Heritage Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

Progress. Alright. Natalie, can you give me a thumbs up that you can hear fine? Okay. Excellent. Thank you. I'll call to order this meeting of the November Heritage Preservation Commission meeting. It is 06:01PM. We have all members present either in person or online except for Jim Gallagher who is excused. First up, we have the approval of the September 2025 meeting minutes. There's no discussion on the minutes or questions rather. I'll entertain a motion.

A motion, we accept them.

Motion to approve by commissioner McLuhan. Second by? Do have a second? I'll second. Second by commissioner Hennigan. Any discussion on the minutes? Motion is to approve. If there's no discussion, please say aye. Aye. Or thumbs up online is fine too. That is approved unanimously. Thank you, Tim, for doing those minutes. We just have a couple agenda items tonight. The first is 25 dash one three seven seven, discussion on the demolition delay ordinance. There is a draft ordinance, and then the two demo delay ordinances from Milwaukee and Madison.

Natalie, is this their first meeting back?

Yeah. I think it is. Yeah.

Great. Okay. I was trying to remember. So just for context and, this is your first meeting back in a while too. So just for a little bit of history, we've been talking about the demolition delay ordinance for quite some time. Natalie, you're familiar with that. But we did have, a couple months ago, city of Milwaukee and the city of Madison present on their demolition delay ordinances. Those are recorded, and I believe Tim had forward those to everybody. Otherwise, we can get those to you if if

Presentations are attached to this item. Okay. And then the video I may have sent a link to the video too. I can't remember of when they presented.

I believe you did. Yeah. So if you click the 25 dash one three seven seven, you'll be able to see all of the attachments with the record. Okay. Tim, if you want to talk a little bit about the

Yeah. So Yeah. Both of these items really are just sort of beginning our discussions for, you know, looking at the ordinance that we currently have, and then this one is looking at the demolition delay ordinance. I do wanna thank commissioner Reiman.

Reiman.

Reiman. Apologize.

It's okay.

Ryman. He'd be Ryman.

He'd be Ryman. That's good. I'm never gonna forget that. No. It's Ryman. Yesterday.

John b Ryman.

John b Ryman.

Okay. I Commissioner Ryman for, really sort of helping in getting us a good start for discussion. Right? I think, you know, I think there's still a lot to do and a lot to figure out and have discussions with many people, but this is, to me, I felt it was a great, great, great overall starting point, and there's a lot of good things in here that we can build upon. And so the intent really was just to have a discussion.

I don't really expect that for the end of, like, this meeting, we're gonna have an ordinance that we can take to council. I think it's just gonna be a good discussion where we can keep making changes or revisions. I can start then including other potential departments within city hall that where this may be affected in some way and and then keep moving that forward and then then figuring out from there which way to go. I do feel like I've had a lot of I've actually had some phone calls on this already from other council members with interests. And so ones that I wasn't think I had no idea where they would stand on something like this, so I was pleasantly surprised by that.

So I do feel like there's some support for an effort of this. It's just gonna come down to what those specifics are. You know, like, what the process is and then how how and who is gonna be evaluating whether something should be moving forward through this process or

not. Mhmm.

So I don't know how you wanna begin.

I think I mean, I can say what I thought my ideas were, and then you go around the room or something. It's up

to you.

I would say let's start with you Okay. And hearing your thoughts, and then we can sprinkle everybody else in.

Yeah. So, again, overall, I thought there were some good things in here. I feel like, fifty years I think establishing some sort of, age limit is great, where we would have a starting point. I do feel, though, we may need to think about those instances where you have a building where part of it may be 50 years of age and an addition is not and how you look at that. That could potentially be something we need to decide whether we want to consider or not. Or there's a lot of instances where, like, the shell of a building may

be 50, but it's been completely gutted and completely remodeled,

and maybe it's you know, do we do we do those? Or maybe that's just easily one that we can write off because we know that information. There may be some instances we just need to think about to make sure that we have all our bases covered on what would be reviewed or not. So that's just a comment I have on that. I do think what I would like to do is whatever we end up moving forward with is to reduce the additional amount of staff that would be part of this process and make it solely part of the planning department.

Because I don't want to unduly burden other staff members, if they don't have to be, like, the building inspector and stuff. And, again, again, this was just something that, Richard Reiman had started, so which I'm appreciative of. I just I think also, my just initial inspections with our chief billing inspector, I think, there's a way we can maybe build the process off something we currently have and then just make it solely in our department or the planning director or something along those lines. And so I just wanna reiterate that that I think we can make that be director of planning or department or designee of our department or the preservation plan or something along those lines.

Should we stop there?

Sure.

So, we do have chief Reinhart here as well, by the way. Hi, chief Reinhart. Welcome. He tries to make a lot of these meetings. I know so Madison reviewed any demolition, and then Milwaukee had slightly different experience.

It'd be kind of curious to talk to other staff in the city of Madison from lessons learned, and they've had a really long established demo delay ordinance. Like, I can't remember. Twenty five years? So it's it's old news to them. But can you can we walk through a little bit more, like so you say one department, but planning and inspections is one department now. Right?

Yeah. Yes. Technically, yes. That's true.

It's in the same title.

I guess I remember. I think I'm re minimizing the amount of additional staff that we would add to be part of this process. Sure. So get so just I know you wanted me to just pause for a minute. So one thing that I was thinking of right now, let's just talk about the process for demolition.

Sure.

Dave, please correct me if I'm wrong on anything. But somebody right now can apply for a demolition permit. There is a they they have to submit a lot of documentation, but the biggest thing is there's this big sign off sheet that they have to sign or they have to get all these signatures on, including, like, to make sure, like, utilities are cut and capped, like, the electricity is removed, plumbing stuff is taken care of. There's the whole bunch of stuff. I know I'm missing other other signatures.

