Historic Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll stand for the pledges of allegiance. J. I pledge allegiance to the flag of

The United States Of America

and to the republic for which it stands,

Can we get our monitors turned on up here, please? Not

yet.

Here we coming. Here we Thank you.

Couple more, please.

Two more. This one. Very good. Thank you. Item d, citizen communication.

Pursuant to Texas government code section 551.007, which allows the public to speak for a total of three minutes on any of the agenda items listed below, excluding any executive sessions. Do we have any Citizen communication. If not, we will go on to item E, approval of the minutes. E1, consider approval of the minutes of the 02/10/2026 historic preservation commission meeting. If there are no additions or corrections, May I have a motion to accept the minutes?

I move to accept the minutes as submitted.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded. The minutes accepted and approved. Certificate of appropriateness item F.

Do you need to vote?

You need a roll call.

I'll be the vote on the minutes. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Commissioner Conrad?

Yes. Commissioner Ellum? Yes.

Commissioner Simmons?

Yes. Commissioner Wolf?

Yes. Chairperson?

Yes. Now, item f, certificate of appropriateness. And f one is to consider a presentation and action regarding a certificate of appropriateness, HP26Dash003 at 603 East Liberty Avenue.

JULIE Good evening, commissioners. But the structure at 603 East Liberty, this is a side gabled home built sometime between 1910 and 1930. It's described in the survey as a Tudor style home with some craftsman influences. And the property has overlay zoning in addition to MUL based zoning. The request is to replace the existing composition shingle roofing with a similar composition shingle in a darker color.

The new shingles would be Owens Corning Duration in the color estate gray. Referring to the Secretary of Standards, we have applying standard for preservation number six, where severity of deterioration requires repair or limited replacement of a distinctive feature. The new material will match the old in composition, design, color, and texture. Staff analysis, the material matches the previous shingles in all but color. From photos, the shingles appear to have been the same color since 1992, but we don't have any photos from before that, so we don't know what the original colors were or if they changed at all or even if they were composition shingles or something else.

Both wood and composition shingles were common at the time it was built. The city doesn't have an adopted There's a mic. Okay. The city doesn't have an adopted color palette because the historic areas are so eclectic. And the guidance and the design guidelines is to select colors that are appropriate to the age and style of the building. And for most buildings, there's more than one appropriate color palette. So staff believes that this color of the proposed roofing is appropriate. And recommendation is in accordance with standard for preservation number six in the city's adopted historic design guidelines. Staff recommends approval for reroofing with composition shingles, Owens Corning Duration in color, Estate Gray.

Do we have any questions or comments from the commissioners? Hearing none, could we have a motion to accept staff recommendation?

I will move to accept the recommendations of staff for

the re roofing composition singles.

I second the motion.

I don't know that your mic is working. Is that working? No, she was just off. That's off.

Oh, can you hear me now? Can you hear me?

Is the little green light on? Is the little green light on?

Yeah, it's on. Okay.

Yeah, you're on.

You're on. Okay.

Could you repeat the motion? I'm sorry.

Yes. I move that we take the recommendation of staff to approve the reroofing of composition shingles.

Do you

want to second? Okay.

I second that motion.

Okay. Commissioner Conrad?

Yes. Commissioner Ellum?

Yes.

Commissioner Simmons? Yes. Commissioner Wolf?

Yes.

Chairperson? Yes.

Item F2, consider a presentation and action regarding a certificate of appropriateness, HP twenty six-four at 2500 East Palm Valley Boulevard. Thanks. Thanks for

a minute. I didn't have the slides up here. Okay. This is for a request from Palm Valley Lutheran Church. The church building was built in 1894. This is the third church building on the site. The building is a recorded Texas historic landmark. It's been a state recognized landmark longer than it's been in the city. So it wasn't annexed until the city limits until 2009, and that's when HOA zoning was added. The request is to replace the painted wood double cove shingles on the steeple with prefinished metal fish scale shingles, which like this, only prefinished in white.

