Historic Resources Commission - Regular Meeting

One, two, three.

This is a regularly scheduled meeting of the Historic Resources Commission of the City of Albany. We certainly welcome people viewing on the YouTube channel and if there are any comments, we request that the comments be held to the matter of hand under the purview of the Historic Resources Commission and that they be limited three minutes in duration. My name is John Myers. I'm the chair of the commission in attendance this evening. We have Commissioner McEnany, Commissioner Tobin, Commissioner Geraghty, Commissioner Hacker, Christopher Lowman from the Historic Preservation Planner for the City of Albany is at the command center here, and Brad Glass, the Planning Commissioner. for the City of Baltimore, planning director for the City of Baltimore, is also in attendance. So we do have a quorum and we can move forward with our meeting. It is a public meeting. The first item on the agenda, the only item on the agenda, is 44 Spring Street in the center square, Hudson Park Historic District. and this is a request for a concept review of modifications to what was probably a garage carriage house on Spring Street. James Brown is here to represent the project, so we can move forward with it.

Christopher, you want to fill us in

as much as you can. I'm just going to fix the volume really quick. As stated, the applicant is here for proposed modifications to the front facade, including the reconfiguration of the front entry, the installation of shutters, replacement of windows, and painting of the exterior. The proposed modifications to the front include replacement of the existing garage door, removal of the lower row of transom windows above the garage door, installation of a residential entry door, installation of shutters on the second story, painting of the front the installation of two light fixtures. And so, this is the property in question, and then Jason, do you want to fill us in a little bit?

Sure, so this is, I believe around the 1850s, Italianate row home that was modified into probably a repair garage or a private garage circa 1920s, 30s. Clear evidence for that on the interior of the building is that you can see there's existing window headers located at approximately the height of the garage door opening, both on the interior rear wall of the structure as well as the front. fireplace that exists on the current inside of the garage, clearly indicating more domestic activity. And also it's consistent with the adjacent building, which also appears to have been modified into a garage at some stage. The opening through the floor is pretty consistent with, again, an Italian-style design where there's a staircase on one side. So originally constructed as a residence, modified into a garage. The current use of the building, the first floor, is our garage. Our home is behind this on State Street, and we just use this as a garage space. The second floor is effectively derelict. When we purchased the property, there were some evidence of previous wallpaper, fixtures, things like that upstairs, but it's certainly not in habitable condition at all. including basically stabilization measures in some portions of the back of the building.

What we hope to do is to renovate the second floor into basically an appendage to our home, another guest suite for private use. Not intending on really installing a complete kitchen in here, using it for you know, other parties as being, you know, private associated with their home. It happens to be at a different lot, but it's basically our herpudge.

The only way to do that, of course, is we need to access staircase. When we purchased the house, I had seen some plans done by another architect. They had staircases in a variety of different configurations, all of which I determined didn't meet building code because none of them

access to a public roadway.

Thus, our proposal is to reduce the opening of the garage. The building is 19 feet wide. It's too narrow for two cars. It's really only effective for one car and a bit of storage. So our intention is to modify the opening to be able to put a staircase in to the second floor that would also have a door into the garage space internally so we can access it from our home without having to go outside. The intention here is to more or less restore the building to an appropriate condition for the Italianate home that it was while still preserving the elements of its conversion into a garage in the 1920s and 30s. There's this rather peculiar arrangement currently of two sets of transoms separated by a structural beam. This is speculative on my part, but looking at the evidence of what the building is and having lived with it for a period of time, my belief is that that upper set of transoms were created when this was converted into a garage, again, in the 20s or 30s, and probably that beam was there to support hinged doors, which would have been much more typical openings at that period in time. There's no real other reason I can think of why you would need this beam running across that space. Probably in the mid-century, 1960s or so, they added another set of transom glass in order to fit a standard size overhead door and installed that. The only pictures we have of this is when it was listed in the 70s with the rest of the historic district. The door was there in the 70s. Hardware, et cetera, to me, look, again, mid-century from that. So I believe what's more appropriate to the scale and character of the building as a carriage house is to do more of a carriage-style door as opposed to an overhead-style door, more in keeping with the general historic nature of Central. So the minimal intervention that we're looking for is to add a door to the left side Move the transoms. We also would like a taller door.

