Historic District Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, it's 629. That's close enough to 630. I'd like to bring this meeting to order, please. We'll start with a roll call. Josh Gerlitz here. Laura Moore here. Sandra Sider here. Our brand new sparkling penny member there. And Glenn Conley here. And Brian Daniels is not here tonight. And Don Tice is here. So, Secretary.

I'll now read into the record the following. The commission operates under NC General Statutes 160D-940, which gives local governments historic preservation authority. And the Chapel Hill Land Use Management Ordinance, including Article 3, which established the local historic districts and sets forth regulations governing them. And the Chapel Hill Historic Districts 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 photographs. I also call 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.

All right, and now I'm gonna read the public charge. The advisory board pledges its respect to the public. The body asks 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 regains personal control. Should decorum fail to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until a 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 opinion so far as they are qualified, but not legal arguments on behalf of the property owner. Members of the public may provide witness testimony and factual matters within their personal knowledge. However, lay opinion testimony and property value impacts, traffic safety impacts, and other matters on which expert testimony is generally required may not be considered by the commission. Comments and legal arguments by attorneys shall not be considered testimony or evidence unless the attorney is sworn in and acknowledges that he or she intends to provide testimony or evidence rather than legal argument. Okay And I'd like to welcome everyone back We had a little break and we have a new member Sandra So thank you very much now approval of the agenda. Are there any questions? Well, are there any amendments to the agenda? I

yes the applicant for 742 chemicals COA amendment withdrew their application and then we also need to switch the order of 310 Pittsboro and 111 Bridge Lane so they'll swap places just because of the order that the applications were filed.

Okay. Yes. So with those amendments to the current agenda, do I have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. Okay, so we have a motion to approve the agenda and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay, agenda's approved. Are there any announcements? Chair Anikin?

Yes, we have a couple of announcements first staff on behalf of the town of Chapel Hill is working with preservation Chapel Hill and the Orange Chatham Association of Realtors to put on a workshop on September 25th in the afternoon at the library It's a free workshop and it counts as your CLG training for the year. We have to have two commissioners do the training by September 30th. So it's just in the nick of time and we already have Sandra signed up. So if anyone else wants to join, please register. I think, Don, you intend to register.

I'll register tomorrow. I'll just bring up the email you sent and I can link to it. Okay, thank you.

yeah but please come there'll be light refreshments so we're looking forward to it okay and then another announcement that staff has the draft land use management ordinance that has been in the works to rewrite was published earlier this summer in july and we welcome comments from anyone in the public there is an engage LUMO page online where you can post public comments and we would invite the commissioners to post any comments that are outside of the historic district Commission's purview on that page and if you have any historic district Commission related comments we can discuss those at our September meeting Thank you. Do you have anything else?

And while you're talking, are there any petitions that you're aware of?

No, there are no petitions.

All right, very good. Don? Yes, sir? This might be an opportunity for the commission to discuss a meeting end time, considering the agenda, if the commission would like to impose a cutoff time.

Yeah, what was our cutoff time in our last big meeting we had?

I think in the past few meetings where we've been on the edge, we've said we won't start a new item after 9 o'clock.

Okay, so we won't start a new item after 9 o'clock. So if you're in the crowd and it looks like it's approaching 9, don't sit here until 10.

And then I think the target would be to cut off by 10.

Yeah, 10 o'clock is definitely when we're cutting it off. But we'll try to be as efficient as we can so you guys don't have to sit there and come back later. And I have a quick question for Kevin. Approval of the minutes, which is normally easy. We have four sets of minutes. Can we approve all four at one time?

Certainly, unless there are questions or comments or edits about any single set of minutes, then you can approve a batch of those that appear to be in good shape and then pull out whichever that need to be discussed further.

So do any of the commissioners have any questions about item one, two, three, or four, which are the minutes from March, April, and the two June meetings? No. Okay. Can we have a motion to approve all four sets of those minutes and a second, please? And we have a second. All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. All four sets of meeting minutes are approved. Now, just for information, these were sent to you, Sharnika and Anna Scott sent these to you, administrative COA approvals and maintenance work, things that they've done since the last time we were together, and it was pretty extensive. Does anybody have any questions or comments about any of those? We don't have to approve this or anything. I was just wondering if everyone saw them. Okay.

I don't think we have to approve those, do we?

Okay. All right, let's get into new business. Let's begin the evidentiary, I would like to begin the evidentiary hearing for 102 Fraternity Court, and we're gonna start with staff presentation.

There is not a staff presentation. There's an applicant presentation.

Okay.

Okay, cool, thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you for your time tonight. My name is Matthew Davis. I am the current president of the House Corporation of the Sigma Chi Fraternity here at UNC. We have a thankless job of making sure that the House stays standing and operational and safe.

That is, yes, that's a picture of me from 1995. I actually lived in the fraternity house at one point.

And we're here to discuss the staircase that you can see there. That is a fire escape on the west side of the house.

Don, sorry, sorry. Yes. Swearing in. We need the oaths and then conflicts of interest. All right, I'll do all that, too.

The affirmation? Yes. Sorry. Snuck up on me. Sorry, Jim. Before you officially do this, you need to, I'm going to give you an affirmation and you need to at the end say I affirm and state your name. All right. Thank you. 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 do.

Okay. And state your name, please.

Matthew Davis. Okay. Thank you.

Sorry.

No, that's all good.

All right, so we've covered the first slide here. One sec. We'll need to do, Don, we'll go ahead and do conflicts of interest and other disclosures as well for questioners.

Oh, yes. Are there any conflicts of interest by any staff? Any ex-partites communication? Okay, there are not. Now you can go.

Thank you.

All right. So I have been a member of the House Corporation for over a decade and I've been the president for the last year and this fire escape has been on my mind on one of the things I wanted to address. Here's the property here, the front elevation right there and that cornerstone that you see says that the building was built in 1923. That is on the lower left side of the building, just out of the view, kind of below the grade of the land there. Just for fun here, I included, this is a picture of some of the members of the graduating class of 1914 and 15. This is an actual photograph, real one, not a reproduction, that we have hanging up in the house now. We just found this one about a year ago. And the fraternity did start in 1889. All right, so this is the existing west-facing elevation of that fire escape. You can see it right there. It is the side of the house that faces the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. On fraternity court right there, you can see you walk out that door right there, and down you go. And to that point, there's that same haircut again. It was pretty popular back in the mid-'90s. Craig Cook here, he's alive. He's okay. I realize when I put this in a presentation, I probably should have said that. But he did walk out this thing one night and fell right off the edge. His head came about six inches from hitting that concrete wall. He did land on his right arm and lost use of it for about a year. And that is something that has been top of mind for me as president that I want to try to build something safer for the residents that live there here currently. Obviously, safety of the residents is my number one responsibility as president of the House Corporation. The goal of this is to be able to remove this thing while preserving all the exterior egress of the building and replacing it with more of a conventional staircase that is common to the other fraternities and large residential areas in the district. So here's what we're talking about. We're just removing this existing ladder-style fire escape, replacing it with a stairwell-style fire escape. The existing doors, windows, all that remains unchanged. We will be working with P-Mill Construction there out of Raleigh, North Carolina. The general contractor that I've been working with for over a decade is Danny Malewski, and we've been working with Peak Steel for the design, fabrication, and installation for the fire escape. They have helped us with the other fire escape on the other side of the house in the past. the survey here you can see from the top down here the impacted area here is called out here and if we just take that picture and turn your head to the right and zoom a little and zoom in a little bit this is the actual spot right here so starting moving from left to right we've got about five point eight feet to work with there in the back of the house up to the property line there are four HVAC units there Then there's the current fire escape with the chimney kind of button right up next to it That pump there is just a sump pump that is to drain the water that collects in that area and that's all it does it shoots the water out to the back of the Back of the property there into that driveway between our fraternity house and the beta fraternity house As part of our original submission, I did submit this concept where the fire escape comes out and actually wraps around the front of the house. You can see the footprint there in the orange. This was the sketch from Peak Steel showing how it would come down and then hit there and bang a left turn and go around the house. If we did a mock-up of that, that's what it would actually look like right there, supported by steel footings attached to the side of the house there with the chimney as well. And concrete footers on a concrete landing at the bottom that's existing But as we looked at this the House Corps looked at this We did not want to impact the front facade of the front elevation in any way. So we rejected this ourselves And the new submission that we have in here today is it's the first time we put in here But this is what we would appreciate your consideration for as we go through this process. I Concept number two here, a much smaller footprint here for that area. And what does that actually look like physically? So this is the renderings from Peak Steel showing that the fire escape comes out the existing door, comes down, hits a small platform, and then goes back down on itself to a concrete landing. And then that is a mock-up of what that looks like there as well too. So it's able to accommodate essentially the same footprint for the landing up top and coming down to the side and still being able to fit in there with the HVAC units as they are and not having to move or relocate those. So as we think about how this applies to the design guidance from the town, we're mostly focused on these accessibility and life safety considerations, 3.8.1 through 5, and it says that these things need to be compatible with the district and the building and the site. They shouldn't compromise it. They shouldn't compromise the architectural features of the building. It should be reversible. and not compromise the materials or the character of the building, and should be located on the side, and when possible, obscured as much as it can be by a vegetation. So that's the hurdle that we are working to clear here. And so in the concept number two here, primary facade remains completely unchanged. You don't see that fire escape from the front of the house. As we look at the east side of the house, facing Columbia Street, this is the fire escape today here. So this is the approach we've taken. This is, as you saw from the mock-up, would be a similar approach that we use for the staircase on the other side. It's got the steel supports that go down the concrete footings and a concrete landing at the base. From this angle in the parking lot, you can see that there is a, there's tree, there's vegetation that does help obscure the view. Obviously this is better in the summertime, but it is obscured to some degree already. Moving directly across fraternity court to the SAE fraternity, you can see this is one of their fire escapes right here, leaving from the upper floors down to the bottom. If we go to the other side of the same property, this is their existing fire escape on the west elevation side of the building. And if I'm looking at the property and I turn my head just a few degrees to the right, I can still see that same staircase right there, the same fire escape, and then the other one on the AEPI fraternity right next door to it. So this type of approach is pretty common for the area, and this is the approach that we are hoping to take. So that's it. Our goals for this thing is, number one, to increase the safety of the residents, keep and preserve the historic look and feel of the building and also the neighboring properties, and keep everything hidden as much as we can by vegetation. And that is the bulk of the presentation.

