Historic District Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the January 13 Historic District Commission. I'm going get started by taking roll call.

Glenn? Present.

Josh? Present. Nancy?

Present.

Laura?

Present.

And Don is not going to be here tonight, so I will chair. And I'm Brian. If you would please, Shanika or Anna Scott, read the procedures into the record.

I'll now read into the record the following. The commission operates under NC General Statutes 160D-nine 40, which gives local governments historic preservation authority, and the Chapel Hill Land Use Management Ordinance, including Article III, which established the local historic districts and sets forth regulations governing them, and the Chapel Hill Historic District's design principles and standards, which sets forth standards for changes in the historic districts, and the rules of procedure adopted by the Chapel Hill Historic District Commission, as well as the significance reports from all three historic districts and photographs. I also call to your attention each of the applications and associated materials in your agenda packet. All of these items are hereby entered into the record. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. And I will now read the public charge. The advisory body pledges its respect to the public. The body asked the public to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the body and with the fellow members of the public. Should any member of the body or any member of the public fail to observe this charge at any time, the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control. Should a decorum fail to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until adjourned commitment to this public charge is observed. Okay. Moving on to the next item on the agenda. Approval of the agenda.

I think kind of before we approve the agenda, I'm going to add one item to the end of the agenda this evening, which is the discussion of Historic Preservation Month, which we have traditionally, in the month of May, asked the town council to approve. So we're going to discuss that this evening. Does anybody have? Sounds good? Okay. That's great. Any other requests for changes to the agenda this evening? Okay. Could I ask for a motion to approve the agenda and a second, please?

I move the agenda to be approved as submitted with the additions.

Second. Thank you. All in favor, if you would please say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Okay. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Announcements. Kevin, did you want to take So the

hopefully you all have received and you should have, I think, in front of you an updated guide to quasi judicial evidentiary hearings and procedure. You should also have an updated motion script or set of example motions. This is something that I've prepared and we try to update over the years, every year or so, for your benefit. The guide really started out at one point as a very short guide. It's now become fairly lengthy and detailed.

But it's a guide that kind of helps walk through some suggested approaches to quasi judicial evidentiary hearings, the development of a factual record, those sorts of things. So again, that's just for your benefit. Read it. Take as much of it into account and implement as much of it as you'd like. This is your hearing, so you're not obligated to follow any of the recommended guidance in the guide.

But I do recommend it. Likewise, the motion scripts are kind of a corresponding document. As we've kind of changed the HTC's procedures over the years, some of the necessary language to include in various motions has changed over time as well. So this is an update that kind of corresponds to our relatively new practice of taking a motion and vote to approve a COA and then returning at the following meeting with a proposed written decision for you all. That eliminates some of the need for additional factual information in the motion itself.

This is intended to help clarify that and streamline the motions process for you all. So these things are there just kind of for your benefit. You are not again, likewise, or like the guide, this motion script or these example motions, you're not obligated to follow them. You can craft your own motions as you see fit. This is just kind of an example of something that would suffice in most cases. And as you'll see, underlying text is text that you can more or less just read verbatim. The highlighted and bracketed spaces are spaces where you'll have to supply additional information. So if you all have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them for you.

Kevin, we did a little email about

That's right. So Nancy made a good point. She emailed me about this earlier. One of the things that I did not cover in the guide is site visits. As you all are probably aware, you recall, one of the things that we often that we always kind of ask you to disclose at the beginning of every evidentiary hearing is whether you've made any site visits to a particular property.

That was not included in this guide because I know that's a topic that the board has wanted to revisit over the years. Conducting a site visit is not necessarily a statutory conflict of interest, which is kind of what the so it's kind of beyond the scope of what's included in the guide. Certainly, there are reasons why you probably should not conduct independent site visits specifically to gather information related to a COA application that is or will be coming before you. And still my recommendation that you not do those independently. We can discuss methods or ways by which we could organize site visits later on.

But that's, again, that's kind of beyond the scope of what's included in the guide right now.

Well, really raised it because it's like a how to guide for conducting the meetings. And that is something that we have been asking along with the conflict of interest statements.

GREGORY Yes, absolutely. And it's a good point. And I probably should have noted something about that in the It's not necessarily a conflict of interest to conduct a site visit, but I probably should have made a separate note about that in the guide. I didn't because I know that's something that we want to revisit at some point. And once we've revisited that and had a new conversation and kind of established a new baseline for how we would like to approach site visits, separate or additional guidance will be forthcoming at that point. But I think the point is well taken. It's certainly something that the board should be aware of.

Thank you, Kevin.

So I have a question about the congruity motion and the COA motion. Is it acceptable if we want to approve an application that we would make a motion sort of on both at the same time? Or should they be voted on separately?

JAMES So I think the most procedurally correct or the cleanest thing to do would be to do two separate motions. There's certainly no reason why you can't do them in kind of one combined motion. But again, I've set them out in kind of the manner that would be the cleanest procedurally. And again, I guess to repeat myself, the most procedurally correct. But there's, again, certainly no reason you couldn't do kind of one combined motion squishing them both together.

Got it. And so the motion for congruity and for the COA are made in the meeting where we vote on the application. But then the actual approval of the COA once it's written is in the following meeting.

That's correct. Yeah, exactly. A

follow-up on the site visit issue. I would like to place in people's minds the idea that I would like to discuss what a site visit is. Because this afternoon, I walk a mile and a half a day. I'm an old guy. I'm supposed to walk a mile and a half a day, my 10,000 steps. So I walk past seven different projects that have come past this committee because that's my neighborhood. I walk out the door and there are all these projects. Now none of them that are on agenda tonight, but I do want to figure out if that's a site visit.