The door right now is not quite six feet eight when you drive in there. I would like a taller door.

I think the most practical way of doing that is to simply attach it again as it would have been in the 20s or 30s to that beam.

Preserve the rest of the transoms.

Add some lighting for safety and security purposes. We would also like to add the shutters. I'll point out that the upper row of windows have iron pintles on every opening, so clearly the building had shutters at one time.

I'll also point out that the building is painted brick red, but it is painted.

We would like to change the color to just something a little bit more current in its feeling, again, within a historic vibe, something more attractive than the brick red, using black accents both for the door and the shutter. So pretty simple scheme, not trying to shout out against any other buildings, but again, be historically appropriate. I think that's the gist of it. I'm happy to answer questions, and I know there's other photos and things like that in the record.

if you guys want, they can take you through. So Aaron had taken a look, and I grabbed them. So as stated, in 1892 in the Sanborn, it is noted as a two-bedroom dwelling. In the 1909, it is noted as a two-bedroom dwelling. And then in the 1934 to 1935, it becomes an auto house or a garage. At this iteration is when, as Jake stated, is where we have existing condition matching the blue form recording and then I can have submitted images of some of the glass, the painted over materials. You can see the pintles there.

The windows are honestly just tacked together at this point. They're missing their internal stops. They were painted at some point before we acquired the property. They're a real hazard and obviously we'd like to replace them. I'll also state for the record, Spring Street

quite noisy, both from people as well as the diesel generator for the old Key Bank building that fires up weekly and is probably 120 decibels, quite noisy. Historic windows, I can't imagine somebody living directly across from that and putting up with the noise.

I'm just refreshing my memory on the windows you're going to be putting in as replacement.

They're... Pella Reserve traditional, so basically the best window Pella makes.

Aluminum clad exterior, traditional Muntin pattern, matching exactly what's there right now, no change in size.

Two over two. Two over two, wood interior, wood frame window.

And then I tried to get all of your materials. Let me know if I did miss one and I'll pull it up for you. I also have the door.

The door, by the way, I believe the original front door for this home is what's on the back of the building now. Reason is it has a letter hole in it. It's really not a reason to have a letter hole in the back door of your garage. So I think they just moved it from the front to the back, and that's the pattern of that door currently. So I was trying to, again, be consistent with that. Somebody added this glass. They ripped out the division at the top there, but you can see that. Also had a dog door inserted into it. I don't have time. Looks like the dog chewed the door. Yeah, I think actually what happened is some squirrels probably got locked in there and somebody went away for a long period of time. There's all the old windows inside of the sheet up with squirrels as well. So the building was in pretty rough shape.

Can you go back to that?

Yeah, sorry.

Is that your building that we see with the, is that six-sided asphalt?

No, that's my neighbor's.

That's what I was trying to lay in.

How old was the building? I believe that the neighbor's building or... Yours. I believe it was constructed in the 1850s, given the style of the interior and the look of the building.

And then I think that, again, the garage addition.

What they did is they put a one-story addition on the back. They put a steel beam in to support all the masonry in the second floor, where the old rear of the building was, and then put the steel beam in at the front to create the garage. So that created deeper, they had to make the building deeper in order to be functional for automotive use. So that's why you see it grow there. And again, I think that probably happened in the 20s, given the age of the materials that they used. There's the terracotta capped tiles and things.

Does it have a basement?

So, interestingly, there's a slab poured over where there probably was a basement or crawl space. The entire thing is filled with iron slag. So some industrial process here, a lot of free material, and they just filled the whole thing in with that and poured a slab over the top of it. So that's currently what is in the basement.