All right. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else other than yourself that's going to speak? It's just me today. Just you. Okay. Very good. Does anybody have any questions directly for them?

Very good presentation on this side of the building the door at the top is white The one you showed us on the other side is brown that matches the railings Are you going to paint this door to match that we certainly can it's not something I thought about yet But we are not married to any particular paint color It's a good suggestion

Any questions?

I have a quick one. When you come down to the very bottom at the landing, does it have room to land? Because originally you were five feet off the face of that fireplace to the edge of the concrete. How wide are your stairs?

The stairs are going to be – actually, I don't know. I'll have to answer that question. Okay.

I mean, that's fine. So the other commissioners and architects can know. And fire stairs, there are a different set of rules for stairs than there are on regular stairs and steps. So you can make them a lot thinner and the risers a lot higher. There's a lot of different rules. So I was just curious because I can't tell from that mock-up what you're running into when you step off that last step. Right. But there's nothing at the bottom that's gonna affect the building. That's correct. Okay. Thank you All right, thank you, thank you is there anyone from the public so I'd like to speak on this I Know you can stick around we might talk bad about you. You never know. I We're going to close the evidentiary hearing and have a conversation with the commissioners. Any comments? Josh?

I think this is a very reasonable solution. In terms of life safety, certainly having a fire scare like this beats a ladder. And so many of the other houses on fraternity court, large fraternity court, have fire escapes like this. So I think this is a part of what fraternity court looks like now.

Yeah, thank you for turning it around and making it a switch back instead of taking it around the front. That was the issue I was going to have. So thank you for option two. Anybody else have any questions? Would someone like to make a motion?

I move that the application is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of relevant provisions of LUMO and the HDC design standards based on the facts presented in the record this evening.

Do we have a second for that motion? Okay, all in favor of the motion as stated by Josh Gerlitz, say aye.

Aye.

Aye. All opposed? Okay, you got your COA. Thank you very much. That was a really nice, concise presentation. Okay, now we're going to open the evidentiary hearing for 712 Gimgoo Road. And while staff is talking, are there any, has anyone had any ex-partite communications, any conflicts of interest? There are not.

Cool.

Cool.

Oh, gotcha. Perfect. Thank you.

Okay, before you get going, I need to read you the affirmation. You need to say, I affirm, and state your name, please. All right. 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. So firm and my name is Coby Linton. Could you speak up just a bit, please?

I do affirm and my name is Coby Linton.

Okay.