The Texas Historical Commission reviewed the request in January 2026. The church, however, did not realize that they needed a separate review from the city, and so they had not requested a certificate of appropriateness. This would have been the first project since they were annexed that would have required a certificate of appropriateness. The church's property committee believes that the wood shingles were installed in the 1940s. And since then, the only maintenance has been painting.

Their proposal to the THC was to either repaint the previous wood shingles or to replace them with metal fish scale shingles. The historical commission responded that they did not approve of the paint type that they would have used to repaint them. And while the replacement shingles did not have to be an exact match, the metal fish scale shingles they felt were not similar enough for such a prominent building feature. The property committee and the Texas Historical Commission then discussed several other types of wood and metal shingles. But the committee decided to use the fish scale shingles after confirming that using them would not cause them to lose their RTHL designation.

And they have since been installed. Let me go again to standard preservation for preservation number six, repair or replacement of distinctive feature sorry. Where deterioration requires repair or limited replacements of a distinctive feature, the new material will match the old in composition, design, color, and texture. The THC also referenced preservation brief number four. Preservation briefs are put out there are a series of topic specific guides put out by the Department of the Interior.

The number four is about roofing. And here, they note that there may be valid reasons for replacing the roof with which I just lost the slide. Thank you. There may be valid reasons for replacing the roofing material with a different material. However, the decision to use an alternative material should be weighted carefully against the primary concern, which is to keep the historic character of the building.

If the roof is readily visible, the alternative materials should match as closely as possible the scale, texture, and coloration of the historic roofing material. Usually with an RTHL property, we don't have the HPC consider a certificate of appropriateness until the THC has made its recommendation. They consider that as part of the certificate of appropriateness. And HPC almost always concurs with the THC. In this case, have a product that was installed after the THC had rejected it and without HPC review.

This was the church's first project since it was annexed that would have required a certificate of appropriateness. And they did conscientiously reach out to the THC. And staff did not find out about the project until residents saw the scaffolding and asked us about it. Analysis here looking through the THC's analysis, they did not appear to be very concerned about changing from wood to metal shingles. Their concern was that it would create a very significantly different visual texture created by the shadow lines of the double cove shape versus the fish scale shape.

Looking back a little further on the building's history, the building committee believed that the previous shingles were installed sometime in the 1940s. So they've been there most of the building's life. They've definitely acquired their own significance. An earlier photo than that from 1930 also shows a light colored steeple. Of course, we can't tell anything about the texture. There is an older photo than that, which is not needed. But the previous church building is there, too, so we know it's older. And there, it shows that the roof is darker than the red brick. And I'm going to guess that it's probably unpainted wood shingles. But of course, we can't tell from this distance.

When the church and the THC discussed other options, They considered several types of metal and wood shingles but couldn't come to an agreement. If they had cut identical wood shingles, they could have done that as a custom cut, that was out of their budget. Both believe that and they also looked at some wood shingle shapes standard but not so common. Would have been special order. And none of them believed that any of those standard shapes were close enough.

And the shingles that the THC preferred were the two metal shingles in the middle there, one of which has a fish scale shape. The church, however, believed they had too much detail and didn't have the simplicity of shape. And they countered with a proposal to cut a metal panel with notches at the bottoms to imitate a whole row of shingles. But the THC believed that was inappropriate. So then that's when the property committee asked whether using the original shingles they had originally wanted would have caused them to lose their designation on the THC, said no.

And these are the previous and current shingles. You can tell there is the previous shingles have kind of more of a dot array, whereas the new shingles have a little more of a wavy line kind of across them. I have the middle picture in there to show that they are indeed white. You can't really tell from the it was a cloudy day when I took the photo on the right. Other parts of the roof, the decorative ornaments.

There's the band with the quatrefoils on it that's metal. Bat and the cross at the top were cleaned and reinstalled. So the staff recommendation staff doesn't believe that the difference in visual texture diminishes the steeple's historic character or that it outweighs the property committee's concerns relating to cost and durability. So in consideration of standard for preservation number six and recommendations and preservation brief number four, staff recommends approval of the installed white steel fish scale shingles as selected by the church's property committee. And John Reed, the property committee chair, was going to be here tonight. But I don't see him.

