Historic Preservation Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, board members. We are live and recording in the chambers. Can you hear us, Board Member Costales? Yes. Thank you very much. We do have two board members here in the chambers, and the city attorney and myself are here, and we are ready to start. We do have a quorum. We have Gary Costales, Manuel Menendez, Israel Rosado, Erica Hubbs, who is our new board member, and Guadalupe Perez. as well here in the chambers with us. Thank you.

Excellent.

Okay. I'm sorry. I'm just pulling up the

the agenda for today. And just to let you know, I don't know if you saw my email a little while, I know Gary, you saw it because you responded. It is, yes. The applicant for HPB 2026-001-COA, they are unable to make it today and they requested that they're out and be deferred to the February meeting.

And this is their first request?

Yeah, this is their first request.

Okay, and then we have a new, you said that we have a new board member?

Yes, we do. Our name is Erica Hubs. She's here in the chambers.

Oh, hi, Erica.

Hello, everyone.

Okay. All right. Then I'll call the meeting to order. The first, unless there's anything else before we start the meeting. Okay. I haven't heard nothing. We'll do the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, roll call. Gary Costales, present.

Manuel Menendez, present.

Okay, the last two, Ms. Hobbs?

Erica Hobbs, present. Erica, okay.

Okay. Well, we don't... Really quick, we do have Yvette Latour and Israel Rosado.

Yvette Latour, present, yeah.

Okay.

All right, so there's... There's nobody on here that's going to give any sort of testimony or statement, correct?

That's correct. There is someone named Stephen, but I don't know who that is or what they represent. They have their hand raised.

Okay. Stephen, do you plan to give a statement or any sort of testimony or anything of that nature tonight?

Stephen, you're muted. Try to unmute.

There we go. hi everybody this is stephen burke with visual impact studios and i'm attending the meeting in reference to crossroads signage this was something that was run through permitting and then we were informed that it would need to go through hpb so hopefully you gentlemen have that somewhere on your agenda we're going to take a look at that we're looking for hpb approval on electrical signs on the renovation of the crossroads

Uh, crossroads building project. Hi, Steven. Yeah, Steven. Uh, I got I received the email from Lisa golfing. And she asked that the item be be deferred to the next meeting because they weren't going to be able to attend. So is that. Is that still the case or.

Well, I guess my question, Lisa is the person that we hired to basically work on polling permits. So if we're able to address this during this meeting, I'm here, so I have the time to go over it. If for some reason we need to wait for Lisa, we can, but I certainly am willing to discuss this. If I don't have the information that I need that Lisa may have, then I guess we can defer the meeting.

I'll leave it up to the board whether They would like to hear the item. Perfect. Okay.

And it's Steven Burke, correct?

Yes. Visual Impact Studios out of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Okay. And I see that the applicant is priority one, the signs.

Yes, they are the sub that we have hired for manufacturing and installation of the signage itself. But they're actually contracted under us. We're contracted to the owner. Visual Impact Studios is contracted to the owner, if that makes any sense.

Okay. Are you able to answer questions and make statements that are binding on priority one signs and the applicant?

As far as from the signage angle, yes. I'm not able to speak for the owner on specific things, but we have knowledge. I have knowledge specifically into the signage in question.

Okay.

Mr. Costales, if the gentleman is representing that he does not have authority to speak on behalf of the owner, my advice to you is that we acknowledge the email that we received and we vote on the continuance.

That's fair enough. And when would this next meeting occur, please?

The next meeting would be Monday, February 23rd, 6 p.m.

Okay, second All those in favor For the record Marcus could you confirm the date to which this item will be continued?

This item will be continued to the board's February 23rd, 2026 meeting that starts at 6 p.m.

Okay. Thanks, everyone, for their time. And sorry about the mix-up. I'll see you guys in a month.

Okay. Thank you.

Have a good one.

Bye. The next item on the agenda is public comments, new business certificates, or appropriateness discussion. That is, I guess that's related to the applicant, correct?

No, this is an item that was proposed by Mr. Menendez for a discussion item among the board.

Okay. Go ahead.