Yeah. And so that sort of thing is a site visit would kind of be categorized as a HTC member making a particular visit to a property that is on your agenda or that you know will be coming before you soon for the purpose of making observations, gathering factual information that you intend to then use as part of your deliberation on the COA application itself. There's certainly nothing wrong with you all walking throughout the town's historic districts. You very well might walk your dog on a daily basis past the property that will inevitably come before you for a COA application. That's perfectly fine.

But the point is what you should avoid doing is then stopping on your daily dog walk, making observations about the conditions there. And again, I don't want to get too far into the weeds today. This is certainly something that we should discuss again in the future. But keep in mind that your COA decisions based on under state law have to be based on competent material and substantial evidence that's present in the record of your evidentiary hearing. So if you make an independent site visit on a particular day under particular weather conditions, you might observe or take a particular opinion about the massing or scale that can't be reproduced on the record for the rest of the board and for the applicant and anybody in opposition to an application to see and kind of get a sense of for themselves, right?

And so your decision can't or shouldn't be based on those independent observations that occur outside of the evidentiary hearing because then your decision doesn't comply with it's not based on the quality of evidence that our state law requires. Now of course, there are ways we could go about conducting a site visit, perhaps calling a special meeting of the HTC where you would meet in the public right of way in front of the site at a particular time. All HDC members would be present. The applicant and anybody else who would like to observe would have the opportunity to be there so that everybody is seeing the same thing at the same time under the same conditions. And you would conduct a meeting much like this and open an evidentiary hearing there on the sidewalk or with the applicant's permission on the property itself.

So your observations are being made on the record. Any discussion that takes place there is on the record. It would then be, in theory part of the evidentiary record of the COA discussion and deliberation. But again, that then requires staff to go through the effort of providing public notice of the special meeting. We'd have to take the administrative steps of calling a special meeting, clearing it with your schedules, the applicant, and any other party.

Any other individuals who may be parties would stand into the hearing beforehand. There are a lot of administrative steps that we would have to go through before we can get to that point, which is again why it's generally my recommendation that we avoid making site visits unless particular COA case presents a really compelling reason, a unique reason why a site visit would be particularly helpful in that case. So it's probably much more information on the site visit issue than we really need to get into for today's purposes. But hopefully that answers Any your

other questions for Kevin? Okay, thank you. Any other announcements?

No other announcements, just a reminder to make sure we're speaking to the microphones. Thank you.

Excellent. Any petitions this evening? No. Okay. Thank you. So next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes from the December 9 meeting. I was not in attendance at that meeting, so I will demure from voting on that. But I would ask for a motion, a second, and then I'll ask for a vote to approve the minutes for the December 9 meeting.

Well, I move we approve the minutes of 12/09/2025 meeting minutes.

Thank you.

I second that.

Excellent. Okay. All in favor, if you would please say aye. Aye. Passes unanimously. Thank you. So information included in the agenda this evening was the administrative COA approvals, which is the report from staff on things that they approved between last meeting and this meeting. So that's really just there for information purposes. Moving on to the consent agenda items number three and four. 132 South Columbia Street, this is the approval of the COA placard that was voted on in the December meeting.

Everyone, if you would please say aye. I guess we need to ask for a motion to approve the COA application for 132 South Columbia. And I'll do 304 Northboundary at the same time. So if I could ask for a motion and a second, and then we'll vote.

I move approval of the consent agenda as submitted, items three and four.

Thank you.

I second.

Thank you. All in favor, if you would please say aye. Aye. Okay. I vote aye also. So that passes unanimously. Okay. So we're going to move on to new business, number five on the agenda, 260 Glendon Drive.

And does that screen mirror this screen, which is to say, is the pointer that's pointing at Drive now visible to you as well?

It is.

Yep. Great.

If you click on that screen, then it'll be controlling that one.

Brian, they're doing the

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So thank you for that reminder. Is there any ex parte communication or unauthorized site visits to disclose from the commission?

No. No.

No. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. I always forget that. Hello. I'm going to read a statement. If you agree with that statement, if you would please say I so affirm and state your name. I affirm that the evidence I shall give to the historic district commission on the reference application shall be the truth and nothing but the truth. I so affirm.

I, Brian Jensen, so affirm.

Thank you, Mr. Jensen. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm Brian Jensen. My wife, Lisa Rahongala, and I are the owners of 260 Glandon Drive. 260 Glandon Drive actually is called out in the historic district's designs, principles, and standards document, as being the only house that breaks with the traditional colonial revival style precedent of the Gimgool neighborhood, 1977 modernist house, with a dark wood exterior that helps the house to blend with its natural surroundings.

And I'm gonna present to you tonight a proposal that I hope will allow our house to blend even better with the natural surroundings. The historic Chapel Hill website has the following to say about our house. This is a house that was designed and built in 1978 by Dale Dixon whose name is unfortunately misspelled on the website. The much of the description of the house is is still accurate today. Here, I call out a couple of the design elements because I'll refer to them later in our proposal.

One light casement windows or fixed windows and clerestory windows in the front gables. And this was in the 2013 survey deemed to be a non contributing building. So just to orient you, you are all, of course, familiar with the Gimgool neighborhood. Our house is here situated such that the majority of it is visible from Glandon where many people get their 10,000 steps in. None of the changes proposed today will be visible from Glandon, actually.

The changes will be visible only from the secondary access to our house, which is our primary driving access, but no one else's access, which is along Ridge Lane, which terminates in a a cul de sac here. From Glendon Drive, the house is set back somewhat and up the hill. You get a bit of a sense of the modernist aesthetic and the dark wood that does indeed from this perspective blend relatively well with the natural surroundings, we hope. This is the view from Ridge Lane. And, again, the the changes that we propose will be visible only from various points along Ridge Lane, including this one.