One of them on there is for me to make sure that it is not a locally designated property. And so it does come to me at that point as part of the sign off process. And so one thing I kind of suggested to chief Reinhart and you know, that we can maybe build upon is expanding what my signature on that document means. So going beyond that, whether it's a locally designated building or not, my signature may also be like it's not considered course historically significant, and it can keep moving to the demo process. Or withholding my signature on, it means that it has it does fall under this origins that we're creating, and then we're posing that it follows, you know, whatever process we create after that to go through additional review, additional delay, and things of that nature.

Mhmm. And that, again, would then fall solely on me. And the most that perhaps his staff may do is just answer questions of talk to Tim, talk to Tim, or talk to the planning permit, that sort of thing. That's kind of sort of a very preliminary discussion we had on the process. Again, it's gonna still come down to what that criteria is that we have associated with, determining, you know, how far it goes in the delay process. And, like, again, whether it's just me or whether everything goes to you or this body, I'm not sure. And so I think those are additional details. But my thought would be is they could be it could be almost that simple to build upon our existing demolition process that we have now.

So does that make sense? Questions, Eric? Where where the statute would say dealt with by administration, that's we, Brent, or

Or my department. I mean, I yeah. It would be I mean, sometimes you don't wanna keep it as vague as historic preservation planner because I think I'm kind of default to have that title, but that's not really my title. You'd wanna make it more broad and say planning development department or director of planning or their designee. So that could be whatever the director of planning designates since those responsibilities are within the planning and development department. It might be something like that Mhmm. I would I would say. That's fairly typical.

Yeah. I think aligning the processes is a a good thing, and then it's hopefully less intimidating to create an entirely new process. We want this I mean, like, at the core, right, we're trying to prevent demolition of worthy to keep buildings, which and just buildings that shouldn't be torn down in general. Right? So

Yeah. I yes. I think that would be one goal of it, but I think maybe the goal is to just provide additional opportunities to bring awareness to potential buildings that should be considered. Sure. Maybe we'd maybe we don't save them all. It's like if you heard from I think it was Heather. She had said, we don't still save them all, but

Yeah.

At least it brings more awareness and opportunities to maybe save the ones Mhmm. That we should be saving.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

In anyone that applies for status, is that information kept somewhere? Is it, you know, stored on computer? I'm what I'm thinking is, let's say somebody ten years ago filed for status, and for whatever reason, things were changed. So then now they're coming through to have a demolition. Would there with you checking, could you go back and see if there was ever an application done for a home in the past?

That didn't that didn't get it?

Right. But just to see what the scenario was, and maybe they didn't fill it out correctly or something was missing. I mean, just so because I know she talked about that one Mhmm. And how they were really sad, and it just kinda fell through the cracks.

Yeah.

If there's just, you know, that checks and balances just in case.

Yeah.

You know?

So the ones that are already listed would have to go through a separate process anyway because they'd have to get a special certificate of appropriateness for demolition. So that process is already in place. This one would be more for those ones that aren't locally designated anyway. Now the ones that weren't designated that were at least nominated but didn't make it, I do have a file. I have those files in my my office of those ones. There's maybe 10 of them.

Okay. So it's not that many.

That many. No. And most of the time, it was because people just didn't wanted their properties to be designated, and the council at that time voted with them. Okay. There was a big one I had that was on Holy Trinity Church. Like, there was a huge, response from that congregation at the time that did not want their church designated.

Okay. Oh, yeah. Well and, you

know, maybe something changed, different owners. And you know?

Yeah.

To kinda

Yeah. That was that was in the nineties. Yeah. So so Natalie. Yeah. There would be some that I'd have, some records for. But yeah.

Natalie.

Thanks. And apologies if you hear a cranky baby in the background. He might make an appearance. So just wanted to clarify the goals here too. I see a middle ground where we are delaying demolition on buildings that may not ever have the chance to be repurposed in full, but have the chance to be repurposed in part, and we can open up time and space for salvage to happen, to reclaim materials.

Obviously, I'm saying this with my, know, half of my Habitat for Humanity hat on where we're currently at Hogan, you know, salvaging loads and loads of material, to keep it from the landfill, to give back to the community who cares deeply about the building. We had a former student and school district, employee come by yesterday to pick up some windows and bring economic value back into the community. These pieces have economic material and or value and can be recirculated back locally. So just wanting to put that out there as a a point of conversation that maybe the purpose isn't exclusively to say, hey. Wait. This should be designated or repurposed or saved as whole, but there's an opportunity for some middle ground there too.

Yeah. Natalie, I'm I was going to specifically call out and ask for you to take a peek at the very last two pages where it touches on alternatives. And as a subject matter expert on this topic, I would be really glad to see if that's best practice, or I know there are lots of existing precedents for alternatives, like, you know, collected salvage, deconstruction, things like that.

Demolition and salvage is in is in there.

Yep. And I I think that was brought up by, I think, Heather. Like, that was Yep. That was the thing that she had said to

me the Madison

part of

her presentation. They might

Heather Bailey is in Madison.

Yeah. That was the big points that I but but overall, just that was the big points I had was I feel like we can build upon an existing process that's in place and just so we don't have to change that too much. And my goal would be to lessen or not even involve additional responsibilities for, you know, additional staff if possible. And then that was really the big points I had. So Yeah.

I think I think I think by doing that, it'll be much easier, I think, for my opinion would be is to potentially reduce the amount of opposition you would get from maybe other departments for process. But then that way, we could focus more time on the criteria and making that part of it get right and and solid so that we can, have a good case to be made to have an ordinance adopted.

Yeah. Yeah. That sounds good. Does anyone else have comments?

