Historic District Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Historic District Commission meeting. Today is July 16th, 2026. I'm Vice Chair Michael Goldfinger. I'm joined this evening in City Hall by Commissioners Anita Neal-Powell and Mercy Schenge. Commissioner Seth Denbo said he would try to join us, but so far I think he's having power problems, electrical power problems. CHAIR PETE FOSSELMAN IS UNABLE TO ATTEND TONIGHT'S MEETING. IN ADDITION, WE ARE JOINED BY CITY STAFF, CYNTHIA WALTERS, ACTING CITY ATTORNEY, MEGHAN FLICK, PRINCIPAL PLANNER, AND KATIE GERBERS, COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING MANAGER. The Historic District Commission meets in person in the Mayor and Council Chambers at Rockville City Hall, 111 Maryland Avenue. The public is invited to participate in person or virtually via WebEx. The meetings can be viewed on Rockville 11, Channel 11 on county cable and live streamed at www.rockvillemd.gov slash rockville11. Each meeting is also available for viewing soon after the meeting is held at www.rockvillemd.gov slash videoondemand. First item on the agenda, our committee organization reports. We will start with Peerless Rockville. Is anyone here from Peerless Rockville tuned in? Nope. Okay, next is the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation. Anita Neal-Powell is the chairman. Is that right?

That's good.

Yes.

Good evening. The Lincoln Park Historical Foundation will be hosting the 250th anniversary of USA MoCo and Black History all year long. The events will be held on Saturday, September 26th at the Red Brick Courthouse at 29 Courthouse Square. in Rockville from 9 to 12 p.m. They start with a walking tour of selected sites. Historical conversations with a panel of individuals will also take place. On Sunday, September 27th, We will be at the Mount Calvary Baptist Church at 608 North Hornets Lane in Lincoln Park from 3 to 5. And we will have the birthday bash of the 250th anniversary. And we will bring along all voices. If you're interested in singing or joining the choir, please contact the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation at lincolnparkhist.aol.com. And that concludes my report.

Thank you, Anita. Now is the opportunity for any public comments regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. This is an open forum. Would anyone like to speak on an item not on tonight's agenda? No, okay, moving along finally, we have each DC and staff comments. I'll start by announcing the postponement of the advertised evaluation of significance for 1600 research Boulevard. This case will be heard at the September meeting. Do any other commissioners have any comments? I do not any comments from staff.

Thank you, Vice Chair Goldfinger. We do have several updates for you all as a body. The first is a reminder that traditionally this body takes a recess in the month of August. So our next meeting will take place on September the 17th. The only reason we might throw in an August meeting is if we have an application that has a time sensitivity to it that we have to have an ad hoc meeting, but we certainly try to avoid that. to give everyone the august month to relax and hopefully get some rest other updates that we have earlier this afternoon was an event at the twin brook pool the unveiling of a historic marker sign that was chaired by mayor ashton several council members were in attendance actually commissioner fossilman was able to attend that earlier in the afternoon and there will be some photos and such that we can circulate to you all so you can see those Additional items that we have for you is we received last year, so in fiscal year 26, a grant through the Maryland Historical Trust because we are a certified local government. And that grant was for education and training opportunities. We have some funds remaining in that that need to be spent. So we are working with the Maryland Association of Historic District Commissions to arrange for a special training for commissioners. The training is about ethical and rational decision making for HGC cases, certainly something that is relevant to this body. I've been back and forth with their trainers trying to figure out when this would take place. Commissioners, you should expect an email from me probably early next week gauging your availability. for said training. It's about a 90-minute training or so. We may also open the opportunity to commissioners from kind of our peer jurisdictions, because we can have up to, I believe it's 15 folks attending, and obviously our commission is not that large. So we may extend the invite to some folks from Montgomery County, Gaithersburg, or some of our other nearby peer jurisdictions. And those are our updates for you from staff.

Thank you, Katie. Next is the consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be approved without discussion. However, any item may be removed for further discussion before the vote. First on the consent agenda is the approval of minutes from the June 18, 2026 meeting. Do I have a motion and a second?

I move that we accept the minutes. I second.

Any further discussion? Okay, those in favor? Oh, yeah. Any opposed? No, obviously. Thank you. Next on the consent agenda is review of an action on the Montgomery County historic preservation tax credit applications. Uh, the request of city staff, I'd like to remove tax credit application 2 0 2 6 dash 3 3 2. Tax from the consent agenda and postpone it until the next meeting, which would be September after the brief book was published staff noticed a discrepancy in the application that they'd like to investigate before bringing the application to this body for approval. That said, the following tax credit applications are on the agenda for review and action tonight. First is a tax credit application, 2026-334-Tax, T-A-X. Owner is Danielle Verbeck. It's located at 550 Reading Avenue. Amount requested is $8,500, and the amount recommended by staff is $8,500. The next is Tax Credit Application 2026-312-TAX. The owner is Robert Drummond, located at 229 West Montgomery Avenue. Mr. Drummond has requested $42,541.62 for the credit, and the amount recommended is $42,541.62. Next is Tax Credit Application 2026-301-TAX. Owner is Darren Liang. Located at 127 Bullard Circle. Amount requested is $8,450. The amount recommended is $8,450. Next on the list is a tax credit application 2026289-TAX. Owner is Americana Center Condominium located at 118 Monroe Street. The amount they requested is $290,270.27. Staff is recommending approval for $171,028. The next tax credit application, 2026-275-DAX. Owner is Janet Hunt McCool and Thomas J. McCool. located at 709 Grandin Avenue. The amount requested is $3,460. The amount staff recommends is $3,460. The next is tax credit application 2026-265-TAX. Owner is Lewis Parker and May Chang, located at 409 West Montgomery Avenue. The amount they requested is $41,803. The amount recommended for approval is $41,803. These can all be approved by one motion or any can be pulled for further discussion. Do I have a motion and a second?

I move to approve the tax application.

Second.

Okay, all those in favor? Okay, obviously no. Okay, let's see, did I have any? Yeah, we've approved. Can I ask some questions of staff on some of those items?

You can. You already approved them, but you can still ask questions.

Well, I'm not. It's just for my own edification because at 419 West Montgomery Avenue, I noticed that the boiler is not eligible for a tax credit. Is that because it's interior or is there some other criteria?

Yeah, so that's actually the case that we're requesting get postponed until September. Um, utility work is typically not an electric work is not approved. It's not an eligible expense. Um, staff report that is in your packet today, um, implies that the chimney flu lining may be eligible. Um, but earlier in the week we learned that they've actually updated some of the guidance and that may not be an eligible expense anymore, which is why we wanted to pull it. So we can look into that before we ask you all to take action. Oh,

Thank you.

Yeah.

Well, I don't want to get out. Maybe I'll do this offline. But the Americana Center was the only one that was their request was greatly reduced. And I'm just curious as to what sort of items are not eligible. And I know interior work is. And it was just such a big package, I didn't have time to go through it all.

Yeah, Americana Center is always our largest tax credit, but it's exactly what you've kind of suggested, Commissioner Goldfinger. There are certain expenses that are eligible for Montgomery County standards, certain that are not. So in Americana Center, they've submitted receipts for work that is not eligible. So some of that being interior work, some of those receipts were for some drywall and some flooring inside of units. We cannot give credit for those. Electrical work is expressly not an eligible expense. So one of the tasks that was in their tax credit application was for some new marquee lighting signs and underground wiring that's affiliated with that. And because that work is not considered eligible, we were not able to give credit for that.

Again, from my own curiosity, though, if exterior work damages say, interior walls and they have to be repaired, does that become eligible or?

Most of the time, no. In very, very rare circumstances, Montgomery County will allow that, but the vast majority of the time, no. It's really meant for the exterior work.

Interesting. Yep. Thank you. Let's see, that's $709,000. Okay. Yeah, it's 709 Grandin Avenue. Repairs made to non-original parts. Are they eligible for tax credits?

It would depend on what the work is. So it doesn't necessarily have to be original components that are eligible for tax credits. It's more about what was on the house when the house was designated. That's the more important part of it there. I don't recall off the top of my head that application. If you give me a second, I can scroll and

find it here what was the specific part do you recall I didn't make I didn't make any notes on that I just said I just wanted to question whether repairs to non-original parts are eligible for tax credits yeah so if it's I'm gonna make up a hypothetical example but a house was designated

in 1980 and addition was put on it in 1990, work on that 1990 addition would not be eligible because it was not a part of that work when it was designated. However, if a structure was built in 1980 and addition put on it in 1990 and it was designated in 2000, for example, that work would qualify because it was all part.

Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. And finally, one question. 409 West Montgomery Avenue, I noticed Maryland Historical Trust is involved. Do they usually get involved with these things or is there a reason why?

So the state of Maryland and Maryland Historical Trust also has a tax credit program. It is significantly more work to apply for and receive that tax credit as the Montgomery County program. For example, the Montgomery County program that we are a facilitator of, you submit it after the work has been done. We go through. We say, yes, it's eligible. No, it's not. You show before and after photos, receipts, and it's done. Maryland Historical Trust, you have to actually submit your project before you do anything on it. It gets reviewed by their staff. It needs to get approved. They'll propose modifications. So that information is all in there because in addition to getting this local tax credit, they also applied for a state tax credit. I see. I see.

Okay. But since it's within the city limits, they still have to come through this body?

Correct. I see. Okay. And then the tax credits, because this is a county tax credit, it only applies to the county portion of the property tax. So for that applicant who also provided for a state, that would be levied against their taxes.

Got it. Well, thank you very much. I just learned something. Okay. Did we want any other discussion on any of those tax credit? No? Okay. Moving right along. Next on the agenda is the presentation and approval of the fiscal year 2026 Historic District Commission Annual Report. Does staff have a presentation?

