Document Missoula_doc_f7f8a68e61

MISSOULA CONSOLIDATED PLANNING BOARD MINUTES August 18, 2009 - 7:00 PM Missoula City Council Chambers, 140 West Pine Street MEMBERS PRESENT: Don MacArthur, Chair Jennifer Clary, Vice Chair Jonathan Haber Jerry O’Connell Jerry Petasek ALTERNATES PRESENT: Don Latham Tim Skufca MEMBERS ABSENT: John DiBari Kelly Durban Tim Ibey Heidi Kendall STAFF PRESENT: Philip Maechling Roger Millar Sharon E. Reed OTHERS PRESENT Steve Adler Joe Easton Craig Eddy Kate Hampton Suzanne Julin Kraig Kosena Megan Kosena Manning OTHERS PRESENT Linda McKay Patsy O'Keefe Father Richard Perry Carl Posewitz Father Gary Reller Richard Volinkaty Please Note: Written comment and meeting handouts received at this meeting are available for review at the Office of Planning and Grants. Planning Board, City Council and County Commissioners have received copies of the comments for consideration. Photocopies may be obtained from OPG. An administrative fee is required for photocopies. I. ADMINISTRATIVE BUSINESS Don MacArthur: I’ll call the August 18, 2009 Missoula Consolidated Planning Board to order [7:01 Could we have a roll call, please, Sharon. II. ROLL CALL Roll call indicated that 5 members and 2 alternates were present. Sharon Reed: We have two regular members missing, actually, three regular members missing; can the City and County alternate fill in? Don MacArthur: Yes. Sharon Reed: Thank you. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Don MacArthur: Next item on the agenda is approval of minutes from July 21, 2009 and August 4, 2009. Any additions or corrections? Don Latham: Move to approve the minutes as written. Don MacArthur: Do we have a seconder? Jerry Petasek: Second. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Seconded by Jerry. All in favor say “aye.” [All Board members answered ‘aye’.] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Okay, the minutes stand approved. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT Don MacArthur: We have a section for Public Comment. Anyone in the audience who’d like to speak on an item that is not on our agenda tonight? Seeing none… V. STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS Don MacArthur: Staff Announcements. Roger, do we have anything? Roger Millar: Other than what Mary provided you in writing, no. Don MacArthur: Okay, we do have a memo that Mary’s put on our desk that just indicates and clarifies that there’s…our next public hearing is on September 1st on the Seeley Lake Regional Plan Update. VI. PUBLIC HEARINGS A. Zoning Ordinance - Historic Preservation Ordinance (continued from 7-21-09) The Missoula Historic Preservation Commission in consultation with the Historic Preservation Officer and the University of Montana Law School Land Use Clinic has drafted an historic Preservation Ordinance. The purpose of the ordinance is to promote and safeguard the historic integrity of Missoula’s historic resources and neighborhoods, and to stimulate neighborhood revitalization. The ordinance would apply to properties currently listed in the national Register of Historic Places and properties in Missoula’s nine listed and eligible National Historic Districts: Missoula Downtown District, East Pine Street District, Northside Railroad District, Lower Rattlesnake, University of Montana, University Area, Historic Southside, McCormick Neighborhood, and Fort Missoula. The list of National Register of Historic Places sites in Missoula can be found at http://www.co.missoula.mt.us/opgweb/HistPres/ along with a draft of the proposed ordinance. Planning Board will continue its consideration of the draft ordinance. Don MacArthur: Okay, public hearings. We are continuing our hearing of the Historic Preservation Ordinance from 7/21/09. I’m not really sure where we left off, so maybe I should kick it back to Philip and Roger to give us an update of things that have been prepared in the interim. Philip, we had from you a new Ordinance with some strike-out and comment notations on it, maybe you could give us an overview of those things. Roger Millar: Sure, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Roger Millar, Director of OPG. Where we left off last session was the Acting Chair closed the public hearing and you guys were in the discussion period. You gave us some input and asked some questions and Philip prepared an underline/strike-out version of the draft that responded to what we heard at the hearing and the questions that you asked. So, if it’s okay with you, I would think just having Philip walk through this… Don MacArthur: Yes, please. ---PAGE BREAK--- Roger Millar: …and then it’s time to make some motions and move forward. Don MacArthur: Yep. Philip Maechling: Philip Maechling, with the Office of Planning & Grants, and for the public there are copies in the hall of some suggested changes that we prepared, and I hope that you all have them, in response to comments that I heard and what I read in the Planning Board minutes. And so I’m hopeful that we’ve addressed most of the issues that were raised. There were some questions also raised that the Board, I believe, wanted to continue in terms of discussion; and one of those was essentially a policy question which had to do with whether or not this should be mandatory or should be a consultation. There’s another question that had to do with the nexus between the proposed Neighborhood Character Overlay and the Historic Preservation Ordinance itself; and I believe Roger answered that question, but you may want to discuss that again, that’s in the New Zoning Proposal. There was another question about a 60-day timeline and approval if not acted upon, and so we’ve got a response to that in this draft. There was one other question that had to do with a “false sense of history”, there was a question, and I believe someone on the Board and I can’t remember now who wanted to talk about that. And finally, there was a question raised about what we have lost in the absence of an Ordinance like this and perhaps some discussion needed there. I believe those are the ones. I would be happy if you’d like to go through the suggestions…some of you who got the copy in color, if you happened to print it out in color, the suggestions that were made in red are from Michelle Bryan Mudd, the suggestions in blue are from me, and the suggestions in green are from Roger. And so that may or may not make much of a difference. I guess if we want…should we just go through the proposed suggestions? Don MacArthur: Yes, please. Philip Maechling: Okay. In the Section, there were no suggested changes in the Purpose or in the Relationship to Other Provisions. In Definitions, we’ve added a statement saying, “Ordinary maintenance that does not require a Zoning Compliance Permit, like painting, repairing, siding, or window repair do not require review.” Per State of Montana codes, “public development activity on government-owned property is not subject to compliance under this Ordinance.” There was request from the University of Montana to clarify that. I spoke with Hugh Jesse and Kevin Krebsbach this evening at about 5:00, read this language to them; they said that sounded pretty good, that sounded fine. I said you know as Roger mentioned, it really is suspenders holding up your pants when you’ve got a belt on, too, because the zoning code itself refers to state law and exemptions for public activity on public lands. So we’re suggesting that be put in there. Then there’s another verification following that that says, “Those reviewable development activities are:” and then it goes through alteration to an historic resource and we deleted, or are proposing to delete the word “appearance” because appearance could be anything in many ways, it could be paint color, could be changing a sign over a door, it could be whatever it could be. And added, “…or removes character-defining architectural features.” Those character- defining architectural features would be noted in the survey form that each building has ---PAGE BREAK--- prepared for it in the National Register survey process. And so it should be clearer in many ways that what’s happening and what the real interest is, is in dealing with character-defining features remaining. So that’s a proposed change in clarification. We’ve changed in the definition of Alternative Compliance, we’ve added “exceptional practical difficulty or undue hardship.” That’s a very similar language to what we have in variance requests and it’s the real purpose of alternative compliance; when there is undue hardship, there should be some way to meet the intent of the Ordinance. There was a reference, and we’ll come to it later, again, where there was a typo, essentially, and what it said if there was economic hardship. Economic hardship is not a land use criterion; and in fact, the Preservation Commission changed economic hardship criteria to be undue hardship, and it simply wasn’t edited out of that place. It’s back, further back, and you’ll see where that shows up. In the section called “Certificate of Appropriateness” we have simply…we’re simply suggesting that it be changed to an Historic Preservation Permit. It’s clearer and we’re not saddled with the appropriate word that’s really not what the issue is. The issue is historic preservation. So, we’re suggesting that be a global change and that where you see “C of A” or “COA” that simply be HPP—Historic Preservation Permit. We’ve added that it’s a permit issued by the Officer or the Commission because there are cases when, and that’s part of the guts of the Ordinance, when compliance can be determined by the Officer without having to bring anything to the Commission that could be done at the desk, it could be done administratively. And then the statement is further clarified: “An action subject to review that complies with this Ordinance.” So it’s clear, again, that it’s this Ordinance that applies to those actions that are subject to review. As we go on down through…and then that sentence, or that definition would be moved down below Historic Preservation Officer that Preservation Permit would fit into the sequence alphabetically. So it’s suggested that the permit itself, the name be changed. If we go to the next page, you’ll see that there’s a number that I was finally able to change in Microsoft Word itself, “Designation Criteria for an Historic Resource” there’s embedded stuff in the numbering and the number 67 kept showing up and it’s actually 20.50.050. And that’s something that we can clear up. In the top phrase or the top paragraph, underneath Designation Criteria the last line, the sentence we’re suggesting should read, “The City also recognizes that the federal process of listing a property in the National Register does not require that the property be protected.” We’re suggesting adding to that: “…thus creating the need for local protection of Historic Resources.” So that would be added language, again, to clarify. We’re suggesting that on the next line that you strike Criteria for Evaluation and that you add “the federal criteria for evaluating whether a resource is a Historic Resource are the following:” That simply states that these are the federal criteria. No changes to City Agencies, no changes to Demolition by Neglect, no changes to Delisting. The next on is 20.30.090, we’re suggesting that Certificate of Appropriateness again replace…be replaced by Historic Preservation Permit; and then, as you go down, again, changes COA to HPP. We’re suggesting adding a section in the Historic Preservation Permit part, a No. 2 that says, “Actions subject to Review include alterations to an Historic Resource, new construction in historic districts, relocation of an Historic Resource, and demotion of an Historic Resource as ---PAGE BREAK--- defined in Section 20.30.20.” So again, a clarification that these are the actions that are subject to review. And the next line, 3. Ordinary Repair and Maintenance, we’ve added, “…like painting and repair of windows is not an Action Subject to Review.” This one we seem to have to keep repeating so that it’s absolutely clear that it’s not an action subject to review. Going down to 20.30.091, again Historic Preservation Permit Application, instead of Certificate of Appropriateness, and again changes to the COA becomes an HPP. We go down to 20.30.092 Alternative Compliance, that’s where the language wasn’t changed, the word wasn’t changed; so at the top line, “In cases of exceptional practical difficulty or [strike economic] undue hardship, Alternative Compliance may be available for HPPs for Alterations or New Construction. Alternative Compliance is not available for Relocation or Demolition.” That’s no change, or suggested change. As we go down, the number 1 in the criteria was, “The Historic Resource or Unimproved Resource is or will be the principle residence of the applicant.” This simply doesn’t make sense, so we’re suggesting that that be stricken and the numbering be changed. At the bottom of that, we’re suggesting adding two additional Alternative Compliance possibilities: “Alternative compliance for setbacks may be granted for existing historic resources in order to retain existing historic setbacks and historic development pattern without need to apply for a variance.” This is a practical change that we feel would make it easier to get to where we need to be in terms of conserving the resource. And the second one (and this is one I think that you’ll want to discuss) “Alternative materials may be substituted for original materials when they have the same dimensions and forms as original materials but represent more efficient technology.” The goal here is to be able to use some modern kinds of materials, for example, composite materials for siding or composite materials for planking, where the end result is pretty difficult to notice, they paint well, their maintenance is reduced. So it’s a possibility that it may be granted, there are opportunities and examples; and in fact, Helena Maclay was citing the example on her building of a fiberglass pediment and those kinds of changes to all…for all intents and purposes are not distinguishable unless you come up and tap on it. So that’s a suggested change and addition. Going on down through Commission Action on Certificates of Historic…I’m sorry, Historic Preservation Permit Applications, that’s 20.30.094, in No. 1 Except for Officer- reviewed alterations under Section 20.30.093, that’s a clarification to say that once the Officer’s already done them, then you don’t have to do them again. You go on in that paragraph, “The Commission’s decision shall occur within 60 days of the completed application was received, 90 days for applications involving a Demolition or Relocation. If the Commission is unable to process a request within 60 days of receipt of a completed application, the Commission may request an extension of time from the applicant.” This is an added suggested change: “If an application is not processed within 60 days of submittal, 90 days for applications involving a demolition or relocation, and no extension of time is granted by the applicant, then the HPP is approved.” So that puts the burden on the Commission to do its work, and that seems like a fair solution to that. As we go on down, Criteria for Review…Criteria for Review of Alterations or New Construction, there’s a comment on the side that says, “rather than just mentioning these, I would lay out when they are other…lay out what they are, otherwise the ---PAGE BREAK--- landowner has to dig for them. Could these standards be set out in lieu of the present list you have under That would be the Secretary of Interior Standards, the question is should the Secretary of Interior Standards be included or are included by reference. So that’s a recommendation that we believe you all should make. And, finally, in the Criteria for Review: “Alternative materials may be substituted for original materials when they have the same dimensions and form as original materials.” So, again, an opportunity to get to the same place, however using alternative materials. No changes to Relocation or Demolition Delay. There’s a comment on the side that says the Missoula County Zoning Resolution currently requires 180 days, 30 days seems too short, is there a number in between that would work. Roger Millar: It’s important to note here that if you change this number, we need to go back to the part where if they don’t make a decision within a certain period of time, it’s automatically approved. It’s 90 days for demolition or relocation because of the 60 days for everything else plus this 30-day advertising period. So if you increase or decrease the advertising period, you’d need to change the corresponding number in the earlier section. Philip Maechling: All right, thanks, Roger. Moving on, Interim Permit 20.30.100, Interim Permit in Hazardous or Unsafe Condition, the Officer (strike Commission) may grant Interim Permits to stabilize and mitigate immediate and serious threats to public safety. We do that often, already, in the Zoning Office. And so that’s the last change there. And then, finally, the statement in Appeals, which is 20.30.130 Appeals. The language has been modified, or we’re suggesting that you modify the language, “Appeals to decision of the Historic Preservation Officer and to decisions of the Historic Preservation Commission may be made to the Missoula City Council in accordance with the process described in 20.85.100—that’s the current Zoning Code Revision where appeals are discussed. Then, the last sentence, we’re suggesting should read, “Variance Requests—variances requests are different from determinations—may be made to the Board of Adjustment in accordance with 20.85.090.” Roger Millar: If you clarify that, 20.85.100 is the appeal process and when you look at 20.85.100, it refers appealing zoning decision to the Board of Adjustment. The City Council specifically directed staff that they wanted the appeals of Historic Preservation Commission decisions to go to the City Council rather than the Board of Adjustment, so that’s why it says “in accordance with the process described in 20.85.100 as opposed to just in accordance with 20.85.100. So it’s the process in that section, but it goes to the Council rather than the BOA. So, appeals to Council, variances to Board of Adjustment is the way it’s drafted today. Philip Maechling: And that concludes the suggested changes. Roger Millar: The only other thing, Mr. Chairman, that we talked a little bit the last time, but some of you weren’t here is a…a really important consideration is in 20.67.050 or 20.30.050, because that thing just won’t change, it’s on Page 4, that first paragraph there, “The City recognizes that within its jurisdictions there exists ---PAGE BREAK--- significant natural historic resources…” there’s a spectrum—we’ve looked at ordinances around the country and ordinances around Montana, there’s a spectrum of protection that we need to figure out where Missoula lies along that spectrum. At one end of the spectrum is every building and piece of property in Missoula is subject to this ordinance and would be reviewed in accordance with this Ordinance; at the other end would be nothing is subject to it, or, you know, just one building, the County Courthouse is important, and so that one building. Along that spectrum, you could decide that this Ordinance would only apply to individual buildings that were listed in the National Register of Historic Places or you could decide that it would apply to individual listings in the National Register and contributing buildings in Historic Districts. Or you could decide, as the Historic Preservation Commission has recommended, that it apply to individually-listed projects and all properties within Historic Districts and that really is a policy call. There are what, 68 individually-listed properties? Philip Maechling: In the County. Roger Millar: In the County…in the City…if you look at the National Registered Districts, it becomes 3,000-plus; it’s less than 10 percent of the total properties, but it’s a larger group and some of the conversations… Don MacArthur: Roger, is that all of the buildings in the Districts, or the contributing buildings? Roger Millar: Correct, all of the buildings, all of the buildings, and we… Don MacArthur: Do you have the number for contributing buildings? Philip can look for that. Roger Millar: Philip can dig for that while we’re talking. But, you know, there was concern expressed that if it was every property in a National Registered District and if someone wanted to build on a surfaced parking lot in downtown, they’d have to go to the Historic Preservation Commission for an HPP. There’s some who think that’s absurd; there’s some who think “Well, that vacant parking lot could be next door to or somehow affect an historic property.” So, again, the Commission came down in one place. My suggestion to you is that you really need to think about where we, as a community, want to start. We really have no local protections today other than Fort Missoula and the Roosevelt Block, the two properties that are protected locally. Do we go with the Historic Preservation Commission’s recommendation or do we get stricter than that or looser than that. That’s something that I think is really worthy of some discussion and perhaps some public input. Some additional public input, you heard a lot about it at the last meeting. Don MacArthur: So, some of the other comments that Philip brought up that I guess that I’d like to hear back, and maybe this is just bringing me up to speed, but there was a comment about the Neighborhood Character Zoning Ordinance versus this Ordinance and that you’d already addressed it. I guess there’s a number of us at the Board tonight that weren’t here at that previous meeting, I’d like to hear your…hear that again. ---PAGE BREAK--- Roger Millar: Yeah. The Neighborhood Character Overlay can be adopted by the City Council, with your recommendation, if either the Council initiates it or the neighborhood initiates it, and it can address things other than historic preservation. So, one of the criteria for that Neighborhood Character Overlay, as it left the Planning Board was that it had to be within the bounds of a neighborhood plan or historic district; but it can go beyond this, it can talk about use and other things. So