Historic District Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. It is 06:35. We are opening the hearing. Alright. So start with roll call. Josh Gurles? Here. Laura Moore?

Here.

Glenn Connolly? Here. Brian Daniels? Here. And Don Tice? I am here. So secretary, please read the

Just for the record, I'll note that you're opening the meeting and not the evidentiary hearing at this point.

That's correct. When I open the evidentiary hearing, I will use the term evidentiary. Yes. Okay. So secretary.

I'll now read into the record the following. The commission operates under NC general statutes one sixty d dash nine forty, which gives local governments historic preservation authority and the Chapel Hill Land Use Management Ordinance, including Article three, which established the local historic districts and sets forth regulations governing them, and the Chapel Hill Historic District's design principles and standards, which sets forth standards for changes in the historic districts, and the rules of procedure adopted by the Chapel Hill Historic District Commission, as well as the significance reports from all three historic districts and photos. I also called to your attention each of the applications and associated materials in your agenda packet. All of these items are hereby entered into the record. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Now the public charge. The advisory board pledges its respect to the public. The body asked the public to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the body and with fellow members of the public.

Should any member of the body or any member of the public fail to observe this charge at any time, the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual gains personal control. Should the quorum fail to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until a genuine commitment genuine commitment to this public charge is observed. Property owners may represent themselves or be represented by attorney. However, professionals such as architects, engineers, designers, and others may provide factual evidence and expert opinions so far as they are qualified, but not legal arguments on behalf of the property owner. Okay.

Approval of the agenda. Do you guys have any amendments to the agenda?

Anyone? Move approval. Second.

So it's been seconded. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Just a side note real quick, administrative note for you guys. At the next agenda, we need to make sure we adjust the letterhead so that Nancy's name is not on it anymore. Thank you. Okay. Are there any announcements?

No, there are none.

Okay. Petitions?

Also,

Okay. Old business, 308 West Cameron Avenue. We're now going to start the evidentiary portion of the hearing. And so I think everyone here probably knows, but I'm going to review real quick. We're going to go with staff presentations, the applicant's presentation, public comment, board discussion, which will lead to a motion. So Kevin, have you got something to say?

And I'll just add, since we have a party that the commission has already determined has standing, I think it would be appropriate to allow them an opportunity to make their presentation following the applicant's presentation. And of course, each side will have the opportunity to cross examine witnesses as they're presented.

Okay. So everybody understands that. That's good. All right. So let's start the evidentiary hearing. Staff presentation, please. You're not going to do it. So it doesn't change. All Yeah.

And now that we've kind of gone through the preliminary administrative matters, I think it would be appropriate for it to have a motion and a vote to reopen the evidentiary hearing.

Okay. I move that we reopen the evidentiary hearing on 308 Cameron Avenue. Second.

Brian, can you move your mic closer?

Sure.

Thank you.

Could you hear it before? Okay, you could hear it. Okay, so there's been a motion and a second. All in favor, aye. Aye. There we go. So we've made Mr. Hornick happy. That's important. All right. So applicants' presentation.

Don, I know we've already done this once at the beginning of the last evidentiary hearing, but I suggest we go through and do conflicts of interest and swear in any witnesses who intend to speak.

Yeah, I was planning on doing the affirmation. But let's do ask, any conflict of interest? There are none, so we will move forward. Jay, you want to move up? I'm going to read an affirmation.

Certainly. So

just to repeat for the record, I'm Ann Anderson representing the applicant this evening. I'm not going to attempt to make things longer, but hopefully shorter in the process. Could I also ask, as is customary with quasi judicial proceedings? Can't hear me? The mic appears to be on. Can you hear? Just getting a little closer, like right on it.

There you go.

Oh, no.

Is going to be bad.

Technology.

Okay. Again, sorry, Ann Anderson here representing the applicant. As is customary in quasi judicial proceedings, if we could also have the members affirm that they have not spoken about this matter outside of this proceeding. That's just for the record.

Thank you.

And just for what it's worth, that's typically part of our disclosures, our ex parte communications, site visits, conflicts of interest under 160d, 109. So that's just for what it's worth, that's typically part of the disclosure process. But if you'd like, you all may acknowledge that you've not had any ex parte communications with an affected party. Specifically disclose that you've not had any site visits or other conflicts of interest.

So do we need to make a motion to that? Or each commissioner goes in and

No. And this is just a record here, record keeping matter. We've already acknowledged that there are no disclosures that ought to be made. But I think we, out of an abundance of caution, I think we ought to go through individually and just note I agree. We've got no statutory conflicts of interest, no ex parte communications, and no site visits, unless, of course, any of those things are not true.

Okay. Well, since I'm the chair, I'll start, and then we'll go to Josh. I haven't had any ex parte communications, and I haven't made any site visits or coordinated with anyone or discussed it with anyone.

I have not made any site visits, and I have had no ex

parte communication.

I have not had any site visits. There may be a conflict of interest. The applicant's son and son and my son are on the same soccer team. So I don't know if that is a significant conflict of interest.

So we'll allow the neighbors an opportunity to object. However, this certainly doesn't appear to rise to the level of a close familial business or other associational relationship under 160d, 109d. I'll turn it over to Leanne if she'd like to.

Thank you.

No objection.

Okay. Thank you.

I've had no ex parte communication site visits or I have no conflicts of interest.

Alright. Thank you all.

Alright. Jay? Let me read the affirmation and afterwards if you could say I so affirm and say your name. I affirm that the evidence I shall give to the historic district commission and the referenced application shall be the truth and nothing but the truth I so affirm.

I so affirm. I'm Jay Falkerson. Shall I sign in here? All right. Very good.

Good to see you all again. My clients, Ram Calendras, Ram's mother and father. I'm Jay Fulkerson. I'll reintroduce myself for the record that I'm an architect here in Chapel Hill. My background is I graduated from University of Cincinnati, 1984, Bachelor of Architecture. Not quite one hundred years ago, but it's been a while. 'forty two. I got my initial registration the next year in 1985. Moved here in 1988. My wife went to grad school here and have stayed.

I worked for a small firm here in Chapel Hill Design Build Company for ten years. And then I started my own practice in 1998 as a sole proprietor. And I've had a successful practice here since then. And also have a master of architecture from NC State in 1995, master of science of architecture. I thought I was going to go into teaching and chose not to. So I started my practice soon after that. And I'd noted last time that I used to be on the Historic District Commission. It was for several months in 1985 in Endicott, New York. And so I have some sense of what you all get to deal with in this circumstance. Thank you for your time.

Thanks for volunteering to do this. It's terrific. And thanks for the time you spent in the last meeting. And I especially thank Don and Laura for having written your comments. I appreciated having a concise description of what you were thinking about and allowed me to think about how we approach this project as we represent it.

So can you see this on here now? Okay. I want to

just this town of Chapel Hill right now.

There you

go. That's what they got. Okay, thank you. Yes, Scott. So you got the application, revised application materials.

And those are all going to be part of this presentation. But there's also revisions on these three d drawings that I had done previously, which initially included 129 Millett Street, included the existing house, and included the proposed new house. And I think this time, won't say proposed over and over again. I'll just refer to it as the new house in the existing house and 129 Millett Street. So effectively, the three d really sums up things in terms of what I have done to revise and refine the design.

But effectively, what I've done is bring the stature of the house down, take away a lot of verticality. And I'll talk about that in some detail. But these two slides, you can see the existing prior presentation slides had this sort of gray terrain color and the new ones have more of a tan color. You can see, and it's most clear that the house just sort of shrinks within this landscape and within this streetscape. But first, I'm going to talk about Millett Street.

I'm going talk about the revisions here. And again, you may have noticed in what I turned in previously, any revisions are expressed in red typeface. So you can see that it's consistent throughout this as well as all the other materials that were turned in previously. Well, I'm gonna start first with little discussion about the height on the house. What we had in the prior presentation was 28 feet six inches was the ridge line of the new house.

And through some modifications, which I'll go into, it's now 24 feet nine inches. So it's the change in the house structure and the foundation has come down three feet nine inches. And when you look at it in the context of how the ordinance describes the house, it's actually a full four feet shorter with reference to where the mean grade elevation is at the front facade. And in reality, it is four feet shorter than it had been. And as a, I have a question, Anna Scott.

Can I make this image bigger on my screen?

Presentation notes, like speaker notes?

No. No, don't need any of that. Perfect. That's exactly what I needed. Thank you.

So at 24 Feet 9 inches, when you consider the context specifically of Millet Street, it's well within the range of how high, how tall houses are on the street. And in fact, it's a fair amount shorter than many of the other houses on the street. For instance, 400 Cameron Street, West Cameron across the street is 26 feet, One twenty eight I'm sorry, one twenty six on the other side of the street is 27 feet. 127, which is the house that is just north of 129, is 32 feet approximately at the ridge. And in fact, the eave height is about 22 feet.

And when we look at that particular house in relationship to 129, the ridge is well above the 129 Ridge. The eave height is nearly as low as the ridge of 129. And not only that, but it's also a fair amount closer to 129 than the new house will be. It's 29, maybe 28 feet away from that house and you'll see that the new house is over 42 feet from the existing, from 129. Well, I'll make a further remark about that a little bit later in in response to the letter that I had seen from Jim Spencer that was sent.

And I I have you all seen that? No.

No. I haven't. And until it's introduced into evidence, it should be part of the reference. Yeah. He didn't know.

Okay. Yeah. Was unaware of that. Yeah. Well, that's fine.

So I'll I'll wait to say anything about that until later. The other thing that's notable about this Well, first of all, let me just say, our design is not incongruous as far as I'm concerned from the standpoint of height within the context of Millet Street or you'll see within the context of the entire historic district. It it fits right in, in fact, in my opinion. The new house is a little bit larger than it was previously. It was 1,835 square feet and I've made some minor revisions to it.

It's eighteen fifty six square feet now and you'll see how I came to that. But at eighteen fifty six square feet, again, it's not, certainly not incongruous, it's not a big house in this neighborhood. It's definitely not a big house even on this street. As you look at square footage of 400 across the street, over 2,600 square feet, one twenty eight is over 3,100 square feet and this is information all from the tax records. 127 is nearly 4,200 square feet and 1856 129 is slightly less than than a thousand square feet.

N 308 West Cameron is 16 And Change. So it's not unusual on this street. And then as you look further down the street, some of these houses I think are larger than that. Certainly, Hundred 27 is larger than that. 126 probably as well.

