Historic Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, the time is 4 o'clock.

My name is Ted Loring. I'm chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. It's my honor to call the commission to order. First order of business is the roll call.

Commissioner Loring.

Present.

Commissioner Fair. Present. Commissioner Herlihy. Commissioner Sewardson.

Here.

Commissioner Smith. Here. And Commissioner Summers. Here. Thank you.

Second order of business is the approval of the minutes. The minutes for the last meeting were distributed in our packet. I trust you had a chance to read it. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes as they were distributed? Seeing no corrections, are there any objections to adopting the minutes as they were distributed? Seeing no objections, the minutes were approved as distributed. Public hearings, old and new, nothing on the agenda. Old business, EurekaHistory.com, anything to share there?

Yeah, you'll notice that I combined the two items into one since I have been doing the update together. No updates on EurekaHistory.com, but the incentive ideas, right, the Talk Eureka website, I'm happy to report that Alex is going to take on that effort. And we are really, we were hoping to bring back the webpage with kind of what previous Assistant Planner Henry said, Thank you. Baker had done. So we'll probably start there. But we're not sure if we're going to be able to get it done by October because we need to take Talk Your Week of Training and apparently it's very involved. So we're going to do that together this month. And so if we don't have anything for you in the October meeting, we'll definitely have something for you by the November meeting. And then some of the items that we discuss here tonight We can talk about whether we want that to be on talk Eureka or the web page We're creating or if we just want to put it on the city planning historic Eureka web page, so we'll get to that later But that's all the updates for that.

Good. Thank you any questions of staff All right, then we move on to new business Bruce you're up Thank you

I really don't have a lot to say about this. Just a couple of back-to-back pages. It has to do with Arizona and historic properties. The neighborhood home I've lived in or been associated with since 1993, thank you, is in a National Historic District. And the taxes are a half what would be normal for Tucson. In fact, they're exactly what our taxes are here in California, here in the property in Eureka. And the value of the home there is twice what the value of our home here is in Eureka. I've talked to Mary Ann McCullough about not this. I only brought this up because it was time to renew our SHPO agreement, which goes on for 15 years. Again, if you read the document, and I know you will regardless, So it was time to renew it, and I thought, oh, I'll bring this in and share it and try again with Mary Ann. She has gone numerous times around and tried to start historic districts within the city. And as we all know, there's a lot of hesitancy, a lot of pushback. What's it going to do for me? Well, it can do a lot of things for you. This is Arizona. But there are facade easements in California. Certainly, if you travel through downtown Sacramento, particularly around 15th and 16th, you'll see a lot of really nice older homes. There primarily were, I'm not sure they still are, but they were primarily owned by attorney groups who, because of the facade easements, because of the ability to hold the taxes to a minimum, took them over and redecorated them, brought them back up to their original glory, which is what Required in Arizona as well. We did an addition on our house and and it had to have the same parapet Roofline flat roof same windows. I just took the windows out of the Existing house that I was covering over and reinstalled them in the new rooms and into the back of it. So I'm not sure how to go any further. This is why I brought it here, to give Caitlin and others the opportunity to try and reach out. I'm happy to talk to Mary Ann again. If anybody has any questions, I'll try to answer them. As I mentioned, I was in the middle of cooking. I had to stop cooking. And I was making meatloaf. And my daughter always says, it's not your mama's meatloaf. I put things in that your mother would never think of putting into to the meatloaf But it always turns out good so any questions I'll be happy to answer and any comments that would like to be added and I

Yeah, thank you, Bruce, for bringing this up. I was able to review it, and I thought there were some interesting things about this Arizona program that I thought was interesting. They say only non-commercial properties are eligible, so I thought that was interesting. It has to be owner-occupied. We're in California under the Mills Act, so this is essentially the Arizona Mills Act program. California has the Mills Act. This has their, what is it called? The Arizona Property Tax Reduction Program. So yeah, I thought it was interesting that it had to be owner-occupied, where in California it doesn't. It can be renters. Also in Arizona, it's 15 years. In California, it's 10 years. I think, yeah, the savings in property taxes is about the same. I know Alex has gotten some feedback from Someone who got on the Mills Act a few years ago, and that's where we learned that their property taxes were cut in half So we're gonna try to maybe do an interview of that person For some quotes or maybe some feedback for our talk Eureka website as well to kind of build it up And we definitely want to take our materials from the Mills Act and try to make them more in plain English and user friendly so And also another thing that I noticed in this Arizona one is you had to be actually on the national register to even qualify for this Arizona property tax program, where in California, you just have to be on the local register. So are you thinking that maybe if the state of California could do something similar Yeah, it seems like it would have to be a state program, just like the Mills Act is a state program and allows local, state, and federal or national. So I'm not sure, yeah, if we could mimic something like this here without maybe the state buy-off, but we definitely can beef up advertising the Mills Act program, making it more plain English.