really, we have a variety of tools in the code if this is adopted. A neighborhood could choose to use the Historic Preservation Ordinance to protect the historic character of the neighborhood and come up with review criteria that were unique to that neighborhood or the neighborhood could choose to go the route of a Neighborhood Character Overlay and address historic issues and other issues. You know, the City Council said at the Plat, Annexation, and Zoning Commission that they don’t want ADUs in single-family districts. A single-family district neighborhood could come in with a neighborhood character overlay and ask to have accessory dwelling units, if the Council was willing to agree to that. So, neighborhood character overlays go above and beyond the historic district, so it’s…for the historic stuff, a neighborhood could approach it either way, they could go through this section of the code and historic preservation or they go the neighborhood character route, but if they want to go beyond just historic preservation issues that they would have to go that neighborhood character route. So I don’t think it’s a redundancy in the code, I don’t think they’re inconsistent, it’s just…do they just want to be historic, or do they want to be historic and address some other issues. Don MacArthur: Okay. Philip Maechling: I found some numbers. The total number of contributing buildings is 2,194; non-contributing buildings is 893 in historic districts. And according to our GIS folks, there are 1978 parcels, not all parcels have structures on them, in historic districts and there are 21,694 parcels. Roger Millar: City-wide. Philip Maechling: City-wide, inside the city limits. And I have numbers for the various historic districts, if you’re interested. Total numbers. Don MacArthur: I’m confused by the numbers. There’s 3,000 buildings, but there are only 1900 parcels? Roger Millar: There are a number of parcels that have a building and an accessory building, or two or three, they are all contributing buildings. Don MacArthur: Okay. So Roger, the example you used of a parking lot or something like that, there are certainly some vacant parcels as well, but some parcels many, three, four, five buildings on them. Roger Millar: Correct. So what we’re talking about is if you did all of the contributing and non-contributing lots in historic districts, you’re talking about one lot in seven city-wide. Don MacArthur: Okay. Questions around the Board for Philip or Roger? Jerry. ---PAGE BREAK--- Jerry O’Connell: Yeah, could you give me a definition of a contributing building? Philip Maechling: When we do surveys, we study every parcel, and each parcel is documented, each building on there is described and each building is determined to be either a contributing building because it maintains its integrity, the integrity of materials, the character of the building, the character-defining features are there within typically a period that is greater than 50 years ago to the time that it was built. So, let’s say it’s a building that was built in 1880, it was modified in 1910, but it retains the character of the building from 1910 forward. That would be considered to be a contributing building. A non-contributing building would be a building, for example that would have been built in 1920 was modified in 1960, and the character-defining features have been removed from the building. So it would be an old building, but it would be a non-contributing building until it was restored to some period of time that was typically greater than 50 years old. Buildings newer than buildings built 50 years ago generally are considered non-contributing buildings as well. Jerry O’Connell: is that a process that you go through once, or you go through it periodically? Philip Maechling: It’s generally gone through once for each historic district and surveyed. So we have historic districts that were surveyed in…for example, the East Pine Street Historic District was surveyed in the 1980s and there were a number of buildings that were built in 1952 that, when we did the Downtown Historic District, actually became contributing buildings to the Downtown Historic District because they had reached the age considered to be eligible, because they were greater than 50 years old now and they had retained their integrity. So that’s what happens. Typically, we don’t go back and resurvey a district, though I know that in Bozeman since their district was surveyed back in the 1980s, they’re actually thinking of going back and evaluating the thousand of…1300 or 1400, I think, parcels that are in their historic district to see how many may have been modified that they are no longer contributing or to see which buildings now would be reconsidered contributing buildings. Jerry O’Connell: And when were the surveys done here in Missoula? Philip Maechling: The surveys range from the earliest survey, which I think was East Pine Street that was done in the 1980s, to the Downtown Historic District, which was done in 2006. Jerry O’Connell: Okay, thank you. Don MacArthur: Tim. Tim Skufca: Could you clarify how, when you’re demarcating the actual district borders, when do you decide well, this house isn’t going to be…although there may be an historic just down the block, how do you draw those lines? Philip Maechling: I think Roger’s the map over here. I think I can actually get the map on the screen, would that be helpful? Okay. If you look at…to the lower left- ---PAGE BREAK--- hand corner, you’ll see the McCormick Historic District and you’ll see the Southside Historic District and you’ll see a jagged kind of a boundary there. The jagged boundary is where there are non-contributing buildings all on the same block and so we simply exclude the block from the district because it doesn’t contain contributing resources. So that’s the determining factor. If you look at the eastside of the Southside Historic District you’ll see a big hole where the Big Dipper is, and there’s a vacant lot, and I think Hunting and Gathering are in there, and those are all modern buildings, so they would be considered non-contributing, so you wouldn’t include them in the district on purpose. Roger Millar: The general areas we’ve got the Lower Rattlesnake, the Northside, the orange line which maybe doesn’t show too clearly is the Downtown. And we’ve got East Pine, which is within the Downtown, the University itself, the University Neighborhood, Southside, McCormick and then Fort Missoula. Philip Maechling: And the Fort Missoula’s survey was done in the mid-19…early 1980s, I think 1983, and was just updated and actually buildings at Fort Missoula that were not considered contributing buildings that were built during World War II, like Building T-1, which is the Post Headquarters are not only contributing buildings but are actually primary buildings in that historic district because of their role, or its role, rather, as a confinement center for the Department of Justice. Tim Skufca: So heading up the Rattlesnake, the very distinct line as you’re going uphill, there’s that strict line of a line there? Philip Maechling: That’s correct; and the reason there’s that strict of a line is that there was no survey done on the other side of the line. That’s just a fact of resources. We had enough money to run a project and we could only go so far until we ran out of money. And so the boundary was determined that way. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t eligible buildings on the other side of the street, and certainly there are in the Lower Rattlesnake and certainly there are in the Slant Street Neighborhoods and, in fact, on the south side of 6th Street between Orange Street and Higgins Avenue, you have the School Admin Building, you have a lot of interesting buildings that would be eligible and contributing buildings and primary buildings in an historic district. The survey stopped on the Northside of 6th Street when that survey was done. The University Area survey, if you look at it, it stopped in the alley behind Beckwith Street, so that was how you get it done. The Downtown Missoula, the original town site and the original site for Missoula Mills is actually in the cutout that you see where Caras Park is and Bess Reed Park is, where the Holiday Inn is, those are all modern buildings. And so the place where Missoula began is outside of the Downtown Historic District because it no longer retains or contains any of the original significant resources that were there until the 1960s. Does that answer your question? Don MacArthur: So it seems like we have a couple of things in front of us about the scope of the Ordinance and its power. There’s this question that Philip brought up about whether this is a mandatory, applies to everybody, or it’s a consultation sort of a basis. You know, it’s not required, but everyone has to go through the consultation, get the feedback, but it isn’t a stipulation, maybe, for zoning compliance. That’s a question. Then there’s a question about how far we go with the designation of the buildings or properties that are subject to this, whether it is ---PAGE BREAK--- every building or parcel within these districts on the map, here, whether it is contributing buildings, whether it is only buildings on the Register. And so those things seem to frame what it’s going to apply to and then we’ve got some questions about the specific language that we might want to go back and clean up. Jon. Jon Haber: I think this question might relate to both of those things. If I remember right from last time, someone asked how…how people got their properties listed and the discussion indicated that in a majority of cases it was by request and it was something they wanted. I just wondered whether was…is that true and is that also true when a district is designated, is that true of the contributing resources in the district or are they more likely to be sort of dragged into something that they didn’t want. Roger Millar: Well my understanding…I’ll give you the short answer, and if that doesn’t work, Philip can give you the long answer as long as you’ve got time, because he’s very good at it. Individually-listed private properties were listed with the concurrence of the private property owner. They were determined to be eligible and if the private property owner said I don’t want it listed, it wasn’t listed but it’s still eligible—and you have to watch the language in this carefully, because right now it applies to “eligible” as opposed to…they’re “eligible” for listing as opposed to listed. The districts were done by primarily volunteers working with City Staff and took the resources that they had available, they did the surveys and as a part of creating the district they contacted all of the property owners in the district and the property owners was informed that the process was going on and they were given the opportunity to basically protest the process. And if enough of them did, then the district was not created. And in the case of all these districts, there was no significant protest. Now, that was done before we were talking about an Ordinance of this type. So if an Ordinance had been in placed that controlled the property as this Ordinance is proposed to control, there’s no telling what people would have said about being a part of an historic district. There are pluses and minuses to it. You know, big minus: you have to conform to this section of the Ordinance; big plus, you can get the tax breaks, you can get the plaque on your house that adds to the value—all the things that you hear from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That’s why when this Ordinance was proposed to the City Council and the City Council referred it to you, we noticed all of the individually-listed properties and we noticed all of the property owners contributing or otherwise in the historic districts, they all got mailings. We posted each of the individually-listed properties separately and we posted the entrances, the roads leading into all of the historic districts to let people know that this was going on and that it could affect their properties. So this is a rezoning of their property and we’re advancing it with that in mind. Don MacArthur: Jerry. Jerry O’Connell: Roger, clarify something: you were mentioning and I apologize, I wasn’t here last week, so this may have been covered, but you mentioned the home could be eligible, or the property could be eligible, but the owner would need to make a request to be classified. Was that prior to the development of this Ordinance? Roger Millar: No this is a separate thing; it’s a federal process that’s managed by, ultimately, the National Park Service, in terms of getting things listed in the National ---PAGE BREAK--- Register of Historic Places. The Historic Preservation Officer, the State Historic Preservation Office, a variety of people, it’s tested to determine whether its eligible for listing and then the last step before its listed is getting the property owner to sign off and say, “Yes, I want it listed.” That’s what happens with individual properties, and if the individual property is not listed, it remains, in effect, on a list of eligible properties that are not formally in the register. Now, the National Historic Districts are all listed in the National Register. The property owners, when that listing process was going on, were notified, this district is going to be or is proposed to be listed in the National Register, do you have a problem with it? And there’s a threshold for protest on that at which time it would not be listed. The district, as a whole, would not be listed in the National Register. It would remain eligible, but there is no property-by-property, is it listed, is it not, within the historic district—it’s the district as a whole. Jerry O’Connell: If that district is…for one reason or another does not become part of the National Historic Register, will it still be a district, an historic District, from a City viewpoint? Roger Millar: That depends, again, it would remain eligible for listing and that’s the…that’s why I keep bringing you back to that section on page 4, that paragraph, it says, “Any property listed in the National Register or that has received a determination of eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places is automatically classified as an historic resource that is subject to this chapter and included in the local inventory.” So that’s the sentence that you have to think about—do you want it to say “Any individual property listed in the National Register” and delete that determination of eligibility stuff, do you want to…that’s the sentence that when you’re making motions you have to think about what you want to…if you want to change it, what you want to add or delete to that. Because that particular sentence is what defines what’s under the requirements of this Ordinance and what is not. Don MacArthur: Jon. Jon Haber: So maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the words when you were giving those numbers earlier. Were you talking about listed or eligible or both? Roger Millar: Well all of the districts are listed. And the individual properties, there are 68 individual properties that are on the National Register of Historic Places. And then in the districts, there are 2,194 contributing structures and 893 non-contributing structures for a total of 3,087 structures. Now, those 3,000 structures exist on about 2,000 parcels, so roughly one and a half per parcel. And you got to remember some of those 2,000 parcels are empty, so there’s a little mix and match there. But in terms of individual properties that have been determined eligible but not listed, Philip, is there any record of that? Philip Maechling: Right now, in the downtown…the Downtown Historic District is on the desk of the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places and has been determined eligible. And in the Downtown District there are 4…there are about 450 parcels or 498 buildings that are determined contributing buildings and 108 buildings ---PAGE BREAK--- that are determined to be non-contributing buildings in the Downtown Historic District. Roger Millar: Individual properties, not the Historic Districts, but, you know, the County Courthouse is on the National Register, it’s eligible and it’s actually on the National Register. Philip Maechling: Correct. Roger Millar: Are there individual properties that have been determined eligible as individual properties but were not listed because the owner did not want them listed? Philip Maechling: Correct. There’s only complex of buildings that is and that’s what we refer to as the Catholic Block—the archdiocese of Helena has objected to listing the St. Francis Elementary School, which, I believe will be demolished in the next few months and the Loyola High School and the Rectory Building, all of those buildings are determined to be eligible because of a survey that was done for the Historic District. St. Francis Catholic Church is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. So it’s individually-listed. And those are the only buildings that I am aware of where determination has been made and they hold them together because they are in one ownership. Don MacArthur: So is every building within an historic District or every parcel within an Historic District is eligible or… Roger Millar: Listed. Don MacArthur: Every one within an Historic District is listed, whether it’s contributing or not. Roger Millar: It’s the district that’s listed. Don MacArthur: Therefore, every parcel is listed and then all we’re talking... Philip Maechling: Every parcel is in the district; now, some parcels are contributing and some parcels are non-contributing. Don MacArthur: Right, but they all fit into the criteria. So right now we have every building that’s within…or every parcel within an historic district and then everything that is eligible for listing that’s outside of historic districts. Roger Millar: That has been determined officially to be eligible… Don MacArthur: So everything listed or eligible. Roger Millar: What this means is the 68 buildings that have been formally put on the National Register as individual parcels and then the buildings on the Catholic Block that were determined to be eligible but were not individually-listed and then every contributing and non-contributing parcel in each of the historic districts that ---PAGE BREAK--- has been listed. That’s how it is drafted today. And you can add to or subtract from that as you would recommend to the City Council. Don MacArthur: Jerry. Jerry O’Connell: So as it’s drafted today, if I was a homeowner in the district and it was non-contributing property, I would need a… Roger Millar: Historic Preservation Permit… Jerry O’Connell: …an HPP to do something? Roger Millar: To do something that required a building permit. Jerry O’Connell: Okay. And what we’re considering here is whether to loosen that a little bit or tighten it, depending on… Roger Millar: And again, the Historic Preservation Commission forwarded this, and this is their recommendation. Jerry O’Connell: Okay. Roger Millar: But this is your turn to make a recommendation… Jerry O’Connell: Right, so we’re… Roger Millar: …and you can agree with them or disagree. Jerry O’Connell: And one of the options offered was to change that to only properties that are eligible… Roger Millar: Only contributing… Jerry O’Connell: Contributing, excuse me, right. Okay, good. Don MacArthur: Other Jerry. Jerry Petasek: I might have two questions. One is what causes someone to do an historic district versus going through and picking out homes? Roger Millar: Doing the individual listings? Philip, why would someone want an historic district? Philip Maechling: Actually, the reason that we do historic districts is at the request of others. We typically don’t start it. The downtown, for example, was begun back in the 1980s by the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, they did the initial historic resource evaluation for a very large area that went into the Westside and, in fact, included part of what became URD-I, which is the Hip Strip area on both sides of Higgins Avenue on the south side of the river. All of those sites were inventoried and at the time it was determined that there weren’t enough resources in the historic district to…in the study area, rather, to make an historic district. When we looked at ---PAGE BREAK--- the map, you’ll notice that the Downtown is in the center of historic resources, all the way around there are historic districts surrounding the downtown and there is the East Pine Street Historic District. And, so, with the assistance of the MRA and the State Historic Preservation Office, we put together the survey, hired a contractor who did a professional analysis of every single building and that’s what caused the downtown to happen. The other historic districts, the Southside Historic District, for example, was initiated by residents in the Southside. The McCormick District was at request of residents in the McCormick District. The University Area Historic District was at the request of the residents in the University Area and so forth. Jerry Petasek: But is the idea that there are so many homes in a certain block area that it’s created its own unique character, not just in the architecture, but in the neighborhood itself. Philip Maechling: That’s right, and so, with the downtown district, for example, you have 82 percent contributing buildings; with the McCormick District you have something like 85 percent of the buildings. That means 85 percent of the buildings in that district have retained their integrity over time. So it does have…it has a unifying fabric. Jerry Petasek: And then…thank you…the other thing is…can I…can someone get off the listing, out of the district? Philip Maechling: You can get out of the National Register Historic District by damaging your building to the point that it is no longer a contributing building to the Historic District. So it would become delisted. Jerry Petasek: Is there any less unfavorable way of getting off the list? Philip Maechling: Well you can’t change the story. So you have to change the story for the story to no longer be…to retain its integrity. You can’t opt out from the National Register. Jerry Petasek: So once you go in, you can’t get out. Philip