Folks have the expertise on the city and how the city's run. I mean, we're on the periphery.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, if you believe that would be the best interest of maintaining this because

the ultimate goal is to try to save some

of these buildings in the the the culture of the city.

Mhmm.

And if you know how to tweak this to improve potential for success, I'm all for that.

Yeah. I think I think I think that's that's where we should start.

Yeah.

And then we can focus on, especially, the other parts of it, like, we want to focus on, then how are we going to determine who's going to determine or how we're gonna determine, like, the ones that we do keep and send on and whether that's me, whether that's you, whether it's a combination of both. Mhmm. You know, there was good examples of kind of both scenarios for Madison and Milwaukee. And do we need to find somebody else that has one, and do they what do they do kind of a thing? I don't know if there's many in the state of Wisconsin. But

I think it's okay to go outside

of the state. But And

and and and Commissioner Reiman had some good links too, I think, as well, that I can't remember if I provided those to everybody or not. But so that those so that's my comments. So I'm I'm willing to I I wanna hear from everybody else.

K. Others? Laura, do you have any thoughts? Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. I got hold on. Yeah. It's like I mean, the first

thing I I wrote was like, do you wanna add something about salvage to the first part, like, under 1.2 where it's kinda summarizing of? I do see it on phase nine.

Or maybe even in the definitions.

Yeah. Mhmm.

It's no problem.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just like yeah. It's not a big deal. For section three three point three, it it refers to emergency, demo. Is that defined somewhere else in the city, said, or is that something that would have to be defined?

We do have that. I can't remember where. It's funny. Mister Reinhart chief Reinhart and I were trying to figure out where that's written.

But it is But

it it's somewhere in our code that if there is an emergency situation, you know, that supersedes any sort of historic process that's in place. Yeah. And so so that's good to have in there. I think maybe we just expand on it to say per section, wherever that's defined or, you know, something like that. So I think that's always good. I think that's helpful for our our inspection staff.

In section 4.1, are those things that are already on demo permits, or would we have to, like, help work with the people that make the permits and change the form? That's that's the thought.

No. This is this is no. This isn't already a requirement of yeah. You don't need I mean, there's the name of the address and the applicant and property owners and the contractor is probably the only thing that's required of everything on here.

So it's like

or like we did for the historic designation. Or you did not

If I think Mhmm. I think what I was thinking when we start getting to these requirements, what we're asking would be, yes, for whatever criteria we feel it's met or at least preliminary criteria is we feel like it warrants additional information to be provided, and that would be where you get into this stuff is what I was thinking. No. You're not. You're not.

Those are good. Do you have others, Laura?

Yeah. So, so it delays things by a hundred and twenty days. Right? But what if, like, they don't do anything? Is that, like, where the fine comes in? Like, I was just trying to figure out how it all amounted.

It's like I think this wasn't the fine if they go ahead and do demolition work. Yeah. So this so that, technically, they could probably have both. They could be in a holding period for a hundred and twenty days, but they start ahead. Yeah. So, yeah, then they would. Yeah.

I mean, this might be

The dean.

But we can should be 7.2 if they don't listen to the delay. The 100

Yeah. But so, like, if I wanna tear down the river or something and you guys said, oh, you should we're doing this demolition delay. I'm like, alright. I'll wait a hundred and twenty days. But that might just be beyond the power of any commission like this time.

In the hundred twenty days, I wasn't sure what number to put in there. The one ordinance I saw said 180, and I thought, oh, boy.

That sounds like a lot.

Yeah. So I dumped it down to one twenty, but I wasn't sure about that number.

K.

To be

honest with you, it was somewhat arbitrary, the number I came up with. I thought, well, four months sounds like enough time, but I'm not so sure. I don't really know.

Well and it's we're shortening how many people have to touch something like this. That because that time frame could be in other cities. It has to go to several different departments. If we can do it more localized in an easier manner, then it could be definitely less than that. I don't really know about it. Yeah. Yes.

That's a good flag, though. We can do research on that and ask. How

We found some historical sites suggest a 100 '80.

Oh, really? Suggest. Chief Reinhart, how long does our current demo process take? The request to completion, if that's what you wanna call it.

If if we have all the correct documentation, we can issue it the same day.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's pretty bad.

I think that's part of the that's part of the concern.

Okay.

But you you you gotta pick a sweet spot. You don't want the delay to be so long that people on the city council say, we're not doing that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you

don't want it to be so short that they can pull the wool over our eyes too.

Okay. So we can mark that as, like, highlighted. Oh, go ahead, Natalie.

Did the I wasn't able to watch the videos. I think you you did send them, Tim. But did the speaker from Madison discuss the requirement of a reuse and recycling plan for demo permits pulled? Like, I know that's a requirement that is part anyone who pulls a permit has to have a plan for reuse.

I think she did say something, but I can't remember what it was. Yeah.

At least. Okay.

You did say there were some sort of requirements. I did ask I'm gonna have to revisit this. I did ask if it was coupled with a deconstruction ordinance or something like that where it clarified what would have to happen instead of, you know, all the things we know will happen. And I believe there was no coupled ordinance, but there were suggestions, I think, more loosely. So we could dig into that further, and Heather would be glad to talk further, to us as well or or provide examples.

Yeah. Because what Are you Go ahead.

I was just gonna say, are you concerned that something that could be repurposed is getting missed? Or, I mean, what's the concern? Nala, do you wanna kinda give a

little bit more of your background? Sure. Well so,

you know, not only does am I am I a representative of Habitat for Humanity and our reclaim program where we salvage material from buildings that are gonna be re majorly renovated or demolished, but I also sit on the board of a organization called Build Reuse. That's a national organization focused on advancing deconstruction as a demolition alternative and building material reuse. So I I I'm I'm with a lot of these deconstruction or demolition delay, processes that exist in other cities and, you know, the the infrastructure that's needed in a community to support such a requirement if we were to say, actually, you can no longer just demolish a building. You have to deconstruct it, and repurpose materials. But there's, like, a a middle ground that a lot of communities have found or that that encourages, a certain percentage, say, of material that you demolish has to be reused.

