Historic Preservation Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, this meeting is called to order. The first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, roll call. Gary Casale is present. Julio Guillem present.

Erica Hubbs present.

Yvette, you're on mute.

Come on, okay there. Evaluate to a present.

Okay. The next order of business is, I believe, do we have anybody online that's going to be given a statement or saying anything at today's meeting? Okay, we have... An applicant present, and I should not have forgotten your name, but Mr. Latour? Not Latour, but you're going to be speaking? No, that is one of our trellis. This is, hmm?

Trellis.

OK. Are you going to be giving a statement tonight?

Yeah, he's here for the second item.

Right. The two-story addition. You're right. So could you please raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm that the statements you're going to give tonight are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes.

Okay, thank you. We also have Steven. He is the representative for the first one. Okay, Steven. Yes, hi. You must show your screen, Steven. Let me see how to do that real quick.

I just made him co-host so he can access the screen now.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Chairman, while Steven figures out his camera, we could proceed with the applicants. And when he's ready to speak, I can take his oath.

OK. OK, the first item of business is for priority one signs. It's HPB 2026-001. Staff, do you want to give a summary?

Yes. This item, give me one second. a little disheveled at the moment. Give me one second. I apologize. The item is for HPB2026-001COA, like Chairman Costales said. This is for 5700 Sunset Drive signage installation. Applicant's priority, one signed, doing business at SignWorks LLC. So on December 21st of 2022, just a little historical background, the Historic Preservation Board approved the exterior renovation of the Historically designated crossroads building via HPB-2022-009 COA. That renovation consisted of the following impact resistant windows and door glazing, new storefront systems, removal of both the existing fabric awning and adjustable solar vanes, introduction of slats on the tower, and painting and cleaning of the building. To match this redesign of the building, the applicant is proposing an exterior signage package that will coincide with these approved renovations. The proposed signs will consist of eight individual signs comprised of channel letters mounted onto a raceway that would then be mounted to the top of the exposed concrete eyebrow for the building. The design of all the signs will be identical with the only variations being the size and wording for each sign. Staff has reviewed the proposed sign package and has determined that the signage will be classified as a projecting sign per the city's signage definitions. A projecting sign means any sign affixed to a building or wall in such a manner that its leading edge extends more than nine inches beyond the surface of such building or wall. After reviewing the proposed signs, it was determined that they comply with the city's signage regulations. However, it's important to note that the square footage listed for sign E is incorrect and should be corrected prior to permitting. Therefore, staff is recommending approval with the condition I mentioned. Provide the correct square footage for sign E during permitting. Any comments and suggestions from the board? Thank you.

OK. Excuse me? The mic is on. Yeah. OK, we'll open up for any comments. Does the board members have any comments or anything?

OK. I don't have any comments. No, no comments.

Okay. I remember that we dealt with this a long time ago. So I'm looking at the recommendations here.

Nothing is.

Okay. I move that we approve HBPB 26001 with the and adopt the staff's recommendations that they provide the correct square footage for assignee during permitting. I second.

Chairman, before you proceed, do you want to open it to public comment or to the applicant, if the applicant wishes to say anything?

OK. Yeah. Thank you for that. Any comments from the applicant or any member of the public?

No, just noted that we will update square footage allowance for item E and get that corrected. That's the only statement I would need to make.

Excuse me, Stephen, could you state your full name and address for the record, please?

Yes, Stephen Burke with Visual Impact Studios out of West Palm Beach, 1645 Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, West Palm Beach, Florida, 33401. We are the contractor to the client to provide signage, and priority one is our qualifier and installer.

And, Stephen, I understand you to mean that you accept the conditions of the staff's recommended conditions?

Yes, I accept that.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

If there's no further comment, you can close public comment, sir.

Okay. Comments are closed. Having heard nothing on any further comments, and there was a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay.

Motion carries.

Motion carries.

Okay, the next item on the agenda is... For the record, Yvette, do you want to record your vote? You're muted, so we can't hear you. You vote aye? Aye. OK. Yeah. Thank you. For the record, it's 4-0.

