Heritage Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

Excellent. Hello, everybody. It is Thursday, July 24 at 6PM. I will call to order this meeting of the Heritage Preservation Commission. All members are present in this room or online except Laura Gaudin and Natalie Hennigan who are as well as Bruce Baines who are

Laura and Natalie be excused.

Laura and Natalie are excused. Bruce Baines is ab but Absent. Yes. First order of business is the approval of the 07/03/2025 special meeting minutes. Any questions on the minutes?

Hi. Mentioned my reason for not voting yes on there, and I don't know if I agree with that reason that's written on there. Okay. It said I was my main objection was the wood structure, and my main objection was the aesthetic quality of of the entire thing.

K. So I would like that corrected, like banana corrected.

Sure.

What specifically how would you like a card? Because I I do thought I remember you saying that you didn't flag wood was appropriate for the district.

I did not. But, I mean, I had more objections than just the wood. It's also it didn't seem like it had any instead of quality whatsoever. It was just a square thing without any thought and how it looked like in my view. And I wasn't comfortable with the

The aesthetic of the design did not fit. Yeah. Wasn't just the wood. It was the overall

thing. Add decorative later without seeing it. I was not I wasn't comfortable with that. That was too ambiguous for me.

So aesthetics of the design was what was not appropriate.

Okay.

Is was that mean the Nope. No.

It's absolutely fine.

No. Minutes, we wanna make sure Yeah. We get that right. That's fine.

That is why we ask. Okay. So would we want a motion and then an amendment, or would we like a motion with the corrections?

I would

I would say most people would make the motion to approve the minutes with the the correction that was the suggested correction. Yeah.

I see a move.

Okay. So Jim Gallagher makes a motion to approve with the requested corrections adjustments by John Ryman. Right?

Yeah. He's second.

Ryman and seconded by John Ryman. Any further discussion on the minutes? Alright. Seeing none, then all those in favor of the minutes with those adjustments, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that is approved unanimously. Thank you. Then we have a presentation and discussion on the Heritage Preservation Commission's responsibilities and application items.

Okay.

See if I can try to

do this. So there's a little screens on here. Let me just get stuck with this one right here.

Yeah. I know it's in the link.

Okay. Can you see my screen, Ellie?

Yes. I can. You have the City Of La Crosse site up?

Correct. I do. Okay.

Okay. So, the big thing I wanted to do is we had a lot of newer commission members, and, you know, they sort of just thrown you in sometimes when you're new and you get appointed to these commissions and trying to understand, like, what all the different responsibilities we have as a commission and sort of where where in our code that we have the criteria for, reviewing set applications, and it's just there's sort of a lot. And so I just kinda wanted again I think it was also good for me as well to remind myself all the little things that we have. And even even councilor Mendell, I don't think, is aware of all the different little things that we have. And so

The big commission. The Yeah. I mean They

were given some responsibility. Yeah. They were given some things that I would argue. I'm not sure why this committee was given it, but we can get into that later. But so I just kinda wanted to go through this to show you, like, where in our code things are, show you why they're they're kind of established the way they are, the criteria that's there, the design standards in place.

And so this also may help you kind of formulate too some ideas of maybe some things we need to relook at and revisit to either make our power stronger, standards stronger, maybe things of that nature. Right? So it may just give sort of an overview and foster more discussion, which may lead into our second I or our next item on the agenda as well. So that being said, I will just get right into this. So chapter 20 so if you want to go to our, if you go to our actual main home page here, there's two two things that would be of interest related to preservation. One is the link to the municipal code. So this is our main website. So you go under your government. Here's the municipal code. When you click on that, it's gonna take you to a page that looks like this.

And the ones the two chapters that specifically have preservation commission responsibilities in it are chapter 20, which really outlines the commission makeup itself, and then chapter 115, which is our zoning code. And I'll get more into that in a little bit. The other part of that might be of interest is if going to under departments under your government and go to planning and developments. We have a historic heritage preservation section that has a lot of information on this as well, and we can explore this a little bit more as we get into it. Also, feel free if you have any questions to just shout them out or whatever it is.

I'll be happy to answer anything if you have a question or if I'm going too fast. I sometimes I can talk a little fast. Okay. So we'll start with chapter 20. This is mainly the, code section that establishes historic preservation, responsibilities and establishes the heritage preservation commission and creates that.

And so there's a definition section in here. So if you have any questions about what a certificate of appropriateness is or what contributing or non contributing means or any of those things, this is the best place to get those definitions here in terms of how we as a city have established how they're defined. They may actually be stated somewhere else, like in Webster's dictionary maybe differently, but this is how we have defined them. There's a purpose section here for what the commission is supposed to be doing for historic preservation, and they're pretty broad. Again, you know, protect, enhance, and perpetuate improvements, you know, of all of our city's history and and and culture.

That's probably the biggest one. And strengthen the economy and promote use of historic structures. It's all revolve around historic preservation. This is probably a very key section here that I will mention now. I'm not sure why it's so early here, but this, and I'm gonna come back to this one a little bit.

Mhmm. But, essentially, this is sort of the the clause that allows for because if a property becomes dangerous to life, health, or property, then it can be demolished without having to go through permission of this commission. So jumping ahead a little bit, a designated property has, we have power over that property from being torn down. Somebody wants to demolish a locally designated historic structure or site, they have to come before this body and get a certificate of appropriateness for demolition. And there's criteria associated with that, which I'll show you later. And then we have the power to deny that if we don't feel like

it

meets their argument or our criteria, and then they can appeal that to the council. Outside of that, people can just go and apply for a demolition permit and get all these sign offs and just tear the building down. But if there's something, like, substantially wrong or the building's threatening health or safety, like, for instance, a car plows into the side of it for whatever reason

Mhmm.

And it's structurally unsound and it's about to teeter over, inspections can declare that unfit and go in there and have it demolished and raised, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Yes. Like the fire at what where the old, bar next to that bar, at the Green Bay Packer bar on

Yep. Yep.

The fire those were historic buildings, but the fire made them unsafe, so that's why they were torn down, I'm guessing.

Yeah. Those weren't actually locally designated. The best example is Club Toucan. That's next to Big Al's where that vacant lot is now. That's the best example of this. When they were inside the building, there was a major structural beam that was cracked and, I can't think of the right term, but it was it was essentially not safe to be in that building based on their the fire department and our inspections' determination. And so they were able to demolish that building where, otherwise, we would have had purview over that.

What's the Marble Works building downtown that got hit by a vehicle?

The one at the into the bridges?

Yeah. No. That wasn't locally designated.

It not designated. It was on our list,

but it on our bid. Yeah. Yep. Mhmm.

Jim, do have a question? So it the the it doesn't mention the word condemned in it.

There's different reasons for why buildings would be condemned, though. So a building can be condemned if there's no running water to it. So, you know, that's that's one reason because it'd be considered uninhabitable. Sure. It could also be condemned because it's could be a health hazard, like maybe a hoarder house, or it's just so unsanitary that you just can't live into it for, like, rats and and and infestation. Usually, the the the term where we're just talking about potential demolition is a raise order. Uh-huh. So if there's a raise order on it, that could be where we're talking about a condemnation with a raise order would be where we would be concerned or be seriously looking at, okay, is it a local historic designated building or not?

Mhmm. So I take it that the the Ramsall house that just got turned down was not on our our list.

It's Those two houses, the way we were just talking about on Cass Street, were not locally designated. No. I see. Don't believe they were they were in a national registered district either, but Yeah. They weren't, actually. I had to I checked on that. Yeah. So this is a Yes.

Question. So kinda tying along with, you know, the recent demo teardowns. So if somebody goes in and gets their permit to tear a home down, structure down, is it gonna be flagged automatically in the system? Like, oh, you have to go to this committee first and get it taken care of, or are they supposed to know that?

Yes. That's a good question. Mhmm. So there's a couple safeguards that we had to put in there in that system because it was noise that way. One is, every time that I we designate a historic property, I send a notification out to various departments in the city.

One is the inspections department that they then input into their system, that's tied to every property. And so as they're entering permits in this isn't just for demolition. This is also for, like, building permits too. So in their in each of these, when they pull up this property as they're airing permits, there's supposed to be a notice in that says historic designation historically designated property. And so once they see that, they're supposed to then say, you need to go talk to Tim in in planning or whatever it is. So that's one way they're catching any sort of permits. And so they've been they've been pretty good about that. Okay. The other the the other thing

I

Kelly is, in terms of demolition, there's a sign off sheet. So any property owner or whoever's in charge of demolishing that property has to get a sign off from, like, the electrical company, water, making sure everything's all shut off. There's a signature on that page that I have to sign that says this is not also not a locally designated building. And so I won't know, if they don't see that signature on there, they'll they won't issue any permit out. If they see my signature on it, then they know it's not, and they can proceed. So the

also has So

Not required. It's not required.

When when the house is sold and, let's say it is, locally designated, does the title company see that? And then when they under the new homeowner, does that information transfer, or is it just within the departments in the city and not not linked with the deed at all?

So that information is is remains with the property itself.

Okay.

So it would always stay the same it would always stay the same in our records because, you know, the only thing where there might be some error is if the property tax parcel ID changes. Like, if you have two parcels being combined and it gets a new tax parcel somehow, that's one part where we just have to make sure that it it it gets transferred over. In terms of ownership, like, does the property owner know that is not something that we Like, educate we're not always even aware of sales of houses that take place. Ali, you're in

the room. I know. I guess I just wanna make sure. I haven't come across this in my business, but when the title company does a search as to the ownership of the property, somewhere within that deed, just like if you have an easement that travels with the and transfers to the new property owner. So they would be brought aware of the fact that it it was low locally designated if for some reason they didn't know it beforehand.

