City Council Minutes 2011 09 06 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes September 6, 2011 • Page 4 of 12 funding for existing and future historic landmarked residential and commercial structures between now and the sunset of the HPF tax in 2019. To date, twelve residential structures and one commercial structure façade (the Rex Theater) have received landmark status or a conservation easement. That leaves 537 additional structures, both residential and commercial eligible to become historic landmarks. Over the next ten years, an additional 24 structures will become eligible for landmark status. Staff assumed a total of 64 residential (eight annually) and 4 commercial structures, with the proposed commercial incentives, will apply for landmark status, resulting in a potential total of 68 landmarked structures by 2019. Staff projected the HPF will receive approximately $375,000 annually from Sales Tax, State Grant, and miscellaneous funds through 2019 when the tax will sunset. Currently about 12% of the fund is allocated for administrative costs, including staff time to complete reviews of the historical significance of buildings proposed for landmarking and 6.5% allocated for professional services. Based on current demand and identified resources, staff recommended guideline 60% of the grant funding be reserved for residential structures and 40% be reserved for commercial structures. If 60% of the projected $2.4 million grant funding is allocated to residential structures, a total of about $1.4 million would be available for residential • properties over the next 8 years. This amount would permit: A signing bonus of $1,000, plus up to a $5,000 incentive grant for general maintenance and up to $16,500 grant amount for restoration and preservation. In one scenario, costs above the residential grant cap would be an out-of- pocket expense for the property owner. Allocating 40% of the HPF to commercial uses would result in about $976,000 for that purpose over the next eight year period. The recently completed Historic Structure Assessment (HSA) for the Grain Elevator indicated it would take just over$680,000 to clean up and make it structurally sound to remain in place. If 40% of the projected HPF funds are allocated to commercial uses, and if $685,000 is devoted to the Grain Elevator project, it would leave $291,000 for other commercial structures. This would be enough to provide $72,750 each for four different commercial properties. The HPC has scheduled a special meeting on September 12th to discuss the future of the grant program and corresponding fiscal management guidelines. One item of interest is to create a priority list of projects to focus the funding on projects the HPC would like to preserve. Staff recommended the HPC consider establishing a preservation master plan and corresponding fiscal management guidelines to create a priority list of where the preservation funds should be allocated and annually re- evaluated. This would be done so as to re-allocate the fiscal resources of the fund dedicated for residential and commercial landmarks based on the number of landmarks received the year before. •