It has to be recycled. It can't just go straight to the landfill. There are demolition delays. There are incentives for, you know, maybe your permit will actually be approved more quickly if you choose a deconstruction and reuse route versus demolition. So it's like a reversal of the status quo saying, we're gonna delay and make demolition more expensive, but deconstruction, you will get a fast track to our city support and other resources to do that.

I think generally, though, what we're asking is for this process to be slowed down. And by adding more requirements for a property owner to get from a to b, you know, in seeking a demolition permit, that slows the process down. And if one of those things that a city like Madison has put forth is this requirement for property owners to have a reuse and recycling plan for the building that's gonna come down, so a certain percentage has to be repurposed. And that allows for companies and organizations to say, there is material in this building that has historic value that could be repurposed in home repair and renovation or new construction in other places in our community. But that's that's a cost.

Right? It's it's a cost for a building owner to incur to develop that plan, and it takes, you know, time to develop it. And but all of that is in in in that goal of slowing down the process and not just saying, alright. This is a quick yes. We can, you know, demolish this building without without that proper time for, you know, reflection or or, review of of what we have in front of us.

So, forgive me, Ellie, if I if I'm, like, getting off track with your question, but I'm just trying to provide some some context on why I think like, there's lots lots of different, like, tools and and techniques we can use to slow the process down. While I like the idea of it staying sort of in house and planning, I do think there is there are so many ways this can overlap with other, maybe, like, city projects or city goals, not just historic preservation, but, you know, climate action with economic development. There's lots of there's lots of things that this can speak to as well.

Yeah. You remind me that way back, we have kind of a memo on demo delay, don't we, that a student did a number of years ago, and it was very good. That's, like, four years ago now, Tim. So I don't I don't blame you.

We've also had an effort to pursue, what Natalie's talking about. Deconstruction. We had we had a amazing person in our apartment that really looked into that. It just I don't think we had Sure. We we didn't have at the time resources and programs outside the city, like what Natalie's saying Habitat has built us up to to make it work, to make that as a requirement for all demolitions, really.

Good question. The recycling is basically run by the county in cooperation with the municipalities. Correct?

Yeah. We have our own recycling program with the city, but I don't know what you mean.

So, I mean, could this be tied to a countywide effort?

Totally. So this is where it gets into c and d recycling. Right, Natalie?

This is I don't know if there's a demand for these materials just in the city, but if you Yeah. Expanded it to the county, there might be greater opportunities there. Mhmm. Again, that complicates things. But

It is somehow that if they're looking at trying to have this material use in other locations that it benefits them maybe for permit ex you know, getting their permits done quickly or inspecting thing you know, just kinda moving them along a little faster because they're they're you know? And sanitization is always good. Yeah.

So I do think I do think as part of this, having a requirement that, yes, it we're not gonna require that it's kept. It can move forward, but we do require that it's salvaged is good. But I feel also feel like that's a separate ordinance altogether because we'd wanna have something like that citywide, and I feel like that's a different task and a different animal.

Yeah.

And not and not something that we would put in here. Yeah. They would be related, but I don't think that'd be part of this. That'd be something separate, and I do feel like that's gonna be the involvement of other departments too.

Especially if you're gonna attach some sort of incentive to it as well. So

My understanding of why we didn't move forward was the infrastructure outside of city hall to require that wasn't in place. Like, there wasn't enough people, organizations that did it.

Right.

Better. And at the time, Habitat's program wasn't as built up and successful as it was now, but there was also something to be said to have more than one pro organization that did it outside of, you know, outside of city hall. And so I think I think just think that's, like, another whole animal altogether.

We can keep them in mind because that is hopefully something we get into down the road. But, yes, having infrastructure, like construction, demolition, waste, recycling Yeah. Offered by the county is big. Nevertheless, I think it's always good to remember that one of our biggest goals is, like, a local area is that we're running out of space in our landfill, and this would prevent mass quantities of stuff from filling that.

I've got a couple questions.

Yeah. Go ahead, Eric.

One is, does Habitat have I think their their work is wonderful, and I'm so glad that they're recycling materials, like, from the pink palace and stuff. But does Habitat have exclusive light rights to the recycling ability in demolition projects or from Joe's Midnight Copper Exchange come in and take some copper?

I don't think Habitat has exclusive rights. I just think they're pretty much the only game in town that really does a comprehensive salvage thing. So they

request that.

Correct? Mhmm.

Yeah. Yeah. And that that's my only my understanding.

So yeah. And my second question was, 4.2, the instance where somebody comes in with all their completed paperwork and gets the approval that day versus, something more in a gray area. One that wasn't clear to me exactly what triggers a public hearing. Is it when?

Let me go. Well, when you

you have in here that there'd be a public notice and it posted on the on the property for thirty days, so that could generate, you know, public, I mean, you know

Yeah.

Comments and then lead to the further.

Yeah. So four point two is to make the public aware.

Yeah.

And then four point three says there'll be a hearing then to hear what the public thinks.

And, Eric, you're asking what triggers that process?

What so let's say the building has a sign on for thirty days, and there's there's no response, no outcry, that is there still a public hearing, or is that not being Oh,

the public notice is letting people know that there will be a public hearing to be held.

It just might be a board.

That's what the public notice is for.

Not like what's happening next door.

