Historic Preservation Board - Regular Meeting

Hello? Okay. This will call to order the historic preservation board meeting of 09/17/2025. It's 05:03PM. Britney, could we have a roll call, please?

Move the order to allow for approval of the agenda before the election of officers, I think you might have a request to change something on the agenda as well. Yes.

We need to take item nine A and move that to nine C. We typically load the agenda with the more complex projects at the end and that was my error. The applicant is aware.

So if someone could, yeah, move the agenda with the amendments. Second. Alright. If we could have a roll call, Britney, please.

Peter Dwyer?

Yes.

Chris Capasas?

Yes.

Is next officers, and that's why I'm starting this out today. How this will work is we're gonna have a chair, a vice chair, and a second vice chair. If you can just make a motion to make whoever chair. And then if you guys have we'll just need a second. And then if you guys have any other thoughts, if you wanna propose an amendment, you can do that. And then we'll go into the vote. So

I ask you, who made

the motion on the agenda?

John Miller. Okay. Thank you.

I'll make a motion to to have Carol Perez as chair.

Is there a second?

I'll second for discussion, chair. Discussion.

Do you

wanna do it?

I thought you'd be good. We

still need to vote though.

Or you

could amend the motion. Amend it to nominate someone else.

Amend for John Miller.

Is there a second?

I'll second that. Okay.

If we could have a vote please, Britney. There's any other discussion.

Okay. Peter

Dwyer?

Yes.

Chris Cabasis?

Yes.

Richard Kasser?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

John.

Thank you.

And if we could have a nomination or a motion for the vice chair.

I'd like to nominate Chris Capasas for vice chair.

I'm good with that.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Is there any discussion? No. We can have a vote. Britney, please. Peter Dwyer?

Yes.

Richard Chris Cabasis?

Yes.

Richard Kasser? Yes. Vlad Dumitrescu? Yes. Carol Perez? Yes. Benjamin Baffer?

Yes.

John Miller?

Yes.

And lastly, could we have a second vice chair, please?

Yeah. You good with that one?

Okay. Make motion to nominate Carol Perez for second vice chair.

I'll second.

And is there any discussion? Okay. If you could please call the role of Britney. Peter Dwyer?

Yes. Chris Cabasis? Yes. Richard Kasser? Yes. Vlad Dimitrescu?

Yes.

Carol Perez? Yes. Benjamin Baffer? Yes. John Miller?

Yes.

Okay. Well, everybody. And I'm ceremoniously passing you the gavel, but it's right there. Thank you.

You have a taste of power.

I think, Chris, you're in the right spot. So good to go.

Alright. We've been named to escape the self

cleaning. Thank you. Alright. We are at the point where minutes we have minutes from May 7, I believe, twenty twenty Is there anybody that wants to make a motion or a comment on the minutes? I'll make a

motion to approve the minutes. Do

I a second? Second. Motion and a second.

Peter Dwyer?

Yes.

Chris Gavisis?

Yes. Richard Kasson?

Yes.

Vlad Dimitrescu? Yes. Carol Perez? Yes. Benjamin Baffer?

Yes. John Miller?

Yes. Thank you. Alright. Now at this point, anybody who's a member of the public who may want to speak on any item here tonight, if you think you may, please stand up. It's time to be sworn in.

If you

don't think you're gonna speak but the feeling overcomes you later, you wanna stand up now.

By the authority vested in me as the notary of the state of Florida, do you swear to affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and

nothing but the truth. Okay.

Comments from the public. So if there's any member of the public who would like to comment on any item that is not on the agenda tonight. So anything related to the board or its operation or the city in general? Seeing none, we are going to move on to presentations. Michelle?

We don't have presentations, but I just want to take a second to say congratulations to our new Board Chair, Vice Chair and Second Vice Chair. And welcome to our new Board member Benjamin Baffer and Richard Kasser. Welcome to the Board. My name is Michelle Hoyland. I'm the principal planner in charge of the Historic Preservation Division. And board. So I

question. That's

and nine c became nine b. So I our first item on the agenda is for 19 South Swinton Avenue. You'll also notice that there are new file number formats for some of our requests because of our new digital software intake that we have. So the first item I'll enter into the record is HP962025. Michelle Hewitt will present, but the applicant presents first. So if we could please have the applicant for nineteen South Swinton come to the podium.

I'm before we get started, I'm gonna read the quasi judicial rules.

Yes. And I'll And help the applicant. Applicant. Okay. Okay. Thank Thank you. You.

So this is a quasi judicial item. This hearing shall be conducted in accordance with the city of Delray Beach's quasi judicial rules. The applicant and the city shall be permitted to present their case. The public shall be allowed to speak for three minutes each or for a maximum of six minutes if the person represents an organization or a group of people who are present but agree not to speak. The city commission, board members, staff, and the applicant may be allowed to cross examine a witness.

The city or the applicant will be allowed to offer rebuttal testimony. The decision to approve or deny an application or appeal may not legally be made upon the personal views as to whether a project is a good project or not, nor may a decision be based on the number of citizens who support or oppose a particular project. The law requires that all decisions must be made on the basis of whether the project meets the requirements of law, the comprehensive plan, and the land development regulations. So for item b, which is now a, can I ask the board if there's been any ex parte communications on this item? No. No. No. None. Okay.

Yours. Alright. Good evening, board members. My name is Lee Cohen at 11 South Swinton Avenue. I'm here to speak on behalf of the owners of 19 South Swinton Avenue as a request for a material and color change for the roof.

Here is a the location of the property. It's about half a block South Of Atlantic on Swinton Ave directly across the street from the Sunday Village project. As I mentioned here for a request, for a level one site plan application to, for material and color change for the roof. The current roof is asphalt shingle roof, and we would like to install a new mill finish standing seam metal roof. It is only for the material that's being changed.

There is no modifications to the existing shape or the pitch of the roof. Here is a picture of the front of the property, a picture from the back, and a couple pictures of some nearby metal roofs. The picture on the left is 23 South Swinton directly next door to our property. And then about a block to the south, there's a very similar looking structure that had a metal roof installed on it. In addition to the lengthy justification that was filled out with the application, just wanted to touch on what we believe a few of the high level talking points are, but we think it is a respectful update to the property with the only change in material and not the structure at all.

We would like to we believe it's maintaining the historic character by not touching anything else with the project. We believe it's visually compatible and driving through the Old School Square Historic District, we see this color roof chosen for many of the projects, and it improves the longevity. The existing roof is nearing the end of its useful life, and it's time to put a new roof on. And, we've owned it for ten years and plan to own it for a lot longer, so, would appreciate your, consideration for this. Thank you. Thank

you.

You can sit while staff presents and then they'll call you for any additional questions. Thank you.

For the record, Michelle Hewitt, planner. And again, this is agenda item 96 dash twenty twenty five for level one site plan and certificate of appropriateness application for 19 South Swinton Avenue. Here we have an aerial with the subject property outlined in red. To the west, it faces South Swinton Avenue. In the rear, there is an alley and then it's on the sides there are two properties.

So going over some brief history, the subject property sorry. The subject property is located within the Old School Square Historic District. It is a one story minimal traditional structure constructed in 1940 as a single family residence. The structure is of reinforced masonry and wood construction on a concrete foundation. In 1997, the Historic Preservation Board approved a certificate of appropriateness application for a conversion from the original residential structure or use to commercial, and in this particular instance, a hair salon, which was approved and completed.

At its meeting of July 06/01/2005, a certificate of prepiness was submitted for the installation of aluminum frame windows and door impact resistant glass. And then there were administrative approvals for the replacement of the existing asphalt roof shingles. So here is an image of the front or west elevation. This space is South Swinton Avenue, where you can see the existing asphalt shingle roof. This is another angle of the front or west elevation.

This is the rear east elevation. This faces the alley. Another angle here of the rear. And so here is the proposed material in color, as mentioned by the applicant and in the staff report. It is a standing seam metal roof, which you can see the profile there at the bottom, and it's proposed to be in the mill finish or natural metal color.

Here, we have a staff report excerpt specifically from the Visual Compatibility Standards, where we discussed that the material has been utilized on a case by case basis, particularly in wood frame structures As the existing or original structure utilized asphalt shingle, that would be the most compatible. However, the use of metal roofing could also be considered appropriate, such as aluminum shingles. The request is before the Board to determine if the proposed standing seam mill finished roof would be appropriate for this particular minimal traditional style structure. Here are the highlighted standards that we utilize to analyze this request within the Secretary of Interior Standards. And within the Visual Compatibility Standards, the relationship of materials, textures and colors is utilized to analyze this request.

Here are the certificate of appropriateness findings. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this item? Seeing none, public comment is closed. The applicant, do you have any, rebuttal? No.

None from staff. Okay.

Alright. Getting the board discussion. Anybody wanna start? Comments, thoughts? I'll start. Sure.

I'm in agreement with the roof. I think it'll look, very nice.

I have a question for the applicant. So in the in the photos, and it could just be the exposure of the photos, but what's the exterior color? Is it a a bright yellow, more of

a dull yellow? It's I would say it's more of a dull yellow. We have discussed doing repainting the property, but we wanted to get the roof on first, and then we'll probably be coming back to do a paint job at at a later time. Okay.

But you in your ownership, you haven't painted the exterior?

It might have had a fresh coat when we first purchased it. So, yeah, I think it's probably been some time. Gotcha. Okay.

Anything else? Ben?

Yes. So I think the standing seam metal roof in a mill finish will look fine and be fine. I know that we have a lot of these in historic properties, but just for the board, you know, it is changing the historic character of the building. I would say that I, you know, I support the the the metal roof, but we we need to we need to be aware that we are changing the changing the historic character from from one type to another.

Were were the metal shingles ever considered?

They were not only because we hadn't been aware of it or exposed to it. It's something that actually we recently learned about within the last few days, but didn't wanna go back and change the application at at this time.

Mhmm.

But is that, like, an example of one? Is it the house that was just recently redone right over here on Swinton?

I believe so.

Yeah. It Mhmm. It looks nice on there, I will say.

Mhmm. Because that that would keep more of the historic integrity by using that material. Though I don't have a problem if you really wanted to go with standing seam because the neighbor has it

and it has been approved before, but it

that would keep the integrity integrity of of the the the look a little nicer. Would that be something you would be open to changing it to?

Yeah. If, yeah, if it could if it's not gonna hold up the process, maybe if that could be, like, an administrative approval afterward, if it's something that we can do. Mhmm. I see. But but, yeah, it's something that I I'd be happy to explore further with our our vendor and see if that's something that they can do.