Thank you Thank you very much. Thank you for having me as I said, my name is Coby Linton and I'm the architect for Adam and Susan Jones who live at 712 Kim Gould Road I suspect that y'all are familiar with the neighborhood but Adam and Susan's house is on the south side of the street. So I believe it's the sixth house on the right hand side when you pull into Kim ghoul It's a yellow house. I'll show you in just a second The house is built in 1926. So this is its hundredth birthday It is a Dutch colonial revival. The primary volume is a gamble roof that runs east-west parallel to the street and which is broken by these shed dormers and a very steep front entry gable, which kind of softens it up and gives it a more cottage-like sensibility. This is the site plan, the existing site plan. And just so you know, all the drawings we'll look at, all the site plans and plans are rotated 90 degrees, so the north is to the left. So in all these drawings, the street gimbal will be on the left-hand side. Like so many of the homes in Gimgool, Adam and Susan's house has had many additions and renovations over the years. The most significant of these in their case was a two-story addition that was added onto the back of the house, which is the right-hand side of this drawing, which was a two-car garage with these two sort of wings, cross gables that project out to the backyard. Then in 2014 a dozen years ago a front entry portico was added And a wraparound porch that terminates into a screen porch on the east side So for reference, this is the proposed site plan so the dark shaded area you can see is our work area and What we proposed is a small deck area that aligns with the existing side porch with a pergola over in a shade sort of shade pergola above it and And then extending off the south side of that deck area is a walkway that connects the deck to an elevated balcony that overlooks the backyard, an existing balcony on the back. So in these next few slides, I want to just kind of walk around the outside and just kind of show you what it looks like now. So here you can see that previous addition, the wraparound porch on the northeast corner of the house. It turns the corner. Oh, sorry. As it turns the corner, it sort of transitions into a screened-in porch on the east elevation. And these two images, the left one is kind of a view of the east side of the house from the south, from the backyard. And then the right hand image is what that wrap around porch looks like from the front yard. This is actually from standing on the sidewalk. And then finally, this is a view of the back of the house. And as you can see, it's mostly occupied by this two-story addition that was added, I think, right around the year 2000. And those are those two cross gables that project off the back of the house. All right so this is a larger scale floor plan of the area adjacent to the work area. To the left you can see we have this existing front entry portico at the front of the house and then that wraparound porch that was added a dozen years ago that terminates into a screen porch on the east elevation. Let me see. Oh, here you can also see sort of on the whole right-hand side of the drawing is that earlier edition that came on about 25 years ago. So this is the proposed floor plan. So you can see the proposed deck addition, which is an extension of that existing screen porch on the east side. The footprint of that is about 12 feet by 18 feet. And the porch, the existing porch, as you saw in the photo, has a low slope standing seam metal roof. But as I mentioned, this proposed deck area is not a roof thing. It just has a pergola over top of it for shade. And then extending off the south side you can see that walkway and that kind of runs over to the existing balcony on the back of the house. This is the same view with annotation and there are a few things that we can talk about here. So the columns that we propose to support that pergola are square painted wood columns that match the existing columns exactly. It's a seven by seven inch wooden column. Between those columns. We've got a painted wood guardrail to match the existing guardrail There's a hot tub that's fully recessed into the floor of the porch. Sorry And then we have a new door to access this deck area from the interior And then it's a little bit hard to see this but we'll look at it in the elevation, but we also have these louvered shutters that run in between the two columns for privacy, which again will be much clearer when we look at the elevations. So now I'm just going to kind of walk around the house starting at the front and kind of walk around the left-hand side to show you sort of before and after. So this is the existing front elevation as it stands. And you may not be able to even see the difference here. This is the proposed front elevation. So the only thing that has changed, I'll toggle back and forth and maybe you can see it. But the only thing that has changed, maybe I can point at it with my cursor, is we're proposing a wood slat lattice foundation skirting that runs in between the brick piers, basically just to screen the view of the crawl space underneath the porch. That that lattice was actually approved in the CEO application in 2014 But it was never built and so we'd like to incorporate that on this round So that's it for the front elevation This is the east elevation So looking at it from the east side here You can kind of see that primary gamble form and you can see the way the porch kind of turns the corner and terminates into screen porch This is the proposed east elevation. So the floor of the proposed deck basically matches the existing floor of the screen porch exactly. So it's built on brick piers that have the same spacing as the existing brick piers. It's a wood tongue and groove floor and above each of the piers we have a painted wood column to match the existing columns. And those columns are supporting a pergola, which I'll show you in a minute actually matches an existing pergola on the back of the house. You can kind of see, as with all the houses on that side of Gimgool, the grade drops off significantly. I think we've got 22 feet of fall from the street to the back of the property. And over here on the left-hand side, the house kind of rises up out of the ground. Running alongside of that existing rear addition, you can see we've got, I don't know if I can get my cursor to work, yeah. The guardrail along that little walkway that connects the deck to the existing balcony on the back The guardrail on that portion of it would be a metal guardrail that matches the existing metal guardrails on the back of the house. And then this is the rear view. So again, most of it's sort of this existing two-story addition. But in the background on the right-hand side, you can see the existing screen porch. And then this is the proposed rear elevation. So the proposed deck and the pergola pretty much align exactly with the existing screen porch. And then in the foreground, you can see that little walkway coming forward with the guard rails, which would be the metal guard rails to match the back guard rails that are there now. So I just like to take a minute and kind of talk through the material palette the top left corner here It doesn't look very good because there's a bunch of dirty footprints on it But that's the existing tongue-and-groove wood floor on the porch that's there now. So new porch would match that floor exactly Painted brick. It's just a red common brick and a running bond with a white paint We'd be matching that for the new piers The bottom left-hand corner, that's a view standing on the front porch, and you can see those box columns, the sort of seven-by-seven wood-painted white columns. And then basically on the bottom right corner, that's the whole assembly. So it's sort of brick pier, a skirt board, and tongue-and-groove floor with a painted wood guardrail. So the trellis, so the top left corner here is a rendering of the trellis, sort of looking at it from the backyard. I say trellis, pergola. And the bottom left corner is the existing pergola on the back of the house. So basically the spacing and detailing of the proposed pergola over this new deck area would match the existing pergola on the back of the house. And then on the right hand side of the slide, you can see the two different types of guardrails we've got. So the top one is that white painted square wood baluster that we have that wraps around the screen porch at the front of the house. So we'd be matching that detail for the 12 foot wide deck area. And then on the back of the house, we have these skinny black metal balusters and we'd be matching that detail for the little walkway that connects over to this balcony. The wood louvers that screen the east side of the new deck area are just painted wood louvered shutters The neighborhood is full of them on the bottom left. You can see an example of some across the street And then we have two light fixtures that would be mounted to the inside face of the wooden posts so that their light is kind of cast back toward the house as opposed to being cast out toward the neighbors Those would be carriage lights that approximate the existing carriage light at the front entry door. Last but not least, this is just a rendering from the front of the house. You can kind of see it, but the truth is you wouldn't see it that much from the front. because it's entirely behind the existing screen porch, but the deck is sort of on the back left corner of that drawing and Then viewing it from the back corner. This is what it looks like It's a little more prominent when you're standing in the backyard because it's elevated but you can kind of see that Trellis and the pergola in the background and then that metal guardrail that sort of wraps the corner I And that's about all I've got. But if y'all have any questions at all, I'd be happy to answer them. Does anyone have any questions?

Is there anyone else other than yourself that wants to present for the owner? No, no, just me. Okay. Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak on this project? Okay. Well, then we will close the evidentiary portion of this hearing and have a discussion. Thank you. Thank you. You look like you're dying to say something.

I'm sure not.

OK. I'll jump in first. I think the addition around the side complements the existing conditions and the existing porch quite nicely. And I can see why the owner would want to do it. It's a great functional addition to the house, not that we can really comment on that. So all in all, I like it. Oh, I did have a question for you. Can you come back up? The screens that you're talking about, are the louvers operable?

No, I think they'd just be fixed with you. They're just fixed? Yeah. Okay, I was just curious. I think so. Thank you.

But materiality of it and the way you've handled the columns, I think, is very complementary to the existing structure.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'm in total agreement with that. I think it was a very good presentation, and it's an elegant way of providing this function to the house.

It actually, it's nice to see a project come before us that actually improves the structure a bit, and I think this really does. It really adds to that elevation, the overall massing scale.

It seemed to my eye that wraparound porch wasn't quite finished or something. It needed some sort of continuation, and this accomplishes that, I think, pretty well.

Agreed. I like it. So would someone like to make a motion, please?

I move that the application for 712 Gimgoo Road is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of the relevant provisions of the LUMO and the HTC's design standards based upon the fact presented in the record.

I will second it. All in favor of this motion and the second, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? There are no opposed. So you have your COA. Thank you very much. It's a good job. Okay, now we're going to start the evidentiary portion of this hearing for 100 South Columbia Street. And while Anna Scott's prepping the presentation, are there any conflicts of interest? Any ex-partite communications? Okay, thank you very much.

It's my static electricity. Yes, it is. Sure.

Thank you.