And in the district, again, lots larger houses and smaller ones as well on some of the smaller lots. So again, think it fits right into the mix, not incongruous from that standpoint. And there had been some discussion at the last meeting about the plan or design orientation on the site. And 129 is a building that as you see it, it principally has a facade that is parallel to the street and is it appears to be its primary dimension. Although I will say, 129 is in fact deeper from the street than it is wide.

And you can sort of tell that as you look at this plan, but in any case, it is. And many of the houses that are on Millett Street, 114, 116, 118, 121. 121, again, is one that looks like it is principally horizontal, perhaps horizontal, I'd say perhaps neutral because that's the two story house, it's relatively tall, so it really doesn't have a horizontal orientation. But again, it has a primary facade that is relatively wide and is parallel to the road. But in fact, it's deeper than it is wide.

One twenty six is the that case as well. And certainly, the new house has that sort of form. But it's not unusual on this street. I mean, most of these lots are quarter acre lots that are relatively deep. And a lot of these houses express that the lots are deeper than they are wide.

And as I get a little further along here, you'll see that in other parts of the district, that's definitely the case. So again, fits right in the mix, not incongruous. And also, I'll touch on this quickly here before you go to the site plan, but these were the dimensions that previously were on the new house with relationship to the existing house at 308 West Cameron and also with relationship to the property line. And you'll see that what I've done is I've moved the house, it's about one feet three inches, one foot three inches further north to give a little bit more buffer to the existing house, which in fact, the primary wall of the new house and the primary wall of the existing house are 20 feet away from one another and it's closer at the back porch that's on the existing house. But otherwise, that's kind of clearance we have and there are lots of examples in the district and on Millett Street, in fact, where the houses are closer than that.

This is not an unusual circumstance and that in addition to the fact that we've reduced the stature of the house, think makes it convincingly not incongruous. And then certainly an improvement on what I'd presented previously from that standpoint. So this is a site plan as it was previously. And there were comments about the parking among other things, of course, but the parking. And so one of the big changes in the site plan is that I've modified the parking such that it is all all four parking spaces, I'm sorry, in a straight line.

Previously, they'd been they'd been more compact in terms of how they were relating to one another. But now, all four of these are as far away from the house as we can possibly get them and in a line so that they're largely sheltered from view by the existing wall that there is. And and we no longer have a parking space that's right in front of the house. And there were comments about front yard parking as it relates to the historic district. And there's front yard parking all over the historic district.

But I feel like this approach is a really good one because it is more organized and there's there's not a car parked in front of the house which there there are many spots on on even Millett Street where you see that. And from standpoint of the ordinance, this first space is in the front yard just because of the relationship to where the front facade of the house is. But the rest of these are not and in fact, this is in the side yard visually. So I think that's a really big improvement. And you'll see as I get to the next few slides here that I have introduced a retaining wall to this design.

And the existing retaining wall on this site is here and was going to be going away. And we had the discussion at some length last time about how to deal with the grades And I've tried to introduce some clarity in terms of how the retaining wall works on the site, how we look at how the grade falls across the site, and what it means to how these two houses as well as 129 relate to one another. So what I've indicated is a retaining wall that comes largely across the site and then flares out and includes stairs between the lower portion of this property where the new house is and the upper part of this property, which in fact will allow us to excavate this without impacting the existing retaining wall dramatically that is along Millett Street. The intent being to keep it intact and we can use these stairs and the new retaining wall to buttress the back of that wall. And the only portion that's beyond the stairs and we'll have grade removed away from it is this short portion here that if we need to, we can reinforce that.

But it's a solution that frankly, it adds a pretty high level of organization to the site that it didn't have previously. Let's see here. I'm just gonna move through this very quickly and get to some pictures. Specifically to talk about front yard parking, I spent a little time, I went through the whole district and after I'd learned that effectively you're not permitted to do so, I'm trying to fill in some of the blanks that you may not know about. But front yard parking is all over the district.

It's on the Lett Street. Again, actually, this is an organization that only has one car in the front yard and the rest are beyond that. But front yard parking this 126 has a circle driveway in front. People regularly park in that spot. The house just across the street, the brick ranch, depending on how many people park in the driveway, most of them will be in the front yard.

As you move over to Keenan Street, you move out to Cameron Avenue, you move to Cameron Court. There's only four houses on Cameron Court that are actually in the district, but they all have front yard parking. And this one at 119 Cameron is, I think, actually a pretty good example because you can see the parking is here, that car is definitely in the front yard. But they're, from a visual standpoint, they're not nearly as prominent as these are for instance or these are. And that's a house that was built on a subdivided site.

And I don't know when that property had a new house built on it, but it is, if you look at the tax maps, there's not a house there, but there is, in fact, a house. And I'll also say, as I'm looking at some of these pictures that, that's a really close proximity between these two houses. And this house, in fact, is not in the district. This one is. But the relationship between the two is pretty close.

There's maybe, I don't know, fifteen, sixteen feet between those two houses. And the same is true here, a house that fronts on Cameron Avenue and has side yard, front yard parking, basically because it's a corner lot, very close to a newer house that was built immediately behind it, which in that house has front yard parking as well. Bass Knight Lane is even more instructive about that because basically, every house on Bass Knight Lane and all of these houses are in the historic district, has front yard parking in front of the house, between the houses and again, these houses are all in really close proximity to one another. And part of the reason for that is that the sites on Bast Knight Lane are smaller than they are in many other parts of the district, but they are not smaller than the new text amendments to the ordinance allow. They're all about a tenth of an acre, so they're 4,500 to 5,500 square feet.

And under the new text amendment, properties can be subdivided an R3 and an R4 district down to 4,000 square feet. Gross land area, which means, in fact, it can be maybe 3,700 square feet. And of course, that applies to the entirety of Chapel Hill, but it does apply to the historic district as well. And excuse, I made a mistake on this when I realized this morning that this is 118 And 116 Bass Knight Lane, when in fact, that's not the case. It is 116 And 118 Cameron Court, so just ignore this at the bottom here.

And then as you go across Cameron Avenue, lots of front yard parking on Ransom Street and very close proximity of many houses there as well. Again, certainly less than 20 feet in many cases. On McAuley Street as well, some pretty big houses that are rather close to one another and on Vance Street, lots of front yard parking. And just coming back to Millet Street, 116 And 114 Millet Street are certainly less than 18 feet to one another. And it's notable that there was some discussion about 114.

Cited it as a precedent that I used because I felt like it was a good compact story and a half plan, bungalowish, and that it's pretty compact. It's not of a particular period because the house was built in 1998, I think. It was after 1997. And the historic district was established in 1990. So presumably, this house went through the historic district review and approval.

In '98 was the year that they established the National Register District, which overlays much of the Cameron Macaulay District and extends beyond it as well. But in any case, pretty close proximity between these two and here, it's really difficult to get a good picture of 127 Millett Street as it relates to 129 Millett Street. But here you can see it and you can begin to see how the ridge on 127 is well above 129. And in fact, the second story eaves are almost as tall as the ridge on 129. And I just point this out because it obviously had been a point that we, there was quite a bit of discussion about the last time.

From my point of view, these relationships are all over the district for better or for worse and that's part of an urban landscape, I think. And with the text amendments that allow for subdivision of properties down to 4,000 square feet, it's going to become a greater part of the historic district landscape as well as a greater part of the town. And in the context of that also, I'm gonna go back here to this illustration of Millet Street. I looked at some of the property sizes on Millett Street. Again, most of them are a quarter acre.

So they're 10,800 or so square feet. Under the new ordinance text amendments, there is the allowance for zero frontage subdivisions, which means that you can subdivide a property that does not front on a street, has no street frontage. And so on these deeper lots, 118 for instance, they could subdivide the back portion of this property, establish an easement for ingress and egress across the front portion of the property. This property is big enough that it could be subdivided that way. There could be a new house built on the back portion of that property and effectively there would be, from an ordinance standpoint, there's no regulation in terms of what the parking is because they would be single family houses.

And beyond that, if you and again, with a 4,000 square foot minimum lot size, gross land area, there's an allowance in the new text amendments for cottages to be built on the same properties as a primary house as long as the lot is the minimum square footage plus 2,700 square feet. And the cottage can be a maximum of 1,500 square feet. But in any case, you'd have a cottage and a house on the same property, there'd be no subdivision and again, in that case, it's from a parking standpoint, it's treated as two single family houses. Well, let me redeclare that. The primary house that could be larger than 1,500 square feet can have as many parking spaces as they'd want per the text of the ordinance.

The cottage could have a parking space per bedroom. So, you could have a 1,500 square foot house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. I've designed those houses before and you can make it work and it can actually be a really quite nice plan and you could have four parking spaces that would be dedicated to both of the houses. But my bigger point, looking at this map is that on Millet Street, there are 15 houses I have shown here that are on Millet Street and including these ones that are on Cameron, 15, not counting the new house. So 15 sites and nine of those sites could be subdivided without impacting the existing house on those sites at all.

And I just did a quick review of the square footages and consideration of the text amendments, but for a zero frontage property, the setbacks are six feet on all sides. So there's As the goal is to increase the density via the text amendments, there's a lot of opportunity to build a lot of building within that space. And effectively, it's a single family house that has been subdivided, there's no limit on what the square footage is. So, and I just bring that up because I think it's gonna be germane to how the historic district develops from this point. And incidentally, you may be aware of it, but there's a group of properties for sale on McAuley Street.

I believe it's four properties, it's about an acre and a quarter and it's listing for $7,000,000 and the only way somebody is gonna buy that property for $7,000,000 is if they can redevelop it. Depending there, it's an R four district. So it's got lots of opportunities to be multifamily housing or it could be just a group of duplexes, who knows what someone would have in mind for it. But they'll certainly work toward the density. Otherwise, it's not gonna work from a financial standpoint.

Who knows if look at $7,000,000 for it, but at any rate, it's worth that. Okay. I'm gonna move on to the house quickly here and the changes in the floor plan of the house. This image is what I had presented previously and this is the revision to it. The primary revision in this house is that we eliminated the back stairs entirely.

There's not a need for them from an egress standpoint, certainly not a need for it from an ingress standpoint. And that was one of the points of discussion from the meeting is the nature of the stairs. So the stairs are gone entirely and in fact, what we've done is we've incorporated that square footage in this small area here is where the house got bigger, what used to be an exterior porch. And in this case, I've turned it into more of a primary bedroom, a little bit bigger bedroom that's got a walk in closet and a bathroom, a full bath and potentially, it could be renovated at some point. It'd be built this way, it could be renovated such that it had not a walk in closet, but, you know, a sizable linear closet and maybe a bigger bathroom.

