I think in general, it's good for staff who are fielding these evaluations. It's good for us to look out for things like this because we don't necessarily wanna take all the information that's presented to us as you know, best and final, we should be critical about it. I think that will ultimately serve our our decisions best. Yeah. But I again, I think on the whole, the evaluation is far more robust.

And to chime in on another point, David, one of the things we've discussed in previous meetings in the context of other certificates of approval is when we get a DPR form, we're actually creating new historical record and we wanna make sure these forms are as complete and accurate as they can be. So like for example, in the previous one, the builder, though we had identified it based on resources, the DPR or the memorandum didn't. So that was a key element like, hey, we know who the builder is. Why doesn't it say it on the form kind of thing? Just because, you know, who knows a hundred years from now who's gonna be sitting in these chairs and what they're gonna be interested in.

But at least we can leave them the best record that we could. Sure. Yeah. I would just echo some of the comments. It does seem much more complete, and I really appreciate that. I did notice a weird technical discrepancy in that the memo from the architect firm that did the study in the titling of the pages, it says 95% draft. So my assumption that was either a typo or maybe it is a draft, but

If I may, yes. The intent was that going forward that staff will bring the 95% or 99% draft to the historical advisory board to ensure that the board has the opportunity after they make a decision on a certificate of approval to make sure that we have That's what you were preferencing exactly.

Just wanted to connect those dots because I was like

It's an architect trick. We do that all the time. Call it 95 until everybody's had their opportunity to comment and then it becomes 100.

Then it becomes 100. Okay, so excuse my ignorance but good to confirm. I wasn't imagining seeing that. But yes, much more complete and I think definitely backs up all the findings at least in my mind that we're being asked to make as far as our resolution goes. I do have a question and this may be for staff, it may be for the, you know, the actual applicant is never having gone through this process personally, I'm curious what the range of costs can be on DPR update form and a study like this just as far as like how does this impact projects?

So I don't know if anybody has a, you know, a number to that, but I'm just curious.

The applicants are participating remotely. If you'd like, I can give them an opportunity to speak. Yeah. That'd be great. Jason or Kenny, don't know if either of you are able to speak or if you heard the board member's question about the cost of the historical evaluation, but I'm going to unmute you now. You're certainly welcome to answer that question if you're able.

Can you guys hear me?

Yes.

Yeah. This is Kenny. Yeah. So for doing the hiring architect, we cost about $12,000. So including the fees to the think to get this meeting going, I think the total cost is about 15,000.

So that's just for the historical study and evaluation? Yeah,

the historical study, yes.

Okay, great. Thank you for that.

So being the new guys, that's where we just sort of talk about our thoughts of things. Is that what I'm doing?

Yeah. So that was the staff's presentation. If there was anyone here that wanted to make a comment about it either in person or if we also had folks online and we'll open that up right now. So if they have any comments, we can hear anybody's comments. And then at that point we can discuss and, you know, move forward with any decisions.

Yeah, only the applicant is present online.

Okay, so no other comments. So yeah, discussion is where we're at now. So this would be the moment where we can ask each other clarifying questions. We have a draft resolution in front of us that staff has prepared. We can look at that in detail, but essentially our decision is do we see enough evidence that we can make the findings that, you know, the subject property does no longer has historical significance or is essentially gonna be given the conditions that they've already laid out about the memo, etcetera.

We would be ready to grant a certificate And of

just to remind you, and Tristan did introduce a provision that edits that were submitted, would be incorporated, and then the report would be 100%.

You need to start? Yeah, I'll just reiterate. I do think that there's much more robust documentation provided that lets us come to a defensible conclusion. And I would agree that the structure, it doesn't embody distinctive characteristics of a type period or region. I think that integrity does play a part in that because there has been some loss but I think the porch being lost in particular is a key element of the building.

I'll say that as we look at these properties in the future, we've had discussion about alterations to the back of this property. And I think fairly often from a Secretary of the Interiors standards perspective when we're advising on sensitive alterations to buildings, we may direct them towards the back of the building because those are less prominent facades. To me that's the totality of change that really needs to be measured. I would also say that there's sufficient documentation here on the Portuguese community to say that this property, yes, isn't individually significant. It is important to note though that when districts are identified, it's common for properties just to be contributors versus being individually significant.

I think if you look at the Park Street District, for example, there's a bunch of contributors there and I believe the Masonic Lodge may be one of the few individually designated buildings along that stretch. But I'll also say that although this potential Portuguese historic district did come to light through this study. I think there's a lot of additional study that would need to occur to really refine our understanding of that, to make a sound determination of its location, its boundaries and what types of resources would comprise that. So yeah, I think that helps address that criterion one argument. And of course we come back to Mr.