We sure do. So July 1 marks a happy new fiscal year to us all here in the city of Rockville. And so as is tradition here, we have a report that looks back at FY26, which is from July 1 of 2025 to June 30 of this past year. Our actual report is in your brief book. You should have seen that in there. As is kind of tradition with this body, staff will present this to you. We ask for your review and approval of the document, and then we get you scheduled to go before the mayor and council to give this annual report presentation to that body as well. So the first section of our annual report deals with accomplishments, things that we did well in the past fiscal year. So we hosted 12 HDC meetings during that year. During those meetings, there were 12 certificate of approval reviews, and 11 of those 12 were in fact approved to allow that work to continue on. This body conducted 10 evaluations of significance for the purposes of demolition. One of those 10 was recommended for historic designation by this body. That was actually at our June meeting just recently for 24 Martins Lane. Later on the agenda, we have an update for you about next steps in that process that we will share. This body also conducted two courtesy reviews for the benefit of the applicants. Additionally, we received seven Montgomery County tax credit applications that were reviewed and processed. Staff approved 12 certificate of administrative approval applications. Commissioners attended two different specialized trainings. And this is a big one, although it looks little on this slide deck. We transitioned our tax credits to our My Government Online MGO system. So now all of our applications for the Historic District Commission are all online through that portal, which makes things a little bit easier, hopefully, for our property owners, but certainly make things easier for staff as well as far as tracking and reporting is concerned. Cora Bennett , Additional accomplishments in the fiscal year, the city was the recipient of a grant from the Maryland heritage areas authority of just shy of $16,000. Cora Bennett , We continue our bronze historic property marker program in fiscal year 2026 we distributed five bronze plaques to locally designated historic sites. Staff supported the city manager's office with their installation of a marker at the twin book swimming pool. And then this body was heavily involved in providing feedback to our recreation and park staff during the development of the king farm farmstead master plan. These are, I would say, the two biggest items that at least at the staff level we're proud to have accomplished in this past fiscal year. The first one that we have here is our new zoning ordinance was adopted by the mayor and council on June 29th. Later in the agenda we're gonna talk about that as well here. But that really updated the preservation regulations that are codified within our zoning ordinance. That was a much needed update. There are some big changes, there are some small changes, there's just some modernization that's happened through that effort. But that was a very big lift on staff, and we're really happy to see that ordinance be adopted. The other thing that we did that isn't really pretty or fun but is really important is developing standard operating procedures for the different tasks that come before historic preservation staff. So as you all know, with the retirement of our past preservation planner, she was here for a while. She knew how to do things inside and out, so we wanted to make sure we documented that knowledge before she left. So we now have standard operating procedures probably close to a dozen different tasks that she was performing regularly. So that way, in her absence, we can do those things appropriately. But also when we bring in a replacement, that we can train that person on this is how we do these various levels of activity. As we look ahead to our current fiscal year, fiscal year 2027, there are a couple of goals and objectives here. The first kind of set are things that we always hope to be doing. Got a little delay. There we go. All right. So we want to continue to consider all of our application requests objectively, fairly. And we want to make sure that our decision making is rooted in our standards, our guidelines, and our adopted criteria. We always want to continue to process tax credit applications as quickly as we can, but also we hope to increase the number. That is a benefit that exists for locally designated historic property owners in the city of Rockville. So to the extent that folks are doing work to their properties that's eligible, we want them to reap that benefit that exists for them. And of course, we're going to continue implementation of the historic preservation work plan. The zoning ordinance rewrite that I spoke about a few slides ago, that I believe knocked out six or seven of the tasks that were within that work plan. So we've made a good chunk of progress there. Other items we're going to continue to track as we enter this new fiscal year is making sure we have updated our procedures for the timely review of certificate of administrative approval applications. So one of the items that's in the new zoning ordinance is it expands the items or the alterations that can be administratively approved by staff without having to come to this body. As a result, we anticipate we will see a higher volume of those applications coming through. So on the back end, we want to make sure we are prepared at the staff level of knowing exactly how we have to process those applications, as well as how we report to you all as a body what alterations we approved administratively so you're in the loop and aware of those. We want to unveil the historic marker at the Twin Book Pool that happened about four hours ago, so we can mark that one as done, and then continue our work at the Avery Road Colored Cemetery that's been going on for a few years now. All right. So moving into our proposed motion, we would ask that this body approve the FY26 annual report. If you all choose to do that today, we are tentatively scheduled to present this to the mayor and council at their meeting on October the 5th. We will send that date out via email to all of you as well. So you can add it to your calendars, but that is where it is currently forecast from the city clerk's office. And that is the end of staff's presentation.

Okay. Somebody care to make a motion?

A quick question first. So next step, should we read that as well? Or just a proposed motion?

Just the motion is fine.

Okay. I move that the HDC approve the fiscal year 2026 annual report as presented by staff.

I second. I second. All in favor? motion passes three to nothing and thanks to the staff for doing a wonderful job once again on the annual report it's really outstanding okay Next on the agenda is the certificate of approval for case 2026-375-COA at 10 Thomas Street. Does staff have a report?

Yes, we do. Okay, so this is case 2026-375-COA for a certificate of approval at 10 Thomas Street. On your screen, you will see a satellite image of the property. It's located on the east side of Thomas Street off West Montgomery Avenue in the West End. Here we have a photo of the historic home. It was built in 1882, and it's an example of a vernacular cottage-style residence. And it's noteworthy for its previously unaltered condition, and it's retained a lot of its architectural integrity. Also, it was designated in 1974 as part of the West Montgomery Avenue Historic District. So here is a site plan showing the proposed changes for 10 Thomas Street. So the applicant proposes to build a two-story addition to the rear of the home, along with two one-story additions and a screened porch. So that main addition will be the two-story addition to the rear. And then also as part of the building process, the sides and rear of the home will be altered. So I'm going to go through some of the alterations before we get into each elevation. So overall, the alterations include the removal of two existing windows on each side of the home, which is four windows total, including trim, casing, and shutters. The shutters will be salvaged and sort for reuse. And then an additional seven windows will be removed on the rear of the home, again, salvaging those shutters. The existing rear porch will be removed in its entirety, including the floor and roof framing. And then also the existing exterior framed wall and siding in the rear of the home will also be removed. The construction will also require the removal of two trees you can see on the site plan here. And that's currently under the certificate of approval process with staff approval. And the city forester agrees on removal given the proximity of those trees to the home. So getting into materials, the entire addition will be clad with six inch wide Boral Dutch lap siding. I just do want to note that the applicant did reach out yesterday with a request to use Hardy lap smooth siding with seven inch exposure or vinyl siding, which are more readily available and affordable as an alternative to the initially proposed Boral Dutch lap siding. So the HTC can provide feedback on this tonight. So all the siding will be painted to match the rest of the home. There will also be new roofs that will blend with the original home and new gutters. And then a total of 19 new windows, 16 double hung and three awning windows, which are Anderson 200 series, again with boral or otherwise trim, are also proposed throughout the addition. Okay, so we're going to get into each elevation here, starting with the front or west elevation. So on the left, you can see the original home as it stands today. And on the right is the proposed architectural drawing. So as you can see here, the front elevation will be modified by the one story addition on that southern side of the home, it's set farther back, but you will be able to see it from the front. Again, a new a new roof, gutters and downspouts, another new window, and then again, salvaging those wood shutters from the original home to use on the new windows. So for the rear east elevation, this is where the majority of the work will be done and will be seen. So again, it's a two-story rear addition. It will include four new windows. A small wood landing with composite decking will provide an entrance to the one-story addition and the screened-in porch. And to the left of the rear elevation is the single-story screened-in porch made of the Screeny's fiberglass system with new wood columns to match the existing columns on the front porch. Okay, so here we can see the north elevation of the home. Again, we're going to have two new windows with those salvaged wood shutters. And then we also have in the center of the addition a gable roof, a new roof cornice. Gable details will be added to blend in with the existing materials. And there will also be two sets of three double hung windows below the gable. And then on the rightmost side of the addition is the one story screened in porch. Again, that you can see here from the side view. And then this is the other side of the house, so the south elevation. And again, the addition is visible, and here it's on the left side. The proposed screened-in porch is visible, as well as the patio door. And as is the case with the north elevation, in the center of the two-story addition is a gable roof with new trim and new features to be added to blend with the old. The two-story addition features new awning windows on the second story and two new windows on the lower floor. And then an additional awning window is proposed to be added to the second floor of the existing house in line with the proposed awning windows on the addition. And again, to keep in mind that the original proposal was for the Boral Dutch lap siding with the Applicant is wondering about alternatives. Um, so you all are welcome to discuss that as well. Um, but the staff recommendation is that the proposal to build a two story addition to the rear of the existing house, along with two, one story additions and a new screen porch meets the secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation number nine and number 10, uh, and technical guide number four, new additions and staff recommends approval. And I'm going to go ahead and read out those Secretary of Interior standards for rehabilitation, just so you all are aware. So number nine reads that new additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction will not destroy historic materials, features, and spatial relationships that characterize the property. The new work will be differentiated from the old and will be compatible with the historic materials, features, size, scale, and proportion, and massing to protect the integrity of the property and its environment. And staff feels that it does that. And then for number 10, it reads that new additions and adjacent or related new construction will be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired. Just a note here that the removal of existing windows could possibly pose an issue because if the addition is removed, it would be noticeable that the original windows are missing. But otherwise, staff feels that it meets this requirement as well. And then for the technical guide for alterations number four for new additions, the conditions are to make retention of the building's historic character and materials and focus of the additions design, use the existing roof line, trim lines, materials, and massing for guidance in the new design, and to avoid the loss of historic materials and features such as trees, outbuildings, and landscape walls. We did talk about the removal of the trees, but the city forester does agree with that recommendation. And then whenever possible, place the addition on the rear, which they have done here. Design the addition so it does not overwhelm the historic building or adjacent neighbors and scalar massing. And the design of doors, windows, shutters, trim, and siding should all be compatible with the historic structure, although modern materials may be considered. So again, they are planning to use those original wood shutters. In the demo of some of that, they will salvage those and reuse those. So staff feels that it meets those conditions and recommends approval. But that was a lot, so you guys are free to discuss and ask me or the applicant any questions. I believe the applicant should be here.

Okay.

Thank you, Megan. Do any commissioners have any questions for staff?

I do have a question. So I'm wondering about the condition of the foundation of this home. The foundation.

That's a question for the applicant. The staff doesn't have that information. Can you go up to the podium? And if you can just announce your name for the record, please.

Sure. My name is David Vogt. I work with the case design remodeling. The existing foundation is the Stone Foundation.

Can we just get your name and address?

David Vogt, my address is 9507 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, Maryland.

Thank you. Yeah, proceed.

The existing foundation is a combination of two types of foundation. I think the rear elevation, rear addition that we're absorbing into the addition was built at a later date than the original structure. which was the front elevation and the side cross elevation, or gable. And that is all stone foundation. It's in good shape. And then we have a little bit of block foundation under the rear portion of the house, which, I mean, it all was built before 1974, so it's all under the historic commission, but it's a separate type of foundation.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Is the applicant present? Okay. Do you wish to speak on this at all? No, you're just here to listen. Okay, thank you. Are there any questions from the commissioners to the applicants? I have one question I noticed reading through that. There was a reference in the package detailing it to the basement, but you're putting everything in slab on grades. I'm just wondering, was that an oversight or you care to address that?