Yeah. We don't file anything, though, where that would come out in your tile work.

Okay. Okay.

We don't, like, file anything with registries. Interesting idea, though, if that's something that we wanna do to make sure that that's aware.

My question, Ellie, is there's no requirement for an owner to disclose that. Isn't that a disclosure? You have to disclose

No. No. That's because it's not an adverse or material defect for the house. I mean, it would be adverse if it was a national registry because you have to follow specific color schemes and architectural elevate you know, front elevation and such.

Not true, though.

There'd be a there'd be a placket on the house, won't there be?

So so back backing up to what you just said about it's different if it's national register, that's not true. If it's on the national register, there is no requirements for you to follow anything. That is an honorary designation. You have more restrictions being locally designated than the national register. National register, you're only required to follow anything if you take advantage of the historic tax credits.

Oh, okay. Okay. Yep. I yeah. Okay. But, no, I yeah. There is not a box to check for that. No.

Yeah. Cool. Any questions on that? That's an important note because what I've been trying to do is make sure that we don't have properties fall at. So there there's been a lot of discussion with me about specific properties, and this kind of also leads into our threatened and endangered buildings list Mhmm. That people are concerned about. One would be Hollywood Theater because it's been sitting there empty and like, especially buildings that have been vacant for a

while. Mhmm.

So Hollywood Theater is one. You know? There's some others, but I know that's one that's come up quite a bit. And so it's just trying to figure out how we can keep buildings from essentially what we call demolition by neglect occurring.

Sure. Yeah.

So alright. Moving on. And then so here, here's where we talk about the creation and the membership. The interesting part about this section is where, part of our certified local government status with Wisconsin Historical Society is having a commission that on it has, members who are from specific professions where possible. They really want you to have an historian, an architect, an attorney, or something like that. I can't remember what it was. And then so yeah. And so that's usually what they wanted you to have, and that's their model ordinance. We kinda changed that because it was really hard to get people on that commit you know, on our commission to always represent those professions. So we kind of changed it to the extent available.

They used to have a member of history, architectural history, architecture, archaeology planning, or other preservation related discipline. And so we kind of did that, and our Jason Tisch said that was okay to change it that way and still meet our requirements.

Mhmm.

And so that's that's typically intent and fairly common among preservation commission ordinances across across the board. Powers and duties, basically, talks about that. This really establishes us having the power to designate properties as historic, follow a process in place for notification, and really gives you the power to that that it ends here unless you don't need council approval to designate something. People only go to them if they want to appeal this decision.

That is

Which is which isn't common.

That's It's

not common.

It's not always common.

So most of the boards that you're familiar with in the local government are advisory. So most boards like city plan commission have a recommendation. Oftentimes, the public feels like that's a done deal, but it's just a recommendation. Fuditionary administration and then council do not have to take that recommendation. So that's the sort of difference and uniqueness of this this commission and why we have to have good answers for what we do. Yeah. Yeah.

So here is another section that allows us, once we, designate a property, to be able to place a plaque on there declaring that such property is historic. And so one thing I wanted to show you in the preservation page that we have is if you click on the local register here, you get a whole list of all of our properties that are historic, and they're supposed to be there's information related to each one. So, for instance, I can click on, even the two districts that we have that are local. So I'll click on the downtown one, and it brings up this GIS map that shows you where everything is. And you can click on each dot accordingly.

And then so here shows the boundary of the downtown historic district that we have. And then on the side here, you can kinda see here's the actual national register nomination for it, preservation plan for it. We'll get into that in a little bit. Here's a map that shows you, like, which building is considered contributing and noncontributing per the national register, information about it in our historical inventory, and things of that nature. Now if you go to and you can click on these individually.

So I could click on the Hollywood Theater right here. And so then there's some information about that. There's the notice of the designation, any other information that we have. And then here's the plaques that we affix to our you probably have seen these in our buildings. Plaques are property of the city. They're not property of the property owner. And so we pay for them. They come out of our department's operating budget, so we're grateful for our council for always approving that as an item. They're not cheap at all. They're pretty heavy. They're about 11 by 17 in size, and they're pretty they're pretty heavy metal plaques. But they are fixed. We do work with the property owner of where to put them, and so that's the plaque. And so that power in that ordinance allows us to do that.

So forgive my ignorance. Mhmm. The historic district is obviously a geographical area.

Yes.

That doesn't mean every building in the district is under it's just it's just that it's a just an area that concern or an area of preservation. What does that what does that mean?

Good question. Mhmm. That's a good question. So what's a good way to look at that? Let's look at the Hixson House. This let me start with my description of the Hixson House. The Hixson House is up here. I think this is it here somewhere. Oh, it's this orange one right here. The Hixson House is on the National Register of Historic Places individually by itself because probably because of its association with Hixson.

It's probably because of its style of architecture. There's probably a million reasons why. By itself, it's so historically significant that it's able to individually, be on the national register of historic places and considered locally designated. Right? A district and so then that would also be a rep you know, sometimes it's also just a good example of a certain time period and things of that nature.

When you get to a district, you tend to look at a certain you're really looking at that area or that neighborhood or that boundary collectively, all those buildings together collectively are important or significant because could be the time period. It could be because it's a good collection of a style of architecture. Now it doesn't mean that every single individual building would be significantly historic on its own, but collectively, they are for whatever reason is dictated in the nomination that's put together. And that doesn't also mean that some of them in there couldn't also be there by themselves, and that is the case in our downtown and many of our other historic districts. But it just means, collectively, this whole area is important in history for whatever reason.

It could be style. It could be a time period. It could be, like, this was this was the major hub that was in La Crosse during this time period, and it's still largely intact. And our downtown district has, like, a 100 and something buildings in it. 98 of them are contributing, which means that they're still significantly, unaltered from their original time, and, we have the largest commercial historic district in the state. So this is the largest one that's commercial with commercial buildings in

it. But the individual buildings have to to apply to be protected?

No. If you're in a district like this, every single one of them from a national register standpoint, there's no protection from demolition.

Right.

And we'll we'll get into the local part of it here in a minute. But in a national registered boundary, they're they are divided between what's contributing and noncontributing. So if you have a vacant lot, that would be considered noncontributing. If it's a building that's so altered, like, it's like, none of its historic materials there, it could be considered noncontributing. Now the difference between that allows you to apply for historic tax credits, which means you can apply for these up to 40%, 20 state, 20 federal to help with restoration or repairs or something rehabilitation of the building itself.

And so that's that's the difference in how they break it up on a national scale. In the local one, when we we have two local districts, and we just follow the same boundary that the national one did. Every single one of them is considered locally designated. Okay. And every single design standard we have in there applies to all of them. Yeah. Alright. Any questions on that? Good questions. Any other questions? Okay. So that gives us the power to put the plaque. And there's the appeals part. Okay. So then here's the part that talks about designation and what criteria and you're all familiar with this.

We had this conversation before. So this establishes how people are nominating buildings and what criteria to use them for. People can go into restrictive covenants if we feel that's necessary. But then here's what gives us the power in terms of regulating any construction, reconstruction, or alteration of said buildings. So we do not have any power on regulation of interior.

It's exterior only. And for the most part, it's what requires a building permit only. So we don't require a building permit for windows, or siding, which is tough because you would want windows and siding are a big thing with buildings, historic buildings. And so individually, that's that's tough. Because what also is too is, again, it gets back to the permitting issue. When we know someone has to get a permit, it helps catches the fact that they need to get historic review. The fact that they don't need a permit for that means that somebody could just go out on their weekend and reside their house, and then all of a sudden, it's a huge battle being like, you weren't allowed to do that, things like that. So that's that's hard. Mhmm.

Did you not need a permit to put siding on a house No. Or windows No. Because they're not

They used to.

They used to.

We used to have permits for siding, windows, and roofing.

K.

And it was very cheap. They were, like, $30 a permit, but it was at least a way for our inspectors to know that things are being done right and by an actual licensed person. Mhmm. But then at some point, this was several years ago, some council members got that changed to where it was just roofs. They got rid of the permit for windows and siding. I don't I don't know what the reasoning was. I can't remember.

That could be put back if I'm not saying I'm doing that, but No. Do that. Yeah.

So so there's that. And and they then have to come to the spot and get a certificate of appropriateness. So list list the process and procedure for doing that and what they have to give us. It's also hard too because sometimes what they would give the inspectors for a permit is a lot less than what we as a commission would want to see in terms of plans and descriptions. And so they're like, I just be looking for a permit. I'm like, well, you have to give me the site plan and plan. For instance, that deck that we looked at last week, what we got was not what they gave what what the inspections department would have approved had they not get reviewed. I had to fight to get it. I'm like, I need a plan. I need something that shows my commission Mhmm.

What this is supposed to look like and where it's gonna go more than what you originally had. And I had to tell them that's what I needed, and it was a battle. But I got it out of them because they need their permit. So, that's always a struggle that I have as well. Okay.