Mitchell who apparently not a master builder. I want to add one clarification in the consultant's analysis under criterion three, the architectural criterion, they noted that the property's not associated with an important creative individual because this person is not a master architect. And that's a really key distinction because the National Park Service's guidance actually defines a master as someone who is an architect, a craftsman, or a creative individual of generally recognized greatness. So just because a building contractor may not be a licensed architect or an architect on paper, we shouldn't just write that off. But I feel like the evidence we've presented is strong enough to say that Mr.

Mitchell is not a prominent builder.

He is handy with red paint apparently.

Good painter, good painter. But yeah, so that's all I have.

Great. Sure. So you know this is my first review so I don't have much to compare it to. I was impressed with the amount of information that was provided. And I'm also looking at this as you know a longtime resident of Alameda.

And when I see like a blighted property and there's there as we all know there is blighted properties spotted all across Alameda. So for me it's a great service to our community when we take a blighted property and we improve it. In its current condition it's not doing our community any good. In fact it's doing the exact opposite of what we need as Alameda citizens, right? So when I saw, you know, first of all I saw that they were going to, when I read the initial description it says it's going to be demolished.

But I guess that's under criteria because it's not being demolished, right? It's actually being renovated and added to. But the language says demolish and I think that's because there's some sort of technical definition that if you're, if it costs so much money it's considered demolish. And so I looked at the existing design. I looked at the design that they're proposing and they're actually trying to keep very much within the same sort of rhythm and features of the original architecture even though it's not been granted any sort of extra design credentials.

So in my opinion, this group is doing our community a service by taking this blighted building, trying to make it better. And so you know as a board member, but I want to make sure that I follow the criteria that we all need to you know comply with. I want to do Alameda a service. But ultimately I think we're doing Alameda a bigger service by helping this project move along. You know, I don't I don't want to see people spending undue money or undue time on these things because it is expensive to do this stuff.

And the economy right now is very fragile or at least unknown. You know, we don't know what the future holds. I was reading in the paper today that you know the cost of construction is gonna be going up for residents. So I'd like to sort of seize this opportunity and make it easier for folks in our community to take what is clearly a blighted property and make it better. So again, I want to fall within the parameters of what we're trying to do but I also don't want to lose, you know, the forest for the trees.

So that's and I thank staff for, you know, making this very thorough. To me, this is a fairly easy decision. So anyway, this is my first time here so I'm just

Thank you. Thank you. And I would say I'm in agreement that we have enough evidence. It seems like a clear decision. I support the adoption of the resolution. So at this point, if we're all in agreement, somebody would make a motion. Someone would second it. If we wanted to change any of the wording, we could make a motion to, you know, essentially adopt the resolution with changes. But that's the process. Yeah, right.

I see no reason for changes and would be happy to make that initial motion unless anyone else has other thoughts to share.

So you would make a motion.

I make a motion to adopt the resolution in its current form. Okay.

With the additional proviso for bringing staff. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you. What he said.

I have one question actually. When we received the updated or kind of 100% version if you will, is there an opportunity just to confirm the language in the resolution or is this the final time for that?

Okay, I think that may have been misstated, but the intent was that it would come back for me to review it as your secretary rather than have another round which would delay it further.

I like that.

I have your document, so I'll make sure that it's hitting your points.

Refined, yeah. I just have one request for refinement, think. Under number one, regarding the distinctive characteristics, and this is really just a kind of like a best practice recommendation. I believe we say in this Where did it go? So it says, however, the building's elements have little to no remaining integrity due to the substantially altered condition of the building and lack of architectural cohesion.

And I think it's, you know, is either there or it's not. It's a yes or no. So I would just say the building has lost historic integrity.

Due to the substantially

condition? Yeah.

Has lost. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, do we have to remotion?

No.

No, then I will second the motion to approve the resolution with the updated report being forwarded to the board secretary.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. The ayes have it.

The motion carries.

Motion carries.

Yay. And thank you to the applicant. I look forward to Alameda becoming more and more beautiful.

Okay, so moving on to item five board communications. This would be the moment where if the board had anything to communicate about, like last time I mentioned the Alameda Architectural Preservation Society is gonna be having their historic home tour soon. Or when the radio museum was having their reception, you know, that got brought up, those kinds of things. So any board communications? None is okay.

Yeah. No, I can just say that, you know, I want to thank you and acknowledge for, you know, this being my first meeting. I apologize for missing the first one. I will certainly do my utmost to make these meetings and I'm proud to be part of this. And I'm not afraid to disagree with people and I'm not afraid for people to disagree with me. I think that's why they have different folks on here so that we can come at it from different perspectives. As an architect, I have very thick skin because I get chewed up all the time.