As David spoke earlier, there is no basement. It's a cellar, and we're building a crawl space foundation. So we're excavating down below grade and then building a foundation wall around.

Okay, and where is that – Is that under the entire addition or?

Under the entire addition, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. We'll connect to the existing foundation that's there.

Okay.

But there's no basement associated. It's really a cellar type space.

Oh, like a crawl space, not a full height or?

Under the original house, it's a stooping, you know, and portions of it are higher and lower. It's built in 1800, so it's...

Okay, okay. I just, that was something that didn't seem to show up on the drawings at all. Thank you. Are there any public comments from anyone attending in person or online? Notice we have some people online. No? All right. Is there any discussion from the commissioners?

I'm just wondering if staff received any notices from anyone.

Oh. Was any notice received from?

We haven't received any public comment, no.

No, OK. Thank you. All right. All right. So I guess now we just need a motion and a second.

Commissioner Fosselman, if I can interject before you make a motion and a second. The applicant originally, as Ms. Flick mentioned earlier, originally proposed boral.citing. And the applicant has since reached out and said that they do not intend to move forward with that citing and provided two alternatives. I'm going to ask Ms. Flick to say those so I don't butcher it. But we would want, if the body were to approve this, for you to specify that materiality.

Yeah, so the initial proposal was for boral Dutch lap siding, and the request is to use a hardy lap smooth siding, which is more available and more affordable. They also mentioned vinyl, if that's possible, or just open to other alternatives. I don't know if the applicant wants to speak on that.

Yeah, so this is probably news to the applicant themselves. So I originally, or we originally, looked up Boral with AI, and they gave a proposal that it was very similar to Hardy Plank in its cost. Well, when I put it out for pricing, it was four and a half times as much. So not sure which way we're going to end up going. Boral has the... The German lap siding has a scoop and it's flat. And then the hardy plank would be a lap siding that we probably wouldn't go to vinyl, but we'd go to the fiber cement siding as an option only if the client is, or applicant is, they have a pricing decision to make.

How does that relate to what's on the original?

The original is a wood German lap siding.

So what you're proposing would, sounds like it would match the existing.

The boral would be a closer match. That's why we were inquiring to staff if, and I guess to you guys as well, if the option to use a lap siding and not a German lap would be a possibility. And we can get a five-inch lap. hardy lap, but again, it's a cost implication to go to five from seven. Seven's the standard exposure.

So you're saying that five inches is on the original house?

It's called a six inch, but there's an exposure that's the face that you can see is five inches. There's an inch that tucks up underneath the previous row.

Okay, and so what you're proposing will be seven inch?

Seven would be the most economical and still be a solid material. I don't think we would go to vinyl. It would be the fiber cement siding as an option.

I'm just concerned about how the appearance of where the two would meet.

So the house has corner boards, so there would be a separate board separating. And where we attach to the original structure, we set back or forward so they're not in plane at any given point.

OK. OK. Thank you. So any comments on that?

It seems like it will not be noticeable. What's that? It won't be noticeable. You will not be able to see it.

Right.

Because it's going to be tough.

Yeah.

Okay.

It sounds like, well, it'll be in the back.

Right.

So not readily visible from the street to notice the difference. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So, all right. So we can proceed. Any problems with that? Any? No problems?

No.

Okay.

I just want to make sure that it's not visible.

Yeah, yeah. All right, would somebody care to make a motion? I'll make the motion. Thank you.

I move the Commission approve Certificate of Approval, Application 2026-375-COE at 10 Thomas Street. The work meets the criteria of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation, number nine, and number 10, and Technical Guide number four, new additions.

Do we have a second?

Well, do we need to add the information of the type of materials?

Yeah, so we need to as part of the approval would be the materials that are used. It sounds like the applicant is still working through exactly what that material would be. It seems like there's a few options that perhaps the owner will need to kind of discuss and evaluate. Staff's recommendation would be to do like a contingent approval of this, contingent on the applicant coming back once they have determined the specifications of the siting product that they would like to use. And that could potentially be administratively approved by staff. Our new zoning ordinance allows for that. Or if staff are not comfortable making that recommendation, we would bring it back to you all specific to the siting component of it. Staff would not be comfortable Just a blanket approval right now, since we don't know what that will look like.

Thank you. So, how do we. Yes, the 2nd, well, we need a 2nd, but how do we. How do we incorporate what Katie just said, incorporate the language into the motion?

So I think it would just be, assuming that we're approving, you would read that first one and say, you know, subject to the applicant coming back to receive approval for the siting.

Okay. I move the Commission approve Certificate of Approval Application 2026-375COA at 10 Thermal Street. The work meets the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation No. 9 and Tenant Technical Guide No. 4, New Additions, subject to the applicant coming back to

Yeah, so it would be a conditional approval subject to the applicant providing additional details on the siding and receiving approval.

So provide the additional details to receive an approval.

Okay. Does that work? Do you have a second?

I second.

All in favor? Raise your hand. No opposed. The motion passes three to nothing. Thank you. Thank you all. And good luck with your addition. Okay. Next on the agenda is the evaluation of significance for case 2026-330-EOS at 200 Monroe Street. The staff have a report.

Yes, we do. Okay, so this is case 2026-330-EOS for an evaluation of significance at 200 A and B Monroe Street. So the property is located at the northeast corner of Monroe Street and Fleet Street with main frontage on Monroe Street. And as you can see here, the property is split into A and B, as I've labeled. And so we will go through those one at a time. So starting with 200A Monroe Street, this is a three-story office building that was constructed in 1980 with the intention of serving as a commercial structure and has served as such ever since. The building is cotton brick with a series of aluminum horizontal ribbon windows on each of its facades. The main entrance to the building is accessed via a two-story portico located in the western corner of the building. And a small mechanical room on the roof of the structure can be seen on the north and east elevations, which I will click through soon. And the building has surface parking lots on south and eastern sides. There are also two additional egress doors located on the east side of the building under a small overhang. So here we have the southern elevation and showing the parking lot as well. And then we have the rear or eastern elevation, again, showing that parking lot. And then this is the northern elevation from East Jefferson. So that is it for 200A. We're going to go into 200B. And first, I'm just going to give a little history of the property, as 200B is where a lot of the history is significant. So its original colonial revival home, it was built in 1906 by Thomas C. Grooms, who was a famous builder in Rockville and Montgomery County. The property was conveyed to Samuel B. Heeg in 1905, and it was therefore referred to as the Heeg House. It's seen on the 1949 Sangborn map, and it's also shown here on the 1916 Maddox Atlas. It's outlined in yellow. Samuel B. Heeg spent his career working for the B&O Railroad and served as a Rockville council member from 1896 to 1898. And then following his death in 1929, his daughter Daisy likely continued living in that same home. And then according to newspapers, additional residents after the Heegs included Fritz and Nina Speedle sometime in the 1940s. Fritz Speedle was an electrician who ran an electronic and appliance repair shop in downtown Rockville. And the Speedles then passed the property to the Millers in August of 1952. And then CBT Associates has owned the property since 1974 and has been in commercial use ever since. So here we have a site photo showing 200B. And this first part outlined in red is the original historic structure that was built in 1906 as a home. And then this green outline is showing the additions, I believe from the 80s. And then behind that in yellow is the surface parking lot. So we're going to again go through each elevation. So first we have the front or west elevation. On the left, you can see the home when it was built in 1906. And on the front, is the home or the building today in 2026. So as you can see, it has changed quite a bit. Again, the original structure was constructed in 1906 as a home. And after it was purchased in 1952, it was remodeled into commercial offices. It later underwent major commercial development in the 80s, again, with that addition to the rear of the building. And over the years, it has undergone several alterations. The siding has been replaced. The front entryway has been replaced. And some other doors have been replaced in addition to that bigger addition that was built onto the rear of the building and the construction of the two-story brick parking structure at the rear, which I will show later on. So the front facade here has a central front porch accessed by a staircase and flanked by columns. Those two columns on either side of the front door are really all that remains of the original porch. It has a bay window that sits above, and then each side of the front entrance has a set of center double-hung windows with two symmetrical double-hung windows on the second story, and those are all adorned with wood shutters. And then next we have the south elevation. Again, on the left is when it was first built in 1906, and on the right is today from Fleet Street. So again, this elevation shows that addition that was constructed in 1983. The facade is three stories with brick stone cladding on the ground level and vinyl siding on the upper two stories. And this view from Fleet Street shows the U-shaped structure of the south side elevation with the sets of sacked windows on the south facing facades. And the southern facade of the building also connects to that parking structure that was also built in the 80s. And then here we have the rear or east elevation again on the left in 1906 and on the right as it looks today. Again, it shows the five sets of sack double hung windows on the upper two floors and four additional double hung windows and two doors on the ground floor, which is clad in brick and the upper two floors are clad in vinyl siding. And the entirety of this facade is composed of that 1980s addition. And then finally, we have the north elevation, again, on the left in 1906 when it was built and on the right as it looks today. So it has two rows of windows with wooden shutters. The top floor of the building has a row of five double hung windows, and the second floor also has five windows. A series of egress windows can be seen on the ground level. And again, the majority of this facade is covered in vinyl siding with the original stonework visible at the ground level. and a small porch covers a door on the right side of the ground floor. Then here is that brick parking structure that was mentioned. Again, during the expansion of the building in the 1980s, this two-story brick parking garage was constructed at the rear of the property, and it's accessed via a curb cut on Fleet Street along the southern edge of the property. This is the parking garage view from Fleet Street, And then this is the parking garage eastern elevation from the parking lot looking west. So we're going to split up our recommendations. So for 200A, staff finds that the property at 200A Monroe Street does not meet any of the Historic District Commission's adopted criteria for historic significance or architectural design and landscape significance. Staff recommends against historic designation. And then the recommendation for 200B Monroe Street is finding that the original residential structure at 200B Monroe meets historic significance criteria A, which is that it represents the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the city and architectural design and landscape criteria E, which is that it represents an established visual feature of the neighborhood or city because of its physical characteristics or landscape components. staff recommends historic designation for just that portion of the property. And then finding that the rear additions and other commercial uses do not meet any of the adopted HTC criteria for historic designation, staff recommends against historic designation for the remainder of the property. So staff is recommending to only designate that historic structure at 200B, at the front part of 200B. That's all I've got.

