Historic District Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. I'd like to call this meeting to order, please. Hang on one second. Okay. So we're gonna start with a roll call. Josh Gurlitz. Here. Laura Moore.

Here.

Brian Daniels. Here. I'm Don Theiss. I'm here. And Glenn Connolly is not here. So there are four of us this evening. And this month, the month of May, is the Asian American Pacific Island Heritage Month as well as Jewish American Heritage Month and National Historic Preservation Month. So I have a quick read here, an acknowledgement. Before we begin this evening's meeting, the Historic District Commission would like to recognize several important observances that take place in May. This month is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Jewish American Heritage Month, and National Historic Preservation Month.

Each offers an opportunity to reflect in the diverse stories, contributions, places that shape our shared heritage. Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have influenced North Carolina for more than a century through scholarship, entrepreneurship, arts, and public service. At Chapel Hill and UNC, AAPI students and faculty have been part of the community since the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries, helping build international academic connections and contributing to the cultural and civic life of our town. Their work across research, medicine, small business, and community organizations continues to strengthen Chapel Hill today. We also recognize Jewish American Heritage Month, honoring over three hundred and fifty years of Jewish life in The United States.

Jewish communities have been present in North Carolina since the early eighteen hundreds, contributing to commerce, education, and civic leadership across the state. In Chapel Hill, institutions such as UNC Halil and local synagogues have played important roles in fostering culture, scholarship, service, and community connection. Jewish residents and leaders have helped shape the town's academic, artistic, and social landscape. Finally, May is National Historic Preservation Month established to create the places, stories, and cultural traditions that help define our communities. Here in Chapel Hill, preservation efforts have been protected significant historic districts, landmarks, and landscapes that tell the story of the town's growth and many communities that built it.

As a commission, this month reminds us of the importance of carefully stewarding these resources so that they will continue to inform and enrich future generations. We honor the individuals, families, and heritage traditions that have contributed to the history we are entrusted to preserve. Okay. So secretary, read the procedures, please.

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

Okay. Thank you very much. I'm gonna read the public charge before we get started. The advisory body pledges its respect to the public. The body asked the public to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the body and with fellow members of the public.

Should any member of the body or any member of the public fail to observe this charge at any time, the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual gains personal control. Should the quorum fail to be restored, the chair will assess the meeting until a genuine commitment to this public charge is observed. Property owners may represent themselves or be represented by attorney. However, professionals such as architects, engineers, designers, and others may provide factual evidence and expert opinions so far as they are qualified but not legal arguments on behalf of the property owner. Okay. Now approval of the agenda.

So I'd like to move that we approve the agenda with two addendums, consideration of the decision for 308 West Cameron, which was distributed earlier today by Kevin for discussion with the commission. And then last on the agenda, discussion of recruitment efforts for the Historic District Commission.

Can we also add a discussion about our summer break?

We'd also like to add a discussion about summer break.

Can I add one other item to that?

Sure.

Yes, you can.

I would like to add a brief discussion on the wording of our public charge.

Consent agenda. Yep.

Thank you very much. So can someone give a motion?

Can I second it?

There you go.

I'll second it.

All right, we have a second. Okay, all in favor say

aye. Aye.

Okay, all opposed? No.

Nothing affecting the historic McAuley Street, nothing would be visible from that front street. So this is aerial view. The panels will be roughly approximately 420 square feet over the ceiling or the roof, choosing matte black that would match the panels of the new shingles, anti reflective technology, flush mounted, and on rear slopes. So this is a view of the front facing Macaulay Street where no panels would today or yesterday. This is a side view.

And here are the proposed solar panel locations with the I'm gonna come over here. And so this would be the original part of the house on the rear roof, and then this is the the rear roof. Just in the driveway, so not visible at all from the street and also blocked by trees for the condo next door. And here's a closer look at that ceiling or the roof location here from the driveway where the chimney is just below the chimney. This is the view from the back of the house.

So showing what might be visible is this small amount on the new renovation, and then some of the panel locations might be peeking through from the original building. And a current view of the back of the house. This is the east elevation view. And you can see from the side, the panels would be located here on the original structure of the house. Also not visible from the street.