Thank you, sir. OK. So the next item, it's HPB-2025-005-COA. The applicant is Christian Mariana Parfit for the property located at 5730 Southwest 49th Street. This request is a two-story addition to their historically designated home. If you recall, last month the board met to review this application that the applicant was requesting to do a two-story addition onto their home. At that meeting, the applicant expressed interest in exploring the possibility of putting in a garage as part of that addition. She has elected to revise her plans and resubmit to the board for an additional review. Staff has reviewed their application and their site plan. And I want to point out there are some discrepancies that would need to be corrected. I'm recommending approval for the application, but I'm recommending approval with the condition that these discrepancies be corrected prior to going to the next phase of the review, which by by our land development co-regulations this would have to then go to our design review board after this board approves so those changes would have to come before you go before he goes to that the architectural board The first one is the canopy carport. Just so you know, the canopy carport was removed and replaced with a home garage per Ordinance 08-26-2551. Home garages no longer count towards the maximum building coverage requirement. However, they still count towards maximum impervious coverage requirement. Next one. The size of the home garage was not provided per Section 20-3.6 for the LDC. The maximum area of a home garage shall not exceed 25% of the area of the single family home on the same lot. The accessory structure or the existing cottage was not counted towards the maximum building coverage requirement for the site. Next, the impervious coverage calculation for the site does not include the concrete walkway along the western side of the property. Next, the information pertaining to the setbacks for the proposed swimming pool was not provided at this time. Next, incorrect square footage for the existing house was used when calculating the impervious coverage for the site. Next, the zoning legend states that the maximum allowed impervious coverage for the site is 47.5 or 4,750 square feet, whereas the correct percentage is actually 50%. They have more impervious coverage to use, which would be 5,000 square foot. Last, pursuant to section 20 S 4.4 C 2 D as in David of the LDC, the driveway shall not exceed 35% of the area of the front or side yards where it's located. The applicant would need to demonstrate that they are meeting this requirement of the LDC. Because this property is a historically designated property, the review of the project must follow the regulations detailed in section 20.5.11 of the LDC. I have provided the following comments and observations regarding scale, color, texture, appropriateness, and aesthetic quality to assist the board. This is the same information I provided at the previous meeting, but I'll read it into the record again. The proposed addition is located to the east of the existing residence and will face Southwest 49th Street oriented perpendicular to the street. The elevations are shown on sheets A201 and A202 and provide details for each elevation, height, dimensions, and illustrate door and window fenestration. The doors and windows will consist of aluminum casement windows and aluminum arch doors. The roof of the new addition will consist of brown Ferreira clay barrel roof tiles that will match the roof of the existing residence. The colorway of exterior colors and surfaces of the addition will match the stucco and paint finishes of the existing building. Additionally, Sherwin-Williams creamy paint color has been selected by the applicant. Staff is recommending approval with those comments that I just previously mentioned, as well as in addition to those, because it has to go to the design review board, they also have to submit the documents required for that board, which would be a landscape plan signed and served by a Florida licensed landscape architect, and a drainage plan signed and served by a Florida licensed professional engineer. And staff is recommending approval. Thank you.

What was the last point demonstrated that the proposed driveway complies with Section 20-4-4C2?

So the City Commission adopted a new ordinance back in 2024. Let me see. And... They wanted to limit the size of driveways. And so that regulation, you can only make it a percentage of what the front yard area is, or the side if you're having a driveway that goes along the side of the property. So the applicant would just have to demonstrate that they're complying with that regulation, that it's not exceeding the threshold, which would be 20, 30, 35%. if you want i can go to a computer and actually read the section i i i think you summarized it pretty well so there are other there are other parameters in the driveway in that section of the code i just that's the one that they really need to comply they have to comply with everything but that that's a that's a black and white condition that they have to that's something they have to definitely meet yeah i think a lot of the recommendations have to do with the design review board necessarily yeah they have nothing there's no They all have to do with the design review board before they go to that board.

The historical president, yeah. It doesn't really have... No. Yeah. Okay. Does anybody wish to speak on this? Would you like to... Would you like to say a few words or...