Mr. Menendez, would you like to make a statement about your proposal or would you like me to summarize first and then you can pick it up from there? You're muted, sir.

Please go ahead, sir, please.

So I had a conversation a couple months ago with Mr. Menendez with respect to the standard that the city applies for the issuance of certificates of appropriateness. A certificate of appropriateness, as you're likely aware, is the approval that this board issues whenever there's to be repair, renovation, demolition, or reconstruction of a historically designated or historically protected property or development on a historically protected site. Mr. Menendez's concerns grew out of his observation that certain roof shingles on a building that was historically designated were approved for replacement. And he was curious why it didn't come to this board. Yes.

Yeah. If I might interject, the roofing material one was just the most recent one. There's also been, you know, like places getting, you know, repainted or whatever in the historic district. or even having a hardscape thing done in the years that I've been on here, that things that can somehow get approved administratively while other things come before us. I was just going to say that it's my observation that there's not a clear criteria or protocol for this. The city... I mean, staff can sometimes say, hey, this is close enough to what was existing or this is, you know, within the range of what's accepted. So it's in. So they when this happens, they're totally circumventing the historic preservation board.

So what's occurring is that the code, the city code today specifies that when an application, a building permit application is received by the city, the building official makes an initial review and a determination about whether it requires a certificate of appropriateness or not. In years past, we have not had a clear method of flagging on the computer system when a property was historic. Our current building official has changed that. She has updated the system so that every property within a historic district or that has a special designation will be flagged. And this is very important because it helps avoid things slipping through the cracks. So she has done that already. If I can get to the code, though, what it says today is that she has that discretion, right? I know from experience and from speaking to staff that that discretion is guided by the Department of the Interior standards. That's not stated anywhere in the code, I just know this from experience, and it's my understanding also the building officials, if I can distill the Department of Interior rules, I would say that the building official as a general rule allows replacements of like for like materials and conditions and designs administratively. So if your house is blue and it's historic and it was always painted blue and you're changing it for the same shade of blue, that's not gonna trigger a permit. And painting might be the simplest example to use, but that would go to the style of windows as well. They're identical, simple replacement. That's something that may not require this board's time. Mr. Menendez's proposal, I think, is to have this discussion about what criteria, if we were to have a more specific criteria, what criteria this board would think would be appropriate. So that's what the discussion is about.

Okay, so just to further summarize my understanding of the issue, I think Mr. Menendez Might have noticed a condition that perhaps should have gone through the proper procedure for a certificate of appropriateness to be properly flagged. And the city attorney has stated that there's a process in place to address that. Is that correct, Mr. Menendez?

Yeah, that is essentially it. And the thing is, like, the whole, like, like for like is, you know, is subjective. You know, in the case, you know, know that i was in the most recent example which was a re-roof job here in the cambridge lawns um you know it was a it's a material difference to go from uh you know an old you know a shingle that was once white and is old to uh like a dark you know like a what they call like a slate color one in the industry uh that's a material difference but it's also Who are the people that are making the decision, the determination? And what, you know, are they going out to the subject property? Are they looking at photos of it 10, 20 years ago? Like, how are they making the determination? It's very vague. And in that last case, and I had reached out to staff about it, I'll just go, hey, when did that house go before the board? And they go, no, this one didn't go. And that's my point. And I wanted to make the rest of the board aware that occasionally things are administratively approved. um, by who knows who, like, so I'm, it's something, uh, you know, I also have recently gone through, um, an addition. I'm just like halfway through an addition on my own home. Uh, I had to go show a lot of, you know, specific things to show, hey, this color is like for like, or all this kind of stuff. It also gets my attention how some things, again, can just be, you know, seemingly approved administratively. So I think that there should be some sort of criteria for this. And I don't know, I think... you know, there should be a process where even if it's, you know, if staff intends to approve it, I mean, maybe it doesn't need to be presented in a meeting, but maybe the historic preservation board should be emailed about it. I mean, there's only a few dozen historic properties.

Yeah, I agree. There's not many. So basically there was a change to a historic building that was not like for like, is what you're saying.

Yeah, in my opinion, and again, I mean, it happens to be in the industry that I'm in. It's not sufficiently like for like. It's the same material in a very different color.