Thank you, Megan.

And you can do your motions separately as well if that's easier. Yeah. Split them up here, but we can discuss first.

Yeah. Well, I guess, do any of the commissioners have any questions for the staff?

So could you go back to 200, is it B? I want to see the front. And so what portion are you talking about that meets our criteria?

Yeah, so in this photo, it's just the portion in red.

In red, okay.

Is that original structure that was built in 1906. Everything in the rear was added on in the 80s and later.

Okay, thank you.

Any other?

I think mine is just a comment. I'm just wondering why the building went through a lot of alterations and additions. I'm just being curious.

I think historically speaking, there were some fires in the 50s or 60s that there was some damage. I'm not clear on the extent of that damage, but I think there was some renovations done then, and then I know that it underwent renovations when it went into commercial use as well.

Yeah. I've sort of wrestled with this one since reading the report the brief book and I guess my problem is that hardly any of it is original but nonetheless it's contained within the envelope of the original house okay But everything you see is not original. They've removed the big porch, which if you drive along West Montgomery Avenue, most of those big houses have deep porches. And I'm assuming that's before the days of air conditioning to keep the cool in the summertime. It's missing that. The roof is not as steep as the original roof. There's just so much that has changed. it still represents something historic. And like I said, this is a big problem that I've been sort of wrestling with. So I don't know what else to say about it. part of me says yeah it should be designated as historic because it does and you know it could evoke a period back more than a century ago I guess but you look at it and it's it has very little resemblance to what the original structure looked like you know, this sort of a side issue, this is one of the things that I think we as a commission have to keep in mind. We have to, which they didn't have back in the latter part of the 20th century to prevent, this from happening. So it happened and now we're sort of stuck with the results of butchering what was a very grandiose residence. So I'm just sort of throwing that out to my fellow commissioners to ponder when we have to look at designating this thing. It's a problem that we come up with every so often as a commission. So I don't know, don't wanna go any further. Anybody else care to add anything to that? I've done my part. Is the applicant present? Please introduce yourself, yourselves.

Good evening commissioners staff. Thank you for having us this evening. My name is Juan Lopez. I'm with PT blooms development. We've done extensive studies and reviews into the properties in question again. As you can see, there's been a lot of changes and what we're preserving really is just an idea. I'd like to defer to my team who are more experts in the in the matter.

Good evening. My name is Vincent Turner. I'm an architectural historian with EHT Traceries in Washington, DC. I'm here tonight with my principal and the project manager, Alyssa Stein. In case you're not familiar, EHT Traceries is a firm located in DC. We work on a variety of historic preservation projects, including research and documentation that require us to look at buildings, structures, and sites, and determine their significance and integrity, as was the case here with 200B Monroe Street. Tonight, I'm actually here on behalf of CBT Associates, and we're gonna be discussing the merits of the significance of the property, as you can see here. So do I just say next slide and you'll advance? Okay, perfect.

And we'll note there's a bit of a lag from what happens on our side to when you see it on the screen. So if you say next slide, we're next sliding it. It just takes a second.

That's okay. I've used microfiche machines, same thing.

Also, we're on PDF, so bear with me. But I think we got it.

No problem at all. Okay. So in May 2026, in accordance with Section 25.14.01 of the Zoning Ordinance and Section 596.3 of the Rockville City Code, HTC staff presented a case to designate 200 B Monroe Street under Historic Significance Criterion A and Architectural Design and Landscape Significance Criterion E. So we have the points made in that decision here on the screen. Next slide, please. So there should have been a slide in between where it was the report cover on here. If not, we can move on to the next one. No problem. I can be flexible. So as described in the staff report, the Heeg House was built in 1906 for Samuel B. Heeg. He was a B&O railroad passenger agent for about 30 years. He was a pretty significant fellow. He was also on the Rockville Town Council, as we heard, 1896 to 1898. This house was designed by Thomas E. Grooms, who actually built all three of Heeg's houses in Rockville. This is the third residence here. The house was originally a colonial revival on a four-square plan, as can be seen in this historic photograph here. And I do apologize for having my finger in all the photographs. There was just a glare on them. You can see these large sleeping porches, which we had just discussed a moment ago. These are actually integral to the design of this house, because Heeg's daughter, or... had tuberculosis. So these were sleeping porches for her to be able to come out and enjoy the fresh air of Rockville, you know, outside of the city in DC. So they're very important to the design of this house. Next slide, please. So When Samuel Heeg moved to Rockville, he built this house that you can see on the right there. This house is at 212 Reading Avenue. It's actually in the Rockville Park Historic District, which is also a National Register District. The house is still extant. And this is where he lived when he served on the town council here at Rockville. He lived here from 1890 to 1898 and then constructed a second house at what would have been 12 Baltimore Road, but that house has been demolished. It was demolished during the urban renewal period, so it no longer stands, but this one does. Next slide, please. So the Heek House was constructed in the later part of the first wave of residential development of Rockville, which lasted from about 1873 to 1910. It was not built as a part of any particular subdivision. That map on the left there that you see, that blue area, that is the Rockville Heights subdivision, and the orange is the park. You'll notice that the park only has three blocks, but the current property is block four, of the park subdivision, and that wasn't until 1979 that it actually became included as part of that subdivision. So originally that red square there, you see there, SBE, it was not a part of any subdivision. It wasn't a part of any particular neighborhood. It just happened to be on the south side of Rockville. Okay, next slide, please. Now, this map here, you can see on the left side, let's see. Okay, yeah. So this shows the structure representing the history of residential development as we just discussed. It was on the south side of Rockville. You can see it was kind of isolated. That area of Rockville actually didn't develop until after World War II. There was a few scattered houses, but it really just wasn't a big neighborhood or part of a subdivision. Next slide, please. And actually, as a matter of fact, across the street from the current 200B Monroe Street is locally designated historic districts. That map on the left you see there are the locally designated historic districts in Rockville. So the bottom left one is the Warfield Robertson Historic District. And there's a photograph of what it looks like from the Hague House today. And you can see that there's a row of houses. It much better portrays a residential neighborhood. And it's already been preserved. The Hague House, unfortunately, lost its neighboring houses due to development, not necessarily urban renewal. The houses were just torn down actually when Fleet Street was punched through. A neighboring house was torn down as well. So there's already a pretty good example, actually an outstanding example of a residential neighborhood in this area of Rockville that doesn't currently include the house, but would still, you know, portray that historic character at this side of town. Next slide, please. There was some discussion about some of the changes that have occurred to the Hague House. From about 1947 to 1952, it was operated as an antique shop. The Spitals owned an antique store that was there. They sold it in 1952 to Miller & Miller, which is a law office in Rockville, started in 1945. The Millers converted it into an office building. They actually had a number of different people who rented offices from them. So really, the The house is no longer a house. It has been commercial since the 1940s. In 1958, there was a devastating fire in the heat house. This is actually a photograph from inside of the house looking up at the main chimney in the main block. The newspapers describe the entire second floor being destroyed, the entire roof and attic being destroyed, fire damage to the first floor down into the basement. So a lot of that original material was burned off. And during the subsequent rebuilding, as they said, was about $50,000 worth of damage back then, which is quite a lot of money. They took off those porches. They replaced a lot of that original material, the windows, the exterior. They really only kept the foundation and like the first floor of the shape. So there was quite a lot of devastating damage here. In 1983, they put that large addition on the back that we saw a little while ago, more office space, and then that garage off the back, the two-deck garage. In 2011, the front porch was also modified, now has this glass box, which we will see in a moment. All right, next slide, please. Doing research on urban renewal in Rockville is actually fairly interesting. There's a lot of good material on it, thanks to Peerless Rockville in particular. They have a lot of good write-ups on the urban renewal period. From what I could determine, the 1962 urban renewal plan, which was the first, and the 1967, which is the plan they ended up going with, was all contained in that area highlighted in yellow on these two maps. The newspapers of the time talk about it. There's the different reports talk about all the urban renewals confined to this area. And you can really see that development on that right side photo there. Everything's contained within there. The magenta area was county government. That's where they built a parking garage. That's where they built the county offices. And that was completely separate project. It was not at all related to urban renewal here. They just needed to expand the spaces for the county government offices. The blue arrow indicates where the Broom House used to be located, which was the neighbor. You can see in that 1970 photo, it was demolished sometime in the mid-70s when they pushed through Fleet Street. So that's really when the Higg House became isolated in 1970s, 1980s. You can see the 1980 office building there just above the red square on that right side. That's at 200A Monroe Street. All right, next slide, please. Now the four-way intersection is not historic. Monroe Street was actually created as a part of the Rockville Heights subdivision. That map on the left there is from 1890. That shows the original subdivision and what they had planned for it. um and those guys actually went bankrupt and they had to sell off pieces and it really just didn't develop how they thought however monroe street did persist and it only ever went to houses it was not a through street it did not go to any major roads that map on the right is from 1945. the uh the red roads you can see there are the main roads in and out of rockville the he house is just below the e in the name rockville you can see just pointed out there It is not on a main road. This was not a prominent entryway into Rockville. And it was basically just not a historic intersection. Next slide, please. Now back to that urban renewal. As you can see here, this is when Fleet Street was pushed through. It was the mid-1970s, and that's when this four-way intersection came about. Unfortunately, the houses on the north side of Fleet Street were all demolished to make way for that county government offices building, and... The house really just it wasn't a part of the historic intersection. That was that important. You can see Maryland Avenue there on the left side. That is a main road into Rockville. That's actually how I got here tonight. My GPS took me up Maryland Avenue because I came up 270. And you can also Jefferson Street goes out. That's another major road in and out through Rockville, especially after the urban renewal period. So really, these are secondary streets that the house is located on. Next slide, please. So in the city of Rockville, beyond meeting the historic significance criteria, a house must retain its integrity. Integrity, as defined by the Federal Register, September 29th, 1983, Department of Interior Archeology and Historic Preservation, the standards and guidelines define integrity as the authenticity of a property's historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property's historic or prehistoric period. The National Register uses seven criteria for determining integrity. You have design, setting, location, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. And that is how we evaluated this property based on those seven guidelines. Now, the Hague House has lost pretty much all of its integrity as an early 20th century residence. The only one of those seven criteria that's left is location. The house hasn't moved. Unfortunately, as we saw due to the devastating fire and also the conversion to office space, The Hague House no longer is a residence. It was used as a junk shop, an antique store. It was used as a commercial space. So it's lost its feeling and association as a residence. Um, during the fire and the subsequent rebuilds, it also lost almost all of its original design and materials workmanship. Um, and then the setting was subsequently impacted by the development that surrounded it. So, 200 a Monroe street fleet street coming through the parking garage across the street. So really 6 of the 7 criteria for integrity have been diminished or completely removed from this property. And as you can see here, this is a good view of the front of the house. This is the primary. This is what you would view back then. This is where all the focus on the detail is, typically with historic houses. You'll notice that the two-story porches are no longer there. The roof completely burned off. There's no longer a dormer. Really, the character-defining feature of this house have been lost. Next slide, please. So you can see here on the north elevation, the wraparound porch is no longer there. There were two doors on this side. They were above each other. Those doors were sealed in. A new door was blown through in the basement. The basement was expanded out. That rear chimney was removed after the fire. And all of the original materials have either been removed or covered over. Really, the only materials that you can see that are original now are the foundational field stones. But that really just doesn't convey that sense of history. Next slide, please. This is the South elevation here. You'll notice again, the two story porches have been removed. There's no longer a rear dormer on the roof of the house. That rear porch was removed in the 1980s when they put on that back addition sealed in and also the doors that were on this side, just like the North elevation were sealed and closed back. Next slide, please. So here's a little bit of a different angle. The photo on the left actually shows the house just after completion. It's a very nice looking house, I have to say. I would have wanted to live there. But if you look on that right side photo, that is a photo we took about a month ago. The porches are all gone. The roof line is gone. There's a huge addition on the backside. It really just takes away from that look and feeling. I feel like Samuel Heeg would probably have a little bit of difficulty imagining that this was his house. Next slide, please. And this is the rear or east elevation. You can see it's been completely covered over by the 1983 addition. You actually can't even really see any part of the house from this angle, which is, again, impacting its integrity, its ability to show its historic character. Next slide, please. Based on the history and the evolution of the Hague House, otherwise known as the Miller Building or 200 B. Monroe Street, EHT Tracery finds that the building is not eligible for listing as an individual landmark in the city of Rockville's inventory of designated historic districts for its significance as an early 20th century residence constructed for the former town council member Samuel B. Hague. 200 B. Monroe Street was the third residence of Samuel Hague and the family did not reside in this house while he was a town council member, so it would be inappropriate to designate the house as such. As seen from the photos, the Higg house no longer retains integrity from its time as a dwelling and does not rise to the level of significance to warrant designation as an individual landmark by the HTC. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody have any questions?