Okay. I am going to read you the affirmation. If you could respond by saying I affirm and give us your name, please. 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 affirm. My name is Steve Harward. Thank you. Again, my name is Steve Harward. I'm here to represent University Baptist Church, and we're here to request your approval of a fence that we'd like to install around our memorial garden. I understand my task tonight is to make sure you understand our location within the historic district. what our project consists of. It's very important for us to explain to you why we feel the project is important and hopefully answer any questions and demonstrate our compliance with your principles and standards. So here we are. Our location is at the corner of Franklin and Columbia. Our church sanctuary is illustrated here. That is the Columbia Street facing part of our property. So we're looking across the street at the top of the hill in Ackland Art Museum, looking to the north across Franklin, looking at what used to be Moe's and a yo-yo pump. and some other businesses there. So that is a key part of Chapel Hill's business district. Unfortunately, it is also sort of ground zero for a lot of Chapel Hill's homeless and transient population and some of the issues that they bring with them as well. This is our main sanctuary here. If you look just to the right of that, you'll see a building addition that was completed in 1998-99. And tucked in this area between those two buildings facing Franklin and Columbia is our church memorial garden. The church building that is constructed there was constructed originally in the 1920s. Our educational wing was completed in the 98, 99, along with the renovations to the memorial garden. This is the site of our fence project, the memorial garden. For the church, using this property, the property itself was purchased probably in the 60s at a time when the church only owned a property on which the sanctuary had been constructed. And over the years, the church acquired the other properties around it, which now constitute our parking lot and our educational building, as well as this site, which was destined to become a sub-ground Hardee's back in the day the property was purchased by the church. Fortunately, the church membership rallied and gathered the funds to purchase the property. Many of our members actually mortgaged their homes so that this property could be purchased. And in 1976, the property was formally adopted by the church as a memorial garden. So over the years, it has been available to the public It is a place of, we hope, of respite. And with the 99, 98 completion of our educational wing, the project included a restoration of that property that included the grassed area here, the circular brick wall, the brick wall around the garden. Looking beyond the circular rock wall, there's landscaping. And then there's another brick stone wall, not brick, stone wall, which joins the sidewalk along Franklin and Columbia streets. And there is an entrance to the garden from both the Franklin and Columbia street sides. This garden has been made available generously by the church with the intention of providing a place of respite for the community. Hopefully people would come and find it to be a quiet place, but understand that it's also a place of reverence. We have ashes of former members and family members that are interred. Scattered throughout the garden area are numerous memorials to church members. So our desire to make it available to the public is also conditioned upon the necessity to honor that reverence in that respect for the space. Unfortunately, in more recent years we have found that the property has become subject to use by people who are experiencing homelessness, mental health issues, transient persons who find the downtown area to be an attractive place to be. So we have had to try to envision some way to help mitigate the issue as far as the use of our church garden. I'd like to just read from you briefly from our narrative. In recent years, the Memorial Garden and the adjacent church property have become a refuge in the downtown business district for persons experiencing homelessness or the need of temporary shelter. We now find that our gardens, our grounds, are routinely littered with personal belongings, debris, human waste, and drug paraphernalia. We've witnessed death. mental health crises, illicit acts on our church property in the garden area. It's also become apparent that what contributes to some degree to the issues that we're experiencing there are the transit locations that are located immediately adjacent to our property, which makes it very convenient for people who desire to be downtown, who are not sheltered, to look for a shelter in places like our memorial garden. Unfortunately, we found our areas where ashes had been interred to have been desecrated, and we're attempting to find a solution to that problem, which presents a dilemma for us as a church who wants to be sensitive to the needs of that population. The church has attempted to be a positive force in helping persons experiencing homelessness and mental health issues. These needs have become increasingly present right at our doorstep, as I've described. We continue to seek solutions for these needs through our support of the interfaith Council's community kitchen providing space for the town's cold welter cold weather shelter and working Cooperatively with the town to find effective solutions to address the needs of our transient and homeless populations and However, in order to preserve the integrity and the respect for the garden that we wish, we have been led to believe that putting in a fencing around this site along the brick wall which adjoins the sidewalk around the property will be a good solution to help us provide some regulated access to the space. This AI-generated view of the proposed fencing project provides you an idea of what it would look like. This is from the Franklin Street side. Our intention currently is to install the fencing actually on the inside of the rock wall rather than on the top as it's currently shown however we'll probably will not make that decision until we've engaged a contractor to help us decide which would be the best installation provide the most secure construction and not result in any deterioration of the rock wall which we actually restored in our 1999 building addition What you will also notice from this vantage point is that the proposed fencing does not at all really obscure the garden view or the view of the church building from the street. On the Columbia Street side, it would be the same. However, the vegetation along that side is much more dense, already obscuring the vantage point from that side. The project itself would call for a black aluminum picketed fence, much like you saw in the example I showed you. The height of the fence we would propose to be 48 inches above the rock wall. So if its fence is only rock wall, that would be a 48 inch height. The fencing may be a taller fence. if it were mounted behind it, but it would still meet that 48-inch height intent. We would have a gated entrance on both the Franklin and Columbia Street entrances. The total linear footage for the project would be 77.5 on the Franklin Street side and 85 on the Columbia Street side. Have not determined the manufacturer yet, but we would require a certainly a gauge of aluminum that would be secure and not prone to Not as prone to damage We feel that we've that this project Adheres very closely to the principles and the design standards you've published the we don't feel that the property that the fencing would obscure any of the views of the sanctuary or the educational building or the garden the picketed fence fences do seem to be an option that you permit and we have found an ample number of those in the Cameron Macaulay Street district The light gauge fencing to keep plants protected is consistent with what we are attempting to do in the garden the We do not feel actually we feel the fencing enhances the The character of the site accentuates the garden to some degree and is consistent with the scale of the other fencing on the church property and in the area. Similarly, it suits well with the existing rock wall and the other fences that are on the church property and other areas in the vicinity. The similarly we are using the traditional fence materials that are found throughout the Cameron McCauley area. And we feel like the height is also consistent with what we find in the area. What I wanted to also illustrate by these photographs are what you'll find on site already. So you'll see here the border to our south, which is adjoining the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. This is the exit off Columbia. You'll see it starts out as a wooden fencing it actually continues beyond this point as a black aluminum chain link fence and it continues down to the Southwest corner of our property which joins Carolina Place And continues the black the chain link fencing continues along that site out to Franklin and This is the backside of our church with black chain link fencing and a picture of the front of the sanctuary where we have there and other places on the church property where there are steps. We have black picketed railing. Again, this is the front of the sanctuary. And you'll see, if you continue along this sidewalk, just beyond the last column there, there will be the Columbia Street entrance to the garden. Just to illustrate what you'll see elsewhere in the district and in the vicinity of the church, you'll see picketed fencing here on the Macaulay Street area. Across the street, across Columbia, at Ackland Art Museum, which is outside of the historic district, of course, but within our vantage point from the church, is really wire mesh fencing. Still within the Macaulay-Cameron district, you'll see other black aluminum fencing. Here again, over in the Ransom Briar Bridge area, similarly and this is a little further down the street near on Franklin I believe near the Presbyterian Church very similar type style of fencing that we would propose to install and back here on the back again on Columbia excuse me see if I can get back to that that's on the backside of Caroline place on Cameron And just for grins, our neighbor just beyond the Beta Theta Pi house at Fraternity Court has not a fencing, but a fence gate at their property. And if you look behind that, back at the back of Fraternity Court, you'll see similar black aluminum fencing. So the point of all that is to just demonstrate that that is really prevalent throughout the district across Franklin The entrance to yo-yo pump against very similar fencing that we might install there at the church and at the former site of Moe's restaurant So, just to, not to digress, but to bring to your attention as much of anything, I mentioned earlier that one of the contributing factors to the issues that we see with homelessness in the transient population downtown is the ease by which people can come downtown and have access to our property at the various bus stops that are there. The Chapel Hill Transit Authority has proposed to build a new transit stop immediately in front of the church. We spoke with them a year and a half ago. It was our first introduction to the project. We appealed their plan and encouraged them to find an alternate location for two reasons. One was the impact of the the bus stop on our property. You'll see that the distance there between the transit stop, the transit station, and the front steps of our church is about 25 feet. So that means that any time our worship center or sanctuary is in use for worship, weddings, Funerals that, and we open the front door, there's every seven to 10 minutes could be an 80-foot bus stop with people embarking and disembarking, parking their bicycles in a bicycle stand that will be there. And it will cause a lot of disruption, we feel, to our sense of worship and use of that space. It also, secondarily, will... bring more people into the site we're trying to protect, which is the memorial garden. Thirdly, really, the design of the site, the bus structure, was made without any regard to the historic significance of the property. So it'll be a very modern structure. The town's own report acknowledged that it will obscure the historic significance of the bell as well as the church building itself. So we have been unsuccessful in negotiating with the town or the Chapel of Transit to find an alternate location. We understand your responsibility It does not fall within the right of way, which this exists, but we did not feel that the historic commission had any involvement or understanding of what the town's plans were for this and may wish at some point to speak to that. We would encourage you to do so and be glad to partner with you in that effort. In conclusion, we feel that our project is fairly straightforward. We would very much like your approval and would like to proceed with work this fall by working with a contractor to get the work accomplished. And we feel that it's very consistent with what we've seen elsewhere in the Cameron McCall district and elsewhere throughout other historic districts in the town. And we very much appreciate your support of the project. We'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Does anyone have any questions?

I have a question. Thank you very much. Very thorough. You showed a lot of images of other metal fences that were four feet high around the neighborhood. But my question is, you mentioned a four foot high fence for your project. If you put it on top of the wall, how tall will that be then?

Well, the wall is roughly, I would say, 18 inches high. The fences which we illustrated, some of those are much higher than the 48 inches. Oh, I see. Okay. Including those on the church property already.

Okay. Thank you.

You mentioned very successfully the number of people that are around this high impact corner of Chapel Hill. In light of that, have you considered other materials for your fence, materials that can stand up to abuse better than aluminum?

There probably are other materials that are heavier gauge. We feel we have looked at the heavier gauge aluminum fencing and feel confident that would address those concerns. We have seen some of that with various vendors that we have met with. and feel that would be the best solution and actually give the better appearance for our church garden.

Could you tell me what the material is that are on the railings at the front of the church?

On the front of the church, that is a painted black wrought iron fence. That's wrought iron. Yes, that's wrought iron. And part of the desire to use the aluminum is to avoid some of the maintenance issues that go along with having a painted wrought iron surface like that. Those are issues we've had to deal with for the wrought iron fencing we have used in the past.