It could be a bathroom that's got two sinks and a toilet and a tub shower for instance. So something there was some discussion the last time about rental properties and I feel like those things are entirely irrelevant in the conversation that we're having here. However, this house is very suitable and I think this helps support that point. It's very suitable to be a small house for a family on this street in the future. And the other change here, I had talked about the last time I talked about a potential subdivision of this property and I talked about the need to make it a little bit smaller because of the dedication we were gonna have to make a property to the town And I had talked about this front porch potentially becoming six feet six inches deep.

And one of the comments was probably too small and it was referencing a six foot depth rather than six feet six, but in the context of this house, it's seven feet. And again, with the principles and standards talking about six feet being a minimum depth. So it exceeds the minimum and that foot makes a difference, no question about it. Also, can it's apparent from this plan that we've been able to bring the house so much closer to grade that we've given up basically four risers. You know, it had been nine risers and now it's gonna be five.

Excuse me. So now I'll get a little more to the heart of of how I dealt with the height on the house specifically. This is what we had previously. And the blue line, the blue dash line indicates where the ridge line had been on the roof, the primary roof, where the roof had been over the dormer and also where the walls were in the sense that you can see here, the house has shifted in this drawing to the left and and this is where it's effectively shrunk by four feet. And that's because we introduced the retaining wall that's three feet eight inches and the existing retaining wall at its highest is about 46 inches and it goes lower as it goes across to the east side of the site.

This is 44 inches tall and it's about right. I think it works well and you can see that previously the grade was up here and we've been able to bring it all the way down here such that we have what's effectively a minimum height of the foundation on the south side. We'll also be able to have adequate drainage, have a swale that drains to the base of the retaining wall. We'll certainly have drainage control on the back of the drainage wall, on the retaining wall as well. And again, as we toggle between these two, you can see how relatively tall the facade was initially and how much shorter it's gotten in that the foundation has really been reduced to its minimum height given what the grade, the surrounding grade is and will be.

And the retaining walls, you get further to the east, it can probably come down to a little over two feet just because the existing grade behind the existing house falls. And this is in the context of our discussion last time. The county's topography suggests eight and a half to nine feet of fall from the corner at Cameron And Millett Street. And that's what this accounts for in comparing it to the streetscape drawings that I had done previously versus something that allows for retaining wall, you can see that again, the house has shrunk down dramatically both as it relates to 129 Millett Street and as it relates to the existing house and that the ridge comes down that four feet, the dormer comes down that four feet and effectively, you'll see in the three D's as you come up Millett Street and come around the corner on the Cameron, West Cameron, this house essentially shrinks from view entirely. You really can't see it from Cameron.

The other points here, we'd had some discussion about what sort of shadow was gonna be cast by the new house and at something over 42 feet away, this line represents what the solstice shadow at noon would have been, December. So once it's when the sun is at its lowest at noon and this lower one shows where it is for that one day and of course from there, this line pulls back and back and back because the angle of the sun goes from 30 degrees to something over 70 in our latitude. So it really doesn't have any impact on the neighboring house. And, Yeah, I won't say anything further about about that except on this site, the setback is about here. That is six feet, the property line is effectively right of the outside of this wall.

This house could be placed right here per the ordinance and how it fits in this site, I felt personally, it was best to have it here so that we could retain a buffer between this house and one twenty nine. That's why 129 is in this drawing to begin with. I just think it makes for a better site design for everyone involved in this process. Oh, and I guess the other point I'll make here is that in the When the house was taller, it was approximately, maybe the floor was maybe two feet below the existing house floor. And in this circumstance, as we've dropped it, it's probably five feet four inches lower or five feet four inches, about three feet lower and it's about three feet eight inches higher approximately than 129 Millett Street.

So the whole mass of this house is dramatically different than it had been previously and I think, more complimentary to both houses that flank it. Certainly not incongruous in any way, shape or form in my opinion. Didn't make any revisions to the existing house from the original application in terms of plan or the elevations. So that all just stands as it had previously. And I'll just show you these three d's quickly because it I think it's a pretty dramatic illustration of how the house will fit in compared to how it had previously.

So again, this was from the last presentation. This is from the new one. And as you as the new shorter house, obviously with the much smaller foundation. Oh, I forgot to note that I also changed the slope of the roof. It had been a twelve twelve, I changed it to an eleven twelve, which frankly is hardly noticeable visually but it made the roof a foot lower at the ridge in this case because the house is, well, it's 12 feet wide to the center.

So going from a 12 to 11 does have an impact. And it's like, just as you look at this circumstance, where the roof was and these are totally synced here. What we had before and what we have now. It changes a lot. And the same is true for the relationship of this ridge to this ridge on the existing house.

And you'll see as it comes up the street, it becomes more dramatic in terms of how this house begins to shrink further away. And here you can see the retaining wall and you can see the stairs here as I'm suggesting they should be. Here, you can see the stairs that had been here previously and the house shrinks well down and the stairs are gone. And five risers up to the front porch versus what we had previously. And here you can see a little indication of what I had here previously with the parking in front and the other spaces and now everything is pushed to the left.

Everything is behind the the wall that exists there. This one is a little bit out of sync, but at any rate, you get the idea that this house shrinks relative to this. And then as we come closer to the intersection at Cameron, you can see how it basically, it disappears from view once you get to West Cameron. And previously, had a little bit of extension above this roof. This is a view effectively from the middle of West Cameron but you could certainly see it from the other sidewalk on the opposite side of the South Side Of West Cameron.

But that's no longer gonna be the case. It's not going to be apparent. Josh, you had had a question about shingles, fiberglass asphalt shingles. And as I walked around the district, I was struck by effectively any house that has a relatively new roof is a patterned architectural grade shingle. And these are just pictures of houses on Millett Street.

400 West Cameron has That is, they're not three tab. They've got a greater texture, they're a nice looking roof. 400 West Cameron, this is the eighteen sixties house that's right across the street from the existing and the new houses. This is the ranch house that is just north of that, that has pattern shingles on it. One twenty nine Millet Street has the architectural grade shingles that have a fair amount of texture on them.

118 Millet Street and I've just shown these four because they're all over the place. It's effectively the standard. There are still some three tabs out there but I didn't see anything that looked new. So it's become the norm, that it appears in the historic district. Again, the older houses still have three tabs probably but I didn't see a great many of those because I mean, the architectural grade shingles have been around for probably three decades now.

And most of those houses have had have gotten new roofs in that time. I think I'm almost done. I guess the only thing I would say is that there are a few new houses on Bass Knight Lane. There's at least one new house of the four that are in the historic district on Cameron Court. And I I would say the new house that's gonna be built at 308 is, how do I say this?

It is congruous. It's certainly a much better example than some of these others that have been built in terms of their size and when you consider the scale in the context of the neighboring houses. There's really no comparison for many of these and on Bass Knight Lane, for instance, 117 and 115 are both relatively new houses. I don't know when they were approved but I think these two in the house that is just south of it, three in a row there that are relatively new, I expect they're less than 36 years old, that is they would have been built as long as Historic District has been established. So they went through some sort of review process and were built in the historic District and I think they could certainly have been better examples of new houses which I think ours is and again, ours is certainly not incongruous.

I think there's any evidence that suggests it is. I think that's it.

For the record. Again, I'm Ann Anderson for the applicant. Mr. Fulkerson, did you design the new house at 308 West Cameron to be not incongruous with the character of the Cameron Macaulay District?

Yeah. Most definitely. Most definitely.

As an expert in your field, is it your opinion that the design and all relevant characteristics from the design standards of the new structure at 30 West 308 West Cameron is not are not incongruous with the special character of the Cameron Macaulay District.

And and I would I would say definitely that's the case. And, of course, I remarked last time, I felt the past design was, I feel like this one is better. I feel like the input we got from the last meeting was worthwhile and I think it made for a better design. And in any case, I feel like both of them were not incongruous given the context of Millett Street and the rest of the historic district.

Okay. Hold on. I have one point of order for Mr. Hornick. Do we ask questions of the applicant now or do we wait for the party in standing to make their presentation?

That's up to the board. What I would suggest is that you allow the neighbors to cross examine Mr. Fulkerson, and then that might resolve some of your questions. And then if all still have questions after that, I think then that would be

an appropriate time.

We will have a couple of questions. Okay. So we'll let the party in standing go next.

I just have a couple of questions. Again, Leanne Brown, and I represent the neighbors at 129 Millett.

Real real quick. Another point of order. Sorry, Leanne.

No problem.

Kevin, do I need to give her the affirmation?

I'm gonna guess that Leanne does not intend to provide testimony to you all.

Oh, I assure you not.

We don't need to.

Okay. Just making sure. Thank you.

Yeah. No. No. Not at all. I I just had a question, just a clarification question. If you would go back in your slides, I want to I'm trying to see with a little more detail that you were talking about the wall.

Leanne, can you

Get closer?

Yes. Yes.

Yeah. The wall that is the three foot eight inch wall, the vertical wall running east to west.

Yes.

Can you show us in more detail? I'm just I was having trouble following you.

Well, the existing wall on the property is currently this is from my last presentation. It is approximately here. That is the wall that is apparent from 01/29, that that wall is right here.

Okay.

So and and with this prior design, that wall was gonna be demolished. And we were gonna adjust the grades so that we could build the new house. That that new house in this form. That existing wall is approximately right here. This is the new revised design. That existing wall is right here. The retaining the new retaining wall is right here.

And the new retaining wall is the one that runs vertical east west?

It go that's correct. It runs east west and then it runs east west west to east from here to the existing perimeter wall here. And then at this point, it cuts to the north and incorporate stairs.

And then comes back

in Yeah. Other. Yeah. And and that existing wall is right here. So it stops, let's say, four or five feet shy of where that existing wall is.

And the purpose of this retaining wall is to allow you to do the grading that you're doing and to create the the ditch between the two in essence, the ditch between the two?

Well, effectively what it does is it it eliminates the need to impact grading immediately behind the existing house and it allows at the retaining wall, it allows you can to have transition from this grade level to this grade level, which is what allows the whole house to get much closer to grade because we can reduce the foundation height dramatically.

Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. I don't have other questions at this point. It may be that when you ask your more educated questions, it will cause me to ask another. But thank you very much.

All right, thank you. So I guess we're opening it to questions. Okay, I have a quick one. With regards to the same retaining wall that Leanne was just asking you about, what is the material of that retaining wall going to be?

It's going to be brick. That's in my application material. If you look at the narrative, you'll see that. And I'm thinking it's probably a red brick. My thought is, I'd myself about the concrete brick walls, retaining walls and the lattice wall, which I felt like they were appropriate as part of the context of the existing house.

I'm feeling with this one, we'll have probably a red brick foundation and I'm anticipating that that's what we will use on that retaining wall is the finished face and the cap on it. And also, I indicated in the narrative that we've we've got a small front walk from the new house to the gravel driveway right here. And that would be brick as well. Okay, thank you. Sure.

Anyone have any questions? Josh?

Jay, could you remind me what the zone is here?

R3. Yeah, this is R3. McAuley Street is R4. Vance Street and much of Ransom Street are R2. Which from a standpoint of density, R3 and R4 are equivalent in terms of minimum lot size. At 4,000 square feet, minimum lot size in an R2, I believe is 7,500 now, used to be 10 and I'm pretty sure it's 7,500 currently.

Could we go back to the drawing of the three properties together at the new heights? You've got

a three d. Oh, the three d, sure.

And can you just briefly tell us how much you've dropped the height of the new building in relation to the existing on Cameron Avenue and 129 Millett?

Four feet. And you accomplished that four feet? I accomplished that four feet changing the roof pitch from twelve twelve to eleven twelve. So there we picked up a foot and the rest is relative to, if you can see here well, you can see here where the the primary roof was, this blue dash line. There's four feet total difference between these two and a foot of it, I mean, we hadn't changed the roof pitch, the ridge on the revised house would be, my cursor would be just a little bit taller, would be a foot taller and the rest of it has to do with dropping the floor basically and reducing the foundation height.

Thank you. So then the height of the new structure is?

The height of the new structure is 24 feet nine inches from the mean grade elevation at the front facade. And

the height of the adjacent property 129 Millet is? 21. Okay. One more question. So if you go back to the view of the existing house on Cameron from Cameron Avenue, could you show us what you anticipated the prior design to look like from Cameron Avenue and what the new one is and just how you were able to accomplish that.

I accomplished it the same way, really introducing the retaining wall. I were divided up, having the retaining wall allowed us to reduce the foundation height by three feet. There's another foot that we picked up by changing the slope of the roof slightly and that applies from all points of view but basically, the house drops four feet in each of these views because of the retaining wall.

So I think you've got a three d that's actually straight on the existing house. Yes. Cameron, can we just

There you go. Yeah. So there you can see a little bit of where it's above in its original design and it's no longer apparent. And I will tell you, this is such a great program, honestly. This is all really accurately depicted from a dimensional standpoint.

And the only assumptions I'm making here relate to the grading information that comes from the county. But that is, as I've remarked previously, the grade changes according to the county's grade from this corner to the northernmost part of the property of 308 West Cameron, the northernmost part of the property, from here to the corner, it drops eight and a half, approximately eight and a half feet across this property. And from looking at it and having looked at this on projects for, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of times, it's pretty accurate. And that's what I usually find with the county's information is that frankly, it's always a little wrong but it's a really good source for this sort of schematic design information. And I see you nodding your head, Laura, and I guess in your context of your work, you've maybe found that to be the case as well.

That's the case and I appreciate that you looked into it and accommodated it. Thank you.

Question regarding the existing perimeter wall. There's a note that you say repair perimeter concrete brick wall. And I just would like you to confirm that you're repairing the entirety of that brick wall, not just the front area.

No, no. No, that's the intent is that, So we have a couple different types of walls. We've got the retaining wall, not all of us are retaining wall. Some of it is freestanding above grade, but this portion of it here is a retaining wall. When you get up here, much of it exists above grade.

But we're gonna repair that to the extent that we need to and honestly, this wall is in pretty good shape, remarkably good shape, I think for its age and the fact that it's a reinforced concrete block wall, it's held up pretty well. This wall between the northern edge of the property and 129 Millet, it's a mess in spots, it's falling apart. Some of the top caps are off and I'll quickly go to a few of the pictures I've got of that. I think. I wasn't intending to reference this, but oh, gosh.

Alright. Well, this will be easier. Sorry. I think I'm okay. That is I don't think I need to get back to the other view. I just wanted to get back to this page. I'll let you do that though. Thank you.

Do you need

Yeah.

No. You can get rid of the notes, please. Very good. Thank you. So the lattice that comes around the corner and has a little planter here.

I know the intent is that we'll repair that. And I'm imagining that, I mean, you don't see concrete bricks used in an exposed fashion much, but they're certainly still a commodity that we can get and they're probably not gonna be dramatically different. And again, so along the street, this wall is in pretty good shape in spite of the fact that it's got like a large tree that's grown up at the base of it off the property. This here, I don't know, I'm not sure this picture's close enough to see it but there's no question that there are top parts of this, the cat block on top that have fallen off and in this open lattice. But the intent would be that, yeah, we're going to rebuild it and it goes all the way to the northeast corner of the property.

Are you required by Lumo to rebuild it?

Required by Lumo, no. Okay. I mean, Lumo would allow us to tear it down.

But usually there, I don't know, with regards to yours because this isn't our position, but Lumo requires either hardscape or softscape buffers. Do they require a buffer here?

No. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, not in a residential setting.

All right. That's all I need to know. Thank

you for the confirmation.

Sure. Thanks.

Are there any more questions? If not, we'll go to public comment. We've got a question.

Yeah, thank you. This presentation was very clear what your intentions are and it makes it much easier to evaluate. I do have one question and it's about the Cameron house that faces Cameron Avenue. In your new materials, you have marked out parking. We proposed to add two parking spaces and a turnaround space in front of the house.

Thank you for bringing that up. Let me get back to that site plan before I address that question. Getting close. You're right. It's a little dizzying. Realize that. Yeah, it's like I bet. Yeah, sorry. I use Macs, I don't use PCs. It's like this is really pretty foreign to me.

But, yeah, so I'm glad you brought that up. So previously, we had indicated two spots out front and we had indicated a turnaround here. We're not going to do anything to the parking at 308 West Cameron. We'll have four new spaces here. They'll still have the two spaces in the garage.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, are you good? Okay, I think that takes care of our questions. We now open it for public comment. Okay. Well, hold on one minute.

So please keep in mind that this is not a public comment session in kind of the traditional sense you might find with the council. This is an opportunity for members of the public who might have personal knowledge of factual matters that are relevant to the HTC's consideration to provide that to them.

I'm not sure I can hear that. I'm just here to speak on my concerns and the concerns of my neighbors.

Sure. Do

I need to be able to speak to architectural

No. If you have factual if there's factual information that you think you can provide in the board, this is your opportunity

do so. Okay. And before you get going, I need to read this affirmation to you. And then if you can say I affirm and state your name, that'd be great. I affirm that the evidence I shall give to the Historic District Commission and the referenced application shall be the truth and nothing but the truth I so affirm.

I, Matt Slabo, so affirm.

Thank you. Yeah.

Pull my notes up, guys. Sorry. So I appreciate the clarification because I did think this is probably a little bit earlier stage for me to come express my concerns. But my name is Matt Slabos. I live at 402 West Cameron Avenue, very close to the property in question.

And we've been homeowners there for fifteen years, and my in laws have owned the house prior to that since 1981. So longtime resident. I've been in front of this committee a couple times twelve years ago when I wanted to put a new historic porch on front of our house. And then ten years ago, we took our house down to the studs and rebuilt it. So we've had to come through and and go through the process of what it takes to get things built.

I understand what you guys do. I remember being taken to by the level of attention to detail and concern that you guys have for the impact on the greater community and staying within guidelines of the historic district. And as a result, we built with that intention. I remember at the time being mildly annoyed by some of the things we had to do. And in retrospect, fifteen years on, I feel like I understand now why this happens and why we go through the hoops we do to protect neighborhood.

And I think a lot of what we did made sure that we didn't just adhere to the letter of the law per se, but to the spirit of it. And a lot of what I think is on the docket today speaks to the spirit of the reason for this committee. We have a request from a non occupant owner whose current property, no offense, is a very little shared concern with this committee. Cameron Avenue has a good balance of student and owner occupied, and the student dwellings in our area of the one in question is one of the least well kept and maintained on the street. To call it an eyesore would be kind.

Need to waste high weeds, oil barrels used as fire cans, litter strewn about the property, trash bags left where they lie, overturned basketball hoops, burnt out grills, discarded propane tanks none of those are uncommon sites. For me, to have that property feet from the Carolina Inn and campus And then be considering adding another property that Could potentially house up to eight students. Are we just going to see more deserts and squalor added to the neighborhood? I know this is not what you're ruling on right now, but I want you to keep that in mind as you go through the process of approval. For many of us in Chapel Hill, specifically in Historic District, we find ourselves feeling less than when compared to transient students or non owner occupies, landlords, if you will.

We don't really feel we have a voice against growth and development that feels somewhat haphazard and certainly profit driven. I heard the gentleman say that a family could live in this house, and I think we all know a family is not going to live in this house, thus the parking spots that are stacked along Don and Donna's property. We hope to rely on groups like yourselves to protect us. We don't really have another voice, and so we look to you for that. That this project would negatively impact Don and Donna, who've been residents here for forty years, stalwart residents of the community, and recently suffered through eighteen months of having the Owasso Reefer parked directly behind their house and the noise that it took, all the more compelling reason for a spirit of generosity for those people that do live in these houses and pay taxes and want to be part of the community.

So thank you for your time. I just want to say my piece. I know it's not about rises and pitch levels and shingles and whatnot, but thank you so much.

As I must, for the record, object to the comments that were just made on the basis of relevance and outside the scope of the matters that are within the purview of the historic district commission. Thank you.

Okay. Are there any further public comments? Anyone else? If not, we will close the public comment portion. Yes, sir.

Donna, I think that both Ms. Anderson and Ms. Brown intend to give a closing statement to the commission before you close the evidentiary portion of the hearing and begin to deliberate. Okay?

Well, now would be the time.

In which order would you prefer?

Don? I do not have a preference. Since you're standing, why don't you go first? And we'll leave Leanne to finish strong.