We're working with Yes Solar Solutions. We have someone here tonight who has more information on technical details if there are any questions moving forward. But we are focusing on rear slopes only, flush mounted panels that would lie flush to the roof plane, not visible from the primary street, and fully reversible technology. Some precedents in the neighborhood that we looked at were 6 Briar Ridge Lane. This one might be the most similar to what we're proposing in that the panels are not visible from the front historic street.

But here, you can see they're visible from the side street, is outside the historic district overlay. Another precedent is Vance Street. This is the image from the the Cheppel guidelines from the side. This is visible from Ransom. And this is the same house with the panels in the front viewable from Vance Street, is still within the historic overlay.

And I will say, we walked by this house for years, and I never even noticed there were solar panels until we went looking for them. This is the house that's directly behind our house on Brookside Drive. It's not in the historic district, but it's right on the outside boundaries, just showing that it's in the neighborhood. Our neighbor has them in their yard facing the Brookside Drive. So some of the standards that we were looking to meet were that they be flush mounted, low profile, close to the existing roof surface to minimize visual impact, and the protrusion of no more than four inches from the surface of the existing roof plane.

Color compatibility, so we have dark shingles, and we have chosen black matte, an anti reflective finish that would closely match the roof existing material. The setback, they'll all be set back from the roof edges to reduce visibility from the public right away and maintain the building's historic appearance. And the solar array will not extend above the roof ridge or alter the existing roof form, ensuring no disruption to the architectural character of the structure. And the concealment of other equipment, all associated conduit and electrical components will be routed internally or along non visible elevations elevations that no wiring or equipment is visible from the street, and then the batteries placed in the driveway area. So with this, we request that you would grant permission and the certificate of appropriateness for our solar panels on 403 McAuley, and I open up to questions and also our technical expert.

Does anybody have any questions?

I don't have any.

Well, it's a very complete presentation. Thank you very much.

Thank

you. That is not always the case, and we we really do appreciate that. Thank you. Very thoughtful.

Appreciate that.

Are there as well, I can see there's no one from the public that I need to call if there's any public comment. There is none. Well, we'll close this portion of the evidentiary hearing then and have discussion. There you go. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay. Josh, you wanna weigh in? Being the solar expert that you are?

Well, I will weigh in. I think it's a perfectly good application. They have clearly reviewed the standards and complied with the standards. And as an aside, I'm going to tell you, you're going to love the Powerwall three. It is cool. It is really neat. And you're going to love it. I have one.

Those are my comments. So I've got to ask, the Powerwall three, what brand is that?

That's a Tesla.

That's a Tesla. I tested Excellent. My Good to know.

And it it is powerful, and it it carries you through blackouts and, you know, energy blips. And Nice. It's really pretty neat.

Okay. Good to know. Does anybody want to make a motion?

I will make a motion. Kevin, should I be making the congruity motion and the COA motion at the same time? You can. Okay. So I move that the application at 403 McAuley Street is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of the relevant revisions in the Lumo and HTC's design standards based upon the facts presented in the record. I further move that we direct the attorney and town staff to prepare a proposed written decision summarizing HTC's approval of the CO application to present at the proposed written decision, which would be our next meeting date so we can issue the COA.

Is there a second?

I second.

All in favor, aye.

Aye.

All opposed? There you go. Thank you very much. Okay. So next, our discussion items is what's left for this evening.

Well, let's start with your amended item, Brian.

Recruitment.

Yes, recruitment. So

Josh, think you are timing out of your time on the HTC, which breaks my heart, but it is It the is the rules. So I think with Josh timing out over the summer, that leaves us with four, which feels dangerously low. And so I think we need to ramp up our recruitment efforts to ensure that we can hold meetings with confidence and that it's not impossible for Shaniqua and Anna Scott to get a quorum to move business forward. So in the officer meeting a little bit earlier today, we talked about efforts that we could undertake to try to stimulate interest. Because there are an abundance of applications to the Planning Commission, if I'm not mistaken, I think Shanika and Anna Scott were wondering whether or not we'd want to ask folks that are applying to the Planning Commission that perhaps don't get seated to consider an HTC opportunity.