And I'll do my best to describe them to you fully and accurately as we go. So this is pulled directly from and only lightly modified from the scope of work that I submitted to you last month. The overarching purpose of the the project is to fill in a swimming pool that we no longer use. It's an interior swimming pool that was a lot of fun for our kids when they were younger. Our kids are all in their late teens.

Currently, the pool gets no use. And we hope to repurpose that space to something that's more useful to us, which is to say a a a large sunroom area. And here, I've hence referred to this project as the sunroom project. So the majority of the alterations will occur in the interior, primarily the the creation of a sunroom. We also are going to take the opportunity from a scaling perspective to to create a new bedroom and and redo our laundry room in the back.

None of that work will be will be visible from the the outside. The primary change to the exterior of the house will be to replace the existing plexiglass roof, which, again, I I would argue is the the primary part of our house that does not blend with the surroundings. And as as much as I love our house something of an eyesore, we're gonna replace that with a shingle roof, same size and pitch, shingles to match the the asphalt shingles on the remainder of the house. There are a few other minor external changes that I'll describe as we go, but but the primary change is is to remove and replace this this plexiglass roof. Rather than read this to you, you have it in front of you, I think I'll just go ahead and and show the plans, and and I'm happy to take questions as we go.

So this is an aerial view of the roof that we propose to remove. It will be, as you see, replaced almost entirely with asphalt shingles that will match the existing shingles. We are going to install three large skylights with the purpose of honoring the intention of this being a sunroom, and it's necessary to get to get sun in. And and I'll show those to you on the plans as well. This just for fun, this is Leaky Black, actually.

He he he one of our neighbors decided that he he was gonna film a commercial on our at our basketball goal, and so fun fun little extra element to our to our aerial view. Another aerial view, sans leaky black of the roof here that will be changed. And, again, I I hope you can appreciate from this perspective that this change really would only be visible from Ridge Lane and only only parts of of Ridge Lane, actually. Shortly, I'll show you an image from our interior courtyard and just to orient you to the the house and and that particular view as I show it, this is the interior courtyard. It's labeled as south elevation, and none of that is visible from anywhere other than than inside our our property.

Another another view, this one, out towards towards Glandon, the loop here. And, again, you can see that because of the the pitch of the hill, we sit up the hill from Glandon and the orientation of this roof or the location of this roof, it will not be visible to to all of the folks who who walk by Glandon on a daily basis. This is we're now standing on Ridge Lane at our property line, and here you can see the the roof that we proposed to replace. Walking back a little bit further to the intersection of of Ridge And and Evergreen Lanes, there is a bit of a a pitch here up uphill, and that allows a little bit more of a view of the roof. But, again, I hope you can appreciate that it's it's really visible only in part and only from here, and and it's not clear to me whether or not the skylights that we propose would be visible from here or not.

So moving to the plans, these are plans that are provided by the grant group who who is going to lead our our project. Here is the the roof as as shown before. This is the existing aerial elevation. Now I turn to to the proposed changes. And, again, primarily, that will consist of replacing this plexig lass roof with new asphalt shingles that will match existing shingles and the installation of three large equally spaced skylights here in the lower portion of the of the roof.

I'm confident that those skylights would be visible from the interior courtyard, which I pointed out to you on the aerial view previously. They may or may not be visible from some viewpoints on Ridge Road Ridge Lane, excuse me. Certainly not from Ridge Road. But this certainly, they would be visible from from inside our our courtyard. And here is the the existing south elevation with the the roof as we've described.

And here are the the proposed changes to this south elevation, again, as viewed from inside the the courtyard at our house. We've discussed the the asphalt shingles. We've discussed the fixed skylights. We also will would propose to put a wood burning fireplace in this space, which I am really looking forward to. And along with that would come a a stainless steel flue or chimney.

To allow more light to enter this sunroom, we would propose to put five clerestory windows here, again, in keeping with the original design as described on the historic Chapel Hill website. I believe that's the the sum total of the changes to the to the south elevation. Next, we move to the to the west elevation. And here, this is the view from Ridge Lane. I I showed you a slightly different view in one of my earlier photos.

Here, we're standing on Ridge Lane directly across from our house. Obviously, there will be some changes that I will point out shortly to this where we would propose some changes to this lattice here. And now this picture on the right is taken from the cul de sac at at the end of Ridge Lane, which is really the only viewpoint from which the remainder of the proposed external changes will be visible. Here is the existing west elevation, again, to to point out this lattice that we would propose to remove and replace with siding that matches the siding on the rest of the house. The lattice is a bit of an eyesore like the the plexiglass roof.

We would we are creating or proposing to create a a new hall internally that without a skylight would be quite dark. These clerestory windows will light the new bedroom configuration. And here, again, this is another view on the west elevation of the proposed stainless steel flue and a depiction of the siding that would replace the lattice work that's that's existing currently. I did not point out in the the submission, but will point out now that one of these clerestory windows will replace an external storage door. This is a we have some storage areas.

Didn't catch around the pictures, but there are three doors here that that open into to storage areas. One of these doors will be removed, and I apologize. I did not make that explicit in the submission. But you can see it will be replaced with this window from the external view. Here is the the north elevation, and this is a picture I showed you earlier that is taken from the cul de sac on Ridge Lane.

Again, visible only from that cul de sac. This is we're going we're proposing to put another window here. This is essentially an internal courtyard. This is taken you can see I had to back up into the bushes to take this picture. This proposed window actually would be visible to no one from from the outside.

Not even our our neighbor, Lars Schultz, would be able to see that due to the hedges that separate his property from ours, and it's not visible from any road. And so here, I've I've condensed the proposed elevation and photographs in an effort to show this this window here will go into the proposed new bedroom, at this point here. This this there is one a single fixed window here. We will propose to add another fixed window here. This is my son's room.