Thank you. Again, Jorge Trelles from Trelles Cavarrocas Architects, 169 East Flagler Street, downtown Miami, 33131. Here representing Mariana and Christian with regards to, in addition to their beautiful house, And we understand these parameters completely. And we'll be providing more detail with the landscape engaged and be more precise about these things and the driveway and, of course, grading and all that which will come in this phase. We hope you approve. We haven't changed the character. And the house is, I think, more practical. And it has a very interesting, impactful play on the arches. And we all really love it. Thank you.

Thank you. We're open for discussion. Any comments from any board members?

I have a question. In the scope of work, because I'm not clear, all the windows are going to be replaced, right? Yes.

No, no, not in the existing house.

Not in the existing house.

No. So the new windows are going to match? We're going to match. Yeah, the spec that we're using is the aluminum spec to match the casements and the French doors that are already... It was recently finished, actually, and very nicely done, and so we expect to... and match those materials, the new things are going to be the arched aluminum, you know, the arched doors.

The arched aluminum door you're talking about?

Yes, in the rear. Oh, okay. It's more important in the front, the matching than in the rear. And the wrong openings in the second floor, there are windows too, right? Yes. There are windows.

There are actually glass windows. Yes, yes. One is at the top of the stair landing, and the other one is in the boudoir in the closet.

I think in this case, I feel in this case, The matching of one with the other, it's really important to marry it to the... Because that's what you're doing, right? You're trying just to... You're not trying to contrast with existing. You're trying to marry it. So I think that's really important that they should match the existing.

Yeah, the existing house had those archways, right?

They were already replaced, so they should be... But the existing ones have a lot of mountains. And the second floor, the new ones, maybe they don't need them. But you see what I mean, right, Mr. Treyes? The second floor elevation, the new one, right, the bigger square window, it's like a big pane of glass.

Maybe it should be in the front. Right, right, right, right, right, yeah. Oh, yeah, the square window is like a picture window.

It's a picture, a big picture window.

It will light the wall of the stair hall.

Right.

It will likely be like a gallery.

Yeah, I see that, but because the rest of the house has so many mountains.

Yes, that one we left out, but we could put a mountain on it. We could put a square mountain.

Yeah, something like that, right, to match it a little bit more. The scale of the different paints that you have there to match. We could do that. Yeah, I think. And then the new garage door, what is the material there? That looks a little bit contrasting to the rest of it.

We see it as a large, probably aluminum, finished like wood. A rolling garage door behind a 12 inch deep arch.

In the rendering, it's rendered as aluminum beige. I think I would suggest that it should be, and it's not in the specifications that you have here, right? It's not part of this. I think that it should be, like you said right now, the finish should be matching like wood kind of finish, the grain of the wood. I think so. Those are things that we can suggest.

Yeah.

It's a suggestion. Because I know that he has to go to the design review board. So in there, they may have things.

But remember that your responsibility here is making sure it works with the historic portion.

Well, the mountains would fit within that.

Yeah, the mountains and the finish of that.

But what a mountain would be, so it's four?

Yeah, like four or he will, yeah.

Whatever.

To make it more similar to the others.

I think you can only do like four, right?

Yeah, probably four. Like a cross.

I would review that with Mariana.

Yeah, you have to look at that. For example, the round windows, the size of the window is almost fine because it's almost the size of the other panes. It's just a big one that is a big modern picture window. Right, it's big, so it deserves a... If you want a different style, then, you know.

It doesn't look that big in the picture. It's four feet by four feet. I see what you mean, yeah.

Yeah, it's a big window. Yeah. So we would look at that for sure and include it. And we intend to follow the doors and window, although... being aluminum expressing a kind of wood carpentry, especially in the garage door, which would be a large element. We see it as a simple rolling with an arch in front of it. So it could stay. And it's also trying to meet a height that it would have a future in maybe stacking a car. So it's pursuing that height too. So it's very practical and we think balanced and composed.

Well, I suggest that it should be finished with the grain, like imitating wood. It's going to be aluminum. so that the impact is not that impactful.

To make it brown to match the downstairs.

Brown and with the grain. They have those finishes nowadays for garage doors.