The way I see this written is that and maybe for incorporating how I think I would change like, alter it a little bit would be somebody would want to demolish the building. Like, they they submit whatever it is to the whole package to the inspections department. Right? And then when it comes for me or at some point to sign off, whether it's because sometimes I get that, and they haven't even submitted for their permit yet because they need that filled out before they can apply for their demo permit. So it comes to me by whatever criteria we establish, I say, okay.

That's one that I think we need to consider in some way, whatever by whatever criteria we set for our ordinance. And then I would say, okay. I need to re if you wanna continue on with this demolition permit, you need to give me these things. Here's the application that we need then to evaluate further your property. They do this.

We have to follow this process, and we have our public hearing. And then there's additional criteria that the commission would evaluate Avaya to determine whether they institute a hundred and twenty days for us to further talk about these things here. Now what I don't see in here, though, is if there's no solution that's agreed upon, what happens? Right? If we find a solution, then we can waive the hundred and twenty days and let them go forward with whatever it is. Or but if no solution is found to what I that's what I didn't see in here. I wasn't quite sure of the next steps. So I think I think I captured that okay.

You did.

Okay.

Mhmm.

Which then, if that's the case, I do again feel like, yeah, we have a lot of things to figure out.

Commission may waive or terminate the delay period. It determines that a good faith effort pursue upgrades has failed.

Yeah. But if there if we feel like one hasn't been done, then what happens? Right? Then I guess they just don't get the permit.

That's true.

But then we have to make sure then that we have a clear cut, like, argument. So if they because I would feel like we're gonna have to build into here somewhere that somebody can appeal that decision to the council, which means that we need to have a clear cut case then of why we feel like

Should be a power.

It should not be issued. A demo appointment should not be issued based on our criteria. And so, again, I think there's a lot more content to add, but this is I think this does a good job of getting the initial framework in.

Yeah. I think it's a great start. Really. So did you do that?

Well, don't I don't give me too much credit. I used the historical society. I I also looked at another city in Wisconsin, and I I typed it all into AI.

That's awesome.

I popped it off,

and I just moved it around. That made sense to me.

Cool.

So Well done. I cheated.

I think everybody I think everybody's

teacher, but you are not a cheater.

I don't know.

It's not a pleasure. Sometimes it's not. But I did not sign it off as my own. Yeah. But it was amazing. Was almost it was almost too easy. Yeah. To be honest with you, I was a little disturbed how easy it was. Yeah. Yeah. How I feel riding my ebike. I've been one. I feel I understand.

Jenna made me ride one last month, and I was like, really? Okay. Well, any last bits on this?

I can we go around the room to everybody? I just Yeah. Everybody knows we

need to talk.

Tim wants everyone to speak, each person.

Well, any other comments on this? Just like

Kidding. I'm kidding.

Not everyone. I don't. I just need the commissioner,

but Jen's

just allowed. Totally allowed to talk.

The chair allows it. We heard from I think we heard from everyone, not maybe in order, but feel free to add additional. Yeah.

I have more thing. So in section five, it says, like, the commission will work with the property owner. But I was kind of trying to get this before. I was, what if they're just like that? All, like, a hundred and twenty days. No big deal. But we require them to meet with us. And, I mean, they could still ignore us, but then they have to, like, listen.

Well, I think that's what I was just talking about that, you know, there's no language in here that's what's if we don't talk with them or no agreement's made or we don't feel like a good faith effort isn't made, whatever that means, then what what what's the Yeah. Thing here? Because they could just say, fine. I'll just I'm not gonna do anything, and then I'll just appeal your decision to the council or something like that. So I think what we do is at that point is we don't off and allow them to move forward with their demo permit, but then that gives them the opportunity to appeal to the council.

Yeah. I'm saying, what if there was, like, oh, a hundred and twenty days. No big deal. I'll just,

you know?

Well, then they'll have to go take it to the council because we would make a determination that we

We would say no.

We would say no.

No

to the permit.

Would do that even after a hundred and twenty days?

A hundred and twenty days is to decide if they get the permit or not.

Okay.

Or to work with them to see if there's some other opportunity. Like, have a good faith effort to see if there's another alternative that we can agree upon. But if they don't agree to do that,

the due diligence and get the whatever

Yeah.

They need to get done done. Mhmm. So yeah.

Cool. Alright.

So I'm as we go through this, we'll have tweaks and stuff.

But yeah. I think then what I may try to do, but I would maybe request, like, maybe not until our January meeting Sure. Is to maybe, like, incorporate things I've heard here and then how I felt maybe to the process should be and then maybe even just put some placeholders that says insert something here that we can discuss and just kind of have another reiteration of this. Mhmm. I also then again checked back in with chief Reinhart just to see what his thoughts were after this meeting.

To get clear on

And be good. He would be the biggest one that I'd wanna make sure is, for the most part, okay with what we're trying to do.

We want chief Reinhart to be employed. Yeah.

I can't I can't I don't I don't know about that. We can't control people. But So okay. I appreciate Not

the chief member. Meeting, but January?

I would just this is the holidays

and other things. I just if you can give me till January to sort of work on this. And and

December meeting's always the best.

John, can you forward your AI discussion to Tim, and then he can actually put it in?

That this is what popped out.

Yes. This is

what it is. You have it.

So you can just, yeah, load it in. I'm

gonna Yeah. I have this. I have this as I have this as a Word document.

You have a copy of it too, or he gave you the link.

I'll I'll just feed this into the computer, and we'll go right I know. You know what? It's actually Okay.

There the parameters you want.

I know. I use it all the

time. It's We never

used it before, so

it's very scary.

Yeah.

It's very, very scary.

Okay. There's that.

You guys are fun. Okay. Alright. Thank you very much. Next is 25 dash one three seven eight, review and discussion of chapter one fifteen, the heritage preservation commission related ordinances.