So I think that's kind of one really good idea. Laura, I think you and Josh have both you have familiarity with other commissions the town has. I think you've sat on the CDC. On the CDC. And I know some of those commissions have either been decommissioned or their size has been shrunk.

So I wonder if there's anybody that you know has contributed to talent like is interested in serving in the town before that maybe somebody that would be a good somebody we could call and say, hey, would you be interested in serving again? So just sort of trying to think a little bit open mindedly about how we stimulate interest. Josh, I think we have benefited from the fact that you live in the historic district and you have such a there. Both you and Don have a lot of history in the historic District. So I've reached out to a couple I know that lives in the HTC, Ellen and Frank Proctor.

Think it's Okay to talk names. I reached out to Ellen today, who's also an attorney. So I think she would be a really nice complement to the role I feel like Nancy has played before. And actually, as we were sitting down, Laura and I were talking a little bit about composition of the commission. Having folks that have a technical background that the three of you have I find really useful. I think having a lawyer or two in the mix is also quite helpful. So I think that was we just wanted to remind everybody that we're looking, essentially.

And I'm going to ask a realtor and a contractor just to see. Love to have a good contractor, particularly one that's worked in the historic district. But she probably is going to be too busy with kids and everything, but we'll give it a shot.

Busy people actually know how to manage their time.

This is true.

And be efficient in commission meetings. The other thing I wondered about was whether or not it would be appropriate for us to reach out to Elizabeth as our liaison from the council to ask if she has any recommendations. I know she's a business owner in town. She may know folks. Like just I think getting the word out is probably the most effective way to Okay.

Who's going to call her? Do you want me to call her?

Okay. If you call her, I'll call Camille and ask the same question.

Alright. Very good. Alright. I will do that.

All good ideas.

All good ideas because we desperately need four is thin.

It is thin.

Well, let's go to the next amended item. Josh, did

you Josh just and Brian, we did talk about in our officers' check-in maybe selecting some of you all to

Thank you.

Do interviews.

GREGORY Yep. Thank you. Thank you for that reminder. So I think we sat Glenn on a break. So I think she may have applied over the summer, if I'm not mistaken. And so Nancy and I interviewed her and recommended her. So we actually voted on her as a candidate. And she did not come in front of the full commission. So I think that recommendation is smart. It just allows us to kind of speed things up because we are going to talk about a break So over the I'm happy to volunteer to chair that subcommittee. I'd also ask Glenn to join me because that was the experience that she had. And we just joked a bit that we're just going to voluntell her that we want her to do that because she's not here tonight. But I know she's very amenable to being helpful. So I will reach out to Glenn and ask her to help with that when we have candidates that come through.

Yeah, sounds good. And just having two is fine, I guess. Okay.

If you all are Okay with that.

Anything less than four is three, two, however many you want, just not four because then that's a public meeting. And I don't know if you need a motion to create the subcommittee. If it's a discussion item, I think that'd be best practice.

Real quick. You wanted to make a quick comment about the public charge?

Yeah. Think that our experience last at our, special meeting was kind of interest

and

after frequently commission may. Whether or not the attorney strict discussed this with Kevin that the attorneys were not presenting they didn't perceive that they were presenting evidence.

Yeah. For clarity, factual evidence is one thing. GREGORY Sorry, factual evidence is one thing and legal agreements or arguments is another. So we're talking about factual versus legal. GREGORY DELL:

So my feeling is that we should amend the public charge to make it very clear that attorneys are giving us legal advice or legal evidence rather than factual evidence. And I think Kevin and staff are willing to work on this. I know Kevin is. I haven't asked staff. Is willing to work on this to make that clear. SHARFSTEIN:

Yeah. And this might be supplemental tape that takes a little bit of nuance to country. Because in theory, it is

theoretically possible that an attorney could represent a client and could present

You need to talk a little closer with your mic. Thank you. It's possible and it happens from time to time that an attorney can represent a client and testify about facts within their personal knowledge on behalf of their client. Now as an attorney, I would advise not to do that because then you run into the issue of you may then make yourself a fact witness on appeal from a HDC decision. And now you run into all sorts of issues about whether you can testify on appeal or not.