I have a question. So you may have addressed this already, but did this house or property come through HDC for review after the fire?

So the fire was in 1958. I don't believe that the HDC was around.

Yeah, that is correct.

And then in 1980 was the next time you made some? 1983.

Correct, but it was not a historically designated structure at the time, so they did not have to come before the HTC.

Okay, thank you.

This particular property has never been listed as a historic resource in any of the surveys for Rockville.

It's a nice structure. That's why I asked a question.

No, I understand. It's a great question.

Yeah.

Um, any other questions from commissioners? Uh, yeah, I'm still torn myself. Right. It's, uh, um, This is a difficult question. So I think, are there any comments from the public on this issue?

Please.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Commissioners. I'm Nancy Picard, Executive Director for Peerless Rockville, speaking tonight on behalf of Peerless Rockville. And thank you very much for that excellent presentation. Clearly, they were able to dig some things that we didn't even have in our records, and I think that's always fantastic to find out even more information. It's a very interesting property that we're dealing with, and I think that it's layered in a way that maybe that hasn't fully come out, and that might be why people are struggling with it a little bit. So I want to first just acknowledge the fact that you are reviewing what is a very complex application, much more complex than the things that you usually see as you look at both 200A and B Monroe Street properties. I'd like to state that we have general, Peerless Rockville has general alignment with the staff report and the recommendations that they put forth the staff for this evaluation tonight. Specifically, we do support the designation of the 1906 residence at 200B Monroe Street based on several Rockville criteria. But we further agree with the staff that neither the 1983 modern rear addition to the original structure, its attached garages or the surrounding lots, nor the modern structure at 200A Monroe meet the city's criteria in any way. However, I would like to take an opportunity tonight to address each structure briefly and provide some feedback and to question a few things that may be missing or maybe incomplete. Starting with the structure at 200A Monroe, that's the modern structure. And while I'm not here to argue for designation or to praise the merits of this particular mid-century building, Peerless Rockville, the staff, and I find it concerning that so little information was provided for on this structure. There is no discussion of the type or style of architecture. There's no identification of the architect or builder, and really no discussion at all of its possible significance or alignment with the city's criteria. This is not meant in any way to be a criticism of the staff, particularly as the current staff are over tasks, and we understand that. This is not a criticism. It is more a concern that this information is not readily available because it has been unstudied and undersurveyed, and no historic context for this period of Rockville's development has been produced. This really also applies to the entire 200B structure as a very long significant part of its history has happened since the Miller and Miller ownership in the 50s. The building has served this use for 80 years and that can have some significance on its own. As for the structure at 200B Monroe, Peerless Rockville agrees with the staff report finding that the 1906 residence designed and built for Samuel Heeg by Thomas E. Grooms does meet the adopted criteria A for historic significance and criteria E for architectural design and landscape significance. These were not based, as you went through the report, on it being a specific, wonderful example of colonial revival style. They were not based on the importance of Samuel Heeg. They were not based on his time as a mayor. As noted, you heard that he was actually living in another structure when he was mayor. So there were... It still is a historic building that is associated with a time and place in the development of Rockville and it does hold a lot of significance as outlined in the report. Let me just go a little further because I did learn some new things tonight and I would like to kind of incorporate them as I go. I would add that Peerless Rockville also believes that the property meets criteria D for historic significance in that it exemplifies the cultural, economic, industrial, social, political, archaeological, and historical heritage of the city. is prominent in Rockville. It may not be in a main street, but it sits up on a hill. It's been well known for many, many years. It's a law firm and has operated as attorneys offices and other services for 80 years in this location in a building that looked like this after the fire. And While a relation to urban renewal in the strictest sense may be tenuous, you have to understand Rockville is basically 250 years as the county seat of Montgomery County. And the thing that has been here since 1976, when Montgomery County was founded, is the courts. And we're very much a county seat with the courts. And from the very beginning of time, when you have the courts, you have attorneys, and you have attorneys' offices, and you have law officers, and you have bail bonds, and you have all of those things that we still have in Rockville today. Historically, those things were located in the urban renewal area. And when those areas were decimated, they moved out. And they moved out in the blocks that surrounded it. So I think that that period of Rockville's history is significant possibly on its own right It's just not something we normally see. So I'm not trying to make this harder for you to consider. But it also points to the fact that we do not have those historic contexts very well identified in Rockville. And it's a subject that comes up over and over again. And it's just another pitch for getting that work done so that you all have a very clear basis from which to make decisions. I also wanna note that while much of the building has clearly been subject to fire and changes, I wanted to take a minute to talk about the work of Thomas C. Grooms. He was very important here in Rockville. He's well known in Montgomery County. In addition to many houses, He also designed, well, numerous residential homes in Gaithersburg and Rockville. And we also know that he was selected for the first banking and trust building in Rockville, Rockville High School, the Montrose School, Sandy Spring Bank, First National Bank of Gaithersburg, all which were significant commercial and public buildings in their time. So he really was an important architect here in the city. This is not his best surviving work. He does have other buildings, but they're dwindling rapidly. Furthermore, I just want to talk a little bit about the integrity. It's very clear when you look at those pictures, it's confusing to look at. You see that the porches are gone and the third floor is gone, clearly related to a devastating fire. um however some of the things that have been put forward in the application are that there's pretty much no integrity left and i i do take some issue you the building lost its porches and it did lose its top floor but its setting is the same the form is the same without the poor porches the general massing is the same it does still evoke the time and feeling of an earlier time, not to the degree that it did in 1906. So it is an interesting case, and we thought we would share our thoughts with you as you kind of tackle this different case this evening. I think that if there's any ability to save some of the site, it's a nice case study to be able to preserve a little piece of Rockville while you allow additional development around. So thank you for listening.

Thank you, Nancy. Very good presentation. Is there any public comment? Well, let me, yeah. Anybody who's online or anybody in the room here who wishes to make further comments?

We did provide in your brief book a public comment that we received back when this case was initially on the agenda in May. So just a reminder, you have that written public comment as well.

Right. Do you need to read that or no? Okay. Which, as I recall, was in favor of designation, I believe.

That's correct.

Yeah. Okay. Any further discussions from commissioners?

All right. So if we're going to designate the B part of this property, that would mean that we are doing that on the basis of the fact that this building survived urban renewal, and then the fact that the building also was designed by a renowned architect, Zach, all right?

Yeah, you all can choose, I think, in your motion which criteria it meets. I think, let me pull back up those motions. I think in addition to what I have, Nancy had mentioned D. But, yeah, ultimately it's up to you all if you choose to make that motion what criteria it meets.

I'll pull that back up in a second.

So as Ms. Flick is pulling that up, this staff finding was that two of those criteria were met as listed in the motion. But ultimately, you as a body determine what staff's recommendation is staff's recommendation. You determine what you believe it does or does not mean.

And if you want to do the motions separately for 200A and for 200B, that's how I split them up here, if that's easier.

Yeah, I think that would be what we would want to do. Are we agreed?

I'm sorry. No, I'm not sorry. Can you pull back up 200A? Because in my mind I'm going back and forth. The photos of 200A? Yes.

That's the new, that's the brick, yeah. That one.

Okay. Okay, so go back to the motion, please.

Okay. Can we have a motion on 200A?

Okay, I'll move. FIND THAT THE BUILDING PROPOSED FOR DEMOLITION AT 200A MONROE STREET DOES NOT MEET ANY OF THE HISTORIC DISTRICT'S COMMISSION, ADOPTED CRITERIA FOR HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE, ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, AND LANDSCAPE SIGNIFICANCE, EVEN THOUGH THE HDC RECOMMEND AGAINST HISTORIC DESIGNATION.

Do we have a second?

Second.

You turned your thing.

Oh, second.

Okay. On favor of the motion, say aye or raise your hands. Okay, motion passes three to nothing. Now we have to consider 200B. Any comments on this one from anybody? This is a real dilemma. What are the motions? I don't know. Can I ask how my other commissioners are thinking on this?

Commissioner Shenge, we cannot hear you. If you can use your mic.

No, we're just discussing and we're just saying that if we're going to the second motion, then we'll have to state the reason why we're choosing the second motion. That is correct.