Yeah. So, I'll have to share something here so that Natalie can see. Just share my screen. And there. Oh, that's not it. Oh, it's this one. I don't know where I did it. Oh, I know where it's at. It's in here. Okay. Can you see that, Natalie? Okay. I'm I'm not really sure to start with this. As you as those of may remember, I I kinda went through, like, every ordinance that we had at one point. I may have sent a link to that meeting too, hopefully.

And I'm not anticipating again that we try to get through all these tonight. I would, though, like to have some sort of final recommendations from this body regarding the ordinances that pertain to us on recommended changes sometime in, like, January, maybe January by our January meeting at the latest or, you know, just just just some ideas. But, for our consultants to start working into, maybe February as well. But so I just kinda wanted to give an opportunity for us to decide, like, now is the time. If we feel like needing any changes need to be made to our design standards and our two historic districts for the process, this is the time to do it.

If you wanna make any changes to our overlay district historic district process for designating them, now is the time to do it. And then all these other sort of obscure sort of, ordinances that we have. So I don't know if if anybody just wants to have any suggestions so far about how we do this. We just tackle one at a time, or we tackle these easier ones where these really obscure ones like second garages and awnings and private garages and additional sidewalk, additional driveway, front yard parking kind of ones. I mean, we can tackle some of the low hanging fruit ones if you feel like it's just we can quickly say, nope.

We don't wanna be a part of that anymore. And I do feel with some of these, like, for instance, front yard parking. Right? Mhmm. I feel like there are standards that go along with this in place. I don't understand the need for a body or commission like this to have to review it because there's standards in place. So here if anybody who wants to apply for this, essentially, there's the standards. You have to meet that if you want your permit. I don't know why you need to have a commission of some sort to review it and approve the designs for it. So if you have the criteria in place, it can just be evaluated by

Administratively.

The administratively. Right? And whoever that would be, whether they because if they have to give a I don't even know if they get a permit for this or not. Yeah. They need a building permit. So, I mean

That should not be

And then, again, this is stuff I would need to wanna check check with our inspections department about or talk with Reinhart about any proposed changes because that would then take less it would take burden off of me or put it on his guys, and I don't want to unnecessarily do that. Or or maybe what this does is it still would be reviewed by me, and I can just sign off on it if they meet the criteria, and then it goes to you if they don't want to kind of a thing. I don't know. But those are some of the things I was thinking about with these obscure ordinances that I don't know why this body has any review power over why we wanna have an additional parking in their driveway along Loews Boulevard or somewhere else where it applies. That just does not seem that's the purview of this group.

Yeah. So

things like that, I think we could change the rescue platform too. This was a big thing. Where is that one at? Right here? This was a big thing that when I first started was occurring a lot, and I think it also had occurred a lot because at the time, we had a rental inspection program where they had to be in compliance with, like, a laundry list of things, and this came up a lot because there was many rentals that were not in compliant with having that second exit out of upper floor bedrooms. And, I have not had one of these in a very long time.

Mhmm.

And I don't know if that means they're all compliant now or whether it's because there's no inspections being done because we can't do that anymore that they're just I don't know what it is. Maybe it's a combination of both. I don't know. Right? But, I mean, I would say for the most part that when we had those many years of inspections, they were all caught.

Everything would, in theory, should've should've been caught and may force them to do that. And then anything new that's getting built would have to meet those any additional requirements anyway. So I would venture to bet that there's probably very few that are left that are not in compliant, and the only way they would not be in compliant is because they weren't allowed to inspect them in the first place and for whatever reason that is. And I'm just I I don't know the whole history behind all of that. But that's one too I feel like does this body really need to be reviewing this? Mhmm.

Yeah. It doesn't seem like it's in our purview in any way.

Is somebody reviewing it then?

Maybe the fire department. Do they have to double check that?

Well, no. What I mean is, like, we haven't had one to review in forever. It's number one. Well, I mean, it would take it away from us, and somebody else would have to do it, or there isn't a review of those. It's just they're allowed to build a three foot by three foot rescue platform that can just be however designed however they want facing a street.

Two friend here wants to speak, by the way.

That's different than the one that we had by

Thank you, Eric. Can you mark him excused? Yes.

That's not the same thing as this. Yeah. They just wanted to build a balcony.

Yeah. Chief Reinhart, can you just mark Eric? Yeah. 646. Okay. Chief Reinhart. I

would bet that, rescue platform will never be built that would need this requirement anymore in the city of La Crosse.

Okay.

And why is that? Because you took care of them all during the inspection phase?

Or Of course. Of course, we did. Yeah. Most because pretty much the requirement for the rescue platform were for buildings that were changed into rentals without permits that didn't have the correct exiting in the first place. Now if something wants to change a rental or wanna make it a duplex, they'll have to meet all the current building code requirements. So I don't think this would come into play.

Or if it did, it'd be very rare where it'd be a rare instance. Yeah.

Then they could they could just go to the board of zoning appeals for the setbacks if they're in the setback.

Yeah. Okay. And then that wasn't even the issue with this. It was designed. Like, we just wanted to say these are being built on a facade facing the street. We wanted to look better than what's what some people were proposing to build. That was really it.

That could still be something that the board of zoning appeals would take a peek at if

Probably not the design of it. But Like It was never about whether they could put it there. It was about the aesthetics aspect of these is what we were reviewing. It was never it was never whether they could have one there or not. It was what it was going to look like.

Where it's gonna be, What side of the building?

So, again, I'm not saying make a decision now, but this is sort of some of my thoughts is I'd like to if there's possibility for us to remove this from our responsibilities, then I'd like to have that evaluated. So I'm not asking for a decision on that now.