But the fact remains and it happens in other jurisdictions from time to time. And I suppose it could happen here. So I think that what we ought to do is make amendments both to the speaker's guidelines for our hearings. We can make some amendments to the kind of the preamble, the secretary's statement at the beginning of our meetings that kind of goes over what how our evidentiary hearings function. And we might also make some edits to the commission's rules of procedure.

Maybe this, Don, this would be something that kind of gets added to the chair's duties. If an attorney is presenting on behalf of an applicant, when you kind of do your oaths and all that sort of thing, that would be one of kind of your lead off questions is, Mr. Or Mrs. Lawyer, are you intending to provide fact testimony on behalf of your client? If so, we need to administer the oath to you as well. If not, we don't need to administer an oath. Then please understand that

That's a great way to do it. Because I'm sure all of us noticed in the special meeting that we had that both lawyers were trying to convince us of an architectural argument. And there was an architect there that should have been making that presentation. So that's a great way to do it is to ask if they're going to be presenting factual evidence or legal argument.

Right. And one of the things you can look out for or listen for is often you'll hear an attorney say if it's at the beginning of the hearing before they put on witnesses, they'll say something to the effect of the evidence will show x, y, and z. And I think this is kind of what happened here at the conclusion when they're making their closing statements. You'll hear them say, you heard evidence of x, y, and z this evening. They'll try to kind of and that's their job is to kind of try to summarize and explain how the testimony or the documentary evidence that you all received fit kind of within your approval criteria or not.

But it is tricky and it's something that we have not really talked a whole lot about in the past in our quasi judicial hearing trainings just because it's so rare that we have an attorney here on behalf of an applicant, much less two, attempting to make competing arguments. And so that's in addition to kind of these revisions and kind of procedural changes or updates that I think we ought to make, that's also something that we'll focus a little bit more on next time we do a board training.

Well, that'd be great because I think with the new Lumo overlays, we're going to have more lawyers in front of us. Okay. Thank you, Josh. Appreciate that. Excellent discussion. Next, the running list of changes in HDC standards levels of review. I reviewed it when Schernika sent it out. Thank you very much. And it looked great to me. I don't know if anybody else has any comments on it at this point.

That's a work in progress. There's no decision or motion to be made this evening. Just everybody look at it. And I think it's great, Sharnika, that you and Anna Scott are looking at it because it helps fulfill one of the missions that I'd like this HTC to do, which is making what we do more user friendly to the public. Because in the past several years ago, that was not the case. HTC was a hurdle to jump over. We don't want to be a hurdle. So levels of review is pretty important. We appreciate that.

Yeah. Anna Scott and I have been working on revising the levels of review. It's like a big table in the design principles and standards. So we shared a draft of that with Don and Brian. And Anna Scott handed out some copies of it for you all to review.

There are two versions. There's a clean version that doesn't have any of the markups. And then the markup version has struck through text and bold and underlined text so you can see where we made changes. And there are some questions in some of the comments that staff would like some clarity from the commission. But we can talk about that information at our our next meeting, and we'll make sure to put this these documents, attach them to this agenda, and include them in in next month's agenda.

We're also working on revising the design standards so it fits more with the town the Newtown brand. So and we've made some changes to that and some suggestions for changes, and we can also share that with y'all next month. I think we can talk about it, but we also need to we'll reach out to our comms team about engagement for the community and and having a public hearing for you all to get feedback before you adopt any changes to the design standards.

Okay. And real quick, right when I said I'm having a discussion and I agreed with everything in here, do have a question for you because you have a question for us. You say when it's dealing with installation of new storm windows and doors, there are standards for storm windows and doors. Is the commission comfortable with staff approving a COA for this? I'm just curious. Is the commission Okay with that? Stormwinds and doors can be pretty tricky and pretty horrendous. That would be the only one that next time we can add to that discussion you guys can think about.

Yeah. And you don't have to accept all of these changes or any of them. You can pick and choose the ones that feel appropriate with some discussion.

Yeah. So if the consent is on the commission is that you think new storm doors or windows need to be reviewed by the commission, then we'll make that change in the levels.

Yeah. I want to think about that one because it's a technical thing, but it can be done poorly or it can be done in an almost invisible fashion. It depends on the type of the original window and how the storm window is being applied to that window. So we'll just decide next time if we're going to let that be HTC or staff.