So may I? Yes. Because you asked about process. Mhmm. Had this come in with a change from typical shingle to metal shingle we would have gone straight to permit. With that he wouldn't have had to come to the board. I'm sorry we didn't have that conversation sooner. But the board could make that a condition if you wanted to or just to say that your motion would change, you know, to be a metal shingle roof. But that would be an appropriate material that we would have admin authority over.

Or whoever makes the motion could say a and or situation. Mhmm. So, Pete, any thoughts?

I think that's a great idea. I'll make a motion that we go with the this metal shingle, and that could be handled administratively.

So I think you might want to just do it as a motion to prove with the condition that it be metal shingle. Would that make most sense for you?

Yeah. To pick one and make that motion with the condition.

Before you finish that, Vlad, did you have anything you want to say? No. I

think the applicant had comment.

I mean, has to be cost prohibitive. I mean, cost is a big factor with this as well. So I don't know the difference in cost. But like I said, it's something that we will explore and consider.

Okay. Just I would say whoever does the motion, you know, allow either the standing seam since nobody seems to have an issue with that or Right.

The Mhmm. Would we even need a motion? Would it even need to be noted if they could just go in administratively and go right to permit with metal shingles? So we could approve it and then if they went in for metal shingles, we could approve standing seam understanding that we don't have any jurisdiction over shingles. And then if they went in with shingles, they decided.

You have jurisdiction over shingles. And it's easier for staff if you if you make the motion with what the material is that you're approving rather than an either or situation because at the end of the day if it's an either or the applicant could just do the metal standing seam but if the board is open you know to it being a standing seam roof, you could give that direction with still the action being the shingles. From our experience, the cost is not prohibitive. And you get the same life out of the roof, the extended warranty that you get with the standing seam metal. So for us it would be easier if you made the decision with the motion and because the applicant's here already it's you might as well make the action in the motion.

Motion. So So it it doesn't doesn't result result in in a a no no action. Action.

But to be clear, if you guys only approve the metal shingle roof, he he would not have approval for the standing seam metal roof. That's I'm I agree with mister Kasser that if you approve the standing seam metal, then he could administratively get the shingles.

Right? I would be as an applicant, I would be hesitant to say yes to anything that I don't know what it's going to cost. Right. So that is my concern there. So he's had to go through the process to get here for a standing seam. You know, I I would think we would wanna go with that. And if he changes his mind and decides to go with a dimensional tile or or a metal tile, then he could approach staff and and go on it from there. And his staff said it doesn't need approval of his board at that point.

So the if I may, is that okay? The standards in the code aren't designed to take into consideration the cost. The standards are designed to take into consideration what's most appropriate for the structure. The most appropriate material for the structure is what it originally had, which would be a shingle roof. They could do a three-dimensional shingle. So I just want to make that note that cost should not be part of the board's consideration. And Kelly can correct me if you think I'm wrong there.

No she's correct. I I correct me if I'm wrong. I think you were just saying that he didn't wanna agree to it because of the cost. But I mean, you guys can make whatever decision you want.

Yeah. I mean, my my thought is we're kinda changing things up in the middle here. And if we're only going to approve something that hasn't been considered in the past, that's kind of a, you know, not a fair situation to the applicant, I don't think.

And another option is, I mean, continue with direction, but that's you know?

I mean

If if yeah.

We've we've approved lots and lots of standing seam metal roofs in the past.

Yeah. I think you guys should make a determination whether you think the standing seam metal is appropriate and then make your motion accordingly.

What what do you think you would do if we approve the standing seam? Would you really put the effort to to look at the other option? And

Yeah. I would. I really would.

Yeah. Okay.

It was it was a conversation that I had before this meeting, but it

was about it recently.

It's yeah. Exactly. We just it wasn't something that we were aware of.

Mhmm. Somebody wanna make a motion? Or, actually yours is still on the table. Right? Yeah. You wanna amend or you wanna continue with that?

I will just I'd make a motion to approve. I'd like to make a motion to approve certificate of appropriateness, appropriateness, HP000096Dash2025, and level one site plan application for the property located at 19 South Swinton Avenue, located within Old School Square Historic District by finding that the request and approval thereof is consistent with the comprehensive plan meets the criteria set forth in the land development regulations.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Any discussion? Please take the role.

Peter Dwyer?

Yes.

Chris Kavasis? Yes. Richard Kassar? Yes. Vlad Dimitrescu? Yes. Carol Perez? Yes. Benjamin Baffer?

Yes. John Miller?

Yes. Thank you very much. Okay. Item previously c, now b. Certificate appropriateness for 321 Northwest 1st Avenue. Any ex parte communications on this item?

No. None. No. No.

For the record again Michelle Hewitt Hewitt and I'm reading to the record file number 30Dash2025 for 321 Northwest 1st Avenue certificate of appropriateness within the Old School Square Historic District.

Good evening.

Am I okay to

go? Yeah.

Okay. Great. My name is Jason Bregman. I'm a resident and business owner in Delray Beach. My address is 227 Lake Terrace. That's where I live. This property is actually the property of the estate of Michael Singer, and I'm one of the personal representatives of the estate. I worked with mister Singer for pretty much my whole design career, and he passed away last year. Honored to be his personal representative in taking care of this property as well as his properties in Vermont and quite a collection of artwork. This application is specifically for a certificate of appropriateness for the replacement and installation of windows and doors, a non contributing single family structure.

We might wanna clarify some of the documentation. It might say it's contributing. I I believe it's non contributing. It's a ranch style house from 1975. So who is Michael Singer? Kinda matters. Sometimes properties are kinda defined by who who used them or who lived there. He's actually a pretty renowned artist. You may not know because we didn't advertise as a studio. He wasn't someone that would go out and do shows, but he was a pretty well known artist.

He actually had a one person show at the Guggenheim in the eighties in New York City. And I, like I said, I had the honor of working with him for about twenty years on numerous projects, including projects abroad. He passed away last year, but he had a a fifty year, career of doing really beautiful environmental sculptures. And, that poster you can see is, that's from the New York Times. They did a really nice obituary on on his work and his career.

These are just some of his projects. You may have traveled through, like, Denver Airport and seen this this amazing garden on the inside of the airport. That that's hits from 1993. This is a memorial garden in Germany, water cleansing gardens in The Netherlands, Queens Plaza, which I worked with him on for ten years in New York City, which is the fourth business district of New York City. So he's a pretty well known designer in that world of what we call a kind of regenerative design and a very type of specific type of environmental sculpture, if you will.

Like I say, he didn't advertise much, but they did do a little piece on him. I dug it up. This is from Atlantic Avenue Magazine, from, 2012. So they did a little piece and actually all the photography that day was from 03/21, which is just down the street here. It's 1st Avenue. So it's really the end of the street, City Hall Street. Let's see here. So this is the property. It was a quiet home based art studio and office, kinda still is now as it's being held by the estate. There's no noise.

He just did some prints there as an office space. He did his prints in the garage. In Vermont, he would do them in a and here he did them in a garage. There's no signage. Most people do not know we're there, and it's been that way since he purchased this property in 2008, I believe, maybe 02/2007. But he modified it when he bought it, and that was all approved through this board. Now the estate is gonna is gonna hold this, and it's gonna be gifted to his foundation. I'm also on his foundation. So if there's questions about the foundation, I can represent the foundation. Right now, it's called the Burmill Foundation in honor of his mother and father, but we will be renaming it as the Michael Singer Foundation.

The intent is to retain this property and not sell it. We've had a lot of offers from this property. It's big enough to build two luxury homes and fit them in there. Our goal is to retain this property as a foundation office and also to eventually we might have certain type of thing going on there. There might be future an artist in residence here or something like that.

That's why we're hesitant to change it in any way. So it's still like a home based office. Right now our plan is just to try to maintain what we have there and to secure it critically to secure it for hurricane and security reasons. Just in terms of where it's located, it's really on the edge of the district. Across the street, the homes are not a part of the part of the district, the Old School Square Historic District.

We think the most notable historic feature is actually the mangoes. It's an old mango orchard that stretches this side of the block, and we have one of the neighbors here to speak to that about the mangoes and how the neighborhoods really worked hard to preserve those mango trees. And so it's been something we've done over the years including trying to protect other properties nearby. The existing windows and sliders, there's a lot of sliding glass as you can see in that image above and then those are actually casements in the front. They're either anodized aluminum or they're gray.

So we went out of our way to get anodized aluminum even though everybody was trying to sell us bronze and white as you might know. We went out of our way to pay extra to get to get the aluminum frames to match and for consistency. What we didn't realize is that you have a thing about the low e glass. So we figured we were just doing something that would protect the property and we were not aware of a low e glass situation. Over the years when mister Singer would be up in Vermont, and if there was no one gonna be no one here for a period of time, this building got shuttered for all the openings that weren't protected, weren't weren't impact glass.

So it looked like this. And if there's a storm coming up right now, this is what we're going to do. And we have to, you know, pay to put the shutters up and take them down. Sometimes I end up doing it. And it doesn't look great for the community if they stay up for an extended period of time. And, of course, it's it's something that we just wanna fix properly by having proper hurricane windows, and the state will pay for that, and the foundation has agreed. Why we want low e? On the most facades, it's shaded. We have a ton of vegetation. Michael designed the gardens here, kept all the mango trees and it's a beautiful set of gardens.

But there's artwork inside. I don't wanna get into the nature of the artwork and everything like that. There's there's significant amount of artwork that's here. And we, we need to protect that artwork, and the the light that's coming in is is problematic for our use. So, also, again, there might in the future be a new artwork created, which we would want to protect as well.

The other all the other openings are are perfectly well shaded. We went ahead and when we did low e, of course, to keep it similar, we put the low e on this west facing facade at the garage here and also at the front door. So if you were approaching the property, you would see the glass would have that similar tint. This is just views of the garage and how it opens up. It's a screen garage. There's no cars going in and out or anything like that. And, again, the it's a lot about art handling is really critical. He was creating artwork in this space. In terms of history, our goal is to kind of retain the space as an art space. If you look closely, I don't know if it's in this image, but in some of the images you can actually see his print press in there.

And the intent is to keep that. So it's an important part of its history. So we'd like to keep these things in place. We don't know exactly what's gonna happen in the future, but right now our goal is to to stabilize and keep everything in place and secure. This is what it looks like across the street. That's a city well. They keep digging up the site a bit because there's an issue with that well. I don't know, but they're out there often. Not a part of the historic district as far as I understand. Neighbors great neighbors.

