City Council Study Session Summary 2008 05 27

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City Council Study Session Summary May 27, 2008 Page 2 of 7 o Conducting a Design Review to address the concerns of maintaining the character of Old Town o Addressing concerns that with the development of FasTracks the downtown property values will increase o Demolition Requests for Old Town due to the increase in property value especially since the Old Town houses are the most affordable currently o Revising demolition ordinance so that demolition requests don't have to be made in order for discussion to take place o Public Relations on the importance of "Why preserve?" and marketing/educating about preservation. o Preservation Tax initiative that is being discussed o Mike Koertje, HPC Commissioner, said that the HPC is working with the Louisville Revitalization Commission (LRC) on marketing for Main Street and said that there would be request $3,000 - $6,000 for an evaluator. Melanie Muckle, HPC Commissioner, said there are three parts to preservation- 1) Education piece 2) Funding piece and 3) technical expertise. Mayor Pro Tem said that she thought the incentives in zoning that HPC has started were a good idea. 3. Discussion - Sample Historic Preservation Sales Tax Ballot Question Councilor Dalton talked about the Old Town Business District and said that just because it is old doesn't mean it is historical. He said that currently it is eclectic and lacks a style. He suggested that it would be better to broaden the tax initiative to more than just Historic Preservation but to have it include size, set backs, etc. to keep the character of the downtown area Mr. Koerlje, HPC Commissioner, stated that preserving the character and preservation of the downtown were not necessarily the same, but agrees that the two need to be preserved sine how Councilor Dalton said that a way needs to be found to allow people to get a return on their property/building investments. Ms. Lewis, HPC Commissioner, said that from a marketing stand point, consumers are looking for the character of old town Councilor Dalton said his concern was that the focus was too much on historic preservation instead of preserving the character of the downtown. Ms. Lewis, HPC Commissioner, pointed out that there is a limited window of opportunity because people are moving fast on re-development of the downtown. She felt that the time was right to move forward with the Preservation tax initiative.