Hey, now. Thank you. I'll be as brief as I can. I think there are some important points to be made just to center us on the purpose of the historic district commission and its important work. The first point I'll make is to reiterate what the task is of the commission this evening.

Could you please keep close to the microphone?

Sure. I wonder why I am having trouble being hurt. Reorient it. Is that a little bit better, Mr. Gerlitz?

Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. Or maybe I'll just be louder, which I actually have no problem with. This comes directly from your attorney, Kevin Hornick, and it's just a reminder of what my client's burden is tonight because I think it is actually really important in terms of framing your conversation that you're going to be having with each other. And the task is that if the applicant produces competent material and substantial evidence related to the special character of the relevant historic district, which in this case is Cameron Macaulay, The applicant is prima facie, that means on its face, entitled to approval of the requested certificate of appropriateness.

If my client has met the burden of demonstrating that the structure is not incongruous with this special character of the district, they are entitled, prima facie, to the approval of this application. The only time when that would not be the case is if there is competing competent material and substantial evidence that you have determined to be so and that is more persuasive than my client's evidence. I contend, as I'll say in a moment, that there is no such evidence. I just want to make a couple of really quick points about the standards that you're going to be applying. That's the burden that I just talked about.

I just want to remind you of a couple of points. The first comes from the Court of Appeals from the case of Sanchez versus the town of Beaufort. And that is that the task before you is to address whether or not a new property, in this case, is not incongruous with the special character of the district in general. Not whether the next door neighbors like it, whether it's like their house, whether it's like a house in particular down the street. It's the totality of the district.

And more specifically related to the Sanchez case, it is not about what you would have built as commissioners, individually or as a body. It's not about the commissioner's preferences nor any particular neighbor's preferences nor mine as a resident of the town of Chapel Hill. Quickly about the Cameron Macaulay district. And this is not me testifying. This is pointing out some things from the record, in particular the Chapel Hill Historic District design principles and standards that you're going to be applying tonight, which I assume are in the record.

Great. And I want to point out a couple of characteristic sort of narratives that come directly from the character discussion of the Cameron Macaulay District itself that I think are really important to the discussion, particularly as to some of the things that came up in the last hearing. And those are that there is a tremendous amount of architectural and structural diversity in this district that was built primarily from about 1845 all the way to now. And in particular this is on page 31 to 35 of those standards there are really pointed statements about how diverse the architecture and sizes and configurations and expressions are, including lists of different types of architectural styles, colonial revival, Greek revival, one and two story Queen Anne's craftsman style bungalows, one and two story craftsman style bungalows, Tudor revival, World War II and other minimal traditional styles, vernacular homes, ranch houses, and as it says, other hybrid styles of their own time. And it's important to note that the design standards do not require a new structure to replicate historic styles, in particular.

It also notes that there are many small lots, large lots. And in particular, there's a good deal of past infill that has characterized the development of the district over time, including, in particular, a note about an entire street or two that probably were developed as spec homes for rentals in the nineteen fifties. Another notable characteristic of the district is, and again, we had a lot of discussion about this at the last hearing, the presence of students in the district. And I know that we all know that it is not in the historic district commission's purview nor in the town council's Purview or the town of Chapel Hill's authority to dictate types of ownership or who occupies residences. But it is a particular characteristic of this district that student housing has been a thread through the district in nearly its entire history.

And I won't read those points to you. You could read them for yourself. But those points are throughout the district. So it is actually a characteristic of the district, that it has housed students both in housing specifically made for them and in single family homes that were rented to them. That's a historic characteristic.

Another important point is to remember that the history of the Cameron Macaulay District, as this points out, is ongoing. And the historic statement about the district even talks about the period past 1990 when it was made a historic district. So this is part of that ongoing history. As to the evidence itself, I won't reiterate Mr. Fulkerson's detailed presentation, except to say that he has thoroughly addressed lack of incongruity in all the major aspects of this property and shown that it fits within the range of possibilities that exist in Cameron Macaulay to a T.

If you have specific questions, I can talk about them. But I think that it is clear that there is not an outstanding or even a minor feature of this home that stands out as incongruous amongst this quite diverse district. I think the evidence has shown that it's a quite respectful example of a way to integrate a new property into an older neighborhood. With that, I'll stop. If there's more that you'd like to hear from me, please let me know. I'm here for questions. But I'll let this commission get down to its important work. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for the special meeting tonight. I did listen to your entire meeting from from previously, and I appreciate your service, as do we all, with the commission. I do want to remind you that in the last hearing, which is part of what you're deciding on tonight, you did have, evidence presented from Don and Donna about their concerns with congruity in the district, and, we didn't see the need to do that again tonight. I don't I doubt that Anne Anderson and I disagree on the law too terribly often or on what the four cases, mean that have tried to interpret, historic district work. And in fact, I doubt we would disagree on the law to anything we're gonna say to you tonight.

Your job is to figure out how you apply that and what that means. You heard an opinion from an architect that in his opinion, it's congress. That's nice. That's not evidence of congruity. It's for you to decide if it's congruous based on what you have heard and what you have seen and based on your understanding of this particular district.

As you all know, and forgive me for telling you things I I know you know, our districts here are overlay districts. They overlay the underlying zoning and so the underlying zoning would determine what Lumo would allow to happen. But our historic district commission is vested with the power and the responsibility to decide whether what is being proposed, whether it comports with Lumo otherwise or not, is contextually appropriate to the district where it's planned. And you are, you are what protects the district from from change that is in congress. And that's your job each time you you you proceed and you do anything.

You have developed a delightful set of design standards. They're marvelous. I've been doing this work for forty two years. We didn't used to have those, but we have those now. And they're excellent in terms of helping to guide you through the process.

As we go through and look at your design standards and look at whether the proposal before you is Congress, it is our contention very simply that the applicant did not meet the burden of showing that the project has proposed is not in congress with the district or stated in English instead of the way the statutes were written is congress with the district. I don't know why they use the the double negative. The issue is not whether the new ordinance changes might allow this, but whether this as it's proposed is congress with this district with Cameron McCauley. We think the particular issues for you to look at are the issues related to Leanne,

can you, yeah, make sure. Am I

am I getting out of the queue? So Anne and I also can't speak in a mic together with something else we have in common. The particular standard I want to talk about with you or standards I want to talk about with you are in section four point zero for new construction because that's predominantly the issue that you're looking at tonight. The proposed new house has grown a little since you had last seen it. It is now it went from eighteen thirty five square feet to eighteen fifty six in this particular revision.

The concern in the last meeting, and I think the concern still, is whether the proportion of this house is appropriate to the district in the location that it's made. To make room for the house, some of the existing old house is being demolished. And the revision creates a larger house there. We talked a bit about this vertical retaining wall, which I contend is a unique and different sort of feature, as it runs between the old house and the or the existing house and the proposed new house. The new proposal does reduce the overall height some, but the existing the 129 Millette is still lower in topography than this house, and this house is still significantly taller than that house.

Your section four point zero provides us really good guidance. It says that the design guidelines establish a clear hierarchy of context. That context for new construction is based on a hierarchy that prioritizes the site, followed by the immediate surroundings and the streetscape, and finally, the district as a whole. So you're looking at congruity. But with new construction, you're also giving a hierarchy to seeing how it fits in with the street itself and how it fits in with its surrounding neighboring houses.

In this case, with the existing house, which is now seven feet from, and with the house at 129 and the other houses in particular neighborhood. And that hierarchy is important as you think about that. You've seen lots of pictures about the district. The district is eclectic. But your own hierarchy recognizes that you need to be looking particularly at how this new construction, if approved, would fit in in the hierarchy that your guidelines give.

I will remind the commission that 129 Millett is a significant property on Millett Street. Its lot is 10,980 square feet, and 127 Millet which is the Chabad house that we've talked about is 10,890 square feet lot. It does have a larger house on it. 308 West Cameron is 12,891 square feet, but when you add up the existing house and the new house, it's 3554 square feet. Section four point o contemplates that the standards for building scale, proportion form, roof form, materials, and details must make the new buildings fit in with the range there.

The height differential, it's better than it was the last time you saw it, but the height differential is still dramatic. We talked about mean height for the new house while talking about the how the height at the at the front at 129. And also, we're not seeing in a topographical way, but this lot is higher even with the change in grade than one twenty nine, so it makes the height differential more significant. The visual impact of the height is different to the grading topography. It just just is by virtue of the mass and scale.

Even at a reduced height, the structure remains visually dominant due to the elevation change in the mass concentration. And it, in that sense, towers over 129. It continues to have, what I think Don called in his materials, an awkward relationship in that it is vastly a vertical vertical orientation, has a has a vertical presentation. That vertical presentation, even if you look at the drawings that were in packet of evidence, that particular orientation is unusual, and it's particularly unusual at that end of the street. Its vertical orientation behind, in essence, in the backyard of a house, the house at 308 Millett, is very different than the normal special relationship that we have within the district.

You note in section 4.1 of your guidelines, and I want to remind you of that, that the HDC considers not only the step backs that are required by Lumo, but you consider whether the spacing and orientation is appropriate and congruous with the district. So conversations we've had about what might happen in the district or what could be possible under Lumo can't distract you from how you determine how size and scale and mass fit in and how orientation fits in. I'm gonna talk just very briefly about parking. The parking in this for this particular house, although it is technically in the side of the house because of the long and vertical orientation, is in essence, if you look at it, in the front yard. And while there may be parking violations throughout, your own guidelines make clear that parking in the front of houses is not congress with the district and it's not congress here.

And creating it is is not congress here. Taking away two parking spaces that serve the old house, while interesting, doesn't change the number of cars that are parked there. And so you'll still have the whole issue as to whether there's adequate provision for parking that allows the kind of streetscape that's congress with the district, which again is your job. It's not your job to go out there and give parking tickets, but it is your job to think about how cars are parked and whether the way they are parked is congress with the district as the district is intended to be without regard to violation. I talked briefly about the vertical proportionality, which is inconsistent with the general horizontal design as as has been mentioned in your notes.

The one of the things I do wanna point out in your guidelines section four point two point six, you actually state, for example, if the majority of buildings in the immediate surrounding have horizontal or square expression, Avoid designing buildings with prominent vertical proportions. That's directly out of your guidelines. And this design violates that. It's an example of a violation of that what that guideline is trying to prevent. And so I'd ask you to take that into consideration.

