Landmarks Commission - Regular Meeting

Let's get the show on the road. Alright. I'm going to call this meeting to order. Today is Wednesday, September 3, and this is the city of Waukesha, and we are the Landmarks Commission. We will start by a roll call. Marty?

Marty Larson.

Linda Gordo. Andrea Durantes.

Carmen Delapaz.

Mike Christine.

Matt Retzak. Tony Lonza.

Perfect. And I'll start out with any public comment. No public comment. Moving on to approval of minutes. Were there any notes or changes that you noticed this month? No? Good. So I'm looking for a motion for the approval of minutes for August 6.

I'll make a motion to approve minutes for August 6.

I'll second.

I wasn't here.

Read them.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Great. We've been approved.

And moving on to the Landmarks Commission paint and repair grant funds, Charlie will give us the monthly recap.

Alright. So as you know, paint and repair grants are approved on an increasing scale, roughly 15% of the cost of a project up to a maximum of $3,000. But Landmark Commission may use discretion to change award amounts based on project scope, overall impact, fund availability or any other circumstances. We as you might remember, we have had a total Paint and Repair grant fund for $20.25 of $25,000 We still have yet to receive the contract from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. CDBG coordinators of the county, the most recent update is that they're hoping to get something in the month of September so that hopefully we will be able to start issuing grants.

We do have of the grants that have been approved, I believe six of them have gotten me all of their paperwork. So we'll be able to send out the money as soon as we get it from the federal government. We do still have the $350 leftover from the 24 project from the one project that has not been completed. And then previously this year, 15,738 have been approved, which leaves $9,262 remaining. So and all approvals will have to be conditional on approval from Waukesha County.

Jeff, I don't know if okay. So I guess what we've done in the past most likely will have to be done again When we get to the close to the end of the year and the grant funds have not been allocated, we do need to have them all allocated in the year that they're approved ideally, if possible. So in the last in the meeting in November, typically we will have at the end of the meeting go through all the previous grants and just the Landmark Commission can decide whether to increase any or all of them to try and get to that maximum allocation. I'll just wait. There it goes.

So that must have been, I guess it was on my end. So this is typical rundown again, 25,000 is the total. You've allocated $15,738 which leaves $9,262 remaining. And this is just the list of the previously allocated funds plus the one that we have on the agenda for tonight at the bottom there.

Perfect. Thank you so much, Charlie.

Question? Yes. Should we talk about the number of grants one can receive in a year or didn't we have some kind of that, you know, if somebody comes in with four projects, can't get a grant every time they come in.

Yeah. That was me. Now you get three every five years.

Okay. So that's why I just

Yes. We've had a maximum in the past of I think it's three projects in five years or along that line. I guess that's something for the Landmark Commission to decide on. And I guess generally, when we do we estimated cost of a project is for the total project for the year, so you can't come back in with a different project. And if you go over the maximum, you're just over the maximum. I guess we haven't really had that for the only there's only been one project that's over the 20% that would have been over $3,000 if you guys had stuck to the 20% this year.

Somebody could do three in one year?

Technically, we just add them all together, I guess.

But I mean if they came in and did separate?

Yes. I guess if they did come in later, I would maybe just increase it and you could determine whether to increase the amount. But usually, yes, we would I think the general policy has been not to go over the maximum 3,000 in a year. That, again, is all that's entirely up to you guys to decide.

I think it's relevant like a lot of times people come in with siding or even the opposite windows and then they take the windows out and they go like this and I went, oh my goodness, we didn't know. So I think that is a relevant question particularly with older homes. You don't know what you get once you open stuff up. So that is a relevant question.

So just wanna make sure that, you know, we have if somebody we want them to do projects on their house, but if there is criteria that we have to follow, I think we need to keep that in mind. If there really isn't, then it really is up just to our judgment then.

Yeah. I mean, it's all of this is, you know, the the the amounts, the guidelines are, it's all at the Landmarks Commission's discretion. If you wanted to give if there was a great project and you wanted to give a ton of money to one person, up to you can't give more than half the cost of a project. But everything else at the discretion of the Landmark Commission. So this is just basically policy that you guys have said in the past and have kind of stuck to in order to be consistent and to keep things predictable for people coming in. I

think I think that I think it's something that we need to be aware of. But to pigeonhole ourselves into being really strict about things also prevents us from saying, no, you know what? We're not gonna do it. Because that's the other option of creating a strict guideline is is that we get we have to go yes or no, yes or no, yes or no. By keeping it loose or like this allows us to go, you know what, you've done a lot of wonderful things in the last year and you've gotten a grant and then that's enough because we really want to distribute it. Then that becomes our prerogative as opposed to us being strictly laying down the law.