That's Durlane and Kirk, and they're they're not a part of the district. This is the property to the south, which at one point in time, mister Singer owned and helped make sure it stayed in the hands of someone who built a a low structure with keeping the mango trees. This is 313. And then to the north, Case in United Methodist, we have a good relationship with, and they've just fenced that area though and put up Clusius. So they're really not a part of the street. I wanted to show this video real fast. Sorry. It's a bit fast, but it just goes to show you how much vegetation there is. That's how much vegetation there is on this property. You can see that the this this is Northwest 1st.

Michael pointed it out with a ton of native vegetations, all native hedges in the front there and the mango trees. In between that, you really can't see much of the property. What you could see if you approach it further is the garage and that one window, which again is one of the ones that we're requesting for low e. So I just wanna be clear that, again, a lot of this is just simply not not visible, and it's part of it's really nestled in the garden that he created which is part of his work and the aesthetic that he was trying to create. So just to wrap up, the estate and foundation are seeking to retain and preserve the property.

If at some point in time, you know, we can't do what we need to be doing there, the foundation will probably, I've been fighting because I'm here in Florida and everybody else is up north, to keep this property, it'll get sold to the highest bidder and develop. I'm doing everything I can to prevent that and I think that's in line with your mission and goals. The old openings with shutters are being replaced for security, hurricane protection, energy efficiency and aesthetics. These are all good reasons and go right along with what we're trying to do in this community especially in terms of historic preservation and also honoring the use of the space historically know, mister Singleton was there working for the last so many years. In the Low East of the West of Slotkin is due to the western exposure and the need to protect artwork.

Staff has been great to work with. They came by. They looked at everything. They understood the unique nature of the property. We greatly appreciate your service and, hopeful that, you know, we could approve this so that our foundation can remain in Delray Beach and continue to do some really interesting work in South Florida. Thank you so much. I'm here to answer any questions.

Thank you. We'll get back to you as soon as staff presents. Thank you.

Okay, once again this is for 321 Northwest 1st Avenue certificate of appropriateness. Here we have the subject property outlined in red with Northwest 1st Avenue to the west. Some brief history. The subject property is located within the Old School Square Historic District. It contains a non contributing ranch style single family residence constructed in 1975, and it contained an asphalt shingle roof, stucco siding, and awning windows.

The current single family residence use is this current property is also still classified as single family. At its meeting of 10/15/2008, the Strike Preservation Board recommended approval for a COA and waiver request to allow the parking to be within the front setback, which exists today. The subject request is for the replacement of existing windows and doors, specifically for anodized aluminum frames, low e glass, and the replacement slash installation of horizontal roller windows and doors. Going through some photos, here we have the front or west elevation. This space is Northwest 1st Avenue.

And this is within the property, also the front or west elevation. We can see the front door on the left and the existing casement windows on the right. Here is from an angle here at the front or southwest elevation where you can see the garage door portion of that front door there as well. Here is an image from the side or north elevation. And then from the rear or east elevation, more kind of from the rear slash side southeast elevation, also from the southeast.

And then here is the sidesouth elevation. So this is the layout of the existing windows. There's no new openings proposed for the windows. There is a the existing single entry door is supposed to be double entry door, which I'll show you later. And they are proposed on any of the existing awning windows are proposed to be horizontal rollers, all to be the anodized aluminum frames, and then the west windows to be and front door to be low e glass.

So here are some of the existing door frames. This is looking within inside of the building outside. Some of the existing window frames. I think this space is Northwest 1st Avenue. These are the casement windows.

So here is the existing front west front slash west window. This is the only window that currently utilizes this current window pattern in appearance, but it also utilizes that anodized frame, metal frame. So this is the proposed low e glass sample. You can kind of see the distinction between the back and the front there. And then here is the existing entryway on the left there, and this is proposed to go from a single entryway to a double entryway here, with those glass panes on either side of the door.

So here are some stop report excerpts, specifically from the Secretary of the Interior Standards. As mentioned before, this includes the replacement and new use of horizontal roller windows, which is typically considered a more modernrecent appearance and is not typically utilized in historic structures. It is important to note this is a non contributing branch style structure where these types of windows may have been utilized during the time frame. Going to the proposed low E glass, it is a modern application not utilized during the time frame of current historic structures. This particular type of glass is inconsistent in its color grading and appearance when installed, thus creating concern for its overall use within the historic districts, as like in kind replacements come through for consistency that may not be able to be achieved.

The low e glass is brought before the board per direction from the board where contributing structures are to use clear and no tint on reflective no low e glass, and that non contributing structures may utilize gray colored windows to assist with meeting the energy requirements. Here is an image here or a staff report except for the Vision Compatibility Standards. The elevation on the screen is the front, so you can see what was originally there in terms of the window pattern in appearance and the proposed and the existing single entry door. There have been modifications, as you can see, what was original and what's currently out there now. As mentioned before, the single entry door is going to a double entry door.

They are to be full glass. Consideration could be given to the to other potential door types that aren't as modern in terms of the full glass appearance. So here is the Secretary of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation with the subject standards highlighted in yellow that we used to analyze the report or request. And here is the visual compatibility standards that were utilized to analyze the request as well. Here are the certificate of appropriateness findings, and that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Any rebuttal?

Just one minor comment. Thank you Michelle.

Could you go back? We're gonna go to public comment first just in case you have anything to say about public comment

as Oh yeah, that's fine.

Just be admitted. Any members of public wanna comment on this item? Just come state your name and address for the record please.

I think I need to be sworn

in. Do you as well?

Jim. Jim. Jim. Yes.

Do. Thank you. Well, John, I'm sorry to hear about your election as a chair. I know it's a big burden. He can handle it.

You have big shoes to fill.

My name is Jim Chart. I live at 401 Southeast 4th Avenue in Delray Beach, and I'm here to support my good friend Jason Bregman and his mentor who I was honored to know quite well, Michael Singer. Many of you probably do not have not heard the name Michael Singer before tonight, but I think as you could see from what the New York Times had to say about him, he is a very famous person in the design, environmental, art, and and also the aquatic world, which Jason didn't mention. And I think that his home is going to be very much like the Fontaine Fox home in the sense that it's historic because of who built it or who lived in it, and we all know the importance of that of that building. The real reason, I believe, for what Jason is trying to do is securing the art.

It's very valuable art. It is something that is very valuable to Delray. Fifty years from now, it'll be even more important. I think also you saw from the the view, it contributes substantially to the tree canopy in on North Swinton, and it's a very, very special place. If you haven't visited, I I highly recommend it. So I am strongly in support of this, and I hope all of you are as well. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Annette Ann Child. I live at 300 North Swinton Avenue in Delray Beach, and my property is around the corner from this property. I actually identified the property to Michael, who's a dear friend for many years. He's very famous, though we don't all know his name. If you look at michaelsinger.net, it's quite something. And what he did was something with this property that we both live on, which is a mango field, mango lot that's been there for forever. And I've really fought to preserve myself having a continuous lot with his. So anything they do, they're gonna do the best thing. The best thing for the environment, the best thing for the the town, and certainly the best thing to protect the artwork.

I don't know if you've seen the sun or felt the sun the way most of us have recently, but it's so hot and the sun is so strong and that little house really heats up. So that's why it's so necessary. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Miss, who can stream?

I met Anne Child. You.

Anybody else? Okay. Hope George is okay. We're gonna close public comment. And now any rebuttal?

Yeah. It's not quite a rebuttal. It's actually just something I forgot and also something you presented. Michelle, thank you. If you could go back to the west facade, it has the one window with the muttons on it. And I just wanted to point out that is indeed the only opening that has that. And as Michel showed on the historic drawing, if you could go to that too, I don't know where that came from. There's what it's supposed to look like. So I just wanna make sure that you were you were seeing the same thing that we're we're trying to show, which is that that there are everything else was those awning windows. Of course, they don't make those anymore anymore for hurricane rating.

Actually if they did choose that any day, they only make the big panel ones which are awful. So I don't know that they would meet your approval and they're problematic. So if we had that option we'd absolutely take it to do multi pane awning windows like that. Because we don't have that option, that's why we've gone in the direction that we have in terms of type of the window functionality. The building does open up beautifully in the in the cooler months and is completely passive.

And that's part of why mister Singer designed it the way it did. So about five or six months out of the year, we use absolutely no air conditioning. That might have to change a little bit because of the artwork, but the that's how we always used to do it previously. So again, thank you.

Thank you. Staff, any comment or rebuttal?

I do. Do you? Okay. So I just want to say thank you to the applicant for their presentation and just more so as this is somewhat rebuttal but a point of process. The home is just that, it's a home.

It has approval for a single family residence. We have had, staff has had a discussion with mister Bregman about that use, which means the home is to be occupied by somebody living there. And I heard some of the testimony tonight, talking about that they're figuring out what they're going to do with this property, which we fully understand and respect. But should it tip over to purely being office, art studio or even storage of art without anybody residing in the home, it technically needs to be converted for commercial use. So I'm just putting that here on the record so that we're all clear.

But we the applicant has indicated that it's a home where also happens to be a place where Mr. Singer did some work and had a space to be creative. So the primary use has always been home. Thanks. Thank you.

Alright. We're gonna move into board discussion at this point. Anybody wanna start? Yes.

I had a question for the applicant. So so I'm I'm looking at the you you included with your application that your order from South Florida windows and doors with the ES windows. So you're you you are ordering windows that are clear glass with low e coating. Did you consider, like, a solar band 70 or a tinting or something to to give

you

the performance that you could get from LoE?

Yeah. So like I mentioned, we're always not aware that LoE was actually a concern for any structure, but non contributing. It just wasn't anything. I do look at the LDRs because I've served on Sprab before over the years, and so I'm familiar with it. But I just I know that you, of course, have a complete authority over anything affecting aesthetics, but it hadn't didn't even cross my mind that the the low e tint would have been an issue on this property. So if that that could be my me overlooking that. So the short answer is no Okay. As a result.

So the the low e is an issue because there's a reflective quality. Right? So we we get clear glass. This is always a problem with with historic restoration work. And so, I mean, for those of you who don't know what I do on a day job, I'm usually on this side pleading my case with the historic preservation board about why why I need to use higher performing windows than clear glass and no coating.