Do you have any insight on why they chose the metal shingles? Because they just didn't match to me.

JOSE think the consideration for metal versus wood was just durability. They couldn't tell until after they started taking it apart. But actually, the shingles were the old wooden shingles, because it's such a steep slope, they actually had held up pretty well. So it was really more of a paint issue. They'd wanted to use woah.

It's flashing. Okay. It's flashing at me. They wanted to use what was rhino paint. It's a really impervious paint that would have been a very hard surface, and they thought that would have caused some damage to the surface there.

Yeah, I think a lot of the shape was more that they liked the simplicity. They thought the other two shapes there, one of which was fish scale shaped, It was a little that the THC approved both of they thought it was a little too had too much detail and was a little too fussy.

I wanted to ask a question about since this was a retroactive request, but it's based on them working with the THC because of that designation and not understanding that they needed to also work with the city because they were annexed later, what happens to avoid? What would be done to avoid this from happening JULIE in the future with other

They've been made aware of the need to do so. It's the first project that they've had since 2009 that would have required a certificate of appropriateness.

I just wondered, like, you know, because to avoid it, to save them ish hardship or whatever.

JULIE So I can add one item, and that's that often when it's a private owner, they're notified of their eligibility for tax exemption as a new owner. And so they would know. But in this case, since it's a church and they're tax exempt, they wouldn't receive that notification. Okay.

Does the Texas Historic Commission have any obligation? When they're working, like, because they communicated with them, would they have had an obligation to tell the church, make sure you check with the city? Or is that

just not part It's helpful. Their A lot of the THC reviewed properties are outside of city limits, any city limits. So like, before it was inside our limits, they were the only ones who reviewed it. And a lot of their they don't necessarily keep track of where the city limits are for when applicants come before them.

Because they're dealing with the whole state. Yeah. Okay. I'm just curious.

Are there any other buildings that would be like a church owned property that we haven't had a CFA for that would fall

That are designated? There is a on Chisholm Trail, there is Kingdom Heights Christian School is a was formerly a house. It's one of the old town structures. So that's one that they have come before the HBC before at their tax exempt, so they don't see us every year. There's a property on the Methodist Church campus, which again was a house.

They use it as their family lifestyle building. And that's also another eighteen sixty building. It's quite old. Only recently realized that they were in the city and needed a certificate of appropriateness when we went and put one of the little oval markers on it. Like, oh, we need to talk to you.

But I met with their building maintenance person. And nothing's come up yet. Nothing's come up yet, seems quite open to it. If the HPC denies the certificate of appropriateness, that technically becomes a zoning violation, which can carry a fine, which would be set by a judge.

I'll

make a motion to approve the staff recommendation. And I'll second it.

Okay. Vote again. Commissioner Comrade?

Yes. Commissioner Ellum?

Yes. Commissioner Simmons? Yes. Commissioner Wolf?

Yes.

Chairperson? Yes.

We have Commissioner Peterson also.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Yes. Sorry. Thank you.

Item F3, consider a presentation and action regarding a certificate of appropriateness, HB26-two, at 10 Chisholm Trail Road. This

is an unusual structure for the Chisholm Trail area. This was originally military housing that was moved from Fort Hood in the 1960s. It has H overlay and CT overlay zoning. There's some information in your packets about how it came to have H overlay zoning. But we have no records of it.

It is old enough that it could be considered on its own right. But we don't have any record of whether its original condition was when it was changed. And it is kind of out of state with a lot of the other properties on Chisholm Trail. So we rely more on CT Overlay zoning because we wouldn't be able to assess how well it's adhering to its original condition. So CT Overlay Zoning is a design related district that has certain design measures to make so that structures that are not historic complement the area's historic buildings.

The building currently has mostly board and batten siding on it. The owner believes that the Dutch lap siding on the gable is what was originally on the whole building. Your request concerns replacing a part of the siding. In 2024, the tax exemption inspection showed that some of the siding on the north side had been replaced with plain lap siding without a certificate of appropriateness. And the 2025 tax exemption inspection showed the same thing and still no certificate of appropriateness.