Maechling: Right. Unless you…again, unless the building is declared…you know, in historic districts around Montana in some of them you have an opt-out option, which is that the City Council can say for some reason that you have now lost your historic integrity that you can no longer be a contributing element in that historic district. Roger Millar: But again, what we’re talking about here is a national designation that confers some status, you can get a plaque, you can get a brown freeway off-ramp sign so that people come in and shop, which I think is a lot of what happens with some…like the downtown district, it’s designed to attract people there. That’s a National designation. This local Ordinance is entirely a local regulatory document. We’re picking up on the National designation as, you know, it’s there, let’s use it, rather than having…but you could, in the Ordinance, provide for an opt-out for individual properties that were in National Historic Districts that the Council ultimately determined would not be subject to this ordinance. You could do that by saying it’s only contributing properties or you could do that by saying its only ---PAGE BREAK--- contributing properties and owners of contributing properties can petition the Council to be removed from the requirements of, you know, of this section of the code. You know that’s an alternative. We haven’t proposed it, if it’s something the Planning Board or the Council wants to pursue, we could draft the language of it. Philip Maechling: I might just add that 20.30.080 Delisting of Historic Resources: “The City Council may initiate the removal of an historic resource from the local inventory if the historic resource no longer satisfies the criteria set forth in the chapter.” So this has that provision in it and just for that reason. Roger Millar: Or you could add to that “or the owner of the property requests.” You know, the City Council may initiate…you know, you can…again, you can’t take them out of the National Register but you can take them out of the local Ordinance. Don MacArthur: Jenn? Jennifer Clary: Were any of the Districts, when they were being formed, were they close to the percentage of the protest level, any of them? Philip Maechling: No. The Downtown District had 21 objections out of more than 400 properties. In fact, we’ve only had 20-some objections in writing, what do you call, protest to this Historic Ordinance. But, no, it requires 51 percent of owners to stop a district. So in the case of the Catholic Block, which is owned by the diocese of Helena, they simply said, “We think this is a bad idea.” And so the keeper of the National Register, then, will not put it on the list until that changes. And owners change, and that’s the way it is. Don MacArthur: This just strikes me that we, you know, a lot of the criteria and the way that the HPP is issued is dependent on either the Historic Preservation Officer or the Board making some pretty gray determinations and there’s a…it’s pretty loose, it’s people-based, it’s…you know, this is the part that it’s hard for me, in my architect role, to think forward to understand what it’s going to mean. You don’t…you know, as an architect I don’t know how this Board will act or, you know, the Historic Preservation Officer will act when given new power to create…to create guideline that we have to follow rather than that are suggested to follow. So, you know, this is the part that strikes me as a…you know, makes me nervous and I look at it and I think certain of these neighborhoods, there is a character that should be preserved, there are historic buildings that are clearly contributing to that character and new development within those areas should continue that…you know, the question that was posed earlier about whether we need this ordinance to effect that is still pertinent to me. I think, actually, Missoula does a pretty good job of developing within these historic neighborhoods, mostly. And, you know, most of the time the developments that are happening in the University…I forget what that District is called, exactly, but the University one that I live nearby but not in, most of the things that happen there are pretty good and probably would fit within the guidelines that the Board or the Preservation Officer would anticipate using. But do we know? You know, it’s hard to feel what this is going to do on the ground for me. That’s part of my nervousness with it. On the other hand, I look at it and I think it doesn’t make a lot of sense within that district to say well, it doesn’t apply to a vacant lot or to a crummy house that is not contributing; I mean, the whole point is to bring the whole district up. So, from my perspective, I’m inclined to include whole ---PAGE BREAK--- districts rather than contributing buildings because I think the point is to try to get more unity and design things that fit together. So I’m…I like the sort of approach of district-wide. I wonder, about, however, the downtown district, for example, where I think that there is not…how do I say this without getting myself in hot water…I don’t think…there’s a lot of good buildings downtown, but I don’t think there’s a unity, yet. And I think the idea that, you know, it’s hard to say what unity the Preservation Officer or the Board may try to push future development into. And should they have that role in this case, which is a really a commercial…it is the commercial engine, hopefully, of Missoula as we go forward. You know, I have question about the downtown, I think the residential areas make more sense to me. And I’m sort of, then I’m starting to be…this question of where we draw lines gets more difficult if there are two or three different kinds of cases we have to address. Don. Don Latham: Yeah, I have some of the same problem with this, it appears almost Kafkaesque in some of its ramifications, especially the phrase “…or that has received a determination of eligibility for the NRHP…” If somebody came to you and said, well, we’d like to survey your neighborhood for an historic neighborhood and 30 years from now somebody’s going to come and start putting restrictions on what you can do with your property based on today’s survey, what would you say? I might have been a little more likely to protest at that time rather than say, oh, I kind of like the neighborhood the way it is, let’s go ahead with this project. So there’s an awful lot of properties that I see in this highly-encompassing definition of who you’re arbitrary Board and person gets to put their imprimatur on to say you can do that or you can’t do that or you can’t do that according to this regulation that was passed based on something you did 30 years ago, too bad for you. So, I think the whole thing needs to be rethought, seriously. Don MacArthur: Tim. Tim Skufca: I asked last time if there was any kind of analysis of what designating an area as historically-significant, what that does to the affordability of that. Did…were you able to find anything about what it does to property values. Roger Millar: Generally, what…we had a presentation at the City Council from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the indication that we got there was that it adds to the value of property, that neighborhoods that are historic districts retain their value or appreciate in value, which is going to have a positive and a negative consequence if you own the property. Great if you’re looking to buy in, maybe not so great. Specific to Missoula, we don’t have that kind of information. Philip, do you have any? Philip Maechling: I was just going to add that we asked realtors that same question and they don’t have answers for us. On the other hand, they list properties if they’re in historic districts as historic properties or as in historic districts. In terms of affordability, I think that’s a really difficult question. Some of the most affordable in the City of Missoula is in the Downtown Historic District; literally, the most affordable are in historic structures along Front Street and all along the downtown. ---PAGE BREAK--- Tim Skufca: I guess why I keep bringing it up is I think that by identifying the very specific areas that can’t but add to the gentrification of those areas, which has, like you said, some negative problems and some things that have to be addressed that I don’t see in here is like, you know, someone that’s barely making payments and then all of the sudden, you know, the neighborhood has this historic designation and then property values go up, taxes go up, and if there was a way that we could build something into there for those homeowners that are having a hard time just staying in their homes as it is. Roger Millar: Well, and again, the historic districts have been designated for years and all of the consequences to property value from the historic district designation, that’s all already in place on the ground, that has nothing to do with this particular Ordinance. This Ordinance is a local Ordinance to protect the character of those districts through zoning, which we don’t have today but the districts exist, the plaques are on the buildings, the plaques are in the medians of the streets, you know, that kind of thing. And the interesting thing, I think back to something Mr. Latham and the Chair was talking about, there is one place in town that has gone through a Certificate of Appropriateness process, an Historic Preservation Permit process, because we have two areas of town that are subject to an Ordinance that’s almost identical to this—one is Fort Missoula and the other is the Roosevelt Block. So that triangle building that is being built across from Hellgate High School, the Corner Building, is a building that went through the Historic Preservation Commission process and received a Certificate of Appropriateness prior to construction. So it does not result in…people were…some of the folks who were concerned about this were saying, you’re going to make me build faux old and that hasn’t proven to be the case, at least in the one example we have here locally. It’s…you know, the thing about zoning is that you can have clear and objective standards. You know, if you do the checklist, you get your permit and on the other end of it you can have the standards are fuzzy and we have a clear process and this is definitely the clear process fuzzier standards type of Ordinance. We don’t see a lot of that in the Missoula zoning ordinance, we see an awful lot of that around the country—this is very middle-of-the-road as Historic Preservation Ordinances go nationwide and even in the state of Montana. Don MacArthur: Were you done, Tim? You can follow up, if you want, please. Tim Skufca: Well I guess…I think the…coming from a design background, I think the scrutiny that’s placed on new construction or remodels are great, I think that is a big plus. But I think that all of Missoula needs that and by designating specific districts, it’s only doing it in those areas and causing those areas to be pinpointed or focused on when the whole town needs that scrutiny. This is one of the sections, and I brought it up on two other sections in Title 20 that I think could belong elsewhere. Historic Preservation Landscaping and Signage, they’re all very design- related and something that you can’t put in a code. I feel they need to be separated and placed under the Design Review Board and that would be the method of reviewing all of that. Don MacArthur: So every…every what would be reviewed by the Design Review Board, everything in this ordinance or everything…every building that goes up, I’m confused. ---PAGE BREAK--- Tim Skufca: Well it’s part; it would be part of the permitting process. I mean you…to prevent structures that are inappropriate anywhere. I mean there’s got to be some way to…and that’s…this is doing it for these purple areas…or these colored areas, but what about the rest of Missoula? Why designate just these areas? Roger Millar: Mr. Chair, we’d…one thing at a time in terms of making change in Missoula. Don MacArthur: Yeah. Roger Millar: The Historic Preservation Commission, by its makeup, has professionals on it, just as the Design Review Board has professionals on it; and one of the purposes of the Historic Preservation Commission is to review and make determinations on the quality of design but from an historic Preservation perspective as opposed to a general design review perspective. And that’s how this is put together and design review…I came here from a town where everything except single-family structures under 3,000 square feet was subject to design review before a building permit was issued. That’s commonplace in the United States, we do not have that here in Missoula. What this Ordinance would do is, in effect; impose that on properties in these historic districts. Don MacArthur: Yeah, let’s leave that aside for a minute. Jon, you had a question. Jon Haber: Yeah, actually to follow up on some thing you said. You stated a couple times sort of an assumption that the reason that we should be concerned about the non-contributing resources was improving unity or bringing it up to some level and I’ve been looking in here to see if that’s really an intent of this Ordinance, and I don’t see that. It talks about preserving and retaining things, but not improving things. So is that a purpose of what we’re doing here? Philip Maechling: That’s an interesting question. In terms of the Ordinance itself, if you go read the purpose, I mean it is, essentially, to improve things, but certainly not to demolish things and/or degrade character of the various neighborhoods that we have and various historic districts that we have. I think that stimulating revitalization and enhancing property values is an improvement to some extent and I think that the other goals in the purpose statement are to improve things. If there is a goal in historic districts to upgrade the entire district, then I agree with Don that the way this ordinance is set up is intended to do that, so that every project that comes through that’s in a district is subject to a level of review. That said, and looking at the example that’s up on the screen, this is by no means a falsely-historic building, this is a very modern building that has retained the integrity of the Roosevelt Block that is behind it, that’s part of the Roosevelt Block, there, and it’s actually connected by an open space that is not a transition at all, but a very clear, clean change between the historic buildings by A. J. Gibson and the new building. It has the same massing as Hellgate High School. Jon Haber: It’s a little difficult for me to…if that’s the goal, that should be more clearly-stated because as a contributing resource, they’ve already lost whatever historic value they had then to me it’s a major change in emphasis to talk about recreating or restoring something that isn’t there anymore compared to preserving what we’ve got and that didn’t jump out at me. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Well, these districts are, many of them, in transition of various kinds. Even the seemingly most stable of them, maybe the University Area one is, I mean, it’s in constant transition. Many of those houses were, you know, 1,000 square foot, one-story or one and a half story bungalows in there that have been over the last 10, 15 years as property values have gone up have doubled in size or more. And so the question about how much you’re preserving the status quo versus allowing a sort of organic growth that still fits within the character of the district, these are the questions that are people-oriented and being made by the preservation officer and the Board and how much, how far, how fast do we allow these districts to change. And these are the places where, you know, it feels to me like there’s a pattern established in many of the residential districts about what’s already sort of naturally happening and what’s appropriate. I don’t feel that established in the downtown because there’s been so few buildings built in the downtown over the last 15 years. I mean, there’s a few going up right now but I wonder would those few actually have been deemed historically-sensitive, you know, and are they? I mean, I’m not judging one way or the other but the question about what’s our goal with downtown seems to me to be fundamentally different and not as well-established as it is in the other districts. Don. Don Latham: Well I’d just like to inject a note, here. If I came to the Board and said well, I’d like to go downtown and build a restaurant in the form of a giant bowler hat, they’d probably say, oh, you can’t do that, that’s not historically correct. Now if I wanted to go down to, and I think it’s on Sunset, but I’m not sure whether it’s on Sunset or La Cienega, and say I have this restaurant that’s shaped like a giant bowler hat and I want to tear it down, they’d say, you can’t do that, that’s part of the historic district of Los Angeles, it’s called the Brown Derby, right? The other thing is, the guy comes to you and says I want to go out here and build a new mosque, but I’m going to over to this big pyramided lump of stuff over there, I’m going to tear the stone off and I want to take it down there and build a mosque with it. Would you allow him to do that or not? Would you denude a pyramid to build a mosque if it were culturally-appropriate? It’s trying to regulate this kind of thing with…and surround it with some web of words that allows you to have something transitory that you think is permanent is an extremely difficult proposition. And I don’t think that making it onerous or making it all-encompassing like trying to do a whole city with some no pink flamingoes rule, you know, for the front yard, is doing a disservice to whimsy, it’s doing a disservice to people that want to express themselves in some architectural fashion. And with that, I’ll give it up. Don MacArthur: All right, Jerry. Jerry O’Connell: I have those same concerns, but I draw a different conclusion from it. When you think of the alternatives, obviously, I think the idea of trying to provide some level of preservation and general direction is good but I see two alternatives, well three alternatives. One is do nothing and hope things organically go in a positive direction, which will be happening for any part of the City that doesn’t fall inside of one of these historic districts. Within the districts, you got two choices, you can either quantify it, lay it down in hard, fast numbers what you can do, what you can’t do. And I think we do ourselves a disservice by doing that because that eliminates…it defines organic in a very fixed, unorganic way. Or leave it up to this ---PAGE BREAK--- granted nebulous, people-driven process of appropriateness—you might have changed the word, it’s still determining upon a level of appropriateness—it seems like the better of two worlds, because it does allow for a level of organic growth with limitations placed on it by individuals whose, hopefully, their sensitivities are such to allow the organic growth without hammering things into a predetermined shape. So I think that’s a reasonably-good alternative. Don MacArthur: Right, we’re kind of weighing in on the overall ordinance, here, I think. And I think if we’re going to start doing that, then I think we’re ready for motions. Any other questions or…I guess what I’m wondering is whether we shouldn’t start with a vote to see about the paragraph that Roger directed us to that basically establishes the scope of this ordinance and we kind of the scope, where is it going to apply and then we go through and see if there’s anything else we want to say about how it applies or when it applies or what the timeline is of its application. Somebody want to start a motion or try a motion for that… Don Latham: Is that 050, or 067-dot-50? Don MacArthur: 05…yeah, 20.50…yeah, it’s 67 in our thing, but it’s supposed to be 20.50.50. Well, there’s already a 20… Philip Maechling: It’s supposed to be 20.30 and then 50. Don MacArthur: 20.30.50 or 20.30.30? Don Latham: Designation Criteria? Don MacArthur: Well, we’re missing some…okay, you’ll figure out the numbering. Philip Maechling: Yeah, it’s 20.30.50, the Ordinance itself is 20.30 and this is… Don MacArthur: Well, we miss…we skipped between 20.30.20 to 20.30.50. Philip Maechling: That’s right. Don MacArthur: Okay. Don Latham: But it is the one that’s entitled Designation Criteria for an Historic Resource. Don MacArthur: Right. Philip Maechling: That’s correct. Don MacArthur: So as written, you know, basically it’s everything that is listed or eligible for listing and that would include everything within historic districts. Jennifer Clary: So that’s contributing buildings? Don MacArthur: Contributing, non-contributing, any parcel within an Historic District, any building on any parcel within an historic district. ---PAGE BREAK--- Jennifer Clary: I can’t. Nope, I don’t want to see that. I’d rather it just be… Don MacArthur: How about… Jennifer Clary: I’d rather it just be…we’re just talking, discussing? Don MacArthur: Well I’m looking for a motion, so that we can discuss from there. Jennifer Clary: You need a motion? Okay. Don MacArthur: And the motion doesn’t have to be as written, it could be something else. Someone bring forward as is written, if we can’t come up with anything else. Don Latham: Well I would like to move Section 50, I’ll shorthand it, I guess, with the words, “or that has received a determination of eligibility for the NRHP” struck. Don MacArthur: Okay, do we have a seconder on that? Jennifer Clary: Can I have a clarification? Is he just saying we would just strike from “or that has…” Don Latham: We would strike the words after “listed in the National Register that are or that has received a determination of eligibility for the NRHP.” Don MacArthur: So, my understanding of this is that it would get rid of the downtown and it would get rid of the Catholic Block. Roger Millar: It would get rid of the Downtown until the Keeper of the book… Philip Maechling: Until the Keeper signs. Don MacArthur: Right. Roger Millar: And it would get rid of the Catholic Block. Jennifer Clary: Does it include contributing buildings, then? Don MacArthur: Well, the… Roger Millar: As this is written, it’s any property listed in the National Register. If you strike that, the…each of the Historic Districts is listed in the National Register, so all of those properties would be covered. If you…just to suggest some different ways you could go. You could say, “Any property listed individually in the National Register.” You could say, “Any property listed in the National Register and any contributing property in an historic district listed in the…” You know, those are the kinds of things you need to think about. Don MacArthur: But this…the question about the Downtown, I’m interested in is it doesn’t become…that will be listed when…the paperwork is already in there; it’s just a matter of form when it gets listed. ---PAGE BREAK--- Roger Millar: Correct, there are… Don MacArthur: It doesn’t have to be approved by Council or any thing like that… Roger Millar: Protest is done, all the… Don Latham: Under that clarification, I’d like to withdraw my motion, please. Don MacArthur: Okay, no seconder. Don Latham: Because…yeah, it has not been seconded, so that’s fine. Because I’m trying to get away from this 30-year old designation as an historic district that now is automatically bind everybody in it, whether they want to or not. You know, I just don’t think that’s right. I think if it’s going to be resurveyed as a National Historic Area and the all the people that are presently in it have a chance to participate, that’s one thing. But to take these 30-year old designations and slam them right in there with this whole penalty of approvals and disapprovals and extra steps… Don MacArthur: So what I’m hearing from you is that you want this to read, as Roger said, “Any property that is individually-listed in the National Register” period. Don Latham: I think at this point, yes. Don MacArthur: That’s the motion that you’re suggesting. Don Latham: That would be the motion that I was aiming for, right. Jennifer Clary: I second that. Don MacArthur: Seconded by Jenn. So anything in an historic district would not be in there unless it was individually-listed. If it was a contributing building, that doesn’t constitute individually-listed, right? Roger Millar: That is correct. Don MacArthur: So it would only be things that are…that are not contributing in a district, they’re just separate buildings that have gone through the whole process. Roger Millar: 68. Don MacArthur: 68 of them. Jerry O’Connell: Which doesn’t kind of…am I missing it, or does that take all but a couple of teeth of this whole thing and turns it into a sort of a moot issue. Right? Roger Millar: It would apply to 68 buildings. Jerry O’Connell: Yeah. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Yep. You know, I guess the other approach would be to add, you know, the question that Philip brought up in the beginning about, mandatory compliance with this portion of the ordinance versus a consultation. You know, I suppose it could be that there was a consultation provided on the rest; you know, as mandatory for those and a consultation for the rest. I’m just trying to figure out ways it would make sense. I would like to here, though, if there’s anyone in the audience who would like to make comment on this motion. Don Latham: I would too, thank you. Steve Alder: Strictly on the motion, my name is Steve Adler, I’m an architect in town and am on the Historic Preservation Commission and have also been on the Design Review Board for, I believe, 12 years previously and I was also on a Historic Commission back East that did exactly what we’re talking about here, so I have some experience in the matter. I would suggest that you take the district as a whole, and I know this is going to rub some folks the wrong way, including vacant and non-contributing properties simply because when that district was listed, it was taken as a district and generally it was at a neighborhood request, and that would be more in respect to the people who moved into that neighborhood for a certain neighborhood character, certain neighborhood feel, that they are now requesting some protections on, basically, to protect the character. I know it’s good to be skeptical, I know it’s good to assume the dark side of everything, but I’d like to remind you that people move into neighborhoods for a certain reason and if somebody has a contributing house next to a vacant lot or a non-contributing house, they still don’t have the security they’re looking for in their neighborhood as to what can affect them immediately. But mainly, the main point is, take it as a district because it is…it was taken as a district, surveyed as a district, judged upon as a district, people were given their chance to protest (granted, even though it may have been 30 years ago) but I believe people have also been noticed about this process in particular, so they have their second opportunity. But I’d say take a district as a district at face value because that’s how it was set up and it’s awfully messy to start piecing districts apart by contributing and non-contributing. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Mr. Adler. Joe Easton: Good evening Board, my name is Joe Easton, I live a 910 Ronald, thanks for your consideration of this. The discussion has been very interesting and very good so far. I would support the motion on the floor right now because it takes an affirmative action by property owners to be listed at the Register. And, to put it another way, they knew what they were getting into. So activities to…oh, activities that would require a building permit to preserve historic structures listed on the Register at the local level would be accomplished by the motion and the rest of the Ordinance. I would disagree with Mr. Adler’s contention that everything in a district contributes to the historic nature of that district, whether it was built in 1888, 1988, or somewhere in between. I’m the owner…in a partnership of several downtown…two downtown buildings and several other buildings in other historic districts and ---PAGE BREAK--- involuntarily my buildings have been listed as contributing resources and would demand that I go through this process to remodel, or, of course, take it out and start something new. So my concerns would be met, primarily, but the motion on the floor which would apply it to just the 68 properties in Missoula, give some local input into preserving those properties rather than relying on broad national standards that may not be applied locally. Thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Mr. Easton. Anyone else? Father Perry: I know you would have expected me to get up here. I’m Father Perry, I’m the Pastor at St. Frances Xavier Parish. We have been working really hard over the last three years to create something new on our property. We went through a process about four or five years ago where we did not have any choice on whether our property was even considered for eligibility for on the National Register of Historic Places. It was done by a parishioner without my knowledge, the first time I heard anything about it all when I received a packet from the Missoula Historic Preservation Office, and the packet was the proposal that our property be considered for eligibility. And there was no way that once that process was started…there was no way we could stop it. So, our property now is one of those that is considered eligible. We chose, along with the diocese, we chose not to have it listed because we thought it would tie our hands for anything that we wanted to do there in the future; and we had plans then for the future. And what this shows to me is that it does tie our hands. There’s very little that we could do without the HPP. So I would definitely support the motion to include only those properties that are individually-listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Don MacArthur: Thank you Father Perry. Roger Millar: Mr. Chairman, I have put a list of those properties on the screen, if anybody’s interested. That’s the top half of the list and I can stroll it up in a minute. Don MacArthur: Okay, thank you. Richard Volinkaty: Yeah, my name is Richard Volinkaty and I’m a property owner in the downtown proposed historic area at 212 West Spruce Street. I’m in agreement with the motion because I believe that you should rely upon the property owners that if they want to be in this, within the Ordinance, let them chose to opt in, rather than require us to opt out. For example, in the survey that was taken some time ago, a part of the survey said there will be no change…I received it…that there would be no change or any additional requirements to what would happen to your property for zoning. What this Ordinance does, in effect, is now put a new mandate upon property owners for review. So I would be in agreement with that and I think it wouldn’t hurt to let the property owners decide if they want to be within this Ordinance. Don MacArthur: Thank you. Manning: Hi, I’m Manning, a member of the Historic Preservation Commission and I keep hearing you have discussion about trying to preserve or retain character of a neighborhood or of an existing district. And I question how you do that without having some kind of guidance. Regulation is a hard word to hear, ---PAGE BREAK--- but right now we have nothing. And that was the whole point of trying to put this together. Existing Historic Districts—people in those neighborhoods asked us to put this together, they were the ones who decided what course they would take with this. It’s nothing the Historic Preservation Commission came up with it, it was existing people in neighborhoods asked us to go this route, which we pursued. So, we have tried to impose some kind of guidance, because right now we have nothing. So, really it’s arbitrary and capricious how we can decided so you could come to us and ask us a question about X property or Y property and we don’t really have any teeth at all to make a decision that would be for X the same it could be as Y. So what we’re trying to ask in this Ordinance is to at least give some kind of guidance, some kind of structure to make a reasonable, reasoned decision that somebody could defend, could object to, but at least we’d have some kind of course of action for people to decide which right now we really don’t have anything of. So that’s really kind of the course of this. So in terms of your motion, I think it’s helpful to stay within the course of having the designated districts as they apply under their designation through the National Historic…listed on the National Register. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Ms. Manning. Anyone else? Kate Hampton: Good evening, my name is Kate Hampton. I’m the former National Register Coordinator for the state of Montana. I currently work as the most endangered properties director and the staff person for the National Trust for Historic Preservation here in the state of Montana. And I am standing against the motion that is on the floor, and I think I would like to just introduce you to a little history of why the National Register was established. Some of the discussion earlier this evening has been about how do you codify and what’s appropriate or what’s important. And the National Register was established in 1966 as a document or a method by which people can ascertain the significance of a property—why is it important and is it worthy of preservation? And so the National Register of Historic Places is actually a list of those properties nationwide that are worthy of preservation. That’s how it’s defined. It is not intended to be a regulatory process. The National Register does not have any strict regulations associated with it unless the property is owned by the federal government, or federal money is being used to do a project on that particular property. So it is up to local governments, you, to ascertain what regulations or what stipulations you want to place on those properties that have been deemed worthy of preservation. And now we know why these places are significant. The research has been done, the documentation has been done. And I think a lot of this is education and if somebody understands why a place is important and why we are striving to retain those characteristics then they would be more inclined to work with us, and to work with you and the planning department and the Historic Preservation Board. I think excluding properties that are worthy of preservation, that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places defeats the purpose of all the effort that has gone into this survey and this identification and this documentation. And so, there are ways to look at this Ordinance and the process by which things will be deemed permissible, or appropriate or whatever word you chose to include in your Ordinance that are not punitive, that are not hostile towards new construction, that are not uncreative but are respectful toward those characteristics and those defining architectural features, those defining historic features that are important to all of us ---PAGE BREAK--- and everybody who visits and comes to Missoula. So I think that we have to look at it on a grander scale rather than, you know, can I put this particular decoration on my porch. You know, we’re not getting that detailed. What we’re saying is that there are places in this City that are important to all of us and keeping them the way they best convey that significance is beneficial not only to the property owner but also to all of us—encourages visitation, it encourages revitalization; and it’s all documented that it’s true nationwide. And these Ordinances are in place nationwide and in this state and working very efficiently and very well. And we can look to those models to make this work as best as possible and so I encourage you to do so. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Ms. Hampton. Anyone else? Carl Posewitz: Thank you, my name is Carl Posewitz. I am here just to support the motion that is currently on the floor. I believe it’s a good first step that everybody could probably…I think there’s more of a consensus for a Historic Preservation Ordinance that just really zeroes in on the most-important of our architectural history. I think the main problem that I have with this Ordinance is that it’s one part Historic Preservation and four parts kind of design review ordinance which is trying to tell people, I think, architecturally what they should be doing on their parcels with their money and their property. The specific districts as well, I mean, I can see, I really wouldn’t have a problem with all the districts being included as a whole if they were at least voted on, you know, in an up-front manner by the people that live in the districts. I think this approach that we’re going through where, hey, we asked you 30 years ago, it’s kind of sneaky, and I think we should just get the Ordinance on the table, get it in the hands of each person living in each district and say yes or no. Fifty-one percent say yes, great, you know, I have no problem with that. But I think the motion on the floor tonight is a good one and I think it’s a good first step and it just zeroes on exactly what it is we need to preserve immediately and then, I think, subsequent steps would be looking at these districts piece-by-piece with a real democratic approach to it, which is, here, everybody, vote on whether you want in this, if you want in this or out and if it’s 51 percent then I think the other 49 should jump onboard and if it’s not then I think that’s the way it should go as well. So thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Mr. Posewitz. Father Gary Reller: My name is Father Gary Miller, I’m Pastor of St. Anthony’s Parish and I’m here to represent the Diocese of Helena tonight as a member of the Diocesan Building Commission. And one thing that struck me when I read this earlier this afternoon, the proposal, was the effort to preserve the cultural element of neighborhoods and districts and I couldn’t help but think that as the Catholic Church we are very sensitive to the culture and to the history and the tradition of a specific area. And when I look at the Catholic Block, that culture has change dramatically in the last 25 years or so. A great deal of that property was dedicated to the education of children, and they are no longer there, for one reason or another, in the school building, but the buildings are still there. And the culture of the church has change to a point where we need facilities now where we can continue the process of education but in a more real way today we’re looking at the education of adults, so it requires buildings that are handicapped-accessible for them, requires parking that’s closely available for them, requires buildings that are attractive and simply not the ---PAGE BREAK--- reconfiguration of old structures but maybe new structure that will fit into the décor and architecture of the existing building, particularly St. Francis Church that will be an inviting cultural experience and religious experience for those who come and worship with us. Don MacArthur: Thank you. Suzanne Julin: I’m Suzanne Julin, I live at 20 Parsons Drive. I’m a member of the Board of Directors of Preserve Historic Missoula and a public historian and I do quite a bit of historic preservation work myself. And I’ve the unhappy experience on many occasions of going to a group of community people in various states around the nation and telling them that the historic district they want designated can’t be designated because the historic fabric has been destroyed. In Missoula we have such a wealth of historic districts and I really think the people who live in them expect some protection and some guarantee that those…that that historic fabric will continue to be there and that’s what this Ordinance is meant to do. So I would urge you to defeat the motion on the floor and to include the historic districts under the protection of the Ordinance. Thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you. Kraig Kosena: Good evening, thank you [inaudible, microphone off] Roger Millar: Sir, would you check and make sure your microphone is on, is there a little light on the stand. Kraig Kosena: Yes, there you go. Roger Millar: Thank you. Kraig Kosena: My name is Kraig Kosena and I’d like to thank you for this forum to speak first. The short answer is I’m in support of the motion that’s on the floor right now. My wife and I own three properties that are two of the districts, two of the historic districts. Listening tonight, a couple of things strike me and I’ve made some notes. As I understood it, there was a proposal made at some point and some…and one of these gentlemen represented that there wasn’t significant opposition to it. But over time, that morphed into something else. And I don’t know that you can really read into it that there was minimal opposition if it’s morphed into a full-on Zoning Ordinance. I think the comment maybe start over and get everybody involved in these ordinances…or in these districts is right on. Secondly, I don’t understand, and I think this goes to the Chair’s comments earlier, what is broken right now? What are we trying to fix? You made the comment earlier it seems like renovations and things like that are pretty well done in this town with respect to historic issues in historic neighborhoods. My wife and I just finished a renovation project on West Spruce Street and that very much…and I’m John Q. Public…it was very much in the forefront of our mind to preserve the nature of this old brick building but still do something new with it. So I don’t really understand what we’re trying to accomplish with this if something isn’t broken. ---PAGE BREAK--- Lastly, if the City of Missoula wants to…has targeted buildings that they want to protect, should the City buy them and protect them rather than imposing them on somebody who owns that piece of property now. Thank you Don MacArthur: Thank you. Anyone else? Linda McKay: Good evening, I’m Linda McKay, my husband and I own a home in the University Area and I’m also a member at St. Francis Xavier. So I come here simply as a person who cares deeply about both neighborhoods and I understand the issues before you, and I know it’s not a…it’s not an easy solution for you all to come to. But I simply ask you to consider the individual rights of the owners. For myself, if Larry and I did anything in our home would of course, of course want to do it maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood and because we are good neighbors we are going to care about what we do to our home. We don’t need you all to tell us to be good neighbors, to be good stewards. And for St. Francis, my goodness, who more would care to do right by that property than the parishioners who…who…we care, we love Missoula deeply. Our faith is to reach out in love and honor and respect for others and that’s what we would do. Again, we don’t needs rules and regulations to tell us what to do what’s right, we know it. And we’re going to maintain the historical structure of that block because it’s our history. And our history, our future, is to take care of Missoula. So, for whatever its worth, I place that seed in your minds and your hearts. Thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you. Okay, anyone else? Nearly everyone has made comment. Okay? Board discussion on the motion. Jerry. Jerry O’Connell: Quick question for staff. What kind of scale of cost are we talking about for an HPP to be issued? Roger Millar: A Zoning Compliance Permit, which is very comparable to what we’re talking about here, when somebody comes in for a building permit, we review it for zoning compliance, is around $100. Jerry O’Connell: And time frame? Roger Millar: What we are looking at here is, as the Ordinance is drafted, if a decision isn’t made in 60 days, it’s deemed approved; and if it’s a demolition or relocation, if it’s not made in 90 days, it’s deemed approved. Jerry O’Connell: Okay. I put those into the area of minimal discomfort, yeah, for having to go through that process. I personally think that this isn’t, you know, we’re not breaking new ground here. Historic preservation districts have proven successful all over the place. I don’t have any stats on it, but I’ve lived in a few— I’ve lived in New England and they’re everywhere, and I can’t think of one that wasn’t beneficial. I think the motion on the floor takes the…all the teeth out of what’s