And then so this gives this does also have some criteria. Typically, I try to follow when I'm reviewing applications under this, I try to follow best practices for work that's being done per the secretary of interior standards. But there are criteria when in here, one through 10, that you we that we can follow when doing that. And then one of them is, you know, to follow as the secretary of interior standards for rehab. So I tend to just do best practices based on the style, based on the type of work that it is, and things of that nature anyway for the secretary of interiors, which is, the highest level of restoration and rehabilitation there is.

So there's that. Any questions on that? Oh, also too, what I wrote in here is if it's a tax credit project, if they're applying for state or historic tax credits, in an effort to reduce the amount of processes people have to go through, I make they are exempt from having to come here for approval. Because if they are going for historic tax credits, they are already gonna be held to the highest standard possible in the work that they're proposing to do. And so in a way to eliminate a process, all I need is to see see that a let it's a letter. Scope of work is is tax credits, and then they don't have to come to us. And I and that language is in here. I'm just it's an effort of just avoiding them having to do an extra process.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's come before us before. Does everybody understand what a certificate of appropriateness is used for?

No.

Okay. Do you wanna just high level? We've had one in the last

Yeah. It's basically they're applying to us for work that they wanna do their building. And what we were doing on is to make sure what they're doing is appropriate to that historic building based on its style, you know, the reasons why the building historic, are they changing something that's integral? So if, like, you have a very high end Queen Anne house that's usually got a lot of the spindles and everything else, and then they wanna remove, like, a spindled balcony and put in some, you know, really bad green treated lumber that's just square, that's not appropriate to that style of architecture. So that's probably a very extreme example.

But and so what we are doing is reviewing it for its appropriateness, and so we're issuing whether it's appropriate what you're doing is appropriate to your building or not based on its historic significance.

Could you stop them from putting vinyl siding on there? Because you just told them you can't control siding, and they're gonna put a vinyl siding on the clean end?

That's where it's tough with our it it's it's it's tough with the individually listed buildings. That is the struggle that I have.

Yeah. So you need more help from the city council to get siding windows in the permitting process is what I'm hearing.

So with the so so yes. I think it's written in here. Yes. Yes.

I just wanted that on record.

I'm pretty certain it says in here too that it is prior to applying for a permit, and I think that's the key. Prior to applying for a permit, you have to go before the commission for this. So the way that's been interpreted is if you don't need a permit, you don't have to come here. That's the way it's been interpreted.

Of course.

Lawyers are

not dumb.

So with our two historic districts, though, that have design standards, it's not written that way. It's in a different section. Okay. So, technically, they do have to come to me for siding and, or at least exterior materials or, windows. Right? Historically. But there's still no permit that they need, so that's where I really get into the people doing it on the weekends. And I have to catch them later. And then I have the ability to order them to correct that way, but that's also just a battle.

Sure is.

Yeah. So the mechanism is sort of missing for you to catch it.

It is. It used to be there, and then it was removed.

And that was because

Reinhart would give you his good honest opinion about that. He yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So that that is that is tough. Windows and siding can be tough.

Because windows and siding are in the secretary of interior standard.

Oh, absolutely. Especially windows.

Yeah. And we

we talk about that all the time here.

And we don't wanna clean clean end that replacing all their clapboard siding with, like, really cheap vinyl.

Right. Because then that building if a building did that and then wanted to be designated, that would take away from it historical significance.

It would not be appropriate to the building. Yeah.

So just to clarify, the certificate of appropriateness. So, for example, last month at our special meeting, it was you'll see it on the agenda as a review of certificate of appropriateness for the property at blah blah blah.

Right.

And so our task is to look at the application and look at our design standards to ensure that the project is appropriate against our standards. And so, like, last month, John voted against it because his read of the standards told him that he didn't think it was appropriate. So that's our individual task as commissioners.

If John's motion had passed and they appealed it, we would defend it by using this appropriateness.

Well, actually, you would have

You mean if you had denied it?

If If we if we had denied

If you if this body had denied his application, he could appeal to the counsel. And, yes, we would have had to have defended why we denied it based on

What

what's written in the code and, you know, our we'd have to have a very strong case for you.

So that's why the motion and your reasoning behind motions has to be clearly spelled out because then we would have to refer back to the record. I mean, we have had struggles with that. It's very difficult. Yes. So for example, with the club, Tucan downtown. Right?

That didn't come to us, though.

Well, there was the or the material on the side of the building. Remember that?

It was the building next to it.

Next to it. Yeah. So there was you know, like, the body felt like they clarified the material used clearly enough. But

Yeah.

The building owner did not use the right material. So we wanted to appeal it, but it was found that the minutes and the video was not strong enough for us to defend it. So that's why it's so important for us to make sure we're

you know? There is an error made in the motion. Yes. And what what we intended it to be was not what was said. Yeah. And so what we ended up getting on the side of the library to repair the wall that when the Club Toucan building was torn down, the library bar, was not what we had thought it would be because we realized there was an error in the way the motion was made. It wasn't very clear.

And so that's why, like, when Jason Tisch or Tim or myself are saying, make sure that we're giving our reasoning while citing the reasons that are in our code. That is really the best thing to do. Because a lot of times, commissions anywhere get into the habit of saying, well, like, really like how that looks, but we can't make decisions based on stuff like that. So yeah.

Alright. So the last big thing in here is the demolition part. Here's again where if somebody wants to demolish a locally designated building, they have to come and get a certificate of appropriateness for demolition. There is criteria in here. There's five of them.

And somebody coming saying it's too costly to rehab is not a valid criteria. And so this is this is this is key. This has only occurred well, this has occurred a couple times, and I think we lost one of them and won one of them since I've been here. One of it was, like, right when I started. So I was very green in a lot of this, and it was the Row Houses Building, which is where the it's where the it's where the Girard's condos are in the corner of 6th And Main now.

It's Northeast Corner. Yeah. And then the other one was a big barn accessory building in the 10th And Cass District, and we want that one.

Uh-huh. I know that one. Mhmm.

So there's that. Hopefully, we never have to do this. Hopefully. Hopefully not. So then this chapter also includes a thing on archaeology.

I've had I'd honestly, since I've started here, I've not had I've had very little to do with archaeology. This really dictates what, like, developers and property owners need to do regarding archaeological sites. We do have files from, the state historic preservation office about showing where all their catalog and sensitive areas are that we use internally, at their request and requirement. Basically, this is sort of what we give to also, we work a lot with Mississippi Valley Archaeological Center at WL. And if and if anybody's property, regardless of whether it's historic property or not, and they're doing redevelopment and it falls within these boundaries that we have, we send them to MVAC and say, you've gotta take care of all this, and get approval before you get your permit.

I mean, there's a whole things that you gotta be aware of. We have been informed by our MVAC that our current ordinance is clear is very out of date and that they have there's model ones out there that they would like us to adopt. Mhmm. So that has been on my list, a little bit of a low priority. They wanted us to update. We also to all of our GIS and boundary files were also out of date. I managed to get that done finally. And then, this they do want us to update our archaeology file, ordinance as well. Okay. And I just haven't it hasn't been super high on my list.

Okay.

Because they're the only ones that said it's not the best, but but I guess they would know, to be honest. Then the other part of this is shipwrecks. This has never come up. War War Eagle would be the only thing that I could think of. Now it doesn't mean there isn't other stuff in that water, and there is, I'm sure. The War Eagle's the biggest one. It is it is actually, I believe, now on the national register as a underwater archaeology site. And so we actually have that g a do we have the coordinates for it so that we know anything we wanna do over there, especially River Point District? Mhmm. We can't do it.

So we know where that's at. So as we're trying to put in another marina in up there, we know you can't have it anywhere within this boundary. And so that's been helpful. Yeah. But this has not really come up at all for me, to be honest. So so that's chapter 20. Does anybody have questions on that before we get into the other stuff? That's really that's really sort of our powers for regulating individual buildings and sites, as far as designating them, alterations to them, and demolition of them and creation of this committee. That's that's that's largely what chapter 20 is.

Tim, before we move on, can you just, are you going to explain when, like, a state agency would come to us? For example, in Myrick Park where there are burial grounds for approval or, like, the connecting of the, what is it, wagon wheel trail, where we have to

Just mean section one zero six stuff?

Maybe. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not you don't have to, but I think this body hasn't had those yet.

No. I but that was on my list. I have section one zero six. That's just sort of not really in our code. Sure. There's just sort of another thing that we get asked to do Yeah. That I was gonna get to at the end. That's alright.

Yep. I just was asking.

No. That's fine.

Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. So that's chapter 20. And then I think to, like, our own you know, we have this site that has our local I actually break it up between here's all of our locally registered properties that we have here, and you can kinda see where they're all at if you wanna explore, if you haven't already. Then I have all the national registered ones here as well, some or both. And then here's our most endangered historic properties, list as well. And and and we we can get to that as sort of a that's part of our next agenda item kind of a topic. So, let's see. Okay. So so let's get into chapter one fifteen. This is where all of our other ones.

Now the now this is probably two two of the responsibilities we have are in chapter one fifteen, which is our zoning code. So when we designate local historic districts, they're treated as overlay districts. So you have your base zoning of a district that says what you can and can't do. It can only be used for a single family home, blah blah blah. The historic districts then are considered overlay because there's another there's another layer of requirements and regulations that you have to follow, which is the design standards associated with the two districts. So when creating a local historic district, though, there is a and this is in chapter one fifteen three thirteen, so it's in here and

buried in our somewhere in here. Our lay district. Here we go. Historic districts. No. There's a

whole process for this. So we have to there's a whole process for notification. So if we wanna we wanna create a local historic district, we have to notify everybody within the district and let them know that we're doing that. We have to still meet there's still in here there's criteria that we have to meet for district much like we do it individually. I think the they're all the same except for number five.