Well, there are other historic districts in Tucson. In fact, there's a lot of them. This happens to be a national historic district. So that's where the national status comes from.

Oh, so you're, yeah, because according to this handout that you had to be eligible, yeah, you had to be on the National Register as well as follow their minimum maintenance and restoration standards, which I thought that was really interesting, and I liked those ideas as well that they provided on the back page of your packet.

And it's not, most of the homes are not on the National Register at all. They're just in a National Historic District. And so they qualify as part of that. They're primarily from the 30s and 40s. And if they do extensive remodeling on their house, like a home a block and a half from us, it will be opted out because they didn't go through SHPO, they didn't go get a, we have a neighborhood review commission that decides whether they can stay in or not. So not every single property in this area, and it's large. 15 blocks, probably one way. Starts at 1st and goes to about 12th.

Okay. I think maybe not all the properties in the National District have to be listed maybe separately because it does say, I just wanted to point out clarification that eligibility does say that it needs to be listed. It says conditions listed in the National Historic.

It starts on 1st next to Speedway, if you're familiar with. Speedway is where they used to be able to drive five miles an hour and that was the fastest when they first went from horse and buggy and Tucson to Horseless carriages and that was the they had to figure out some speed to limit it so it's Speedway first second Hawthorne and which I tell people it's on the same street as the women's softball stadium. And many people know where the women's softball stadium is because Arizona, University of Arizona, women have won national championships quite a few times. And then it's Hawthorne and then 3rd. And 3rd has much larger and many homes on the national register. much larger properties and larger lots as well, a combination thereof. And their value is twice what my home is valued at. So it's very interesting to the whole activity.

Yeah, interesting. Thanks for the information. I got to learn something.

Let the record show that Commissioner Heerle has joined us. Welcome. Other questions of Bruce or comments?

Just thinking on that I saw yesterday in the news I guess there's a house that was built in Phoenix in 1902 so ten years before it became a state and Arizona State's trying to build a new medical center and they wanted to raise the home and because they want that block and the homeowner didn't budge and after 12,000 signatures and public cry back. Arizona State announced that they're withdrawing its court proceedings. So even though it was listed on the Phoenix Historical Register and everything, Arizona State still wanted to just demolish it and everything. And it's a beautiful 1902 Queen Anne and everything. And I don't know, if you go online and look at it, that's one of those things where historical properties are important because you don't want... As good as Arizona State is, I mean, that's my school and stuff, but as good as they are and everything, I mean, even they can want to take down historical things for progress or their need, their want.

And if we were looking for a local example, we could say the Nixon House. Among others.

Among others, yes.

Any other comments? Okay. Then, Jesse, you have a presentation.

So, as I was saying, like, at the last meeting, towards the end of last meeting, that I kind of went down a rabbit hole and started finding a bunch of different things regarding, like, wood windows and lead paint removal and everything. And Jessica was nice enough to... print out the book that I found as basically a PDF handout online regarding lead paint safety and actually step by step on how to remove it and there's excellent cross sections and diagrams and everything in this booklet that show you different home how different windows and surfaces can get deteriorated how they can be repaired save those wooden windows and everything and Bruce mentioned something when we were talking before we came on that at the back of the handout that you can actually find on the United on the US Department of Interior's National Park Service historic preservation pages that on the back there it says is like the last paragraph that basically you know they believe that the repair and weatherization of existing windows is more practical than most people realize and that there are other alternatives or techniques out there but Wooden windows that are repaired and properly maintained will have a greatly extended service lives and contributing to the historical character of the building and so I mean they really push to Try to preserve the wooden windows and I know that's a huge topic since I've been on the Commission that That's a huge topic with people with the window repair. So hopefully this could help out People and then maybe even on the website eventually or something. I mean the hyperlinks that I sent and everything, maybe those could be put up as well so people can view the information firsthand. And there was a law passed in 2019, the California Historical Tax Credit, SB 451. It's still active, but unfortunately, the applications are closed because the funds have been exhausted. Evidently, when it first passed, there was only a $50 million aggregate cap. So basically, in the last... seven years it's gone so it's already been exhausted um but it's still active but basically what it would do is that um it would give you a 20 tax credit on your home um you can get um there's an extra five percent bonus uh on there for certain things if it's um uh residential or um uh multi-family uh the use of the credit has to be income producing property or owner occupied there's different provisions on there and everything and I thought that was a cool idea I mean people are always looking to save on their tax bill and And there's other ways that you can save as well. There's stuff that I looked at where it talked about trying to partner with your local film commission or the California Film Commission and try to put your historic home on their list of properties for filming locations. And that could be a source of income. And have your property displayed. Yeah, I mean, I wrote down a bunch of stuff. I mean, I got my own notes and everything. I mean, I could be here for a half hour, but I don't want to do that. What you were talking about was Sacramento. If you go to the California Preservation Foundation website, there's a whole bunch of good resources on there and information. So that's another good thing. Yeah, there's, like I said, there's a bunch of different stuff. I created a little makeshift, like if we wanted to print out a, or I could print out a flyer for people, the public wanted something, I printed out like a little makeshift flyer. I mean, it can be Moved around, more info added. I mean, I could add a fourth page, so it could be, you know, tri-fold, or I think that's how it happened right now, is like a tri-fold.