being proposed here, I think it’s…and for that motion, I just can’t agree to it, we need to have something more than what that would give us. Don MacArthur: Okay. Jenn. ---PAGE BREAK--- Jennifer Clary: I was just going to say, you’re asking about the fee potential for this; there’s also the cost of preparing the application, so I think there was someone who gave public comment, I think he actually spoke just a second ago that actually has identified that and that’s I talked about at our last meeting, too. That can be very costly and the process can be very time consuming, too. Which is why I’m supporting this motion by my second and feel very strongly about kind of minimizing this a bit. Don MacArthur: Jerry. Jerry Petasek: I’m going to designate myself the least-liked person in the room from here on out and it’s only 9:00. It’s a difficult issue, I think, ultimately, I’m looking at this in the same way we look at other ordinances and other things that we try to protect and preserve. History isn’t something that we choose, as people being alive today; I mean, we may have created history ourselves, but you can’t go back and say history didn’t occur in a certain space or in a certain building or in a certain neighborhood. And the same way we don’t ask individuals to designate whether or not they have riparian area or some other feature that Missoula or the County of Missoula has decided is worth preserving. I understand there’s property rights involved, but these ordinances deal with those all the time. But what we’re trying to do is make a clarification—are our historic structures and districts and neighborhoods worthy on some level of preservation? Is it worth inconveniencing property owners on any level to preserve whatever it is these districts and structures have? So, I’m not as swayed…I mean, I’m not going to vote for motion, if I haven’t said that yet…because I don’t think that you get to choose what is historic. You can choose to opt out of history, I guess, in a sense, or that’s what this is trying to do. But it is historic or it’s not. I’d like to included everything in, you know, I’d like to include all historic districts and structures in this ordinance. And I guess I could continue on with some other stuff that I have to say but I don’t know that’s kind of specific to this. One more item is that we really start to…you know, here, tonight, we’re talking about the Historic District Ordinance and it’s looming and it’s large and here it is. But I think at some point you need to remember, okay, you’re going to have review when you want to re-side your house—or, no, because you don’t need a building permit to re-side your house? Jennifer Clary: Yes. Jerry Petasek: So you would need one? So you might have to re-side it with hardy plank, which would probably a lap siding…I mean there’s…it’s…when you start to really about…you might have to put double-hung windows in, instead of sliders, you know. I think when you start to really think about the costs and the burdens of what we’re doing. Now, a full-blown remodel might be a little more burdensome. But, once again, some of the architectural features are outlined. The reason, if I understand correctly, the reasons that the home or structure is in…is on the Historic Register is actually outlined in its registration, in its application because it has…I don’t even know any of the names of historic things, has pillars or dentals or whatever. And so it would seem to me that if a home owner who wants to do something different to their home can say well, this is why it’s in there and as long as we pay attention to these things when we do our remodel. I’m going to leave it there, because I have more to say, maybe at the end. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Jon. Jon Haber: Well, I’m in support. Historic preservation is a good thing and I don’t have any problem with government regulations that seek to promote a greater good. The one thing that tends to concern me is the question of fairness and I’m not…I guess I’ll ask the question in terms of this decision we’re making and the notice that was given for this decision—I think you said you notified anybody who potentially would have affected property but I’m not sure reading this if I were a non- contributing resource I would have realized that it would have applied to me. Can you give me some feedback on that? Roger Millar: Well again, some of the comment you heard earlier about how the districts were formed 30 years ago and, you know, when those districts were formed there was no local Ordinance which is why we did the notice that we did. We provided notice to all of the owners of individually-listed properties and we provided notice to all of the owners of property whether it was contributing or non-contributing in all of the districts. And we, with the notice, your neighborhood is subject to this, your property will be subject to this Ordinance. This is how the notice was put together and there was a place to provide comment and the rest of that. So over 3,000 notices went out, the properties were all posted and we’ve had less than 40 letters of support or opposition. It’s also been in the paper, it’s been at Council, it’s been here, this is the second night it’s been here. There are some people that are definitely opposed to it, there are some people that are definitely supportive of it and there are an awful lot of people who were notified who…they are not here tonight and they have not written in support or opposition. Jon Haber: So the important thing you said to me was that it was clear to them that this would apply to their property and affect the use of their property. Roger Millar: You’re property will be affected by…I can get the specific language but that, yeah. Philip Maechling: You want me to find the letter? Roger Millar: We’ll find the letter here and read it when we do. Don MacArthur: Well I’ve got to agree that I am not…I’m also not in support of the motion that’s on the floor. I think that…I think we need to give an opportunity for the process to work at a meaningful level. You know, the process that’s outlined in this district. And I don’t think 68 buildings that probably aren’t going to be renovated anytime soon is enough scope. And I think that I do trust in the process and the human capability of adjusting as we go to deal with the inevitable chafing that will occur. I mean, there will be development projects, probably ones that I’m involved with that chafe against these regulations at times; but, I think that the community can adjust to that. I think that the Board and the preservation officer will adjust to the community will for this. And when they overstep their bounds, there will be appeals and Council will come back and say, “No, we’re not ready for that.” And so I’m in support of the scope that is outlined in 20.30.50 myself and intend to vote against this motion. Tim, you’re the last one, I think, who hasn’t put their position on. ---PAGE BREAK--- Tim Skufca: Well I guess I’m not going to vote for it, likewise. I don’t think it’s an exceedingly onerous process that’s being asked. In fact, I’d like to spread it further and have the scrutiny everywhere, but I’m not going to go there. Don MacArthur: We’re not getting there, tonight. Okay, Don, one last comment since you brought the motion forward. Don Latham: I’d just like to comment now; you realize that you are now going to subject 3,000 properties to one more bureaucratic hoop, okay. And that bureaucratic hoop, by the way, might, and probably will—you guys who are either architects or builders will probably know this—between the building inspectors and the construction people that issue the building permit and the historic people who have their own axe to grind are going to begin to disagree with each other about some of the things that you can do. Because some of the things you might want to do historically aren’t safe anymore, they were once, but they aren’t anymore, for some reason, and I just think to take an arbitrary set of properties—more or less arbitrary—by a 30-year old definition and action and include them in another bureaucracy. Which, by the way, is another workload, it’s going to cost you another person, probably, maybe even two, I don’t know, (Roger can comment on this, their people are already apparently up to here) which means another salary on your taxes, which means some more hassles. So I just think you need to keep that mind when voting that you are going to put 3,000 more properties, more individuals, chafing, not only chafing but some serious hassle for some of them, I’m sure. Don MacArthur: So noted. Okay, let’s have a roll call vote on the motion. The vote was as follows: Jennifer Clary Yes Jonathan Haber No Jerry O’Connell No Jerry Petasek No Don Latham Yes Tim Skufca No Don MacArthur No The motion failed with 2 votes of ‘yes’ and 5 votes of ‘no’. Don MacArthur: Okay, the motion fails. Anyone have an alternate motion to bring forward? Jerry. Jerry O’Connell: I move we approve the Chapter 20.30.50, first paragraph as written. Don MacArthur: Okay, can we have a seconder on that? Tim Skufca: I’ll second. Don MacArthur: Tim seconded it. Discussion on the motion. New discussion that isn’t just what we heard before on the other side. I guess I have some new discussion. I’m unsure about whether this should apply to all of the districts that are out there and I’m bringing it up for Board discussion to see if there’s any will to try to craft this and in particular I’m concerned, I guess, about the downtown because I don’t think that the character of the downtown is, in some areas, well-established or that retaining status quo in some areas of the downtown is necessarily the right future, even in the short term for our community. And I’m not sure, it’s very difficult to understand what the…what the process will be in reviewing applications in the downtown, given that there isn’t a very cohesive fabric in much of it. Maybe, Philip, you can speak to that. I ---PAGE BREAK--- mean, what is going to happen downtown, how do you anticipate review of a…somebody comes in with a ten-story building, you know, and tries to establish a new scale. Garlington, Lohn, and Robinson Building comes in and it’s, you know, five, six stories. How do we, you know, how do we look at this transition; we’re in transition, as I see, in downtown and how do you do preservation when you’re in transition. Philip Maechling: I think that’s a really good question. Right now, the downtown is undergoing a Master Planning Process and as the steering folks for the downtown master plan have said to us at the Preservation Commission, they are very, very interested in historic preservation as a guiding principle of the downtown as it goes forward and this is a master plan that was not an OPG project, this is driven by the downtown business improvement district and the downtown association, the MRA, and the Parking Commission as the leaders. So they’re very conscious of it, the planners working for them are very conscious of it. They proposed the downtown historic district…I mean, a downtown design district and modifications to the current zoning so that the downtown will have its zoning characteristics and I would think at that point we would be looking at very clear guidance from the City Council in terms of how to do it. At the present, the Commission would be taking each case, site-by-site, case-by-case, there are clearly blocks in the downtown where the integrity has been maintained very obviously and every building is a contributing in the proposed district. There are other blocks where there is a parking lot, and, you know, a Federal Court Building, it’s a new building. And those proposals for those buildings would probably be treated in a different way than a vacant lot, should there be one in a block where all of the buildings have maintained their integrity. But I would say it would be case-by-case. Don MacArthur: Right, and some of the areas, and I’ve forgotten the Downtown Master Plan that well but it feels like there were areas that have historic residences that the master plan slated for, you know, cultural center development. And I guess the question is well, what…how does that work and who takes precedence and how does a preservation Board and officer operate in that kind of context, where on the one hand there’s an idea we’re going to have museums and on the other hand there are very nice historic small-scale residences. Philip Maechling: I think that’s a really good question, and I think that becomes a question for the City Council to answer at some point in time, probably on advice from the Planning Board. The changes that are proposed in the downtown for some of the residential neighborhoods that do have historic buildings, (and I’m thinking of those down in the Kiwanis Park area, I’m thinking of those along Front Street) those are all private property. And so there are property decisions that are going to have to be made as well by property owners in those areas because the City, I don’t believe, is going to condemn those properties and buy them for public purposes—at least I wouldn’t think that would happen soon. Don MacArthur: Yeah, okay. Jon and then Jerry. Jon Haber: Just a follow up question on that, Philip, when you’re talking about folks working on the downtown plan, did any of them comment one way or the other on this proposal? Roger Millar: On this particular proposal, those two in the front row, there, were on the Downtown Master Plan Steering Committee and they drafted this proposal. But was ---PAGE BREAK--- this proposal reviewed by the Downtown Master Plan Steering Committee? No. They are all aware of it, though. Don MacArthur: Jerry. Jerry Petasek: I don’t have any good ideas. I’m taking what you’re saying about the downtown to heart when I think of historic districts, like the Northside Historic District or the University District, I feel like there’s a congruity throughout the district that really gives it its meaning, and although there are a large number of buildings throughout the Downtown Area that have—they are obviously historic in nature from the layman’s point of view just because they’re old and they look cool. What does happen on the…I’m thinking out loud because I can see where your concern for that is coming. I guess the fabric of the downtown, like you’re saying, is possibly in more transition than other historic districts that we have and for individual buildings, it seems like once again you go back to its registration application and look at what made it contributing outside of its own history of what happened there, like the bank on the corner of Higgins and whatnot. Roger Millar: I think another thing you have to look at is so a building is old; does that mean it has to be preserved at all costs? And the Ordinance doesn’t say that. The Ordinance says that if the owner of a property comes in and says “I’m going to demolish my building because I have no…there’s not economic use I can make of it” the Ordinance requires a kind of a cooling-off period to see if there is somebody who can make economic use of it that the owner can agree to terms with and then after that the demolition permit is something that can be approved. It doesn’t say, you know, because that piece of property is over 50 years old it can never be anything then what it is today. You know, there’s a process you have to go through and I go back to, you know, my personal experience, somewhat limited here in Missoula, but when the Lincoln School Property came into the public arena, we had no process for a civic discussion. And that’s what I think this provides more than anything else, is a process for a civic discussion; a forum for a civic discussion. Don MacArthur: Jerry, and I will give, if anyone in the audience wants to make new comment about the motion…do you want to hear that, first, Jerry? Jerry O’Connell: Sure, yeah. Don MacArthur: Okay, let’s hear that first, but, briefly, please. Carl Posewitz: I think the one thing I would say about the kind of murkiness of that current Ordinance that’s really sort of reckless in a lot of ways is there’s no clear…the downtown is a perfect example—its sections of it are zoned for 12-story buildings. Now, people buy these parcels, banks loan these people money based on the development capacity of the parcel. It’s unclear in this Ordinance if…I think it actually says in there that it actually does override or it can override your basic zoning. So if you’re a consortium of people who purchased a downtown property and go to a bank and say, hey, here’s my plan, it’s zoned for this, the appraisal comes out at a certain value, the bank backs the parcel based on a certain development right that suddenly is, yeah, it might be there, it might not be there, it depends on the proposal, depends who’s on the Board, depends on the mood of the day, is it appropriate, is it not. I think one thing the Ordinance definitely needs to have in it is a clause that says this does not ---PAGE BREAK--- override the underlying development capacity that the zoning currently has in place. So if it’s a parcel that says you have to be back 20, over 10 and it can be this tall, that has to be allowed, still. This can deal with, you know, the frosting that goes over the top of it, is it historic, is it not, what is it, but you should not be undermining the underlying value of the parcel which is defined by its current buildable capacity under the zoning ordinance. That would be a huge mistake and would put many property owners and the banks behind them in really serious…there would be some issues with that. So I urge you to consider that. Thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you. Joe Easton: Joe Easton. At the beginning of tonight, Roger described the way that this Ordinance could be applied to properties in these districts as a spectrum; and while I obviously supported the previous motion, I would urge you to deny this current motion because it jumps to the opposite end of that spectrum—it now has 3,087 properties that are included in this, whether they are a parking lot or a bank building downtown on the corner of Main and Higgins. So I would suggest to defeat this motion and have more discussion about how the list is created. If it goes beyond the 68 properties of historic…of the historic register list, and adds contributing buildings, shouldn’t there be a mechanism to revisit the property owners and get their input once again you will be included on this, beyond the district. I think it’s silly to include every property in all of Missoula’s districts because there are quite obviously some that don’t apply don’t have a historic context. But there are contributing resources, such as the buildings that my partnership owns downtown that are listed on the contributing resource with no effort on our part, just the Historic Preservation Officer and a survey done when the district was created saying that this building qualifies. We didn’t participate in allowing or acknowledging that our building qualifies. So to sum up, again, and I’ll be brief, deny this motion that applies to every structure and every parcel in every historic district and create a different point along that spectrum that gives individual property owners another opportunity to either opt in or opt out depending on their opinion. Thanks. Don MacArthur: Thank you. Steve Adler: As I understand, the motion is really getting to whether you include the non-contributing properties in the district. So taking everything, including the non- contributing and vacant properties. As a point of fact, I heard people say 3,000 properties and I think the statistic was somewhere in the range of 3,000 structures, but 2,000 properties. Roger Millar: Right. Steve Alder: A point of clarification. But to get to whether to include the contributing and non-contributing elements of a district, I would remind you that this Ordinance adopts the Secretary of Interior Standards which does generally take on how to deal with existing buildings that contribute, existing buildings that don’t contribute, and new construction and how new construction should be developed to be sympathetic with the existing context. So I think that’s covered in the Secretary of Interior standards as to it’s not the same for everybody, depending on what property and what category you have. It is taken on, so when you develop a new structure, you make it of its period but make it sympathetic to the character that’s defined in that neighborhood. What this ---PAGE BREAK--- Ordinance also does is it enables districts to develop their own guidelines. So if the Secretary of Interior Standards are too fuzzy for people, too fuzzy for a district, at the local level, they will have the ability to develop their own guidelines, give it as much specificity as is appropriate and plug those in in place to supplant the Secretary of Interior Standards. For those of you who are worried about how the Board will act, this may be a little bit outside the motion, but essentially it will act very much like your own, very much like the Design Review Board, they deal with a lot of fuzzy stuff but they are still bound by guidelines, by legal limits, by ethical limits. And another concern is that this Ordinance does not dictate to people how to do things, it sets up priorities and says these are the things to be mindful of and in the application process, it is the owner that drives the application. So whether it’s the owner of the contributing or the existing building, the owner makes the proposal and then has the opportunity to basically pitch that to the Board and say why it meets the criteria. And just another point of information regarding the Downtown Master Plan, the Downtown Master Plan does have verbiage in it right now that encourages developing guidelines for the adaptive reuse of historic and new structures sympathetic with the historic. Don MacArthur: All right. Briefly. Kate Hampton: I know the evening is getting long; I will keep my comments brief. I’m Kate Hampton with the Montana Preservation Alliance, the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In thinking about what I would speak about this evening, I contact Allison Brister, who’s the Historic Preservation Officer in Bozeman where they have had this kind of design review ordinance; it’s