And and low e, the reason why it's problematic is it it gives a a reflectivity that that's, you know, not not consistent with with with historic architecture. And the the problem is clear glass with no coating is inconsistent with Florida Energy Code. So we usually I'm I'm usually making this argument not on behalf of, you know, the artwork that's in the building, but because the energy code, the energy model doesn't work because the the glass doesn't doesn't perform. And what I'm saying to the the board is I think when we run into these things, and we will over and over again, we have to come up with some type of acceptable

We did.

Compromise to to make to make it to where we can unlike we did with NOA's right when we had

to If go in that

if I can address that it might have been the time you've been off the board because I know this topic was coming up quite a bit when you were serving on the previous terms. So we had this over and over and you know applicants coming to the board and showing the different types of glass and the color and you know we've had meetings with window manufacturers contractors and what resulted from that is we learned that every manufacturer manufactures the green that comes in the low E a little different and depends on what country it was made. I remember you talking about this before. So the direction from the board because we asked the staff please give us the pointed direction so we can move permits administratively is non contributors as the structure is can use the gray colored glass which meets the requirements for the energy calculations because a non contributor has to meet the Florida Building Code energy calculations. So gray is permitted.

This was the board's direction. Not low e the board said they do not want low e for non contributors absolutely not permitted for contributors contributors don't have to meet low e or I'm sorry the energy counts

the contributor can get a waiver on energy.

They don't even need a waiver.

They just automatically don't have to meet those energy calculations. And for those who may not be aware the energy calculations are prescriptive in that they are not just windows. So when that is applied it's looked at for air conditioning, floor covering, windows, number of different things. So you can exceed maybe your energy performance standards on an AC that might let you do something a little different on a floor covering or a window. So it's it's not just windows.

It's a holistic look. But the direction sorry this is a long answer but I wanted Mr. Kassar also to hear the background. From the board was gray for non contributors clear for contributors?

That answers my question. Was thinking if gray may give you what you need for for the the protection of of the artwork instead of instead of low heat. And I know this is a non contributor, but I'm seeing that it was built in 1975. So at some point, it probably it's 50 years old now. Right? So at some point, it I I I think this is a a mid century contributing structure in Sure. My mind, even though by definition, it's it's still it's still a non non contributor, but that was my question.

Meaning that at a future historic resource survey,

it could be designated

a contributor and changes that are made now shouldn't have a negative effect on that potential classification.

If we can say that but yes.

We are. We can't say that. I mean it's I'm sure Kelly would say it can't be the consideration by the board what's going to happen in the future because it's not happening now right? But that is how the process works and sometimes when we're looking at properties we will say like we're getting close to that timeframe but you can't tell an applicant like they want to tear it down. That they couldn't tear this down right now because technically they could come through for that application due process.

You can't treat this property like a contributor because you believe that it's going to be a contributor but you can as the board you can think about that you are protecting the history of historic properties and you know apply the land development regulations and the design guidelines as appropriate.

I guess for the board my point is I I want to do everything we can to let the applicant Mhmm. You know, achieve his his goals, but in a way that, you know, is is consistent with with what we wanna do. Okay.

Should we ask the applicant if he's willing to to change this?

One of my concerns was I'm assuming from the language that these have been ordered.

They've been received.

They're waiting to be installed.

They are. They're sitting in a warehouse. K. Yeah. And apologize for that. Again, I I did look at it. I it's you know, I I was not aware that LOE would have been an issue. And specifically because of energy calcs in general, it would be a requirement. Especially on a west facade like that, it's getting blasted. I mean, it's just bad. But they are in the warehouse. They are completely sorry.

We're gonna let the rest of the board speak

to We're talking about three openings.

It was double door, so I guess you

could just call three openings. These could be reglazed in the field.

So you could install these and the glass could be changed.

No different than if you had a hurricane event where you

had broken glass, they would be able to change it or vandalism or just random breakage. So that that is an alternative. And I'm familiar with the s windows. So these are coming from Columbia, but they make their own glass. So they could have glass for you in probably five weeks. So that's just from my basic knowledge. So that's an alternative. Your comment is you my comment is is that something you would consider ordering going ahead and changing to gray glass on those three openings?

I mean, yeah. I I'm at the and the board board here decides what happens ultimately. Those windows exist. My only other option is to not install them and keep shuttering those areas and not use those spaces for anything close to the artwork. I mean, I'm limited in what I can do.

Reglazing them, as a personal representative, I have a fiduciary responsibility to both the estate and the foundation. So I was told by the contractors, we're replacing one of the sliders that's there now because of a heat stress crack, which they told me that I got quotes on it that they told me that it was more expensive to redo the glass than to replace the slider. And multiple contractors told me that, so they quoted the slider. So in this case, basically, I would imagine someone's gonna tell me the same thing. I mean, I'm sure they can be reclazed on-site.

It's just I imagine that they're gonna come back and say the exact same thing, which is I'll just get you a new window because I don't wanna spend time reclazing. They're sizable openings. Sure. Yeah. So it's probably maybe under $10,000 but it's definitely over $5,000 It's probably somewhere around $8,000 change. So I can't readily, and meet my fiduciary responsibility, I can't readily say that I'm in favor of that.

So you've looked into the change?

I've discussed with the current contractor. He just said they're done. Sorry, we're done. And if they were going change them, I'd assume they'd change them in the factory rather than install them in the changing.

That would

give you a better product.

Yeah, I would think. But like I said, the factory is in Columbia for that one.

So the sliders and the ones that are being replaced, those are just clear glass?

So the the slider that's the one that's being yes. The ones that are being replaced in the back are completely shaded. You got these massive mango trees, tons of philodendrons. You know, they're they're lovely and either to my knowledge, they're clear. The contractors had different opinions on what was up with the glass. So some of them said that they felt there was a coating on it. Some of them said that they didn't. Am not an expert on low E glass, so not gonna claim to know. But Right.

But it doesn't seem like that's

They seem clear. Yeah. And we haven't noticed anything with reflectivity. Alright.

So just can we put up the illustration there, the elevation that shows the two windows we're talking about? Yeah. So that's This

is one of them. This is on the front of the garage. Correct?

Yes. This is on the facing west. That's probably the most visible opening. Even the front door is not visible because of that hedge that's there. That's really the the visible window in question. And that's the door if you were to enter the property.

So the windows to the right of the door, those are sliders? Those are actually casements. And they're staying put, not They're They

were put in when when mister Singer modified the space. They're originally approved as casements.

And So it's just the front door, which is gonna go to a double door, and then the garage window.

And and a ton of other windows going around the the building. Yeah.

When you go

to site

Which are are my understanding is not not in question per se.

That's the one and that's what I'm curious about. Just which ones are we talking about in here in terms

of loading. That are indicated here?

So, yeah, the ones that say remains, it the highlight you said?

So the west, the garage opening, the west on the garage, the sliders near the pink area, but the, you can see on the right, there's a new slider there.

Yeah. That's the one that's cracked.

Yep. And number three is going

to here. Mhmm. It's easier to actually say what's remaining. Those casement windows in the front are remaining. This slider is remaining. This one here in the corner. This one's fine, but except for the crack. So we were told by the contractors, pretty much all of them, that it's cheaper to actually replace the slider than to

It's really where the numbers are. So three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

This is a three panel.

One and two. So there's

That's it. So this slider here remains. This slider remains. These casements remain. And the garage door, which is actually it's a hurricane rated garage door with a with a screen on the front of it so that he could Right.

But they're asking which ones are being replaced.

Everything but those.

It's all the ones with the numbers in the circles.

Okay. So But with but with low e, it's only

Three openings.

It's thirteen, two, and what's what's

Just thirteen and two. Just thirteen and two.

That's that's what I

was Those are ones facing west.

The low e ones.

Yeah. The rest are

up. Administratively approved.

And the others are administratively approved. Yes. Okay. I don't know if the approach from the interior could be, you know, blinds or

I don't know that.

Shades

It's or something like

a non contributing structure. It's completely surrounded with vegetation. Of course, it's preferred to not have the low e, and we try not to approve that in the historic district. So I'm a little bit I don't know quite yet where I'm I'm falling on this one. It's only two windows or with one window and one door to replace.

I if it was everything, then I would be you know, then it would be such a financial burden, but it's only the two the two areas. So I think I still wanna hear other board members talk about this before I make a a decision. I just wanna say that I did know Michael I knew of Michael Singer when I was a student at FIU getting my master's of landscape architecture. He actually came and spoke as a as a keynote speaker. So he presented a lot of his projects and it was it was inspiring as a student. So I I really respect him and sad to see he he passed. Thank you.

Anything else?

Can can is there a photo of the we've we've seen the front door that faces West, but is there a a photo of Window Number 13 or where it is on the

Should should have been straight.

That one. So that's that's Window 13. And that's the garage window.

Yes. Okay.

This one here. Yeah.

I hope The re and the reason for just reiterating and just to confirm, the reason for wanting the low e at this window is because the garage was used as a studio and also an art storage space. Correct. And then what would be the reasoning for utilizing the low e at the front door number two?

Yeah. You might see it in one of the interior images, I think, my presentation, but the the interior space is a lot of it's open, and there's quite a bit of work artwork that's within that space. And so the the we do get quite a bit of light and heat coming in through that. Again, the west is just so strong, and that's not where we have the trees. So, yeah, you can kinda see there a bit. There's some open space area where not only do we have current art, but also there may very likely artwork moving through the space over time.

And was there a slide

that had a

comparison of a low E window versus a non low e window?

Yep.

There is a tint to it, but it's not like a limo tint Correct. On a car. Yeah.

Low e tends to be green. So the glass on the part of the issue is the reflectivity. There are some that come with a mirror finish almost or iridescent reflectivity. You'll notice it now that I've said it when you're driving around town. But there are also some that are just green, which this really, it's hard to see in a photograph.

You know, we've tried to communicate it in a photograph, which is why we had, you know, that showed the board a bunch of glass once before. The part of the issue with the low e is there's different colors of low e. So, you know, in a year from now window has to be replaced and maybe he doesn't use the same manufacturer. They're not around and someone else does a different, you know, replacement, maybe side by side windows. The greens don't always match. So it's the complex issue more than the, you know, fact that it's green. But I also, if I could make one comment, would that be okay?

Yes. It's up to the board.

Yes. There are instances where we see front doors have some different type of theme to them. Maybe it's a redid glass or a wavy glass or a stained glass. So perhaps that could be something it sounds like the board is kind of wavering on what to do. Perhaps it's the front door that's allowed to be the more artistic green look, and the other window would match the gray windows that already exist on the structure.