Yes. My thought is if it's not being used, what is it hurting being in there? Because it could protect us from some unforeseen future. It's a good point. It's not hurting us. So

I think that that's valid, and we could still keep it and just move it into the more appropriate governing area? Because I don't think like, if you look at the intent of the Heritage Preservation Commission, I would would that really be under the HPC's purview?

That would be for this body to decide whether they wanna have review of this or not.

Well, I think we at least mark it in our

Yeah. That's just something to think about at the moment. Yeah. What I'd like to do, and this may take some more sort of thinking on my part, and I may, have my, colleague over there, who's Stinko, help me with this, is the carriage house ordinance. You know, we I think to this one, I'd like to see how we what sort of discussion comes from our ex detached garages with the, now accessory dwelling unit ordinance that we have.

There's been a conversation about how we you can't exceed 17 feet in height anyway for a detached garage. So how are you supposed to build an accessory dwelling unit over one? And I said, well, you can if it's a carriage house and it's in this geographic area. But anything outside of that, I would say you probably can't, I guess. And so that's been a larger discussion that we've heard from others.

It's like, well, I mean, do we change that somehow? So I think there's gonna be a larger discussion about this with accessory dwelling units and allowing for that to change, and that conversation hasn't been had. I think this would be part of a larger discussion, you know, with with other staff and other our consultants and stuff. So I think, you know, maybe what we need to say is that you can go higher than 17 feet, but what if it's still in this geographic area, it has to look like a carriage house or something. It has more design elements to it.

I'm not necessarily ready to give up this kind of design element because we wanna make sure that we have better design for those in our areas that are the older parts of the city and in our historic neighborhoods. Mhmm. Mhmm. That's the thought. That's just where I was thinking of this particular one that we have here.

The second garage, You know? I don't know how many thoughts on that one. And then there's the awnings over sidewalks.

Is is that mainly for downtown?

No. It's anywhere. No. There's a geographic boundary associated with it. It's Oh. It's yeah.

In the Historic District.

Yeah. Because it's in the Historic District, and then you just go to the board of public works if you want a waiver of it's like we can re they can ask for us for a waiver of the heif when it's but they have to come to us for a waiver when it's in the downtown area.

Right.

Anywhere outside of the city, they just go to the Board of Public Works.

Yeah. Because, I mean, what houses are that close where an awning would be over a sidewalk?

Yeah. It's mostly commercial oriented buildings.

Right. South Street, Lafrosse, Mississippi. Yeah. And the river, it's more downtown.

And, again, you know, if we're really talking about, again, that might be something we work into the design standards for the downtown historic district. Even though that boundary is outside of that, I don't know. So that's something to think about as well. It's like

A little, you know, boutique shops that are in some in this well, now that I look at the descriptions, there aren't. And further outside of that too. So yeah.

This one, private garages, was written specifically for one individual who ended up building

a detached garage, downtown off of 2nd Street. It was, it was Carla Calleys, I believe, for her old when she had that business down there on 2nd Street. And that garage that's there off the alley is this was essentially what that was written for. I feel like, though, what we didn't have at the time was down the C 3 is essentially our downtown, mostly our downtown. And I feel like now we have design standards that would allow for accessory structures to get built that have better standards. I almost and this used to be by conditional use permit, which we don't have anymore either. Part of me feels like this could just be getting rid of.

Yeah.

I mean, again, not asking for a decision now, but it's just sort of a thought. Sure. So those are the easier ones, I think. The second garage is essentially, again, defined by geographic area, I believe, or by, like, whether it's an existing historic district or historic property, like national register, state, or local. Oh, this one just says, yeah, city or national park service, historic district.

So it's only in historic districts. And then you can have a second garage on your parcel. And then there's restrictions associated with that. I think the intent was that some of these older homes had, like, really early garages where it was essentially it could fit into it was a car. And but then that would likely prohibit people from being able to build a bigger one, you know, on these larger lots that are in these historic districts.

They couldn't have an additional garage. And so this was allowing them to be able to do that, and they had to meet design standards and lot sizes. So Mhmm. So that one, again, consider how to evaluate that one. We can talk about that more. And then we get into the after that, some of these larger ones. That's our historic standards. Design standards. I don't my own personal opinion is I don't see any reason to change the process we have to create a historic district. It's a very involved process, to be honest.

And I feel like the process requires a lot of, integrity to be built into the process to have a local district. You have to not only have a nomination for to meet the requirements of a district, but you also have to develop historic preservation plan, a big plan for it, and develop design standards that go with it to make it a local district. There is so much work that gets done into that. So the question might be more so is, like, do we less than that or or what? I I really don't think we do, but that's my opinion.

But then looking at the standards, like, we've done a lot of downtown review. Some of you have done a lot of signage and a lot of other things, and so it might be, to talk about whether, we need to change any of those or update them. They're all the tenth and cast one was is probably 15 years old, and the downtown one's probably close to that too. Downtown one might be more than that, to be honest. They're pretty they're pretty older standards, but I don't know what we change.

If we were to change anything in my opinion, I think it'd be more so downtown. What I also, though, was thinking to do, and I've talked about this with mister Reinhart, is I'd like to see us do window and siding permits again. We used to have those, and they got rid of them. They kept the roofing one only because I feel like that's gonna make it easier for us. Yeah. He raised his hand. Because I feel like it's gonna be easier for us to catch those things in those districts that we don't get to catch very easily, so people can just do that without having to get a permit.

And you're talking in the two districts,

the historic

In the two historic yeah. Most mostly 10th And Cass because it's it it falls more to the houses where I have that issue.

Chief Reinhart?

On Monday night, the council approved putting a fee for siding and, windows and door replacements. So those permits will start again January 1.

Very clear for you.