This is the this is one that's by districts, yielded or may likely yield information important to history or prehistory. I think that's more of an archaeology one, though. Then we also for each district, if you wanna have a local historic district, you have to create a preservation plan. So there and then then there's information in here how to do that and what that plan is supposed to include in some way. And so the first one that we did was for 10th And CAS, which is, here's the boundary for 10th And CAS right here.

This right here is 10th And Cass. That was the first one that we did. And, largely, it was at the request of the property owners in that district. This was an area of the city back in the nineties, eighties and nineties, that was heavily all those lumber building homes were all that are mostly all owner occupied now were rentals. They were broken up into multiple units.

So the one Jay and Ken owned on the Southwest Corner, the big yellow Queen Anne, that's a that was broken up into, like, eight to 10 units. They purchased it, invested it, and turned it back into a single family home and then into a bed and breakfast. And that was the case for a lot of those homes in this district. They were converted back to senior single family owner occupied homes. And so what they wanted was a protection of their investment because they did a lot of the work.

And so, like, when we did this plan, this plan has, like, a vision, and it it's like a it's like a little mini comp plan for this district that has a vision in it. We established goals of what they wanted to achieve in this district. There is a category of an inventory of all the different architectural styles and buildings that you find in it, and then there's, suggested, design standards.

Mhmm.

And so when we and so that's a requirement. We have to do this plan. And so when we and we so we worked out this plan with them with their goals. Like, they are the ones that help create that, which is how planning should be. And then when we adopted it by ordinance, we essentially adopted, so here's tenth and cast. We adopted by ordinance. So here's the purpose of it. Here's the boundaries that we listed in here of what that same boundary and we just essentially just kept the same as what the National Register District was and essentially dominated it for the same reason. It was listed in the National Register. And so here is the height regulations they have on it.

Here's all the regulations, regulation of construction. Or so they still have to get a certificate of appropriateness the same way you would for an individual building. What's interesting or different here, though, is that the work was broken up between what's considered minor work and major work. So minor work is work that and it's defined in here what the difference of that is. Minor work is really like, hey. I need to take this window off and, like, restore it and put it back or repair it or whatever it is. They're, like, doing like for like. There's nothing that's being changed. There's no window opening being done. Hey.

I needed this door is, like, falling off. I just need to replace this door. It's basically stuff that's like, there's no real changes. It's just they need a permit for it, but it's something that I can just approve, on my own administratively. Major work is, like, large things that are, like, additions, new construction. They're completely taken off their deck and rebuilding something new. It's things like that. It's major work that has to come here. And so I do have a little bit of a discretion. So if it's a minor project, I'm able to, like, let people just keep moving on and not have to wait a month to come to a meeting.

So it does break it down that way. And so we did that for the 10th and Cass, and we had to notify all the property owners. I would say more than half of them were involved in the plan making. The others were not. But I don't know if it so they didn't want they if they care they just I don't think they cared. There was when we went to actually take it to we also felt too in an effort to try to be successful. We felt we'd take this one. It was a positive win. The building owners wanted it. It was like it was like a win we could take to the council.

Right? Because at the time, when I first started, preservation wasn't viewed very positively. They they felt that it was a hindrance. You know, I I feel like I'm not solely responsible for that, but I helped kinda build this up to a much more positive and important, like, area of planning and and things to where people kinda buying into, like, this is important. I mean, just look at our downtown and the economic prosperity that's there, but that's all preservation for the most part.

Yeah. The biggest commercial

So it was a big win. Now there was one guy that said, I don't wanna do this because he wanted to build an addition on the back of his house because his wife was disabled, and he wanted some elevator. He was an architect. So we're like, we didn't want him to derail the whole thing because his property was, like, in the middle of the whole district. And we're like, okay. Come in with your plans. Let's apply these standards to it and see if you can do it. And in the end, I think with some few minor tweaks, he was like, that's fine. And he could have done what he wanted to do, and he's like, I don't care then. I just wanted to be sure I could do this.

I don't think he ended up ever doing it. But so we were able to work it out with him with these standards. And so this was a success in a district. So after that, we decided to move into the downtown one, and we worked a lot of building owners that way and developed the standards. We had meetings with the interested like, a steering committee, sort of to speak. Mhmm. And we focused on the downtown, and the plan was the same. I had standards in there. Their standards were a little different because it was commercial buildings and not houses we're talking about, so it involved, signage and and and awnings and things of that nature.

Mhmm. Yep. Question.

Yeah. Please.

You don't mind me interrupting.

No. Please.

So how long ago did this 10th Cast District become established? Is that about ten years ago?

Yeah. The plan was done in 2004, and so we probably adopted it. It's been twenty years. Probably say, yeah. The plan was done. We probably adopted a year later.

And when you said when you started, you had a lot of duplexes and multifamily units. So what percentage of those houses have been converted back to single family?

No. They did all that work prior to this. Oh. This was they wanted this to occur to protect the work that they had already done, converting them back.

Was there any restrictions on multifamily in that district?

It was all zoned r one at that time. Let me think about it for a minute. This was I can't remember what the zoning was at the time. I don't know if there's restrictions. I would say some of them were probably zoned r one. There was a separate effort by the neighborhood to rezone a lot of that neighborhood to single family, and I think that's where our Washburn District was created. But it still would allow multifamily through a conditional use permit, I think, at the time. It's not the case now. Yeah. So now I would argue that largely it has to be r one single family through zoning. Yeah. What was I gonna say? No.

No. No.

I was curious.

No. You're fine.

I wasn't living here at that time.

So the downtown I don't know what I was gonna say, but nope. Yeah. So that's that. So those are those two districts. They've been successful. Mhmm. We will I mean, there's no effort to do local districts for any so if you go to this map, we actually have six national registered districts. So we have the Downtown and the 10th and Cass. Those are two that we've managed to make local because there was interest in doing so.

Mhmm.

This is Cas King National Register District. Pretty big. There's a lot of houses in there. We're not going to go the effort of preparing a plan if the neighbors and the residents aren't interested in doing it. It's a lot of work. And if and these plans need community input and buy in. And if they're not interested in it, then then we're not going to do that and force that. Mhmm. That's a big district too. There's no way I'm gonna make that effort if there's a lot of buy in from people.

So can you clarify again just for everybody? So we have locally designated historic districts, and this is not this is

This is no. This is on the state and national only.

State and national.

So there really is no enforcement in that district?

Not Not if it's state national only. Yes.

Just a field right there.

Yeah. Some of these are local, which I can't remember. Think is blue.

Well, some people might voluntarily sign down. Yep.

Mhmm. Some of the blue all the blue ones are individually, so they would have enforcement, but not because they're in the district. It's because it's individual.

Then the yellow ones are

The yellow ones are what's considered historically significant.

Okay.

So they They have historic significance, but they're not designated in any way. K. It was just a way to kinda note that because they were a part of our survey. Okay. So this is the 23rd And 24th Street 1. This is the one that was really hard when we were going so we I did an effort to have these two. These were identified as potential districts in our surveys that we did, our historic surveys. And so when we hired a consultant to prepare nominations to get them listed, we had to have meetings with the owners to evolve in here to show to tell them, like, explain what that means.

Mhmm.

The this whole little tiny district here was, like, on board in a second. They were like, this is fantastic. And in fact, we actually paid to have a little walking tour of it done. That's great. This one, there was a handful of people that were essentially in these meetings where we were telling them that it's it's honorary only. There's no requirements. They were arguing with me about how we're not next step is forcing local designation on them where all the requirements are, and I kept telling them, no. That's too much work if you guys aren't gonna buy into it. I And was essentially getting poked in my stomach and being called a liar on my chest and being called a liar in meetings. And, yeah, that was fun. But we got it designated. It was fine, and no there's been no pushing it. And so, I wish I could say that was the worst thing that's ever been done to me as a public official.

But Planners go to school knowing that they're gonna be.

So and then the other one, which I don't I need to update this map. We just got this listed, like, a year or two ago, finally, is the Caledonia Street, Old Town North. And so it's right here. It's this block right here Mhmm. Only. We got that listed just recently. Finally, I'd be surprised it was never listed in the first place, but we got this one listed. This is what's cool is because up here used to be what was called the village of North La Crosse. It was its own township, its own village before it was all incorporated into La Crosse, and that was their downtown. That was their main street.

And their their probably biggest building that you'd recognize in there is what was called the Riviera Theater, which is the twin to the Rivoli. Mhmm. There used to be a theater up there. So it's really cool. And the history is very interesting to read.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

So I need to get this on my website and update my website here. Yeah. That'd great. So there's the districts. So I would say I I haven't gotten a lot of stuff from the 10th And Cast District in terms of certificate appropriateness. I get a ton from the downtown mostly for signs. Mhmm. I get a lot of signs. Signs come here, And there's criteria specifically in the signs about things that we don't wanna see, like neon and exterior neon, the way it's lit, and materials used, and things of that nature. We also tend to look at how signs are mounted to buildings.

So it's great that if they're we're utilizing something that's already there existing because they're not poking more holes into the building, things of that nature. But I tend to get a lot of signs. What's gonna be interesting with the downtown, though, especially with some of these vacant lots, is people have been exploring new buildings in this district. That's gonna be interesting. No one's ever done it yet, a new building yet, but I had one person come through with plans for a new building and how it'd be appropriate to the downtown. It was that vacant lot that's on Jay Street.