Jesse, do you mind if I interrupt you really quickly? Sure. Sorry, through the chair. Sorry. You're talking now above and beyond the lead-based paint and the windows, right? Yes. Yeah, I'm kind of talking about it as like incentives in general.

Yeah, as like a whole with the with the lead paint, the lead paint removal.

Oh, to help fund it.

Yeah, there's different ways that people can get tax breaks. It can help get funded. But a lot of it, too, is just resources like a step by step guide with the booklet on lead paint safety and how to properly fix that, you know. the preservation of wooden windows, things like that. So, I mean, there's a ton of resources out there, and there's also a ton of monetary incentives and tax breaks. So I think that's always good for the public to know.

Yeah, I definitely I mean, if you want to send if you want to prepare that fact sheet and send it to us, we can put it on the next agenda and then we can review it and we can see whether we want to put it on our talk Eureka page or our or the historic Eureka web page. I think that's great. I mean, I would love to do little educational things at each meeting, especially when we have. sparse agendas. I wanted to kind of touch on my key takeaways of your lead paint safety guide. I thought it was interesting. I mean, the main point of this is that lead safe work does not automatically require removal or replacement of historic materials. And I think that's why you have this on here. So I think this would be a great resource for our website. And we should post it if you all want to post it. I think the guide just is a step-by-step guide on how to preserve the historic materials. So I thought that was really good. And then for the windows, what I thought was interesting is I did a search. We saw vinyl in there. And the only time they used vinyl was it could be a material used for the storm windows. So I thought that that was interesting. So I kind of wanted to point that out. And I also wanted to point out that we did get a CLG grant before I came on board. I think it was maybe like 2015. And so we do have about old wooden windows and the benefits of them. So I think maybe some of these handout that they can take maybe i'll leave some right here in front of the council chambers maybe when people come into council they can see it maybe i'll leave get one of these printed so we do have this it is on our website you know but like we've heard from some people they have a hard time getting our historic eureka website so that's why we're hoping to do the talk eureka with our other historic eureka website between the two we can get the information out and easily available

Yeah, there's also other things that I had found, different cities like Isleton and Riverside and Sausalito, cities like that. They have a certificate of appropriateness, and it's basically an official document that's issued by the local Historic Preservation Commission or Planning Department. And it basically acts like a specialized building permit where it certifies any proposed alterations, repairs, or additions to a designated historic property so that it can match the historical character of the building and meet local preservation guidelines. There's different links that I had found. They were talking about why a COA would be needed, and it has to do with exterior changes, additions and demolition. It's strictly for exterior focuses. It does not apply to interior remodeling or paint colors or routine minor maintenance. They talked about why commissions use them. It's to help prevent bad renovations, protect property values, and in most areas, in most historic districts, they're legally required. So, I mean, I don't know. I didn't see anything online on the city's website regarding something like that that would be handed out. Yeah.

Is that like a survey that you do already? And then the property goes to the commission. You guys approve like what the survey looks at that time, the contributing features?

Yeah, pretty much. There's a very detailed application online that they can fill out through the city of Sausalito, like on the city of Sausalito's website. There's a very detailed application online. So and I looked at it. I didn't print it out as an example, but yeah. There's other cities, too, where there's there's 12 certified local districts in the in California, and they're mostly in the Bay Area and in L.A. So Long Beach, Oakland, Pasadena, Pittsburgh. Redwood City, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Sausalito, and Stockton. And they have a description and a boundary map of those historic districts on the OHP Parks website. And they talk about that there's a downloadable list and that each one of those properties are eligible to receive a 20% historic tax credit. uh credit and like i said um i don't know if i didn't see anything that the city of eureka would have and i don't know if the if old town would even qualify for something like that so that could be something that could be looked for in the future and i'm sure that i'm sure a lot of business owners and everything would probably like that if it qualified

Yeah, no, certainly. If you could send me links to that research, I'd really appreciate it. Our wish list with CLG is to get a grant to kind of redo our Green Book survey and like dig down into more contributing features, you know, because our green book was the basis for our historic register and it doesn't have very much information in it. So someone like me, when I came on board at first, I'm like, oh, those are the contributing features in the green book. And then as I came before this body, I learned very quickly that, no, it's not just what's it's basic, you know, and you're the experts, you know what it looked like before. But I mean, I couldn't even visually see wooden gutters up there before. So I think it would be extremely helpful, but that all costs money, you know, and the effort that happened in the 70s was a huge effort that took years. So hopefully maybe with artificial intelligence coming through, we can at least get like a first pass through of maybe doing a street view, you know, Google Street View analysis and then having people go and confirm or something. But we want to get a CLG grants will help pay for that. So we definitely have that on our wish list for the future.