Alright. Fuck it. No. I actually remember us talking about that. Now I knew we talked about it, but I couldn't remember what what we were gonna do about it. But, yeah, awesome. That's awesome, Dave.

Tim has got Did they

know they did that? Did they know you. Oh, you guys knew? We did. That's great. That's great.

Go, chief. Tim is a very excited, giddy guy over here.

I feel like mister Reinhart wanted those back for

a long

time too, though.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Vinyl on a queen Anne.

That's right. Well, the battle is, like, people doing it without having a conversation, and then the battle is trying to get them to change it after they already did it.

Yeah.

That's the battle. Sure. Yeah. So I don't know how much discussion you wanna have on these. I kinda wanna just throw these out there now and give you sort of a purview of what I was looking for and and maybe some more guidance to evaluate these further, and then we can have a further conversation next month if you wanna do that, or we can have more conversations now. I leave that up to you as a commission. Or if you have questions about what I'm looking for or whatever too.

Yeah. Any questions or input right now knowing that we'll be able to let the dust settle Mhmm. Too.

I feel like this will be an ongoing discussion over the next few months. So

Only thing I would add is I would like design standards for things like solar panels because we have a lot of houses in our historic districts that have solar panels, which is great. I And don't know if they were supposed to or not. But

I don't have an issue with solar panels going on roofs.

I did have a constituent say that they didn't think solar panels should be allowed on historic structures because it ruined their look. I was like, oh, that's awful.

I think it if we're talking about a roof that's like asphalt asphalt stingles. Right? I mean, you're not ruining, like, any sort of the materials that are used that are likely historic. If we're talking about, like, a slate tile, like, it's a Mediterranean style that's got the big clay tiles and stuff that they wanna put them on there, I don't know if we're gonna be putting solar panels on those anyway.

I also would say

Or or removing them and making it asphalt roof so they can put it on there, that's where I think we would have a problem.

And I think chief Reinhart would say there's a lot of requirements to even get solar on your roof, like all the engineering and things like that that need to go on.

About two without credits next year.

I just put seven more on my roof. Okay.

So But yes. I I But I

think it should be there regardless because we do have solar ready guides in the city. Mhmm.

We also have there's a whole bunch of literature out there about putting solar panels on

Yeah.

The star pumps.

So But we're starting to get questions about that, and I think that that's something that we should just do anyway.

Okay. That's something I think we can look at.

Yeah. And our former commissioner, Bruce, wanted them. The last time I saw him, he was like, I want solar on my back roof because it's asphalt and not the you know?

Yeah. That would

have been

interesting to review on how them getting applied to the castle in Kattsville.

Yeah. He was very interest he he mentioned he was very interested in solar standards for historic properties.

That would have been side of his house, or is that a good spot for him?

No. It's

not. It was on the back garage.

Yeah. Back garage, though, is is

only place.

It's on the north side of his building, and then it would be also be shaded by the actual Yeah. Castle.

Solar guys would have told him it's a bad idea.

Solar guys would have done the modeling. Yeah. Tell

him. It's best that we could put him in the yard in front. But then Oh my god.

What you're talking

about? I mean I mean,

for to to to effectively use them likely, but

I don't know if how that would have

That would have worked. Yes.

Exactly. Right?

See the farm feeling.

I think the solar panel when you open up a can of worms

I knew I would. Gonna be a

hard one.

It's here already. Other local governments are doing it.

People don't like to see the

It's sort of just

network thing in the sun.

Oh, yeah. Just You've seen that in front of me. Yeah. That's one of my companies.

Well, the standard could also be too. It's just, like, following Secretary of Interior standards for solar panels on

solar That So

way you always know best practices are being Yeah. Reviewed.

They're they're

That gives you guys the teeth too when something comes before us for that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's already, like, in alignment with other existing guides we have throughout the city. So it just seems like something that we should add in as we're doing the updates. Okay. Any other things right now we'll discuss again? We should before we totally adjourn, we should look at the calendar for December since it's always weird in December.

Well, yeah, I I I did put in one of the emails what the the date would be if we have a December meeting.

That's right. Okay.

It's gonna be the eighteenth.

Of December.

Of December. Yeah. We just move it up a week.

Yep. Okay. You sent the invite out.

I I did. Yeah. Mhmm. I mean, if I'm not anticipating getting any applications for anything at this time. And the only thing at this time, if we were to have a December 18 meeting, would be further discussion on this at this time.

And I know I I will be able to attend that. Yeah. It's also Hanukkah. Not that anyone other than me celebrates Hanukkah.

I mean, you're not gonna break my heart if we're like, let's take something off. But it's you it's up to you guys.

For me, I have a lot of business holiday parties, client stuff.

I would say if there's no urgent business, then

Yeah. Or if you find more literature against, you know, the statutes that you have here and or additional ones just to send that up to read and kinda review.

I think maybe

I'd be curious to understand more about the solar stuff.

Make a motion to make the December 18 meeting a home working one or work at home one. You know? And you would send out things for us to review, and everyone's professional, and you review them, and then you come January with your ideas.

Okay.

Well, then

As long as you don't collaborate together on it. Yeah.

That will to do together. Collaborate.

Yep.

Nope. You you warn me of that problem. Alright.

So then that would mean that the following the January meeting looks like would be January 22. Correct.

Go back to our fourth Thursday of the month?

Yep. Okay. Alright. Natalie is covered up by all of the calendars, but I think she's still here.

There wasn't a babysitting, though?

No babysitting.

She disappeared first.

Okay. Sorry. Maybe next time, though. Hopefully, that means he's fleecing. Right? Alright. We're at the end of our agenda, everybody. Thank you so much for discussion. Thanks, Tim, for teeing all that up. There's no objection. We'll adjourn the meeting. Ping and hearing none. We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Happy holidays.

Good.