That plane was so epic.

It was it wasn't it was a it was pretty good, I thought.

That was, like, December.

It's the guy just can't afford to do it. Yeah. It's out of his price range, but at the moment. Yeah. But it was a good first. What I thought would be because I kept we kept emphasizing to him, you're setting the tone here for new construction in our downtown. Mhmm. And this has to be, like, perfect to make it fit. Not not that it actually mimics anything, but that it fits. Mhmm. And it's appropriate to everything else around you.

Mhmm.

And I thought, decent job, but we haven't seen it actually come to fruition yet. So so that'll be interesting to come around if we ever get to that point. Any questions on districts? Okay. Now the only other thing that I've seen a lot of is what's called carriage houses. I have my notes here. Carriage houses, What it I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. Three, and and that's not even the weirdest one. Okay. It's in here.

This is under what's kind of our detached accessory structure building code. Right? So think of it think of it as a detached garage. So, normally, you cannot build a detached garage that is taller than 17 feet in height to the peak. Can't be taller than that.

However, you may exceed that if you build a carriage house. So a lot of people, especially in in, historic areas, they're just like, well, I mean, I I have this historic home, but I I see all these other ones around me that have these two story carriage houses, and perhaps the lumber baron that owned my home didn't rich enough to build one. I don't know what it was. And so there's this general idea of having some sort of upper floor space that makes sense because they're in a historic neighborhood that you can do it in.

And there's some are are existing. Right?

There's some existing. Yeah. There's a lot of two story you know, they're already existing. They were built in the late eighteen hundreds, and people wanted to build new ones. And so here's what we have yes, ma'am. I have

a I have a question on Caritas, specifically, at the gun house, you know, on Cass Street, the traditional style home, the federal style home, the green shutters. You know? How were they able to knock down the carriage house on that property and then they sold that lot, and then they built a new

You're talking at

4 Fresh. 4

is that 14th And 14th And Cass. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Because there was a carriage house on that. Yeah.

There was.

There was a carriage house in the back.

Can I get to that in a second? I'll

answer that in Thank you.

Yes. I remember that. I was not happy about that either. Okay. So one thing I've learned, and I'm gonna tell you all this now so you can help me out with this in the future if I mess this up. What we've learned in the past is if you're we're designating houses, when we feel the carriage house or the garage should be included, make sure that's part of the nomination.

This was, like, not that long ago.

It wasn't that long ago. What we have found and what's been determined is that when people are talking about the house itself, they don't include the detached garage. And so what's been argued and found out is if the nomination doesn't include the the garage, then it's okay for them to tear it down. It's not it's not protected by us.

It's very frustrating. It's always fun to me.

Even I mean, what if you to get around that, what if you or maybe it's something from the state that has you could do it based on the the land parcel number, although it could be two different parcels too. Okay.

Yeah. It's It's something that came up when people are like, well, it just talks about the house. It doesn't say that the carriage house is included or or the garage is included. Right. And I don't know how and I I feel like that's, like, common sense that it's the property that's designated, not the house, but I also have been informed. Like, I don't know how that would hold up in a court of law.

Yeah. Right.

So Okay.

That makes sense.

We're nominate. Yeah. As we're evaluating potentially houses, help me keep in mind that we should be I I've I've made a point of trying to make sure the garage is included if if it should be in some manner, and and we'll just keep it at that. K. So that gets a little bit to answering your question if you know where I'm gonna go with it, and I'll get more to that later. Okay. So so here, if you wanna exceed it, you can, but you're only allowed to do it if you are meet the following requirements. There's a location requirement. You can only go that high and exceed 17 feet if you are located, between, like, Losey, Mississippi Mississippi. Green Bay Street, The Marsh. So there's this

good time.

There's a specific geographic boundary where you're only allowed to do it in. Plus it also has to your main house has to be built before 1930, and it is already locally it's it's potentially eligible or eligible for the state or national register, or it's locally designated by us. So there's some criteria you have to meet before you can even build one anyway. Then there is very clear criteria in here that you have to follow. And as a result of this because we were getting a bunch of these at one point.

I actually, I actually created a pattern book. I actually walked every alley within this boundary and took pictures of every two story existing building there was. So he that's funny is this red can you see this, Ali? You can see this. Right? This is this is the one demolition Yeah. Battle we won. Somebody wanted to tear this down, and it was in the 10th And Cast District. And we fought to keep it, and it was kept. Excellent.

Oh, yeah. I mean yeah. Abs absolutely. I mean, it's you can see the horse stalls and then the hay for up above. Yeah. It

needs to be it it needs some care.

But Yeah. So so,

like like, Lovechild used to be a, a carriage house.

Back in

the day. Yeah.

So so if you see this one right here, that's blue and gold, that's new. That is not original. That's not old. That's newer. I mean, it's probably still 25, 30 years old now, but this is a newer one.

It's off of Aden.

Yeah. So I I I I made this.

That's that's our barn.

That's yours?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is Doug Farmers. He was on the commission at the time, and he's he's really passionate about these things. And so we kinda developed this book Yeah. To give ideas for people, and then it's like so it was this was, like, sort of the design standards that we were following at. The size, mass, scale in comparison to the house, what windows should look like, doors, and entrance.

So we developed this for this this ordinance right here. Mhmm. And then as I said, I actually I actually took pictures. So, again, to add to the book, I took a lot of pictures of the a new of a that was a new one, I think. That's a new one. This is a newer one too. Newer one. And then here's all the ones, the older ones I took. Blue. Yeah.

It's blue. I painted with blue. And so this is just to give ideas again for people to know how to use designs. So, like, with Coplas and Cupolas and and and these sorts of because you can get overhead doors now that kinda look like this Mhmm.

And the windows at

the top and then having the hay hay loft door or the hay mod door, whatever it is. So so there's kind of what I had developed as a result of that. And so, like, one I wanted to show you was I think this is a staff report that I did for one. It was in the back. This is on 210 14th Street. And so there's the primary house, and then I think and so then I think here's their plans that they gave me for it.

And then what I wanted to do, I believe, was actually go to and show you what it looks like on street view, which is 210 14th.

Oops. So it's right it's right here, but I couldn't see it from this actually, 14th Street, so I had to take street view and put it over here across this parking lot. And, of course,

it does that. That's fantastic. Stupid program.

Sorry.

No. You're good.

Yeah. So it's right there.

Yeah. That looks really good.

It's beautiful. Wow. It's really well done.

Yeah. So

No. That's what we're talking.

Yeah. So So I have not gotten one of these, though, in a long time.

Yeah. Well

Because Yeah. They're not cheap. But I'm optimistic since we've adopted a AU ordinance, accessory dwelling unit ordinance, that people may be utilizing these more Mhmm. If they wanna build over their garage.

Yep.

Keep a garage and then build over it because of our square footage thing. Mhmm. So so I just haven't had one in a while. And then I've actually was as I was trying to go through all my records to, like, find a good example to show you if one done, I kinda realized, like, half of these were never built, which was interesting to me. I was, like, looking at aerials and stuff. I'm like, this was never built in Google Street. I'm like, this one didn't get built. This didn't get built.

Tim, can you pull back up your imagery of ones you took photos of? Yeah. So if you scroll, there was one that's right on the alley. I wanted to scroll up? Yeah. Or the brick

Oh, I know what

you're talking about. This one? Yeah. So this one

It's in your district.

Is in my district. And just for context with Tim's note for ADU, so that's the accessory dwelling units that can be built in the you know, on people's properties that passed, gosh, within the last two years. So this person this was for sale in addition to the house, and a person approached me and wanted to buy the house because he wanted to restore the carriage house and turn it into an ADU, but there was no ADU ordinance. So that's one example that property owners really want to restore these carriage houses. I thought that was really cool.

Of course, this one has some curious considerations. It's right on the alley, and, there's some other, you know, issues that have to be addressed other ways. But this property owner actually wanted to live in the in the ADU. I thought that was so cool.

So any questions on that? Those are the ones well, the Carriage House one was kind of a weird one for us to get, but I kinda understood it, and I got a bunch of those. So now we're getting to the weird stuff of why the question mark of why we have this. And I if you don't laugh at some of these, I will be disappointed sorely. But at the time so at the time, there were always little context of why I think we got a lot of these is we didn't have a design review committee at the time that actually reviewed, like, new construction anywhere.

Those our our general standards for the city didn't exist at the time that all these were created. And so the council member on our commission at the time was Doug Farmer, and he was on this commission. And when things like these new ordinances are being created of, like, who's going to review these, and how do we get to make sure they fit in and all this other stuff? His general thought was as soon as the preservation commission, they already review designs of stuff, and they're the best most qualified commission to do it even though most of these things have no relationship whatsoever to historic preservation.

We just got one of these within the last twelve months.

What ones? One of these reviews. Oh, maybe. So so I'll get into that. So I'll get into the first one here. Let me go back to here in my code sections. The first one is rescue platforms. What's a rescue platform, you might say? These are, this is this came about a lot when we actually were able to register and ins and do inspections on our rental properties. So, when we were doing that, we were finding out that many of them didn't meet code.