There are a couple of comments where we ask whether staff can approve certain things in the marked up version. For under porches, entrances, and balconies for stairs or steps, It limits staff review to those of that of no more than three steps. And so we're wondering if there's a way to increase that number.

I wouldn't have a problem with that. Not at all.

Yeah, that number seems a little arbitrary.

Yeah.

27 inches per riser. So the number of risers and treads hits against a code requirement for the lack of handrails. So

three Three.

You get to four risers, you're high enough off the ground so that you require a handrail, which would bump this into something that we would review. But at three, you may not DELL: require a handrail.

Does three that's less than seven inches.

Our question would be if there are steps like the steps you all reviewed at I think it was two zero eight Landon at last month's If the commission feels comfortable giving staff the ability to approve steps, including any rails required up to a certain height, provided that they meet whatever the design standard is. If you think the commission needs to review all railings, then that's fine. And we'll leave it at the three steps. But that would be a decision that we'd look to you all to make.

And you can also suggest new edits that we haven't thought of. So if, like last month's example, if you wanted to change it so that staff could approve four or more steps that aren't attached to a building, you could make that change. You can get creative if you want on what changes get made.

Okay. Thank you.

Can I ask a related question? So from a budget standpoint, do you all have budget to print new ones of these or make adjustments? I'm wondering, like, in budget cycle for the town, do you actually submit a budget on behalf of the HDC so you've got some flexibility to print things, change things?

It I'm makes not sure if the HDC has its own budget. I mean, we have like a supplies budget. But our comms team is handling a lot of materials. So I don't know if they would want to weigh in on the printing and where or if they prefer it to be a digital copy. I think certainly if we revise the standards, we could find it to print some copies for the commission.

Yeah. Well, bring this with me because I find it really valuable to actually be able to flip it open and ask questions. I find it really helpful. And I suspect

I like my paper copy.

Yeah, paper copy is helpful. And I suspect that we're going to move into a period of time we're going to want to make some additional revisions given the environment that we're moving into.

And so just

I asked the question of budget of like how much is it reasonable for you all to have at your disposal so that we can use it together and or how much would have to require us going and looking for grants or especially just understanding kind of what the budget parameters are?

I think we can keep talking about it and maybe also have a conversation about how it's printed so that it's easy to replace certain pages that get updated. Maybe like a three ring binder where you can pull out page two through 15 and replace whatever it is that gets amended. So we aren't reprinting. I know that the nice bound ones are really

Keeps me from losing anything. But I could be responsible with a three ring binder.

Exactly. So we can look into that. And especially if it's a three rig binder and it's printing a couple pages here and there when they get updated, that's certainly something that would fit into our supply budget. That

would be good. And I have Nancy's and Brian has one, but Laura needs one.

Oh, I have some ones. I have Poly's.

Oh, you do?

Yes. We're dealing with hand me downs, which is good for Okay,

good. But we're going to need to, when we bring in the new people that we're inevitably going to bring in, it'd be nice if they were handed one And say, here you go. This is your bible. Josh doesn't need one because he's abandoning us.

That's all I just said anyway. I can donate mine.

I think if that happens, we could definitely print them out because I think we have binders laying around. So it might not be a bound book, but we could get them a printed copy.

We could start doing that. That would be awesome.

For also with the levels of review, there's a running list of changes in the design standards. I think this Anna probably started this maybe sometime in 2021. That was I think the the running list is attached into the agenda. Mhmm. Some of the stuff, I'm not entirely sure I remember what the discussion was about.

So, like, one of the items is dormers, but what about dormers? Does the commission want to revisit railing design is one of them? Flexibility in backyard designs. So there's it it points to a specific standard. I don't know what four point eight point two is, but it says and side additions. So we'd look to y'all to look through that running list. And if there are changes to the standards, y'all work through those.

Yeah. Backflow preventers are a real problem because they're specified by Owasa. And there's not a lot of flexibility. On the other hand, Bob Epting may still be DELL: the

attorney for a while. So do you know if he is? I know that at least as of recently as of a couple of years ago, he was. I don't know if

he And still he is an HTC stalwart. I mean, he's definitely on our side of the table. So I think we should talk to him about getting backflow preventers out there. It's not the backflow preventer. It's actually the enclosure that is so horrible. Big plastic boxes.