Good to hear, good to hear. Well, I would welcome you. Thank you for being here.

Know, was it last meeting we talked about the different kind of, it's not a formal work plan yet, but kind of like a work program if you will. And one of board member Acrovedi's comments about the cost of these evaluations made me, it just resonated with me as a consultant who prepares these. And of course there's a range that you'll encounter depending on the property type that you have or what you're evaluating, the number of buildings, whether or not the consultant kind of recommends or specifies interior investigation versus just research and evaluation. But those kind of cost questions are ones that we should be considering when we're also looking at updating a citywide survey eventually. Because I think one of the benefits of that type of effort is that it may be a big cost to undertake but that cost is spread a bit.

It's not on a property by property basis.

Right.

But at the same time, when we're really thorough about these historic resource evaluations, it's giving us a lot of material that can inform that. So there's a little bit of

Play together.

Yeah, exactly. So and overall it's just about doing the best work you can. So yeah, I think beyond that I had one question about I saw a post on the city's Facebook page today about municipal infrastructure and I believe there's a workshop at city council next week and I'm curious if there are any historic age buildings or facilities as part of that plan that would be beneficial to present here in this kind of forum, whether it be a firehouse or, you know, depending what infrastructure is defined as, I think that would be a worthwhile topic or an opportunity for another workshop if that can be accommodated. And

of course could we attend that?

Guess would, I have no idea

what this is, but. Believe it's just the next city council.

Oh, at

the next

city council.

I'll look into it.

Okay. Yeah.

Well, your comment about sort of a citywide survey sort of resonates with me a little bit because I was sort of thinking about how the process works here. And my sort of initial reaction to this project was I'd like to make it easier for people to fix blighted properties in Alameda. I don't wanna put up roadblocks. I actually wanna make it easier for what could clearly be considered a blighted property. And there's some near my house.

I'm sure there's some near your houses. They're just scattered all over Alameda. And it would be nice to figure out a way to meet the goals of Alameda in terms of its historic value that we bring to our community but also without getting in the way of fixing up these blighted houses. So I don't know if that means and maybe this isn't where you were going with it or maybe it is, I'm not sure. But maybe by doing an additional survey, we could take some of the properties that clearly are blighted and we need to encourage people to fix these up.

And there might be a little bit of collateral damage and that without having done a thorough historic evaluation for each one of these blighted properties, we might miss something. But in my mind, there's always a cost and a benefit to things. And when you weigh these things, to me fixing these blighted houses would provide more to our community than spending additional resources digging deep into the historic value of these really crappy houses, right?

Yeah, well I think part of the challenge is historic integrity is not necessarily defined by condition. Defined primarily by the retention of materials. So which that's a difficult situation for any property owner because construction costs are high in the Bay Area to say the least. But we also have to be careful about when we see buildings with flaking paint or a little bit of loose trim, some missing roof tiles, not dismissing that at face value is something that's Sure.

It's a

slippery slope. Yeah. And I'll also say that I've learned just through working on different types of properties, many of them just being very modest buildings without any sort of definable style. Some of the most interesting properties were owned by community members who were probably discriminated against in one way or another or marginalized and their ability to fund maintenance may have been less than those who were more fortunate or given the opportunity to buy a house wherever they wanted to. So that's one of the challenges of the field of historic preservation now in the twenty first century is to still look out for those architectural gems that are kind of at first pass face value, that's the easiest thing you can identify as, oh yeah, that's a great looking Queen Anne, right?

But when you start to dig a little deeper, that gives you the opportunity to say okay, here's an enclave we never knew about and you know what, maybe because the architecture here is not the significant thing, there is more flexibility in how you can change these buildings and what's the collective environment look like as far as neighborhood fabric. And you know, sometimes I believe it was mentioned in the evaluation, community centers, buildings like that, social halls, community gathering places. Those are facilities that are often designed with tight budgets. There's even a theme I've seen in San Francisco's modern architecture context statement called municipal modernism, which is really about like, all right, you've got bond dollars and that's all you get, right? So you build us the best building you can.

And some of those are, they'll still become eligible as historic resources. But yeah, I mean there's always a balance and I'll say that preservation can be less precious but still impactful where we're not looking at every single fine grained detail. But when we can encourage people to keep their wood windows that are old growth wood, pest resistant, rot resistant, that would be ideal.

Yeah, it's definitely a

balancing It's not economical for everybody.

Definitely a balancing act.

All good points.

Well, thank you guys for those comments. Staff, staff communications.

Nothing tonight.

Nothing tonight? Yeah. Well, I guess that brings us to number seven, which is meeting adjourned. Thank you all.

Thank you.

World speed record. Yeah.

Thank you.