Like, upper floor apartments didn't have a second egress. And so if you drive around a lot of the student housing, you'll see those little three by three platforms outside a door or window or whatever it is. That's called a rescue platform. At some point, somebody made some ordinance or part of the ordinance that says, you can't have one on the street facing facade of a house because they thought it would look ugly because which was weird because it's like, I can still see it on the side of the house. Makes no difference. And so they said, okay. You can have one on the street facing the side of a house as long as it looks better than what all the others do. They got sent to us for review. So there is a, only only one ones that face the street. We got a bunch of these.

You'd be surprised how much of these that we got. And I'm trying to find, it's one e

this is down here. E2EET3.

It's weird.

Code now.

Here it is. Exterior emergency rescue platforms and stairway serving windows shall not be erected on the side street facing side. If they are, any request to do that shall be heard by the city preservation commission. In order to receive approval, plans and renderings unless you submitted blah blah blah. There isn't really such plans that include being painted, stained, trimmed, same color scheme, the dwelling. I mean, we have very limited criteria to review these by. Mhmm. I got a bunch of these at that time because we're doing the ins we were allowed to inspect and make sure that these units were up to code. And so I will say that do I have did

I put something in here? Is this it? 17. No. So I will go back.

I'll just show you one that we did that I thought actually turned out halfway decent.

They weren't all the best. They were pretty they were pretty, they were pretty, I don't know. It's actually down here by the South Branch Library.

While you're looking for that, the reason why did they have that added? Because there has to be two exits? Because they probably have stairs going up the back if it's a second story apartment.

Yeah. That was wise because, there needed to be a second egress for, the the building code dictated there had to be two egresses for the tenants. So if a fire was in front of one of the doors, there had to be a second way out.

Yep. Okay.

Okay. Spartans

Might be am I in the right place? There's Farnham.

Oh, I think I'm up here. You're in

the park?

Yep. Where's the park?

Oh, no. I need to be right here. Yeah. So it's this house. Right?

There. Okay. I saw it.

There it is.

So this is probably one of the better ones that we've done, as you can tell. Most people you would see would just have straight blocky legs and spindles and everything else, and this is where, like this is, like, the biggest way for me to get it to look halfway decent was, can you have, like, turn spindles like this? Just put those in, and we're calling it good. Now at the time this was put in, it was all green treated lumber. So it was, like, not this color. But

Good job. It doesn't look very good right now. Doesn't.

It doesn't.

It's gonna be the hill, John. I know. That's alright. That's alright.

So fucking like Yeah. You did make your point. So so there's that one. Okay. So the other one that we have is now this one, I do feel is somewhat related to us. It's, it's called the second garage. You get a second garage on your lot. And, again, so we're going to

what's the code section? Have a

look here. So this is an e two g here. Second garage may be permitted on single family zoned lots only in a historic district. And in accordance to the provisions of this section, there's some, design standards associated. It promotes livability of historically designated neighborhoods. Basically, what we were getting, and this was primarily in the Kask King District, was, like, if you have an an attached garage, you cannot have a detached garage. And people were saying, well, look. My house, when it was built, had an attached garage, but it's like at the time, it was, like, narrow one car. It wasn't very far deep. It wasn't a functional how we want it today, and I wanna put something else in, like, in the back.

And I'm also on this giant lot that I have this giant backyard. I have the room for it. Right? And so it was you can go to the preservation commission and get review of your second garage. And so we did I think, actually, I only ever have one of these. I only got one of these.

And I will show you. It's at 220 South 20 17th Street.

I don't know which one this is.

It wasn't terrible. Why can't I move my overloading my laptop here with all the stuff that's going on?

You're so techy, though. I

enjoy watching. Because I have all my notes up here of all the stuff to show you. I think I might get out

of these. I don't need to see the plans again. Let's refresh this. 220 17th Street. This will be easier.

Appreciate the time for this, though.

I just so I hope you all find this educational.

Think everyone's enjoying it, including Jenna, who is convinced of historic preservation now. Right? Oh, by the way Mhmm. Is the keynote speaker at this build reuse. You know, like, the greatest building is the building that's already built. He's gonna be the keynote speaker. See, I'm convincing, aren't I? I don't get any money for getting people to believe it.

So, also, too, I think here's the here is the I think in this case, they were arguing that they already had a garage, but it was too small. They didn't wanna tear it down, so they wanted to build a new one back here is what it was. So I believe

Yeah. I believe get out of this. I think I had something for this one. Yeah. I'll get out of these two so it doesn't slow my computer down.

Here it is. Two twenty. So here is this one. They wanted to build, like,

they wanted to build I'm

pretty sure it was yeah. They wanted to build this. So it was just a little carport with a little extra whatever. So there's the windows. This is what's facing the house, and this is what would be facing the alley. Mhmm. Right here is what we got. And I believe they did end up building that, and I believe

that's what's right here. So if I was to hopefully not screw this up again, just put that right here. There

it is. There's the back of it, there's the carport. And it's because they already had they already had this other garage right here. Or no. I think it was here. There it is right here. This this this is an attached garage that they had.

So I think if I move that's not gonna let me do that. That was stupid.

There. Oh. Got it. Okay. Yep. So that one

They already had a garage.

And they wanted a second.

They wanted a second one. Yeah. So there's that one.

That's my favorite street across Mhmm. Walk that street almost every day.

17th Street? Yeah.

I love the break houses. Mhmm. Those are the best. Before. Yeah.

I know. They're pretty awesome.

Okay. So there's that. This one, you'll get a kick out of. Front yard additional parking.

So

you can't you cannot you cannot park in your front yard. This too, I've only ever gotten, like, two of these. Yeah. Exactly. So, this one is, 395.

Here it is. Front yard. So, for parcels located along a state, federal, or four lane arterial street where no alley access is allowed, an area no larger than 48 inches wide and 18 feet long and located parallel, adjacent, and contiguous to the existing driveway, but not to include the egress and public right of way, may be installed. And such design of this parking pad does, must be reviewed by the preservation commission for a permanent issue. So here's what was very interesting about this.

This was becoming an issue or a thing. I actually I actually, had to design a brochure of how to do it. And so here's the brochure I did, like, long ago. Additional front yard parking materials. We wanted to be pervious so that it was you know, you could have grass growing through it or whatever it is.

And then so this is this little brochure I made for this to occur, and I believe this was somebody's proposal. So the biggest thing was this. What people were complaining about, and Lozy is a good example because this is where it was occurring, is you cannot your driveway can't be wider than your garage your overhead garage door. And so in these narrower lots where it was single car garages, it was a very narrow driveway. So a car would be parked in their garage, and another car would be stacked here.

It was very hard for one person to back their car out so their spouse can then back it out because you're on busy lousy. Yeah. And so they were like, can there be some but you can't park in the front yard. So they were trying to find a way to have an additional parking thing where a car could go so the other car could go buy it. That's exactly what that was. And so I think there was only maybe two people that ever did this. This was a weird one that I'd had no no I was really upset this one came to us because I had to do that stupid brochure, and I was, like, really upset.

Somebody in Boston that's parking in front of everybody.

And I think she

Walk by or do

I don't feel allowed to do

that. So

there you go.

I feel like being That's just

So there you go. There it is right there. They built it.

Good. They did.

So there's that one. We also have an awning one. So I think in LaCrosse, you cannot your awning can has to be either 10 feet or nine feet above the sidewalk. If you wanted any other distance, I think lower than that, then you come here for us for review of whatever whatever reason that is. So 115402.

It's right here under science, canopies, and awnings. So in this specific area, an awning to project more than 10 feet or the width of the sidewalk, whichever is lesser from the front or fall lower than nine. It can't be taller than 10 or lower than nine, except the preservation commission may approve a waiver of this nine foot high requirement when the awning is located in this this area right here in a historic district that's bounded by this. And I think they did it once somewhere. I think it might have been I don't remember.

We only did one somewhere. I don't remember where it was. One of the ones downtown wanted to be, like, eight and a half or something like that because it was more in line with where it used to be on the building itself.

Mhmm.

That's what they said. So that one is one that came to us as well. I haven't had one of those ever again since then. We also have one that we review all garages that are proposed on a vacant lot Yeah. That's adjacent to the person, that's adjacent to the lot.

So if I own my house with a house on it and a garage, and I own the lot next to me and it's vacant, I'm allowed to build a garage detached garage on it for approval of this body. They get to review the design of the garage. This ordinance does not really this used to be by conditional use permit, and we got rid of all of our conditional use permits. We kinda moved it over, into our code system. And I actually found found an error because it doesn't allow that anymore.

I wonder if we just got rid of it. Basically, the link to go to it takes me to accessory dwelling units. So I have to talk to her. So I just learned that today. But I will give you an example of one that we just did, and I think it was his recent one. You were on this committee. Yeah.

4808. Stanley.

Yeah.

So it's way out, like, County Road B.

Yes.

That's

Northeast part of the city. So I believe the owner owns this property here at 4816. He bought 4806 or 4808, and I think his garage is this little thing he built right here.

Right.

It's off at County Road B. So see.

Yep. Yep. A big megachurch is here.

Right. Cemeteries.

Yeah. The golf course that's over

there is here. Yep. Yep.

Okay. So yeah. So That was cool. But this is sort of a weird one. Other ones I've seen, it's actually been, like, standard city lots for And the whole point was is we didn't allow for you the thing was too is we don't allow you to build an accessory structure is not a permitted use on a vacant lot. You have to have a primary building. But people are arguing, like, I don't wanna build a house or whatever it is. So, like, part of the criteria that was in place for this is you had to build the garage on that vacant lot, though, in a manner to where house could get built on it later. You couldn't just put it, like, in the middle of the lot or something like that. So that was one of the criteria that we had to do.