We will provide the spec.

You might have enough room to match the muntin on the right of the entrance, which is like three strips. Yes.

That's my comments.

Okay, any other comments or suggestions? Okay, but that's a suggestion. Is it a condition or a suggestion?

Yeah, I don't know how. It's up to the maker of the motion. Anyone who wants to make a motion could add those, for example, as conditions. Those would be perfectly acceptable or appropriate, I should say.

Okay, I move that we approve this application with the recommendations provided by staff and that the muntin on the, how would you say, the top window.

Right, the square window.

Second story square window on the front facade.

Second story square window on the front facade match the muntins. as best as possible with those in the first floor. And also, do you want to?

Yeah, let's say.

And also that the finish on those windows that are on the second floor.

On the garage door.

The finish on the garage door? Yes, that's a good point. Yeah, the finish on the garage door matches the wood finish that's prevalent in the house, the brown finish. And also, what about the finishes on the windows on the second floor?

Those are already matching the existing.

Yeah, they match the archway and all that. Okay, so you're just talking about the garage door.

Just the garage door, yeah. Okay.

All right, so basically the motion is to approve with... adopting staff recommendations, and then to match the muntins on the second floor window facing the front facade to match the muntins on the first floor, and also that the garage door match the wood grain that's in the existing windows on the first floor. Second? I'll second. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hopefully we don't see it too much again, but I have a feeling we're going to be seeing you. It's coming along. It looks great. I know this is often more difficult than building a house to add on like that.

I think we're now in a good direction. Thank you. Bye. Good day.

Thank you very much. So the next item, we have a public comment, a new business item. This is a carryover from last month. Chair Costales, you had talked about the public awareness on the walkthrough history brochure. I was able to do a count of what brochures we have. It's about four boxes full, and so give or take about 3,300 flyers I've got. So just decide how you want to disseminate them to the public.

Well, go ahead, Yvette.

I have a question. I actually went to the George Merrick House on Coral Gables and did a little bit of the touring of Coral Gables Historic Site. And I just wondered, in South Miami, I don't know if this board or previous members, did they ever consider putting those like either those big plaques outside to kind of tell the history of South Miami. So when you're walking through the downtown streets, you can stop to read about it there. Sometimes in little cities like up north, they put them like on the sidewalk. So as you're walking, there's like the story of the city that you're that you're, you know, that you're like touristing around and so forth. So besides the pamphlets, was there ever anything sort of discussed about kind of bringing that to life and more of like the, you know, it's out there on sunset type of drive?

I'm not aware of any plaque like that you're describing, Board Member Latour. I know that the city does have the bronze obelisks that say this property is designated and it gives the date. Outside of that, I'm not aware of any other discussions.

Do you not know what I'm talking about? It's like the history of the house or the history of the street or something like that. So you can just read upon it while you're there.

Yes. And I don't recall that we've talked about that. Maybe we talked about that a long time ago. It's a question of money. We basically don't really have a budget. So I think that's a great idea. I think that we need to, first off, I think we need to find out what is already there and what placards or plaques are there. Because I think there is somewhere in the city that there's something.

And then my second point with that comes with the design board, because I feel like that goes really hand in hand with how they're trying to sort of redesign and kind of build that, I don't know, charm, character, whatever. of downtown South Miami. And I've been to a couple of those meetings and I know that they went from like, obviously sunset's going to be huge and enormous and modern. And then there's been some retractions about kind of keeping the, at least the 57th and, no not 57th, sunset and maybe 74th more, lower density, more walkable. And I thought, well, if we don't have the budget, then maybe that's something the design team or board could build into theirs to build out sort of like the attraction of South of Somi, downtown Somi, sort of like the history of it. I don't know, do boards sometimes share some of these ideas with each other?

It is possible for you to share these boards, but each application stands on its own. But yeah, we can definitely relay this to the design review board. What do you think?

MR. Ms. Latour, are you referring to the street master plan that is being developed by Plus Serbia?

MS. Yeah.

MR. Okay.