Chris, do you have a picture of the garage doors that are being proposed? Because there's just a lot of information in this packet with a lot of different doors.

Yes, this Haas door is what we're proposing. It's energy efficient, meets contemporary building code. It has a full overlay on the outside. So it's like a wood look, you know, overlays dimensional, you know, full patterned overlay, and I selected, again, this historic design that I felt was consistent with the look of the door next to it, more or less.

Great, and it's a door that lifts up?

It's an overhead door, but it's designed to appear more like a door on hinges.

Do you have a picture of the front of that? Because in the drawing that shows it... Yeah, so the drawing was my idea,

And then this is the door I shopped for because I couldn't find that exact pattern that I had drawn. So this is the, it's a little bit of, I asked for a shop drawing. This is kind of what I got from them. It's kind of a hybrid elevation. They're showing an interior on the right and an exterior on the left. So you have to imagine the left part doubled effectively. So there's a meeting rail in the middle. Yeah, those are kind of indicative.

So which one, There's two panel styles there. It's the vertical recess.

I apologize. It's confusing. This is the previous door we had selected, and this is the Haas door is the one that we replaced it with. It was in that drawing that you just had up, Chris.

I'm not getting a good sense of what the door is going to look like from that drawing.

And as a reminder, this is a, just so you guys remember, this is a public meeting, so no motions will be made, just recommendations. So I can make sure that that's listed as a recommendation.

I could redraw the elevation with that door selected on it.

Do you, if you had something from the manufacturer that just showed, like you have for the other doors, that shows a picture of it, kind of like how you have for this Brasco door.

I can just take the CAD information off this This is all they're going to give me until I buy the door, and of course I don't want to buy the door until I have approval. Sure. So I'm happy to draw it, though, the way it's intended to be.

That would be helpful, just to understand what it looks like, because I'm not super clear from what I'm looking at.

It's understandable, yeah.

And also, is there glass on top? No. Is that what that, no.

I would like a solid door. We get a lot of looky-loos.

I can imagine.

So, yeah, we would like a solid door. Okay. But I am keeping that transom of glass up top, which is obviously above inspection height.

Yeah.

So in that picture that's there, is that a solid panel, one solid recess panel of, and then two squares below it?

That's what, again, that was my, I drew that before I went shopping for doors. I tried to find that. Pattern, of course, I couldn't find that exactly. The house door is what I settled on, but I'll redraw that elevation with the house door accurately so that you can see the whole composition together.

And everything else is staying the same? You're keeping all the masonry openings, you're adding back the shutters, you're putting in...

Yes. Aside from minor, I mean, we're going to remove the paint, repaint it. There'll probably be some minor masonry repairs, obviously, we would use. historically appropriate, you know, line mortar, because we don't want the bricks popping and all that, so. And you'll gently remove the paint, I guess that would be easy. Yeah, it's removing itself aggressively, so it won't take much effort to... Yeah, you could just get a brush. Blow on it, yeah.

Those are all my questions. when you install the, I guess, clarity to make sure that when the light fixtures are going in, that they're going in and being adhered into the mortar and not into the bricks themselves, so the way they're being placed.

Yeah, we would run them through, yeah, conduit through the mortar into the interior and not destroy the brick, yeah.

Are the Pella windows you're using a true divided light or is that a?

There's SDLs simulated, but they have the aluminum spacer bar.

Any other questions? I think it's a great project. Yeah, you know, it looks good.

Yeah.

Now, there are other buildings on the street that do have shutters, and the pintles are a clear indication that they were there historically.

Do you have shutters?

Yeah, this is a, you know, one-inch-thick dimensional shutter, so.

I think just getting clarity on the door design, the overhead door design would be helpful. I like what you've drawn.

Got a shot for it. I know.

And since this is a concept review, not taking any formal action i'm not hearing any specific recommendations from the members in attendance here other than getting a a true depiction of the door i also made a commissioner tobin's request for um clarity just on the mounting profile and just have that in right may be done here.