actually much more comprehensive than the one that’s being considered this evening. They’ve had that in place since the late 1980’s and I just wanted to get a feeling from her about the process and how it works in Bozeman. And she did tell me that they process approximately 250 applications a year, it was more during the boom times, it’s less during the last boom time. But that she said that the vast majority of those, she said, 95, 96 percent go through without any contention and that the key is education about the purpose of the Ordinance and the process to be followed. And with early consultation, and say it’s never too early to discuss your ideas about the project, the process is smooth and beneficial to all concerned. She said may be one percent of those that come through have discussions beyond her office and the approval process that goes through her direct office and then they would go on to the local Commission or to the City Council. Less than one percent, she said, and that it’s just a very effective process and that that is based on this clear guidance and this clear understanding to property owners, architects, and local officials about what they need to do. And I think it’s all about educating people as this Ordinance moves forward and becomes implemented. And I wanted to also say that under this Ordinance new construction and encouraged provided the emphasis is given to the preservation of existing buildings and the design of such new space enhances and contributes to the aesthetic character and function of the property and surrounding neighborhood or area. Contemporary design is encouraged, provided it is keeping with the criteria as an acknowledged of the continuing developmental pattern of dynamic change in communities. The ordinance also recognizes that properties require routine maintenance and will not affect the ---PAGE BREAK--- property owner’s right to conduct those projects, such as painting and repair. This ordinance only affects only those projects that require a building permit and those that have the potential to substantially alter character-defining features of the property. Proponents of preservation recognize that communities are dynamic and changing and that diversity is a major contributing element of the historic character of neighborhood and areas. Historic preservation ordinances, such as the one considered this evening, encourage the protection and enhancement of many diverse features for future generations. And for these reasons, we are in support of the Ordinance as a whole. Thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Ms. Hampton. Manning: Manning and briefly, this Ordinance is not asking that we’re…not asking for all development in neighborhoods and districts to stop. And that’s why I think it’s important to make sure to consider all of the aspects in a district. You might have…own a contributing building in a district, correct? But someone might have a non-contributing building, structure, feature, and they might wish to do something that doesn’t seem to be sympathetic with that district. And so for that reason it would be very helpful that that property that’s considered non-contributing, any future development has to be considered along the same lines to be compatible with that historic nature or that character of that neighborhood. As I said, we’re not trying to stop development; we’re trying to make sure it’s compatible. I think we offered some good examples of where the historic preservation commission has worked very closely with developers to make sure that it fits with the character of that neighborhood. It might be architecturally different, it might be unique, it might not look the same, but it might be something that’s nonetheless compatible with that. And that’s what we’re asking for and that’s helpful to consider…to consider why we’d ask that all aspects of that district are considered. Don MacArthur: Thank you. All right, let’s… Patsy O’Keefe: I just wonder if this ordinance would be the supersede all other decisions…that supersede the Design Review Board, the Building Permit, that a developer would have to get this approval to approach the other entities. That’s one question. The second question is, is there a way to appeal a design on historic preservation project? Don MacArthur: Yes. Yes to both. I mean, I think my understanding and Philip, you jump in here, or Roger; you need to have this HPP in order to get a zoning compliance permit which would be a requisite to any building permit that you would need for a building action. So any of those 2,000 properties, if you want to do something that needs a building permit, you need this HPP. Roger Millar: Correct. And in 20-30-015 of the Ordinance, Relationship to Other Provisions, the designation of a resource as a historic resource does not change the underlying zone classification of the historic resource and does not exempt historic resource owners from complying with other City building and zoning regulations. A ---PAGE BREAK--- designation may place further restrictions upon historic resources than the building or zoning designations require. Don MacArthur: And I heard you guys also outline the process for an appeal which then goes from City Council. Roger Millar: Correct. Don MacArthur: Not to the Board of Adjustments. The appeal of the HPP, although if there’s a variance required, then it goes to Board of Adjustments. Roger Millar: If somebody has a hardship and requests a variance from the Ordinance, it would go to the Board of Adjustment. If the Historic Preservation Officer or the Commission that either the owner of the property or some other party has a grievance with, they would take the appeal to the City Council. Don MacArthur: So the grievance could be that the HPP wasn’t restrictive enough? Roger Millar: It could be. The…again, any affected party is allowed to appeal any decision. Don MacArthur: Who’s an affected party? Roger Millar: An affected party? Don MacArthur: Anyone in the district? Roger Millar: A property owner or someone adjacent; you know, generally, you have prove standing in those kinds of cases, but, yeah, there would be a number of people who would be affected parties and could appeal a decision. An owner of property who didn’t like the decision or someone who didn’t like the decision that was made in favor of the owner of the property could file an appeal. There’s a cost to appeal and there’s a process. Don MacArthur: Right, well we haven’t got there, yet. We don’t need to take that up with the current motion. Let’s…let’s…Jon. Jon Haber: I have been wondering in the process of getting to this point, did you consider the option of using sort of an overlay approach, I think would have followed the lines of a couple suggestions we’ve heard tonight that we maybe design the ordinance now, but don’t apply until some later local district-wide process. Was that considered in what were the process? Roger Millar: That was considered. Again, the Historic Preservation Commission has been at this for over ten years and they tried a variety of different approaches, and this was the approach that came up out of the Historic Preservation Commission as a recommendation to the City Council. Don MacArthur: Jerry, you still have a comment? Jerry O’Connell: No. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: You know, I’m interested in other ideas about how to quantify what the lots are or the parcels are that are subject to this. I don’t feel that wedded to the current way that they’re designated. I don’t think it’s enough to just take the listed parcels. I feel like my…that ultimately I believe in the idea of historic districts and I think it should apply pretty much across the board to district but, obviously, I’m uneasy about certain of the districts and there’s probably areas of other districts that I would be uneasy about if I knew them better. And I’m not sure…I guess my take on all that is that I’m willing to trust the human process here to those things and to just see how it goes and if it doesn’t go well, then I have the feeling that it’s going to reeled back in. So I guess that’s where I’m kind of going out there with a…the Board and office of zoning, or the Historic Preservation Officer are going to have to do a little bit of fast assessment of where the community’s willing to go and how to do their business and match the community will. Don, I’m sure you have something pointed to say to that. Don Latham: I have one question. I think we heard a number, didn’t we? 250 per year? How about it, Roger, 250 more completely different kinds of permits to work up per year—is that one more person, two more persons, three more persons, and don’t tell me zero, because I won’t believe it. Roger Millar: I’m sorry you won’t believe it, but it will be the task of the Historic Preservation Officer because Philip would not be doing some of the things he does today. Don Latham: I find that hard to believe. He’d need an assistant first thing. Roger Millar: Well… Don Latham: Sorry. Don MacArthur: Do we have a number? I mean has this analyzed that if you were to take these districts and look back over the last year or two years? Roger Millar: Well, we haven’t looked at it that way; but, Don, if you look at it, its one- seventh of the properties in Missoula. There are 21,000 properties in Missoula today, we see 1,000, 1500 building permits a year. So, you know, city-wide, an individual property has a chance of being affected by a building permit once every 15 to 25 years. So, you know, a seventh of that 1,000 permits, we’re looking at…what’s 1,000 divided by 7? I don’t do math. Don MacArthur: 130? 140? Roger Millar: 150 to 200, so, we’re looking at 150. But, again, you got to remember that every building permit that comes into our office gets reviewed by the Floodplain Administrator and the vast majority of them, not in the floodplain, that’s the extent of the review. So when you talk about the permits coming in, I think the comment from Bozeman’s experience, the vast majority of them are, okay, he’s got wood siding and he’s replacing all of the wood siding and here’s what…it’s going to be a ten-minute thing. There are going to be the Lincoln Schools that come up, that are going to take hearings and lots of light, noise, and thunder and time. But I think most of them are not going to be problematic. What Philip does today, as the Historic Preservation Officer, ---PAGE BREAK--- is a lot to deal with outreach and education and developing websites and displays and working with, you know, organizations that if this is place we’re going to be able to do less of that, or we’re going to have to contract that work out. But my intent would be to make that happen within the resources that we have today. Don MacArthur: But every HPP application goes to the Commission. Now, it says that clearly meet the review criteria may be approved the Officer without Commission review. Roger Millar: Correct. And I think the Officer makes a regular report to the Commission and, you know, the Commission can say, “Hey, about that one, bring it forward.” I think, you know, Don, a comment you made earlier, if this authority is granted to the Commission and the Officer and it’s abused, it’s going to be jerked back just as fast. Don MacArthur: Okay, let’s a…Tim. Tim Skufca: As far as you’re concerned, the difficulty of maintaining a character of downtown that doesn’t have any character, that’s their difficulty and I think if a building like the Corner can go right next to the Roosevelt, I think that’s some indication that they’ll maintain the…to have some creativity still. But just having that scrutiny on there, I got to think it’s a good thing. Don MacArthur: And really my concern is not so much about his aesthetic presentation as it is about development intensity. That there are areas of downtown where the development intensity right now is pretty low and that are, you know, may not…it may not be the right future for our City to have them continue to be low and so the question from my end really comes down to not…you know, not are we going to allow a modern expression, I actually have fairly good confidence that modern expression will be allowed. I think that the bigger issues will come down when we look at, you know, one-story tiny bungalows that maybe really should be developed at six story apartment level. I mean I don’t know what the right thing is, place-by-place but that’s where the friction is going to be, probably not about expression but about mass and bulk. And that’s the part that I think that it is going to be difficult for the preservation committee, commission to say yes, it’s appropriate to change from cute, worker housing to something different. I think that’s going to be a difficult move for that body. And how that relates to our master planning of our downtown, I think, is something that is within our purview as Planning Board to try to think about and to assess and, you know, I’d love to figure a way to defer somehow the decision about downtown but I’m not sure how to do that. Let’s have a roll call vote. So the motion on the floor right now is to accept the language as is in 20.30.50. The vote was as follows: Jennifer Clary No Jonathan Haber Yes Jerry O’Connell Yes Jerry Petasek Yes Don Latham No Tim Skufca Yes Don MacArthur Yes The motion passed with 5 votes of “yes” and 2 votes of “no”. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Okay, let’s take a 5-minute break and we’ll come back and try to work through any other issues before we make an overall motion. [BREAK] [Meeting reconvened at 9:42 pm] Don MacArthur: Okay, I’ll call the meeting back to order. I think I see Sharon coming. So, I think we have made recommendation on 02.30.50 which establishes the jurisdiction. There were some other questions about timeline that I think would be good to take some action on. Anyone want to suggest…and remind me where the timeline, the 30-day timeline is. Roger Millar: It’s in demolition, which is the bottom of page 10, top of page 11. Don MacArthur: And then in mitigation, the 30-day notice in 3-C. Roger Millar: 3C is the 30-day notice; 2 has the 60-day demolition delay and then in general the 60 days to make a decision is… Philip Maechling: It’s on page 9 at the top. Roger Millar: Sixty days from the day of the completed application, or 90 days involving a demolition or relocation, and that allows for the 60-day demolition delay and then 30 more days to process the thing at hearing, if it needs to go to hearing. And if those schedules are not met and the applicant doesn’t grant an extension, the applications are deemed approved. Don MacArthur: So the demolition or relocation is the structure no longer exists on the site, I mean any…what about partial demolitions or adaptive reuse that would demolish a portion of the structure, is that 60 days or 90? Philip Maechling: That would be 60 days as part of the building permit. Don MacArthur: Okay. Philip Maechling: Others…to do a partial demolition, to do an addition, you would get the HPP approval in advance of that. Don MacArthur: Yep. Philip Maechling: And, in fact, you could the HPP approval in advance of applying for a building permit. Don MacArthur: Okay. Anyone want to make a motion around the Board to change the timeline from the 60 days for an HPP, 90 days if it’s demolition or relocation, and that…the 90…the 30-day difference is to allow 30 days for the public notice of the action. Jerry? Jerry Petasek: I just have questions, first, if that’s okay. Don MacArthur: Please. ---PAGE BREAK--- Jerry Petasek: So what does the…and I’m sorry, I wasn’t here on the first go-through. So what does the 30 days do? It allows people to say “My mom used to live there and I’d like to buy the property?” Roger Millar: Well, if you look that…on page 10…when someone is coming in and saying, “I own this building and I want to demolish it.” If you look at page 11: “Upon receipt of the completed application the Commission may impose a relocation or demolition delay for 60 days.” And then in the mitigation, you see: “If the demolition delay is approved, the applicant shall mitigate the adverse affects by advertising 30 days prior to the demolition and doing the documentation.” But what the applicant has to do within that 60 day period is up at the top of page 11, the good faith effort to find alternatives. On the others, the alteration and the new construction, there’s 60 days total and that’s intended to allow for…up to 60 days total, basically intended to allow for two cycles of the Commission meetings, you know, after the application is received, we hope to get them to the first meeting, but we have to provide the adequate notice and the rest of that and there are times you just can’t make that happen. Don MacArthur: Okay, any other questions? So the 60-day delay, then, that assumes that the…walk me through the 60 day delay, what does that…what happens during the 60 day delay, what is that…what happens during the 60 day delay? That is the 30-day advertising occurs during that and… Roger Millar: Correct. Don MacArthur: …and 30 days of whatever follows the advertising… Roger Millar: Or before the advertising, what have you. The whole purpose of that is to try to work out some of the stuff that’s at the top of page 11, the good faith effort to find an alternative that would result in the preservation, renovation, or reuse of the resource; the good faith effort to find a purchaser interested in acquiring and preserving or reusing the resource and the…showing that all reasonable and common use of the property is not there. That’s…the purpose of the delay is to…and I think any property owner who is purposing to demolish just with the regulation in place have to build that into their schedule. Don MacArthur: Yep. Roger Millar: Now, you may recall when the Lincoln School was first acquired, the proposal was to demolish it and we had not process for addressing that. I think Philip can tell you examples where people have come in, purposing to demolish buildings and in relatively short order, other buyers were found for them or financing was found for them or what have you. It’s just an attempt to make that happen. Don MacArthur: Yep. Roger Millar: I think the…the H…the Officer and the Commission are both going to realize that in some situations it makes no sense, the building has to come down. Don MacArthur: My own personal view of this is that I think that it should, certainly, not be extended, I think that a majority of these permits…well, maybe I’ll work my way around to some different opinion by the end of my discussion here, but the majority of ---PAGE BREAK--- these permits really need to be handled very quickly. I mean, most of the ones in residential zones are probably going to be relatively minor remodels and ought to be handled very expediently in order to keep the projects rolling and encourage the activity in those districts. So any extension beyond this seems bad to me. I mean, I want it to be fast. On the other hand, there are some larger issues, like some of the ones that you mentioned, Roger, about the Lincoln School or something like that, that it may be difficult to actually get all the information done in 60 days, get all the process done in 60 days and if the developer…the way it’s written now, as I understand it, if the developer says no, I don’t want to give you an extension, then you have to make action. I guess the action could be no. Roger Millar: The action could be no, and then you get into the appeals process. Don MacArthur: Yeah, and then it’s…yeah. Roger Millar: But, you know, we…you’re familiar with our subdivision regulations, we do everything from a six-lotter on up in 60 days the legislature given us 80 now for things over 50 lots, but if the…Mr. McClay were to drop the Bitterroot Resort on us tomorrow, we’d have 80 days to bring it to you for a decision…or actually to bring it to the Board of County Commissioners for a decision, that’s the world we live in. So the 60 days is in there with that in mind, that… Don MacArthur: Is this the same 60 days as that? Roger Millar: No, this is… Don MacArthur: I know it’s different, but is this 60 calendar days? Roger Millar: This is 60… Philip Maechling: This is 60 days. Don MacArthur: Sixty calendar days, no working days, no…okay. Roger Millar: Let me…let me ponder that one for a minute, I don’t want to say, yeah, it’s 60 calendar days… Don MacArthur: Well we better establish that, since there’s different things… Roger Millar: Yeah. Don MacArthur: …in different parts of our ordinance. Roger Millar: Yeah. It says 60 days and I need to look at the proposed Title 20, because those definitions are not in this chapter, they’re up at the very beginning of Title 20, so let me bring that up on line and get back to you. Don MacArthur: Yeah, yeah, okay. Don. Don Latham: Well I was just wondering, is this a concurrent sentence or is it in series with the other stuff that’s going on. Because now we have a class of property that has ---PAGE BREAK--- another 60 days period, in theory, tacked on—or 90 days—tacked on before the building department can issue a building permit or before anybody…or before the zoning people can say, oh yeah, it might conform to the rest of the zoning, but we’re not sure how the historic part works in because we haven’t really dealt with those people so we don’t understand this point or that point. So now we’re…in addition to the 60 days for the other things, we’re now into 120 days. Meanwhile, the cost of building is going up and the cost of everything else is going up. Can’t this something be done to do this, if you’re going to have to do it, at least can it be done in concurrence…in…simultaneous with the rest of the stuff that’s going on? Roger Millar: That’s the intent, Don, the 60 days for subdivision and the rest of that, you can’t begin a building permit process until the subdivision is done, not only preliminary plat, but finally platted. So what we’re looking at, if an individual is doing a building permit for an alteration or a demolition of an historic structure, they’re probably going to be thinking about it for more than a couple weeks before they drop the application. With whatever time that you guys and ultimately the Council finally work up, that’s just going to have to be built into the schedule of doing business. If