Historic Preservation Commission Agenda and Packet 2022 10 17

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Historic Preservation Commission Meeting Minutes September 19, 2022 Page 5 of 6 Staff recommends investigating an update that would allow applications to proceed to landmarking without an HSA under specific circumstances. She asks if the commission wants to continue requiring assessments prior to landmarking. Below are two options. • Maintain Current Regulations o Provides more information for Landmark and Alteration Certificate cases. o May be a barrier related to timeline. • Consider Updates, such as o Creating "good cause" criteria. o Allowing assessments after landmarking. Dunlap explains how this discussion came to be. Burg mentions that it is helpful to know that you need to have the HSA prior to landmarking. It is clear that the HSA has many benefits. She can see the plausibility for exemptions. Haley says this is an important discussion. The way we used to do this process was applicants came before the commission to landmark. Once they landmarked, they were eligible for the HSA. The process was changed though so that when the applicant paid for the HSA ahead of time, it incentivized the applicant to go through the landmarking process. She does not remember in past discussions that the HSA was necessary for landmarking. She thinks their goal should be simpler so that it is easier for the applicant. Burg asks if Chair Haley has an idea whether or not there was an increase in people to landmark when they went through the HSA process first. Haley says she is not sure. She has not noticed an increase or decrease. Staff would have to pull those numbers. Brackett Hogstad says since 2012, they have been required regardless. It would be hard to track because of that requirement being in place in the last 10 years. The commissioners and staff discuss the importance of a structure's physical integrity being a criterion for landmarking. Dunlap brings up the idea of having a fast track landmarking option. Haley asks staff what would be a reasonable way to research this and evaluate it in an objective way. Brackett Hogstad thinks a post exit survey would be a good next step for research. There are too many variables from 2012 to present day to get good findings. Researching properties that went through probable cause and examine whether or not they had an assessment or did landmarking is a likely next research step as well. That will take time for staff to sift through that information though. Burg says she is interested in hearing more about why properties stalled during the landmarking process. Zuccaro says something staff could do with future applicant is if they are interested in landmarking and if they are, are they interested in HSA? Do they see it as a barrier? Would they rather landmark without it? Brackett Hogstad summarizes the discussion by saying that the commission is interested in looking at the assessments and probable cause. There is also interest in evaluating the landmarking process overall. STAFF UPDATES Subcommittee Review Updates