Right.

In my opinion.

Just wanna make sure we're all on the same page here.

I'm sorry?

Just wanna make sure we're all on the same page.

Oh no, I think it's great to discuss. I think it's great to bring it up. But I also think that that we all can that's my opinion. It's like it's to our benefit to leave it like this for now. If we see something that gets abused or we need to come down a different way, then we do. And we have that prerogative. Right? Right. Perfect. Okay.

Good. So we're moving on to old business, and we're gonna start with 25Dash00953LandmarksCommission, Certificate of Appropriateness for 202 West College Avenue. Review a request to replace wood siding, and this is College Avenue Historic District. They were here in June, and we asked them to hold, really wanting to know more specifics about trim and whatnot. Right?

Yep.

Yay. I remembered. It's a big deal.

Okay. So 202 West College is at the intersection of College And Broadway. It's in the College Avenue Historic District. And this house does not have a historic name, but it was built in 1927 and has a colonial revival style architecture. So it is considered to be contributing in the College Avenue Historic District.

As you might remember, the applicants had purchased the house earlier this year from Carroll University and discovered during the inspection that there was a lot of wood rot on the siding, and they had been told that it needed to be fully replaced. So they had initially the application in June was to replace it with LP SmartSide siding. So here, they've done some emergency work in the meantime to prevent some water penetration. And then there's just more of the wood rod here. And at the time, the Landmark Commission had asked for more detail on how some of the trim and the corner sections were going to be done with LP SmartSide.

And the applicants had also, in the meantime, gotten an estimate from their contractor and realized that the work was going to be much more expensive than what they could afford. So they've kind of pivoted. And the proposal now is to retain the wood siding, just repairing where necessary repairing where it's possible and then replacing where it's necessary. So they will be using the contractors, thoughtful craftsmen. So they'll be using their typical wood repair strategy that they've used for more commonly in Waukesha for windows.

But in this case, it will be for the siding replacement. They've identified here in some photos some of the worst areas. Generally, they'll repair with epoxy where they can, where the rod is small enough for that to work. And in sections where they have to actually replace wood, it'll be either new cedar wood to match what's there or the rot resistant aqua wood. And as you might remember from past projects with this contractor, they don't provide a full estimate.

They just they provide a time and materials estimate. So that's $100 per hour for any of their the labor plus materials are billed at cost plus a 20% markup. And then that's billed daily to the applicants. And they can't really predict what the total cost is until they actually get into the work and discover how much rot there is to replace. But the applicants have provided an estimate of roughly $10,000 So again, they'll be repairing just the damaged sections of wood siding where possible the repairs will be done using epoxy and where necessary the replacement wood will be used.

That'll be either a coya or cedar And the new sections will be painted with the full signing painting expected in 2026.

Great. Could you please join us? Thank you. State your name and address for the record, please.

Nick and Emma Vashek. 202 West College Avenue.

How are you guys?

We're doing alright. How are you?

Good. How's the home upgrading going?

It's coming. It's coming.

You guys look like it's been daunting.

It it hasn't been that bad.

That's good.

We have nothing we can't handle. We've we've owned a house before, and we've owned a house from this time period before, so nothing we haven't seen before.

Good. Best attitude I've seen in a long time. Right.

Great. So a little bit of pivot turn.

Yeah.

Ease and grace, which I think is great. I always tell people don't bite off, you know, don't open a bunch of cans of worms, like deal with them in manageable proportions. And that sounds like what you guys are approaching now. Charlie, my question is is because we don't have a hard quote, how do we

Typically, I mean, they've provided an estimated cost of $10,000 We've done that in the past for when they've this contractor has replaced windows or repaired windows. And that's we've just an applicant gives an estimate. In my experience, it almost always the end of the project is almost always more than what the estimate is. So and I would guess it'll probably end up being more in this case. So that most likely would be a reliable estimate to base it on. And then if it does end up being more and you do want to increase the grant based on that, that's something that could be

done later on as well.