He's the only one of my kids who won't be in college next year, and and his room is lit only by this window. And so we thought we'd give an opportunity to to bring some more natural light into his room with that change. And I believe that that's all I have. I am more than happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. I'll ask the commission if they have any clarifying questions. Okay. I don't think we do. If you'll give us just a few minutes.

Of course.

Yep. Is there any member of the public that would like to comment? Okay. So we'll have a bit of a discussion. Sure. Great. Does anybody have something they'd like to discuss?

Well, would make the comment that I think that these changes are consistent with the style of the house. Like in some of the other projects we've seen recently, on Ridge Lane, there is not as much of a variety of architectural style as there is on boundary. But these changes are very consistent with the style of the house that Dale Dixon designed in 1977 or 'seventy eight.

Any other discussion?

Okay. No. I thank you for your very clear presentation.

Agreed. Yes. Okay. If there's no further discussion, I would entertain a motion with our new script that Kevin gave us, which actually would have two portions, so the congruity motion and then the COA motion. Would anybody like to take a shot at that?

I move that Yeah.

Go ahead, Josh. Go ahead.

So I just read this?

And you might need to pull your microphone down.

I move that the application is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of the relevant provisions of the LUMO and the HDC's design standards based upon the facts presented in the record.

And if you wouldn't mind, Laura, just maybe read the COA motion also and mention the date and the property name, please.

Okay. This motion should be used what?

So the COA motion. So it's the paragraph This

is exactly move. Okay. I move to direct the HCC attorney and town staff to prepare a proposed written decision summarizing the HTC's approval of the COA application and to present the proposed written decision to the HTC at

Our next I think it's probably our next meeting.

Our next date meeting, February 2026.

This is all in reference to two sixty Glanton Drive?

Yes. To 260 Glanton Drive.

Thank you. Problem. Laura made a motion. Josh second. So I'll just take roll call. If you would say aye or nay, please. Glenn.

Aye.

Josh. Aye. Nancy.

Aye.

Laura.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye. Thank you very much. Good luck with your project.

Thank you very much. Hate to push my luck. I wonder if I could ask a procedural question.

Sure.

This is my fourth time in front of this commission over the past.

I'm sorry. I can't

hear you.

This this is my fourth time in front of the commission over the past decade, and I I I don't recall on the previous occasions the necessity to wait a month to have a document prepared and signed prior to approval? Is this new?

So North Carolina law requires that these types of quasi judicial decisions be formally approved through a written decision. The written decision has to summarize the facts and the evidence that's presented. So a relatively recent maybe the last year or so, we've shifted to preparing a written decision and bringing that back. The board at that point doesn't have the discretion to kind of undo the decision that's been made. And that vote will not be it's an administrative decision, so it's more or less kind of automatic.

Really, can quibble about whether the facts the recitation of facts and the written decision are an accurate reflection of their discussion or the evidence they heard, but they can't really change the decision at all. I don't know if that answers your question.

No, it does. And I think I heard you say as much initially in your comments. I'll just observe it. It doesn't do much for the people of Chapel Hill to wait an additional month to have a written document that And

I doubt you're the only one that feels that way, and we're trying to stay in alignment with North Carolina law.

I understand. Thanks again for your time.

Good luck with your project. Thanks. Okay. Let's move on to item number six, National Registry of Historic Places for nomination for Coker Hills.

Can you all see that Okay?

We can. Hi, Phil.

See if I can make it bigger.

So Kevin, while Phil's getting his materials together, given the nature of what we're being asked to do here, do I need to read Phil in? Do I need to ask him to?

So this is not a quasi judicial evidentiary hearing. This is just kind of an information. So you don't need to do the

I've zoomed in.

Oaths and all that.

Okay, great.

So they should be able to see the

Brian, I will say at the end of this item, we do need the commission to vote on, like, a recommendation. And there is a form from the state for the chair to sign. Got it. Yeah.

And then I think when we ask for public comment, you'll distribute the letter that we

received Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Hello. You, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. For the record, my name is Phil Lyons. I am a trustee with Preservation Chapel Hill and have been working with the Coker Hills Neighborhood Association for about three and a half years now on this nomination for the National Historic Register.

A nomination for the National Historic Register must be under one of four criterion. And those criterion include community planning and engagement, architecture, and architecture is C, criterion C. Criterion B is individuals and events. And we chose not to focus on individuals and events in our application. And criterion Z is archaeology.

And there's no indication of any significant archaeological artifacts in this particular area of Cochrane Hills. In choosing criteria A, we decided to focus on early World War II development in the Chapel Hill area, responding to the growth of UNC Chapel Hill, RTP, hospitals, large pharma, and the demand for housing for people with professional backgrounds, including academic, medical, pharma, research, you name it. So we focused on William Chambers' 120 acre gift to Coker College and his bequest to Coker Hills and also then Coker College retaining Henry Ruhl and Totten as the oversight of the project. The project began in 1961 and concluded in 1976. It focused with Henry Roland Totten's oversight.

The project focused on natural landscape and conservation. So lot siding, streets, creeks, trails, parks, street design, all those things were considered in the development of the neighborhood. In fact, the neighborhood is unique in that all nine streets in the neighborhood are named after a botanist or a naturalist, one of the few neighborhoods like that. Like I said, it's not the first neighborhood to be developed after World War II, but one of the first. Personally, I think Glen Lenox and Little Ridgefield are close to being the first.

My favorite is Little Ridgefield. And by the way, that's where Dean Smith had his first house. Criterion C is architecture. The architecture is a blend of custom built colonial revival, minimal traditional, ranch, modernist, and international homes in a period of significance between 1961 and 1976. Actual building in the neighborhood began late 1960s and concluded in 'seventy six.