And they were denied the exemption that year. And the columns also have sustained some moisture damage. So their request is to replace the lap siding on the north side with board and batten siding using LP SmartSide engineered wood soffit panels and LP SmartSide trim boards in a three and onetwo inches size, both in a cedar texture that's intended to replicate the texture on the wood siding on the other parts of the building. The porch columns, they are requesting to replace them with a similarly shaped fry pond PVC solid core porch posts. And they are requesting approval of paint colors.

It's unclear whether they are proposing the paint only for the parts they're replacing or for the whole building. Again, we have set a standard for preservation number six, whereas severity of deterioration requires repair or limited replacement to have a distinctive feature, the new material will match the old in composition, design, color, and texture. So step analysis is because of the building's history, we evaluate its appropriateness by its impact on surrounding historic properties and whether it complies with the requirements of the CT overlay zoning district. CT overlay requires that exterior materials to be wood or stone. Wood siding must be made of wood with board and batten or narrow lapped insulation.

Siding here is the existing board and batten siding on the south and east walls is wood. It's rough textured wood. And the SmartSide products are actually engineered wood, which are thin strands of wood bound together with resins and treated with zinc borate for longevity. And so Steph's conclusion here is that the replacement siding must be wood with a texture and placement matching the existing siding on the south and east walls. Columns, the existing columns are wood and the five point columns are made from PVC.

Steph's analysis here is that the replacement columns must be wood to be compliant with the CT overlay conditions. The new columns and since moisture is something of a problem because they're set directly on the concrete, there are other methods that they could be protected from moisture by either using a standoff post base, like illustrated, or using a membrane in between the concrete and the post, like the kind of membranes that they use between concrete foundations and cell plates and light frame construction. The paint colors, Steph believes, are appropriate without a paint chip. We can't really tell if they actually match. And again, the application wasn't unclear about whether it was intended for the whole building or just for the new parts.

If it's for only the new parts, then we would kind of want to make sure that they're close enough. So in accordance with standard for preservation number six and the CT Overlay District requirement, staff recommends that the siding and porch columns must be replaced in kind with wood. Their placement siding must be rough textured wood matching the board and batten siding on the south and east walls. The wood selection must be approved by staff. Their placement porch columns must be turned wood with a similar profile.

Selection must be approved by staff. And the parameters for that selection, the HPC should include parameters like does it have to be turned wood? Since it's not an original feature, we're quite sure it's not. How close is close enough to the shape and size? New wood columns may be protected from slab moisture with a standoff post base or with a waterproofing membrane.

Either of those would be hidden by base molding that's similar to what's already on the what's currently on the porch posts. Paint colors four fifteen windmill and fourteen twenty one wheat sheaf are appropriate. If only the porch columns and the replacement siding on the north wall are to be painted, then the applicant shall provide paint chips to staffs so that we can confirm matching before they order it. And I do not see that applicant here either.

Any questions or discussions from the commission? Do we have a motion?

Do we have to read all of that?

No. You can you want to you can say staff recommendation plus or minus whatever you want to change about it.

Okay. Well, then I move that we accept the staff recommendation as listed for those four items that you listed.

JULIE Do you have parameters for the porch columns? Do they need to be turned? Do they need to have that similar kind of stacking pattern where they're square at the top and bottom and round in the middle? Or how close is close enough?

JULIE That's a lot to ask. Can we because you say here the front porch columns must be replaced with similar wood columns. Do we have to be that more specific than that?

JULIE Okay. So we would love to be turned in a similar shape to what's

DELL: Similar to currently what was there previously. Does that motion make sense now? Okay. Is it ready for a second, that motion?

Okay. Let's go back to that. Maybe before they install it, approval.

That's what it says on here. Selection must be approved. JULIE Selection

of replacement columns must be approved. Paint must be approved. You have that all in

So if they came back with like four by four posts or six by six posts there that were square, would that be Okay? Or are you wanting them to be turned, like the ones that are there?

They should be like what's there. Okay. Yeah. And you even say that here, they must be replaced as similar. Okay.

