Historic Preservation Commission Agenda and Packet 2019 04 29

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Historic Preservation Commission Meeting Minutes March 18, 2019 Page 3 of 13 Zuccaro responded that the only current conservation easement in Louisville was an agreement to conserve the front fagade on a building that was not landmarked. He described easements as tools in the preservation toolbox. Thomas stated that the proposed language was much clearer than the older language. Haley, Dickinson, and Selvoski discussed the lack of time limit for the "focused" grants currently and the grandfather clause. The commissioners discussed whether or not they had met the four goals laid out in 2018 and agreed, in general, that they had reached those goals. Dickinson added that there was some difficulty on the current landmarking process, since as a point of order the Commission had to landmark a structure first to move forward with the grant approval hearing, which could create difficulty for applicants. He suggested allowing for the landmark to be retracted if the grant were not approved, since some applicants would be landmarking only out of a desire to access the financial incentives. Zuccaro replied that clarifying the language would help with preservation outreach. He noted that the property owner had the option to not sign the landmark paperwork after the Council meeting. Dickinson replied that that made sense. Dunlap, Dickinson, and Thomas discussed the process as -is. Ulm asked if landmarking agreements were a standard part of the landmarking process without grant applications. Zuccaro confirmed. Dunlap asked if staff could run some examples through the proposed language to make sure different timelines and needs would be covered. Zuccaro noted that sometimes landmarking could be a financial disincentive but sometimes it could be an incentive. The best that the City could do would probably be to make sure that potential property owners have as much information about the process and about preservation as possible. Haley and Dunlap discussed the utility of the Historic Preservation Assessments for guiding the priorities of the preservation grant work. Ulm noted that he thought the new language and requirements was an improvement in using the HSAs for that guiding process.