The last one is private garages in the community business district. So this was one, again, before we had design standards. So community business is is one of our commercial zoning districts. Primarily, that zoning district is really only downtown for the most part. Prior to having a downtown historic district and design standards, this one was in place to because there was people a lot more people were living downtown.

There was a building there was a property owner that wanted to have a detached garage behind their building, and this ordinance was originally written for that person. And it's off of 2nd Street here. There used to be a toy shop. It's this garage right here. So Pearl Street's right here. Around the corner, there's that parking lot, and it's this building. This garage right here was built. This ordinance was written specifically so this person could have this garage. Otherwise, prior to that, we we weren't allowing detached garages in our commercial zoning district like this for a residential purpose. Nowadays, though, this would be obsolete because anything built like this would have to follow our design standards we have as part of the district.

Now these last several I've given you, I haven't seen any of them in ten years except for the except for the Stanley one, which is a weird one. The awning thing too that we talked about, especially if that was to occur like I said, it's only allowed in historic district. That would be covered by our design standards now. I haven't heard anything about front yard parking. The second garages, I haven't heard that either.

You know, rescue platforms since we don't have an expected rental properties anymore. I don't you know, I haven't seen a lot of those. I also think during the inspection period, we probably covered most of them anyway and got them all up to compliance. And then a lot of people were just figuring out how to put them on the side of their house instead of the front anyway. And I haven't seen a carriage house in a while.

So that's largely the responsibilities that are in our code that we people would be applying for. The other thing that comes before this commission quite a bit is section one zero six feet or or comments on section one zero six reviews. So a section one zero six review is essentially historic it's it's a historic review. I'll explain this correctly. So anytime a project requires federal funding, for instance.

Right? Part of that there there there's a there's a review of the project. One zero six is part of it. Essentially says, does any part of the scope of this project affect or impact historic properties? And so, typically, I see this a lot with wireless facilities and cell towers because it's a federal project.

We had to do this with the Amtrak depot when they're because the the train and everything was looking to put in the third track and do improvements to the Amtrak depot. So, essentially and then a lot of times when we have state and federal money that goes into, like, our roadway projects, like, we had this for South Avenue when they were widening it and putting those roundabouts, They've solicited part of the process involves reaching out to the local preservation commissions and historic resources for comment. Does our project impact any historic resources? If so, how are we supposed to provide them information on our stance on that? And so I'll typically get plans and things like that that I'll put on this commission's agenda and just say they're requesting a section one zero six review.

I'll provide what information that I feel is pertinent to help you with that, and then we provide comment back to them that then they include in the report that then goes to the state historic preservation office in in Madison for them to take into consideration and weigh, for their final comments and decision. So that's the other thing that would come to this group. And that that I haven't had one in a while, but that's that that has come up quite a bit sometimes. I think for the most part, that's it. The one of first is the nominations that we've talked about before. So that's it.

This has this has been really helpful.

Good. I hope we don't see a lot of these ever. We're in the process, though. We're in the process right now of updating. We're going through a whole process of evaluating our current what chapter one fifteen code and and making changes. So I don't honestly, that would be the perfect time for us to review Yeah. Our two district standards to see if there's anything that we need to add or change or make stronger. Yeah. Particularly, I'd I'd love to hear the input, particularly after you guys got a taste of your first review. Maybe that's something we can add to the agenda.

Yeah. Absolutely.

I didn't even think about that. So But then but then I because I also think all these others, we, you know, we could probably get rid of some of these because they would already be incorporated into the design standards

Yeah.

As well, and then we can have comments on this too, like, whether we feel they're necessary or changes. And then I can very easily have our consultants too be a a virtual at a future meeting to get us to use as a stakeholder Yeah. Session.

It would be great to do that. Tim? Yes.

Would it it be would it be possible to add, the windows, sidings, and roof option back in that people would have to get a permit for that, or is that a city council activity?

That would be a city council

in our new zoning too.

I'm pretty certain that's outside of our chapter one fifteen, which is zoning. So Okay. But it doesn't mean that we can't try to get that back in to cover it or, at least through our design standards, find some way I feel like we can figure out a way to do that. Yes. Okay. Think the the answer is yes. We can figure out a way to permit those. And but it might be a couple different things. And, like, maybe we can get Reinhart conversation with Reinhart just to have it across the board be permitted. Mhmm. At the very least, make it permitted for historic structures.

Mhmm.

And while that still may be hard to enforce, what it will do, though, is allow us that if people don't do it, we have the ability then to issue orders to correct Mhmm. Which we don't have now. Yeah. So there I think there's some things we could do if that's what we wanna do.

So Well, I'm sorry.

Sure. This is Mackenzie. I was just gonna mention that I think as if it is a council thing that needs to be addressed, I can talk with chief Reinhart and kind of get the background for why it was removed

Mhmm.

And see if it's still, like, a viable option to to have added back in and then also make sure that the issues that Tim experiences can be addressed.

Yeah. Because I think that's a important thing, because I think, John mentioned it. I mean, exterior of most of these homes, that's what makes the character and the historic aspect of it like the Victorian. So, yeah, that would be very important to do that. Or if somebody covers up, you know, beautiful brick that could have been mined from the Funk Quarry on the bluff too. I mean, there's a lot of different things.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. And that's like Tim had mentioned earlier, siding, windows, roofing is definitely in our purview from an appropriateness standpoint and standards that we have. So it's definitely a missing piece.

Yeah. And it would just slow the process down a little bit too for it to get researched to make sure that they're doing things appropriately or, you know, that we can check to make sure that it is, has some sort of designation.

Mhmm. Well, I think this has been awesome. This is, like, my favorite type of meeting where we can kind of geek out on the details of what it is we're doing here. So, also, Tim, thank you for doing all of that, for putting that all together. That's fine. Like I

said, it helped me to kinda remind myself of all the different things that we do, and we have so many new members that I just thought it might be helpful, especially as we're moving into, like, what do we wanna achieve as a group over the next year. Like, this might be

Yeah. I think this

is helpful for yeah. I think it's helpful, I think, for people to know what that they have been doing or what's under their purview and then go from there.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Yeah. So perfect segue, into the next item. Ellie, did you wanna comment, though, before I go to the No. I'm good. Okay.

So the last item on the agenda is discussion and possible action on the 2025, 2026 preservation projects efforts. And so we wanted to talk about HPC's responsibilities and just provide that broader overview so that and it already has put together some items that sounds like commissioners are interested or flagged possible things that we could be working on. So, Tim, feel free to queue this up. I have a few items I wanna talk about, but maybe we could start with sort of talking about what HPC has been focused on Yeah. In the past. And then

I did send that email. Maybe I'll try to pull that up real quick. That had listed sort of stuff like that. Right? Did I send an email out? I can't remember if I had sort of an idea.

Everybody can see my screen.

I think I caught didn't I include that in this last

I thought I included as an attachment in this last agenda. Right?

Can I do that when I send everything out to you guys? Mhmm.

Yeah.

Let's scroll down just a tiny bit. Very good. Well, that one. Yes. That is correct.

Okay. So I'm just collecting my thoughts here. So some of the past things, and I'll just I know I think I've said this before. Sort of the past or projects that are kind of open, that's been done over the last five years, let's just say, are a few things. One was this ghost sign project, which I think I sent a lot of information on to all of you for input and try to include you know, update you on how that was going.

The intent is for that to get included in our zoning code update process as part of the sign code being included and adopted and transferred into our into our, chapter one fifteen zoning. Mhmm. So we have a little bit of time to work on that, but I'd be interested, to kinda complete that project and make sure it's in in some sort of ordinance form to give to our consultants. That's a project I'd like to wrap up personally for me. I think it's probably 80 to 90% there, but there I think there is some important details that's left that we we as a commission may want to make some decisions on how we want to to do that, to do these, you know, like, regulate them and things of that nature.

So there's that. The other thing was that's been on my list for a while is this demolition delay ordinance, which getting back to earlier concerns about those two houses coming down, this would have applied a 100% to these two houses. Now my understanding of demolition delay hours is it doesn't necessarily mean it would have saved them from coming down, but it would have prevented them from coming down without some sort of public awareness, public knowledge, like, from the application period of the demo permit. In some cases, it's, like, you know, sixty days they have to wait till they get the permit while there's, like, this general public information period of of the termination of whether or not, you know, it should be kept or not. And it's only really applies to buildings that are over a certain age period.

It wouldn't be like a house built ten years ago or something like that. One so that's that's been on my plate for a long time. There's a lot more way in variations to demolition delay ordinance. Now, I had a very interesting presentation. There was a very interesting presentation from the preservation planner Madison several years ago. Mhmm. Her name is Heather Bailey. I reached out to her. She is willing to come at our next meeting to give that presentation. She is coming.

She also set to just talk about, like, how Madison does it and what they had to do with it. Well, the very important part was she had told me there's three key pieces that you need to have support on from your elected officials and what you you need to be, like, prepared to do as a city to make this effective. And to me, I remember thinking at the time I don't I at the time that I heard that, I didn't believe that our city would support any of them. That was my personal opinion. But it was a very great presentation.

It was great. And sitting right next to you. It was

Were you?

Downtown in La Crosse.

Oh, cool.

Yep. When they came to our city for the English conference. Yeah.