Other comments, questions?

I'll make a comment. If you haven't read through this little nice little book here, it would be great for if you were teaching a construction tech program or something like that. Or if you just want to walk around your house and say, why does this door stick? Go to page 37. And I'm saying this because I've been doing this for the last month and a half, going around and fixing doors, not here in Eureka, but in Chico, and a home that was built in probably 62 by a construction outfit called Hignall and Strange, a place where I used to shoot pheasants, hunt pheasants at least, even if I didn't shoot them. They turned into a housing track in the 60s. Without exception, there was not one door that worked correctly in it. And all you have to do is watch the hinges as you close the door, and when they move a tiny little bit, it means it's jamming against the stop. The stop should have been held back a 32nd or a 16th of an inch away from the door on that side. And it goes into great detail on it. It's just really interesting. I will say that you don't have to worry about driving a 3 16ths or a quarter inch dowel into screw holes if they're too big. I simply squirt glue in there and put toothpicks in it and then drive a new screw into that. We all have our techniques, but thank you very much for this book.

Also, too, if you want to know about, if you're not sure if there's lead paint in your house or the year, as long as you're the owner, you can always call the assessor's office, and you can, they'll obviously have to verify that you're the owner because they can't give out information unless you are the owner, but you can find out what year your home was built, and if it's before 78, obviously there's a good chance there's probably lead, but I believe at most hardware stores you can get a lead testing kit and it's like a little marker and you rub it on the paint and it turns a certain color. I think some of them turn like purple and it'll tell you like, oh yeah, it's positive for lead. And then obviously there's a whole different step in containment and companies that, you know, handle that type of removal process.

Other comments? In my experience, this is a vast overstatement. But in many cases, the simplest solution for lead in a house is a new coat of paint.

Can I speak to lead for a minute? Yeah, I have first Person hands-on experience with the lead issue I owned the house on 3rd Street 15 21 3rd that Carson's first home and It's had many makeovers and many paint coats and I did do those testing strips and tried to be diligent and And my daughter still was exposed to lead at 25 parts per million, which is far exceeds the normal five to the point where the county was called and she's had to have an IEP. So there are serious consequences when you maybe don't even know. And so I just, this to me, especially as a parent and a homeowner, is so important. And I don't know if there's a way, but it just seems that when I think about when I first started in this home and I was a designer but new to the area and didn't really know where to get the information, but I wanted the information and I paid consequences for not having it. It seems like there must be a way that this can be provided to realtors or to the kind of people that bridge the new homeowners and their historic homes in some way. Maybe this is a website that we can... share more with um realtors and people who are putting these homes into homeowners hands so that they at least know where to go because this here i mean you don't need money it just tells you what to do you know and it would be a great resource to just Like, you know, in Beetlejuice, when you get the guide to being dead, like this is part of the guide to owning a historic home and just due diligence and safety. And it's much more in depth than that lead notice that, you know, you get as a renter or when you purchase a home.

Yeah, certainly. I mean, this is why we're trying to add more resources to this Talk Eureka webpage, and then we can advertise that webpage to the Realtors Association. We did look at, and I thought I shared this at the last meeting, but I think you weren't here. We... looked into what the disclosures are when they sell historic properties and so it is on your title report when you're on the local register and because there was one recently being sold so it's there and then there's also a seller's disclosure form that they there's a bunch of questions and they check boxes yes or no and it was interesting because this property that was being sold recently someone that works for the city that's purchasing a historic home and I'm happy to report that they are very aware that they need to come to the commission for any changes and And they're committed to it. But the seller's disclosure form, you could see they had marked historic property and then erased it and then put no. So already the seller, I mean, they knew that they were on it. So we just thought that was a really interesting kind of thing that happened. So this was with the city attorney's office that we were working with them and got the examples. And so they didn't see a need for a new way to disclose through the real estate transaction process. Right. So then we were thinking about, okay, let's throw some forms in when they get their sewer lateral replaced. So we could do that, but we're going to run out of properties that need to replace their sewer lateral really quickly. And then the next one is now this form, when people are applying for a building permit, they must sign this form. affidavit form and we're gonna get into that at the next item that we have two examples of this form so for building permits they sign under penalty and perjury so then when someone like the starter II you know just completely ignores regulations like at least we have that signature they checked the boxes so we'll get into that at the next meeting

Well, my home wasn't on the historic registry. And so but it is a historic home. It was built in the 1800s. So I think that's one of the things is there's homes that are historic that aren't on the registry. And in this case, you know, I had to weigh, you know, is it worth putting it on the registry and what does it take? And I mean, there's just a lot of. things you face. And also, as time goes on, like you said, the Green Book was initiated a long time ago. And what historic is, is probably changing now. I mean, it's already 2026, and 1980 was almost 50 years ago. And so I think that revisiting what is a historic home here and getting a grant to do a new Green Book review would be a great first step. And then maybe you'd have mailing list you could mass educate the homeowners on that list or something you know i mean and i know that's kind of like big hopes and dreams planning but you know if there's any longevity in what we're doing you know yeah i mean it all definitely uh

You know, it's tied to grant funding. I mean, even just sending a postcard. I mean, what, do we have 1,000 people on the register and a postcard is at least 60 cents? I mean, you know, it gets quite expensive. But, you know, being a homeowner, yeah, you get thrown into all of these unknowns. So I know this is... I don't know to take it for what it's worth, but I believe like the Division of Environmental Health of the county, you know, if you did have questions about lead-based paint, they probably could have helped. But as far as like the city being responsible for letting people know that their home could have lead in it, I'm not sure if that would be our responsibility. I think that would be the property owner or the property owners as well as and through their disclosure process. But I can certainly look into it. Yeah.

To your point, Summer, maybe it's a good idea to add to the Talk Eureka webpage a certain tab specifically for real estate agents so that they have everything in one place.

Well, as a real estate agent, I can share with you what the state obligation is, what the licensee's obligation is. And the licensee's obligation is to make a diligent inquiry of the seller. So the agent is not required to go beyond what the seller knows or pretends to know. So the buyer relies and the agent relies on what the seller discloses. Most people don't think about lead. They don't know anything about lead. So that's not much. You're not going to get a whole lot of reliable information. So if there's been a lead test, that must be disclosed. If the seller knows that there's lead present on the property, they must know. But that's an affirmative knowledge. It doesn't require someone who lives in an 1850 house which almost certainly has lead. to disclose that it has led unless they have an affirmative knowledge. So that's point number one. Point number two is given the age of the housing stock in Eureka, it would be prudent to consider giving this booklet to everyone who applies for a permit to do anything because that's the point. at which most people are going to encounter the problem. Other comments?

It is, I agree with you on that, but having read these two, like Bruce just recently said, we've been around our house to, it was recently painted, to sand off and be able to close certain windows and a window that we thought was going to have to be completely replaced after reading this we realized we could there was work we could do on paint removal sanding that would make the the hardware is there but it would make the window functional again and But I do think the whole idea of having a central website is to aggregate all these resources. And it seems to me, even if you're not applying for a project, you need to be informed. So where do you get information from? And it would be ideal if when you buy the house, they hand you this thing and they say, you're going to need this information. But I think your website has a lot of potential.

Other comments or questions?

The California contractor's license requires that if you work on a house before 1978 that you've finished the federal EPA Renovate Right program training. And part of that obligation is that you're supposed to test for lead and asbestos to protect your workers. And also there's pamphlets you're supposed to hand to homeowners and renters if you're doing any kind of demolition more than six square feet on any surface in a house of that age Or if you're working on anything around windows or doors you have to test anyway So any contractor that hasn't completed the RRP certification shouldn't be working on a house before 1978. The fines for breaking the EPA's rules on renovate right are $37,000 a day. And so there should be some good motivation, but I don't know that the EPA has an enforcement wing in our community to motivate that.

That's good information. I'm going to ask our building official about that tomorrow.

Other comments? All right. One other observation. There's been talk about districts. I was a participant in a Eureka Heritage Society attempt to create a district. It was challenging. It is possible for the city to lead that process. The question is whether or not there is the political will to do it. and that is something that we could query the council about if you chose.

Sorry, are you talking about the Clark District when we tried to do, was that what it was called?

The Clark District was the only district the Heritage Society has attempted to propose.

Yeah, I do remember seeing how it got through the whole process, even the city council, but then it had to go to a vote of all the property owners, and it didn't pass with the property owners.

Yeah. Why didn't that pass? What was the general objection?

This is just me speaking, so it's my version of reality. But the easiest way to defeat an initiative is to create doubt. So the burden of proof to get people to support something is substantially higher. How is this going to affect my property rights? How is this going to affect how I live? And it's easy to generate concerns. about a government initiative and having increasing the government's role in your life and your neighborhood. So it was the simple answer is that the outreach program was insufficient to carry the day.

I lived in West Clark at the time that that went through and voted for it in an attempt to create the district. And what I could say about that neighborhood is that it's primarily renter occupied and that there's a disincentive for landlords to vote for something that restricts their property rights, even though it may be in the benefit of the city to preserve our historic character. YEAH, THOSE TWO THINGS KIND OF ARE AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER.

AND I COULD ARGUE AND PROVIDE DATA THAT BEING AN INSTARCTISTIC WILL INCREASE THE VALUE OF THOSE PROPERTIES. BUT AGAIN, THE ARGUMENT WAS NOT MADE WITH SUFFICIENT FORCE TO GET THEIR APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF SUPPORT. YES.

And it seems to me that we just really need to get some, you know, a junior college program again on how to maintain your historic property and repair windows. So I know we've reached out to, I believe it, correct me if I'm wrong, Alex, Derek Glavich, right? Yeah. So we've reached out to him saying, hey, we'd love to partner with you on some wooden window repair program. So that seed has been planted, but of course it's always about money. So we're going to keep watering that as we can but you know it's really important to me to get that program because I feel like if homeowners especially renters if we actually have those programs and young folks start learning it and actually can make some money and then maybe we'll actually have a lot of people into it it'll be easier to find someone to help you which right now it sounds like it's really hard to find qualified people to help you maintain your property okay anything else on this topic

To that point, some notes about that lead handout that you sent out. One thing that caught my eye was grant money. So I went down a rabbit hole and there's two grant programs, they're specific to lead hazard control. So maybe there is something similar to wood, but the two most eye-catching ones are the Lead Hazard Reduction Capacity Building Grant, which provides money to local agencies to build the infrastructure internally and actually fund local workforce development to get people trained up on lead removal. And on the planning end, develop these handouts for folks to actually understand the process and procedures for doing that. And then the other one is the lead hazard control grant program, which would provide money for, again, workforce development, but also provide money to specifically low income households and households that have children that are under six years old. So those would be the only eligible people to apply. But that would provide direct money to folks to get this work done. And then those two programs would work hand in hand. So we would do local workforce development and actually give the homeowners money to pay the new workforce development the only issue I saw with this is it does require cost sharing and matching on the local government level so maybe we would have to look at the actual grant requirements but maybe we can use another grant to match or at some point fundraise or something to match those grant but those are available and And from what I looked at quickly, there is going to be funding, at least in the budget, the California budget, up until 2027 and 2028. So there is maybe an opportunity there in the future.

Can the homeowner provide the match?

I don't know. That might be something to look into.

Because if the homeowner can, it becomes an easy sell. You want to do the fix-up, we'll match you $50, you know, 50 cents for every 50 cents you put out there.

Yeah, we'll have to look at the terms, but there's definitely something there, I think.

Good, good. I would encourage you to continue diving into rabbit holes.

Thanks.

Any other comments on this item?

There's a resource locally. I believe the RCAA has an XRP gun. It's an x-ray tool used to test painted items in place that tells you the percentage of lead paint. I'm not sure who it's available to. Not available to local contractors. You can hire material consultants like Zendar Brunel, who runs Brunel and Clark Consulting, and there's a handful of others that have the same tool. But for homeowners that are eligible through RCAA, there's a tool.

Great, thank you. And our senior planner, Lowell Hefner, used to work for RCAA, so I bet you I can ask him about it.

Yeah, those like little handheld XRF scanners, those things are kind of cool because they could test the ground too for non-ferrous metals and things like that. So they're kind of cool. Obviously there's huge machines and then there's little handheld ones.

Okay. Any other comments? You guys know a whole hell of a lot.

All right. I know just enough to be dangerous.

As do we as a group. Anything else on these reports we've had? Interesting discussion.

All right. Then the last item under new business is the property permit acknowledgement form.

This I believe was intended to avoid the people who didn't really understand the difference between like kind and well, I'm just fixing it up, aren't I? So present the forms to us, please.

Yeah, yeah, thank you. So Alex prepared the, let's see, I guess the first draft? No, the second draft. Okay, so she prepared the first draft after with our talks really just focusing on exterior alterations and providing detailed descriptions of what like for like means and then really kind of geared it towards contractors. And when I was reviewing it, it kind of gave me an idea where it's like maybe it's for all contractors building permits, regardless of its interior or exterior. So we put it on the website permit. It's part of the building permit application. They have to submit this form either way, if it's interior or exterior. So for the draft one, you see how there's, well, first you put in your information. There's the historic property acknowledgment. And then there's a check one. So no exterior work you're saying. You're just doing interior work. And then you certify that. And then now we have proof, literally just doing anything inside. than if they are doing exterior work. So they could do interior, exterior, click both. But if they just do the exterior one, then there's a definition of what like for like means, which I want to flush out with you guys. And then they would outline the features that they're changing in there. And so that would be a part of their application. And then when it comes to planning, planning could review it and confirm whether that's all correct. The other version of the draft too, which I'm sorry, Or maybe I have these mixed up. I'm sorry. I probably totally mixed them up. The other version is more detailed where it's asking you exactly what you're doing on the exterior, whether you think it's repair, replacement, restoration, rehabilitation, what you're going to work on, the windows, doors, siding. And then there's this description of work. And then the acknowledgment kind of has multiple ways of saying, you know, you're not going to change the historic materials. kind of want to get your feedback. I think maybe we might end up doing a combination of the two or really just kind of getting feedback from you on what you like and if there is one version you want to add something into the other or vice versa or you like one now or you want to change the definition of like for like I can read them on here if you haven't read them and then also something to think about moving forward is do you as a commission want to authorize all like we know redwood is very expensive and hard to come by we know you don't like pine it's a softwood it's not going to last long but it seems like cedar right would be the best fit so as a group would you guys be okay if wood meaning only you know either redwood or cedar you know that's something you can vote on or we can still take it you know play by play and if it is going from redwood to cedar we would come forward to you you know for that um yeah any any comments right now and feedback on these forms comments i have a question when i look on the computer here

Draft one, draft two were reversed.

I'm looking at draft one here.

Yeah, let me fix it.

I know you said something about that.

I think I fixed it up. I was trying to have pictures so it helped you understand better, but I did that right before the meeting. Okay, that should match up now.

Yes, it does.

Thank you. Sorry. I'm glad I was able to fix it. OK. It makes more sense now to me. Thank you very much. A couple of comments.

The first question in each form is essentially, is this exterior or interior?

Yeah, it looks like on the first draft, when I talked to Alex about how I got that idea, she added that as well. So the first option is asking if it's interior or exterior both, and then really kind of focus. The idea is to focus on the exterior stuff, but to also know if they're doing interior.

Understood. If I had no knowledge of what we think about here, and we're dealing with draft one, I would say I would check the two boxes. that even if it was all interior, I would fill out the rest. So that could be confusing. Yeah. Okay. Second point with regard to draft one, I have a decent idea how to differentiate repair, replacement, restoration, or rehabilitation.

And I know where you got those terms.

But the average person filling out this form is going to scratch their head and say, well, it's all of those things, isn't it?

I agree. Or what? Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's not really even needed. It could be taken out.

Yeah. Okay. In terms of the acknowledgment, I like the individual questions because it forces the applicant to think about each one of those individual items. Whereas the definition, it's all there. But this forces a little bit more thought into the process. Yep. Other comments?

I like how on the second one it immediately asks, you understand this is a historic property, and it's very clear and even bold, whereas in the other one it's just kind of lost underneath what kind of work is this. So, yeah, just making it clear. And I agree that certain terms are going to be lost. Like, like for like, most people don't even know what it is to begin with. Yeah.

Yeah, certainly. So we have a couple definitions. I mean, there was all the first version with all the acknowledgment boxes. And then in the second one, there is, for the purposes of the like-for-like statement, it says, like-for-like means the replacement or repaired feature will match the existing historic feature material configuration dimensions, profile, and appearance. A different material is not considered like-for-like merely because it has a similar appearance. So, I mean, this is what we're really kind of hoping with the feedback, or maybe you're thinking in the draft one, the acknowledgement with all those, with the one, two, three, four, five, the five boxes. I mean, that's essentially explaining what the like for like means.

Also, the definition is included at the top under important, but we can probably, instead of saying important, we can say definition of what like for like is.

Or we can switch it and have the historic property acknowledgement up there before the property information.

Yeah. Other comments? So we kind of like both, sort of.

So a little combination. OK. I think we can do some combining and reworking.

Yeah, I think this will help the applicant to understand if they have a willingness to understand.

OK, great. So we could take your feedback, create one version, and then I can bring it forward at the next meeting. If you're comfortable, we could start handing it out. But I think if you believe we have enough time to wait another month.

If you can use it informally, I believe it would help the applicant. Yep. And that's one of the purposes we're here.

So we can tell them this might be a form that we're going to get adopted. So here it is, the draft form right now.

Yeah, this will help you understand the process, where you have freedom of action and where you've got to seek permission from the commission.

And you might be able to see, like, get some user feedback from them, you know, as well. Excellent. Like a test form.

Yeah.

Okay.

I like that.

Thank you.

And then is there gauging the temperature? I mean, is there any desire to authorize a substitute wood for redwood?

I think it would depend upon the circumstance. Okay. For example... I have a 1956 house which has the rustic siding on it, redwood of course, because why would you put anything else on it? I did an addition. The addition has the rustic hardy plank board, boards. And they are indistinguishable from Redwood. And they're much less expensive. So that particular substitution, I would have no problem with. Dealing with window frames, the question may be more complex and other components. But as to your question, I think the discussion is worth having, although I will defer to my fellow commissioners.

I can escape this now.

At the risk of opening a really large conversation, what is it that we're trying to indicate with the preservation of the particular material? If it relates back to the carpentry skills, the carpentry used to create the building, I'm a huge fan of Hardy products. I've installed them on a lot of our modern projects. But it's absolutely one of those things you can't modify with modern job site tools to mimic siding when you don't have one that already matches your existing profile. And it is comprised of silica and Portland cement and paper, some of which are serious health products when you run them through a table saw. So we dealt with this material subject with our last review on the Pine Street project. I don't know if we want to rehash that whole thing, but there was hardy lap siding. There's hardy V rustic, which comes in the artisan line, which is thicker. There's a, I imagine there's a V rustic panel product as well. Yeah. Anyhow, there's, There's a lot of very specific details that make differences when you stack horizontal siding up. It doesn't always add up to the same exact height as the materials that we were using 140 years ago. And that really does change the visual characteristics of the exterior side of the house, especially when done poorly.

Yeah. The question is whether when you have something as dimensionally equivalent, in what circumstances would it be permitted, if at all?

I think what I'm understanding is kind of this not boilerplate, but maybe kind of a generic list. And from what I know about historic homes, I mean, part of what makes them so unique is their individual... characteristics and I don't know that you can have a boilerplate anything for these types of homes because they're just so specific to themselves which is why we exist and I think that while it may be helpful for homeowners to understand what may be like for like or comparable Coming here or seeking guidance is probably going to be more accurate than giving them a list that they take and misunderstand and find themselves here anyway.

Yeah. And I don't think we're asking for a list of a bunch of materials. It's literally like sometimes people come in and they have, you know, some old wooden siding that they need to repair or something. some wooden sashes or something they need to repair, but it's old, old, old, you know, Redwood deteriorating and they only want to do cedar. So I think that's what we're like, simple things like that. Not like literally just like if it's Redwood and you need to replace it, like for like cedar is authorized. Like, I think that's, Really, yeah. I don't know if there's any other wood that would be comparable. Now, if someone wants to do hardy planks, certainly they're coming in, you know, for your review. But I think we were really just looking for guidance on the specific replacing redwood.

comments yeah the the rot resistant characteristics and the milling characteristics of redwood old growth redwood in particular are just amazing but of course it's not available anymore cedar comes close in terms of its characteristics although it's not pattern is very different And pine is similar in grain structure and not characteristics to cedar, but it does not last in our environment. You can purchase pressure treated pine, which also doesn't last in our community. There is finger jointed cedar available. I don't know that I've seen finger jointed redwood boards available. And there's even a fire treated redwood finger jointed product out there that is available. The issue is that the more and more we get into second and third growth forests, we just have less and less rot resistance and more and more sapwood included. So even sapwood redwood is not rot resistant. And if you ever get into Home Depot south of here, you'll find redwood in their racks. And it's bright yellow. And it's all sapwood. And it's not rot resistant. So what is it that we're trying to indicate we're preserving with requiring wood in like for like?

Well, this is not an issue that's on our agenda officially, so it's not something we're going to discuss to the point of making any decision today. The question put to us by staff is whether we want to hear a presentation on the issue and perhaps give them some guidance.

Yes. I mean, if you adopted it, this form could also include not only the definition of like for like, but when we say materials, there could be a little asterisk that's like Planning Commission on this day authorized Cedar for replacement of Redwood or something. But we can talk about that another time.

Do you want to agendize a conversation on that topic?

I think that's an important topic for us to cover, yeah.

All right. And please, at your convenience. Anything more on the two permit acknowledgement forms? Then we move on to director's reports and communications. Anything further you want to share with us?

I don't think so, except we're in the thick of the housing element update. We hired senior planner Kelsey Flutterick. She used to work at the city of Arcata. We're really happy to have her. So her whole thing is just the housing element. So she did a presentation on outreach efforts regarding her tabling and the workshop that happened, the housing workshop at the Dorney Center. I watched it last night, the city council meeting. It's at the beginning of the council meeting, if anyone wants to watch it. Luckily... When they were trying to give this presentation at the council meeting before, it was at the end. So they got up to the presentations at the beginning. What I thought was interesting was some of the stats, statistics that she shared that at the workshop meeting, a majority of participants were homeowners. But then the majority of participants at her tabling at all the various events were renters. And then I also thought it was interesting that I think she's talked to, like, over 1,000 people. So I just think she's just doing a fabulous job with the outreach of the housing element. And then I think on the planning commission meeting next Wednesday at 5.30, they're doing a presentation to them. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact topic, but I can keep sharing with you what the next planning commission meeting will hold. But it's kind of exciting. So especially since the housing element is going to affect historic properties and the character of the uncertified districts, you know, that we have. So I believe they will be coming back to you, you know, probably sometime to present stuff. But just stay informed if you can on the updates. There's also a Talk Eureka webpage for the housing element already. But like I said, we learned that we have to go through some training with someone at the city before we can just dive right in. And it's kind of involved. So... And then I think I already told you last time, we do have an associate planner that started in mid-July. So that's very exciting. They're getting up to speed quickly. And we did get an application for some changes to the women's club. So we'll be bringing that forward in the next month or two. I think we just got it.

Yeah, but I'm going to try to swing it for your October meeting. So that should be before you.

So we do have stuff coming up on the agenda. Woo-hoo.

Good. Good.

Questions for staff? Do any of the commissioners have reports they want or information they wish to share with the commission? Sounds like no. All right. So we enter the public comment period. This is the point at which anybody in the real or virtual audience can address the commission on a matter within our jurisdiction. I don't see anybody on the virtual screen. I don't see anybody in the audience. So unless one of you guys wants to run down there and speak. All right. Then the public comment period is adjourned. Is there any other business before we adjourn? We stand adjourned. Thank you for your time and attention.

Yeah, thank you very much.