I

have no problem using the $10,000 as a basis because they obviously want to start moving on it and planning on it. So I think 10,000 is reasonable.

Okay. I just think we have to approve the project and then we can do the next.

We'll go in order.

Yep.

Great. So let's let's if somebody could give me a motion for approval on this COA,

please. Motion?

I motion to approve COA twenty five dash zero zero nine five three for the repair of wood siding and soffits

as I'll presented second that.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Well, you've been approved. Shall we move on?

Thank you.

Thank you.

No, thank you. Okay. So we're gonna move on to twenty five dash fifteen seventy nine Landmarks Commission Paint and Repair Grant for 2002 for 202 West College Avenue. You had said earlier that you were good with the 10,000 estimate.

Yes. I am good with the $10,000 estimate. I was my screen was not lined up. So thank you. I have no issues with that and I think it's a great outline which they've submitted.

Great. Does anybody have any further questions?

I have a question. How soon are they going to start this work?

That's a fantastic question. I've been in touch with them a lot. They would not tell me when they could do it until after we put down payment. They said they don't do that. Once I put the down payment, they said, great. We're putting you on the schedule. It'll be sometime this year or early next year, which to me does it's not really on the schedule then. So Right. As I understand it, they have to work on when the weather allows them to. So hopefully this fall, but if not this fall, early spring. And that was the best they could do.

Any other questions?

How do we handle that if we don't know for sure because we want to allocate things for this year?

Well we would do it like we would approve it for this year hope it went and then next next year it would be on the dockets until it got spent, right?

That's how we've typically done in

the Yes, exactly.

Ideally, we want to get the money spent in the year, but it doesn't get pulled back if it's not spent.

We always have carryover.

Carryover. Yeah.

Right.

Okay. I can do my best to when I do find out whether or not it'll be this year to update Charlie with it as well.

Yes, please. That would be great. Thank you. Great. So I'm looking for a motion for a grant percentage amount. Thoughts?

I think the 15% would be warranted. The full 15%, it's a visible house in the city and obviously needs love. So the more help, the better.

Great. So make that in the form of emotion. Okay.

So 15% of $10,000 would be $1,500

$1,500 yes. And make a motion for a $1,500 paint repair grant for item number 2501579 for the wood repair necessary.

I second that.

Thank you.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank We look forward to seeing it.

Me too.

Take care. Thank you. Alright. Moving on to new business. Item number 25Dash02084. Landmarks Commission certificate of appropriateness for 325 East Newhall Avenue. We're gonna review a request to replace gutters in addition to previously approved soffit and window repair. This is the Caples Park Historic District.

Alright. So 325 East Newhall was actually you probably remember it was on the agenda last month, and it's on the South Side Of Newhall between Charles and Hartwell. And it's the Lloyd Bauer House. It was built in 1928 and has English revival style architecture. And what was approved last month was replacing a section of soffit, which had been had some pretty significant water damage and then also repairing the window, this picture window on the front and replacing the storm window.

So that was approved and that the work is underway. As you can see, there was a worker out there last week when I went out to get photos. And at that meeting, Landmark Commission had suggested that there's a section of roof that does not have gutters there, that that might be some of the cause of the water damage. So it had encouraged the applicants to get new gutters in that section. So they are now applying to do that and then also replace some sections of gutter that are in need of replacement.

It won't be all of the gutters. It will just be some sections that are in rough shape. So here's a close-up. You can see the existing gutters are the our brown aluminum case style gutters. So that will be what the replacements will be.

They'll also be adding some gutter guards on the top to prevent leaves from getting into them, which will not be visible. There are a few the applicants had stated that there are a few copper gutters on the rear of the house. I'm not sure if I got that in this picture or not, but those will not be replaced. So it will just be the aluminum sections that will be replaced. And so again, repairing the soffit and window opening plus replacement of the storm window was already approved at the August 6 meeting.

And then replacing gutters is what they are requesting now. And so the new gutters will be brown colored case style aluminum gutters to match the existing.

Perfect. If you'd like to join us, state your name and your address, please.

Nick Gorgiasani. 325 East Newhall Avenue.

Welcome back.

Thanks.