I think so. You don't make motions in a meeting, right?

No, just recommendations. Here, seeking action or guidance.

Out of curiosity, what's the roof like? Is it a slanted roof?

It's a flat. It's a EPDM roof. And it currently goes to the back, there's a gutter, and then it drops to another flat roof. which is inset into a parapet with a single drain in it that clogs all the time. The rest of the project that's not really part of this review because it's not visible from the public is that we'll be expanding the second floor over that part of the garage and instead internally draining the roof so that we don't have all kinds of runoff drainage issues that we have there was a section of the building and you went through one of those slides that sort of shows the way the roof works. Right there. Butterfly roofing.

We'd be replacing the roof then?

Yes. Okay.

For sure.

Yeah. It needs to be done. Live. Yes.

That's a great project.

from the meeting, welcome. You got my message, yeah. Yes.

And I was really early also.

I'll bring you up to speed. We have reviewed the, this is a concept review of the project. We're not taking any vote of action on it. The discussion centered largely around the relative merits of the renovation or the reimagination of the building, inserting an entry door in what was that very large, wide overhead door opening. And the real comment that came from our discussions relates to the design of the new door. It will be an overhead section door, outward acting door, but it will not, the panel divisions are a little bit different on the product that the applicant has submitted. So we're seeking a clearer drawing of what the door will look like.

Inuding that when the lights, those two lights that are being installed to install them into the mortar joints, they're power windows. Two over two. Two over two.

You're all looking at me. We almost got it, you know, done. No, no, no. No, no, no, you've had full coverage.

Thank you. Well, in that case, thank you.

Although we removed the paint, so no pressure washing. Thanks for moving it so.

Well, thank you, James. Thank you for your consideration. So I'll work with you, Chris, on the public notice documents.

I'll send you basically a little booklet of just everything with dates, the recommendations from the Commission and everything, and we'll get you all set up. Okay. Very good.

And I'll revise that, get that back to you to share with you. Absolutely. Thank you again for your time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, I guess I could have just zoomed in. I wasn't thinking.

You did zoom in. You don't have a comment from Florida?

Lee? So it's a, I was going to say it's a public meeting, so public comment isn't a required aspect. I don't know if anybody, if Lee is present, I don't know if he did. Eileen? Lee, did you want to say anything?

How's everybody? Yeah, how's everybody doing?

Good. How are you? Good to hear from you.

I'm doing all right. It's good hearing from y'all too. I'm just looking at y'all and the project seems to be pretty good. And I'm happy to be alive and happy to be here in Florida.

Hey, can you hear us well on these speakers?

Yeah.

Can you hear everybody?

All right. It's a little delayed, but I can hear you. Your voices are a little delayed.

Could I ask about the St. Rose development and what we might

role we might have in that project since it's eligible for the National Register?

I went up and talked to Mike Lally and other people there. We were going to know when the next meeting was and they moved it up further into August. The deadline for the people with the concept, which is not a true RFP, it should have been renamed, takes the quarter on the northeast corner and has a number of buildings there that are all under consideration. No guarantees on demolition of anything. It's strictly a concept and I expect to go in and ask to look at them between now and the next meeting there. There's been several meetings with various people who are interested, including the Pine Hills Neighborhood Association. And I talked to one of the neighbors there that's across the street from the St. Rose block, and they seem very content that it isn't going to be destroying the Pine Hills attitude there. who listened to the people I met, including Mike Lally, that they speak very respectfully about the Madison Avenue block, for example, that nobody would want to do anything to do damage there. It seems to be acting in good faith. They've met with Historic Albany and had a meeting there, so I think they're they're going about it properly. I'm looking forward to see what these prospective ideas were that have been sent in, which were due to be received on the 29th. Okay. Thank you.

Actually, can I ask a question? Because we, I don't remember if you were here for that part of the conversation or, Kara, if you were, but at the last meeting, or maybe two meetings ago, we had a full discussion about eligibility process, right? It was all too tight and short for the Common Council. So you just said eligible.