OK, well, that brings up a point that's important to me, is that in the design standards, it refers to cast iron or rolled iron. It's the aluminum fencing and the detailing of that that I don't care for in this location. I mean, there couldn't be a more significant corner in Chapel Hill. This is it. But first, I'd like to say, as a person in the neighborhood, not in the Corralt building for 20 years, which is a half a block away and 100 block to East Franklin, work there I understand the day-to-day issues when when dealing with the homeless population it can it can wear on you after a while so I completely understand the intent but we're not here to really discuss intent so and and I really appreciate the fact that you guys dedicated that 1976 to a memorial garden as I think it's a beautiful little respite piece of our downtown it's awesome My initial issue is with materiality. I think it should be wrought iron to match what you have at the front of the church and the railing that you have going up to the education building. That's also wrought iron. And I think something to be discussed would be whether it should be behind the stone wall or fastened on top of the stone wall. But then last, but certainly not least for me, is this is well-intentioned. It needs to be done, in my opinion. I'm not speaking for the commission when I say this. I think I understand why you need this. But if you're putting gates next to the church and next to the education building, the sanctuary and education building, are you going to have locks on those gates?

They would, I might have to defer to some of my partners here. I would add, first of all, that we would not, the garden would be open.

Do you mind speaking into the mic?

The garden would be open still to the public during office hours for the church, so it would not be secured.

Yeah, the reason I ask is when you start to put locks on gates, the code considers that memorial would consider that a space, and you need a means of egress not to get too wonky on you, which means that somebody would have to be able to get out of that locked gate if it were locked. Also, coming down from the education, that's a means of egress that comes out and empties out into your memorial garden. No, it does not.

It empties out to a landing adjacent to the garden.

Yeah, that's right. It empties out into a landing, and that landing kind of ekes into the garden, and then the steps go down.

Yes, and the gate would be such that the steps going up to the educational building would be accessible without going through the gated part of the garden.

And I could also ask you about how it's going to— run into the sanctuary building because I can't quite figure that out with the landscaping and the steps going up my point is I feel like there needs to be a little more thought put into how this fence is going to bump into the education side and how it's going to bump into the sanctuary side and whether or not it's going to be behind or on top and I've said my piece about wrought iron so

Anybody else have a question?

We have considered, by the way, where and how it will connect to both the sanctuary side and the educational side and how those gates will operate. And I believe our intent is to, yes, to have it as a locked gate outside of normal office hours with the church staff having the ability to open and close the gate. So there would be assurances that No one was in the gate, in the gated area, unless they, after hours, they trespassed and scaled over the fencing.

Yeah, which is a possibility, but you can't control that, I understand, as a downtown property owner. But still, it's a tricky, I know putting up a fence sounds easy, but it's a tricky little design problem at those two areas, particularly at the education building. But then the third little tricky problem is you have a diagonal wall with your sign on it facing into the intersection. Yes. Right there. Would this fence follow the 90 degree corner of the stone wall or would it stop and butt against that diagonal wall?

I'm going to say that it would follow the stone wall, and I'm going to turn and look back at one of our trustees and make sure that they- Yes, would somebody else like to talk?

Yes, you need to get the affirmation, sorry.

That's fine.

Okay. I affirm that the evidence I shall give to the Historic District Commission and the reference to application shall be the truth and nothing but the truth. I so affirm.

I do. Lance Holland.

And can you speak into the mic, please? I do, Lance Holland. Thank you, sir, Lance.

As far as meeting the sanctuary, you'll come up, and our rock wall makes a turn on the brick walkway. It will turn and go directly right at the bottom of the column where it meets the church. Okay.

It's made because our wall turns right, then left, and will line up.

The wall's already there.

Sure.

There has been some, and we're open for debate, but it can, the fence with no problem. And I think we might turn and go into the sign.

Mm-hmm.

And the pillars will be down to the ground, the pickets. But we maintain level with the rest of the fence. The reason for, I understand your concern, the reason for aluminum fencing is it looks pretty good. When they tear it up, it's easy to fix. You unbolt four bolts and put a new panel. And I've met with the fencing people. And we were going to buy extra panels so that it doesn't. I can take you to a lot of wrought iron fences that are. And if it's mounted to the rock wall, then the rust stains the rock wall. The wall is kind of pristine to us. If we put it on the backside, we can't paint the wrought iron 18 inches down. We can't do anything about it. From a distance, they've done pretty good. This was a commercial wrought iron. I have met with the fire department. Our intent is to have a pedestal inside with a push button that releases the gate if you're trapped. The police department have wanted this fence because it's kind of hard. If somebody's in there in the evenings and we had signage that The garden is open for the public from this hour to this hour, except for when the town puts their Christmas tree in there. It will probably be open later. But it will have, I have to get this approval for the fire department to tell you what to do, but their concern is the same as yours. If more than 50 people are in our old fellowship hall, which we give it to AA and Drugs Anonymous, then they have to have a button. As far coming down the steps, if we have to have the button, then we're covered on that. If not, it was going to turn at the end of the rock wall. It was going to come like this and meet the new building with a gate there. That way, you could come down the new building and walk down the steps. So if you're on the Franklin Street, you go up two steps. Then the new Fellowship Hall steps come down with a landing. If we did like this and tie it into the new building, same way we're doing on the other side, it would look very similar. But I just want to state one thing. I grew up in this church. My grandmother went to this church. My parents went to this church. I was baptized in this church. I was married in this church. I'm a trustee in this church. I know everybody on our memorial wall. And for me to go up there and work and see that people are defecating on a grave, that is a respectful place. It will be open for the public to use. The students don't disrespect, but it is a public restroom and needles. And we can't let our children go out there and enjoy that space, because their little hands, if they pick up a needle, it's catastrophic. I love the homeless. I care for them. I'm the guy who found a guy dead up there. I'd do anything in the world to help anybody. But I've got to look after that church because I'm in a position that I'm not being a responsible church member this time in life to the people who sacrificed and died and are on that wall.

Yes, sir, and we understand and applaud the intent. That is not what's the question. But what we're interested in is things like materiality and details and making sure, because it's such an important piece of downtown, physically such an important piece, and also for your mission as a church, it's even more important. I don't mean to diminish that. But we're looking at the physical aspects as per the design standards. And just how the fence and the gates touch the buildings is important to us. And for me, wrought iron versus aluminum, I understand your arguments. I haven't seen an aluminum picket fence yet that even comes close to having the same character as a roller. And so that's something that the commission will have to discuss. But I just wanted to make sure we had everybody that wanted to say something had a chance to say something. Do we have any more questions for these guys? Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for your presentation, and we're looking at the AI-generated view of the fencing right now. In light of everything that you've presented, and I understand the situation, I want you to think more carefully about the overall height of the fence and the wall and where it will actually be effective to act as a deterrent. If we do something like what you're showing now, based on what you've said so far, the top of the fencing would be maybe five and a half feet tall from the sidewalk, but then there's a foothold with the wall where it might be easier to kind of slip over the top if you needed to get in, trying to get in, trespassing. If you put the fence behind the wall,

it's four feet tall then they'll only be three feet two and a half feet what would be the height of the fence then if it's mounted on the ground it would be the same height what we would do it would probably be a six foot panel if we go behind the wall they'll cut them off but regardless there'll be a four four foot reveal we didn't want to look like a prison so we kind of came

but it would be the same reveal if we're on the wall or behind the wall we would just the pickets would go all the way to the ground but the top would be that four foot so the fence itself would be four feet above the wall whether it was mounted behind the wall or on top of the wall okay so you've thought about that um i feel like if it's mounted on top of the wall that's a more consistent look For me, if it's mounted behind the wall, you end up with a place for trash and debris and a maintenance issue when stuff falls down in there. So for me, I'm just a little unclear as to how the detailing works in the interest of achieving your goal, which is aesthetic as well as functional.

And the installer that I've talked to, they can mount it behind it, on it. Again, the only problem with the wrought iron, the weight of the wrought iron mounted on top of the rock gives it a tipping point. Because usually you'll have a brace, but they'd have to shove it to the front to get a brace. We wanted, if we put it on the top, for it to be in the middle. But we did so that it looked uniform. But the weight of it would be easier to counter-lever when you drill those rock. So we were in hopes the lighter. And he does both. But he said just so many people are going away from the other because of the maintenance issue, the rust factor when it tarnishes. when it's rusting and what it does to the rock and surfaces. And we've got some of that stainage. And then usually, which is our church, it rusts out where they mount it in the concrete. And we're dealing with that now on our railings. So maintenance issues, we try to look at stuff for generations to come. Because churches, they're loaded with money right now, regardless of what people think. But we're looking for maintenance, looking good. And people don't come by and say they need to paint that rail. And I think that's the reason, crossing the planetarium, those apartments put it. It looks pretty good, what they've put there beside the church.