I was asked at the last time I visited with the commission, where is Coker Hills? Well, if you'll look at the chart, you will see that Eastwood Lake is to the North and Estes Drive is to the South.

Excuse me, enlarge can that? And also, could you move the mic a little closer to you?

Thank you.

Is that good, Nancy?

Is that good? No.

Anything else about this chart? I'll move on to another one. This is the detail of the neighborhood showing the roughly 130 plots of land within the neighborhood. And I'll note that approximately 80% of the structures within the neighborhood are deemed by the consultant, Heather Fernbach, as contributing properties, which compares quite favorably, for example, to East Chapel Hill, sometimes known as Franklin Rosemary. But really, it's East Chapel Hill.

And so what is located in the neighborhood? All right, an interesting blend of modernist. This is probably one that many of you recognize, the Joel Fleishman house. A blend of mid century modern, all different kinds of things. And these are some more examples.

And at this point, I will stop and see if there are any questions. We began this project, like I said, in 2023. We're now at the point where we come before you and ask for your support. So, behalf of Coker Hills Neighborhood Association and Preservation Chapel Hill, we ask for your support in this nomination.

So Phil, could you maybe just describe what the next steps are? So I know there's a lengthy process associated with what you're pursuing. After the vote tonight, what are the next steps for this project from your standpoint?

Well, I'll also refer to staff. But my understanding is there has to be a hearing.

Yeah, so they have to have a public hearing and any comments and a recommendation from this board have to be sent to the state by February 11 because the nomination is on the North Carolina National Register Advisory Committee's agenda for their February 12 meeting. If a response isn't received by that date, then they assume approval anyway. So those are the next steps.

Thank you.

I'm just a little confused because it seems kind of backward that the public hearing is after our vote. Is that right?

This is serving as the public hearing. This meeting in front of the historic district commission is also the public hearing where if neighbors wanted to come and speak in favor or against, they could do that. So that's this instance. And then any public comment that we have received, whether tonight or if we receive emails or letters will get forwarded to the North Carolina what did you say it was called the state office

State Historic Preservation Office.

This

was obviously on the town website. And who knows who looks at our agenda? But there may not be a requirement for this, but what other kinds of publicity was given to this? Was there anything, for instance, in Chapelborough or the Daily Tar Heel

or other media? We used the News and Observer, right?

Yeah, so the State Historic Preservation Office handled a legal ad for this hearing. So they published that in the News and Observer.

Well, the legal ad. Yeah. I just wonder, for the wider Chapel Hill community, whether required or not, what kind of publicity was given

was

to this? Also called out in the Town Talk, which is the email newsletter that goes out once a week. So that was in the most recent email newsletter from the town.

So Phil, maybe if you could tell us a little bit about the neighborhood and the neighbor engagement in this recommendation, the 130 properties.

Indeed. Indeed. As a matter of fact, it's very relevant. I began working with the Neighborhood Association in 2023 and we sent out information to the community, the neighborhood association members, kind of on a quarterly basis. And on 02/18/2024, we had a neighborhood wide meeting at the library to discuss questions about the National Register and especially its difference between the National Register and local historic districts.

The conclusion at that neighborhood meeting in the library was virtually 100% support. So, there has been communication within the neighborhoods that's been going on for approximately three years.

And other questions for Phil?

Yeah, thank you for clarifying that. I think that's important to know. Is the neighborhood completely supportive of this? And it sounds like pretty much they are. How did you determine the boundary? Was that from a

The boundaries are basically the same as the neighborhood conservation district.

As I remember the conservation district. Okay. So, that was the template you used?

That's the template, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Which has some reference to when it was developed and sort of where the property came from originally, right? So there is some correlation with the property that was donated to Cooker College and then sort of it was developed as one complete project.

That's all land that Professor Cooker owned. And, triumphed through looking at nature and did it with his friend, Henry Rowland Totten, who became a colleague.

Phil, what will be the impact on the homeowners and the property owners within the district? Will there be an impact on what they can do with their homes? And is there a regulatory oversight component of being on the National Register?

The answer is no. And I give you the example of the four historic national historic districts that we have now. East Chapel Hill, Gim Gould, West Chapel Hill, and Rocky Ridge AKA Laurel Hill Road. And none of those National Register districts is an owner required to do anything with their property or prevented in some way of making changes. And there's no oversight.

And Nancy, just for what it's worth, I think that might speak a little bit to your question about public notice, right? This is not a public hearing in the same way that like a rezoning might be, that affects an individual's property rights. I think we've talked about this before, but membership or ownership of property within a national registered district entitles or, I suppose, makes a property owner eligible for certain tax credit programs, but it does not impose additional requirements or regulations on a property owner or limit their use of their property in the same way that inclusion in a local historic district might. So it's a long winded way of saying it's still a public hearing requirement, but the notice requirements are a little bit different than your typical public hearing or evidentiary hearing under the LUMO.

I didn't mean that they were required. I just meant what was the level of awareness that had gone out to the town as a whole.

Any other questions for Mr. Lyons? Phil, we're going to ask for public comment. And then I think there was a letter that was distributed to town staff. So if you want to take a seat, we'll deal with those things. And then we'll if we have questions for you, we'll ask you to step back up in a few minutes.

Very well, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

And thank you.

So is there any member of the public that would like to comment on this? Okay. I don't hear a member of the public wanting to But Shanika is distributing a letter. So, Shanika, now that you're back at your microphone, maybe you'd give us context for what you just handed out.

Yeah. So I handed out a copy of a letter we received. The letter is addressed to the commission, and it is in opposition of nominating Coker Hills, to the National Register.

