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Historic Preservation Commission <br />Meeting Minutes <br />March 18, 2019 <br />Page 4 of 13 <br />Haley asked for public comment. <br />Erick Hartronft, 950 Spruce Street in Louisville, explained that he was on the original <br />Historic Preservation Commission and helped found the original preservation program. <br />He noted that there were both good and problematic elements of the proposal. First, he <br />thought that the small signing incentive in the original language targeted applicants who <br />wanted to landmark but who did not need to do immediate work on their properties. <br />Under the new language, those applicants would not receive any incentives. He noted <br />that the signing bonus was an incentive that the City could offer when approaching <br />specific properties to landmark. Second, the original ballot language had not specified <br />that new construction grants only go to additions to existing buildings. <br />Zuccaro responded that the ballot language did not limit the new construction grants to <br />building additions. However, in practice, only additions to existing buildings have <br />received new construction grants. It could be a policy question if the Commission <br />wanted to recommend opening up an additional grant category to new buildings based <br />on the new construction grant criteria. <br />Thomas stated that if they were going to change the intent of the old language would <br />require additional information about the review process. <br />Zuccaro replied that the previous language was broad enough to allow for completely <br />new construction, but it was unclear and had never been used that way. <br />Ulm was cautious about using the money for the sales tax for completely new <br />construction. <br />Hartronft noted that the new language would be a change in policy from the intent of the <br />original resolutions, which Zuccaro confirmed. <br />Hartronft registered a third concern. He did not think there was a good reason to create <br />a 36-month time limit, since landmarking had no time limit — landmarks were forever. He <br />added that the language of "extraordinary circumstances" was a high bar, not something <br />to be met easily. He noted that the Grain Elevator had not met extraordinary <br />circumstances under a previous Commission. He asked the Commission what they <br />would do if they did not use all the money in the Fund. He also thought that clarifying <br />the landmarking and grant timeline process should have clarify that property owners <br />could decide not to sign the landmarking agreement if their grant applications were not <br />approved. <br />Haley and Dickinson responded that the main reason the Commission had taken off the <br />signing bonus was because the money was not going to preservation of the landmarked <br />structures and the Commission had tried to make the Fund more generous overall. <br />Dickinson noted that applicants who just wanted to landmark their homes had the <br />incentive of getting their homes landmarked, which is what they would really want, <br />