Where I know they've wanted to change like the logo and widen the streets, put pavement, making more walkable, the greenery. They've asked like a bunch of meetings on like voting like that. And some of those talk about sort of like the heights of the buildings around and so forth. So, yes, it's that. I know that's actually the design board, by the way. I'm sorry. It's those meetings.

Sure, what could be done is this board could you know pass a resolution making a recommendation to the administration. Okay, and it doesn't have to be as formal as a resolution, but just vote to direct staff to pass along the message to the administration that in the development of the street master plan you would like to see certain things and then you all tell us what those certain things are, whether they're plaques or some other considerations. Mayor Mrakas, Naturally, the devil's in the details, so we would need somebody to flesh out what sort of information you want to share what historic you know data you'd like reflected in any portion of the street master plan.

Yeah, and I think – That was my idea because we were assigned to kind of think about way – Yeah, so that's – and when I went to the Merrick House and I saw the big – I was like, wow, Coral Gables does a really good job of sort of designating – and that's just at the Merrick House, but there's other parts in Coral Gables where they have the big signs. I started thinking about when I went to Missouri and I saw the May House and, I don't know, just different things like that kind of came. And I know they're in the middle of redesigning Somi, so I thought it would be a good compliment now to kind of bring that up.

Yeah, that's a great idea. And there's so much that's going on now with the city. And there's going to be so much construction. I think it is a good time to sort of keep tabs on that. And I guess this is a problem where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. And this reminds me of when there was one of the previous plans to – changed city hall when they did the RFP, the city came up with all sorts of plans to move the Sylvan Martin building, which is the only city-owned historical property. And we had no input into that. But another arm of the city handled that pretty well, actually, when we looked at it. So I think we first have to see, what is the master plan? What does that look like? and sort of maybe it would be a resolution that they get our input or something when we get into the mechanics of how this is all going to happen. I'm sure there's going to be lots of features that they're going to put on the streets and all kinds of things, so we should work into what you're talking about, the history of Larkins and things of that nature. But like you said, pragmatically speaking, what's the best way to do that? I think we have to have an understanding as to what is going in, what's going to be done with the city. Sure, sure.

What I would think would be the most practical way to go about this is to obtain a draft of the street master plan, and at a future meeting, you all sit down, you review it, and you make any suggestions. This board does not have... clear authority to chime in on the street master plan as a whole. It has authority over historic districts. And we have really just Cambridge lawns, which is not really part of the street master plan, right? It's completely out of it.

Yeah, I don't think Cambridge lawns is part of it, but we have about four or five properties on Sunset that are historic.

They're individually, but they're not a district.

Yeah, but it's not a district. Correct. Yeah, it's individual properties on Sunset Drive.

Correct. So typically where you don't have a district, what this board would do is review a redevelopment plan for that particular property. One of those properties in my recollection while in my time being on this board came before you all was the Dorn building, right, where Deli Lane is moving into.

Yeah, that was in July of last year.

So that one came, and that was a prime opportunity for you to chime in with respect to that specific property. With respect to the street master plan, your authority is limited outside of the frontage of those properties. You could make a recommendation, but it would be strictly a recommendation, and I don't know that it would have legal weight behind it. But it's something you can chime in on.

I mean, I think it's worth it. I feel like in those meetings, they're talking a lot about keeping the charm, the history of Somi. So maybe it's something that they haven't thought of that we can just make a recommendation that they have the budget and they want to consider it. And in terms of the, I'm sorry, I don't know the name of the house where Deli Lane came. I know that they did present sort of like the coloring and sort of what they were doing with that. But doesn't that, it already has a plaque on it that it's a historic building or no, it doesn't?

Yeah, the buildings downtown, we presented them with a plaque. Of course, the commercial ones got a larger plaque than the single-family homes did if the owner chose to put them up. I know that the one on Dorne, they have theirs installed. It's a large rectangular plaque that fronts 59th Ave. But yeah, outside of that plaque with the designation and the year it was built, there's nothing else out there.

Yeah. I think it's a good recommendation. It feels more like design, I hear what you're saying, but it is part of the historic sort of, I don't know, history of Somi that we're trying to bring up and kind of preserve.