So maybe we'll just all take a few minutes to read, and then we can come back for discussion. So I do have a question while others are reading. So my understanding is that this sort of communication would be included in any information that's passed along to the state office. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. Because I think there is a request by the author for this to be included. And I think procedurally speaking, that would happen. Yes. So the arguments would be seen by the people that are evaluating the application?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

There is a typo in this letter that I just checked to make sure that my memory from law school was correct, which is that racial covenants were outlawed in 'forty eight, not 'thirty eight. I think in 'thirty eight, they probably would have been just fine.

The author of this letter sent a follow-up email with that correction, but a new document. It was just a reply.

Right. I think

That's clarification that's being.

That's important to clarify that date. But also, merely because they were outlawed did not mean that they went away.

I have comments on each of these three reasons, which I think I feel are material. In the first, the author of this letter conflates historic districts with national registers. He says that an argument to make Coker Hills a historic district well, we have a even though it's not capitalized here, we have a definition of a historic district. And that's certainly not the intent of this application. Because we have learned that there's no regulatory oversight as there is in a historic district.

So I find that the first statement is not really clear or to the point. The second statement has to do with NC Modernist identifying 43 homes in Chapel Hill. NC Modernist is a wonderful organization. But they do not perform exhaustive surveys. They identify buildings and places that they may happen across or that are proposed to them rather than doing a survey as we would expect.

So even though NC Modernist has only identified two houses of significance in this area doesn't sway me at least because of the fact that NC Modernists does not do exhaustive surveys. They wait for the houses to come to them. Lastly and hardest for me is I think that throughout history, I mean, the university is on the national register or parts of the university are. And certainly the founders of the university and the people who donated many of the buildings were racists. And their wealth came from the enslavement of black people.

Now I find that abhorrent, but I don't find that to be a reason not to have the university on the national register. And so I find his third statement to be reactive but not doesn't sway me. So each of these I think has a weakness and would certainly not inform my opinion on whether or not this should be on the National Register.

Is there any other communication from the public on this topic? No. Just the letter. So this presentation and then the letter tonight. Procedurally speaking, because this is not in our quasi judicial mandate. It's probably a we make a motion to approve or disapprove, and then we take a vote. Is that generally speaking?

Yeah. And I think in the staff report, there are a couple of different options or, I suppose, actions that the commission could take. But that's correct. Yeah. This is just kind of a simple traditional motion and vote. The motion second and vote.

Yeah. And so statement that the chair will have to sign says, like, the commission has reviewed and discussed the nomination. And you find that the property meets the criteria for listing, and then you recommend it, for listing. And then a statement like that's you don't recommend and you don't find that it meets the criteria.

So very helpful. Thank you. So is it, in this situation, acceptable for me as the chairperson to make that motion? Or should I ask somebody else to do that and then we take a vote?

Certainly no reason why you couldn't. And what I would suggest is so hypothetically speaking, I don't want to put my thumb on the scale here. But say, for example, the commission wanted to take that first recommended action or the first option in the staff report, I would suggest that the motion also include a direction to you or to Don, I suppose, to sign the form on behalf of the commission so that you're making the factual finding, the recommendation, and then there's also specific authorization delegated, I suppose, maybe to you tonight since we're here to sign the form on behalf of the commission.

Got it. And just procedurally speaking, do you have something that I would sign tonight or would

you do? Yes.

Okay. So then I'll make the motion that I do that just so we can take care of that piece. Okay. So I'm going to make a motion that the commission finds that the nomination meets the criteria for listing in the National Register of Historic Places based on the materials that Mr. Lyons presented this evening. I also would recommend that the letter that was distributed go along with his materials so that we're just being very transparent about the information that was provided from the community. And I would also make a motion that I sign required paperwork so this could be passed on to the state office after this meeting. Do I need a second? Second. Second. Thank you, Josh. And then I'll just take a roll. Laura.

Aye. Nancy. Aye.

Josh. Aye. Glenn. Aye. And the chair votes aye. Thank you. And good luck.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee.

Thank you, Phil.

And a long road.

It sounds like it. Phil, if you wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind you sticking around for the next conversation we're getting ready to have, if you don't mind, about Historic Preservation Month. So I think we're so I'll sign that tonight. I think we're done with the agenda that was published. Nancy, would you mind if I asked you to talk about the discussion you and I had about historic preservation month? Or would you prefer me to summarize that?

I think I would prefer that you summarize

So for the last couple of years, the Historic District Commission has recommended to the town council that there be a designation of May as preservation month in Chapel Hill. My understanding is that that also kind of happens at a state level. So there are other efforts underway to designate national historic preservation in the month of May. This would be a designation.

It's national.

It is national. So this is sort of in addition to the national designation. It would be a Chapel Hill recognizing that and celebrating that for our town. I think the conclusion has been that the support for that has been lukewarm maybe at best. And so there's a question around whether or not we'd want to pursue that again this year. And if so, are there additional efforts we'd like to put against that to ensure that there is recognition of the town more broadly and that it actually has the desired effect.

I think that's fair. And Josh can speak to this also. Last year, I think, was the first time the town actually made some effort with putting stuff up on the website and so on. But every year, it's had to come from us. The town has not incorporated it into its regular recognition of events.

Mean, every month is about 17 different recognition months. And so I'm just interested in seeing, without us as the HDC really having to kind of push for it every year, whether there is a way to get the town to focus more in its whole even marketing. That it's not just UNC. It's a very historic town. A lot of cool stuff has happened here.

So Josh and I have been very involved in this And from the at least I am kind of willing to pass the baton to the town and not have to GREEN:

kind of start all over every year. Josh?

Well, would underscore that. I would say that I'd characterize the overall response as tepid. This whole effort grew out of something that came up at one of our retreats. And that is to be able to more robustly promote and advertise the fact that we exist and we are a historic town and that both events and buildings and people and places have existed here. And I'm not sure that this particular initiative has served its purpose in that regard.