Just I had a question. So the the illustration was up there showing the rendering of the front door, it looked like it was a frosted door. It didn't look anything. I mean, is that just blinds behind it? Or what was the concept here? Because I don't know too many front doors that are completely clear. Yeah. They are frosted indeed. They are frosted? For security. Yep. That's okay.

As part of the proposal or as existing?

No. The existing is looks nothing like that. The yeah. That's the existing.

Yeah. I I don't think we understood that they were frosted. I thought think yeah. We thought they were just low e.

It's in the the South Florida windows and doors application. Quote.

It says frosted doors on

the Yeah.

Front entry. Again, that's just

To me, that kinda makes the whole thing moot on on the front. So we're only talking really about the garage window number 13, which I've never seen a a louvered window or a a pull out window with buttons not on like that. Yeah.

But that's not the same photo that we see at the entrance. This has have vertical mountains as well.

Yeah. That's So I

don't know. I'm just trying to understand. Yeah. Are we talking about the 13? Was the photo from the street that you can see the window there? Oh, it is the same. So my my bad eyes. I didn't realize. Carol, any comments?

I think just to stay consistent with what could get permitted and then be appropriate for Delray and the State Park District, you should go with the gray. I mean, I think we've already established that in

previous meetings. So we're really only talking about the one window now. We're not talking about the doors.

I I don't understand the door. I don't understand. What what are you doing with the door? The front door?

It's gonna

be frosted.

A low e frosted slide.

That's correct. Low e frosted.

Double door. A single door is turning to a double

I don't

even know what that would look like. I mean, to me, it looks like it's just a white

this I almost don't understand that. It'll almost look like a green frosting.

That's a Photoshop. Right? Yeah. Correct. It's not completely No.

It's not

totally accurate.

The frost it'll be frosted, but it will have a slight green tint to the frosting.

I mean, that's not what it's showing here.

No. This is a photo I don't know what

it's I mean it

Well, that's fine.

It's a

mock up printing. Alright. So I think we've gone around the table on this. Does anybody wanna make a motion on this? We're gonna have to make a decision here tonight whether we allow what has been proposed to continue forward or deny it and send it back or proceed with direction, you know, if you are amenable to change that front window to a gray tint.

So that would mean approval of the doors as as in the application?

The Anybody have any comments? I mean, the doors are gonna have a frost to them. It's not going to show that green.

I agree. I don't think it's gonna read through.

I'm not so concerned with the doors.

The front back in.

Yeah. It's back in. It's shaded. There's a there's a cover that's gonna help with the reflection. It's really that front window that's very prominent from the street.

I think just because it's it's not noted in the staff report, they didn't realize it was frosted. It might be worthwhile to put that in your motion that it's frosted as a condition.

Whoever makes a motion needs to qualify that the front door will be a frosted glass.

But just to just to circle back. So the window right now is that is visible from the street. The one window that we're talking about, it's into a garage where, yes, somebody's worked there. That was a studio space, but the light was not on for during the day. Or at usually, garage lights, garage windows are just dark.

You know? My my I have a window on the side of my garage. It has very little tint to it, but because it's a garage, you can't really see into it because it's just dark. And that window right now in that picture looked very dark gray to it. So I guess my my question is how active is the garage planning to

be

used to where the window would the tint or the low e or the visibility through the window would really come into play?

That's a great question. It's about the future use. And I've had conversations with the foundation board, and it's still early. You know, he only passed about a year and a half ago, so there's a lot to do. So there's consideration also in his will that some of his properties might be used for as artists in residencies.

That's part of why we don't wanna change the residential use just yet because we might find ourselves changing it back. And that could be a problem for us to be doing waffling. So I I was told that, you know, we should be considering this for the future possibility of artists potentially working in that space as mister Singer worked in that space, including leaving the press there. There's a print press there kind of for for his prints. And so that's what I'm doing, you know, because that's what has been discussed by the board.

And so that to answer your question, the plan is to have artwork in there, you know, and when we're doing this as a foundation, it's very different than as an individual artist, mister Singer, doing what he feels like. It's a it's a different animal in terms of how we protect artwork. Like, previously, he didn't have to insure his work. I have to insure his work to the teeth. So it's a very different animal, I guess is what I'm saying. And because of that, we need to make sure that work is protected, including work that will be in that space temporarily because we're moving it around, so on and so forth, but also future artists that might be working in that space and protecting their work.

And there's no there's no window treatment on the interior of that window right now?

No. I mean, the natural light is a big part of the allure of this space as a working space. Right. And he if you look at the plans from from what was there originally and how he kind of blew out the building, which was approved by this board then, to create like a ton of natural space. Barely turn on a light bulb in this building during the day even with all the shade. And that's for me, that's the history of this space is that it's a a building surrounded by natural light. There are no window coverings. There are no shades. There are no nothing. And that's part of what he created. And that's true in all of his buildings, by the the way. There's not a single curtain or shade in any Michael Singer building.

Right. So where where my point being that if the low e glass is needed for protection of the artwork, would a understanding that that garage space functioning as a studio and functioning as storage come gallery space will not be utilized twenty four hours a day or only during daylight where, you know, glad so when it is not being utilized, would a protective interior window covering be suitable should should low e not be approved, would that a protective e or a protective window covering in on the interior that is able to be raised and lowered at the will of whoever's in there be something that would still protect the artwork and still give the Yep. The light that's needed on on a kind of an on demand basis.

I I totally get what you're saying. And as from a practical functional standpoint, yes. But, you know, again, the future use, let's say in the future, we have 10 of his pieces hanging in the space and and it is it's changed to commercial in the future and people can move through that space. Michael would want that to be presented with all the natural light that we could. And and that's really the crux of the issue.

He he would not want it to be a shade to come down that would then block the natural light presenting his work. So that's that's where I'm that's where I'm left with because, you know, like I said, I worked with him for twenty years. I know exactly how he presented his work. And so from a practical standpoint, you know, sure, we closed the shade and no one's in there or whatever, but from a presentation standpoint and so on, on a regular basis, should this be a place people can enter, we're not gonna go run and open the shade. You know what I'm saying? It's it's just it's gonna that's gonna be open and the natural light's gonna be there and people can come and go and so on and so forth. I don't know what the future holds, but that's the thought and the intent to get to your point of what you're asking. You though. I appreciate that.

Thanks, Eddie. One last comment, sorry, is I don't like approving things or reviewing things after the fact. I really as a Board, I hate it when people come in and say, Oh, it's already been installed, please approve it. Or It's already been ordered, please approve it. Because I feel like that puts pressure on us that we shouldn't have to deal with.

You know? And just just just have to have have to say that. Because I I'm looking at this thinking, had this come to us before the window order was made, before the they were we we went forward with it. I don't know that I would be in favor of having windows where three of the windows are different glass compositions than the rest where we've got low e on some of the windows and clear glass on some of the other windows because just within itself, the house doesn't match. You know?

For about what does it do with the rest of the neighborhood, the historic characters. It's just I don't think we, as a board, would would would approve that. We would say, no. This doesn't make sense that you've got windows on one part of the house that are different different glass types than the other side of the house other than other than the front door. So just wanna make that point.

I do wanna say, I I know these are just ordered. They're not installed, so it's not like it's a subject of code enforcement or anything like that. But, like, the as a negative or a positive, you're it shouldn't be used that it's been ordered or that it's been installed or any of those things. You should be basically analyzing it how you would if they came to you with no no order in place. No yeah. So just wanna throw that out there.

Well, I have an idea. I mean, a suggestion. Can can we actually look at the window there and decide, I mean, somebody from the staff or you, if it's really that noticeable? The reason I'm saying because sometimes in this special this environment, the the windows do reflect a lot of the greenery around. You know? And I don't know what type of glass actually this particular window has. I agree with you. Sometime it has, like, all kind of iridescent purple reflections. Looks like an like an art show. You know, it's not really a flat glass. But maybe I don't know. Would that matter? I mean, can can you can you put us a condition that maybe they can actually you guys can

I would feel more comfortable if the board made a decision with what they wanna move forward with? Mainly and respectfully because we have studied some of these instances where we're given that authority, right, to make a call and then it's installed, and it doesn't actually look like what we expected it to look like. And then what? Are we bringing them back to the board? Yeah. So

Yeah. It's a risk.

It is. Let's make a motion.

Anybody wanna make a motion?

Yeah. I will make a motion to approve certificate of appropriateness, HPDash000030Dash2025 for the property located at 321 Northwest 1st Avenue, Upsal Square Historic District by finding that the request and the approval thereof is consistent with the comprehensive plan and meets the criteria set forth in the land development regulations subject to the following conditions. That window 13 will be a gray tint and that the Or clear. Or clear, and that the front door window two will be approved as as noted.

Okay. Any second? I'll second that. Okay. Any discussion?

And as noted meaning frosted glass?

Yes. Correct. Okay.

Frosted glass.

Yes. So this this is approving the low e window On the door. On the door. Not

on Window 13. Not on Window 13, which will have to be modified to be either clear or gray tint. Okay. Take the roll.

Peter Dwyer?

Yes.

Chris Cabasis? Yes. Richard Kasser?

Yes.

Vlad Dimitrescu? Yes. Carol Perez? Yes. Benjamin Baffer?

Yes. John Miller?

Yes. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. Thank

you. Thank you.

Split the baby. A lot of people ask for forgiveness in front of us. It happens all the time.

Alright. Now we go on to item previously, item a, which is now item c. Certificate of appropriateness 2023143 for 1 39 and one to 143 Southeast 7th Avenue. Is there any ex parte communications on this item? No. No. I

have been to the site.

It's been a couple of years.

Yes. We did receive several emails from neighboring residents.

Yes. And

I haven't seen anything other than those.

Did everybody receive the email? Yes. Mister Miller conveys us, everybody?

Yes.

So thank you for introducing the file into the record 2023Dash143 for 139 To 143 Southeast 7th Avenue the applicant agent mister Simeon Criblio. I'm sorry. I do this every time.

Not a problem.

Architect for the project is here and will present. And could you remind me is it fifteen or twenty minutes?

Fifteen minutes.

It's fifteen minutes.

Okay. You I'll so do

my best. I'll speed through it. Thank you very much. My name is Simeon Kirilov with Steve Siebert Architecture here on behalf of ownership. We are at 1010 Gateway Boulevard. This is regarding the 139142 Southeast 7th Avenue in the Marina District. In terms of the history of the property, I I believe it may have come before you at one point with one of the original developers. I'm not sure if it made it to the board or if just the historical board reviewed it, but I think there was a COA application at one time. It didn't go through. The new owner purchased it.