If you are finding designation, you would have to state in the motion the criteria that you believe it meets.

Right, right, right.

Can you put the motions back up? Yes.

Ms. Flick is making a live tweet or tweak to the motion. Um, clarifying, um, the difference between, well, I guess this is a question for the body. 200 B is that original home. And then there were alterations made over a period of time. A question to this body is, are you, the staff recommendation is to designate a portion of 200 B but not the 1980s additions. We need to incorporate that into this motion. So if you're choosing to designate the entire 200B, the motion will do one thing. If you're choosing to designate a portion of 200B, it would be a slightly different motion. So Ms. Flick is typing up what your options are for your two motions right now. So whichever way you decide, you can have that reflected. We're working on it. Please feel free to continue your discussion.

Well, Katie, can I just sort of expound on what I'm thinking without violating any state laws?

You're in an open session. You can say whatever you would like.

Reading the brief book about this, my initial inclination was not to designate, but since hearing some of the comments this evening and seeing what staff's recommendations are, I'm thinking that the original house, even though it's been altered, does deserve some recognition of its place in the city's history, both long-term, a century ago, and half a century ago, as Nancy pointed out. It has been a law office for 80 years, is that right, or so? Somewhere, seven, eight decades, which in and of itself makes it eligible for historic designation. And I'm thinking, too, that there isn't, well, I shouldn't say because I don't know for sure, but a lot of our historic design structures that we focus on were from the 18th, 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, but not that many from the more recent past when, in fact, Rockville experienced tremendous growth following World War II, where the population doubled, tripled ten times in a short period of time. And so having this designated as historic would speak to that period of time when the city was emerging as a modern, not just a bedroom community for Washington, but an entity unto itself as the county seat, as Montgomery County grew, Rockville grew, became more significant. And so I'm thinking that, well, maybe this is one of those buildings that in its current condition speaks to that period of time. And we don't have to go back to the building 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries necessarily. So that's where I'm at right now, and I'm just giving Megan a little more time to do her work, her magic, whatever she's doing over there. I don't know if any of the other commissioners care to add to that or dispute that, but please step right up.

I guess I have a question of staff. What if, depending on what, I mean, you're changing the motion. We don't agree with either one of them. Is there a third motion?

We have three prepared, but you can make any motion you would like to. So we prepare motions to make it a little easier for you all, but you guys make the motion ultimately.

Okay. So the three motions, the first motion would be for And again, this is for 200B. The motion for 200A was already made. So the three for 200B, the first one would be no designation at all for any of the property. The next would be to designate the entire property at 200B. And the last would be to designate only part of the property.

Or some combination thereof that you guys would like to see.

I don't know, I'd be curious as to what the owners, what their visions for the property would be. Can anybody address that?

I'm going to interject, Commissioner Goldfinger. The HGC scope is limited to if this property meets any of our designation criteria. What is planned with the property in the future is not under your jurisdiction.

Thank you. I would actually, if I may, just one comment on that because the direction... Can you introduce yourself? Oh, sure. I'm sorry. Scott Wallace. I'm an attorney with Miles and Stockbridge, and I represent P.T. Blooms, which is the contract purchaser. So again, I don't represent the owner, I represent the contract purchaser. But where Mr. Goldfinger was going was looking at it as a law office, for example, for being important. The future of it might not be a law office, for example. Miller & Miller can be as a tenant. They could go to another building tomorrow and it would no longer be a law office. It would just be vacant or it could be a sewing shop or whatever. So I do think it is important to understand the future of the property because it might not be a law office and i only say that because of where you were talking about is the potential significance of it from a historic point of view is it as a long-standing use as a law office that could end tomorrow thank you okay and overall if it is partially designated the balance would be a residential subdivision and what the use of it would be would be depending on the owner of the property and whatever they want to do with it

What is the property zoned at today, do you know? Is it commercial or residential? It's probably commercial, I guess.

It's a mixed-use zoning. Give me just one second to pull up that section of the staff report. Yeah, so it's currently zoned MX NC, which is mixed use neighborhood commercial. Although I'll note that this property is one of several properties that through the comprehensive map amendment that's associated with the zoning ordinance rewrite is proposed to be rezoned effective on August 1. It would be rezoned to MX TD 85, which is also a mixed use zone. So those are our most flexible zones that allow a variety of commercial residential other uses.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

I'd like to say something also.

Please.

I'm Bill Burchette. I'm with CBT. I'm one of the managing partners for CBT.

Can you say your name once more into the microphone?

William Burchette. Thank you. I'm listed as the owner.

Into the microphone, please. There we go.

I'm a managing partner at CBT. Okay. And what Scott had said is true. It may be very unlikely to be continuing as a law office. There's no ADA access to the building other than through the parking garage right now. So if it were to maintain just the original house, there's no way to make that ADA accessible unless there's going to be a ramp put in. If the back of the building were to come down, if the second part of that building were to come down and just maintain the front, it's really not feasible as a law office anymore. And that's been an issue for some time. The current tenant, Miller Miller and Canby, their lease is up in May of 2028. And that's a negotiating point now.

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, you have some comments? Yes. Yeah, that's OK. Please.

Thank you.

Hi, Alyssa Stein, principal with EHT Traceries. And I'm here with my colleague, Vincent, who gave the presentation earlier. I just wanted to, as you're considering designation, really emphasize that it's not necessarily only about the history and historic significance. Per the Rockville regulations, you also need to take into account integrity. And that's really the biggest issue here. And I think that that's something that we're seeing you all struggle with is what exactly is the integrity here? You know, it may have some level of significance for being a early 20th century residence. It may have some significance for being a longstanding law office. But as it stands right now and with the staff report that has been presented and the history that has been presented, it's significance for an early 20th century residence and And based on what we see today in comparison with what was there originally or what was there during its first several decades, that building is not there. You know, you have the foundation, you have certain aspects of it, but due to the loss of materials, due to the loss of the setting with the surrounding parking garage and the introduction of Fleet Street, the design has been totally changed and looks like a more modern mid-century building. building of some sort. It's certainly not residential. It's not necessarily commercial. It's kind of a hybrid. And based on what has been presented before you, this is really an integrity question. And in our opinion, unfortunately, the integrity is just not there. And I think that the images of the before and after really are That just shows what it is. And unfortunately, it's not just, again, about the history. It is about the integrity. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Wow. Well, any comments from commission? I've said my piece.

Not said mine, but I think we have three motions before us. I hate to do this again, but can we go back to the first motion?

Yeah, so the first motion is for not designating any of 200B. The second is for designating the entire property at 200B. and the third is for designating just part of the property, which would contain the original historic 1906 structure at 200B.

Thank you.

I have a question for staff. I don't know if this is an appropriate question to ask, but I was just wondering the implications of the second or the third motion. In what sense? If we decide to designate part of the property, what is the implication? If we decide to designate everything and give some requirements, what does that imply? I don't know whether we are allowed to ask

Yeah, so if you guys were to designate part of the property or all the property, we would go through the sectional map amendment process, which would go to Planning Commission and Mayor and Council to put a historic district overlay on whatever portion of property you guys are recommending to designate. And we do have other examples, I think Carver school where we have designated just part of the property. And that would just be a matter of determining the boundary line as part of the attachment for the sectional map amendment.

And then if designation was recommended by this body, if it got approved through the sectional map amendment process, then this would be treated as any other historic property. So any exterior alterations would need to come to you all as a body for approval prior to taking place.

Well, I think that's where I'm at. I don't know where. What do you think?

So you mentioned we designate part of the property You were saying the back side?

The motion or the staff recommendation is to designate just the original residential structure, so the historic structure that was built in 1906, which is the front part of 200B.

I'll pull up the map. Hold on.

This portion in red on the screen. Oh, I'm not sharing. Hold on one second. So am I? Oh, OK.

So slow.

Yeah. So it's just that red portion. But again, if we were to do a sectional map amendment, we would, I think, have to create a more detailed survey of the boundaries of what is proposed for designation.

Well. I don't know, we have to move this forward somehow. Can we get a motion on the floor? Anybody care to make a motion?

I'll move the motion. You want to?

Which? What do you think?

But the original residential structure, I'm just wondering how much percent of the original elements we still have in there. Like the original structure, how much percent of the original elements are still in that structure?

When you say elements, are you referring to the exterior? Staff don't have an exact percentage. I believe it's pretty minimal.

Okay.

If the applicant has more specificity, you're welcome to answer that question. I don't know that anyone has a percentage. But most of the original materials have been replaced.

so we do not have an exact percentage but i can tell you i went out and i did the site visit i took photographs of the building examined it from all sides it is all modern material on the outside it is modern vinyl siding the porch has been replaced all the windows there is no original windows left in this building it's all been updated Even the roof is, you know, completely new, all new shingles. So there's very little, if you wanted to try and find original material, you'd probably have to open the building up and it would only be really on that ground floor. And that'd be like on the inside, which you can't really control that. And there's no telling how much was damaged by that fire in 1958 as well, you know, how much was covered over. But it is all modern materials on the exterior.

Right.

Thank you.

Well, you've not made our work easy.

How can we move this? The other motion, the third motion.

So again, this is the motion for designating a part of the property. This is for designating the entire property at 200B, and this is for not designating any of the properties at 200B.

I would take a stab at it.

Thank you.

Now remember, we have two other choices, even though we take a stab at this one, okay? So motion to designate part of the property finding that the original residential structure at 200 B Monroe street meets the historic district commission. HTC adopted criteria for historic significance. Um, criteria a in architectural design and landscape significant criteria. E I move that HTC recommend historic designation of the original residential structure.

There's a second part of that motion too. There's an additional part of that motion, Anita.

And so this criteria, okay, this talks about the urban renewal, the criteria E. So as written in the staff report, let us pull that up here and go to that page, it is on page, 663 of your packet and so staffs finding here would be for criteria historic significance criteria a which is represents the development heritage or cultural characteristics of the city staffs comment on that is the structure represents the history of residential development in the early 20th century in Rockville is also a structure near downtown Rockwell that survived a period of urban renewal in the mid 20th century. And then landscape design, our architectural design and landscape significance criteria E is represents an established visual feature of the neighborhood or city because of its physical characteristics or landscape components. And the staff comment there is the structure does represent an established visual feature of the neighborhood being at a prominent corner and entryway into Rockville town center and a structure that survived the urban renewal period.

So we have a motion to do on a second. I second.

Okay.