I know we've made great efforts. And when I say that the response has been tepid, I don't actually even mean from town itself. I know we did have challenges getting the town to put things on their website because some of the promotions are private. And the town does not put links to private things on their website. And I understand that. But it did provide us a challenge.

This is in no way a criticism of the staff because we knew from the get go that staff has a lot of other stuff to do. We were hoping to get like communication staff, marketing staff, more committed to just routinely folk as part of what the town does is to point out that, yes, this is a historic place. So it is no reflection on y'all because we knew that you could not do very much with all your other responsibilities.

JOSHUA I would be in favor, actually, of exploring other opportunities. And this is national, like Nancy said. And the town could offer a proclamation, as they have in the past. But I'm not sure that we would want to continue spearheading the kind of detailed stuff that we have in

the

past because I'm not sure it's been particularly effective.

So I think there is a importance of continuity, which is something has been started to recognize the historic nature of town. And having that be something that's sort of annually recognized, even though it may not have completely caught traction, I think longevity oftentimes has its own benefit. So I would like that. And so I think it's worth the effort of pursuing a proclamation and having the town recognize that if for no other reason than we speak it into being. And it reminds people that it's important.

So I personally feel like, at a minimum, the things that have been done the last couple of years are important to continue so that the probability that it will pick up steam in the future is still there. If you stop, it won't. So that I just have a little bit of a, you've to kind of keep going even if it's hard.

I think the proclamation is a good idea and that we should continue that.

And I agree that it's not sufficient for what the aspiration is. So I think it would be important to include Don in this conversation because I think as the chairperson, he has a bit more he could clear his throat a little louder. It's maybe the way I would say it to get attention. And I'd like to enroll him in that. And given his background and experience, I think he would be more than willing to do that.

We also have a new council liaison in Elizabeth. And I would like to enroll her in that conversation as we have prior council liaison with Camille and then Amy before that. Because if we're going to have a spokesperson at the council, it needs to be the person that's working with us. So I think in my mind, there's sort of two practical steps. There are others in Chapel Hill, like Preservation Chapel Hill, that have in their charter recognition of the historic nature of town.

And so I wonder about ways for our commission to better partner with other organizations. And even if we are a small part of a larger effort, is that not perhaps more effective than us trying to do something a little bit solo? Phil, that's part of the reason I wanted you to stick around for this part, the part of the conversation. If there's anything, any advice you have to give or any perspective you'd like to provide now or later, we would love to hear that also.

It is one of our responsibilities under our enabling legislation to I don't remember the exact language but promote knowledge about historic preservation and so on. So it is a function that we are mandated to do, at least in some degree.

And I believe that's where the effort initiated was out of a discussion at a retreat maybe three years ago. And looking at the documentation, we're like, why does this district why does this commission exist? It's one of the provazos, or it's one of the reasons why these exist. And it's part of our charter. Glenn and Laura, I think you're both maybe a little bit newer to this conversation. So if there's any questions you've got or perspective you want to add or

Volunteer steps.

I wasn't going go quite that far, Nancy, but just would love to hear if you have anything to add or questions. For

me,

what is the parameter for being historic? We just saw this discussion about homes built in the '70s and the '60s with wonderful architecture and site design and all these really beautiful features. And we're considering that historic now. And for me, historic means much older than that. So maybe it's a sense of educating the public that historic comes right on up to not that long ago and that our town is bigger than just the historic districts that are regulated in town. Maybe that's very naive, but that's my perspective on it.

Well, think the reason that sometimes the conversations that we've sponsored strike people as odd is because we have a very specific charter to oversee buildings in the historic districts. But as you say, the history actually has a much broader narrative. And I think that's kind of what Nancy is alluding to is that it is the first public university in the country, conveyed the first degree in the eighteenth century from a public university in our country. I mean, are some things that happened here that are actually quite historic. And I think that's part of the spirit of this.

But sometimes our sponsorship of that feels a bit out of step with our charter. It just doesn't quite connect for people, I think, is what of our challenge. Maybe a little bit of reputation management also from people here at Historic District. Not everybody has a positive reaction to that because of prior problems.

Nancy and Josh, can I ask a question about for the proclamation, when you say the reception has been lukewarm, what does that mean? Is that counsel? Is that staff? Are there barriers to doing the proclamation?

I think to me it's more that it's kind of not I wish Brian could do this. He knows advertising. I don't. But more that it's not just one month. Yeah, they do the proclamation.

We wrote the proclamation. And last year, they did. On the website, there was a lot of really nice information on the website. But I don't know how well that was communicated through other town media or throughout the year. I mean, it's always historic in Chapel Hill.

GREGORY When I said tepid, I did not mean the proclamation or even being on the town's website. I meant that we did the proclamation. We did things that we thought were effective. And two weeks into the month, I would tell one of my neighbors that this month was celebrating historic Chapel Hill's history. And I would get a blank look.

They had no idea what I was talking about. And so that's why I'm in by a tepid response. Was just no nobody I talked to actually knew anything about what was happening, even though we did. And the town certainly did. But none of my neighbors did. I think that our initiative grew out of publicizing what we were all about. And it working. So it wasn't staff. It wasn't town council. It wasn't any of that.

It was really anybody knowing what we were doing. Now we did have a problem getting things on the town website. You probably are very aware of that because there are definite rules about linkages. But I'm not even sure that really made a difference. I'm not sure why my neighbors didn't know anything about it. But they sure didn't.

I think last year they did link to some of the walking tours and other sites. I think they changed their position on that between '24 and 'twenty five. I think they had more links, like maybe to the Jackson Center and so on.

To the wall.

Last year. Yeah.

I think I'm hearing a desire for the broader community to know more about historic preservation that's beyond the historic districts. I think it would be helpful if you all had a future meeting where you all talked about what the commission wants to do for education and outreach opportunities, Activities like that are stuff that we do report on for the annual certified local government report. And in that, there's a question about how is the commission supporting North Carolina preservation plan. And there are a bunch of different goals and ideas for things that you could do. So we could go through that.

And maybe y'all could talk about some opportunities for this reporting year. And Anna, Scott, and I can be a part of those conversations and see how we can support you all with those efforts.

That would be amazing. And something that you both said about it not being just the month makes me wonder whether or not the proclamation is a part of a broader plan, not just the only plan. And does it actually need to be something that we talk about more regularly? I'm as you mentioned, if there are ideas from the state office or from others around sort of things that you can do on a regular basis, maybe that becomes a little bit more of our study diet of things that we talk about. So it's almost like May is the beginning, not like a one off episodic.

And last year, the commission's previous liaison, Anja, worked on the Art of Preservation Workshop with the Orange Chatham Realtor Association. And so Anna Scott and with Preservation Chapel Hill. And so Anna Scott and I are planning to reach out to them to see if they want to And hold that again this

we did that in May because it was National Preservation Month. But it sounds like maybe a preference to have it not be in May, be in a different time of year so that the conversation around preservation is happening throughout the year and not just for thirty, thirty one days, whatever it is, once every year.

Yeah. I think if you can get the attention and they agree, you should do it when you can do it. And if it works in May, amazing. Go for it. And I don't know that that would have happened had it not been historic preservation month. So I think there may be things that happened because we've been focusing on this that maybe aren't quite as transparent but actually did have some butterfly effect associated with something. And so in my mind, is the sometimes you just have to keep after it. Like, the persistency and longevity actually over time sort of builds up. And so my opinion would be that we should put this on the agenda as a topic for our next meeting, kind of budget time for it. I will kind of debrief Don on this conversation.

And then, Shardika, I really appreciate the offer of if 's information that you will have access to that could stimulate a conversation, that would be amazing. And then do think we should plan to do a proclamation again this year. And then I'll talk to Don about how we enroll Elizabeth in that conversation also as our new liaison. Phil, do you have any words of advice for us? No pressure.

I've been racking my brain over the same thing.

Okay. Well, misery does love company, so I appreciate that. And you've been busy. You've had something else on your plate with Cocoa Hills. So we'll add this to the agenda for February.

Okay.

Thank you.

And just something that might, I guess, be relevant to this conversation and to your commissioner's preparation for next month's meeting, when do you all start making budget requests for this? I know budget season is coming up in the beginning

of Now. Last week. Yeah.

Okay. So I suppose there's probably some real urgency then if y'all have ideas for like a plan that's gonna require additional funding. We probably need to have that ready to go tied up in a bow

next month? I think the truth is the town priorities and the priorities from council have many other places of focus from a budget standpoint, just based on the letter that the mayor sent out this week in sort of summarizing the council's agenda, essentially. So I mean, not to poo poo that, but I'm not sure that that would be received particularly well. I think it probably is more our collective efforts and volunteerism that would be more effective given current state of affairs.

Just saying you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So if there's some concept of a plan about putting together kind of a real program that may require funding, I think it probably behooves you guys to come ready to really discuss specifics and like dollar figures and what you have in mind next month. Because it sounds like if there is going to be a request, we're already behind the eight. And regardless of how likely that request is to be approved or not, we're already behind the eight ball to even submit that.

Yeah. And I was going to say that would be a good topic of conversation with Elizabeth as the liaison.

I'll add that the budget discussions, I don't want it to like deter you from talking about it because we can always have ideas for what the commission could do and plan for it for next fiscal year.

Well, and there are grant opportunities. I mean, there's other funding sources that have to come from municipality that we could choose to pursue.

And for what it's worth, there's another historic district commission that I do some work for as outside counsel. And

one of

the things they've tried to do over the years with budget restrictions and with varying degrees of success, but they've tried to do kind of like a quarterly find speakers. Perhaps you could have Phil come as a speaker at some point. But do like a quarterly one of your meetings kind of each quarter would be more of an educational event. You'd advertise that to the community. It'll be advertised and posted on the town's website because it's a meeting of a town body.

And hopefully, maybe they can do a little bit more marketing for that. The communications folks can. But then you invite somebody who's knowledgeable on preservation topics who can come and speak to the board, educate you all, but also educate hopefully you get interested members of the community who will come out. They'll learn a little bit more about what the HDC does in the process. They'll also learn about whatever the speaker might be speaking about or presenting to the commission. Anyway, where I'm going with this, the other commission that I work with had similar budget constraints. This was an idea that they could do without any additional funding.

It's volunteer hours, primarily. Right.

So you ask for volunteers who can educate you all but who can also hopefully draw some community engagement. Then as that hopefully takes off and gains a little bit more traction, then hopefully they can demonstrate to their governing board why this program merits a little bit of additional funding. Then you can maybe spin that off into events outside of your formal meetings on your regular meeting agenda and that sort of thing. That plan has not gone exactly to plan with the other community, but it's something that I thought

And it's having outside people come in and talk is something we've done in the past. Typically when we don't have a COA on the agenda, rather than not having a meeting, Phil has come in the past I think you came last February to talk to the commission about work you were doing. But like Kevin said, if you want to do that more regularly, we can certainly do that. We'll need help hearing from you all who you want to hear from, reaching out to people to come and talk about the topics you're interested in. But that's certainly something that staff can keep in mind and add to the agenda regularly with your help as commissioners.

And Josh, I suspect you and Don both have ideas, just given what you've done professionally, that would help populate agenda.

I think we could do that three or four times a year.

Good conversation. Lots to think about. Kevin's going to bring his list for us next week or sorry, next month. Starts and see. If we

can do that.

Good? Okay. I think we're adjourned. Thank you.