Unfortunately, it was not in the greatest condition because it was about halfway through renovations. I'm not sure exactly what was done before the new owner took over, but the new owner now wants to fix it up, clean up the property, bring it back to how it originally was, and basically restore it as much as possible with a few minor modifications, which I'm gonna go, over right now. So here is the existing property. It is made up of four houses. Two of those houses have two units in it. The two story has a unit on the actually, right now, the two story has two units on the Ground Floor, one unit on the above floor, and then the how do I do?

There we go. Sorry.

This one here, that has two units in it as well. The other buildings are single units and single story buildings. And there is currently an existing, what was a one car garage, but at some point it was converted into a storage unit. And we are requesting to demolish that particular unit. It technically already is demolished, and I'll go over that and the reason why it was.

So this is the site plan that we're proposing. All of the units are gonna remain exactly where they are, so all of the units will stay. The parking lot along the front will stay. We're going to redo the interior with a new paver, kind of make it look like four individual houses within a cluster. And then back here was that old garage, and we're proposing to, demo that garage. Technically, the garage is already, demolished. It's not there. The current owners did not demolish it on their own. It fell apart. The original structure was neglected for many years, and unfortunately, it did, fall over at some point.

So ownership had to come in and clean it up, and they took it all away. It was made from bricks. None of them are reinforced. There was no steel in it. The roof was made out of just, two by sixes.

And just over the years, the the two by sixes rotted away, fell down, and the building itself collapsed, and ownership current ownership took it away. So we have to go in for a after the fact demolition permit, on this case. But even if the building was there, we'd still we're we're gonna request to to remove it. All the other buildings, we're not really requesting any major demo other than a couple of minor renovations. This building here, we're planning on we're just requesting to enclose a current concrete patio.

It's open. We're proposing to do this little addition back here and enclose the patio. So this room used to be part of an open patio, which we're enclosing, and then we're adding a new little bathroom off to the side, which is not there. And in this building, we're just proposing to extend the 2nd Floor, but the footprint will stay the same. No changes for this building and no changes for the other building.

All of those, the footprints are gonna remain as is and just be rebuilt. So here's the floor plan of what we're calling Building 1. So Building Number 1 is this guy over here. So for Building Number 1, really, the major additions is right now there's an open patio back here. We're planning on squaring it off to add additional square footage.

This is the original front porch. We're planning on expanding on that area portion of that porch and expanding the back half of the building. So this is one of the buildings that has the majority of the renovations on it. So here is the floor plan of Building 2, which is the two story. So this is the this is the existing.

So right now, this is considered its own independent unit, which we're gonna get rid of and convert it all to a single unit. And then on the 2nd Floor, this is the current 2nd Floor right over here. We're proposing to add an addition back here to just make that unit a little bit taller. This addition will still stay within the footprint of the original building, so it's not gonna expand beyond the original footprint. Right now, this area here where we're putting this addition, which is back here, is a is a flat roof.

So right now, it's just a flat roof area. There's nothing above it. This is Building Number 3. This we're really just doing an interior renovation. We're not changing we are changing out the doors and windows, but we're not changing any of the openings or locations of the openings. This building is actually in pretty decent condition. We're just gonna renovate it and clean it up. And then this is Building Number 4, which is the one at the front. Again, we're really not doing any additions on this particular building. We're just renovating, the building itself.

But for the most part, the building is staying as it is floor plan wise. So this is going back to Building 1 on the elevations. As you can see, one of the major items that were coming before the board to request is to raise the buildings. The buildings are currently, I believe, at at around four feet, and FEMA is at eight feet. So they're very, very below the flood the zone.

So they are gonna have to be raised nearly three and a half feet, which is one of the biggest things that we're here for. So the buildings are gonna have to be raised to meet current FEMA and, of course, to protect the, the buildings. So as you can see on this case, it's going from this to this. It's gonna be raised. Same thing with the, true story.

The true story is gonna be raised as well, again, so the finished floor can meet the, FEMA requirement. Lifting this one's gonna be a little bit tricky. If you guys have any questions, I'm here to answer if you guys read the reports. But one of the issues with this building is that it's not a an individual building, if you will. It was originally a a shed, and then eventually, they did an addition down here, and then eventually, they put the second floor.

So it's a building that was kind of hodgepodge together within the years. So lifting it will be tricky. On this case, what we're proposing is since the 1st Floor is concrete block, only at this portion, this is all wood. The wood portion will be lifted from the base. However, for the two story portion, we're gonna have to lift the 2nd Floor, not the 1st Floor, and we're gonna have to expand the concrete block on the 1st Floor just to make sure that the building is stable.

Because we're worried if we lift it from the from its base, since the concrete block walls are only on three sides, not all four, it could cause a stability issue. So we're proposing to raise the 2nd Floor on this and building up, the 1st Floor rather than raising the entire 1st Floor and and doing a foundation, which is how you would normally do it and how we would do it on the other remaining buildings. Building Number 3, we are not lifting that building. That is a con a concrete building that sits on a monolithic slab, so this building is the only one that we're requesting to to leave as is, and it also makes as a good ADA unit for, especially now that this is gonna be a complex. It's gonna be an accessible unit, and we're gonna keep it at the level that it is.

And then building 4, same thing. We're gonna raise the building. And this one, just like building one, we're raising it from its base, so it's a standard lift, rebuilding foundation. And yes, the foundations will be stem wall and concrete block, while the rest of it will be the the existing wood framed walls. Here is a couple of renderings of what it's going to look like.

And that's it. Presentation. Just really quick, I wanna go over the variances because that is one of the key items. Oops. So we are requesting six variances well, not necessarily variances. I think it's three variances, an internal adjustment, two waivers, and demolition permit. So one of the waivers is regarding Building Number 2. So Building Number 2 sits nine foot three from the existing property line. The as a commercial property, it requires a 15 foot setback. So the renovations that we're proposing from this building, is gonna go beyond that 15 feet.

So we're requesting to keep the existing nine foot three setback. I know there were some concerns from, from neighbors to not go beyond what the current setbacks were, and I just wanna make it clear we are not going beyond what's actually there. So even though we're going in for a variance to go beyond the 15 feet, we we're really sticking with the existing nine foot three setback as the building already sits at nine foot three. So we're not gonna go beyond the nine foot three mark or beyond the footprint of the existing building. Same thing with variance number two.

With variance number two, this little addition back here, it's the same case. We're sticking with the same setback that's already there. So even though we are requesting a a waiver of the 15 foot setback, we are still keeping the setback of the existing building and the existing structure, and we're not gonna go beyond the existing setback. The internal adjustment is since we are enclosing this area, it's now getting close to the building. And again, we're not making that worse.

The existing open porch is already at that distance, and we're just matching the original open porch with with our addition for that building. Variance number let's see. Variance number four, which is the third variant, is to keep Building Number 3 at the existing height. So really the variance is to just leave the building as is and to and to not lift it. Waiver number five, that one is oh, waiver number five is going back to the 2nd Floor addition.

Since this building is turned sideways and it faces internally, even though I consider this the front elevation of the of the property since that's where the main entrances are. Realistically, this elevation is the front which faces the street. Since we're doing an addition on that elevation, we're getting a waiver we're requesting a waiver from the board to be allowed to do an addition that is, on the front of that building. And as I mentioned before, even though it is on the front of the building, we are not going beyond the existing footprint. So that, addition will stop right at this wall right here.

So you still have this entire element that's still beyond that addition. So we're not really going in front of the building which is part of the LDR requirements. And then finally, the number seven which is the demolition. Again, we are requesting to demo the what was the existing single story garage. At one point, it was used as a garage, but eventually it was converted into a storage space. And again, over the years, it just it collapsed and it fell apart. And that's it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Reminder, Michelle Hoyland, principal planner for the record. So 143 South Swinton is on the East Side I'm sorry. I don't know why I said 143 South Swinton. 139 To 143 Southeast 7th Avenue is on the South end of the Marina Historic District on the East Side of 7th Avenue. This request is a multifamily project that includes two lots with four structures and a fifth that is I'll explain a little more about later, on this property. So that's multifamily, which in the planning

and

zoning realm, we look at this not as a standard COA. So many of the applications you see are single family and it's a COA. This is a COA with a site plan approval. So it elevates almost to the review as a commercial building would be per our code. So that's why unfortunately it was somewhat of a lengthy staff report along with the relief requests and all the the citations for the city, code.

And just for our new board members, anytime you see bold in the code, that's a code citation and non bold is the staff analysis. So this is the property here, an aerial view that you can see the four structures. And then this is an older Google Street view of the property. The Marina Historic District has a very interesting background and history, which we've provided in the description of the staff report. I won't read the entirety of those paragraphs, just for the essence of time, but it's notably associated Family.

With the Blank Family nurseries, they were settlers to, Delray Beach original pioneers referred to as the Michigan connection because they, hailed from Michigan. And they established this area for a business that they had with a tree nursery, which is why there is such a gorgeous established tree canopy in the Marine And Historic District still to this day. And a lot of different types of species exist throughout the historic district as well. So of the four structures that are on the site, they were all predominantly built, original built in the nineteen twenties with the exception of this duplex structure that you see on the right side of the screen. Important to note that Ken Jacobson was associated.

He was the architect of this structure. And for those who don't know mister Jacobson

Sorry.

He was an architect who, established here in Delray Beach, an architectural firm, Jacobson Curry Architects, which, he was the father-in-law to our esteemed architect, Bob Curry. And he designed many buildings in the same time frame and era we were seeing a lot of work from Roy Simon, Dick Hanna, a lot of work, throughout this area. Ken Jacobson worked in Lake Ida a lot as well. So some of your Lake Ida homes, and this mid century was kind of, one of his specialties. So this is a very unique building.

I almost wish that the south side was facing the north side because it is really arguably the more interesting side of that mid century, building. But that's a duplex. The site contains today technically seven units, which is nonconforming from the density perspective, which is units per acre. The request involves elimination of one of those units and one of the buildings and kind of combining the footprint, or the floor plan to create six units. So it will continue to be nonconforming.