Yeah, Wassa allows the backflow preventers to be in a vault in the ground, don't they?

Right, they do.

For residential. That's what our standards need to say. If it's in a vault in the ground then.

Yeah. Or they yeah.

They can be in a vault. If we find out that a wasp will allow us to do that, that's what we should ask for, just an in ground vault for all backflow preventers in the historic district. That would be a simple way to solve that problem as opposed to having fake rocks cover them. Can plant a bush around it. Plant bushes around it.

Ivy.

Yeah, ivy, something to grow over and around it. But I know that they allowed, I won 19 battle when I did that house. They allowed an in ground vault right there in battle. That was nice.

Are they allowing ground vaults? They don't mind that.

I just know sometimes in commercial, they won't they haven't allowed us to to do in ground. They have to be above ground. I just wanna make sure Owasa doesn't start.

I think draining the vault is the thing. Mhmm. And if there's inground and if you're in a low situation, there's almost no way of draining it.

Gee, that's fun stuff.

Yeah. Sorry, Kevin.

Kevin's Can I make one comment based on this? Please. I don't particularly want to add anything to this or even to our running list, But I just want to point out that when Jay Fulkerson was making his presentation the other night to us, the second one, I thought he did an excellent job explaining how the new Lumo was sort of knitted together into what we can look at and comment on. And that's, I believe, is going be coming to us more and more often. So I'm going to review his presentation again because he did explain it to me about the sizes and separations and that kind of thing in a way that is new to me and maybe to all of us.

And then one thing that did come up and Don, you and I mentioned this just a minute is in order to get those four parking spaces out of the front of the house like we asked him to, he had to cut down two trees. I don't know if they were beautiful or not beautiful, but

One was. One was.

As we get into this, what is essentially going be infill situation, those trees are going to start to disappear in the historic district. I don't know that they're protected. And I feel like we need to say something, even though we're not supposed to talk about landscaping. Part of the character of the historic district is those trees, whether they're right up at street in the in the right of way as part of the streetscape or on the lot. And maybe y'all can tell me why there's no landscaping in this

Kevin, can historic district commissions rule on trees specimen trees of a certain size or something like that? Or can we put that in the standards?

Mike. Mike.

Sorry. Sorry

about that. The towns the Lumo does have and I'm not the expert on this. But the LUMO does have a tree protection ordinance under kind of the general zoning regulations. And so keep in mind that just because we can't regulate that here doesn't mean that it's not regulated elsewhere in the ordinance.

Yeah. So like Kevin mentioned, tree requirements are outside of your purview. It's in the Lumo. There aren't any tree canopy requirements for single family houses. They do have to provide, like, a landscape protection plan if they're, like, removing trees and it has a certain amount of, land disturbance, then we'll review a plan.

But, I don't think we'll tell them you can't. Like, if it's a single family project, you can't remove this tree. There are tree canopy coverage requirements for two unit buildings or properties with two dwelling units on it. Otherwise, it's tied to like if a council approves a project, then we could implement like a tree canopy coverage

And the tree canopy coverage requirement is not to require trees remain necessarily. It is that at the end of the project, there will be enough tree canopy coverage. Right. It's different. Yeah.

It's a replacement.

I have a question regarding that, which I would love some direction on. We cannot determine landscape issues on a site. And I get it.

I don't like it, but I get it.

The spaces in between the buildings is as important as the buildings themselves in the historic district. It really irritates me that we can't Well,

here's my question. In our character descriptions of the historic districts, tree canopy is discussed. And there is discussion about general character in each area, in each of the districts. So while it's not in the standards, it is in the character essays. And if taking one I don't know if taking one tree or taking lots of trees changes the character, is that a landscape decision?

Or is it a character of the district decision in terms of the way we think about it?

I mean,

it's not a landscape decision then. It's a character of the district decision.

We can have the discussion when we're in front of the applicant towards that end, but I don't think we could use that as a reason for it to be incongruous.

Kevin, will you speak into the mic?