Could I address two more points regarding the wrought iron versus? Yes, sir.

Just speak into the microphone, please.

To your point about concern, rather, about having wrought iron being more in character, I guess, with the historic district, what we tried to show with the slides that we presented is that the aluminum fencing is already very prevalent throughout the historic district. So I think in our mind, our way of thinking, that this should be very suitable for our project as well. Also, if you consider that we are located in the, I guess, what would be the northeast very corner of the district, which is right in the central business district of Chapel Hill, and then you look at what we are facing, in both directions across the street, you'll see, again, that you're not looking at wrought iron or fencing. You've got a wire mesh fence across Columbia Street. If you go across Franklin Street, you're looking at aluminum fencing. Well, the one on the right's wrought iron. The one on the left is one. Well, yes, that is a hint. Yes, it is. You can see the difference. The one offsets the other, perhaps. I don't know. But I think for those two reasons, I think that should... minimize your concern about it being inconsistent with what is expected for the history.

We'll discuss it more among commissioners, but I'm not concerned with the inconsistency with the other area. I'm just concerned about the importance of this corner that you just spoke about. We just want to make sure that When this is done, it's done as carefully and as tastefully and thoughtfully as possible. We're on the same page. We're heading in the same direction. I just want to make sure it's done in such a way that everyone in downtown will be proud of it, and it'll last.

We think they will. I think as much concern and thought has gone into this as it did with our earlier restoration of the church, the property, the church garden is owned now, and restoration of the wall and the garden within that wall.

Well, your education addition back in the day was nice. That was 25 years ago now, wasn't it?

Wow. At least my wife is here with me tonight who actually chaired that whole project. Well, congratulations.

That was well done. The only thing you didn't do right is you didn't hire the right architect, but that's another story. Okay. If there's not anyone else from the public that wants to speak, then I will close this portion of the evidentiary hearing. Wait, is there someone else that wants to speak? Okay. Come forward, please.

Thank you so much.

And I'm going to read you an affirmation. If you would say I affirm and give us your name, we'd appreciate it. And be sure to speak into the speaker there.

I still have to finish writing my name down, but we could swear.

Oh, no, you're good. Sure. Okay. Thank you, sir.

How is everybody this evening?

Peachy. Okay. 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. And your name? Christopher Mather. Okay, Christopher, thank you.

I want to speak on behalf of the church. A lovely garden, by the way. Excellent. I want to say as long as it's within good taste, it has my approval. I'm not from here. I'm from up north. Honestly, I thought the apocalypse was off in the distant future. It's not. It is north of here. I will say this much. As far as the concern with the litterers and those who go with that, we're doing our best. As a note from the underground, and this is where I come from, we're doing what we can to curtail their efforts against any church and any congregation. It's all that we can do, and it is a lot of effort. And we look forward to doing a lot of work with the town and whatever we can do from there. That's all the more I really have to say. But we stand behind you the whole way. It's a lot of... We'll say refuse, rubbish, litter, many places throughout the town. It's not just there at the corner. It's all over the place. So just know you're not alone. We got your back.

All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Absolutely. We'll see you soon. So I'm going to now close the evidentiary portion of this hearing. And the commissioners can have a conversation. I've spoke the most. You want me to get started? I've got one little, I think a very important detail, regardless of what the material of the fence is, is that it's, I'm not speaking for the commission, my personal opinion, it should, at the corner, it should turn and butt against your sign wall and don't have the fence Go along the 90 degree angle and. Exclude the view of your sign cause that's a really well done little piece of stone work there and there would be nothing wrong with just starting and stopping the fence right against the sun at that corner. I think that would that would look a little better and it wouldn't put the fence. Right on Franklin and Columbia right at that corner. Does anybody have any comments? Josh.

I have a question about what's on the top of the fence. We say picket. Are there sharp points on top of that fence?

Could you come back and show us the image of your fence? Sorry to call you back up.

I'm just thinking in terms of the deterrent to sort of protect the area.

And Don? Don, before we get into, we should reopen the evidentiary hearing if we're going to ask new questions.

OK. We are reopening the evidentiary hearing. And since you've already said the affirmation, you do not have to do it again, I'm assuming? OK. Thank you. Go ahead.

I've lost the slide that I think you were referring to. That was not necessarily an example of the product that we would use. We may very well not have a railing on top, but we would have an extension of the pickets that would be on the top.

That was my question. So no one could just put a hand on top of a flat rail and just vault over the fence?

Make it harder to get over.

It would be picketed, yes.

There'd be a picket coming up over the top, so there wouldn't be a flat top.

I'm sorry, that's how I thought I had answered the question.

Okay. Just wanted to make sure everybody understood that you're looking at little pointy spheres. That's what we're looking at. Maybe not a good reference. Okay.

I am all in favor of the fence. I am downtown all the time. I live over in the East Rosemary District. I know lots of folks in your congregation, and I'm in a church downtown also. Not yours, but another one. I do understand the security issues very well. I wish that you had your contractor with you and that you had your builder and you actually chose the fence so that the actual evidence that we were looking at was the exact thing that you're doing. Part of what we have to do in terms of evaluating the evidence is looking at hard evidence. So we have to see the exact fence and have to see exactly where you intend to do it. So I don't perceive any problem with the fence. I mean, I think you go home tonight and say, Nobody has a problem. I certainly don't have a problem with that. But I sure wish there were more detail and more specificity so that you had your contractor on board and you had the manufacturer and we'd have hard evidence to make our decision with.

Do you feel like you can make a vote with the evidence that's presented?

It would be hard for me, too.

That's all right. We've already closed the evidentiary portion. I understand. Thank you.

It would be hard for me, too, because it just isn't detailed enough. And I know where you are, because you're in the process. But it just isn't detailed enough. The evidence that I see just isn't there yet.

Kevin question you were expecting this one, weren't you? Can we push this back to the next meeting and they bring more evidence to bear or

So as the commission is aware, you certainly have the authority to continue an evidentiary hearing. I think the real question is a practical one, which is where are we within the submission and decision-making timeline from application submission?

I think Sharnika and I are both racing to find out.

OK.

The application, I believe, was completed on June 18th. Let me just confirm. Yes, June 18th was the date of the filing for this application.

And we have 90 days?

That's right, that's the year kind of your general deadline.

So the next next meeting would be like the 88th day The date of the next meeting but just doing sprawl math there Missed it by a couple of digits So we could continue it to the next meeting and still stay within the 90 days.

That's correct.

And the reason I suggest this for the obvious people staring at me right now in the crowd is we, as Josh said, we, I know I, and it sounds like Josh, are completely behind the idea, completely behind the church and want this to be accomplished. It's just a matter of having more specific evidence that like you were talking about using your hands, this is gonna run into that. If we could just see a drawing or a sketch and then see the actual aluminum profile and say something about the color as well and make a decision if you're gonna put it on the top of the wall or behind the wall or run into the sign. If all those details could be fleshed out for the next presentation, then we could we could get a vote. We don't want to cause any hardship for a delay, but I feel like we just don't have quite enough evidence tonight. But that's me.

I totally agree. But on the other hand, I have every confidence this church wants to make it look as good as possible. But our charge is to come down to the nitty gritty. And I just feel we aren't quite there yet.

And what was that last part? I'm sorry.

Come down to the nitty gritty of it, and we're not quite there yet?

Not quite there yet. That's the one I didn't hear. Sorry. Well, I guess I could make a motion as the chair. yes yes you met okay it's not gonna be from this because I'm just gonna make a motion that we continue this to the next meeting at which time it will be on the agenda because we have to get within the 90 days and so I'll make a motion that we continue to the next meeting second okay there's been a motion and a second all in favor say aye aye all opposed So it's unanimous. Sorry, we're going to have to continue to the next meeting. If you could just do a little more homework and come back with a few more specifics, that would be awesome. Awesome. You're the man. Thank you.