And the selection of replacement columns must be approved by staff.

Before they order it. Second. Okay. Commissioner Conrad?

Yes.

Commissioner Ellum?

Yes. Commissioner Simmons? Yes. Commissioner Wolf?

Yes.

Commissioner Peterson?

Yes.

Chairperson?

Yes. CHRISTINE Item G, update G1, consider a monthly update by staff and commissioners relating to historic preservation projects, goals, events,

and activities. As for this agenda, we were trying to combine the last two items that we've been using in agendas into one item so they can kind of all be together. Updates here, preservation month coming in May. This Thursday is the proclamation at city council, six to eight pm. Richard will be speaking to accept it.

The Williamson Museum's two events, their fundraiser, the Chuckwagon Dinner, will be May 1. The Pioneer Day for the kids will be May 2. On May 12, Round Rock Preservation and the city are co sponsoring Lunch and Learn Stories of Maze in Maine, presented by Mark Mayfield. Mark has a big collection, a family collection, of photos and some family home movies from the '50s. So I think it should be a real visual treat.

On May 14 is the opening reception for the Center Art Club in their preservation themed exhibit. We'll have a booth at Music on Main on May 2027. I believe we have volunteers for that. Okay. And then also in the 3rd Floor of the library for the whole month is an exhibit Pioneers of Palm Valley that was curated by Round Rock Preservation and the Palm House Museum.

Also, in local legend, we try to start promoting local legends again. The nominations for this year are due by June 30. The application form and instructions are on the local legend web page. Feel free to please spread the word to people who to who would be good nominators. And the presentation to recipients will be at the city council meeting in October, November.

The HBC will decide on the honorees at its September work session. In training, everybody, all staff and commissioners, have been signed up for have been registered for a webinar on May 14, Making the Case Economic Impact Studies for Historic Preservation, which should be very valuable. And this morning, we found that our travel grant was approved to send two people to Form 26 in July, which will be me and Shagupa. That's in Minneapolis. So it's mosquito season there.

Also, tax exemptions. The applications are required to be uploaded or postmarked by April 30, which means that we can get some very late entries in. As of now, 30 of about usually about 50 have come in. The first batch of them we've inspected a lot of them, and the first batch has been uploaded to the SharePoint folder, which everybody should have a link to. All the inspection form staff will have to conclude all the inspections by May 4.

And commissioners will need to submit all the ratings for them by May 4. If there are some really late ones, we'll adjust that. The reason for doing that early is so that we can compile all the information and get it to you in a packet earlier than usual. The HBC will vote on its recommendation to the city council at its May 19 meeting. And that's when applicants may address the HBC if they're in danger of failing the inspection.

And the city council's first reading of the exemption is scheduled on June 25. They are required to adopt the ordinance by July 15. We'll be doing training on how to doing the inspection forms and assigning a rating. I'll be doing that for new commissioners, if anyone else wants to contact me as soon as possible, because we'll be scheduling that soon. Any other announcements? Can I ask a question?

On one of the properties on my list, it doesn't show an app received, but it shows it was inspected. Is that possible? Yeah.

On the downtown properties, they are all attached. So it's easier to do them all as a batch. And so far, all them have applied to at least the last five years, if not longer. So we got you're

just getting ahead of the game.

Yeah, the things if we waited for them, then we would be getting things into the this way, we upload it to SharePoint as soon as they apply. Okay. I like that. So For others, for homeowners, we always want to call them ahead of time. But the commercial railroad is downtown. They're all together. JULIE Okay.

One more time, can you tell me when the our inspections are due? Did you say May

JULIE May 4? It was that's for when all the ratings are to be due. If you can look at them the ones that have been uploaded to, if you can look at them earlier than that, especially if there's a danger that they might not be passing, because we would really like to give them as much warning or heads up to if they are in danger of failing it. For most of them, it's not an issue. It's usually just like one or two a year.

But it's a tight timeline. And we do have another planner helping with the inspections now. Is This issue is new this year.

That's good. Anything else?

Anything that anybody wants to announce?

I guess we are adjourned.

That works very quick.