It's a grandfathered situation with respect to density and it's also nonconforming with respect to the parking spaces along the front, which is the west side as they back out onto Southeast 7th Avenue. That historically has existed in that configuration for many years. Ironically, this property fell right on the edge of the Sanborn maps, those fire insurance rate maps that we we use from the 20s, 40s and 60s to see the footprints. So this property doesn't show up, just because it was on the cut line. So these are I'm going to go through a series of views of the property.

Here you can see the only two story structure on the property, which is in the back corner. We'll be referring to these by their building numbers, Buildings 123 And 4. So on the right is the two story structure that had multiple units. On the left is what was a, smaller one story, also mid century style structure. And what you can see on my note here is the slab or the area where the garage once was.

It was like utilitarian accessory structure. And it had been demolished by the applicants, largely because of a condition issue. So Building 4 originally was a missionary structure when I'm sorry, mission revival structure when it was built in the 1920s. And we believe at the time that the mid century duplex was constructed, that the introduction based on permit records and things things that we had access to, there was this introduction of this kind of funky mid century porch, which would have occurred in the 1950s and the back porch. So we can still see the scuppers, the rough texture of the stucco pattern exists around the, non primary elevations of that building.

And we think it was when this was built, was really when that was introduced potentially to create cohesiveness across the site. So this building exists literally in its original design, even down to the jealousy windows in the 1950s. This is the west view of that structure. Interesting piece, it's hard to see, but, the wing wall that's dividing the two units in the back and then they've got these really interesting mid century style window pattern. This is the front porch of the building in the back corner, one of the smaller buildings on the site.

You can see that the site really is in need of TLC. These owners are envisioning, bringing this property up to, a much better standard for the neighborhood. So I may come back to that. We move in a counterclockwise direction when looking at building numbering. So Southeast Corner is Building 1, Building 2 is Northeast, Building 4 is Northwest, Building 3 is Southwest. But remember the lots are divided. They're going to be joined through the plat exemption process. That's an administrative level process that staff will handle. So here's our existing site plan. There are additions occurring to Building 1.

You can see here we try to illustrate this with the use of red whenever something is new or being removed and the blue is typically the existing, with the exception of a new swimming pool, that swimming pool blew in the Southeast corner. The parking is being reconfigured to incorporate some level of landscaping buffer on either side of the parking tier. The waiver that's being sought is because the code technically says you have to have a nine foot wide, landscape island. And if they were to do that, they would lose yet another parking space. So they are already reducing, the parking by one largely because of the introduction of a handicap parking space where they have integrated the handicap access panel to be the walkway up to the property.

Here's that garage that was once there. There's a small picture of it in the corner. It had a man door essentially, a single pedestrian entry door, but at one point in time it did actually have, which we had guessed was probably carriage doors that opened, on the front of it. Overlay plans are utilized, to really show the Board what's old, what's new and altogether on one plan, which is why there's hatching there. This is a rendering of the proposal, with the proposed paint scheme incorporated.

It is a very dark beige, and brown trim style. And I'm going to move quickly through these because we can come back if you have questions. But this is really more of an interior detail where we're showing all of the existing and proposed plans from the architect for the footprint and the floor plans for 2nd Floor. So each of these buildings are coming through for modernization and upgrade. Building 1 is having additions added on to it, which is why there are these relief requests related to internal adjustment, which is the distance between buildings, and I'll cover that a little bit more in a few minutes, and then the setbacks on the south side.

So the additions in this case look like original sides of the building are changing, but let's not forget this is the addition of this is plus space, changing existing space. So again, this is in the back corner. The proposal includes the alteration of some of the window openings and moving the window openings. This is very we tend to see this in a lot of applications. It's a it's a tough ask when this happens because technically the secretary of the interior standards talks about retaining the existing window openings.

But a lot of times this is dictated by what's happening on the interior footprint of a structure. So this is what you're seeing is making windows longer, shifting them on the sides of the building. Building 2, this is our two story structure, does have a 2nd Floor addition, a new deck, which you can see in the back, of the property. It's on the right of your screen, highlighted in a beige color with a covered patio. They've had to reorient the stairs so that the stairs are pulled out of the setback, because they didn't want to seek yet another relief request to continue with that condition.

Here you can see in red on the left, that's the upper floor addition. So that's an expansion of to the West, which is really more of the almost front even though the South feels like the front. So there's a secondary and subordinate waiver included with this as well. That's a visual compatibility standard requirement. And then you can see here, this is the one that involves that vertical relocation.

So all of these structures are required as they are in the Marine Historic District to meet the FEMA finished floor elevation. Currently, that's eight plus one foot for the Florida Building Code, which means these buildings have to move from their existing grade to nine feet. And that is resulting in, you know, four to five feet increase in the overall height of these buildings. That is the minimum required. So they are not going over the minimum required.

But again, you've got alteration of the structure. I know we've had a lot of conversations with other applications on how to stabilize and make sure there's stability of these buildings and you can inquire more with the applicant about that method. So here this is the east or most rear part of this building with additional changes to the elevation that are occurring. Most The north, which would almost be an interior side, but somewhat feel like a rear of the building as well, with some alterations of the windows and spaces, you can see the difference from top to bottom. And then the west elevation, so this would be facing Southeast 7th Avenue and the top of this building will peak over the one story that's in front of it and be somewhat visible from the street.

Building 3 is largely untouched. The most of the proposed changes here are footprint layout I'm sorry, floor plan layout on the interior, which the Board doesn't really or staff have purview over. This is the existing non change proposed North elevation. The main change here is windows, that they're coming in with single hung. We put this in.

It's a kind of a neat drawing. The top drawing is pretty common when we see these historic drawings where you see a building that is symmetrical fundamentally from front to back. So what the architect did is they drew what would be the front on the right side and the rear on the left side, but it's a mirror image. So you see he's labeled it north and south. It's kind of neat to see that.

But that most interesting side of the building really is I wish I had a better photo of it, but you can see it illustrated here on this drawing with these clerestory type windows. And then the west elevation, with new windows as well. In my opinion, I think one of the second most interesting structures on the property is, the building in the Northwest corner. We refer to this as Building 4. This was what in the staff report we mentioned that this has is having somewhat of an identity crisis, because there's still evidence of that mission revival style with the stucco pattern, the scuppers, the dog ear, parapet detailing and the square nature of the building.

But it has been altered, can see, so that the front reads as mid century. And ironically, it almost reads as a deco building as a result of that change. So the applicant is going to retain this building largely in its existing proposed appearance with the exception of vertically elevating this as well. They could have come in to remove these mid century elements and, approach a restoration of this building to bring it back to mission. They are not proposing that and they can leave these elements and it still is considered a contributing structure.

So there are some, minor elevation changes on the West, which involve primarily, the window and the style of the door. This window here is becoming fixed. Did I hit my time? Oh my gosh. I'm gonna need more time. I'll move faster. Sure. Is that okay? Yeah. I'm so sorry.

So obviously, that's the architectural elevations. There's some rendered, SketchUp style drawings in the plan, set as well that the applicant provide us additional information here. You can kind of see aerial view of renderings, the color palette, the rendering of the color palette. And then these are here for informational purposes. Secretary of the Interior Standards, that we apply, which all 10 of these have to be met and you can see one, two, three, five, six, nine and ten are all applicable and the review for that is in the staff report with the analysis.

There is concern regarding the addition to Building 2. This is the two story structure as putting an addition on top of a historic contributing structure is really not necessarily the most recognized approach to additions. Putting an addition adjacent to a historic structure is the most appropriate method and that's to ensure that the addition is minor in comparison subordinate and also that could be removed in the future, which is a standard noted here. The visual compatibility standards, we have them here if you want to look at them, but these standards generally talk about height with mass scale facade openings, rhythm, material, color, texture, roof shape, direction of the front elevation and other criteria for specifically additions to the buildings and those are oftentimes the most important, which are additions shall be located to the rear or least public side of a building and be as inconspicuous as possible and so on and so forth here with this Section M. So we have, done an analysis here in the color palette while it's, very interesting.

Typically, this time frame, whether it's mid century, mission, art deco, whatever, might have been a more muted color palette, but might have included some pops of color. So think 1960s, you might have a beige building with an orange front door. So we are making some notes here that it might be helpful to apply some color to avoid washing out that defining characteristics of this building. There's also a note in the plan about this, almost eyebrow feature continues over. It's not correctly illustrated in the plan.

That's an existing feature and we believe the intent was to retain that feature. You can see it continues over the top of the windows and it seems to be missing from some of the drawings. Demolition. So this was an after the fact demolition. So they did not come to the board to request demolition of this structure and the standards and requirements for that are in your staff report.

But here is what the board needs to, consider when making an approval for demolition. Should the board want to get into the area of reconstruction or requiring something like that or discussing it with the applicant, we've included these standards here and in the staff report as well as to how that happens. Historic reconstruction, you can recall we've had other applications where this has happened and the board has required a, reconstruction as a treatment. Relocation criteria. So, for those, you know, projects that have to go through a vertical elevation, there is a set of requirements, submittal application requirements that includes a report from a moving contractor.

So this contractor has provided that information, is also in your backup of what the method is for vertical relocation and the applicant explained that a little bit more in detail than I did. There's three variance requests, the North and South side, respectively, to allow for nine foot three inches and five foot nine inches, on those structures. The other request is to allow the duplex to remain at its existing finished elevation rather than vertically elevating that building. The Board has processed and approved, some of those in the past. These are your variance findings, which are also in the staff report.

Biggest one typically is could the proposal be achieved an expansion where modernization or improvement of the site is it necessary? Is it necessary to have a non conforming setback for the new addition, you know, to maintain that or in its configuration. So it's a literal interpretation of the code is really what we're looking at with these findings. So here is where the nine foot three setback is happening. Again, this is on top of the existing structure.

So that nine foot three setback already exists in this configuration and the building is going on top of it and the requirements that we have to apply do require a new variance for that 2nd Floor space. Variance number two, which is on the South Building, again, bringing that setback down to five'nine. It would maintain an existing, setback that's somewhat in that location already for a portion of the building for a small expansion west. So you can see where this red arrow is, the building is sitting at five foot nine inches there already. So the Board will need to determine is it appropriate in this case to be having a little interpretation of the code and so on, other things in your staff report with findings.

And then here is that, finished floor elevation variance request. Again, you have to apply the variance findings. Would it help maintain? Would any of these requests help to maintain the historic integrity of those structures? The waiver request for the terminal landscape islands, I think I already covered.

I think you got that. Let me know if you have questions on that. But here are your waiver findings. You know, it's again in your staff report. We're looking at, adversely affecting neighboring area, diminishing public services, creating situation, would you grant a waiver like this under similar circumstances for another property or property owner?