Okay. Well, I guess that raises like a second issue because the city attorney raised a remedy for addressing the situation that Mr. Menendez is talking about. But then I guess the second issue is what about the... this property and other properties going forward, I suppose, where something falls through the cracks and there's not a like for like change. What do we deal with that? Is there some kind of retroactive?

Yeah. I think retroactively, it's going to be very difficult to go back to properties that have already been issued building permits and have already done the work. Um, yeah, there's an issue of vested rights and at the expense, many of your properties are single family homes. So that's not an expense that single family homes can bear.

And so I think I think the idea of retroactive is completely ridiculous. I mean, that's crazy. It's a matter of. You know, there's a board and then before people do it saying, hey, they shouldn't do this. Right and so there's things there's things even that are matters of zoning. There's things that are questions of zoning within the historic district that the city doesn't even get on, you know, so that are on major streets. So, I mean, the historic, like I said, my opinion is very few. We should be aware what, you know, who can approve them and what are these instances when they're going to be approved and why are those specifically allowed to go around?

I think what Mr. Marcos is saying, the city attorney, that there's now going to be a process in place that might catch your concern. Would you agree with that, Mr. Melendez, or do you think we need to do something else?

I think that it would be appropriate to, I don't know, do something. I think the Historic Preservation Board we could put something in writing of what we think would be an appropriate suggestion for this. And whether the city staff listens to it or doesn't is up to them. But I think We could put something together in a few minutes in a meeting. It could be somewhat constructive and just go, hey, I don't know. Maybe there's a certain language that we can put about how similar the things need to be. Otherwise, they should go before us.

Well, I think there's already standards in place. So I think you, go ahead.

Mr. Costales, the standards are not in the code. And I think that's Mr. Menendez's concern. The standards are applied by the building official are national guidelines that just about every city uses and this city does specify that it is consistent with the and every every property miami-dade county has to be consistent with the national standard okay but when it comes to that one provision in the code about that first determination there's no standards. And there's not a callback to the national standards. It simply says that the building official makes the initial determination. And so I think Mr. Menendez's point, he can correct me, is that he wants to see those standards written out somewhere so that the building official has some guidance.

Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it.

Thank you. Well, I think then the first thing that we have to do as a board is to identify the standard that that city official is using and take a look at the language.

Yeah, I'm like utterly ignorant. I've actually never read the standard that the city's staff is said to go by. And we'll read about it and familiarize myself with it.

And we can certainly circulate the national standards by email. What you're going to find, I think, is that they are not rigid, bright line standards. They allow a lot of discretion. And they're subjective. Subjective determinations have to be made. Some other cities, what they do in their codes is that they have clear lines, and that's good and bad. If you're on one side of the line, it can be good. If you're on the other side of the line, it can be bad. But it does create a... it does help a building official decide exactly what it is they have to do, whether it goes to hearing or does not go to hearing. And just to give you an example, it could be as detailed as replacing casement windows for light casement windows of the same materials and the same color. do not require a certificate of appropriateness. Or if you think casement windows are very sensitive, it's hard to know like for like, you want them all, then you could specify replacement of windows always comes to this board. And you can go element of a building by element of a building. It's quite an exercise because there's lots of elements to a building. but that's something you could do, or you could be more open-ended and turn on other criteria. The value of the change, for example, construction cost value, the amount of square footage affected, the amount of facade affected. If it touches the front facade, you always want it here, or maybe you don't. If it's the rear facade, you don't really care, perhaps, and you allow more flexibility. There's a lot of ways to skin this cat.

Yeah, those are good points. I think it sounds like the primary factor would be how it appears from the front, from the public face. So I think then for the next meeting, we should look at the language that even if it's general, but whatever language governs the touches on the issue with the building officials. Would you agree with that, Mr. Marcos?

Yeah, I can work with the building official, the city attorney's office can work with the building official and with Marcus to give you a few, we can do this a couple ways. We can draft for you a proposal, and then you can modify that proposal. Or we can give you almost like some menu, a menu of options based on what other cities have done, and then you can take bits and pieces. That would put more of the homework on you all. So there's two ways to go about it. You take the homework, and you read up on all these codes, and you decide. Or you allow us to prepare something, and then you tell us what edits you'd like.