How you doing?

Pretty good.

Good. So you took the advice and decided to add in the gutters, which I think was brilliant.

We we found out pretty shortly after that when

we got hit with those huge storms. We we had some some water intrusion in some areas. So that was that was part of what prompted us to move quickly on that.

Sorry. It had to go that way. Does anybody else have any questions?

With the because you have thoughtful thoughtful craftsman working there. Correct?

Mhmm.

What's how has their estimate been in relation to the scope that they've done? On the soffit, it was actually so it came out to basically

just about what they had quoted us. Because they they had quoted us basically, like, a minimum deposit. They said anything anything beyond that would be billed time materials. It it came up to basically the minute minimum for that. Okay. The window repair is going to be a little bit more than their initial initial estimate. So I think they initially quote they initially said it would be somewhere in like the 2,000 to 2,500

range. We're probably looking more in the $3, 3,500 range. That's for the one? What's that? That's for the one window?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There was a there was a little bit more frame rot than I think they initially anticipated.

Other questions? Looking for a motion to approve the addition of the gutters on this one.

I'll move to add the additional request for the replacement gutters to the previously approved soffit and window repair at 325 East Newhall. Good luck with that.

Glad you

glad you were able to find it before it got really too bad.

Yeah. We will we will probably be back here

shortly because we have some other stuff that's gonna be needed too.

I believe that's called joys of home ownership.

Yeah. I'm looking for a second on that please.

I will second that.

Thank you.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

You're all set. You're approved. Thank you so much.

Yep. Appreciate it.

Moving on to the Alderman's report.

Thank you. Just some basic things about going on around the city. In case you guys never noticed, we always have new art around city halls. In case you guys never ever checked that out, they rotate out pretty neat. Oftentimes, it's youth. You probably look, obviously, with the artist's eye. Just basic things. If people out there watching at home or in the audience, If you've never checked out the city website, they spend a lot of time making it very easy. So there's always something going on in the city. Park and racks, libraries, they always have things for all ages.

So it's I think it's really neat. Anytime I have a new neighbor that I meet, they don't know what the library has stuff. They have stuff at the band shell. Think tomorrow night, isn't it queen or next Thursday, have a queen tribute. So really neat stuff. Just check out the city website and they also have a great social media. The other thing I wanted to bring up is getting ready for fall time. We Energies also has a great program. They'll actually quarterly, you just go to their website and regardless if you're a renter or a homeowner, We Energies will send you a fun bundle of weather stripping tape, pipe insulation, duct tape, shower heads. It's it's a really wonderful thing that no one takes advantage of.

So just check out the We Energies website and there's a lot of money saving tips. And the reason I brought up We Energies is a lot of people have never done any type of home energy audit. Depending on your income level, it may be very affordable if at no charge to you even if you're a renter. So check out We Energies website. I had it right here to say what it was called. Ways to save. I check it out. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to the Springs report.

Alright. So I do have sort of a report on what the current status of the springs is. Hobo Spring, can see here, it did, I believe, get fully flooded after the storms last month. It certainly had some water in it that has receded. So it looks like it didn't get plugged up in outlet.

So there's still quite a bit of mud there that will, at some point, need to be cleaned out. I don't know if that's really the best thing for volunteers to do, but I guess we'll see if we can get some help from the parks department or other city employees that can help with that. Otherwise, that will be something that we'll have to try and organize volunteer work for. Meniscus Spring, unfortunately, as you can see here, has a lot of what looks to be runoff from the trail down into the spring of the wood chips that were so diligently laid earlier this year. Unfortunately, in the rains, you can see where the on the trail where there's a kind of a path of the water going through, and it looks like a lot of it ended up in the spring basin.

So that will be something that we'll probably we'll need to organize a volunteer day later this fall to clean that up. Most I haven't been able to come up with a date yet that works my schedule and with the schedules for the Parks Department trailer. But most likely, we'll probably shoot for late October, early November, just to make sure, especially with Hobo Spring, a lot of that mud is from the leaves that were there after last year that ended up in the spring all winter and then rot and become mud. So we want to get those out after they've fallen from the trees. So I'll probably have a little more on that at the next meeting.

Great, thank you.

Moving on to any other communications and publications.

I don't have anything.

Anybody else? No? This meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody.