Heritage Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

It's my thing.

Would it be the ClickShare speaker? Yeah. Think so. ClickShare speaker. Yeah. That looks good. K.

And if nobody's on anything

Yeah. Away. Yeah. It is 6PM on Thursday, 02/27/2025. I'll call to order this meeting at the Heritage Preservation Commission to order. All members of the committee except Jim Gallagher are here in person in attendance. First, we need the approval of the 11/21/2024 meeting minute. You all would have received those by email? Yeah. Motion to approve by Eric.

Second. Second by Natalie Hennigan. Any discussion? No discussion. The motion on the floor is to approve. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And these are approved unanimously. First agenda on the item is an annual code of ethics policy.

This is 25Dash0045. The annual code of ethics policy must be agreed to annually. You see it linked in the attachments. I will need you all to raise your right arm and say that you if you have not reviewed the annual code of ethics, we'll do so immediately. Hey. Okay. So all those, please acknowledge that you have read or will read. Bye. Bye. Alright.

You. Alright. 250259, review of a certificate appropriateness for the building located at 529 Main Street. This is the building, the application building plans, and staff report. And I do not have the architect here at this point, but just give it over to Tim to overview the staff report.

Thank you. Sorry about that. So the applicant is requesting to reconstruct the front facade of their building at 529 Main Street, the Milwaukee Building. So by the basically, it's a reconstruction of the entire facade. So as you're looking at the left hand picture, this is why it's here now on the Newellke Building.

As you can see, it's product of urban renewal or some bad poor take to poor tasteful architectural choices and best owners. This is the picture that was with the nomination that came in when this was nominated originally from a picture from nineteen o two, and so you can kinda see all the architectural features that were there in the original storefront. And then this is a rendering of what it's proposed to go back to, which is pretty close to what this picture is here. It's nineteen o two book. It includes and if you look at the plans here, this is the plan that was put together by the architect.

I mean, it's essential, you know, recreation of new wood frame storefronts. It's removing all the ethos and recreating the corbel brickwork that's here. It's reopening the historic windows openings and installing the new limestone sills and headers. It's recreating the bay window. It's putting in the corbel windows that are

at the

top, and it's also recreating metal corners. The architect did state in their application that there is a lot of the original material that's that was missing. There is some the window openings and stuff are there, but much of the original material is missing, and they're gonna have to recreate

a lot of

They are gonna do the bay windows.

The bay window is gonna be part of it. Yes. Yep. Yeah. So it's right here. Recreate the Oreo window. It's up here, and then the bay window is getting done. And so, I mean, overall, all the things they wanna do and what they're putting it back to does meet the standards that we have in place for restoration and recreation. So, again, we follow those practices. In this case, it's not in a district. We typically utilize the segregated interiors at least as a basis for what we wanna do, and the intent is to keep material that they can't save that's underneath there, and then we create materials that are lost.

Just curiosity. Don't know that much about architecture, but are those windows, those bay windows, quote, Chicago's Chicago style windows?

No.

I don't think they are.

Yeah. They're earlier than that.

The best example of Chicago style across the door flare. Usually, you have sort of the larger windows on the bottom, and then they get kinda smaller, but more of them as you go up.

Mhmm. So I wouldn't say

this is Chicago. This is sort of just your typical vernacular commercial storefront.

Is the

yeah. Yeah.

Does the only replace replaced or

Oh, you mean?

They're what's there currently?

I don't know. I don't it's not on their plans to do this awning. And so I don't know if the awning is intended to go in at a later date. It's not on the plan. So at this point, I would say it's not So wallpaper's not gonna come

on top.

The what? Wallpaper's sign? Oh, no. Probably not. It's a nice touch. Yeah.

That was hand painted wallpaper that they did back then. There's only a few homes in La Crosse that still haven't.

So

I recommend approval of staff.

Thank you. Staff recommends approval based on our standards, and this is maybe the first certificate of appropriateness for some of you. But we'll learn all about best practices from Jason who's here with us tonight. So in order to approve this particular appropriateness, I do need a motion on the floor, and you can move just move to approve. Like to move to approve.

Motion to approve by Greg Clark, second by. Any questions for the debate comments? One quiz one quick question. If they did put a on a back on, that would have to come back before us for review because it would have to be approved by risk management.

The day when I'm putting on, I would say most likely it has to come back through this body. Yes. There are some instances where I have I have administrative approval. Mhmm. I don't think this would be one in my opinion because it's not it's not replacing one that's there. It's new, in my opinion, because if you look there now. And so I would say, there's the architect. What

what's the height of the windows for the new proposed location?

This one? The ground level ones. Yeah. These? Uh-huh. Mister Architect? About a 16 to 18 inch ball cap on those. Okay. So you probably won't have room to put an awning on those because you have the the the bay windows on top. Correct. So you don't intend to put the the awning back? No. We're going

back to the nineteen o two appearance.

Well, okay. So the motion on the floor is to approve. If there's no further discussion, then I'll ask for a vote. All those

I I would if anybody had any questions, I would just staff say, the architect's here, if there's any additional ones that we can answer.

There was a question earlier. Are those Chicago style windows?

I think it's just a typical Oreo window. So, I mean, if you're a Chicago style window, that's all one given head. Right? Because we have the faceted walls, it's technically not.

But there's a picture window on the side.

Yes. Are there any questions for the architect? Seeing no further discussion, then the vote on the floor is motion to approve. All those in favor, please say aye. Hi. Hi. That asked us unanimously. Thank you, Marcus, for your very lovely appearance. Sorry. It was so quick.

You're welcome to say, of course. So the next item on the agenda then is training from Jason Tisch, who is working with National Historical Society. You all you were on the commission over the last year. We've met him earlier last year. We're excited to have that. Thank you, Nathan. Absolutely.

You're guys. Favorite. Aw. Found your reasons and the positive. On this. The program rates, stock and urban landscape to work with. And you guys always challenge me because this is a presentation today developed specifically for this. And it's the kind of the first, what I call, advanced training for CLGs. So I appreciate you guys all pushing me to get this. And

and just a little background before Jason gets started. It's one of the when when I asked the training, he was asking, like, what topics do you

want us to focus on?

And it was at the time when the South Branch Library nomination was coming through, and it was challenged and appealed at the time by our mayors about feeling that it was an inadequate nomination to support criteria and things like before. And I think you, when it came to this vibe, there was some questions about that as well. And so one thing I had asked to them was, you know, I really think it'd be important, if you can, for us to have some sort of education on what makes a good nomination. What should we be looking for? How do we know, like, whatever documentation is provided is enough to support the criteria that we have?

And sort of give us some more background on to determine whether the nomination is good enough, whether that whether what they put together means the building is historically significant significant enough to warrant a designation by the spot. So that was kind of the enlarged impetus that I had asked him to do, and then we asked a few other things too, but that was the large one. So sorry to interrupt, Chase.

I just had a. But you you gave me so that Share my screen. Right?

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Yes.

Yes. As Tim said, I did get some some guidance guidance that that Tim outlined. So what I'm gonna talk about tonight is generally random that way. I what I passed out is some edits of your ordinance just so we're all on the same

page, like, pages. You all

have the same doc It's not editing the content. It's formatted so that we're all on the same page. So this is a outline of the topics that I'm gonna touch on. And if I get going and I don't pause for questions, stop me, raise your hand, interrupt me, whatever. Designation your designation process, your nomination form, which is actually quite good, and at least you have one that's more than.

Oops. But we'll talk about your criteria for eligibility. How often do you designate not how often, but have you all had experience going through that designation process? Is that a common muscle that you get to flex? Or

I feel like it when I first got

here four years ago, they

were just more common. There hasn't been a lot. I think the building might have been the last one. Beacon Middle School. Oh, Lincoln Middle School.

Oh, South Branch Library.

Oh, yeah. How could I forget those ones? Yeah.

That was also. Last two were appealed, but for different reasons.

Oh, see. They're

And that's common. A lot of a lot of the cities that I work with don't get bad don't get frequent opportunities to flex that muscle. So it's it's a I'm glad that I'm talking with you about it, and I'm glad that you asked about it. It's a really good thing to touch on. And it's and it's the it's the most subjective thing that you all do. Right? A lot of a lot of what you do is is pretty objective, but evaluating nominations for for designated buildings is really a subjective thing. I'll go over to making the case for eligibility. I took a look at a bunch of your nominations for existing.

I wanna.

And we'll look at some examples. And then finally, I'll I'll talk a little bit about and I'm not the expert. K? I'm not I I'm not the the know it all on this, but I do have a lot of experience in Madison mostly and with some other communities. So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna talk from my experience.

So starting out with a landmark designation process. I always kind of for the the designation process, I always say, is it? You know, what does your code say? Always go back to your code. Again, new new presentation. Yeah.

No worries. I was looking who has not been who has been for designation process. So K. So it was really recent then.

So you all have that that I'm really sorry. Should have gone through this.

Okay. So the landmark designation process is a two step process. Right? Yes.

It's is that what we're talking about? Like, what were you trying what was what

was your? Well, it's it's nothing. I guess I wanna talk about the power that the commission has. Mhmm. The you have the power to designate store properties and store sites and also to recommend designation of historic districts. Right? So you have the power of designation for individual sites and power of to recommend designation to historic districts. That's correct. Right? And then the the process there, know, you provide notice to

Provide notice to the property owner and the mayor, director of public works, the redevelopment authority, our parks department.

Provide notice, public hearing, notify all of the you're required to notify some departments, the mayor's office. And once designated, there's the notification process. So so those the section twenty fifty four are all of the the objective things that you do. Sorry. I gotta get in my groove here. You're good. You're good. The section twenty ninety is where you have your criteria for eligibility. I wanna spend a little bit of time on this criteria for eligibility. And I apologize if this is basic for you all, but it's it's it's good to talk about because, like I said, it's a really objective.

So your criteria one is something that might reflect broad cultural economic social district, state, nation. This is I'm just gonna go through your criteria and talk a little bit about

how how

we approach in the national in the state of store preservation office. How we approach these criteria. Now the difference is that we usually use them in the the context of the national register. You all are using them in the context of local designation, but they're very similar. How you think about these criteria is really similar.

So this the the first criteria is what I usually call the history criteria. It's used for just naming a building, a site where an important an important thing happened or or an or that illustrates an important pattern of history. Right? So for example, a building or a site where an important invention was developed. The site of the founding of the city is the founding of the community, workspace where important medical advancements were developed.

Kind of the the place where it happened. Right? Company headquarters of a widely adopted and influential technology. And we talk about the these places being associated with that history. Close association over time, kind of where it happened.

What we're not trying to get at with this criteria is kind of a passing or incidental association. So the George Washington select here phenomenon. Right? Just because it had a passing association with fame or with something important, an important person, that's not close enough association typically to warrant, that historic that important historic significance.

I have a question. Isn't there also an age, like, criterion embedded in this too? Assume.

Is it seventy years? Generally, it's 50, but it's not a hard and fast rule. Okay. 50 years is sort of the general, like, term for it to be considered. I mean, being 50 years of age old doesn't automatically make it historic. It just makes it more eligible for consideration.

Got it. Fifty years is the guideline for that. It's not a hard. And do you have an do you actually have an age requirement in your? I didn't see one. I think we do,

to be honest with you.

And is there a general kind of unspoken policy that you use? I tend to do the fifty years guideline. Because my

well, something came up south, you know, south side of it.

Oh, that was Yeah. That was fifty years. Oh, is

that fifty years? I

think people were arguing that the roof that was on top of it that was only, like, fifteen or something like that. And I think so that that was factored in. Okay.

Then we have a the second criteria is the important person criteria. And, again, this is a place that's associated with that important person and the work that they did. Generally, the place where that person did their important work, their office, their factory, their whatever it is, their city hall. That's what we usually look at for close association with the historic person. What that person did that was important and where they did that work.

So a studio and artist were place of a person who made innovations in their field. City hall usually for for a politician, for an important politician or mayor, it's it's the the the office, the city hall, where they do. Birthplaces and graves are kind of the last if that's the last remaining place that's associated with this person, then we can look at the the place of her grave. But you for the at least for the National Rudders program from which the should expect it that I'm that I'm talking from. If there are no other places associated with that person, their home, their workplace, then we can start to look at birthplaces or graves, their home or their their office.

Then we start to look at birthplaces and graves, but generally, they're not ideal for designating as as a place associated. Your third criteria is the architecture criteria, what I call the architecture. These are, you know, the obvious ones. The place of them body distinguishing characteristics of a style. A architectural type.

A method of construction is something that we look at. Engineering, so if it's an example good example of a type of engineering construction, We we typically look at that under architecture criteria. I mean, that's where you get, you know, the the high style examples. And we'll talk about how to how to evaluate whether it is is it a high style example? Is it the best example? Is it a mediocre example? And which of those are eligible to be designated? Yeah.

I'll just

find a high style example. I'm gonna get to that in a bit. But briefly, if you're talking about, say, the Prairie School style. Right? We have a lot of Prairie School buildings in Boston.

The way I usually think about it is the top 10. You take all of the Prairie School buildings in La Crosse. Well, let's say let's just say houses, residential buildings. Say there's, you know, 200 of them. The top 10% in terms of the ones that have the all the telltale signs of Prairie School style architecture.

Right? The the all of the characteristics that define that style, and you can apply that to any style, the food and international style. So I usually think of it as the top five or 10% of those examples. And then finally, your last criteria is the representative representative of notable work representative of the notable work of a master designer, builder, architect. I think this is the Frank Lloyd Wright.

You have some prominent architects in LaProsse, Parkinson, Dachendorf, I think. We're here. Sorry? Oliver. Yeah. Merman Merman and Yeah. Merman.

What's that? Personally, Bentley.

Bentley. Bentley and Merman. Yeah. So so in LaProsse, those those architecture firms were very accomplished. So for local history, you might think of those as master designers in process.

Designation process. This is a a graphic that I use with a lot of trainings, and I think that you may have seen this before by just outlining the designation process. You know, they first do a nomination, do all your notification, public hearing, get us evaluated, and then the final step is obviously designation and then notification of everyone that requires notification after it's designated. So getting into your nomination form, you it's good to see that you have an

outpatient form. I talked to a

lot of communities that don't even have a nominee. And I don't know what they accept for nominations, or if they single handedly just choose properties to designate. Sometimes that's how some commissions work that way. I encourage every CLG to have a nomination form. You guys do, and that's great.

And it's it asks for the right material. So first, that's the demographic info. We need to know the address, the owner, who's nominating it, what type of building it says, and then declare which criteria it's being nominated. You only need to meet one of the criteria. It gets complicated if you try to nominate a building under two criteria, and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

You ask for a description, history of the building, and citations, and those are really important. The description, maybe not so much, but the history, we'll talk about what that history needs to include. And then cite your your where you got the information. Yeah. If a nomination came in with zero citations and then that was just writing about the building and didn't have any citations about where they got the information, I would be really skeptical.

And if I were on a commission, I would be disinclined to support that nomination. So it's really important to have to request those citations in your in your nomination form. And then, of course, photos. Current and if

historic photos are

available, that's that's good to have too. Your ordinance doesn't specify who may nominate. I don't know if there's an unspoken policy on that. If anyone can nominate. Typically, you would allow anyone to nominate member of the public or you resident of the city to submit a nomination. I think it's sort

of that since it doesn't state who can, just means that anybody can. Okay. Good. And I let anybody say, if anybody can not hit go.

Okay. Good. Jason, if I put a mask, I don't need to interrupt either, but if you could at some point maybe address that was one issue we've been running into last year. And I fear that we'll run into it more and more and more as, like, some building owners decide to offload buildings instead of them, which is this issue of, like, is it okay to nominate a building building with it? So that we gotten to the hot seat last year twice. And then we healed our own building nomination. So there's some trickiness there.

Well, let's talk about that as long as we're since you brought it up.

So the first bit, so who may nominate anyone? And there are reasons for that. Right? And then what do we do when the building owner of the nominated property absolutely does not want that? Feels that it is sure I could pull up the legislation for, like, what building owners have said. I disagree with you nominating my building because you know I was gonna sell it, and now you've destroyed my plans and put financial burden on me.

Yep. You have the authority to designate over the objection. That's a requirement of CLG program. So because you're in CLG, that that has to be in your. It's not required by anything else. You could take that out. You probably lose your CLG certification.

There's there's a philosophical, like, reasoning, though, behind it. Right? Because that's pretty that's essentially part of whole process of not getting buildings. It's Right. It's it's like anybody should be able to do that. And so there's a philosophical understanding of why that is that way.

And you and you evaluate the eligibility of that building regardless of owner objection, regardless of any other thing. If it's nominated, you then are evaluating the significance of that building regardless of whatever else is happening around that building. That's the role of the agency. Right. Right?

You could amend your ordinance to to and a lot of cities have this where they do require owner support. There are a lot of CLG cities that that have that authority to designate over the objection of the owner, but the unspoken policy, it's not in the ordinance. It's not in in the code, but the unspoken policy is the HPC takes that into consideration, and they they will they they will avoid designating a property if the owner objects. So you you have the authority to do it, but you don't have to do it. Right?

You have to have CLG program. You have to have the tool in your toolbox. How you use that tool is completely up to you. Some commissions will go ahead with that designation. They'll designate over the objection of the owner, fully expecting that it will be appealed to council, and the council may overturn that. The council may uphold the designation. It's it really depends on the property. Yeah. Right? If it's if it's a property that is that important to the history of the community, sometimes the council that obviously depends on who's on the council too. Council can can uphold that designation. Yeah.

I think that that was a big part. You know, we knew very well that entering the Lincoln designation got it on our desk. Darn. Here we go.

Because you knew what was

gonna happen. We knew it was gonna happen, but we also knew as a commission that we needed to follow the process Yes. Based on our guidelines yet, obviously.

I mean, that yeah. I'm gonna get to this a bit later. That is that's your role as the HPC. That that's to do what you're empowered to do. You're part of the process. You're part of a bigger process, and you play your role in that process. It may not be popular.

It may not it may be

controversial, but you're playing that. You're you're doing your part. And I'll talk about that a bit later as well. So walking through the criteria again, just pull some examples from other cities. These are not across examples, but just to kind of talk through what what kinds of buildings are designated under these criteria.

And I'm using examples from other cities, but their eligibility criteria are substantially the same as yours. So I'm applying your criteria to other buildings, but with the logic codes. So this is this is a building in Hudson. It's the Opera Hall. And these were buildings I don't know if you have them in the cross, but these are buildings that were kind of social centers before you had Nickelodeon and theaters and and, like, Odd Fellows halls and books clubs and stuff like that.

So these were really these were early social halls, and they they represented civic pride in a lot of Wisconsin communities in the eighteen eighties and nineties, early early decades of a lot of towns. They brought the community together for programs, events, entertainment. So that these illustrate that pattern of history. Right? Where does a community get together and see presentations and entertainment. So it's that it's associated with that pattern of history.

The

the women's women's club in Milwaukee. A lot of cities had had these women's clubs. They're associated again with that broad pattern of women's history. Before 1920, these were places these were centers of power and education at a time when women couldn't exert that their vote. So so that you can see that that big pattern of history, know, women not having that that the power to vote and and finding place finding a a a place in an organization where they could exert vote out.

This is you may recognize this little white schoolhouse in Ripon. This building is is important for a single event that happened, not a pattern of history, a single event, and that is the meeting that led to the founding of the Republican Party, National Republican Party. So this this is a building that's that where a single event happens. So we talk about a pattern of history. We talk about single event that can also be association.

Your second criteria and an important person. This is the residence of Lloyd Barbie in Milwaukee. Lloyd Barbie was a college professor. He was elected to the state assembly for twelve years, He was very, very effective in civil rights advocacy, the sixties through 1980, sixties and seventies. And he was originator and lead attorney in the effort to integrate a lot of people in schools.

So this is the house where he lived when he was doing all that work. We might look at also city hall or another office if he had an office away from one office where he did all this work. That could also be associated with him as a foreign person. But in this case, his house was where he lived during that entire period of. So during his productive period.

Your architecture criteria. This is pretty clear. Everybody gets the architecture criteria. So a a good example of Queen Anne style, and this is in Stevens Point. So you've also got you've also got to remember that you're looking at these styles in their kind of in their physical context as So in Stevens Point, this Queen Anne style house rises to that top 10%.

In another city, it might not. In Milwaukee, this would not rise to that 10% because Milwaukee has a huge body of really high style Queen Anne houses. The one in the middle is a Mediterranean revival apartment building in Milwaukee, and this was designated it's on the National Restaurant. Believe it's also a local landmark. And then Prairie Schoolhouse, this one is in Kenosha.

So these are properties that embody those distinguishing characteristics of their style, and we'll talk about that a bit later as well. Couple other examples. This church on the left is in Menominee. And this one is this one was listed because of its excuse me. Because it uses an innovative engineering innovative engineering design in its roof.

It's the hyperbolic, rabiloid type roof made of reinforced concrete. At the time in the sixties, this type of roof was kind of an innovative thing that architects were doing, this is a significant example of that type of of engineering. And on the on the right, you've got a log cabin. This was a log cabin built by French Canadian settlers. So this is a unique French method of log construction.

So not a pretty building, not a high style building, but the engineering method of construction embodied in this house is rare in Wisconsin. This was built in 1837 by French Canadian Southerners, so it's kind of a

rare example.

Couple other examples of style or mythic construction. The grocery store Foles grocery store on the left is in Madison, and this is significant under under that architecture criteria and that under the architecture criteria for its engineering. It uses glue laminated arches for its support, and you can see the the front of the building. The house is you can't tell from this photo, but this house is constructed with stove wood. And if you're familiar with stove wood, it's it's a style of building a wall that that involves sections of wood laid stacked up like like a firewood.

So if you you take off the stucco off this wall, and you're gonna see the round ends of sections of wood. So it's wood stacked up to to create the wall. So it's a it's it's a interesting, unique, and kinda rare type of of building. And your criterion three can be used for archaeology sites. I'm curious how if you have archaeology sites designated under this criteria.

We don't have any we don't have any archaeological sites designated. The train company?

Pretty in the front, the burial area?

We don't have designated. They're they're nationally kind of recognized, and we they have to be any sort of we have an archaeological coordinates, so any sort of anybody doing any developments, less so geared to any assignments or kind of archaeological sites. But in terms of maybe locally,

Is there if you do designate archaeologists at archaeological sites, would you designate them in this criteria, or do you

have a separate

archaeology ordinance that that addresses archaeology states?

I have a second. We have another ordinance that addresses archaeology. I'm not quite sure it addresses designating them. So I that's a good question, honestly. It's never I've never been asked, it's or never come up in my twenty something years here. That. They have

a similar criteria, where it's the typically, it's the architecture criteria, but it also allows you to designate properties that embody a distinguishing method of construction. Effigy mounds are a unique method of construction. So some some cities use it that way. Indigenous materials or craftsmanship. Indigenous, in this case, doesn't refer to indigenous people.

It refers to indigenous local periods. But that could be you could apply that to effigy mounds. Oh. It's also inherently valuable for study of a period.

Second one.

Might be. There was always a lot of talk around here, though, that there was a lot of effigy mounds were actually just created to represent a different place. And, again, this is all just what I've heard.

I don't they don't if it's true. And the

fact too was we didn't really once designate a lot of actual burial sites because people didn't wanna know where they actually were because they're afraid people would start digging them. Yeah. And so, like, we can't even put all of that on our public website even though we have all that data from historical society. We have it sort of internally to let us know that, yeah, you have stuff here. Go talk to the City Valley Archaeology Center. And so I think we're very I would be very careful about wanting to designate anything anyway. I would really want to have a lot of conversations with the indigenous tribes that would be associated with that as well as the City Valley Archibaldum Center. So but it's never come up, to

be honest. I'm glad to hear you thinking thinking that way because that's that's the thinking on designating archaeological sites and mounds is has been shifting. And the tribes that we work with in Bay County typically don't want those designated because it draws attention to them. It tends to put them on somebody's map. Right?

So and so I guess the the the point here is that you could use criteria three to designate archaeological sites and mounds. There's also burial sites law, the state burial sites law that detect burial sites, and mounds are all considered burial sites for the purposes of that. Right?

Yeah. At Hixon House, we're considering we've had conversations with the W Wells architectural group of actually looking at the grounds for wells and things like that, there may be a chance to expose those. I that's obviously not indigenous, but, you know, it's already recognized, you know, historical significant merit. But just wondering out loud as far as is there anything else that we let's say we decided to dig up a segment of the well or something like that. We probably should get things reviewed to an ordinance standpoint or not. What do you think?

On the Yeah. I would also think just aside from being a historic landmark, what the implications are surrounding digging up a well. So it's outside of historic preservation. So, yeah, I mean, if when you're ready to have that conversation, I can get you in touch with the right people. Good.

And finally, if I could get the order,

then I did a little work now. Covered the local masters. Oh, these are actually Parkinson's and Dachendorf, and then we can permit examples here in that. And then the one on the right is built by Joseph.

Madison?

No. Here in Madison.

Say that sure looks like my friend's house.

Yeah. That's true. It's probably the master contract.

Okay. That's

He built the Rivoli and a bunch of the

other movie theaters. Okay. That's that's what I got from just digging around them. So this, though it's not the work of a master architect, it's the work of a master builder. So don't just think about architects under its criteria. Also think about builders. And we have in Madison, we have some similar houses. There were some I'm sure we're talking. There were some builders, stonemasons, carpenters who were considered masters in the work that they did. It's it's it's really, really fine work and and also recognize those property. Okay.

Just a a question. Curiosity. Did Schwabe do all four of those houses on Madison Street or not? She did more than one. No. They're all. I don't know if she they're all. Just thinking that

I don't remember. I'll know if that's actually where Schmaltby moved. Yeah.

And they came here to build rooms. Right.

Did all that research on the subset libraries.

I just wanna talk about what to look for and what to think about when you're evaluating evaluating properties for designation. What research documentation should be required? How deep, thorough should that nomination A nomination should include, again, which criteria you're nominating under, and then demographics of the building, the significant statement. The significant statement is is really important. It's the thesis statement that that you will then support with the rest of the nomination.

It's it's important under this criteria because of this. Then you're gonna spend the rest of the nomination or you should expect the rest of the nomination to be evidence supporting that significant state. And, again, if there's only one one criteria is is required, and, I saw looking at some of your nominations, I saw that there are sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes even all four criterion are checked. That really makes for a complicated nomination because you you're gonna need to support all four of those criteria. That's

a lot

of research, and that's a lot of writing to support all four criteria. Even two criteria gets gets kind of complicated. And the key to, really, the key to to writing a nomination and evaluating the nomination is to look at the building or the property in its historic context, not its physical context, not the physical location, physical surrounding, but its historic context. That it's really quick and easy to narrow down the historic context of the building just by thinking about what, what type of building it is. Right?

All

types

of buildings can be designated. If you're looking at a theater, for example, you're going to be looking as well, you should expect the nomination. I'm kind of talking from the perspective of a writer, but also from from your perspective of reviewing these these. Can narrow a you can narrow a building down to its historic context really quickly just by considering where what type of building it lives. And I highlighted theater because I thought we would just kind of walk through what what you would think about when evaluating a theater or its significance.

So you if you're nominating a theater or thinking about designating a theater building, you're gonna be thinking about things like the the development of film as a media for entertainment. When did film and video production technology developed to a where it could be readily used for entertainment? What other forms of entertainment existed in New York City for this theater this year. Is this an early theater? Is it a little Nickelodeon theater that existed within a larger commercial building?

Is it one of those atmospheric theaters that became that were popular in the twenties and thirties. It's a drive in theater. Yeah.

So you're saying if it you'd look at the historic aspect of something, build it up, go with that versus the architectural aspect. Because if you have a theater, it could be architectural. But you're saying that you do one or the other.

If it's if you're nominating a theater, again, it depends on which criteria you're nominating. If this is a fantastic piece of architecture, you might use your a criteria, your your architecture criteria. If you're nominating it because it's it served an important role in the development of your downtown or was an early Nickelodeon type theater Mhmm. Then you're looking at it as kind of a a property type. Right? You're looking at

So even if, like, the front elevation of the building is nothing. Right? It's the inter okay. So you have to figure out what.

Right. Okay. If you it's it's an architect, it's a piece of architecture, then you're looking at the physical design aspects of the building. Remember the stove would house important for its method of construction. You can't see that method of construction. It's a very simple house. You can't see that construction. So so you're looking at that property under

Historic.

Type of historic.

Yep. Okay. Thank you. Again, the theater. What what's the historic context of that theater? What was going on in the city? Where was theater technology at at that point? What type of theater is it? If it's a drive in theater, it's you can pretty much pretty clearly assume that it was built to sometime in 50 year city. A little Nickelodeon theater in in a

larger commercial building, probably built in

the nineteen twenties for teens. And then also, does it have the telltale features of that building type? If it's a if it was an atmospheric theater built in the twenties, and it has since been converted to something else. You know, the interior spaces have been chopped up into smaller type spaces. That interior space is a character defining feature of a theater.

Right? Big open room at the screen seats. If that if that if those features are not there anymore, that's a law that that's a loss of integrity. Right? And so so you all need to to evaluate whether that is still a good example of an atmosphere. Right? That's kind of where your subjective evaluation comes in.

That would be a good example here where the Ridley is always the musical theater. And the one on the North Side, which is called Riviera, had been chopped up in a bunch of places and no longer a theater. And so you're you're suggesting then if it was to become locally designated, you wouldn't really support it being designated as a theater. It would have to be it could be, but it has to be also than the other uses that came in and whether that's still historic. That way, that

would might just

be the architecture, because it's the one elevation, nothing on the inside of it.

Right. With that one, you might have to focus more on the architecture in order not the social aspect of it. Yeah.

A lot of times, those internal divisions of buildings, though, were used to maintain economic activity in a building. So can, like, continuation of commercial activity in a low income neighborhood be a piece of that history? If that's what you're nominated,

if you're thinking of how do you think about the building? If you're thinking about it as a theater, and it doesn't have those characteristics of a theater, then maybe we think about it as as something else, something else in its later life. Here's a good example. We're looking at a a building in Milwaukee right now that was built as a department store. It had in the nineteen sixties, it was chopped up for use as as one of these, like, neighborhood social services centers.

Right? So it doesn't quite have its its department store feel on the inside. Doesn't feel like a department store. It feels like a department store converted to

a social service office.

So now we're looking at it as a as for its role in social services in Milwaukee. So it can't be both? Can't be both. Why not?

Because I I mean, it's interesting, and I I know I'm just being picky now, but, like No. That's we think about preservation as, like, repurposing Lincoln Middle School into housing. Like, we we celebrate that and allowed that as, like, what should happen with this whole building and how it is now fitting a need in a community where there was a need and enough of a population to produce a school, and now there's a need and enough population to warrant housing. And that building can be used for both purposes. And in hopefully, in a hundred years, we're looking back, and we're saying, like, its era as housing was equally as important as the warns of its era as a school.

Yep. So I'm just trying to understand, like, there's there's no, like, recognizing those layers and changes over time. And that be like, to me, that would be an incredibly captivating nomination to say, like, this building evolved with the time and the neighborhood needs that surrounded it. Like yeah. And let's keep that going, you know, for the for the future. But just to understand, that can't be really captured in the current way the, like, denomination is going.

You do not really because what because you're looking at the history of that building. So let's just use the fifty year. Looking at what it was fifty years ago. It was a theater fifty years ago. Now it's converted to housing. Wait. In fifty years, we'll look back at that and say, that's a 100 year old theater that was converted to housing. So now we're looking at its housing history. And so then we're gonna look at the spaces that were created inside. It was divided up into or the rooms were converted to residences. So then we're gonna look at fifty years. We're gonna look at that as what it is now. That make sense? This

is just for the nomination. You're not actually like, when we get into it, you're gonna do something to it. You still have to pick a period of restoration, which is completely separate

from the patient process. So if

you wanted to take it back to a department store after it's nominated, you have to argue because that was part of its

history. But that's not that doesn't concern

the nomination part. That's the restoration or rehabilitate part.

So, yeah, that's why the fifty years is good. So in your example, you'd have to wait fifty years if it became But a lot

of things did change, like, seventy years ago. You know? Like, we've got 150 year old buildings that evolved seventy years ago.

Right. Then If somebody came in and said, I wanna make this historic, you have to look at the history, and it goes back to the seventy years. Mhmm. And that's what it goes to. If you wanna whatever the industry or business that's in it now, you have to wait till it gets to that criteria,

and then you're gonna encapsulate it on that. I understand. Yeah. So Natalie's point is I I was thinking about

what you're asking if I get this wrong. I have this neighborhood. There's a lot of buildings here in La Crosse that are still there's, like, neighborhood commercial buildings. And so if, like, originally, it was built and it was butcher, And then over the years, so that use has changed to Andy Store, Tax Place. I don't know what it is.

There's some commercial entity that's that's as maintained in there for a over the long period of years. And then, you know, we would like to nominate it based on maybe its history in this neighborhood serving as a economic commercial building. You're not really doing that on the business. You're looking at the fact that it's been a long term commercial neighborhood building in this neighborhood.

Yeah.

I think maybe that may be more close to your example.

Yeah. Yeah.

So in that case, it's always been a commercial use. Yes. As a commercial building to serve some commerce that happened in that if I'm hearing you right, that that commerce has changed over time, candy store, attorney Yeah. A upholstery shop.

Yeah.

Whatever. It's it's still serving you within that bigger within that bigger category of commercial use. Right? Like, piece of worship was if it was built as a synagogue in nineteen twenties, and it was some subsequently sold to a Christian denomination that used as a Christian church for a while. It's still that still within that same use of religion as a house of worship. Okay.

But it's up to the nominator, though, then to make that argument or that focus. Right? Yes. Yep. To do that, to show that it is. Okay.

What are we looking at? Are we looking at a theater, or are we looking at a theater that was Cooper dowsing? Right? We're looking at a theater, it has to have its theater nets. We're looking at a theater converted to housing, we're looking at character that characteristics of housing, the characteristics of a theater for the housing.

So in the case of Lincoln Middle School, the real focus to me for that one should have been architect, maybe the architecture. Not that it was used as a school even though it had a long history on that side of being a school, The real focus for Lincoln would have been architect and perhaps architecture at this time, in my opinion. It'd be much easier and to to defend, argue for, and make a

case for it. I'm not from the building. Yeah. School.

It's middle school. It's a huge Yale class for middle school.

Yeah. And you're also discussing interior versus exterior here. So, like, when we get nominations for the school, like, we're not actually, like, going and touring the interior of the building to understand the interior integrity of the school. Like, what do

we do with that inside?

And so and when we're receiving then certificates of appropriateness, we're only assessing the appropriateness of exterior changes. So

We're only protecting the exterior. Right.

That's why it's a little different between the National Register and. In the National Register program, we can look inside a little bit because, like, in the case of the theater, you've gotta have the legal theater. But on a local level, you have more flexibility, and you're only looking at the exterior.

Yeah. So we have had nominations. Think it's outside library even. It might have been one of your point in that. Natalie, in the first step of the two step process, nomination came before us. We reviewed it, and most of the commission was fine with making it go forward, but Natalie hadn't got to speak to this better, wanted to see more development on the reasoning and the narrative

In the

in the nomination.

Do you like to do case?

There was a disconnect between the the way the nominator spoke about the building in terms of its social history and what the content of the nomination focused on, which was its architecture. And I didn't I was really compelled by the social history of it and the strong community outpouring. And I know maybe we're supposed to, like, ignore some of that. But, like, the to me, the architecture argument didn't quite reach a level of exceptionality for me. So it was in a case where all four boxes were checked or all three, like many were checked, right? Social and architectural. And I didn't see that that really was fully fleshed out in the I

actually think that if we had referred it and asked them to flesh that out more, we wouldn't have had a struggle I agree. With the issue. So I think that that was an instance. I also think there was an interesting part of that, which was the nominator of the building was a former commission member. So it was difficult for us who had very close connections to refute anything that this former commissioner would have said because he is definitely highly regarded, someone you would not agree with.

So there was you know, that's a thing in a small community. Right? And I do think that if we would have, you know, done what you had mentioned, that it would have helped us out.

On that point, you do want to hold nominations to a relatively standard. You do want them to make a case Yeah. Because you never know when a lawsuit Right. That the owner of the bank wants to to sue the city for accepting a nomination that doesn't make sufficient argument based on

So I think that we all learned a a big lesson with the last two nominations. Like, in middle, it was nominated after they had let the community know they were going to sell it. So it was hot.

At that point, it's reactionary.

It was reactionary. So it gave preservation a black eye. And then with the Southside Library, designation was another reactionary nomination. So as a community, we are trickling around the edges of reactionary nominations. And then luckily, the city owned the building that was appealed, so we had to sue ourselves. We didn't like that. But if you read the mayor's memo about the Library appeal, our own mayor appealed the designation. Pretty hard to disagree.

We get a lot of great points. You want And the quality of the nomination, which is a big large impetus for this.

Yeah. You really wanna you really wanna make sure that that those nominations make a case.

I think moving forward, we all can, like, really just take what Jason is is teaching us and really make sure that we pull them to higher regards, which can be really difficult to ask the nominator to do more when you know the nominator. And

And they're not professional coaches. They don't do this on a regular basis. So to follow-up on

that, I've been doing this for twenty two years now. And when I started, staffing this commission was spread out over three different departments. So when I started it all, all the data planning, I took that over to all staff. And so when I inherited all the records, all the past nominations records, There was buildings that were nominated with nothing. There was buildings that were nominated with four sentences. There was very little there was so I was trying very much to build up a much sort of I hate the right word, but give, like, preservation some sort of, like, recognition or respect. I think respect was a big thing. Right? Yes. And Confidence.

What I had also seen was going on was anybody who wanted to nominate the property was approved because they were afraid that they wanted to dominate as much as they could under very little information. They were afraid that if if they tried to get more documentation information out of them, they just the the property owners would be like, give up, and it would never be designated. And so I think it was just sort of that That's better option. Right. But as as we have I feel like I've built this program up from when I started to much more, getting respect for the most part, and some more teeth because we didn't always have some of the powers that we have now, I have always thought, at what point do we do have old nominations to a higher standard and not be afraid to turn somebody away by not thinking it's historic enough, or they didn't do a good enough job on the nomination.

And I think that's that's that's sort of what I've always feared is that, like, people might be too afraid to to not designate stuff. It's too much work or something.

Don't know.

So that's that's the challenge that I have seen coming up and coming to me.

I think it will keep coming because we have organizations or public schools that inevitably will have to offload buildings. So I think this is going to be coming up. So I think the time is now to make sure that we're holding them in high regard because we'll have to deal with this. And there are situations where, like, the Riverside Park, the nomination I read, it was, like, three or four sentences. Like and so when we or the Bubblers, like, are they even nominated? Because now we have things that just disappear, and you can't you go back to the nomination to see why they're nominated, and there's nothing. Like, there's nothing that well, I guess you can do that because it wasn't really the nomination.

I I have some information. Absolutely. Can look through that. Probably something over one.

Yeah. Let's do it.

I was gonna go back

too quickly where National Register has the questionnaire process. So you have to fill that out before a nomination. If you would have something like that, somebody fills it out. Yes. We think there's enough here where it would be worthwhile for you to do it. And they're not turning them away saying, oh, yeah. You know? They're not they're not gonna get the wrong message there.

A great idea because it's also like, I'm also, like, doing these nominations as, like, to the degree that we've even seen in recent years and to the degree we're expecting, takes an extreme amount of time, resources, privilege, and, like, access to do those things. And, like, I've done that. Like, and I have a master's degree in this, like, and it's really hard. It's a lot of time. And that's also, like, and sometimes used to, like, kind of used as leverage when we're considering a nomination. Here's how many hours I spent working on this. Like, you know? That's I I thank you for your time and service to this. But, like and so there there's a there's a balance there that I don't do things to be straight, and I do like that. Like Yeah.

Like, here's a quick, like, pre eligibility thing. Like and and we'll work with you to make sure

would be our recommendation.

Exactly. So don't Yeah. Spend gobs of hours and time and, like, train yourself how to use the ARC. I mean, like, really, who who actually has the resources and knowledge to do these in our community? There's a handful of people. You're not gonna

have to look right here. That's why we get, you know, similar nominators. Right? And so that was the argument to Natalie's comments that she would like more, and the nominator said, I'm kind of offended. Yeah. And if you don't accept this Yes. Screw it. Right. So we wanna avoid that.

To me, it's like, you should make your case on a page. Like, you should I mean, like, not four sentences, but, like, it should be a tight, strong, concise, focused argument.

Yeah. There's checklists out there. I have clients Yeah. That wanna get their homes. I'm like, you have to make sure. Do you want it do you want it really strict where everything has to get approved, or do you want it just at the placard

so it looks cool?

At the local level, you have you have a lot more flexibility. Yeah. Certainly do not need to and should not demand national registry level. That's a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So you have you have you have to strike that balance. And how you do that, you know, is a little bit but I do like the the idea of prescreening, you know, where you require a nominator to come to any other commission meeting, say, this is why you look at the basic research and say, some guidance. I think this really rises to that level. I don't know of any other cities that do that.

Galena has it.

Galena? QR code at the bottom. It looks you to a two minute YouTube video on this is what makes a strong application. Video is king, folks. Come on. I'm pretty technologically savvy.

It can be handled. We know exactly how to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. I will throw out that as a CLG, you can get that funding to do both. So there's there's that process. It might have. Personal properties, but that's how they. I wanna go back to something because he said about

Called out. School district asked us to rewrite.

Did you? So so did you get a nomination for this book?

Yes. Oh, yeah. And it got designated.

Legally obligated to review that. That's right. Review that. Right? And so that's where you, the experts, have to look at that nomination, and you can't weigh the development potential of that Right. Of that property. That's not your. Legally defined job is to review the nomination. Does it meet the criteria? Does it make the case? Yes. Move it on. No. Don't.

Well, going back to that Lincoln School, so are there any statutes that say that if a property sells and then boom, then they wanna make it, is there a time frame? Like, if if it's going up for sale, the owner should have had it done this much time ahead of time or after? Okay. Can that be added? Can we do it on a local level? So if something gets sold and then somebody's like, thirty days later, I wanna designate this, you say, too bad. It had to be either ninety days prior or nine you know, you have to wait.

Why would you why would you want us to prevent somebody from donating them afterwards?

Well, that's what happened with Lincoln. But I think maybe two trends sold.

They hadn't sold it yet. They oh, okay. They were worried about the designation.

Hindering a sale.

Hindering, like like, in deterring people from being interested in purchasing it because it now had that designation on. That's what they were afraid. Okay.

So you gotta see how people are leveraging that.

And they

all sold for more money than they thought they got. Right.

And that goes back to the philosophy behind this whole thing, right, is that we don't want it to be up to the owner whether or not they just demolish something that is historic. That's a good for that reason.

And extending extending further about what you said earlier. If you get a nomination, you're obligated you're legally obligated to review that. Yeah. By the criteria, you can't do is say, we're not gonna review this because there's a potential Right. Development or or the owners wants to. You have to you got you got a nomination. You have to review the nomination. If it meets the criteria and it makes a good argument, you have to your job is to move forward in process. Thankfully,

Tim being the stoic, calm, follow the process guys, You know, I think a lot of us were like, oh god. We're getting heat. We're we are knowingly walking the fire. And so what we would have what I would say as the council member being interviewed is, if this item comes before this body, we are required to, you know, make a decision based on the merits of the application, and it's up to the council to do what they want on

the The black eye should be the the black eye and and this is public part of public opinion

Yeah.

So that they can interpret things as they see. Yeah. In my mind, the black eye is on the person who nominated it in advance of in order to prevent a development project or to derail something that doesn't have anything to do with a historic historic significance step.

Yeah. Well

That is a problem.

Might have kind of encouraged that nomination at the last minute because, like, the National Trust for Historic Places, we did a most endangered list that was on there.

And we did a press conference, and we're like, by the way, anybody can nominate. Just saying. You're bringing back Here's the

other the other kind of winky wrench into this. What a lesson. Is that some of these past nominations from perception or my perspective is that they're trying to do it to keep it for the use that they wanna keep it as, not because of the historical. Like, I believe some people are like, oh, we wanna keep Lincoln Middle School designated. They feel like that's something they get kept as a school, which isn't true. Right. We had someone designate one of our pools, houses next to a pool because they're like, we don't wanna lose our pool. I'm like, that wasn't gonna keep it from being in the pool.

Yeah.

Like, we want Sorry. Somebody, I think, honestly, too, was trying there was talk, and I don't think it was the end result. There was talk that, oh, well, we got the state of the library. It was kept at the library. It's like, that's not the case. And so I do think we're getting those nominations kind of from that coming from that

sort of because they're seeing a approach. There's actually a tool to have a say.

And that's that's happens a lot. It happens a lot. Yeah. I see it all the time where it's it's it's a tool, and they use it something else. It's you're you're finding a wrench, and you're trying to hammer the nail on. That happens a lot. It's tricky for HPC because you're obligated to review it. And if it actually does make the case, I'll get it to someone. And and that's where developing a high bar to nominations is really is really important. Some of the nominations I looked at, some of the old nominations, that that was they they met a pretty low bar.

I don't think that I don't think you would have reviewed them the same as they did back in the eighties.

So, like, some of them just had the checks, like, as you see on the screen. Right? Like, some them didn't have narratives. Yeah.

This one did have a narrative, but it it doesn't make a great case. It says it's a house, so one of less than 2 2,500 manufactured by a corporation formed by this by Carl Strandberg.

Is that plastic bug?

It's the This is this one is a good example, I think.

There's three of them in LaProsse.

Agree. There's Okay.

There's at least five.

There's one for sale at both. Yeah. This

might be a good example then if you're saying it was a poor nomination Mhmm. Where we all know it's a Lustron house and that, oh, go ahead. We gotta preserve our Lustron houses. We should just designate it. But maybe not necessarily there's the documentation sort of that really is put together to illustrate that. And the idea of saying, oh, we'll we'll let that maybe slide because it's a less strong house. Right. You know what I mean? It was just really slightly Yeah. Because we just want a

less strong really wanna hurry up to

get that Yeah. Right. Right. I mean, so maybe this is a good example of something like that where, yes, you we know it's less drawn. It should be designated. But if we don't feel the nomination is good, kind of put some more work to it.

And as people that are into historic preservation and think it's important to save the buildings, like, doesn't that really put us between a rock and a hard place? Because a lot of people don't think about these buildings until they are in danger. And say it's a great building like the Truss Point Building that's near Riverside, and we found out, oh, someone wants to tear that down and build condos there. Like and, you know, it's a lot of work to do with destination. And and you and you want you want Very good. Did you hear that? Really? I'm just picking Okay.

You didn't get that

either. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. Or the Higgson House. You know? You wanna save the building. And and it's if and you know, like, if you make it really hard, like, no one's gonna wanna nominate it. And then your city becomes poorer because you don't have and then people are able to tear things like that down, and your Yeah.

Your city loses its you have perfect insight, right, which you can't possibly have. There's always gonna be some level of reaction. There's always gonna be examples of of reaction, reaction.

There's programs right now. Rita has one that for restoring Main Street, that if you have the old buildings in Downtown La Crosse, the owners can get renovation money to fix up the 2nd And 3rd Floor if it's good, But it has to the exterior has to stay the same, you know, that if they wanna restore it

and have it how the age of

the building is on the interior. And I have a friend that's doing a B

and B that did that. So yeah. I'm just saying that I would say that it's a great piece of architecture. Say someone wanted to tear down the Frank Lloyd Wright falling water. Oh, I'm sorry. This nomination wasn't very good. I guess we're gonna have to reject it. Tear it down. That hurts.

It's a good point. Good. You know? Don't have great advice for that. Gonna be reacting in some cases. Yeah. And and then you gotta have a high standard for documentation.

Yeah. The checklist might help to

Yeah. Like I like that idea. I wanna explore that in my brain a little bit more. I

think there might be something. I I'll have to check that Wisconsin realtor. I think there I think there's, like, a sheet they

have. Okay.

And then, like, Marcus said too, I kinda see what

Yeah.

The questionnaire step one questionnaire is for that. Yeah.

Because I mean, we did that one for the fire station.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Alright. In the interest of time, sorry. Yeah. Good discussions, though.

We can even stick to some of these examples, but it's not on this nomination, the preparer stated that it meets criteria criterion c and d, but makes no no argument for this. That's it.

That's that's what

you that's it. And no no no argument for why it meets criterion c or even what character defining features are.

I know.

It's another house looks like. Numbers. Yeah.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Has it

as a b Airbnb or a bedbark.

I left them this one too. And this is when they when they reviewed it, whoever reviewed it, actually rejected one of the criteria.

Said Said no.

This under the criterion two.

That's my handwriting. Think this Oh, no. Because because I did that based off of what the decision of preservation commission comes.

Oh, I see there.

So when they nominated, they said no for this one and yes for that one. That's why I wrote that.

I like the other story better.

So this one makes a better case. You know, they argue that it embodies the characteristics and that it was associated with an important person. They do talk about Queen Anne style and, you know, the characteristics, character defining features of Queen Anne style. So that's pretty good. A whole almost a whole page of description. Great. It's an important example. And then they go on to make the case of that associated with an important person, and they make that case pretty well. For a couple of pages too. So examples of of quick nomination.

Oh, this this one was nominated in the with the expectation that it would be restored. Yeah. So down in yellow. Should mister Van whatever successfully completes his purpose of restoring the house, then it will meet the criteria. Oh, my. That that's that would lose a lawsuit. And And also And are you gonna designate a property before it's even restored? That's that's putting a lot of faith in the person restoring it, and maybe they're worthy of that faith. But to designate it before

Yeah. I'd say no. It's okay. People that have done that with Yeah. Getting, you know, money from cooling cap or they said, get the FHA loan. We're gonna get this done, and

it doesn't work out. So no.

That's really risky, doesn't it? So it's the NSP building who were required to take metal slip cover off before turning in the nomination, and I don't know if any of them around the commission. It's a very interesting nomination.

Yeah. Later, the paint is still in process of. And these last few slides, I I just kind of these are kind of my rules, guidance for reviewing nominations. You know, always refer your ordinance. That's your legal basis. You have to abide by your ordinance. So you can't take liberty. You can't deviate from the powers that you're given in the ordinance. But hold the same standard for all nominations. Be uniquely hard on one and soft on inconsistent.

Inconsistency the reputation for that black eye on a single.

Yes. That's that's my problem. That's we have such an inconsistent we've been inconsistent, and I've been trying to make it better.

But And that erodes the public's confidence in what you do.

Right. Which, again, you know, if someone appeals it, worry about this black eye thing. But if we have a good nomination that we can stand behind during the appeal process Right. This is then fine.

No. And don't make decisions that don't want to be precedents. As whether or not you consider it a precedent, others will argue that it was a precedent. If you are soft on one review or or nomination, the next person can come and say, well, you said you this about this nomination. Why can't I get that same standard, that same treatment, that same race?

Make defensible decisions. Always expect to be appealed. Right? Or sue. You know? Make sure that that that your decision is defensible by your. And, again, some of it is subjective. Your interpretation of the criteria and standards is subjective, but be ready to defend that decision. And, I mean, that's

that is a that's what you lay on the table from the standpoint of us doing our job if you're talking to somebody who's, you know, nominating or considering nominating. We have to do we have to have this kind of criteria in place because this is what we were responsible in account for possible appeals.

Yeah. That's strong. So inconsistency. Two criteria. Your HP your your your authority is limited by what's in check. Always be referring back to check. Look at the language as you're reviewing nomination or or alteration. Always paying attention. Always come back to your words. Don't act on authority that you don't have.

I've seen HPCs make decisions based on a development so that they they're always coming, And that that's really dangerous territory for me to see. You you're not authorized to weigh in on the potential impact of a development proposal on a historic property. You're authorized to determine whether that property is significant, whether the the nomination makes the case. You actually you have you guys have to weigh in on demo. Right? The work that allows you to

Well, permits on locally designated buildings. Yes. They need a certificate of appropriateness.

That's where this development ask for it to end. But it's a few people seem to demolish. We actually

have criteria in our code too to view those. Yeah.

So that's good. So a question thinking back particularly to casino. When you have a fire or substantial loss, I know there was a lot of fighting between the, community risk management departments and preservation commission. So where does that stand right now? They can overrule preservation commission on denying a demo permit for substantial damage, or how is that set on rent?

The language in our code is it is a threat to health, safety, and welfare. So for instance, if, like, it's in danger of falling down or you know? And I don't know I don't know if there's a more criteria than that or if it's it's just if it's considered a health threat. Health and safety health, safety, and welfare. I think, like, if some car hits it and it's, like, structurally damaged and, like, it needs to come down for fear of falling over on the public, that's when they can step in and override a demo permit. If there's some ratio of fire damage to nonfire damage, I don't know what that I don't know how that fits in.

I think that needs to

be better defined the ordinance because health, safety, welfare is rather loose term. Yeah. It says It's a very

It's section 20 dash 24. Nothing contained in this article shall prohibit the demolition of any store structure, any improvement on its store site pursuant to order of any government agency or pursuant to any court judgment for the purpose of emergency conditions to term dangerous to life, health, and property. In such cases, no approval from the commission shall do.

If there's better language out there that some other code has, I'd be willing to look at it. Not all codes have that. It's kinda still broad, though. Right?

Because I had to write a letter for that building to stay on. It was another another person went in there, professional, and said, yeah. It should come down. It's

an opinion. Right. Right.

There needs to be more measurable criteria Yes. To help determine what that is. And if there's language out there that would do that, then I'd be willing to, like, look at it and obtain it. Protection's under our department now.

And fire name?

Nope. Fire name. Dave's man.

So Play your play your part. I'm not sure if you have We've mentioned this already tonight, but you are HPC is part of the process. There are other commissions and the council that weigh in on stuff. You play a small part. Your part is to recognize designations, recognize significance, new alterations.

But stick to your role. Stick to your I was that you are the authority that you have. Look it out over your skis and and do things based on what could happen or what's proposed or the process designated way from these factors.

Pick your battles.

Sometimes you sometimes you're willing to pick your battles. I've seen the HBCs that that wanna make this issue developing. It's it's, like, most important building in the city, and this is they're gonna dig in their. If you do that, recognize that you're expending political capital, some target. Best to stick to your goal.

Stick to you are empowered to do viewing nominations, reviewing. Finally, be the experts. You are appointed as the experts on local history, experts on architecture, experts on what places in your city convey your local history that have the character to to convey that history and and are that important to your history. So be the experts. Be the experts that other commissions rely on.

And one thing that I was told of commissions is that your role is not to persuade or advocate for a thing or issue. Your role is to provide the information that other decision makers need to know to make their decision. If the command commission is going to be weighing property that has a historical amount, they need to know this about that property. They need to know this about why that's important. Do you review do you look at demolition permits before for properties that are not? Some cities run all all demolition permits through their HPC.

That's another big thing that I'd like to look at is the demolition ordinance, demolition delay ordinance.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's what that means everything comes through here, but and it doesn't necessarily it's like a history of those things. They don't necessarily save everything, but it does give an extended like, right now, somebody could go and apply for a demo permit, get it eight days, and go to our building down, probably less than that if they have all their paperwork. There's no other oversight.

Writing a thirty day demo is in terms of Yeah. Thirty days. It's enough for for you guys to review the to look at the building and comment on the historic importance of that building, whether or not it is important to

the other community. Because I do believe I do believe they get posted in in paper, convolutions that are issued. But many times, that occurs after the permit's issued. They're already written down.

So You couldn't do anything about a little adorable.

I mean, the chest is getting.

I was like, oh, yeah. And they haven't boxed. Like,

There's there's the original section of that hospital.

Yeah. I would say did the nurses' home and then back in. Yeah.

No. There's always gonna be those things. Right?

Yeah.

It's I'm really sorry. I have

no No. I said thank you for being here.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

So good information. You know, the demonstration too, you can always put an age criteria in the phone.

That's exactly what I just gonna say. Yeah. You can write it to you know, if it's over forty, fifty. Cool. Yeah. Did

you ever or advance that idea with the I know David was working on Salvage Square. So they have a library down and ask me to open up for salvage from work. It

was explored long ago, and then what we determined was there at the time, it was years and years ago, there wasn't enough. Like, the only real game was Habitat, and they were still developed. Because I think my wife was in charge of Habitat. They were still developing that that was The

reclaim program. The reclaim program.