I think the second option would, and it sounds a little more complicated, but would be good. But then I think we would also have to have the building officials weigh in on, I guess, the plausibility and the practicality of before we implement anything or make any recommendations, is there a mechanism where we could

uh send it through the city manager or to the building official for their input to that department whatever recommendations we make what your recommendations would go to the administration and then the administration would fine-tune it and put it before uh the commission for a vote and the commission i have to double check the rules but it may also require review by the planning board Planning board makes a recommendation Marcus is telling me. Yes, it does require planning board. So planning board would make a recommendation as City Commission would review and vote on this item twice and then it would become law There is another option short of short of creating a new law, and that's creating a handbook, if you will, or some guidance document that you could pass by resolution. And it would be this board's guidance to the building official, and that would be faster, but it would not hold the weight of law.

Um, yeah, well, I'd like to say, I think it'd be appropriate before we go any further with this is just, uh, you know, for the board for us to discuss it, uh, you know, the board members. And, uh, for us to take into consideration what different people's ideas are on this and, uh. And then we can make, maybe we can form our own framework on it and then and say, hey, um. you know, wall paint can be done administratively. But let's say somebody's changing a hardscape that's visible from the street, that should go before us or who knows, like, maybe we can develop the criteria, you know, at some point in a future meeting.

Well, I think there's already some guidance out there, which is which governs how we roll on these applicants. So maybe there's some language we can use from there. But if we were to put this on the next agenda, could we have somebody from the building department participate in anything that we discuss so that it works for everybody from a pragmatic standpoint?

PB, Lupita D Montoya, Good evening, this is the building official. So, um, yeah, I'm happy to review anything and see how best to PB, Lupita D Montoya, Implement it in the building department. We did. We do capture everything that's historic now. I think part of what happened with the other one was that it wasn't even identified as a historic property. We do capture them now. We have a GIS system that we included a layer that includes all the historic property in the city. So when somebody applies, the building department, when they get the take in, it automatically tells them it's a historic property and it'll flag it. So we make sure we bring it to the Historic Preservation Board. But...

Right. Okay. All right. So I guess the first part of Mr. Menendez's concern is taken care of with that. And then the second part is, essentially, it sounds as if there has to be clearer standards of what is like for like. Mr. Menendez, do you think that's a correct assessment?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess. I mean, that's one way to summarize it. Yeah, definitely.

In all honesty, we don't have so many historic properties that it would be burdensome to just bring anything that has to do with historic property to this board.

I agree.

But does that put more of a burden on property owners, though, if they are making some change that is clearly life for life? I mean, is there any issue with that?

I don't think it's something that occurs so often that we need to implement a process.

Okay.

You know, it's still...

Right. If I could say something, maybe if it's something that requires a building permit. There's a lot of things that are like home maintenance type things that aren't necessarily going to get a building permit.

Well, anything that comes in for a permit, whether it be a building permit or zoning, like painting, repainting, would it have to need a building permit, but it does need to get approval from the city for a historic property. So that we would bring to you. Cause I mean, yeah, paint is not technically anything that we really need to look at in the building department, but it can make a huge difference on a historic property and the look of the historic property. So that way.

Absolutely. I'm just going based on my experience. Um, you know, my 10 years on the board, just how many times I've seen a pain come before us versus how many times I've seen a pain happen in the wild. The ratio might be, you know, 15 to one or something. So who knows?

Yeah, I mean, if somebody's painting without a permit, that's like a whole different issue because obviously then, you know, unless we catch them in the act, we have no idea what's going on. So that's a bit we catch them. But if people pull the permit, then we should be able to easily capture it to SORIC and send it through this board. That sounds great.

And if they are repainting... Go ahead.

I was gonna say when I just I just joined the board, but when I asked for my first meeting, I asked him to send me sort of like the rules and regulations or the codes for the historic board. And I could have sworn and maybe this is what you're alluding to, I'm sorry, is that it's at all any any site that was historic, any application. So maybe just now you have it noted in the system. If there's not that many, then it feels like it's supposed to come for review anyway.