Thank you. Boy, I'm on a roll here. What I'll say is under the LUMO and this is in section 3.6 e, Let's see. Three point six point two e oh, now I lost it. Three, the your review of COA applications, and here's the quote, shall not consider plantings and other vegetation.

So as part of your decision making process, plantings and other vegetation should not factor into your consideration at all. Now, I think Don's point is well taken that you might mention during your deliberation that, gee, the existing tree coverage on this lot is significant insofar as it affects kind of the scale and mass in the relationship of the structure on this lot to the adjacent structures. But I think you all will need to make clear, and you will need to make sure that the record reflects that you did not consider the existence of those trees when you were making your decision.

Yeah. It's just that at 308 as an example that we just went through, that's going to be the saddest part about that. There are two major specimen trees that when they come down, it's going to change the whole character of how you turn off Cameron into Millett. I mean, it's going to completely change it forever. I mean, those trees are 100 years old. And it just hurts my heart.

Yeah. I mean, I think your alternative would be to see if we can persuade the town council and staff for that matter during one of the next Lumo amendment cycles to reconsider that provision of the Lumo. I think that there's probably a reason that it's included in there. And I'm not going to do it on the record here during our meeting. Have some thoughts about what that reasoning might be. But I think that's your alternative is to try to persuade the powers that be to revise the LUMO and to remove that from

GREGORY I think that's the direction

you're So have. I lived in a community in California for ten years that had an ordinance about not removing mature trees above a certain width. And I think it was kind of the width of your arm. Now some of that was a desert climate. And there had been investment in those trees a long time ago. I think I wonder whether or not that is actually an issue that trips outside the HTC. And it's more of an issue for the town more holistically about trying to protect tree canopy.

Know the town does have ordinances, all kinds of them, about trees and protection and permits to cut them down and all that. But it doesn't talk about the character. It talks about that tree and the root protection zone of that tree. And I just think what we're going to see is more and more trees cut down or dying in three years because we're putting more density into that neighborhood. And if it comes from Lumo, Okay, I get that. But it would be good if we could somehow acknowledge that. I don't think it would change an applicant once they've already got their layout and stuff.

Okay. The last one is education and outreach. You guys have something to say about that?

So I think we had this is a continuation from a prior meeting, if I'm not mistaken. And I think it was in the context of a discussion that Nancy was a part of and sort of what is our charter beyond the business that we did here tonight. And I think the document that Chernika and Anna Scott attached is a renewed historic preservation plan from the State Department of Natural and Cultural Resources that sets out the next decade of what their priorities are, essentially. And I think this is a source document for things that we could consider to be part of our charter. That's what I recall as the conversation.

I think given that our numbers are dwindling and we are expecting there to be new members of this group. I think once we have new members sat, we probably should revisit this document and determine if there is volunteer capacity to pick up a charter beyond the business we do during a town meeting. And I think in a prior time with a different composition of more people on the commission, there were efforts to increase outreach to other organizations in town that are dedicated to historic preservation. Some were more successful than others. But I think it is worthwhile for us to consider that at a time when we're back closer to full capacity.

And how many people do we want? What's full capacity?

I think it's seven. It was nine, but it was revised Yes. To it's seven.

Okay. We would need three people after Josh's term ends. We also talked about, like, think for education, and we talked about you all talked about, like, a lookbook. And so we were Anna Scott and I were thinking of a project that the commission could do to create, like, an applicant resource, which could be, like, taking trips around the historic districts and taking photos of what you think sort of shows the character of the district. And we could like package that up as a resource applicants?

I think that's a great idea. I think when we talked about that sometime early last year, it went down the path of look books that referenced there's a historical context for that language, which I think may have been a time when there were more templatized. I don't exactly recall. Josh, you and Don may have more context for that. But I think we're just kind of using that as a handle for the idea that as new development is encouraged in the historic districts, trying to provide a little bit more precise guidance around what would be complementary to character so that it's not so vague for folks or for developers that are not necessarily invested in the town's character that they've got a starting place that's going to encourage them to bring forward applications that are going to more easily get approved versus it being Wild Wild West.

Yeah, more specific than a load book would be historic precedent or historical precedent. I don't know what the grammar should be

in there. Mike?