Can you read the second sentence of the motion as well?

find that the remaining structures at 200B Monroe do not meet the HDC adopted criteria for historic significance or architectural design and landscape significance. I move that the HDC does not recommend historic designation of the remaining structure on the property.

Thanks, Dr. Golden.

all in favor before we take um a vote please i'm going to ask our acting city attorney cindy walters to interject here um so typically this body will designate the entirety of a property yes or it'll say no um so it's very clear what the the lines and the bounds of that designation are because it's the entirety of a parcel In this instance where you are entertaining, potentially designating a portion of that, we need to know where those lines are. So I'm going to ask Ms. Walters to chime in here.

So under the circumstances, I'm... advising that maybe the motion also has some conditional language that it'll be conditioned on. Yes. Hold on, let me think because I did draft something here that it should probably be conditioned on you know, an accurate map or something of the outline of the property that's going to be designated. I don't know, Katie and Megan, if you would like to try and come up with some conditional language, but, you know, we really don't have like the outline that Katie's described. And I would hate for us to have to wait and come back you know, after we have it properly outlined.

Staff are working through creating some additional language to that extent. Yeah.

Okay, the motion with the conditional language is before you all. And Cindy, if you want to give your thoughts on that as well.

I'm comfortable.

Do we need clarification as to who's doing the survey?

Do we...

Ms. Walters, I'll ask you if the findings or if the motion has to specify that.

I don't think it has to specify that, but it's got to be done.

We can work with you offline.

So do we present the entire motion?

That's what we'd recommend, to be cleanest.

MR. Sure. Yeah. So, Anita, would you do the honors?

Okay, 200B Monroe Street, motion designate part of property. Finding that the original residential structure at 200B Monroe Street meets the Historic District Commission, HDC's adopted criteria for historic significance criteria A and architectural design and landscape significant criteria E. I move that HDC recommend historic designation of the original residential structure. Finding that the remaining structure at 200B Monroe do not meet the HDC adopted criteria for historic significance or architectural design and landscape significance, I move that HDC does not recommend historic designation of the remaining structure on the property. This finding is conditioned on completion of a survey showing the boundaries of the designated and non-designated portion of the property.

I second.

All right. All in favor of the motion, raise your hand to say aye. The motion passes 3-0. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. Nancy, before you leave, we passed over Peelis Rockville at the beginning. Can we go ahead and enter that into the record? Do you have anything to say, Nancy?

What's that? Yeah, Nancy.

I'll just be quick. Thank you, Commissioner Goldfinger. I know that, and I look at it all the time. In just one minute, I lost it. Thank you, Commissioner Goldfinger. Yeah, just on behalf of Peerless Rockville, I just want to remind you all that we have our exhibit, Rockville 250, Our American Story. It is open at the Red Brick Courthouse Wednesdays through Fridays, and we do have some weekends that it's also open And we have had some people trickling in. We're trying to get more people into the building. And he is also in the building. So we're trying to get that red brick courthouse used more. But that so that's the biggest thing. There's other things coming up. There is programs associated with the 250th America story. and one that's coming up next week is a program on actually Union troops here in Rockville during the period of the Civil War. So if you're interested in that, anyone in the public, please join us, and I thank you for having me here tonight.

Thank you, Nancy. You're welcome. Okay, so moving along. Next on the agenda are discussion items starting with old business. There are no items under the old business on the agenda. Next is new business beginning with the zoning ordinance rewrite and comprehensive map amendment. Does staff have an update for the body?

Yes, we do. We have a brief slide deck for you all. So as we've discussed a few times in our meeting this evening on June 29 for the mayor and Council adopted and updated zoning ordinance. As well as a comprehensive map amendment that accompanies that ordinance so we'd have just a couple of slides here to make sure you all are aware of those changes that were adopted in that new ordinance. and how they may impact the work that this body does. So as a quick refresher and some background information for you, the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite Project, we've been calling it the ZOR for short because that's a mouthful to say all of that at once, is a complete and comprehensive rewrite of Chapter 25 of the city, that's just a city code, not city zone, of the city code. So chapter 25 is our zoning ordinance. It's also looking comprehensively at updating Rockville's zoning map. So in the last case, we actually talked about a rezoning that was approved through the CMA, the Comprehensive Map Amendment. So that effort in total, both the rewrite of the regulations and the update to the zoning map, The goal there is really to achieve the policy outcomes that are identified in the Rockville 2040 comprehensive plan, as well as some other changes that would modernize the ordinance, make it a bit more transparent, a bit quicker, and generally just incorporate best practices. This work has not been done in the city of Rockville since 2009. That was the last time the ordinance was rewritten. Additional background information on this project specifically, it publicly started in 2023, so it's been almost exactly three years of the life cycle of this project. In that time, there were 78 public meetings, 269 public comments, and three various drafts of the ordinance that have been posted online. I already mentioned June 29th is the date that it was adopted by the mayor and council with an effective date of August 1st. So we're kind of in the limbo right now where the new ordinance has been adopted, but it's not yet effective. Another reminder, you've seen this slide in the past, but zoning ordinance is linked to preservation. It's hard to separate the two. So when we are talking about designating a structure, what we are doing is rezoning that structure into the historic district overlay zone. Additionally, the zoning ordinance gives the authority of you all as a commission. It establishes your powers and what you can and cannot do. The certificate of approval process is outlined in the zoning ordinance, as is the evaluation of significance or designation process. So as we look at what was actually adopted, you all have seen proposed regulations twice, I think it was, over the last year. But now we're going to talk about actually what did go through, because up until the day that it was adopted, there were some changes being made throughout. So the first change, Article 11 is the article within the code that now houses all of our preservation regulations. In the previous, I'll call it the previous code, the code that is currently here, Preservation regulations are all over their place. They're in different articles. If you're looking for certificates of approval, you have to look in one article. If you're looking for the HDC, you have to look in a different article. If you're looking for evaluations of significance, that's in yet a different article. It's really hard to follow. So now all of that has been consolidated. And if you're looking for preservation, it's going to be in Article 11. So we think that's going to make it a lot more user-friendly for everyone. In this new ordinance, demolition by neglect is expressly prohibited. So we've talked about this in the past. It's a defined term, but nowhere in our code does it say don't do it or what happens if you do it. So now that is expressly stated. Another change is certificate of approvals. Their validity has extended from one year to five years. So that is consistent with many of our other permit and approvals that we have throughout the Department of Community Planning and Development Services. We thought it made sense to make everything valid for the same length of time instead of having each application, each permit have a slightly different validity period. And the other thing that's kind of a general change in the section that talks about the authority of you all as commissioners for the HDC, we've pulled in some of the language from our certified local government agreement, specifically that talk about the qualifications of our commissioners. So that's now codified. As you all know, because you are commissioners and we are a CLG, there are certain educational or work experience requirements for commissioners. So now we've actually stated that in the code. So moving forward, We're saying these folks have to have these criteria, these qualifications to serve. Now we're going to go through kind of themes of changes here. So as far as historic designation criteria and the filing of an application. So our designation criteria are now codified. In the current code, it references the historic preservation plan from the late 1970s that have our designation criteria then within that document. So we're just putting them directly into the code here. We think that'll be a lot easier for everyone. In addition to meeting one or more of our designation criteria, the property must also display integrity. to be designated. That's sort of alluded to in the existing code, but it's not very clear. So now it is made more clear there. And another change that has happened here is only the HDC or the mayor and council may file an application for historic designation. We've talked about this as a body before as well. So if there's a third party that's interested in seeing a property be designated, they would bring it up to you all as the HTC or the mayor and council. And from there, those bodies would determine, yes, we want an evaluation of significance to take place. Right now it is, I need to confirm that Nancy, because what you're saying totally makes sense. Yes, I need to confirm that. Let me confirm that for you all. My brain is not functional.

Isn't it also currently the property owner or any other individual on the face of the earth? Currently, yes.

I believe it is. We will confirm that for you all. Okay. And then owner consent. So this is an item that has changed pretty significantly throughout the iterations before you all, before the planning commission, and then ultimately before the mayor and council, before they adopted this plan. So the way that it has landed here is that if a property owner is opposed to the designation of their property, a majority of the HDC have to vote in the affirmative to recommend designation. That is not a change. From right now. So right now, this is a body of five. We need three or more votes in order to recommend designation of a property. At one point in time, there was a discussion of changing that. That is not in the adopted ordinance. It stays the way it is for you all. Where it did change in the newly adopted ordinance is at the mayor and council level. So once it gets to the mayor and council, if an owner states in writing that they are opposed to the designation of their property, a supermajority vote is needed rather than a simple majority vote. So it's a slightly higher bar in the case that a property owner is not interested in having their property designated. Interesting.

Interesting.