Yeah. First of all, Ms. Latour, I thought I had sent that to you. I will send it to you again tonight, so I apologize.

No, no, you did. I'm saying I asked for it and you sent it to me. And when I read through it, I could have sworn. I misheard you. I'm a nerd. I read it. I could have sworn it actually said that all applications had to come this way. It wasn't like for like. But maybe I misread somewhere. But thank you. Yes, you sent it to me when I started.

It says that a determination is made by the building official. And it doesn't use the phrase like for like anywhere or anything like that. I just know from experience that it's routine for the city to understand, especially on a single family home, a like-for-like application may not need to come to this board. The question is when do like-for-like, what is like-for-like, right? You know, that's the issue. But Ms. Cabrera is telling us that she could simply present all applications to you if you'd like, that it wouldn't be too burdensome. So if that's the will of the board, you could adopt tonight, if you'd like, a resolution requesting that the administration amend the code so that all applications come to this board. All applications for historic properties, of course.

Right, right. And what is an application? What's the definition of an application?

Application for a building permit and or for a ZIP permit. A ZIP permit is a zoning improvement permit.

And that would cover, the latter would cover painting, I suppose?

For single-family homes, no, but for commercial properties, yes. State law does not require a permit for single-family home painting, for painting single-family homes.

Does our code require that painting of single family come through this board? I mean, get a zoning permit. I have to check.

I have to check. I have to check to be sure. But the general rule in Florida is that there are no building permit requirements for paint. Yeah. Those are different.

We can't require a building permit for painting. Correct. We can require a zoning approval.

That's correct, Sarami.

Right.

Yes.

Maybe we something like that. I mean, if it's a historic property, you know, it's a whole different animal. Right. You have a historic property. We could write in the historic that any improvements or, you know, painting, whatever needs to come to the historic preservation board.

Yeah, I think painting might be a big ticket item or it could have the most impact. So right now, I know you probably just said it, but if somebody wants to change the paint, it's a zoning improvement application or is there any application required?

If somebody wants to repaint their house or paint their house. Generally speaking, it'll be a zoning improvement permit for single-family homes. For commercial properties, there's very often other work being done, especially if the property is along the right-of-way and some of our historic properties are. They're also going to need permits for the sidewalk, for blocking the sidewalk during that period. maintenance of traffic approval, and so on. So there's a host of permits that could be triggered even just for painting a commercial property.

And for a private house, you're saying it's a zoning improvement permit?

Yeah, usually it's just a zoning improvement permit.

Okay, so and right now zoning improvement permits do come to the board or do not?

If they get flagged, they'll come to the board. So the most famous example of why zoning improvement permits, you may know that in the Florida Building Code, it specifies that thatched structures constructed by native tribes, by the Miccosukees, for example, do not require building permits. It's just a quirk in the code. Nonetheless, even though state law says you don't need a building permit for this kind of structure, you need a zoning improvement permit. Why? To make sure that it meets setback requirements, for example, right? We have rules, I believe we have rules that don't allow a tiki hut in the, or a thatch structure in the front setback, for example. And so anything like that, imagine that structure in the front setback of a historic property that would affect the historic value of that property. And so you definitely want to be able to review that.

Okay.

And zoning improvement permits almost sounds like a little bit of a misnomer or something.

I mean, if you just repaint in your house, um, but if that's the terminology.

Yeah, that's the terminology, and it's generally used where a color palette will be enforced. So, for example, Coral Gables very famously has a color palette.

Right. I'm sorry, that's what I was thinking exactly about that, because my architect was in the historic or preservation corregables, and there's certain things only to choose from, from historic designated or historical properties, and residential or commercial. So that might be a way to put it in writing and include it in the document. So it's a guidance, I guess, right?

I've heard it said a lot that there are not a lot of properties that are historic. Can I get a number? Can I get an idea of how many we're talking?

I don't know the number, Marcus. Do you?

I have a list, but off the top of my head, I... Less than 100? Oh, yeah.