It may be that there is no one particular feature of this proposed new construction that in and of itself would create an incongruity. But the cumulative effect of the design and the parking and the mass and the scale and the proportion combined together create an incongruity within this district. It is just too much to be consistent with what the district would propose. I will not go on and on and on forever, but what I do want to say to you is that this proposal introduces what is really excessive mass for what is expected and what is normal, what is congress, with Millet Street in particular and in Cameron McAuley. The spatial relationships, the vertical building expression, the size of scale, the mass, in a set of deficiencies that I would encourage you not to create a new standard in this particular district, but to continue to be sure that Cameron McAuley maintains its historic character and that you deny this proposal as it is proposed to you now.

And thank you.

I think just to address a little bit of confusion, there was a reference in Ms. Neese Brown's statement to the two parking spaces being taken away. I think that is not in the proposal anymore. And so I just wanted to make that clear. Of course, you can ask for clarifying questions, but I wanted to address that.

Another thing is I we have client has put forth a new design tonight, I think, which is clear. And so at their last meeting, mister Stanford and doctor Bryant had some opinions about the design that was put forth. That's better. Then, and that has not been there's no new testimony tonight. And so I won't talk much about their testimony from the last time because it addresses a different design.

But I do want to make an important point about competent material and substantial evidence, which is the only evidence that you can consider. And that is that lay opinion is not competent material and substantial evidence when it is opinion about something that requires expertise. You have had one expert as to architectural standards and architecture in general before you in this proceeding, and that is Mr. Fulkerson. A second point is that even if there had been another expert, between the other two witnesses who spoke last time, the actual testimony, and I don't expect you to remember exactly what they said on March 10, I wrote it down.

Every statement was preceded by, I think, that should, seems to me, and strikes me. And those are opinions which are not competent material. It's substantial evidence. Not to diminish your opinions, of course, in general, but in terms of whether they can defeat the meeting of a burden, they do not. The last thing I wanted to address, and I think just to head it off in case it becomes a point of discussion again tonight as it was the first night, and I know you didn't deliberate last time, but there were statements made about some of the standards.

And one in particular related to at least one of the commissioners had a concern about 4.2.3 and how it relates to this. And that is on page 117. It says, for sites between two distinctive areas of scale, such as between commercial and traditional residential uses, or between residential and institutional uses, Scale should follow the buildings with the same historic use. This element doesn't apply to this site. It is between two residential uses, obviously.

There is a commercial use nearby in another district, but it's not in a historic district. And in any event, my client's proposal has very meticulously addressed a lack of incongruity with respect to the residential properties that surround it within the historic district. So I just wanted to make that point in case that becomes something to discuss. And one final thing, Ms. Niesz Brown stated that she talked about 4.2.6 and said that our proposal which we disagree with anyway, but a proposal violates a guideline that's actually not something that's possible.

Guidelines are just that. And if something doesn't strictly fall within it, that's something for you to consider in the totality of whether something is congruent or is not incongruent with a design standard. The concept of literally violating one is just not, it's not the burden that my client has to guard against. So with that, I'll let you at long last get down to your work. Thank you very much.

Okay. So we're ready to close the evidentiary hearing?

So my suggestion to the commission is, first, I think you ought to consider whether you have any other clarifying questions for the parties, if there may be additional questions or evidence that has not been presented to you that you'd like to ask about. Because remember, once we close the evidentiary hearing for deliberation, new or additional evidence can't be presented to you. You can certainly ask questions about evidence that is already in the record. But nothing new can be submitted to you for your consideration. So before you close, make sure that you all ask any last questions that might result in new evidence being submitted.

Okay. I'll ask the other commissioners. Do you have any more questions before we close the hearing?

I would like to see on the screen the Millett Street elevation showing all three structures. Do you have one showing all three structures? If not, you can flip to the three d three

d, Okay.

And show the structures. And circulate that so we see it from Millett Street. Actually, go back. Alright. I'm less interested in 308, Cameron.

Okay.

I'm more interested in

129.

Looking at seeing if I can see all three.

Yeah. Would suffice. Yeah. I can show a little bit more of 308 from the initial view.

You.

Leanne, could I ask you a follow-up question? So could you be very specific about which of the design principles you feel like are relevant to our deliberation tonight?

So, in particular, you focus on four point zero because we're talking more about the new construction than not. And within four point zero, in four point zero itself, it gives you the hierarchy and the importance of the hierarchy for what you you are are looking at. Four point one point one and four point one point four, address the, relationship of the houses, among one another. 4.1 is the section I address that talks about considering not the Lumo setbacks, but the character of the district in thinking through what your guidelines are. And I agree you do not violate guidelines, but you do try to follow guidelines, which is what we're what we're doing here.

4.4 four point one point four is one of the guidelines that I had mentioned. Parking arrangements in section 1.4, I had mentioned to you four point two point six was one of the sections. 4.2 particularly speaks to building scale. I had mentioned that one. Four point two point five requires new buildings be designed that proportions of their street facades are consistent with those of the historic buildings, which in this case would be one twenty nine.

Four point two point six, directional expression. If I'm repeating myself, I apologize. I'm just I don't have them listed in the in another way. I did not talk about, but one point two point seven relates to things that go outside, like trash receptacles and those sort of things where there's been space for that, one point three point seven. 1.4 is walkways, driveways, and off street parking principles.

One point six point eight relates to exterior lighting, which needs to be thought about with the proximity of these houses. And those are the ones that I had in my notes. I hope that was helpful.

Thank you. Certainly.

I don't have any further argument, but I just wanted to make sure that the presentation of the applicant that was presented tonight is entered into the record. Thank you. And all other materials that were submitted in relation to that. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, the chairman recognizes that all those materials were entered into the record.

So I do have one more question. There was earlier in this presentation mention of a letter that I don't think we've seen, the commission has not seen. Is that relevant?

So a letter was submitted by a resident of the district. The letter was not we'll give Ian and Leanne an opportunity to discuss any potential objections

to the letter. So here's here's the situation. There there is a letter from a neighbor, that was sent to you. As you know, you work under relaxed rules of evidence, which I'm not sure what means, and probably Anne isn't either. I have a picture of an evidence book in a lawn chair that I use in my planning class to try to explain it. The letter itself, I don't object to you seeing it. It is hearsay because no one can cross examine the individual who sent it. Probably not your best practice to take letters as a general principle. I think if I don't wanna speak for Anne, but I think Anne probably does object to to not being able cross examine someone regarding it.

I mean, the preservation of a proper record, I think we don't want to get into the business of having outside letters entered into a quasi judicial proceeding.

Was it addressed to the commission from a resident? So then why is it not relevant?

Because this is a quasi judicial evidentiary proceeding and anyone who testifies or presents evidence has to be able to be sworn in and cross examined.

So I think there are examples of other applications in the past where we have received information from the public that's directed to the commission relevant to

I can't specifically recall. But if that has happened in the past, that does not mean that it's a practice that should occur here. I think, again, your role is to determine whether the evidence that's presented to you is competent, material, and substantial. One of the key factors of that is receiving witness testimony typically. And while Leanne is correct, the rules of evidence don't strictly apply in quasi judicial evidentiary hearings of this type. Typically, would like to have the opportunity to cross examine or ask questions of a witness who's presenting factual evidence to you. You don't have that opportunity So

just to be clear, a member of the public addressed a letter to the commission that we're not going to see as we deliberate tonight, correct?

It's actually up to you whether you see it or not. It's up to us to object. That's really it. We can't tell

you what's So we're in the awkward situation of not knowing. So we're looking for guidance from the attorneys.

I guess that's the point, though, is that it hasn't been submitted in this

period. Why wasn't it delivered to us?

Probably because there were going to be two attorneys in the room, and everybody was waiting to see. I I think where if if I could say where I think you are, it's up to you whether you receive the letter or not.

Well, my If

you if you receive a letter, I don't plan to object. I think miss Anderson would feel that she needs to object for the record. And whether you want to have that as part of the record or not is totally up

to you. And my missing I would be more comfortable. I agree. Sorry, not to interrupt. But I would be more comfortable, Kevin, if you gave us advice as our counsel.

Well, so what I would say is that the I think that what you've heard is appropriate, right? There's no reason that you cannot receive the letter. However, you will have to pay careful attention to the trustworthiness of the letter, the factual evidence to which it purports to testify. I would encourage you all to not base any final decisions solely on the letter without other evidence that you've heard in the record this evening. But provided that you all can keep in mind kind of the evidentiary standard here and that your role is to base your decision on competent material and substantial evidence in the record.

And you all will have to wrestle with whether or not this is keep in mind, it's a letter. It's not a sworn affidavit. It's just a piece of paper with writing on it. And so you all will have to give due consideration to whether or not what's stated in the letter is sufficiently trustworthy, whether it's competent evidence that's sufficient for you all to base a decision on. Again, I have no problem with you all receiving the letter. I think you've heard an objection to that. And so if your decision relies on, in part, that letter, I think you can expect that there could be an appeal raised, at least in part, based on that issue.

DELL: again Hold on one second. Let me jump in. I'm in a little bit different position than you, Brian, in that the problem I have with this letter, whatever it may be or whatever it may say, that person didn't have the benefit of seeing the new application as presented this evening. So there's no way that letter could address the presentation that we just saw. So for me, it wouldn't carry a ton of weight. What do you think, Josh?

Yeah, I do have an opinion on this. Having been on many boards and commissions, as many of you know, letters do not constitute evidence. And they do not affect the way I vote. And I'm sure they wouldn't affect the way anybody else voted unless they were competent. However, letters do perform a function.

And part of that function is to give us some information for which we can ask questions. They stimulate discourse. And the function of this not having seen the letter, I don't know if it would stimulate discourse on our end or our questions to applicants or our questions to other people. But letters do perform function. And they do let us know what residents think in the district thinks, even if we do not use that information to come to a decision.

So the thing that makes me uncomfortable is I had to ask a question for that information to come forward. I feel like a member of the public directed something to us and assumed that we were going to see it. And I take everything that Josh said very seriously. But I'm uncomfortable that I wasn't given the opportunity to address whether or not we should see it without me having to ask a question.

That's fair, suppose. Y'all are welcome to see the letter again as long as you are prepared to make a judgment about how competent, material, substantial what's stated in the letter might be.

Yeah. And I'll just add that it's not that staff withheld letter. The letters were given to the attorneys, and we assumed that they would decide if they would

So a decision was made to not show it to us? No.

They talked about it. And if the commission would like to see the letter, we can For clarification, I saw it right before this proceeding Yeah. I have not been holding on to any letter. I saw it five minutes before this proceeding.