you’re intending to demolish a building in an historic district to building something new, you’re going to know to start that process in advance of…you know, you’re going to build it into your schedule, just what people do. Don MacArthur: I mean there are things that the 60 days seems kind of onerous to me for. If someone came and wanted to re-side their house, they shouldn’t have to wait 60 days to do that. Roger Millar: No, it’s up to 60 days. Don MacArthur: I know, I’m just saying that, you know, Philip’s on vacation or whatever it is and it—not that he gets to take 60-day vacations, but—you know, it’s…that’s one of those questions that, from the development side, certain kinds of activity that are pretty minor ought to be handled very rapidly… Roger Millar: Yeah. Don MacArthur: …and making sure that we have the resources to do that is going to be critical to this succeeding. Roger Millar: Oh, I agree. And believe me, when a developer feels like their application is not getting our full attention, sometimes I’m made aware of it. Quite often, my bosses are made aware of it and I get a call from the Mayor’s office or the Board of County Commissioners saying, you know, what’s happening to John or Joe or Jane’s permit. Why is it sitting in your office? And I go down and find out and, you know, that’s the nature of what we do. Don MacArthur: Yep. Tim. Tim Skufca: If an HPP has been denied, could there be some sort of fast-track priority process for that property owner to get a redesign and move it forward to address some of the issues that it was denied? ---PAGE BREAK--- Roger Millar: There’s not one in here now. What I’ve seen quite often, when someone has a subdivision that looks like it’s going to be denied, they grant an extension and come back to the next meeting and work with the deciding body. I would think it probably be more like that, if…you know, you can tell which way the wind’s blowing, generally. You say, hey, time out, let’s come back to the next meeting with something new. Tim Skufca: Which may mean another 30 days, then. Roger Millar: Unless the Commission is willing to hold a special meeting. Don MacArthur: I mean all these questions are going to get beaten out pretty fast. I’m sure that the first time there’s any stress over it, the process of this is going to get worked through, refined, and…thank you. Roger Millar: Mr. Chair, I found the meeting and intent of days, references to days are to calendar days, unless otherwise expressly stated. And it says days, it says calendar days. Don MacArthur: Yep. Okay, I’m not…so far I’m not hearing any motions for changing the timeline. Anybody other than Don who wants to get rid of the timeline? Jerry. Jerry O’Connell: I just, one question I’ve got on here for staff. The advertising for demolition…for a period of 30 days prior to demolition. Is that the last 30 days of that 60-day window? Is it, like, immediately prior to demolition or is it… Roger Millar: It’s within that 60-day window. Jerry O’Connell: Anytime. Roger Millar: It would be up to the applicant. Jerry O’Connell: Okay. Don MacArthur: Okay, anyone in the audience with a pressing need to comment on us leaving the Ordinance as is around timeline? Steve Adler: Just for reference, not necessarily a push to change it, but as far as a demolition delay goes, around the country, 180 days is standard. If you want to push it out, some people go 240 to even 360 days. But 180 days is standard. So to add 60 days or 60 to 90 days for demolition delay is already incredibly expedient. So just to put that in frame of what other folks have around the country. Don MacArthur: Okay. Thank you. Philip Maechling: Don, can I just add that the current ordinance also has that? Don MacArthur: The current City… ---PAGE BREAK--- Philip Maechling: The current Historic Preservation Ordinance, the piece of it that has only applied to Fort Missoula and to the Roosevelt Block has a 180 day demolition delay. Don MacArthur: And that would be…is that superseded by this or what’s the relationship of that portion of the Ordinance to this portion? Philip Maechling: That would be changed by this. Roger Millar: The Roosevelt Block is actually a PUD, that is not in the zoning ordinance itself. Philip Maechling: Oh, no, that’s right. Roger Millar: Fort Missoula is in a zoning ordinance and the Fort Missoula overlay would remain, so Fort Missoula would continue to be managed the way Fort Missoula is managed today. Don MacArthur: As would the Roosevelt Block. Roger Millar: As a PUD, it’s a PUD. And the Roosevelt Block is the Roosevelt…it’s the two buildings, that’s what’s there. The Fort Missoula, at some point in time, we might want to revisit Fort Missoula, but we intended to keep it as it. Don MacArthur: Okay. Jerry O’Connell: One more, quickly. Don MacArthur: Yep. Jerry O’Connell: If it is or was or is currently 180 and we’re going to 30, were there problems with it at 180 and what was the impetus to shorten it up so much? Roger Millar: Well, again, the 180 was applied to one block of property, a PUD, and The Fort Missoula, the majority of the property which is public and wasn’t…you know, there are very few private development activities going on out there. As this ordinance was crafted and review, originally, and in formal discussions with you and with the City Council, this was one of the issues and the Historic Preservation Commission knocked it around and said that we can do it in 60. Jerry O’Connell: Is it…the way I understand it, this is a timeframe for people to see if there’s a viable buyer out there who possibly preserve the property. Roger Millar: The idea is a good faith effort is made during that period of time. And, again, every time somebody wants to demolish something doesn’t automatically mean there’s going to be a 60 day delay on it. When a demo permit comes in and Philip believes that a demolition delay is appropriate, he’ll approach the Commission and they are the ones that make that decision. Jerry O’Connell: With that idea in mind, 30 does seem a pretty short timeframe to make a good faith estimate…or a good faith effort to go find a buyer. ---PAGE BREAK--- Roger Millar: Well, 60-day delay, 30-day advertisement. Jerry O’Connell: Excuse me, I got you, thanks. Don MacArthur: Okay, I got a couple other questions. I wanted to ask the question about one of the new pieces of language that was brought forward on page 7 where it says Alternative Compliance for setbacks may be granted for existing historic resources in order to retain existing historic setbacks in an historic development pattern without need to apply for a variance. That does sound legal to me, and it seems in a not…it doesn’t seem…and on page 2 it says that the designation of a resource does not change the underlying zone classification, does not exempt historic resource owners from complying with other City building and zoning regulations. You know… Philip Maechling: That’s correct. This is a rezoning, however, and so it’s a zoning that is in addition to the underlying zoning and things can be qualified by the City Council, it’s not an illegal thing to do, to say that you’re not required to…it sets a standard that is applied to all these properties, so, therefore, they do not have to apply for a variance because they can rebuild a building that is on the property line without having to apply for a variance to do that if that’s the historic setback and that’s the pattern in the neighborhood. The goal is to try…the goal of this part is to allow people to keep the pattern that is established already for contributing structures in an historic district. Don MacArthur: And I get the goal; I guess I’m just trying to think through all the ways that that goal could be abused. Philip Maechling: Well I can give you an example right now. Imagine a project that was built before there was zoning and it’s built in the front yard, it’s built in the front yard along the street, where all of the buildings are built in the front yard but the zoning says it has to have a 20-foot setback. But there’s an established pattern on that block that is all 10-foot setbacks. Shouldn’t they be able to rebuild or even increase the height of that building, put a second story on, without having to meeting the 20-foot setback and create a building that would certainly be less sympathetic to the neighborhood than the option of putting a dormer and a bedroom in the setback at this point. Don MacArthur: Right, but we had a bunch of setback exceptions that are already built into Chapter 20 and Title 19 that at least in the residential…a good portion of the residential area’s already affect this very action. You know, that basically say that if your building is in the setback, you can extend that building within the setback, you know, either vertically or along the ground without applying for a variance as long as you don’t increase that…the nonconformity. So I guess the question is do we already have that part covered, that you’re looking for, and where else…I mean there are some of these areas that are not in residential zones, that are in commercial zones, that do have other setbacks and I…you know, I guess I don’t know well enough all the places where this might apply. But it does seem to me that it gives a pretty broad power of granting variance to the underlying zoning and I guess I just wanted to bring that up and discuss it a little bit. ---PAGE BREAK--- Philip Maechling: I’ll give you an example, and again, it says “may be granted” it doesn’t say “shall be granted”…but if you look at the Hip Strip, all of those buildings are zoned commercial require a 10-foot setback for any addition to them, or for replacement. There’s an established street wall on the Hip Strip that I would suggest one would want to maintain. This would allow a second story to be put or a third story to be put on an existing building in that area without having to set it back ten feet, if that’s the desire of the Council and the Planning Board, it would make for…I guess I would suggest it would make for a more sympathetic design than stepping the second story back ten feet and creating a number of problems: structural problems, drainage problems. Don MacArthur: Yep, Tim. Tim Skufca: The reasons for this keep going back to the front setback, but I think the abuse could be to the side setbacks and it’s setback thing is a couple places in the…I’ve highlighted it in two places in 20.30 and I think if we maybe set it to front setback or eliminate it. I think it’s dangerous. It’s trumping the neighboring property’s zoning rights, I guess. I mean, the reason for a side setback is to protect the neighbors. Don MacArthur: I guess on the other side of this, arguing for the Preservation folks’ ability to do this, all of their goals ought to be about neighborhood fabric. So, you know, if they think there’s any risk at all to the neighborhood fabric, they should be saying no, we’re not granting this. You know, if you want to go try to get a variance, go ahead, but we’re not going to do it. I mean, that’s the other side of it is all their motivation should be positive and protective of the existing resource. So…and as a devel…from the development end, there are a number of times that you do get into these situations. I mean, we did a project over on the Northside that all the setbacks were screwy and completely off of what the fabric of the neighborhood was. Everything had a zero setback and yet the requirement is 20 feet on the front; and the side there were zero setbacks instead of 10 feet. So, I mean, there are places, lots of these places, within historic neighborhoods where this would allow a developer a lot more ease in working through the process and be a good thing. Tim Skufca: But this is only in terms of replacing or demo-ing and replacement. Don Latham: Additions? Don MacArthur: For existing historic resources. Yeah, I don’t know what that means, exactly. I mean, presumably an existing historic resource is a building. Philip Maechling: Correct. Roger Millar: The alternative compliance for setbacks I brought up the language in the proposed Title 20, the exceptions, and it does say: “When existing lawfully established residential buildings on one or more abutting parcels are closer to the front property line than the otherwise required front setback, additions to existing residential buildings or construction of new residential buildings on the subject parcel may comply with the average front yard depth that exists on the nearest two parcels on either side of the subject parcel instead of complying with the minimum front setback requirement.” I think that, Philip may address your issue. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Well, residentially, and then there’s the other exception which allows you on your side yard, if you’re over your side yard setback, you’re allowed to develop in that plane vertically and along the lot line as much as you want, residentially. Roger Millar: And in the B and C zones there’s no front setback anymore. Don MacArthur: Right. So, maybe around the front we’ve got it covered between that and the fact that there is no front setback. Roger Millar: Yep. The only place we have a front setback in the B and C zones is when it abuts residential. I think most of the cases are covered and you don’t need to have this language. Don MacArthur: I guess I’d be inclined to ask you guys as you bring it forward to see if you need the language. Roger Millar: You’ll note in the color version, this one is in blue, this is a Philip change, so… Don MacArthur: But Philip may not have understood all the things that are in Title 20… Philip Maechling: That’s correct. Don MacArthur: …that already protect this. So if…I don’t know, does Planning Board want to weigh in on this? Anyone want to make a motion? Don. Don Latham: I don’t have a motion, but I do have a comment, of course. Don MacArthur: Yes. Don Latham: And that is we just heard the word that if 20 passes according to what we did, we spent months and months and months sitting here and we now have 3,000 properties that are going to just override that zoning at will. By one person, one person who sits there, who can override, who…who…because it’s being rezoned into an historic zone. And that is, by their own words, rezoning it. So now all the work that we did to zone those places where the people were complaining about their zoning because they like their district. Now we’ll have a zoning district, all right, but they’ll have a Czar instead of a fixed zoning rule. Roger Millar: Well… Don MacArthur: It will be different, because I just thought I heard Roger say that actually we didn’t even need this language because it was already allowed. Roger Millar: In my estimation, Mr. Maechling put the language in here to address an issue that’s come up for him in Title 19. You addressed it in Title 20. Assuming Title 20 is adopted, I don’t think you need this language and I would recommend that you recommend to the Council that it be removed. As far as the Historic Czar, Don, all these things ultimately come down to the City Council. My office and I, personally, ---PAGE BREAK--- don’t have any authority that is not granted to me by people that are elected by the citizens of Missoula. So, the one person is given the authority by 12 who are given the authority by 70,000. It’s not a Czar. Don Latham: Nope, don’t mistake for ad homonym attack, please. Well, I would move to remove the language in that case. Don MacArthur: All right, so the motion… Don Latham: Let the underlying zoning reign… Jerry O’Connell: And I’ll second that. Don MacArthur: So the language in question is 20.30.92, where it says “Alternative compliance for setbacks may be granted, dot, dot, dot.” Just that one paragraph, one line. Is that correct, Don? Don Latham: That is correct. Don MacArthur: Any other discussion on the motion. Tim Skufca: [inaudible, microphone off] Roger Millar: You need your microphone on. Don MacArthur: Is your mic on? Tim Skufca: …point 096, the second line there… Don MacArthur: Which line? I’m not finding it exactly. Where it says existing setbacks? Tim Skufca: Right. Don MacArthur: “The characteristics of an historic resource that qualify it for designation shall be preserved and existing setbacks illustrating historic patterns of development shall be retained. I don’t see that as being… Don Latham: No, that’s under the qualification section, isn’t it? Don MacArthur: I don’t think that’s the same, exactly. Don Latham: No, it isn’t. Don MacArthur: Okay, let’s just deal with this one paragraph, if you want to come with another motion, Tim, you can. Tim Skufca: Okay. Don MacArthur: Any other discussion around the Board? Steve, okay, all right. ---PAGE BREAK--- All in favor say ‘aye’. [All Board members answered ‘aye’.] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] The motion carries. Don MacArthur: Any other topics people want to raise. Tim? Tim Skufca: Is there some sort of level of acceptance that could be given to alternative energy devices that may be installed as…you know, a solar panel, can that trump some of the historic qualifications or… Philip Maechling: Typically in Historic Preservation Ordinances and I don’t believe we have anything in here on Solar Panels. But typically in Historic Preservation Ordinances and Historic Districts, if the solar panels are visible from the street on qualifying…qualifying buildings, then they would not be allowed. This doesn’t talk about that. And I guess from personal perspective, solar panels are temporary installation on buildings as opposed to permanent things. I mean, they are usually attached to the roof, they are not part of a physical structure of the building and so they’re reversible. Tim Skufca: No. Philip Maechling: So normally you don’t put them on north facing…you know…surface, so you’re likely to see them on south facing surfaces. Tim Skufca: Which could be facing the street. Philip Maechling: Which could be facing the street, that’s correct. Don MacArthur: Like my house. Tim Skufca: And I think they should be celebrated, not denied, so I… Philip Maechling: But this ordinance is silent on solar structures, solar panels. Roger Millar: This might be one where, again, the intent of the community, as much as you said that we…working through Title 20 solar is, you know, kind of accepted. That would be a question just the…how does the Historic Preservation Officer respond and how does the Historic Preservation Commission respond, and if they don’t respond the way the Council likes, there will be a change to the Ordinance. But, you know, it’s up to you if you want to anticipate that there needs to be language to that affect. Don MacArthur: Well we could make a motion, for example, following Philip’s language to say temporary attachments to buildings, such as photovoltaic arrays are not subject to this ordinance. Philip Maechling: Satellite dishes, I mean, I think you need to think through what you’re proposing. There are all kinds of temporary structures that could be installed. Don MacArthur: Or we could just say, you know, solar installations are not subject to this code. Yeah, Jerry? Jerry Petasek: Do you need a building permit to put a satellite dish on your house? ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: You do for a PV array. Tim Skufca: Yeah. Don MacArthur: As of now. Photo Voltaic… Tim Skufca: As well as… Don MacArthur: Hot water. Tim Skufca: Hot water, yeah. Jerry O’Connell: Couldn’t we just, as we did in this last paragraph, we just got rid of, leave the existing coverage in the new Title 20 to apply to this as well? And do nothing. Would it provide the kind of coverage, the protection that we’re looking for? Don MacArthur: What did it say, again, in Title 20? Jerry O’Connell: Basically they’re allowed. Roger Millar: Solar good. Don MacArthur: Yeah I remember that but I was wondering if it would actually supersede this Preservation Commission’s ruling that Solar was bad. If they deemed that. Roger Millar: I’m looking for…if you wanted to put something in…criteria for review of alterations and new construction, which would be 20.30.096. You could put in a 20.30.096 4 Photovoltaic Arrays are permitted per the other chapters of Title 20 or something to that effect. Don Latham: Hot water. Don MacArthur: Yeah, either, yeah, solar hot water or solar photovoltaic. Jerry Petasek: Why didn’t we say temporary structures, just in general? What were we afraid of? Tim Skufca: Satellite dishes. Jerry Petasek: You can only do, you don’t need a building permit to put one up. What am I doing? Am I on the wrong side of the argument, here? Don MacArthur: No, it’s a good point, if satellite dishes aren’t subject to any review anyway, then it doesn’t matter. You know, what is a temporary structure that we wouldn’t…that we have jurisdiction over that we wouldn’t want to allow? Jerry O’Connell: But if Title 20 already allows it, why do we have to stipulate here that it’s allowed? ---PAGE BREAK--- Roger Millar: Well if you don’t want the…either the Historic Preservation Officer or the Historic Preservation Commission to sit down in a public hearing and decide, ooohh, that’s not appropriate, we’re not going to grant the Historic Preservation Permit and require the individual to apply it to the City Council to have some action on it. If you’re of the opinion that solar is something that should be allowed in all circumstances, I would suggest that you amend 20.30.96 to allow it in all circumstances. Don MacArthur: Do you got a motion for us? Don Latham: So moved. Don MacArthur: Okay. Philip Maechling: Does that include facades? Roger Millar: Facades? Philip Maechling: Putting solar arrays on the facades of buildings? Don MacArthur: Oh yeah. Tim Skufca: Yeah. Philip Maechling: I’m asking a serious question. Tim Skufca: All right. I would think so. Don MacArthur: To me this sort of begs this whole question about how Historic Preservation incorporates new trends and new building technology and things that people are needing to do in order to keep their community whole and may need to do. Roger Millar: And I think the technology is changing. I mean, there are photovoltaic devices now that are either basically roof tiles… Tim Skufca: Roof shingles. Roger Millar: Roof shingles. I mean, you don’t have to have a big old bulky thing up there. But if you allow them at all circumstances, if someone wants to slap on the front of the building, it would not be prohibited by the Preservation Ordinance. And if the community’s take on solar is that it trumps, that’s fine with me. Don MacArthur: And for sure, somebody could do a really ugly job, but you can do an ugly job of lots of things. Roger Millar: Yes, you can. Don MacArthur: Okay, anyone want to motion here? Don Latham: I moved it. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Don moved that all solar, both solar photovoltaic and solar hot water are permitted and are not subject to this Ordinance, essentially. Don Latham: Right. Don MacArthur: Do we have a second? Tim Skufca: I’ll second it. Don MacArthur: Tim seconded it, discussion around the Board? Anyone in the audience? Steve Alder: I just can’t resist. In all of the districts I know of, what you’re getting into, whether to allow solar or not, it’s getting into writing the design guidelines. Typically solar is taken on by the design guidelines when a neighborhood gets so far as to get into that level of detail. So it’s just an observation, I don’t want to inhibit you on one or not, but I think you’re already getting design guidelines. Don MacArthur: It’s a good point and I still want to vote on it. Yes, Jerry. Don Latham: I have to vote on it. Jerry Petasek: There are still, speaking of design guidelines, even though you could plaster the outside of your historic home with photovoltaic cells of some kind, there’s still—because you need a building permit, the placement of the cells of the way it’s attached, it’s going to be regulated in some way, isn’t it? Don MacArthur: No. Roger Millar: Structurally. Don MacArthur: Structurally and electrically, that’s all. Roger Millar: Now if you do in this section, if you allow them, period, in design guidelines you can talk about how they’re designed. They are permitted but, and you could get district-specific about how they’re permitted. Don MacArthur: Yeah, Philip. Philip Maechling: I was just going to suggest you could also say that they are allowed on the roof. Don MacArthur: Jerry’s got some cool altoid box designs that he wants to put on there. That’s another discussion. Jerry Petasek: You laugh now. Tim Skufca: The problem with that is not all roofs are conducive…not all homes are conducive to a south-facing and if a homeowner is really interested in doing it, you often…a wall is what’s left. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Yep, all right, let’s have a vote. Any other comments? Roll…voice vote: All in favor say “aye.” [Board members answered ‘aye’.] Any opposed? Unidenified Speaker: [inaudible, microphone off] Don MacArthur: One no, okay, the motion carries. Anything else before we take the main motion up. Jerry. Jerry Petasek: I do have something. I think, or I feel, rather, that I am at a loss for words. I would like to see a benefit, a perceived benefit to being on the Historic Register other than the tax benefits that you get from the federal government. I would like to incentivize becoming part of a district, or being in a district, or having new districts created where they are appropriate, or having someone go through the effort of signing up to be a contributing home or getting on the Historic Register. So that said, I’m not entirely sure what those incentives should be, but off the top of my head, no cost to appeal, not that that’s an incentive but I feel like once you’re in, once you’re in the system and you’re subscribed to the process, I feel like it shouldn’t so overwhelming that you’re at the Union Club hearing at the end of bar the guy for four hours how he just got hosed by Historic Preservation Ordinance. Because I’ve had those conversations, not with the Historic Preservation Ordinance but, you know, other Ordinances. But…and…but I guess ultimately what I really feel is that the thing with the variances and I kind of…I just kind of like the idea that you have this historic home, it’s not just all burden, burden, burden. Look at all these other great benefits that I get for giving something back to the community and taking care of my property in a way that reflects the character. Don MacArthur: So let me say a couple things. I had a whole bunch of sarcastic things to say, but the real ones are that I don’t actually agree with you about the appeal fee because I’m nervous about the power of the appeal for those who don’t like the Historic Preservation Commission’s actions. I mean, somebody doesn’t like the Corner and says, gosh, it’s free, all I have to do is go knock on the door and say I don’t like that. And it becomes an appeal that gets kicked forward onto City Council’s plate. So I think that it needs to have consequence from both sides to appeal the actions of the commission. You know, that’s one statement. On the other side, I’m in agreement with what you said about incentivizing somehow, and my sarcastic ideas were that everybody who’s not in a historic district has to pay a tax and it gets redistributed to everybody who’s in a historic district. And if you’re a non-contributing member of a historic district then you pay a lower tax, but you still pay a small tax. I mean, this is kind of facetious, late-at-night talk, but how would you…how would we incentivize it to be attractive. What does it do, what does it make other than the inherent benefit of living in that place that has this greater value placed on it and everyone is hopefully working together to keep the structure of it intact and further it? Jerry Petasek: That’s a great question that I don’t know if I can answer. And just to clarify, because you’re right, I think the no cost of appeal would be just the burden…for the homeowner, just kind of a…if they are grieved in some way, they can just carry forward. Because I agree, if anyone can appeal, they, you know, they should have to bring forward their claim. I mean, other forms of incentives are all the thing that Roger doesn’t want to hear. And maybe possibly can’t even physically do, but, you know, the ---PAGE BREAK--- process…if you’re re-siding your house, that process should somehow be easier getting a permit which, it’s probably as easy as it’s going to get. But maybe for larger projects. I’m not in the system enough, but… Don MacArthur: So building permit review goes to the top of the line or…gees that would be a fun one to… Roger Millar: Yeah. Jerry Petasek: And once again, I think OPG is already hammering at the speed of these documents, so… Don MacArthur: Don. Don Latham: You don’t need any incentives; you just put 3,000 properties into this program with a vote. You don’t have to have any incentives, everybody who wants in is already in, even a lot of people who don’t want in, you know. There aren’t any historic districts left, if you look at the thing, I don’t see any. Don MacArthur: Jerry was hoping for it to be a happy experience to be in. Jerry Petasek: Yeah. Don Latham: Why would it be a happy experience? You’ve just saddled these 3,000 people…property owners with another bureaucracy. Why on earth is it a happy experience for them? Don MacArthur: All right, we’re not going to agree on that. Between those two folks over there, anyway. Anything else you want to add or suggest. Jerry, do you have a concrete suggestion? I’ve shot down all of your ideas so far. Jerry Petasek: I know, and Roger might want to say something about some of those incentives, of what they might be. But, really, I just want to send on that thought that, perhaps, the City Council could, or staff or whatnot can think of some incentives can be there. Someone smarter than me can make this a happy experience. Don MacArthur: Well part of the…and I don’t mean to say I’m smarter than you…part of the thing is that there are a lot of disincentives…there’s a lot of disincentives that are present right now. I mean, it’s now become harder to do whatever development action you might want to do on your property is now harder than it used to be. So how do we minimize that? I mean, part of it’s around money, if it could be free, that would help; if it’s fast, that would help; if it’s predictable, that helps. So these are the kinds of things that could be done, and maybe should be done as kind of trial run, I don’t know. Roger Millar: And that’s…I mean, those are all the goal. Not free, it’s going to hopefully low cost, fast and consistent, that’s our goal. The other thing you have to remember, those 3,000 properties, those 3,000 structures on 2,000 properties…any given year, any given decade, most of those properties are not going to be customers of ours. But they are going to have the assurance that the guy next door or the woman down the street decides to do something to their property, it’s going to be reviewed so that it doesn’t affect the character of the neighborhood and consequently the value of ---PAGE BREAK--- the 2,000 properties, the 1999 that aren’t applying for a building permit that year. So there’s an incentive…you know, absent this regulation, becoming a historic district, or being in a historic district, or buying a property in a historic district, there’s a certain little brag appeal of having the plaque and there’s the tax credit opportunity, but there’s also the knowledge that the neighborhood is going to be protected and its going to retain its value or add value and the decisions that are made to invest in the neighborhood is going to further the character that’s there. I think there’s a lot of incentive there for a property owner. I’m sure when it’s your turn to come in for a building permit, you’re going to have an extra hoop to jump through, but you’re not going to get some of the stuff that we see in other neighborhoods ain’t going to fly in the historic district. I think that’s an incentive. Don MacArthur: All right. Philip Maechling: Don, can I just add that one thought that Dave Strohmeier has talked about and this is probably not the year to try to get it done, but we’ve successfully passed open space bonds in the past and passing a Historic Preservation bond that would make people in Historic Districts eligible for no-interest loans, grants, those are…that’s a possibility and that’s a process that is done in other places that one could look forward to perhaps having happen here, where there would be monetary incentives along with the sort of pride and sense of community. Roger Millar: And the Urban Renewal District has a 20-plus year history of making investments. As Philip said, when they first looked at the downtown, it didn’t qualify. The façade enhancements, the improvements that were made by Urban Renewal over the years brought the downtown to a point where it actually did qualify as a district and we have URD-2 and URD-3 that have Historic Districts within there. So there’s an opportunity there for investments. So there are lots of things we can do as a community. I think what the preservation commission has said is the next thing we ought to do as a community is put an Ordinance in place that protects the districts. Don MacArthur: All right. Folks, I guess we are about to take action on the main motion, so go ahead and make your comment and… Steve Adler: Just regarding incentives, Missoula does have a tax abatement incentive on the books and I know you are looking at other issues other than tax credits but there is a local tax abatement but right now as I understand it, it’s pretty onerous. So maybe one of the incentives would be to lighten up the paperwork of getting that through. Don MacArthur: And what does that…do you know what it provides? Philip Maechling: Yeah, it’s established by state law, so there’s no lightening of paperwork that you can do and it’s never been used and it’s been in place for 20 years. What it does is over a 5-year period it allows you to not pay increased property taxes on historic properties—100 percent the first year, 80 percent, 60 percent, 40 percent, 20 percent, and then you go to the increase in property value created by improvements on historic properties that would cause your property taxes to therefore go up, don’t go up, the property tax is abated for a period of time incrementally. But it has not ever been used. ---PAGE BREAK--- Jerry Petasek: That’s for commercial only, isn’t it? Philip Maechling: What’s that? Jerry Petasek: It’s for commercial property only? Philip Maechling: Residential property as well, your own house, it’s just never been done. Tim Skufca: That would relieve my argument about justification, if in these districts, a certain income level, they’d automatically get this so that their taxes would not increase, their property taxes would not increase because they are in this historic district. Don MacArthur: So I still haven’t got the argument about the property taxes going up. I mean, if they’re in a historic district right now, aren’t their taxes going up already? Or do you think they are going to go up as a result of this Ordinance. Tim Skufca: Absolutely, yeah. Don MacArthur: The Ordinance, you think, is going to raise… Tim Skufca: Yeah, kick it in and gentrification will be sped up. Don MacArthur: Okay, okay. Do we have a main motion to accept the Ordinance as amended? Jon, do you have something other than that? Jon Haber: I have a question. Don MacArthur: Yes, please. Jon Haber: Actually I have two. One is we haven’t talked about demolition-by-neglect and one can imagine all sorts of terrible things happening there. The way I interpreted it is that there’s probably nothing enforceable there, but I was interested in hearing what staff knows about how this has been used, maybe in other places. I mean, the initial criterion for failure to repair and maintain, does that got a standard definition, or is that just somebody’s opinion? And then what sort of enforcement is actually possible, would ever be used? Philip Maechling: Demolition by neglect is in a lot of Ordinances, actually, and it essentially applies to buildings that are not maintained to a point that by neglect they need to be demolished rather than be repaired and its in place in a number of ordinances in the state of Montana as well as around the country. And the idea here was that people would get…buildings would get to the point where they have to be demolished because they become a health and safety hazard and people would use that as a method for getting their buildings torn down rather than go through the demolition delay process and try to find an alternative use for that. Jon Haber: So what does this accomplish—this provision? Philip Maechling: It’s a…I guess you say it’s a disincentive to letting buildings rot. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: So how do you know that it’s time to subject to enforcement? I mean, when…how much failure to repair and maintain—or is it a judgment call? You’re thinking this property… Philip Maechling: We would have to get a complaint from someone. That’s our enforcement typically works. We get a complaint from a neighbor saying hey, so and so’s got this really great building but they’ve let it go to the point that it’s falling down and there’s no effort to try to keep it as housing, to try to keep it, you know, in productive use. Don MacArthur: So this is language that’s pretty well tested around the country and it’s workable. The language that’s suggested in here. Philip Maechling: I believe it’s workable. It’s been tested and it is in place in other places. Jon Haber: The other question, unfortunately, goes back to the original topic and I guess the way this is written, if you understand that a non-contributing property is, in fact, listed on the National Register, then the rest of this makes sense and you would understand that this ordinance applies to your non-contributing property. But I would like to see the definition change, something change, and the easiest thing to me would be the definition of non-contributing resources that says they’re located within the boundaries of a historic district and are therefore listed on the National register and qualify as a Historic Resource and then it would be clear that this does apply to them. I don’t know whether that requires a motion or not since it’s just a definition, a clarification. Don MacArthur: That makes some great sense to me that we would in that key application paragraph be more clear about that every property within a historic district is subject to this ordinance and either…either…I’ve forgotten the word, now, contributing or non-contributing, both of those. I mean, I like the idea of what you said and I think the way you said it is pretty good. Jon Haber: Does it require a motion? Don MacArthur: Sure. Roger Millar: Your proposal was to add that to the definition of non-contributing resources? Jon Haber: Non-contributing resources. Don MacArthur: Well, so, maybe I didn’t understand. Can you read it all? This is 20.30.50, again, or it’s in the definition of… Jon Haber: I was putting this in the definitions, there’s probably other ways of doing it. But I would just add to the definition of non-contributing resources that they are listed on the National Register and are therefore are considered a historic resource. And then, these other sections, which talk about historic resources, would clearly apply to non-contributing resources. ---PAGE BREAK--- Jennifer Clary: But they’re not on the National Register, correct? It’s just in… Jon Haber: Well, that’s…any property listed on the National Register is what 50 applies to. Roger Millar: Another suggestion would be to say, “Accordingly, any property listed in the National Register or any contributing or non-contributing property in an Historic District listed in the National Register…” or, you know, just add a phrase there. I think that was back to what the Chair was talking about. Don MacArthur: That was what I was thinking about. Jon Haber: And see, that changes…the way it’s currently written is incorrect, then, it says…it’s only limited to any property listed. Roger Millar: Well it clarifies that, because the National…the district is in the National Register and therefore all the properties in the district are covered. But, I think, clarifying it by saying any property listed in the National Register or any contributing or non-contributing property in a National Register Historic District. I think that would make it super-clear. Philip Maechling: Right. Jon Haber: That would accomplish the same thing. Don MacArthur: Okay, do you want to make that a motion and then… Jon Haber: Yes. Don MacArthur: Second by somebody? Jerry Petasek: Second. Don MacArthur: Seconded by Jerry. Discussion? All in favor say ‘aye’. [All Board members answered ‘aye’.] Any opposed? Don Latham: No. Don MacArthur: One no, motion carries. Okay, Jon, anything else? Anyone else? Main motion, somebody. You got to make it up on the fly, Jerry, there’s no cheat sheet. Philip Maechling: There’s a motion in the staff report. Jerry Petasek: That’s what I thought, okay, is it the one that reads…”I move that conflicting portions of the Missoula Municipal Code be repealed and the Historic Preservation Ordinance be approved as amended?” Roger Millar: That’s a good idea. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Is that it? Philip Maechling: That’s a simple as it gets? Don MacArthur: So all conflicting portions of the existing zoning code are repealed? I like that. Presumably as it relates to Historic Preservation. Philip Maechling: Yes. Jon Haber: Not conflicting with each other. Don MacArthur: Yes, right, there’s quite a few of them, probably. Roger Millar: I think you ought to be recommending to City Council as opposed to acting. Tim Skufca: Yeah. Roger Millar: I’m sorry; there should have been a motion. Philip Maechling: Yeah. Jerry Petasek: I move that we recommend to City Council that conflicting portions of the Missoula Municipal Code… Don MacArthur: …as pertains to Historic Preservation… Jerry Petasek: …as pertains to Historic Preservation be repealed and Historic Preservation Ordinance be approved as amended. Don MacArthur: Yeah, he said that. Second on that? Jon Haber: Now I can do it? Okay, I’ll second. Don MacArthur: Seconded, thank you. Discussion on the main motion? Jenn. Jennifer Clary: I would love to be able to support this and I would have supported it if it was just the projects on the National Historic Register and not the noncontributing structures within the districts. I just think it’s very cumbersome and costly to the general public and the same comments that I had in the previous meeting we had and a lot of Joe Easton’s comments I definitely would second. And it’s…yeah, I’ll see what Council does, but that’s my two cents. Don MacArthur: So you would have voted if…you’d vote positively if it was included districts but only included the contributing buildings in districts and the listed individual buildings, is that what I understood, I’m just trying to make clear for the record. Jennifer Clary: Contributing…well, actually, our motion that we created was just to have the…how many was that…I forget now. ---PAGE BREAK--- Don MacArthur: Because I thought I heard you say something different just now and I wanted to see if there was… Jennifer Clary: Sixty-eight, the 68 National…just that… Don MacArthur: Just the individually-listed, nothing to do with contributing buildings in historic districts. Jennifer Clary: That was our motion. Don MacArthur: That’s what you would support. Jennifer Clary: That’s the one. Don MacArthur: Okay. Don. Don Latham: What Jennifer said. Don MacArthur: Okay. Anyone else? Okay, we better have a roll call vote. Roger Millar: You should take public comment, Mr. Chair. Don MacArthur: Anyone want to speak to it? Okay. The vote was as follows: Jerry O’Connell Yes Jerry Petasek Yes Don Latham No Tim Skufca Yes Jennifer Clary No Jonathan Haber Yes Don MacArthur Yes The motion carried with 5 votes of ‘yes’ and 2 votes of ‘no’. Don MacArthur: Okay, motion carries. Do we have a date when this goes forward to Council? Philip Maechling: No, we don’t. Roger Millar: Mr. Chair, no, we don’t, we’re working on Title 20 with City Council and this will move forward, we’ll schedule… Don MacArthur: It has to be dove-tailed into that Title 20 process? Roger Millar: After the Title 20 process is concluded. Don MacArthur: Thank you. Roger Millar: And the Downtown Master Plan as well, those are in front. Roger Millar: Great, thank you.