Regarding evaluations of significance, a couple of changes here. First is that we've put into this code the validity period for evaluations of significance. It's pretty vague in the code right now. So that question always comes up of, okay, well, if it was evaluated a year or two ago, is it still valid? What do we do? So now we're going to be exact there, just like our certificate of approvals. Evaluations of significance would be good for a period of five years. So let's say... making up an example, but let's say you all heard a case tonight that you recommended against historic designation for now until July 16th, 2031. That would still be valid. So if in four years from now, somebody, let's say they never actually do anything with the structure. They go through the evaluation of significance, you determine it does not meet a designation criteria, nothing happens, the property changes ownership, and now they're ready to do something they're interested in demolishing. If it's within that five-year period, your previous decision on that would stay. If it's past that five-year period, we would do a whole new evaluation of significance because it's possible that the significance has changed over the course of those five years. Additionally, and this is a bigger change that at the staff level, we're kind of working through some of the mechanics on this, but this would allow in certain circumstances staff to sign off on an evaluation of significance. So if the property is listed within our historic buildings catalog, or if staff's research and findings show that it meets one or more designation criteria, it is coming to you. We're not making that decision on our own at the staff level. The only way staff would be able to sign off is if it very clearly does not meet either of those two criteria. making up an example here, but a structure that was built in 2020, that there was a fire and half of it has been demolished. And now they're seeking a demo permit for the remainder of it. Something like that staff would have the ability to sign off on, on our own. Next, when we talk about certificate of approval, administrative approval, we briefly touched on this earlier in the evening as well. Right now, there are three types of exterior alterations that staff have the ability to approve administratively. That's the removal of trees and bushes, that's signage, and that's fences. This new code expands what staff can administratively approve. This is not a complete list. This is just some of the items that we see come before us most frequently. I believe there are 13 items that are specified out in the code. So we will be seeing, I presume, more of these cases come in for administrative approval than come in for you all. What we are working through at the staff level, as I mentioned when we talked about our annual report, is kind of the procedure and the protocol for staff to do our review and determination for these. Just like our existing administrative approvals, we are looking at the Secretary of the Interior Standards and we are looking at our technical guides. And in the event that an item that's an admin item, administrative approval, does not conform with those two references, we deny it. So we will continue to do that. The other thing that we're going to work through and staff is the best way for us to report out to you all which administrative approvals have been granted. It'll probably be in the form of some sort of monthly report. We haven't decided exactly what that's going to look like yet, but we want you all to be aware. So if you see work happening on a historic structure, you're aware of, yes, they did actually come to us, they did get permission, or maybe this is work that's being completed without a certificate of approval. And then delisting, this is an entirely new concept in the adopted code. So it creates a process for the removal of the historic district overlay zone if a site or structure has lost the characteristics that justified its designation. This process can only be initiated by two bodies, the property owner or the mayor and council. And the process for evaluating an application for delisting would be the same as an application for an evaluation of significance. So it would come to you all. You all would look and say, okay, here are the criteria that justified its designation. Has it lost those criteria? Yes or no. And then if you all say yes, in fact, it does, then it would move to, it would be a sectional map amendment. It would move to the planning commission for their recommendation. And ultimately the mayor and council would be the body that decides that. Similar to our current process, if it comes to you and you say, nope, it has not lost those characteristics that justified its designation, process is done. It ends right there. It stays as a designated structure. So think of it as the same process as an evaluation of significance, just the end product is the inverse. And that is it, Megan is telling me. So we at the staff level are very actively working through how we implement all of these changes, not just for preservation, but for everything that is incorporated within our zoning code. We fully understand that there will probably be things that slip through the cracks that the code didn't anticipate X, Y, and Z circumstance happening. Our zoning team already actually has a list of things that we're going to need to do a text amendment to update those things. So we are actively watching it. We're actively tracking changes. We know it's not going to be perfect right out of the gate, but certainly your staff here in the preservation side are going to do everything we can to be thorough, to make sure we are updating our policies, our procedures, how we do things here in alignment with this new ordinance.

Well, great. Thank you. Thank you. That was excellent. Yeah, I guess I'm up again. Let's see. Oh, next is the sectional map amendment for 24 Martins Lane. Is there any update from staff?

Yes, just a verbal update for this. So you all... voted at your last meeting to file a sectional map amendment that has been filed with the city clerk's office. This case is currently scheduled to go before the planning commission next Wednesday, that is July 22nd, where they will make their recommendation on whether they believe that designation meets the purposes of the historic district overlay zone, as well as if it complies with the comprehensive plan. assuming that that group makes their decision next Wednesday when they hear it. We are tentatively scheduled to have a public hearing before the mayor and council on September the 14th. That meeting is also tentatively scheduled to have a discussion and potential action item by the mayor and council on that day as well. It's tentative because we need to make sure that the planning commission makes their decision before it moves along, but assuming that they do, September 14th is the date that we're currently tracking.

Great.

Can you come to the podium, please? I just had a question about whether all parties that participated, had comment, were here, were involved, have gotten notice because that's a week away and that's a really quick turnaround.

I'd have to confirm with our planning tech who does all of the notices. I know whatever notices are required by code have been done, but I don't have that specific list.

Are those mailings to nearby property owners? Yes. Does that include people who were involved in the process?

I do not believe that. I think it is based on a radius of of the property, I would have to look that up. I don't have it on the top of my head here.

OK. Confirmation of that would be great. And I'm not sure I recall what the specific process is. But if they haven't been, the community is very invested in that particular property. We had quite a few people that were speaking for it. So thank you.

Thank you. OK. And finally, we have the historic preservation event. This item was added to the agenda at the request of Commissioner Neal Powell during our June meeting.

OK. So this is where we are at this point. Commissioner Anita Neal Powell and Vice Chair Michael Goldfinger We met several times to carve out ideas regarding the preservation conference in November. A future meeting date has to be confirmed for the two of us to meet to talk about what goes on tonight. What is needed from commissioners and staff? Available Saturday dates in November. I'd also like to confirm mayor and council availability to attend. Looking at 9.30 to 12 p.m. And location would be in a historic building. The theme is just a draft at this point is preserving and protecting historic properties. And you all can chime in any time you want. Okay. The timeline for marketing the conference, inventory reports, website, historic property owners, et cetera. And suggested panelists will be from the city, county, and state. The focus of the Preservation Conference for November is to have a panel of individual stakeholders or experts from the city, state, or community to share information about the draft topics that I will read in a minute. The topics listed below are to outline some of the items that have come before the Commission in one way or another. What is the role and responsibility of HDC? Guidance on designated historic properties, which could include what you should not do with a historic property. What is the difference between historic sites and historic districts? What is the difference in requesting a courtesy review versus submitting an application? What is new or different in Rockville regarding historic preservation? For example, changes that have been implemented within the last year. And of course, the Zora and the ordinance, et cetera. Repurposing historic property, such as converting a historic home and to a church or to some other purpose. What are the benefits of designating business or private properties? Available grants and incentives. Is there someone we could invite to talk about repurposing their property and why? For example, it could be a Carver building, which was a school, and it's now the administrative headquarters. It could be another property, not specifically Carver, but something that was used for one thing, well, tonight, right? You know, it was a home, and now it's being used as a commercial building. And if we could find someone who has come before us to share their experiences with us. And demolition by neglect, a purpose of demolition. I think we should invite the mayor and council to the meeting if we find out if they are available on whatever dates we come up with. Vice chair, do you have anything to add? Are there any questions? That should be my first one. Okay.

All right. So thanks so much for that. So are we to choose some of these topics?

Yeah, we wouldn't use all of them. Yeah, but I would like to, I think we want to have at least two panels. You know, we can group, put them in different categories, you know, to talk about them.

determine what's doable within the two and a half hours. And what would be most interesting to potential attendees.

Correct.

This is very good. Thank you.

You're welcome. Because I think some of the things that's listed here is what we hear and folks are interested in, and we need to, and hopefully that will drive some attendees to come and to learn more about what we do and why we do what we do. Does that make sense?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Anita. Any other comments? Mercy? No?

Okay, and I think you were saying that we will not be meeting in, I mean, it'd be helpful if you all take a look at this and try to, I mean, this is just a draft, it's a start. But if we could get some, set some dates that you might be available and then to see if Mayor Council have, those same dates, so at least we can start the process. We still have work to do, but this is a start.

Right.

Yeah.

So, if you have any comments, I guess, send them to Anita and me. And we will be meeting next week, I guess, sometime. Yes.

I guess the chair wants to be involved. I don't know why, but... You know, I couldn't let him go without making a comment, right?

We will have two of you involved because two of you is not a quorum and three of you is a quorum. So two of you will be involved. Two.

Right, right, right. Saturdays we have seven. November 7th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. Saturdays in November.

You got Thanksgiving in there too.

When is Thanksgiving? I don't want to do it. I would not recommend we work around Thanksgiving. But either the first or second Saturday?

Probably, yeah. I would think the first, at least the second, you're starting getting close to Thanksgiving.

Either 7th or 14th. Yeah.

Is that what it is? Yeah.

So, okay.

What do you all think about the time?

I think that's what we did last time.

Yeah. This is a very good start. Thank you. Okay. Moving along. I think that concludes anything else that anybody else wants to throw in?

Just a very quick question for staff. So when she was presented, was it mentioned that we no longer have demolition by neglect? Your presentation.

So the opposite. There are now regulations preventing or prohibiting demolition by neglect. So before, with our current code, our code is silent on it. It doesn't really, it says what demolition by neglect is, but it doesn't say you can't do it. It doesn't say here's what happens if this does take place. It's pretty silent on the matter. So the new updated code would say demolition by neglect is prohibited. You are not to have the demolition by neglect of a historic property. And in the case that that happens, there's a remedy there. So it gives us the ability to levy infractions on the property owner's in the event that they were to neglect their property to the extent that it's functionally obsolete.

And that only applies to properties that are designated historic? That is correct. Yeah, okay.

And there are a few stipulations within the code about state law on this like for example in state law there's a provision about financial inability being a carve out so it's a little bit more complicated in the code than we're discussing it now but that's the gist of it so i mean thinking of 24 martin's lane which is not yet designated

but before you can apply for a demolition permit, you have to come before the HDC, and we make a determination. So, okay. So there are strict controls, I guess, in that regard, yeah.

But to be clear, demolition by neglect and a demo permit are different. So yeah, like an evaluation of significance, if they're just putting in for a demo permit, that's what we're used to seeing all day long. The demolition by neglect would be in the case that a property was neglected for such a period of time that it functionally has been demolished. And that would be without a certificate of approval, of course, because the act of neglect would imply that they're not getting authority or permission to do that. Yeah.

Because we have considered a number of demolition permits or, you know, evaluations prior to, and we've approved all of them, except 24 Martins Lane. Yeah. Okay.

I have a question. So in terms of the timeline for marketing or getting something into Rockville Report, do you know or you have to get back to us regarding their turnaround times?

We typically work two months in advance. And the way that that process works is staff submits recommendations and then ultimately the communications team determines what does and does not go into the Rockville reports. So we can submit it. I cannot guarantee you that it would be in there, but we could certainly submit it. If this was a November event, that call would probably be in September would be my guess because it's about two months out. Okay.

Is there a number of word limit or...

We will not, they draft things. We say there's an event, publicize it, and they will draft that. They do not take drafts from staff or from commissions, correct? They are working with an incredibly, it's not a word count as far as everything has to be under 150 birds, for example. It's a space and layout. So depending on how many things they have in that issue, whether it's a single issue or a joint issue, it's not consistent over time.

So we or you would provide details and they would formulate the text? That's correct. Okay. Makes sense. All right. Anything else?

You said we will not meet in August. If there is an application, we will meet in August.

So we do not currently have any meetings in August scheduled. Correct. As you all know, we have a 45-day turnaround period for certificate of approval applications. So if we get an application in and that 45-day period is before our September meeting, we will have to either call an ad hoc meeting of this body or if the property owner agrees to extend that period, then we would hear them in September.

Okay, thank you.

It is staff's intent to try to keep that recess if that is a possibility for us.

I agree 100%. Okay, that concludes our agenda for tonight's meeting. We are now set to adjourn. Can I have a motion?

I move to adjourn the meeting. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries three to nothing. This meeting is adjourned.