And

Like, we have the expert in

And so and then the and so and then there was it was just there was other there's other issues surrounding it that'd be tough for us to require, but it doesn't mean it can't be revisited because I think there's, you know, Abbott's got a very, you know, a much established program now with that and that are out for a long time, and I'm sure there's others

Yeah.

People too. So, I mean, that was when I was on

the commission.

We were starting the surveys and everything. Many of those historic houses on there.

Yeah.

Whatever I I get, I'm also always telling people go here and go there. So I know and and I know, like, I was telling the Gerard's gonna do that for the house that was on Main Street. Now he's got some cool pictures and stuff. I know that place. Gosh.

By itself. It's a huge success.

Yeah. Huge. And so, I mean, think the writers are already thinking about it, but I I I also try to also just say, did I save money on it? So so yeah. Were

you connecting? That's yes. No. I personally would like to start, I mean, that sort of legislation before we also have zoning process coming up, and it would be nice to work on salvage deconstruction by the way, or the way ordinances.

Because I think we, as a

commission, decided that it took a.

Yeah. I think Madison has one. I was talking with her, and she gave a presentation at a state conference.

And it was, like, that

was her years. Yeah. And the way she portrayed it is like, here's what you need to have as a commission, and it was, like, political support and be ready to be a landowner. And I was just like, oh, shit. I I didn't think I just, like, seeing three things that you needed to have, and I'm

like It's helping me. Part of that is everything from me.

Yeah. I mean, because as a city, the way her theirs is written in Madison, be prepared to, like, take the building away as a city. I know there's not a lot of popular we don't have

any landlords. It's a even in Madison.

We have to get a modest support from elected officials to, like, get them to approve something like that.

We've had three or four properties go through that process. It never cities that never actually had possession of property, but it's gonna be close.

But I do wanna diminish the night when the blacks, especially when the Toucan Building came down. I that still haunts me to stay. But, yeah, I still wanna do that. I'm just I guess I'm not quite sure. I don't

know. See. Yeah.

I'd to explore that some more and visit it.

Even if, like so if we do, like you know, if all the demo demo permits have to come to our condition and we deny it because the building's historic,

What if no one wants to nominate it?

You know? And if we're supposed to not be the you know, like

At least you're putting in the conversation what what are the conditions needing. I mean, you you have no power, no authority to do anything. You can't deny a demo if it's not a landmark. But what some cities do is they run every demolition permit to the HPC or if or at least if it's, like, 40 years old or 30, whatever. All those agency, the agency has an opportunity to say, there's some sort of value. You need to know

this. Okay.

That's all you can do.

Okay. And then they they go, oh, that's I didn't know that. I want to write down. Right? But they go, I don't care. It's coming down. That's okay. I'm just curious. There are some good standards out there. I was just looking at one by the it's in the standards for the US Green Building Council's Lead for Cities program. I was just gonna pull up. They actually have standards on deconstruction itself.

Yeah. So Build Reuse, the group I'm on the board of has is a national organ. So they have collected all the national policies related to deconstruction or salvage or any requirements like that. Build Reuse's conference is in St. Paul this summer. Say.

You should come and learn more about it. Yeah. You Stephanie works Mhmm. At Bill Reuse. Right? We could connect with them and pull, like, best practices. Yes. Right. Yeah. This is

the yeah. Yeah. The city of San Antonio, one city that does every review every demo permit, their office of historic preservation actually is was the initiator of their deconstruction policy and their full deconstruction program. So it's, like, embedded within the preservation work of

the city. So it's pretty

Yeah. I'm hoping to convert our my coworker over there into a reservation cohort. So I

mean, I think that that all wraps I think this all wraps into, like, work in our climate action plan, work with, like, processes that we should be doing. So, like, the USGBC deconstruction recommendations, which link the previous best practices talk about requiring CND recycling and state construction of buildings to avoid the increase of CND going to landfills. So I think that this is all wrapped into a larger section. We need to figure out how we can oh, wait. All of those levers.

Jason, two years ago. Two years ago, Laura? No. Actually, it was my first year in office. We were offered the ability to go to camp. Thanks to you all, I believe. And it was amazing. Right, Laura? Yeah. It was a two day camp.

So commission assistance and mentoring program put on by the National Association of Preservation Commissions. Then they provided us a one year membership. And the membership and resources of that site has, like, pretty amazing. And so we were on a two day virtual training with folks all around The US, and it was phenomenal. It looks like they're gonna have a summer short course. Do you know anything about the camps offering?

It's just a short course. It's not a short course. It's it's the same as Similar. Same quality content.

Okay. Because I think they're gonna have a short course this summer, 2025, but I just wanted to ask if you were aware or if you had connections with the NAEP and see if they were doing they'll be doing a camp soon.

Yes.

They will.

Sydney Fond du Lac applied for a CLG grant to host a camp this year. With the chaos in the federal government

Yeah.

And the chaos with our grant funding, we don't know what kind of grant we're gonna get.

Got it.

So that's that grant has been aborted to Fond du Lac. Mhmm. But we have to hold it back until, you know, so it's likely that Fond du Lac will host camp in 2026. K.

Well, keep us posted because I would love to have the ability to send all of our commissioners there because I think it absolutely is critical.

It's really good training. That's that's what that organization exists for is to train commissioners. Mean, it was really.

I mean, they even had, like, us all quiz. Like, they would put stuff up on there and say, okay. Tell me what your motion would be based on secretary of interior standards and, like, tell me everything as if I could see you. That was like and we had attorneys training. I mean, the trainer I'm still in touch with, she has said, you know, you can purchase that on demand training. We have the recording still. Like, so if you wanted, you could you could do that.

They do have a lot of their sessions on on

their website just for sure. Yeah. So Yeah. We might look into that because it's just absolutely incredible education and content.

Good. I'm glad that It was really do that. So highly.

Well, we'll keep us posted on that. Do you have anything else?

I don't. Thanks for letting me pre premier my presentation with you all. Wonderful. Practice.

Thank you so much.

Oh, and I'm glad that it kinda morphed into a court conversation because that's that's where the more valuable content is.

We'll continue to be in touch with some of the things that are front of mind for us.

Yeah. It's always appreciated. Always

available to CLGs.

And if we have questions about nominations that we review, we can also reach out to you

Absolutely.

As a resource. I definitely reached out to you when I struggled with nominating the ducks in Riverside Park.

I didn't know.

I was like, this guy named Jason. I don't know what to do about these ducks.

That that was a brutal one.

What happened to that?

That's denied.

It got denied, but that was some tears of the family member who wanted to yeah. It's rough.

Parks department has taken a larger stance, though, on, like, what to allow now. They wanted to take some more larger policy, not policy. Like, like, what can and can't put into the park and sculptures and art and memorials. Mhmm. Because they're like, at what point,

there's too many. Yeah. Stewards of whatever it And

that is the park that I mentioned, which had a really poor nomination. Right? It was kind of bare.

Well, I think that it's a larger issue too is how do we how do we review projects put into the park? Right. Like, there's no criteria. The park is designated because it's been there forever, and it was sort of associated with Nolan except John Nolan, except the fact that, you know, the park doesn't look anything like what John Nolan prepared, which is why the national Register register nomination was denied. Right. Yeah. And so it's like, how do we if somebody wants to put in a gazebo in there, I mean, how do we

even review that? Yeah. That's that's an interesting question.

Yeah. I'm jammed a 100 meter somewhere.

But in the nomination, I've taken talked about, like, well, at least John Nolan's thoughts were, like, the park should preserve open space. So that sort of, like, started to turn the gear, you know, around how we think about allowing, not allowing items that go into a park.

It's in dynamic spaces. Everybody Yeah. That is designated in a local network.

That's right.

But it has the high It has both the little side, which is. And so the city designated that because it really does reflect that Prairie School period of the landscape.

Along the Alonia River.

Oh, okay. This park on one end and then the riv the whole river across the Isthmus. Yep. It's all one park. Is this.

Well, thank you so much for driving all the way from Madison to come across us again for the second year in a row. Thanks for I worked

for coming across. It's a great agency that frees down. Really? Mean, we

do not do nearly as much work as them. We can't argue with the.

You're so fortunate to have to have. Yeah. Meaning, like, that kind of.

I will officially end the meeting. I just wanted to extend my thanks, and we hope to have you back.