I think, well, we can discuss it next time.

Real quick, we're skipping what was item 9, 742, Gimgoo, and we're going to what was item 11, 111 Ridge Lane. And let's hold off on starting the evidentiary hearing for just a second until Kevin gets back.

Thank you.

I just want the notes to go away. Is that possible? Just have it be full screen. I was going to start clicking around.

I didn't want to mess up here. I don't know if there's a way...

Okay, guys, while they're setting it up, let me ask, are there any conflicts of interest here? Any export-type communication?

Oh, yes. I lost the mouse.

Okay, I don't know if I said this, but just in case I didn't, I would like to open the evidentiary portion of this hearing. Okay, affirmations. Here we go. 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. And state your names, please.

Nancy Smith.

I so affirm Benjamin Johnson.

Thank you. And Nancy, could you lean into the mic there?

I can.

Thank you. Better? Okay. Okay.

I will be very brief. Thank you for hearing us again today. It's nice to be back. Really I just want to say that we are very excited about what Ben is going to show you today and what's been submitted. We spent a lot of time going through this and putting the plans together for this and we believe we achieved what we promised you all last time we were here. First was that we're here in this meeting showing the plans and we didn't have a long delay in time because I know that was a concern. We also designed a house that we think really fits and honors this neighborhood. Also, I think I expressed that last time that that was one of our main goals. And then also just one that we wanna be in for a very long time as a family. And this is something where we feel like we can live in and grow in and thrive in. So really, I just wanted to say thank you for your consideration and I'm gonna turn it over to Ben to the big reveal.

Thank you. Good evening. Nice to see you all again as well. And thank you, Nancy. So the first few slides will go through our renderings of the proposed build. And it is a moderate traditional farmhouse vernacular folk reserve shingle influence design. And in our design process, we kept the existing orientation to Ridge Lane. We are proposing to use materials that are consistent throughout the district. We're using, again, Ridge Lane as the prominent lane and then Evergreen as the service lane where we will be accessing the garage along with our waste bins and whatnot, which is also consistent with the use of Evergreen. And then I think one of the other things to point out is that we do have a desire to raise the stone wall around the perimeter of the property using the reclaimed stones from the demolition. When we looked at the design guidelines, it was clear to us that the four big criteria that we had to nail were form, scale, massing, and location with our design. And the rest of this presentation is more or less an exploration into that. And in doing so, it was also clear that we don't need to try and mimic an earlier architectural style. intentionally avoid a colonial revival or an attempt at recreating a false sense of history there. Those are our four big goals, is hitting those criteria, but then we also of course want to RESPECTIVE DISTRICT WE WANT TO CONTINUE TO REINFORCE THE PATTERNS THAT WE SEE IN THE DISTRICT AND THEN AS NANCY SAID WHAT WE WE AND THEY MORE IMPORTANTLY WANT TO BE A POSITIVE INFLUENCE AND CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO GIMGLE AS IT EVOLVES SO 111 IS BUTTRESSED BY SEVEN DIFFERENT PROPERTIES IT'S RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OBVIOUSLY AND THOSE PROPERTIES ARE ALL VERY DIFFERENT SIZES SHAPES AND SO ARE THE HOMES AND THEY ALSO HAVE VERY DIFFERENT LEVELS OF TOPOGRAPHY Our proposed home is, again, facing Ridge Lane, as is the historical precedent. We're shifting it back from the street six feet. We're doing that for two reasons. One, because it currently feels like it's crowded, Ridge Lane. There's barely enough room for guest parking to pull in. So that gives us that ability. It also, I think, helps with the street presence. And then more importantly, it gives us room to do a little bit of grading in the front yard to alleviate some of the water problems that we are, well, that they have had in the existing home. If you take the current house and you superimpose it over top of our proposed, uh, residence, uh, the pink being the existing, you can see that we of course are proposing a slightly enlarged structure compared to what is there before, but it's rather modest. And most of the, um, additional footprint comes from porches. So when we look at location, the question that we asked or that we believe the guideline is asking is, do we have the house located in a location that is consistent with the historic precedents? We feel like we do and that we're continuing to face Ridge Lane with the garage tucked on the lower side of Evergreen where it's least visible from the district. This is, of course, allowing us to also place our mechanical equipment in a the back side of the property where it is least visible from the district. When we look at just the numbers for footprint and context, you can see our house is, in terms of a percent of the site, or built upon area, I suppose. We are really close to the middle of those seven houses that we touch at 16.8%. And then if we look at it just purely in terms of house footprint, we're right at the middle, sort of trending towards the lower side of that. So we feel like we've got a, although it is bigger, it is well within the sort of data range of what we see for the surrounding context. So with form, scale, and massing, form is asking, hey, is our building shape or the proportions, the height, width, and the expression, is it in keeping with the surroundings? And then the scale, much the same way, is it the right height? Is it too small or too big compared to the houses nearby? Massing, what have we done with the structure to break it up so it's not just one big block? Is it primary and subordinate forms, etc.? Of course, our response to those is yes, we've done that. This slide is comparing 111 to all of the homes that it touches, with the exception of the Glandon, just because it could not fit at all on here. And this is taking all the houses and putting them at the same finished grade elevation, right? And what this does is shows the – it just focuses on purely the height, right? uh difference between the homes and you do of course have the outliers of 110 and 723 the two the one largest and the one smallest um and even with those on this slide i think what what we what we've seen and of course we want to hear y'all's feedback as well is that it they all even though they're different um styles um and vernaculars they all sort of blend together which we feel is great for not only our build but but the context of the neighborhood Putting that in context with the actual slope and topography, as you know, the backside of Evergreen Lane and Ridge Lane falls off dramatically behind Gimgool. So this is exploring the relationship between 105, which I personally believe is the strongest precedent for comparison here. Because as you go down Ridge Lane, that's one of the houses that you experience first and does have a really strong street presence. And so a lot of care was taken to make sure that, OK, how does it sort of match up with that house? And so of course, you can see we're a foot lower than that house. And then even when you factor in the grade, we're another 10 feet below that. 240 Grand Glandon we're lower than it is but the size of Glandon and you know again following the topography and the slope of the land I feel like we're in an appropriate context there transverse section looking at 232 Glandon and 110 Ridge Lane where the same height is 232 and of course we are larger than 110 110 being one of the standouts in the district 110 is tall is higher than 111 Ridge Lane and then the final for comparison's sake in this presentation is 730 723 And, uh, two 6723 being one of the taller two 60 being shorter than one 11, but, uh, it is one of the largest in terms of footprint, uh, in the, uh, seven homes that I've mentioned. Just looking at the data by itself, you can see that our height is 27 feet. It's actually just shy of 27 feet, but just to make our life easier, I rounded it up to 27. 27 feet tall, that's really close to being right in the middle. It's the same height as 232. It's a foot lower than 105, and it's 11 feet lower than 723. For materials, 704 Gimgel is probably our strongest district precedent. We are suggesting to do very similar trim details along with casement windows, a shake siding, cladding, asphalt shingle roof, and brick veneer. And they have a very similar HB&G column. The painted column there that you see Very similar profile as well. And this is the back porch of 704 having the brick veneer with the bluestone top, tongue and groove ceiling. These are actually very similar light fixtures to what we'll be installing as well. And then another example, this is not in the district, but of a metal standing seam roof with similar columns, shake siding, and asphalt shingle roof. We do intend to do corner boards, much like 704. Excuse me. And then last, a picture of our front door. Our front door will be very similar to this, a wood door, and then it's buttressed by the shake siding. And those are two very similar Bevelo light fixtures that we will be using as well. There are other district precedents for the shake siding as well as metal standing seam roofs that we can explore if need be. So with that in mind, we request approval to build the house as designed, and that's based on satisfying the form. We're using traditional residential forms that are found throughout the district. Our scale is falling within the documented height and width ranges of those homes that touch the property. In our massing, we've taken great care to have a primary volume within secondary volumes connecting to it. And then the location, of course, is keeping Ridge Lane as the front door is facing Ridge Lane, the more prominent, and keeps the evergreen lane for the garages and service alleys.

And then I added site relationship.