And to clarify just to clarify, the author of the letter asked staff if it would be appropriate to share the letter with the commission. Staff then asked Kevin, the counsel, for advice on what to do with the letter. We were then advised to provide it to the attorneys to let them decide if they wanted to enter it into evidence, which they have not.

So that explanation is super helpful. Thank you. So you all talked about it and decided it wasn't relevant to tonight's discussion, which I'm just trying to clarify.

No. What happened is that so I got it off an airplane at 04:05 from Los Angeles. I saw a letter when I walked in the door at the same time Ann saw it. And I read it and Ann read it. I don't intend to introduce it into evidence because it's not part of my case in chief and it's it's hearsay. And if I introduced it into evidence, Ann would say she objects because it's hearsay. But I don't think either of us are trying to keep it from you one way or another. I didn't choose to introduce it, and I don't think she chose to introduce Okay.

I wouldn't be in a position to introduce it because it's not from someone that I represent. Think it's I mean, since we're having this discussion, I think it's fairly benign. And to Mr. Theiss' point, it doesn't actually address the presentation that you heard tonight. So it's not really a contentious point. It's just that I, as a member of the of the state bar, can't tell you that it wouldn't be an appropriate thing for you to consider in this. That would be that would be a dereliction

of my ethical beliefs.

For the explanation. Yeah.

And let me be clear. I'd I'd I don't know if the letter was written based on the new plan or the old plan. I have no idea. I believe when you received the letter, we had Anna Scott today, yesterday.

We received it at 09:28 this morning.

So I'm not assuming. I would not if you read the letter, I would not want you to assume that they've not seen the new plans because I don't think that's clear at all, which is a problem with the letter.

I really don't think we should introduce the letter. I don't think we should read it. When I hear lawyers use words like assume, I run like the wind. So if it's my suggestion is we don't Agree.

Make the letter.

Based on that, was a great explanation. Thank you, guys.

Appreciate Hearing both lawyers come to the same conclusion.

Which I'm pretty sure it's freezing over outside right Okay. So if there are no more questions, then we'll close this evidentiary hearing. And before we start our conversations among the commissioners, does anybody need to take a five minute break? Or are we good? Okay. I think we're good. So we're going to go right into discussion. I've got quite a few things to say, but I'm always the first to talk. So somebody else go.

I have a question for Kevin. Is that an acceptable in our

That's acceptable. Okay.

We heard people refer to our volume in several ways as standards or guidelines. And several presenters represented them as guidelines. When we were developing this book, our attorney emphasized the fact that we had been operating under a set of guidelines since 1977 or so and that what we really needed were standards. And there was differentiation between guidelines and standards. Help me understand that.

Is that the case? Were we given the right information?

Well, keep in mind and this is something that we've talked about quite often over the last several years is that ultimately, the only standard that you all are authorized to implement is to determine whether or not the work proposed within one of the town's historic districts is or is not incongruous with the character of the district. The statutes also allow in fact, they require historic district commissions to prepare what they call principles and standards. But the purpose of these principles and standards or rules and standards is to guide your consideration about whether an application before you is or is not in Congress with the character of the district. And so I think generally speaking, the position that the board has taken, at least over the last several years, is that Josh, I guess I'll back up. If your question is, are our principles and standards kind of a set of objective decision making criteria, right?

You check, check, check. You've met all these standards. Therefore, you receive your COA. Or if you've not met one of the principles and standards, you don't get the COA? The answer is no. Your decision or decision whether to issue a COA or not is based on whether or not the evidence presented to you demonstrates that the proposal is or is not incongruous with the character of the district. You use the principles and standards to help you understand what the special character of the district is and whether or not a proposal is or is not in Congress with the character of that district. I hope that answers your question.

Thank you. Yes.

Okay. Does anybody want to start with some comments? Hopefully moving towards a motion of some sort. You're laughing, so you go first.

Thank you, Don. I had a lot of thoughts and comments from our last meeting together. And I went back, I wrote the letter to you, and I think it was shared with everybody here, about my feelings about what constitutes the context, which is so important, and how we address scale and proportion and how the appropriateness or inappropriateness of that. So I'm just going to go through it's going take a minute the things that I had concerns about before using our standards and tell you what my thoughts are about them now. Is that appropriate?

That sounds perfect.

Okay. So I'm going to

start with

one. For me, one point one and one point one two talk a lot about the relationship between the streetscape and the house. And I think that's really important in the district that there is some continuity and congruity in the streetscape. The relationship between the buildings and the streetscape is a little different than the relationship between the houses as they step down the street to me anyway. But I feel that the presentation we had previously did not really explain to me how these two houses, the existing house and the proposed house, related to the street.

I didn't feel we had enough information. I do feel that we have that information now partly because of the picture we're looking at right up here and then again the statement that the parking has been taken out of the front of the Cameron Street existing house. Now that doesn't mean that people aren't gonna park where they're gonna park, but that's not our issue. That's an enforcement issue. But the fact is if you have a driveway going to a double a double garage, people are parking in the front yard in their driveway.

I think what it means is they're not gonna be parking in front of the houses, lined up in front of the houses. So you have the view of that streetscape. And to me, this current plan does at least explain where the cars are going to go. And for the most part, they are not right in front of the house anymore, which to me improves the streetscape. So that's my sort of comments about number one, section one.

I'm not going to say if I think it's Congress or incongruous right now, but I think that's at least clear to us how that's been. Number 1.3, walls and fences. Again, I didn't feel there was enough information last time about the pierced concrete brick walls, what was going to happen. And short of doing a grading plan, which we all agreed was not appropriate for this application, at least now we can see what's going to happen with those walls. Mr.

Folgersen did a great job explaining which would be repaired, made some commitments to us tonight, what would be repaired, what would be replaced, and how the streetscape will be affected as it steps down Millett. And we can see that in our new materials. So I did feel we had more information there, and that helped me a lot. 1.4, walkways, driveways, and off street parking. It's very clear that 1.4.6a, parking shall not be in the front yards.

Again, I feel like the difference here to me is not parking across the front of the house where you don't experience the house from the street. And this application has cleaned up their parking arrangements considerably. In addition, fixing the fence on the new building or new house screens the parking in that's now in the side yard a little better than it did before. Or it assures me that that fence will be fixed. And I think it's appropriate that that fence be repaired or fixed, not torn down.

1.4.10, the new driveway material needs to be according to our standards, brick, concrete, asphalt, or Chapel Hill grit. So I'm not sure we have that information, but I believe there have been some clarifications on the drawings about what the materials would be. And it would not just be simple ABC gravel. Right? Okay. Sorry it takes so long. 1.4 walkways to the house. Mr. Fulkerson clarified that on the new building that would not be just a gravel walkway. It would be congress with the materials that are in the district.

Flipping now to the one that seems to be the biggest problem is 4.2 building scale proportion and form. Previously, I didn't feel we had the information to understand the relationship between the three buildings that we're looking at up here now. I do feel we have that information. And as a group, we can discuss whether we feel the verticality is appropriate or inappropriate. But at least now we have the information. And that was my point and my note. Same for 4.2.5, we now have the information and can go through that. And lastly, think, thank goodness, was the issue about the porch. Mr. Fulkerson has said it will be seven feet wide.

And the reduction of the number of steps up to the porch do give it a more generous spacing. And I think it's more congress with the rest of the neighborhood. It's no longer just a walkway at the top of the steps. So those are my thoughts right now.

Thank you very much. Love the thoroughness. Would you like to say anything? Are you good? You alright? Josh, Brian?

Thank you, Laura, for that very much. I feel like we need to talk about 4.2.3, 4.2.5, and 4.2.7 because in my mind, the proportion scale horizontal and vertical orientation in the immediate surrounding area And the size and scale of the house on the lot are sort of the most prominent concerns I still have.

I agree. Well, to start that conversation then, first of all, it was a nice complete presentation. Thank you very much, Jack. I think the retaining wall that was replaced between the existing house and new house really serves to define that area and organize the site a bit. It's a three foot eight inch brick wall retaining wall.

And that allowed the applicant to lower the building. And one of my biggest issues is it dealt with 4.2, point three, and point five, and point six was proportions and verticality. And by taking the front porch down, it lowers the soffits, the facies, and everything, which I think is more in keeping with the adjacent structures. Just by doing that, that retaining wall began to organize everything and bring everything down. And then that in conjunction with a lower pitch roof and a few other tricks, I think, kind of reduces the kind of towering effect I felt like we had before.

Plus before, to Laura's point, we weren't sure what the final height of the building was going to be. But by placing this retaining wall in there and showing us how it's going to grade down, we do know what it's going to look like. And we see that by asking that question and you addressing it, we now know. Whether you end up liking it or not is another question. But at least now we know how many risers you really have going up on the front porch and how deep the front porch is and the height of the face is and the soffits.

So that retaining wall is, as funny as it sounds, it's kind of a linchpin to make it work better for me because it lowers the height. The other big issue was the parking and taking the parking to the side. I know we can't control the use and can't comment on the use, but taking the parking to the side addresses that article, which I think was 1.1. I'd have to go back and look, or 1.12, where it addresses parking in the front and taking it down the side seems to address that issue. So I thought that was a nice solution.

And the reason I asked a question earlier this evening about was repairing the wall required by Lumo and you said no, it wasn't. I wanted to, if we do have any kind of motion saying it's not incongruous, I want to make sure we have a component requiring that they repair and maintain that wall because that's going to be critical to being a better neighbor to the northern neighbors because that wall is going to be critical. So that's why I was asking if someone else with the town was going to require it. If not, we will. So that was the point behind that question.

Let's see. So those are my bigger points that address your issues of 4.23, point two five, 0.26. What do you think?

So I feel like the changes were significantly improved from what we saw in the second application for the new plans was a significant improvement. I think the thing that I'm still grappling with is how awkwardly this house sits on the site in its relation to the house on Cameron Avenue and its extreme verticality in relation to the horizontal orientation of the house that's right next door and sort of looking at, in the evidence, 400, 126 Millett, 122 Millett, 127 sort of the houses that are immediately around it and sort of grappling with that extreme verticality as a way to try to bring the scale of the size of the house down, does that contribute to the district or not? Thing

grappling with. I think it was in the last meeting. I'm not sure you referred to this as a transition site because it affects two streets, Cameron and Millett. And you're turning the corner there. And what's so odd about this application is that the existing house makes the whole thing very odd from a historic preservation standpoint because it's a non compliant.

