Historic District Commission

Wednesday, November 9, 2022 – Regular Meeting Historic District Commission Meeting Minutes City Commission Chambers, City Hall CALL TO ORDER Chair Mary Sayles-Ewald, called the meeting to order with a quorum at 7:00 p.m. INTRODUCTIONS and ROLL CALL Present: Mary Ewald-Sayles, Ashley Meier, Grace Sayles, Lorelie Doerr Excused: Erica Armstrong, Sarah Kohn Others: Anthony Dier, Historic Preservation Officer and Staff Liasion APPROVAL OF MINUTES The approval of the previous meeting minutes was postponed until the next meeting. PUBLIC COMMENT - NON-AGENDA ITEMS None. OLD BUSINESS None. NEW BUSINESS HDC 22-34 – 2000 6th St. – City of Bay City Applicant is requesting a Notice to Proceed for the demolition of the dwelling at 2000 6th St. Present: Susan Coggins, City of Bay City Code Enforcement Coordinator Ms. Coggins stated the property came to their attention back in 2019. The property is owned by a corporation called Kaja Holdings out of South Carolina and the original complaint was regarding property maintenance. Windows were in disrepair, the roof had some issues, and some of the exterior of the walls and siding were also in disrepair. Normal property maintenance procedures were followed. Two letters and a notice of violation ticket were sent to the owner before ending up in court. She explained they never received any communication in response to the letters, nor did the owner show up for either of the regular or show cause hearings. Hearings were held by Zoom at that time so they could have easily attended by Zoom. It was decided it could not be taken any further legally because the property was owned by a corporation. It met the criteria of a dangerous building having been vacant for more than 180 days along with the exterior maintenance issues so a dangerous building hearing was conducted. The owners were sent notification several times with no response. The dangerous building hearing officer declared it as a dangerous building due to the lack of response and the damage that was done to the property. He sent an order to Kaja Holdings giving them the opportunity of either applying for a demolition permit or applying for a reasonable timetable on when the property could be brought into compliance. No response was received. Planning and Zoning Department / Suite 211 / 301 Washington Ave. / Bay City, MI 48708 / 989-894-8180 / www.baycitymi.org 1  Wednesday, November 9, 2022 – Regular Meeting Ms. Coggins stated the house continues to deteriorate. The windows are now in worse condition and are falling out, especially on the west side of the property. They feel the only alternative is to demolish the property. M. Ewald-Sayles said she could see where some of the windows have fallen out of the sunroom on the west side of the property and was sure the weather has taken its toll, but felt the noncompliance was kind of vague when it said “disrepair”. She made note to the rotted wood on the west side of the structure on the edges underneath the roof over the sun porch and other rot around some of the windows. She could not tell if the windows on the east side were falling out. Ms. Coggin responded not on the east side of the property, but there was some slight damage to the windows on the rear of the property. Due to the way that the roof is draining, she said it's actually been draining into some open areas behind the walls and through the windows. They had not been able to gain access to the inside of the property, but felt there was damage inside due to it being open to the elements since 2019. Ms. Coggin confirmed the damage had been in progress for about three years and added the neighbors said it had been vacant for two years prior to that. M. Ewald-Sayles inquired what the property value was and if it was known why the owner wasn’t responding to anything. Ms. Coggin did not know the value, but explained Kaja Holdings scooped up a bunch of houses when the market fell several years ago. There have been issues with lack of maintenance and communication with every single home that they've owned and have been taken to court several times. They have never responded to anything. She said they are letting most of their properties go for back taxes. M. Ewald-Sayles asked for the SCV to be looked up. A. Dier answered the county's geographic information system website listed the SCV at 27,900. M. Ewald-Sayles thought it would take more than doubling the SCV for all of the repairs and thought the building classified as not architecturally significant. Ms. Coggin noticed the citation ticket had been paid by an attorney. There had been limited contact with him and he had communicated he was no longer involved with the project after that. She believes it was the only reason why the ticket was paid at that time. A. Meier asked if there was any evidence of structural damage other than the gutters, windows, and chipped paint. Ms. Coggins replied not based on the 2012 property maintenance code. It's a very general code not a building code, or anything like that. Things are listed as windows in disrepair, doors in disrepair etc. even if we saw and could get more evidence, if you choose to bring this back to staff. If the foundation is cracked we would say foundation in disrepair. Specifics are never given. A. Meier said all she was asking for is photos or some sort of evidence. Planning and Zoning Department / Suite 211 / 301 Washington Ave. / Bay City, MI 48708 / 989-894-8180 / www.baycitymi.org 2  Wednesday, November 9, 2022 – Regular Meeting Ms. Coggins stated the issues found were initially from 2019. Other issues are now visible. She said she would be more than happy to get more details and photographs to show specifically around the building but still didin’t have authority to go into the building. M. Ewald-Sayles