This property does have topography and fall to it, so we certainly responded to that. It is a basement lot, so there is a basement, and we thought that was the perfect place to put the garage so it was as out of sight as possible. So with that, I look forward to your questions, and thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Anybody have any questions? Well, first of all, I'd like to say it's a really nice presentation. Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public that would like to make a comment for or opposed? And if no one has any direct questions, I will try to close the evidentiary hearing, and we'll talk amongst ourselves. I'll start as a summary. I think everybody's looking at the same things I am. But what I love about Gimgall, and Gimgall's amazing because of that one sheet you had on your form and scale sheet that had all the elevations on one sheet. Gimgall ties together so nicely as a neighborhood, but every house is a different statement. It's like they're each different words, but together the words come together and form a sentence, and they tell a great story. And that's what we have to try to keep in all of our historic neighborhoods. That's what makes Kimmel Gould so great. I think this house will be an excellent addition to that story, personally.

I totally agree. I think the one thing that does...

Josh, is your mic on?

Yeah. Rookie mistake. I think in the only thing that is certain is that all of the houses are different. They really are. But one thing that does tie most of them together, not all of them, I know there are a few examples on Ridge and other places. They are all detailed well. They have detail, meaning that there are columns. The top of the column is correct. The bottom of the column is correct. This house has a lot of detail. I'm going to talk about a couple of things. Number one, I really like the automobile pull-off. That is kind of typical of several of the other houses in the area. It does keep your guests off the street. I also really like the outdoor covered porch around the side that faces Evergreen, because you showed a picture of one of those porches in the back of the house. But many of the houses in Gimgool are pretty close together. I mean, this isn't a suburb with large, huge lots. And yet many of the houses also have very, very well articulated exterior space for socialization. So I think for those reasons, as well as the scale of the house, you made a very good presentation about how the scale is kind of at the median. Um, for the area. And I think that's going to help it, um, fit in well also. So I find this a great presentation and, um, it will be a good addition to Gimbel. Thank you.

I love the shed dormers. I think that was a great decision because if you had had those little gables pointing up, it would have been so busy looking. But this makes it very sort of calming and serene. It's a beautiful design. Thank you.

Well, I will. I move that the application is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of the relevant provisions of LUMO and the HTC's design standards based upon the facts presented in the record. And this is for 111 Ridgeland.

Well, I will second that. So there's been a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay, it passes. You get your COA. Thank you very much. It was a beautiful presentation.

Thank you. Very nice.

Okay, while they're getting ready, we're going to start the evidentiary portion of this hearing for 310 Pittsburgh Street. Are there any conflicts? Any ex-partite communication? Okay, there are none. I flubbed up the first one because I came in parking lot hot, so I'm trying to make good on the rest of them. Okay before you begin I'm gonna read you an affirmation if you could say I affirm and give us your name, please 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

Hi, firm. Michael Solaro.

Thank you, Michael. Good evening.

Thank you for your time this evening. I'm here today to talk about 310 Pittsboro Street. For those of you who may not know it, it is the State Employees Credit Union, just adjacent to the university on pittsburgh street today i'm here to present to you the request for a new mechanical unit on top of the building this project is primarily interior renovation however part of the interior renovation required needing to put an additional unit on top of the roof to satisfy excessive humidity issues within the building average relative humidity in the building over the last 18 months is about 78 degrees They have excess of the humidifiers in there Trying to cool the space down and as we're going through the summer and this one's been pretty hot. It has not been pleasant in there So yeah, that's what we're here today to talk about That's simply all we're asked for is a new mechanical unit on top of the roof to provide fresh and fresh air and ventilation for the branch Just some context of where we are the building had a renovation in 2019 and to upgrade the existing chiller that's on the roof currently. With that renovation, they also replaced all of the windows in the building. The problem that they have right now is that their current ventilation is through operable windows, and based on the operation of how the branch operates, they don't open their windows, which is causing some issues. So we're proposing putting a DOAS unit on the unit on the roof to allow for a mechanical system to allow for ventilation rather than occupants to actually open and close windows throughout the day. So really what I'm here to show you today is how despite putting a new mechanic unit on the roof it will not be visible from the public right-of-way partially due to its height the current parapet height of the building where it's being located its sight lines across up and down Pittsboro Street so For context, here's our site. Our site, there's item number one here. There's the existing chiller that is on the roof at the top of the stair tower. And number two, basically more so in the center of what would be the lower roof, is where we were going to propose to put the new DOAS unit. Here's that roof plan, and for context, Pittsboro Street is on plan north throughout the entire slide here. So you can see number one being the existing chiller that has been there for quite some time, and then the new DOAS unit going in location number two. From an elevation standpoint, this is what the elevation looks like from Pittsboro Street. It is an eight-foot unit, no different than the chiller that is currently there. The chiller is actually raised on top of a platform, but due to the parapet height of the chiller, only about four feet of that chiller is exposed elevationally above the parapet wall. In the case of the new DOAGE unit, it's going to sit almost flush to the existing roof, but between the top of the roof and the top of the parapet of that second floor lower roof There is about three feet of elevation. So vertically you're seeing about five feet of that unit However due to its location in the center of the building and then line of sight from the street Very little of that unit would be noticed so what I wanted to do today was kind of walk up and down Pittsboro Street and We superimposed the rendering of what would be the new DOAS in street views up and down Pittsboro Street looking at the building so you can see how much of the unit would be exposed. Before I even get into it, only two of the 25 views have a slither of the new unit visible, while most of the views you can still see the existing chiller. Just kind of run down real quick. This is in front of the steps of the adjacent house that is currently on their property. It's two buildings on the same property. This is the before. And this is the after due to line of sight to the location in the center of the building and the existing height of that parapet. That is the extent of the mechanical unit you will see from this view. The same as we continue to get further or closer to the building along Pittsboro Street, the existing versus the new. That is the amount of space you're seeing maybe six inches of the top of the unit from that perspective. And I'm going to kind of run through these rather quickly because the reality is you're not going to see it at all as you get closer to the building based on line of sight along the right of way. What I do point out as we go through, at certain points you will start to see the chiller. That is because the chiller is right up against the end of the parapet and at a taller part of the building. As we wrap around the corner, the vegetation also disappears, so you start to see more of that existing chiller than what you would see today. This is straight on. These photos were also taken in the beginning of June, sorry, July. So heavy vegetation, particularly along the street side. As we get further away from the building and closer to the intersection, this is where you start to see the existing chiller. From this angle, you're also starting to see the access ladder on the back that gets you up to the roof. Getting closer to the intersection, This is photo number 13 as we just turned down the side street. Even in this view where you have zero vegetation blocking your view of the building, the only thing that is visible is the existing chiller and not the new DOES unit. As we cross the street, same thing, but you can also see vegetation heavily screens the view. We've now crossed over Pittsboro Street on the other side of the right-of-way and now we'll be walking back. Same thing, a lot of the view even with the existing chiller gets blocked by the heavy vegetation along Pittsboro Street. Glimpses of it do appear between vegetation, but again, this is an example where because the chiller is right up against that parapet, that's why you would see it, whereas the delage unit being in the center, line of sight deters you from seeing it.

Keep going here.

This is what would be the elevation that I showed earlier. So while elevationally in a plane view, the existing, sorry, the new Doe engine is five feet above the parapet. Based on line of sight, you can barely see the chiller, but you would not be able to see the dough. It is set back from this elevation on that roof about 25 feet, which is what's helping with that line of sight. As we continue to go down the rest of Pittsboro Street, you're starting to get further away and sliver of the existing chore, but still, based on the angles and geometry of the building, you can't see the new joist unit. And that's it. That's the conclusion. That is all I have to present today. I thank you for your time.

All right. Thank you for the presentation. We appreciate the photographic walk down the street. That was a nice way to do it. Are there any questions? I see no questions. No one from the public I can see. So we will close this portion of the evidentiary hearing and open it for discussion or go right to a motion if someone wants to present a motion.

I move that the application is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of the relevant provisions of LUMO and the HTC's design standards based on the facts that are presented and in the record.

Second oh, there's a second Glenn seconds all in favor say aye aye all opposed Okay, it's unanimous. You got your COA. Thank you very much What's left of it Okay, so if the staff or Kevin you don't have anything else I guess we will adjourn the meeting thank you