Contributing. Non contributing. Thank you. Goodness gracious. It's getting late.

It's a contributing structure and it's very odd in its presentation to Cameron. So you don't wanna mimic that necessarily, but how do you address it in this kind of transition corner, which makes this an important site. There again, going back to the retaining wall again, I think that lowered the structure enough that from Cameron, it's not towering over. The biggest thing I don't like that I can't really comment on is the fact that we have to cut down some of those gorgeous trees that really add to the texture of the neighborhood. And that's a shame cause they are nice.

And they give some scale to the existing structure and they would lend scale to a new structure but they're going to be gone. So that's my biggest negative. Josh, waiting for your words of wisdom.

Well, I think you and Laura have hit the points that I feel are important. I do think this project has whittled itself down to a couple of critical points. I do wish that it was not so vertical. I still think it by the text of our standards, it is vertical in both houses, not just 128, but the three zero eight are horizontal and low. And this is facing Cameron vertical.

However, 128 does have a vertical element in the middle of its roof. So I think that that does help. I think that the roof on the front porch of the proposed building also helps the building become less vertical and more horizontal. It adds a horizontal element. I do agree that the retaining wall does organize the site.

And it certainly allows this proposed building to be lowered four feet. And I think that that makes a tremendous difference in the way I see it fitting in to its context.

So where does that leave us? It sounds like we're all over the place. Comments from the last commissioner not to talk?

I would just say that based on I know that the height was a issue. Based on the average looking at the average of ridge heights, that was the page added in the application. I don't see it's being a sore. I don't see it standing out as much. I was looking also at Google Maps. It looks like it would be well in comparison to the other houses on the street.

Sorry. Are we close to a motion? Does anybody want to venture one?

So I think despite the fact that this house looks awkward on the lot and this orientation to me is awkward, it just doesn't look quite right for the historic district, I'm not sure that there's a principle upon which we can reject this application, to be perfectly frank. It makes me a little queasy because I'm not sure that it sits quite right. But I don't think that there is something we can stand on to not approve this. I just recommend that we

Well, yeah, I hear you on that. But that's kind of a good news, bad news thing. I think one reason it doesn't sit in the lot quite right is because they're trying to stay away from their neighbor to the north as much as they can, which I think is a pretty nice gesture. Instead of sitting it right in the middle of the lot, which they could do, that would press it right up against the northern property. So there's a pro and a con there to the kind of asymmetry of where they're sitting and in the site.

It's not our job to design, but I would have gone a little bit more contemporary direction at this stage of the game given where we are in 2026. But it sounds like we need to prepare a motion. Do we have the cheat sheet? Make sure we use some of the correct words.

Okay. I move that the application at 308 West Cameron Avenue is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of the relevant provisions of Illumo and the HTC's design standards based upon the facts presented in the record. I moved and I think I will also say I moved to direct the HTC attorney and town staff to prepare a proposed written decision summarizing the HTC's approval of the CO application and to present the proposed written decision tonight, which is April 30 on 308 West Cameron.

The only thing that I'd say is that considering that this is a contested case, what I would like to do is I would like to ask the prevailing side so ask Anne to draft a written decision to share it with Ms. Brown. And then we can return that to you at your next meeting as usual. In this way, we can make sure that the parties are contributing towards making sure that the written decision includes what they perceive to be the contested facts, findings of fact, and the commission's conclusions.

Does that mean that we would continue with this vote? Or would we pause and wait for that to come back at the next meeting?

No. So I think you can take the vote as usual, Just that rather than than staff and I drafting the proposed decision, we would ask the parties to collaborate and bring a proposed decision back to you.

Okay.

Just for the record, was asking the attorney if he would want me to draft your findings of fact, which are required by your rules of procedure. So just to get that on the record, I wasn't trying to be secretive.

So Brian, I guess ultimately where I'm going with this is I think your motion specifically mentioned move to direct the HTC attorney and staff to prepare the written decision. I would just omit that with the understanding that what I'm going to is the parties to ask the applicant's attorney to draft a proposed written decision.

Then the only thing I'm asking for the commission to vote on is the congruity motion, which was the first part of my statement.

Sure. I think that's appropriate.

Okay. So the

COA motion we would hold for a future discussion.

That's right. So what will happen and this would happen regardless of whether you included the second portion, the directing, as to prepare a written decision. But what will happen is you approve the incongruity motion. Then the parties will collaborate, prepare a proposed written decision. That will be forwarded to you for action at your next, at your May regular meeting.

So I think my motion's done.

Yeah, think your motion's something. I have a comment on the motion. Kevin, can we put in an amendment that says something about making sure that the north fence gets repaired?

Thank you. Well, as a practical matter, and I'll defer to the applicant, but I believe that that was included as part of the work proposed in the application. So to the extent that you're asking, can or should we include like a condition of approval

requiring So it's listed in the evidence. Therefore, they have to do it. Because Josh and I are architects and we both know that there's three variables involved in every project scope, quality and cost. And a lot of times when you get to a certain point in the process, cost takes over and some things don't happen. Particularly landscape things quite often don't happen because of the cost constraints. So I just want to make sure that we don't trip over that. And Josh, you want to say something?

Yeah. I would be in favor of definitely including language regarding the wall because once it leaves our house here, it goes to building inspections. And they don't look at the evidence that was presented here tonight. So I think that by making a point of it, we have a better chance of it being actually enforced.

Well, I would imagine at this point that Ms. Anderson has heard that this is an important point that ought to be addressed in the findings and the conclusions in the proposed written decision.

I believe I've conferred with my client, and they would be amenable to a condition of that nature. Obviously, we have to hear it. But yes.

So page 28 of the applicant's materials from this evening, the revised application, specifies a three foot six inch, if I'm reading correctly, retaining wall behind the existing house on 308 West Cameron that would allow the new structure to sit lower on its lot. And the construction of that retaining wall to allow the building to sit lower is a condition of our approval. It's this wall. Is it the wall? Oh, The the Pierceburg Pierceburg wall.

That's

a good one to put in. But there, again, technically, part of the evidence. I was referring to the one to the north between the neighbors.

Yeah, right there.

Also screen wall. Yeah, the screening wall also on page 28

of Yeah, the screen wall as turns the corner there. I mean, that's important. Then as it turns the corner and acts as a border, fences make good neighbors.

So to be more specific, it is on page 28 of the applicant's revised application. And it is the retaining wall between the new structure and 129 Millett Street.

Can I comment Sure? On this at all? The wall you just referred to between 308 West Cameron Property and 129 is technically not a retaining wall. That is it's it's freestanding above grade. And that's that's the one wall that you were referring to initially. And then the retaining wall is the one that crosses the 308 site. The east west. East west across the site. And and from the initial application, it it calls out that northern borderly wall, the lattice concrete brick wall is gonna be repaired. That's been the intent

from the beginning. That's my concern.

There again,

we both know that.

Oh, I understand your point about it. Yeah. And no question, landscape stuff is usually the last thing or the first thing that comes off because of budgetary Sorry.

To be really specific, page 28 of your application, it's referred to as existing perimeter concrete brick wall.

Correct. And there's one on the north side. There's also one that's on the West side of the property. That is, it turns the corner and then continues two thirds of the way back to West Cameron Avenue. Those are both concrete brick walls. The intent is that we would address both of those.

I'm sorry, you said both of those walls will be repaired?

Yes. And honestly, the one that needs the most repair is the one that's between 308 and 129. The one that's on Millett Street is remarkably good shape. Right. I guess we want them

all to be in the

wrong That's correct. Yeah, they'll all be, as it was described initially in the application.

That piece comes in and runs east west. That's the one that's, get a site plan. It on the site plan. Sorry. I'm talking without being in front of my mic. Brian's just making sure he understands which wall it I told him to get to the site plan. Oh, there it is, Right in front

of Which page are you on? Sorry. Which page are you on? Right there.

Right there in front. Page, it's probably four or five, six maybe.

There you go. You just passed.

Right there? Yep.

So the initial wall

Actually, that's the old one. Go down one more page to tonight's revised presentation. There you

go. So

since we're talking about walls, page 20 of your application. And I'm just going to blow that up so I can see it even with my reading glasses on. Existing perimeter concrete brick wall, which actually refers to what faces Millet. And there's an arrow that actually goes along. So it's referred to as the existing perimeter concrete brick wall that faces Millette Street and faces 129 Millette.

Right. Correct. There you go.

And I'll just expand on that. And then there's also a concrete brick wall that faces, and it's principally a retaining wall that is on the west side of the property that faces Millett Street. The intent is that we're going to repair both of those. The one that's on the west side doesn't need much work. The one that's on the North Side does.

Well, yeah. I think we're making a lot sounds like a lot about nothing. It's not and two reasons. One, these funky walls kind of address the rather fragmented past of this neighborhood. I think that's an important historic component. But also, it will help block car lights from the neighbors next door. So it's super critical.

Yeah. I understand, I agree with Josh. I mean, it goes into the process, inspectors, the building inspectors, it's not going to be at the top of their list. They may not necessarily pay attention

And to

frankly, it has more to do with what my clients' interests are in doing a good job.

You. Very good. So you want to

I think I'm done with my motion.

You think you're done with your motion?

I think so.

I think I'm done with your motion.

So, Brian, I would suggest at this point that we restate your motion just for clarity since we've tried to Thank say that to

you, Kevin. Second time.

Okay. So I move that the application at 308 West Millet Street is not in Congress with the special character of the historic district according to the applicant. Application of the relevant provisions of the LUMO and the HTC's design standards based upon the facts presented in the record. Of particular note, on page 20 of the applicant's materials, there is reference to an existing perimeter concrete brick wall at the back of that property that is adjacent to 129 Millett Street, we want to underscore that that wall will be repaired as outlined in the application.

That sounds good. Thank you. So, a motion's been tendered. Does anybody want to second?

I second.

Okay, Laura, second it. So, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Okay, there you go. So I think that handles our agenda for the evening, doesn't it, Sharnika?

If I might click, since I'm going to be drafting the findings, are these to be prepared by the May meeting or the subsequent?

I think the way I rules the procedure are kind of incentivized the next schedule meeting.

May 12. May 12. That's just a compressed timeline, so I just wanted to be Yeah, I can do it. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Are we we ready to adjourn? I think we are. If you guys don't have anything. Okay. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.