But you just came Mike. Sorry. Kevin's disease. No, I think it's historical precedent. That's what it is. That's a technical term. But you just came up with a great name. You said, now I've forgotten, within what you just said, complementary to the character is what you if that was one of the words. That would be a great name for it. Complementary to the character. And just leave it at that. Sounds like a country song. But yeah, we can come up with a good name. But when he said that, I was like, that's what it's about. It's about not telling people what they can and can't do. It's what's complementary to the character of our

historic districts. Well, and, Chernika, I really love the idea that you just mentioned about using what already exists and saying, we think this is a great example of what the council is trying to encourage as far as infill development. And I think there are some nooks and crannies in the historic districts that sometimes get overlooked. But if you went and took a hard look, you probably could find some examples of things that we think are more successful than others. Maybe some of the folks on this council commission built some of those things somewhere along the line. So maybe you have some ideas.

I know Katherine Kopp. She's over on North Street. She moved the old historic pony barn into their backyard and renovated it, and that's really well done. And that was a tricky situation. She we had the the preservation chapel who had to move the pony barn because the house was gonna knock it down. So we

Did she get that barn?

Mhmm. Wow.

GREGORY And turned it into a DELL: fantastic little apartment. Very new. It is really cool. Love the

guys guy. Guys are are off And finding those examples and celebrating them and encouraging

others. Rosemary. GREGORY Okay. Sorry. DELL: I think she and Vince are There's going to

be more examples of that.

So that's good. But you need to go check that out, Josh. It's cool. They did I a good will. But that's a good example. We can take photos of.

Yeah. Sorry, just on that, because it sounds like you and Anna Scott have got a great idea. How can we help with that? Or is it time for us to help? Or do you need more time to kind of develop your idea into something we can help with?

Well, I think we'll lean on y'all to help with the content, and we can put it together so we could find some times to do walks around historic districts. And we can bring equipment to take photos. And you all just point us to what you want a picture of. And we could give you some notebooks. And you all can write thoughts down. And we can package all of that information. It's a field trip,

which is different than a site visit.

Yes.

But to not trigger the public meeting.

Yeah, in the context of a specific application. Right,

right. We could go in groups of three.

I think that's a idea.

I mean, I think we could go as a whole commission on a field trip. It just has to be noticed properly and not about a specific project that's a COA. So if we can have more than three people come, we just need to then have 48 notice so we can put it on the website so that any member of the public could come too.

That's right.

So maybe we put that on the next agenda also just to make sure that we're being helpful. So again, I think it's a great idea.

Just make myself a note of who I need to call after I leave here. I was already forgetting. Okay, who did I say I was going to call? So I think that that's all the discussion for this evening. Are you guys

So Summer break.

Ah, summer break. We were talking about July because you guys are gonna be on vacations. Correct?

Yeah. Laura, the commission usually takes a month off in the summer. Anna Scott and I have time off in July, so we're thinking July might be a good month. We also have three or four applications on the June agenda. So we might want to consider if we can find a time to do, like, a virtual meeting just to vote on those written decisions or just push them to the August meeting. Yeah.

How quickly after the June meeting could we do the virtual just to make sure that you've got you can kind of keep things moving so it doesn't delay applicants?

Kevin would need time to do all of the written decisions.

Yeah. I mean, think we could probably get the written decisions done within a week after the evidentiary hearings, after your decisions are made. And then I suppose there's no reason why we couldn't do like a special called virtual meeting just for the purpose of you administratively approving the written decisions.

And that could be any time of day as long as we can get quorum and you can administratively move through.

Yeah. And

would that be if we did it in June, would that be before Josh times out?

It could be.

Okay. So just I

That's what we need to do. Yeah. Done.

Okay. So we can look at our calendars, and we'll post some times for a special virtual meeting in June.

Super.

Do you need a motion for the July recess?

I don't think that we technically need a motion for that, that we just would not hold a meeting in July.

Just don't show up.

And this way, by not making a motion and taking a vote, we don't lock ourselves into if circumstances change and we need to hold a July meeting and maybe take a break in August or something to that effect.

Gotcha.

It leaves us a little bit of flexibility to do that. Hopefully that doesn't happen. Love for you all to be able to take your planned vacations, but you never know.

Alright. Well, if that's it, we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you.