Less than... No, I think it's like... I think residential... I'm sorry. I think residential is like 38 or 39, something like that. Okay. Cambridge Lawns and five or six houses outside of the Cambridge Lawns.

Okay.

Has hundreds of houses.

No, and they have a full list in the Corregables City website. They have a full list of all the properties that are historically designated. That would be a good thing to do, too.

Yeah, I think just to get off the topic a bit, I think we should probably circulate a list of all the properties that are historic. I think we did that once a while ago, but since we have a lot of new board members, it might be helpful to circulate that. There is also...

The city has a roster that has the address and when it's designated.

And just for the benefit of the new board members, there's actually brochures that list not so much the Cambridge lawns houses, but there's a glossy brochure that we had printed up a few years ago. That's like a guide and a map to all the historically designated properties. And there's been a lot of discussion. I guess I've been on the board the longest and we put that together. We had a lot of discussion about it. And I was told that there's like still like a few thousand of those brochures somewhere on this, you know, that the city has.

Those brochures are in the Civil Martin building with us. So I do have brochures available, and I do have the list. I can send out the list tomorrow when I come into the office.

Okay, thank you. And I believe the brochure is online now that I think about it.

Is it the brochure titled The Walkthrough History?

Yes, that sounds right. It is online, yes. Yeah. Okay. So for the new board members, take a look at that. And I think we should all, myself included, take a look at that just to reacquaint ourselves with the historic properties, because I think it's good to do that periodically. But going back to the issue that we were talking about, so basically, if we have a change which says that all improvements, changes to property, however it's defined, should go through the board. That would take care of the concerns that we've been talking about, including, and we can put in there, including the zip permit. And I think, Mr. Martos, you said that you would draft language on that?

Yes, we can draft, if it's the will of the board, we can draft a simple update to the existing code to specify that all building permits and all zip permits would proceed to this board for review and for issuance of a certificate of appropriateness. What we'll do is we'll draft that in advance. If that's the will of the board and you vote tonight to instruct me to do that, we'll draft that for your next meeting. and then you'll have a vote at your next meeting you know you edit it you tell us what changes you might want if any and then uh you'll vote to advance that to the administration it'll be a request to the administration to please make this law and so that process will start public notices will go out it'll go to the city commission the planning board and back to the city commission

I would move that to a request, a step to prepare something like that for our review.

Okay. Is there a second?

Second. All in favor?

Aye. Okay. Thank you. That's fantastic.

I'm so sorry. I was actually looking at the brochure online. It's amazing. If there's any extra ones, could we request a copy of them?

Certainly. Would you like to come by and pick one up or?

Absolutely. Thank you. I'll definitely come by. It's a good little coffee book table.

And one thing that we can talk about the next meeting is we had a lot of discussion years ago about how to disseminate those. We talked about putting them in storefronts and the art show and everything. And maybe that's something that we could revisit later. is on the next meeting is public awareness of this brochure, walkthrough history and historical buildings in general. You know, we also talked about having tours and things of that nature. And, you know, nothing really got off the ground in that regard. But my understanding is, and Marcus, do you know how many

uh brochures there are does anybody know how many brochures there are i'd have to see how many how many brochures are left how many boxes are left because they've been in the back and i know that the city has been done some cleanup back there and in the back of the silver martin building for the course of the past few years so i need to see how much is left okay

Okay. The last item on the agenda is the, um, approval of the minutes from December 15th.

Do you need me to share the minutes for the board members that are in the chambers or are you, give me a minute to.

Oh, sure.

Excuse me, Board, do you see the amendments on your screen?

I do.

Yes. Yes.

Let me know when you want me to scroll.

Just as a point of order, I was not at the last meeting. Am I allowed to vote on those minutes?

You are allowed to. If you choose not to, you can do that as well.

Okay.

It looks fine to me.

Okay, I move that we approve the minutes from the December 15th, 2025 meeting. All those in favor? Is there a second?

I second.

Okay, aye. Okay, the meeting minutes are approved. And I believe that was the last item on the agenda. Okay, I move that we adjourn the meeting.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you all for attending tonight. Thank you. Excellent meeting. Thank you. Take care.