asked if the city had the funds to demolish the house. Ms. Coggin stated there were available funds through the CDBG and new ARPA Program, and what she herself normally budgets each year for demolitions. M. Ewald-Sayles mentioned the charges normally go on the property. It is hoped the neighbors will buy it and then those funds would be recoupled for the city as well. A. Meier wanted to know if anything else was used in the rationale for considering it a dangerous building other than vacancy and the windows. Ms. Coggin referred to her initial memorandum that was sent to Anthony Dier on page four and five of 42. What she listed came directly from the dangerous building ordinance, and one through seven is how the building was classified as a dangerous building. A. Meier asked which one out of the seven was applicable to the property. Ms. Coggin answered one, that it's been vacant for more than 180 days and any damage to any door, stairway or other means, exit and egress part of the building that's likely to fall such as the windows. This is all based from the dangerous building hearing officer. She commented there were more sections to the ordinance, but they only used what they believe justified it as a dangerous building. She added it could technically be declared a dangerous building just by being vacant for more than 180 days, but they would never use that a sole factor. A. Meier asked if the windows that are open to the elements were strictly on the west side of the building in the porch area. She wanted confirmation the main body of the building did not have any windows open to the elements. Ms. Coggin confirmed those were the only ones. A. Meier reminded the committee that there are stipulations in order to issue a notice to proceed and wanted to discuss what stipulation that would be for naming justification. She said she didn’t seem to find one that applied. M. Ewald-Sayles stated it could be permitted according to the procedural and decision making requirements. She wasn’t sure if retaining the building was in the interest of the majority of the community with the unresponsiveness of the owners, cost of repairs for compliance, and safety issues to the public. A. Meier wasn’t convinced she had seen any evidence that it was unsafe in any area but the back porch. Ms. Coggin said it was correct based on the exterior inspection. A. Meier did not feel there was any evidence for financial hardship, or statement from a realtor or professional regarding the value of the property, or some sort of bid for an estimate for repairs to make it safe. She also did not see any evidence of any structural damage that would constitute it being unsafe other than open windows on a porch that not compromising the structure as a whole as It's not a part of Planning and Zoning Department / Suite 211 / 301 Washington Ave. / Bay City, MI 48708 / 989-894-8180 / www.baycitymi.org 3  Wednesday, November 9, 2022 – Regular Meeting the body of the structure. She did not think they were going with the intent of the stipulations to say that it should be taken down because it's unsafe to the community when it's reserved to strictly two small windows on one corner of the building with no evidence of it being structurally unsound in any way without anyone being able to get in there. G. Sayles felt “retaining a resource is not in the interest of the majority of the community” applied. The whole structure may be deemed unsafe but parts of it are and if it's left unattended and not taken care of, it's going to become a hazard to the rest of the community and lead to serious issues. M. Ewald-Sayles asked what it would take to gain access to inspect the interior of the building. Ms. Coggins replied it would take a search warrant because it is privately owned. She said she had never attempted to get one and woud need to run that past the city attorney on what the process would be to get an administrative search warrant. There was a question of damage being done without heat. S. Coggin said all utilities were turned off. A. Meier felt it wouldn’t cause any real structural issues other than maybe water damage weakening wood from burst water pipes. She just did not feel there was enough evidence to warrant demolishing the home and thought it would be irresponsible. She felt knocking down the porch would eliminate the whole problem. A. Dier stated the city does not have a selective demolition process so we can't just demolish the portion of the building that is damaged and don’t have that as an option. A. Meier said she wasn’t suggesting the city remove the porch. She was just trying to illustrate her point and that there was no proof it was structurally compromised other than the porch. She said the house being vacant had nothing to do with a notice to proceed. She wouldn’t mind tabling the case if they wanted to go take pictures of said cracks in the foundation or whatever structural issues compromised the structure enough to justify knocking it down. L. Doeer inquired if the building fell into the criteria of an abandoned building. She also asked if people had been living in the building. S. Coggin said there isn’t a definition of abandoned so to speak, but it was vacant and they were unsuccessful at getting the property registered as such. Technically, Kaja still owns the building so it is not abandoned, but the taxes have not been paid and will probably revert back to foreclosure to the county. She didn’t know of any people that had been living in the building but the neighbors have been bringing this building to her attention since 2019. M. Ewald-Sayles believes it is a hazard to the safety of the public and undermines the property values in the historic district to have long term abandoned or vacant buildings that are not being maintained. There were no