I looked it up. They are officially determined eligible. That block, that big block, all has a National Register eligibility determination on it.

When was that done?

Oh, I don't know. A couple years ago. It was somewhere recently. But that is officially, it has an official DOE in CRIS.

The way it was written, it was a gray area, and people were concerned that it wasn't. We talked to People's Island, we talked to a number of people at the store, everybody agrees they're eligible.

And it has been already officially determined eligible. Okay. So that's a step forward from what we knew last?

Yes. That's new information.

Yeah. Okay.

Good information. Oh, I have one more question to bring up, is whether the, regarding the proposed changes to Section 106 by the Advisory Council on Historic Observation, and if the City has been observing this and plans to make any outreach in support or I guess in opposition to the proposed changes to the regulations governing Section 106, because it will eliminate, well, it will no longer automatically include local governments in review processes, and it changes from a consulting process, a true consulting process, to SHPO's and tribal historic preservation offices just get to look at what was decided and review it and comment on the decision, not be a part of the decision-making process.

No, you're talking on the federal level. This is the federal 106. Because we have people listening to this who may not understand. Oh, yes.

This is Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. So I was just putting out there in this public meeting whether there would be an opportunity for the Historic Resources Commission to comment when public comment opens because they proposed the changes to the regulations were voted on by the Advisory Council. They're waiting to be published in the Federal Register and at that point there will be official public comment opportunity and that's when people can write letters and organizations and municipalities can write letters. So I just want to put it out there, it's appropriate for us to write a letter and or for the city itself to write a letter.

I don't know if you and Erin have looked at it in more detail. I've read the media version of it, but I'm happy to learn more if you have a CliffsNotes.

I do have a CliffsNotes, because my organization just sent one out today, just so I can borrow that.

Wonderful. There's a lot of links. Does that affect the state review, too, of everything?

No. The State Historic Preservation Act of 1980 has its own separate state review.

So it would be for federal?

to be for federal actions, but any federal funding, licensing, or permitting would be... Taking place within the city and involving any sort of... Would change dramatically that, and tremendously logical.

Well, it's really devastating. It's actually really awful.

So awful.

Because whether it's federal permitting, whether it's federal funding, whether it's another, any of those actions, so even anything federal where we would, the county, blah, blah, I'm making something up, of course, the county, blah, blah, blah, and there's federal funds and you would have expected there to be review to determine the impact on resources, gone. And the whole thing is, I mean, that's 1970, Our State of Star Preservation Act is 1980, so this is 1966. So the 50 to 60 years obliteration of that base level of protection or consideration or consultation, gone.

And they're eliminating viewshed considerations and I mean it will be, there's, it's very, very bad. Yeah, and this is in direct response, I think, to the Arch. The Arch, well, also federal lands out west, I think, so because it does, it really takes away tribal sovereignty, and so it opens up, I think, a lot of, it does, it's like a twofer. Could be the pool. Well, there is a list of, when you look at, from the Arch, the list of affected sites, and that's all because of this fuchsia, which then would be taken away.

What's the timeframe for the comment?

We don't know. So it's unclear when it will be published in the Federal Register. So when it is, we can let people know. But that's when the public comment. So now is, I guess, is the time to think about local impacts that Section 106 has had. So how has Section 106 benefited the City of Albany? And what negative effects would happen without it? That's the direction that people have been advising at the federal advocacy letter. You know, responses to the public comment should focus on local impacts for those places specifically.

I mean, I think we'd be happy to work on preparing a memo if we could take input from the commission.

I think if the city's going to take a position, I think that we can figure that out first.

Yeah.

And then if the city's not going to take a position, we can talk about what

that's a good idea thank you so aaron you've been as you said you're getting your fact sheets out and all so potentially what is on what what in your mind quickly comes and or care i don't know if you've been kind of digging in yet as well but what kind of as you just said where would you say in the city of albany some of the uh the protections or the potential adverse impacts are. What kind of things would you say?