Oh, okay. I couldn't remember where that was at.

So then It was such a great

But then she told me to also include this gentleman from Milwaukee because they have a different approach, and everything else is is as well. They have some different dynamics for theirs. And so he said that he wasn't sure if he was only gonna be out of town, but he would definitely also attend if he was available. And so he might have felt particularly get two people show up virtually to talk about demolition delay ordinances in their communities, you know, what what what is needed to make them effective, how they work, what they were intent what they were made what they were intended to do to achieve by by by the way they're written. And I think that's important for us all to have, even myself, I think, to get more of an education on exactly what this means and what we would need prepared to ask of our elected officials and staff. And

I know Heather Bailey, I spoke with her not that long ago, and she had presented at a different conference on some of the lessons learned. Yeah. So I think that's been in effect long enough to kind of learn from and kind of see some of those unintended consequences. That's awesome. I'm glad. That'll be perfect for next month.

So that that's been another one on the plate. The other one that we really started but kind of teetered off was our endangered buildings. I think it started off strong. And then There

were a number of barriers.

I think yeah. And I I think it might take a good look to look at. I think it started off strong, and I think it was beneficial. I think, though, we may need to decide if we need to change sort of our poll not policy, but just how we were looking at it from year to year Mhmm. To make it more effective and make it easier to do every year than what it was. Because I think it just sort of Big list. It was a big list. So I think, you know, it just may need to be looked at that and more. But I think it was valuable because people generally looked at it, and we had press conferences. And the interesting part was, like, two years in a row, a building we had on it came down not long after that.

Which kinda felt like we were

Other yeah. We were, like, either too late. We were on the right track, but also a little too late. The effort. We put one building on it. It was one of the engine of the blue bridges. And, like, not long after we put it on there, the car ran through it, and it had to be torn down.

Yeah.

And that was one of the reasons we had on there is because people kept running into it.

Yeah.

Not the only reason, but one of the reasons. Yeah. And then it just happened that occurred. So maybe we're maybe we shouldn't be putting buildings on this because we're like

Well, that's how we some of us started to feel. So with that one in particular

Forty days came down after we put it in there.

Came down.

I mean Club Toucan, I think, was awesome

on it. Yes. It was a struggle. So I think if we decide to and this is an ongoing conversation. We don't have to finish this conversation certainly tonight. But with the most endangered properties list, which was sort of modeled after the national preservation's most endangered list, it's an awareness campaign. Right? Some of the big barriers we had were the tribute no longer wanted to run the articles, which was our major way of getting the information out.

They wanted us to pay into it before they were doing it

for free. No.

We we

paid them tons of money. Don't get me started. And then we also you know, creating the content was a lot. So Laura, myself, David, Rio would Yeah. Spend a ton of time. We have, like, a to do list. Like, in this month, you do this to make this happen. So it's really quite a big orchestration, and it was great because it did get people talking. Some of the other things to consider that I have notes on and just to make sure we can refer back to, We wanted to look at the way we were nominating instead of just us being like, well, this building's cool. We should put it on the register.

Or this one, having a more sophisticated nomination process for being on the list or having a better criteria. Natalie Hennigan has a lot to say about that in her past experiences.

The buildings too that we were putting on this list weren't necessarily ones that may have qualified to be listed as locally designated, but they were still historically significant in some way, whether it was aesthetically to the neighborhood it sits in

Mhmm.

Or some other reason. And so we were just trying to the the overall effort was to bring attention to the fact that, hey. These buildings are here. These are important in some way. They're they're they're they they bring this value to where they're at, and this is why potentially we feel it might be threatened, whether it's through redevelopment, demolition by neglect Yeah. Or whatever.

Mhmm.

And so that that largely was what the intent was. And that way, maybe somebody else would be like, this is a cool building, and maybe they will get saved. I don't know. Yeah.

And so we could spell that out clear so that it's easier for the public to understand how something got on the list, for example. A couple other issues that we wanted to address that kind of had us pausing was we wanted to make sure that we weren't making the property owner feel awful on, like, a very public like, in a public shaming way.

By the way, your property is getting put on this list.

And you're gonna be, like, shunned because Yeah. You're not taking good care of your property or whatever. Yeah. Stuff like that.

That was tough.

That was yeah. That's sort of harder. So it's like, how could we do this in a way that brings light to its Or maybe

we wanna shame them into fixing it up for keeping

it. Yeah.

I don't know.

I think we worry too much sometimes. I mean

No. It was not good. It was definitely like I understand how people might feel. But Yeah.

The truth is the truth. This building is extraordinarily significant, and it's endangered. This is why we feel it's endangered. I mean, maybe before we make it public, you talk to them about it, how you could smooth over the edges. But I I don't have a problem with I'm not I'm not saying public shaming

Yeah.

But telling the truth. I mean, this building is

And I think that's what we were trying to it's where's that line at between shaming them and then doing it to where because we're trying to Mhmm. Bring something to light. Yeah. And I think it it was tough. It was it was tough in some cases. I think one gentleman really fought back on one thing. And Yeah. And it was the building where the car ran into. It was that property owner.

Yeah. So we want to make sure that we're building good relationships with property owners and not making them go, here comes the city. Attach me

again. See, I even look at it more as preservation. Like, a lot of people feel like preservation is the enemy. Yeah. And so it was a way how can we still do this in a proactive, constructive way without still trying to give people thinking, oh, preservation's coming along and Yeah. Giving us another black eye. Yeah. So it's it's finding that middle ground, but I'm I mean, I'm with you. I just it's finding that middle ground. Right?

Yeah. And with muffled orbs Mhmm. Which you have to do.

So there's that project, I think, that I'd like for us to, you know, at least consider revamping in some way. And then I can't remember what the other one was. Oh, the other one I have currently going right now, which I don't think we need to do, is just it's the national register nominations, that I have a consultant working on doing, preparing that's underway. I don't really know how much what we really need to be doing with that K. Really, to be honest.

Mhmm. But it could be oh, I know. The next project that I need to do is the, update of our survey, which we talked about and the reasons why that I have to redo that. And, basically, though, that's really I'm not sure what else this committee could do with that one really or has any work to do. It's me trying to find funding and grant funding to do it.

Yeah.

Or you can find the person that was supposed to do the work and help me make sure she does work. No. I'm kidding.

Speaking of.

Yeah. So there's that. So I'd be interested, though, in hearing, like after everything that we've talked about, especially with our newer members here, like, your interest that you'd like to see us work on, just your general interest, even if it's just one thing. You know, I've been here this long. We've begun this one thing. Know, you may have several of them, and I'm I'd love to hear them all. But, I mean, like, what's the number one, like, okay. I've I've heard all this. What is the one thing that you'd like to see us doing as a commission? Whoever's first.

Well, if you guys don't have anything quite yet, I will share mine, of course, as the chair. Been here for a a few years. I feel like there are people who really like technical things and people who really like storytelling and awareness campaigns, education, things like that. And I am the technical side more than I realized. So, for example, the endangered properties list took so much time that I didn't have time to do the things like policy that I really want to focus on.

And so, obviously, I'm happy to do those things. But as we consider sort of our priorities, I've realized that I don't wanna lose sight of these very important policy changes that we could be making knowing that capacity is low, and some some projects take a lot of time. So I'm very interested in wrapping up our ghost sign project. I think the work our intern did was amazing, and it could be a really great model ordinance. And I would really like to see the demolition delay ordinance be finished.

That is a huge priority to me. And seeing those two houses come down on Cass Street was like, dang it. We just had had that done. Maybe we could have Yeah. Slowed it and

see envision that being a super quick ordinance to prepare. But

That's why I'm like, I don't wanna be sidetracked with, like, busy work of, you know, event planning and and things like that. Not event planning, but you know?

Sure.

It took a ton of time to do the endangered properties list.

The other one I forgot to mention is I feel like this bubbler issue is gonna come up tomorrow.

Yeah. It is. I'm already

gonna And that's the cast iron drinking fountain?

Definitely been in the neighborhood.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's it's either gonna be maybe a nonissue if they're kept. But if not, like, what can we, as a commission, decide to do with them? Right. I don't I don't know where that's gonna go yet, and I don't know if we I don't I don't know if it's out of our hands either in terms of whether a certain federal regulation supersedes local designation or not. I don't I I I feel like that debate is It's at a higher level than me.

It's in progress.

Yeah. But it might be interesting to pay attention to the council meeting coming up because that's gonna be discussed.

Because we could learn things that we could do to make that less of a thing.

So we might that could be something to discuss in the future once you know what happens to council. Yeah.

I I have a going back to, like, the two houses getting knocked down. Okay. So I guess my concern would be that, you know, they they own the property legally. They can do whatever they want with it. But, you know, I was sad to see them knocked down too. How I guess I'm thinking, like, that's why it's important to get these homes listed. Okay? But then you have to let the people know that they have this designation before they buy the house too. Because you know? And that was kinda what I was saying.

Like, if the information stayed and went with the house, like, a usage easement would be on a title.

Would like, if we designated a property, is there some document then that could get filed at the register of deeds to show that this is dead this was designated by the city of La Crosse, and then that would show up in the title work? Is that how that works, Kelly?

Yeah. Yeah. You could it would get filed. So you would have to file it with the city, the deeds, you know, the department. And then when they do a whole search to look at the history, that would come up just like how if they're you know, like I said, you know, you have people sharing a driveway, so the easement gets filed. So the same idea.