Board, would you then like this on a future agenda item? As a future agenda item, a discussion about the street master plan or other locations where plaques or other placemakers could be installed or proposed?

Yeah, I think so. I imagine in the street master plan there's all kinds of benches or features. I don't know what the general term would be that It's already planned and it would probably be pretty easy to work in something of an historical nature.

I haven't reviewed it myself, so I can't say, but we'll look.

I remember in the meeting that the architect from, I don't know, is he from Ireland? The one who's doing Sunset Place? He's Irish? He's like some famous European architect? Yes. I can't remember. He too was even talking a little bit about there's so much history behind bakery center the fact that it actually was like a bakery and it was bread and that he would love to somehow build that in or some you know so even i mean i wasn't part of this board even thinking about it i'm just remembering that now like i think even from an architectural like perspective people are designing those are the type of things they want to ensure the public is aware of and maintain oh oh yeah there's there's a lot of um

Anybody of a certain age in South Miami has a romantic memory of smelling bread and all that. The extent of my involvement is I remember the bakery center. I don't remember the bread, but I remember the bakery center, and that was pretty cool at the time. Me too. So yeah, I think we could further discuss that at another meeting, add that to an agenda, add that to the next agenda. But and I think we have lots of time. I don't think any of this is going to happen anytime soon. So I think we, I imagine, or.

I don't know what the timeline is for that, Marcus.

No, no, either. OK. OK. All right, we'll add that. As far as what we were talking about, which was disseminating the brochures, and I know time is a bit limited, I don't know if there's a whole lot to say. We had talked in the past about having them in storefronts. We had talked about. having them available or having uh somebody hand them out somehow at one of the art fairs you know some city event um we talked about having them available here in city hall i didn't see any coming in um you know there's brochures and all that but i didn't see any maybe i missed it or something but um i don't know you know in these days of uh We're all on the computer. A lot of people don't like paper, so I don't know how much we can say about disseminating the brochures beyond that, unless somebody else has some ideas.

I'll just share two quick points on that. When I think about brochures, I think about taking them into the schools. So if there was a time when we could do some outreach with the middle school, high school, bring the brochures and educate the kids on the history of South Miami. And then I loved Yvette's idea a lot. But one thing that we could maybe do in the interim, I've been following South Miami's social media. And I love this thing that they're doing where they hide a duck at a new business. And they talk about the business, and then the first person to reach the duck, I think, gets some kind of award, right? So I thought if there could be like a historical portion or historical month where it doesn't have to be a duck, it could be something else, gets hidden at a historic landmark, and that way the social media is educating the public on that landmark. while we wait for the approval on plaques and those sort of things, maybe we could use social media and these games that are being played to educate the public on these landmarks. Those are my two points. I love it.

That's a great point.

And I think maybe within our realm, to what you were saying like I think it's about educating residents and everyone around here about the history of South Miami so using and I don't know if that's us or another board so I'm sorry if I'm like stepping on somebody else's but I think it's great to use social media like you know they're not going to read the pamphlets and I think social media would be a great start to tell the history of the Larkin downtown you know all of this would be fantastic

Yeah, and we can provide a link. There's a link on the website and all that we talked about.

Yeah, learn more.

Right. But I think we need to, at the next meeting, I think this idea of going to the schools is a great one. So I think we have to develop that and talk about the logistics of it and the pragmatics of doing all that. Yeah, OK, that's a great idea. Anything else?

Another way is if that is digitalized, you know, that brochure. What we have done in the past in some projects is we put, you know, one of the things that you can scan. And then when you scan that QR code, it takes you to it. And the QR code say, oh, learn about the history of that name. It's more immediate. It's not even paper. You don't even waste it.

OK, all right. That's a great idea, yeah, a QR code and strategically placed in different places.

Yeah, we have done it for projects. People go, oh, what is the problem about? This is this.

Yeah, that's a good idea. OK, the next item of business is the approval of the minutes from February 23. Yeah, we have like two minutes. Yeah. I move that we approve the minutes from February 23. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. aye okay i think believe that is the last item of business and um we will be back on april 27th this meeting is adjourned