Well, you could, a potential adverse impact could be, for example, lock one, if the federal government or some developer wants to, I'm kind of making this up, but let's say a developer bought that property and got federal money to fill the high rise there. and obliterate all that's left of block one. That would be a negative impact. So I'm trying to think of, I'm hoping that the state office comes up with some local examples, because they're going to have the best ones, but things like when the work was done to build the DEC building way back, and they uncovered all that archeology, Now, that was state, but I'm pretty sure there was federal money involved based on the level of archaeology they did, and you probably know better than me, Jenna. Yeah, there was, I think, yeah. A lot of the archaeology that's been done around here would not have been done without 106. And then buildings that were locally saved are not really coming to mind.

No, I think it's the areas that aren't locally listed that are most endangered, like Kenwood, I think.

Kenwood's a great example. Because there's obviously a redevelopment there.

They've got to be going after something federal.

I mean, I think that would be the first thing that would most likely get affected by this is it would totally remove any review. And like I was saying, SHPO comes in later to comment on their decision, but SHPO in public would completely remove any decision making process. And that's terrifying. So the data center that's proposed for Kenwood 106 could be one of the stops pushing back on the data center and that would be removed because the data center would have to have federal permitting or licensing at the very least.

Any of our highways? Any of our rail?

Yeah, but I can't think of anything. Like they took out like the Livingston Avenue Bridge. I don't know if that had a DOE or not, and if you could get a better Livingston Avenue Bridge from a consultation process, I don't know.

I guess, I mean, it's terrible. I think the notion of the obliteration of the careful consideration and consultation process is what's most troubling because any of the reviews, our reviews here, or the state reviews, or the federal reviews, they're not always successful in terms of protecting historic resources, nor really are the regulations set up that they should always be successful. But how they're set up is that the consultation process requires, think about this, think about this. It's the planning process. And so the elimination of the interested community and the interested parties from any of the consultation process, the consideration process is really what is lost and just so terrifying. Yeah, we'd be moving backwards instead of forwards.

Absolutely. Yeah. On that cherry note.

share information that is being developed forward.

I can forward the email that my organization put out to you and Brad and Chris and then maybe distribute accordingly, because I know I can't email the entire group. Yep. Very good. I'll do that. I'll email it to Chris, Chris can send it. I'll email it to you and then you'll send it out. All right.

Chris is our conduit.

to catch up on all of them, because of course there's been a time that I've had other engagements, so I have to catch up on listening into all of them.

I can forward you what I wrote, too, if you want to look.

Is it found on the links?

Sure. I mean, I think Chippo has the best, if you want quick, I think Chippo has the best phone.

Oh, there it is.

It's like a fire hose. Yeah, so like, that's why we, at the Arch email, just had some bullets at the bottom. Next week. Yeah.

any other matters to come before the commission?

Actually, one more thought on that, if I may. It's kind of interesting because this commission and other commissions that I'm aware of really rely on the role of the state preservation programs and the role of the federal preservation programs. And so if at least the latter of those is so diminished, it's conceivable that to offer the same level of protection or consideration for historic resources, what happens locally within whatever limits are available become more important. It's like ours now are not sufficient. to address all the items that we would hope to be addressed, data center. I mean, just the work you're doing and kind of as you mentioned the data centers. But it really could potentially shift that burden to the local commissions, the ones that are interested. They're not all interested, as we know.

And an increased burden in survey and determinations of eligibility because if the agencies are, the agencies undertaking the actions will now determine whether there's affected historic resources. So if things are not already determined eligible or on the National Register, they can simply say there's none. Right. So at least if more places get determinations of eligibility or designated. Yeah. There's something to point to, yeah.

On that happy note, move we adjourn.

I'll second. Entertain a motion to adjourn? I'll second. I'll do it. Okay. All in favor?

Aye. Thank you all. Thank you. It was worth watching and traveling.