This is a view of that landscape area, so you're kind of looking down on it. So this image is here should you wish to discuss it further. Waiver two is for secondary and subordinate. This is to allow the addition to be not secondary and subordinate to the existing massing of the existing structure and for the fact that, that addition is being built on top of, an existing one story portion of the building. Here it is circled in red on the picture.

You can see circled in red as well. So essentially be expansion west of the 2nd Floor over top of the existing one story. The internal adjustment, so this is to allow a reduction in the distance required between buildings. These are applied when you have multifamily or commercial buildings on the site. And you can see here that they do not meet the required 16 foot three inches, that should be set here.

And they're asking for seven foot 10 spacing. This is a streetscape view of the street. So immediately to the north is multifamily piece of the Marina townhomes project, which technically is on Marine Way. So there's one unit that comes, you know, west of that development onto Southeast 7th Avenue almost with its front facing there and that is the immediate north. And then to the south is a one story structure.

Again, the rendering is a reminder and then our findings. So I'm going move through this quickly. The COA findings that are applicable in the report, the site plan findings, these are here should you wish to refer back to them. The architectural elevation findings and then as I noted commercial and multifamily, we review as a full site plan application, which includes performance standards. So we have to review and make sure they meet traffic, the concurrency requirements for streets, traffic, drainage, solid waste.

And then there's a few site plan technical items. Just as a reminder, these are not the board cannot edit these. These have to be met with the resubmittal. It should the project get approved for certified plans. These things need to be addressed and these are things that sometimes would be TAC comments, but we don't want to hold the project from going to the board and we feel like they can be addressed at the time of certification. Sorry, I went over, but that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Any members of the public who would like to comment on this item? Please come to the podium and state your name and address for the record.

Thank you. I'm I'm Grant Podest. I actually am on the Marina Bay, board homeowners board. And just just to correct the record, 142 is two units, not one. And I actually live at 140 Marine Way, Kitty Corner behind the lot. If you could put the pictures back up, the ones you put up that you took recently, not from Google, please. We, my wife and I went over and walked this the last few days and took a lot of pictures. I'd invite all of you before you approve this to go over and check and look at the site. This is completely dilapidated, and the entire thing needs to be torn down. The reason the garage is actually caved in and done that is because that's indicative of all the structures.

This proposal is basically new construction, and you're actually not even conforming with FEMA. And we have massive flooding in the area that's been going on with the king tides and with all the issues we have over there. And we're leaving you would leave one of the units down at level for at flood level. The biggest issue I have with this is safety. The your association or whoever your prior or people have approved the lots on the corner of the of 1st And 2nd on Marine Way, and there hasn't been sidewalks put in.

And there's gonna be no sidewalk put in here. And this is a walking area. I have a seven year old, and I live there full time now. This is no longer just a, you know, a snowbird, you know, half year community any longer. And the work that was done on one of the corner units on the corner of 2nd And Marine Way was an absolute danger zone eyesore. It's a miracle somebody didn't get hurt there. If I was as a city and the board, I'd be incredibly concerned about the liability that you guys are assuming. By letting something like that take place, it was unbelievably unsafe. The density is a huge issue. These these units, if you walk the units, there's numbers on the doors.

It looks like it was a hotel or or some sort of apartment complex where people were renting it out. This this if you could get go to the other slide. This slide, there hasn't been I've been in the I've lived there for almost five years. There's never been living in any of these buildings. There's no cars or anything in the front.

This has completely been vacant, and it's it's rodents and everything else going on here. I encourage you guys to work with the owners of this property and with the district to tear this entire thing down and to beautify our neighborhood. I encourage you to actually abide by the setbacks, abide by FEMA, and do the things we're supposed to do and beautify this neighborhood and make this lot act aesthetically pleasing and get rid of the multifamily density parking with no sidewalks. That's not what we need in this neighborhood. And that's what none of us is at the in the HOA there, there's 10 of us, want, and then none of the neighbors want this.

This should have been torn down years ago, and so we should be working with these people to actually build appropriate, like, maybe two single families or whatever it is here that actually fit into the neighborhood and have sidewalks in front, proper setbacks. It makes Delray a more beautiful place. It'll help our tax base, and we we can't have the debt density and all the the the the danger that this is gonna attribute to the area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Roger.

Hey. For the record, Roger Cope, Cope Architects Inc. 701 Southeast 1st Street, I think, in the Marina Historic District. I didn't wanna say this, but I totally disagree with that gentleman's point of view. These these are historic buildings, so they they cannot be torn down.

Maybe he doesn't know that. But the reason I wanna come up and say something is to applaud, the applicant, but point out something that hasn't been discussed in the presentation. Building Number 2, is which a two story in the back on the, northeast corner, is, its entire scan is being changed. Just wanna point that out because the lower level exists as exposed concrete block. It wasn't it's painted, but it was never had a stucco coat on it.

And I think they're gonna put a stucco finish on it, and maybe the architect can confirm that. And the upper level is board and batten wood, and they're gonna change that to stucco. I'm favor in of those, but I just wanna point it out. So when you make some of your motions and approve of all this stuff that you know they're changing that material, and I think they should be allowed to. And this is a multifamily district, So multifamily aspects of properties like this are what makes this neighborhood totally different than anybody else's. If if if if we're single family residential neighborhood, we have to look at it in a totally different light, but it's our end.

Thanks. Thank you. Anybody else? Yes.

Hello. I'm Kim Podest. My husband Grant just spoke. Like he said, we live at 140 Marine Way. I would echo what he said in that the current photos that you are using are wildly outdated, and I would encourage you. I think someone mentioned they hadn't been buying a couple years to visit not only this, but all of the homes and properties that are on your docket. Looks like you I don't know how often you guys meet, but you had three tonight. Take a walk. It's right down the street. It would be really helpful for you to understand the current status of this property. It is a mess. Boarded up windows, broken windows, foliage

as tall as

I am, taller than our son. It shouldn't be left in that state. Even if you are still debating what it's supposed to be done, you should still the owner should still have a responsibility to keep it safe and beautiful for our neighborhood. That's not historic. To have bro warded up windows, to have broken garbage, to have rats, it's it's gross. It is one of the most heavily walked streets. I would argue in Delray. If you come by in the morning, everyone's doing their morning walks. It is dangerous for that regard, but it's also beautiful. I think on your historic website, you know note that the Marine Way is one of the most walked neighborhoods. So, please, in the interim, I would encourage you to do something, anything. It can't stay how it is.

Thank you. Anybody else? Seeing none, public comments are closed. Does the applicant have any rebuttal?

I just I just have one just to go to mister Rogers' point. That is correct. The two story building technically has three different finishes on it because it was three separate or at least I think it was done at three separate times. So the one story portion does have a stucco finish. Then they they did an addition which had a stucco finish, a rough stucco finish.

And then they came in, they built a concrete block wall around an original stucco structure. So it's actually double walled on the Ground Floor. The the CMU wall was only on three sides, not on all four, block. And then they put the 2nd Floor, which I wouldn't consider a traditional batten board. It's really just plywood with a couple of nailers in between them. And we are requesting to make it all uniform and a stucco finish on it. But that is correct. We are planning to make that building completely uniform rather than keeping the original three finishes and doing a smooth stucco finish around the entire building. For the other ones, we're we're we're matching and patching the existing stucco textures.

Thank you. Steph.

Okay. I'll be quick with this rebuttal. So I recently learned I get three minutes. So there is a sidewalk proposed in front of the property on the West side adjacent to the or within the Southeast 7th Avenue rights of way. So you can actually see it's indicated here survey,

but

it will be more defined as part of the project. And as far as tearing the whole site down, that would require demolition requests, public notice, just so you're aware. It's not something the board could deliberate on tonight. The applicant would have to make such an application. And then the condition of the property actually, has been a bone of contention for some of the owners, maintenance property owners know that. And I don't know if or what action they've taken, for that. So thank you.

So has code enforcement been involved?

Not that I know of, but we you know, the reach out to the, property owner occurred with us in writing.

Mhmm. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm sorry. Public comment is closed. Thank you. But just so you're aware, we got an appraisal report in our staff report, did show images of everything. And I agree with it is in very rough shape, but I think that's what we're here for tonight. So anybody wanna start on commentary, thoughts, concerns?

I have a quick question about the uses. So it was previously a in the applicant or staff. So it was previously a it was or always multifamily. Yes. Condos, it was just rent or

it was just rent apartments.

Apartments. Okay. And that is the intention to keep it as apartments?

Yes. Rentable units. They're not gonna be for sale.

Okay. So it was my one.

And then Can I ask, is it short term or long term?

That I don't know the answer to.

And then if there was no variance so if the variance for the 2nd Floor addition wasn't granted, would that building still be able to move forward or in some way, shape, or form with the current 2nd Floor footprint?

I I think so. Again, the 2nd Floor unit is extremely small, which is why we're requesting to expand it. I believe it is a one bedroom currently. Currently. Give me one second.

Your plans show it is a two bedroom.

I think the original It's a small It may have been

a two bedroom. Give me one second. I don't remember all these on the top of my head.

It is small.

Okay. Yes. The original was a two bedroom, but the bedrooms were very small. So that's why we're requesting just to expand the units and make them a little more modern, a little more larger size than a very small two bedroom unit.

Okay. And then I can can we comment on the color palette? Okay. Yeah. Please. So the color palette, just my opinion, sucks as proposed.

We're ownership is more than happy to change it.

It it needs to be fitting with the district around it and the homes around it, but also something new and dynamic and, I think, a little more vibrant than beige and beige and brown and gray. So I would obviously, you can't do color selection right now and and and come in with a proposal. But I would any any approval that that I would vote for would be conditioned on a much more vibrant color palette in keeping with the city and current current trends in in in paint and color.

And and we're fine with that. I believe color is administratively approved, I can work with the ladies and yes. That's that would not be a problem on us if you guys are not happy with the color.

Michelle would like to clarify that.

Not all color is administratively approved. Our smell test is if a board member drives by and said who the heck approved that.

Bright pink and purple.

That's what we're proposing. More muted color tones, neutrals, things like that can be admin approved. But like this, I could not admin approve. This would have to come to the board. Okay. And the visual compatibility standard I think you're reaching for in this is the relationship of color materials, texture, and color. So that is in the code and that there is a requirement for visual compatibility of materials and colors used on the structure and subject historic district.