more questions. Motion made to approve the Notice to Proceed with Demolition by G. Sayles: Planning and Zoning Department / Suite 211 / 301 Washington Ave. / Bay City, MI 48708 / 989-894-8180 / www.baycitymi.org 4  Wednesday, November 9, 2022 – Regular Meeting I move that the demolition work proposed in case HDC 22-34 meets the findings required by Section 64- 14(a)(1) of the city's code specifically citing the decision making requirements; (1) that the resource constitutes a hazard to the safety of the public or to the structures occupants; (4) retaining the structure is not in the interests of the majority of the community that the resource; and that it warrants issuance of a Notice to Proceed authorizing the resource’s demolition Seconded by L. Doerr. Roll Call Vote: A. Meier: Opposed; L. Doerr: Support; G. Sayles: Support; M. Ewald-Sayles: Support 1 Opposed; 3 Support Motion passes. HDC 22-35 – 1109 5th St. – Gary Hamilton o/b Patricia Dollinger Applicant is requesting a COA authorizing additions to the existing brick porch piers/supports and masonry repair on the existing wing wall. Present: Gary Hamilton Mr. Hamilton said they had a certificate of appropriateness that had been conditionally approved and was there because they had omitted replacing temporary pavers from the project. They want to continue up the brick piers in the same aesthetics as they originally were to meet the deck boards instead. A. Meier inquired if the material they want to add matches in relative color and exact size so It would be essentially non-distinguishable. Mr. Hamilton answered the sizes range a bit on the bricks but he was able to get a pretty close match though they might be a tiny bit smaller on average and thought the coloring to be more consistently red than the old ones. A. Meier asked if he was replacing the whole pier or just replacing the top and then repairing the rest. Mr. Hamilton said he was not replacing but adding onto because the previous deck was slanted downward too much, so he leveled it out. To clarify, M. Ewald-Sayles said he was adding in some bricks to make it level but inter mixing the old with the new. Mr. Hamilton answered that was something they could do. M. Ewald-Sayles asked if they were going to be tuck pointing those seen on page five where some of them are like big gaps. Mr. Hamilton confirmed he would be. A. Meier asked if he was just going to mix together the bricks so it blends. She was under the impression he was just adding onto the top. Mr. Hamilton replied there was another part of the project that was the addition, and then there were also just some parts of the wing wall that some of the bricks were busted and some were falling out. Planning and Zoning Department / Suite 211 / 301 Washington Ave. / Bay City, MI 48708 / 989-894-8180 / www.baycitymi.org 5  Wednesday, November 9, 2022 – Regular Meeting Some just need to be replaced and would use some of the loose ones and kind of make it look a little more consistent. M. Ewald-Sayles asked if he was going to totally break in under the porch and replace that square lattice. Mr. Hamilton said they were replacing the lattice with another lattice, not brick. A. Dier stated the lattice was covered in the description. When the applicant refers to adding those layers of bricks or adding replacement bricks, it says filling the gaps to replace damaged bricks and bring the pillar structures up two or three layers of bricks to meet the deck frame. That's just for the existing brick structure for the wing wall and the pillars, but there's not going to be additional brickwork proposed if he understood the applicant correctly. The latticed that was approved at the last meeting was going to be there to fill the area where there's no brick. M. Ewald-Sayles inquired about the picture with the deck and the new concrete steps. Mr. Hamilton replied he didn’t know how new the pre-built steps were. He said they didn’t get those. They were there when they bought the home. A. Dier asked if they had two to three layers of bricks to bring the pillar up to match the deck, was there going to be a concrete cap – meaning two or three layers and then a cap. Mr. Hamilton answered they would just do brick meeting the deck board without a concrete in between or anything like that. M. Ewald-Sayles referred to the bottom left picture on page five. She wanted to know about the flat concrete slabs. Mr. Hamilton said those were not being replaced. M. Ewald-Sayles wanted to know if the bricks that are supporting the deck would be on the side. Mr. Hamilton answered those would be on the top of the piers where the pavers currently are. There were no other questions. Motion made to approve by L. Doerr: I move that the Historic District Commission approve a Certificate of Appropriateness for all work described and depicted by the work review application for Case HDC 22-35 submitted by the applicant. The applicant has demonstrated the work will comply with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation (1) through (3), (6), (9), and (10), as well as Section 64-11(c) of the city’s Historic Preservation District regulations. Seconded by G. Sayles. Motion carried unanimously. Planning and Zoning Department / Suite 211 / 301 Washington Ave. / Bay City, MI 48708 / 989-894-8180 / www.baycitymi.org 6  Wednesday, November 9, 2022 – Regular Meeting OTHER BUSINESS A. Dier stated an interview was scheduled for the open seventh HDC member spot and would likely be interviewing a second applicant. ADJOURN Motion to adjourn the meeting made by G. Sayles, seconded by A. Meier. Meeting adjourned at 7:46 p.m. Prepared by: Lisa Griffiths, Planning & Zoning Administrative Assistant Planning and Zoning Department / Suite 211 / 301 Washington Ave. / Bay City, MI 48708 / 989-894-8180 / www.baycitymi.org 7