Historic Preservation & Architectural Review Board Agendas and Minutes

MINUTES OF THE COHOES HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW BOARD HELD MEETING VIRTUALLY VIA THE ZOOM APPLICATION ON TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2021 AT 6:30 PM MEMBERS PRESENT: Daniele Cherniak, Chairperson Evan Lamb John Frainier MEMBERS ABSENT: Barbara Hildreth, Vice Chair Thomas Rifenberg ALSO PRESENT: Joseph Seman-Graves, City Planner Sharon Butler, Administrative Assistant Chairperson Cherniak called the meeting of the Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board to order at 6:30 PM. CONSIDERATION OF THE MINUTES FROM THE APRIL 20, 2021 MEETING Chairperson Cherniak: the first item on our agenda is consideration of the April 20, 2021 meeting minutes. Have board members had a chance to take a look at the minutes? Member Frainier; yes Chairperson Cherniak; do I have any comments, questions about the minutes? Member Frainier; no they look pretty good Chairperson Cherniak; ok then if not, do I have a motion to accept the minutes as submitted? Member Lamb; I make a motion Chairperson Cherniak; do I have a 2nd? Member Frainier; I 2nd All in favor; Aye motion carried YES NO ABSTAIN Daniele Cherniak X Barbara Hildreth ABSENT Thomas Rifenberg ABSENT Evan Lamb X John Frainier X CONSIDERATION OF 46’ X 46’ PATIO AND NEW FENCING AT 100 N. MOHAWK STREET Chairperson Cherniak: ok we’ll move on to item #2, consideration of a patio and fencing at 100 N. Mohawk Street. So is the applicant on here? Joseph Seman-Graves; he is, I just see a different name, so let’s give it a second Chairperson Cherniak; ok Joseph Seman-Graves; Bill can you hear us? This is possibly the longest joining I’ve ever seen. Sorry for the technical delay, bear with me. Sharon; it looks like he’s on but he just muted himself Joseph Seman-Graves yea he’s joining from a second line so I don’t know if there’s no audio. Let’s see if I can kick him out and then back in. Bill are you there? Bill is your audio on? Well this will be the one difference when we’re back in person. Chairperson Cherniak; so is that going to be happening soon? Joseph Seman-Graves; yea, so this board can go back anytime, maybe next month. I have no reason to stop it at this point, because the mask mandate has been lifted especially. I’m just really trying to be consistent with the other 2 I have because Zoning and Planning get more people, it’s just the nature of it, more things on the agenda, more people looking at it. So I’ve been holding them all to the same standards, but Historic can certainly come back, there’s usually not more than 10 people present. Chairperson Cherniak; whatever works best, whatever seems to be…..(awful background noise) Joseph Seman-Graves; Bill I’m going to mute you. Ok Bill is going in the chat and typing does that work for everyone? Chairperson Cherniak; sure Joseph Seman-Graves; ok let’s go this route then Chairperson Cherniak; ok I guess then if he wants to provide just a very brief explanation of the things he plans to do and I guess we have it sort of here so like maybe that’s not necessary since we have the information. So maybe we can just have board members ask questions regarding the proposal Joseph Seman-Graves; ok do you want to go through this then? Chairperson Cherniak; ok, we can just go through the description Joseph Seman-Graves; I can read this then. So the LOFTS are interest in building a 46’ x 46’ patio to match the existing patio completed at the adjacent hair salon, across the street. The materials will be black ONYX natural Cambridge paving stones. There will be 7 small pillars which will support the lighting. There will also be 3 gas grills and 1 fire pit which will all be setup with an auto shutoff and an automatic timer. And the fencing will be 4’ black aluminum fencing to match the existing fencing on site. Location of the patio (shown on the screen). Some background on this, I kind of touched on it before; the patio construction started in 2019 until a Stop Work Order was put on it, that’s why you’ll notice it’s been there for a while but hasn’t come to the board yet. They didn’t have the property approvals or building permit at that point, it was also built on 3 properties, one of which is owned by the applicant. Since that point the applicant has purchased one of the properties in question from the City of Cohoes Common Council and purchased a second one from the Elks Club. The Planning Board has approved the site plan for the patio and that’s kind of where it is, what it currently looks like. And just the basic site plan of what the proposal was that the Planning Board saw and approved (on screen). And as Bill is mentioning in the chat there is also going to be removable shade canopies over a portion of the patio. Some images, some basic 3D renderings that were done of the patio for the Planning Board, the lighting, what’s going to be hung and then the patio across the street and what that currently looks like with the ONYX pavers. Chairperson Cherniak; so is there any information on what these canopies will look like? I don’t see them on any of the things here. Joseph Seman-Graves; I don’t believe there are, I’m waiting a second for Bill to respond. Bill Mafrici; can you hear me? Joseph Seman-Graves; yes Mr. Mafrici; ok, there’s the triangular portions, that will be partially covered. Basically with just an ornamental canopy on tension wires. Chairperson Cherniak; but what will it look like, what material is it, what color is it? We don’t see any of these things. Mr. Mafrici; understood I haven’t gotten what the exact pattern is, in all likely hood it will be solid color, most likely a light color so it’s shade reflective but it’s not going to be something with a flower pattern or anything like that. Chairperson Cherniak; I mean I’m not comfortable, I’m ok with the other design elements of the patio, but I can’t, I can’t support approval of these awnings or shade features without seeing what they would look like. I don’t know what other board members think about that or the design in general, if you’re going to have any questions or concerns about it. So do members of the board have questions about any of this? Member Lamb; are there any plans to put those in the other one as well or?? Joseph Seman-Graves; that’s not part of this application. Chairperson Cherniak; one other issue I have is this location. The view shed on N. Mohawk Street, you have a nice view of the river, pedestrians passing by and people passing by but with something like this, the shade things would be like an additional high level obstruction to that view, so I have a concern about that in that regard as well. Joseph Seman-Graves; Bill is saying would it be possible to get approval now without the canopies for now until we get more specifics? There is not a plan for additional canopies at this time. Chairperson Cherniak; would board members be agreeable to that? Member Frainier and Member Lamb; yes Chairperson Cherniak; ok, so do I have a motion to accept the patio plan without the canopies as presented here this evening? Member Frainier; I’ll make the motion Chairperson Cherniak; do I have a 2nd? Member Lamb; I’ll 2nd All in favor, motion carried . YES NO ABSTAIN Daniele Cherniak X Barbara Hildreth ABSENT Thomas Rifenberg ABSENT Evan Lamb X John Frainier X Joseph Seman-Graves; Bill I’ll follow up with you tomorrow. Sorry the, this might be the last virtual meeting we’ve had in 15 months and probably the worst one we’ve had, so my apologies. I’ll follow up tomorrow Mr. Mafrici; thank you very much. Chairperson Cherniak; do we have any additional issues, any public comments about anything? Joseph Seman-Graves; not today, I think Bill was enough for all of us. That was definitely the worst experience I’ve actually had with all 3 boards since the pandemic started. Chairperson Cherniak; we’ll they’ve largely gone off without any problems at all, I guess it’s gotta happen sometime. Joseph Seman-Graves; for the record that’s the first time I’ve heard of the canopies. So that was news to me as well. Chairperson Cherniak; yea, it’s definitely not in any of the materials we received. So are there any other topics for this evening? Joseph Seman-Graves; I think just a follow up; the CFA’s we’re announced with the State for the grants, which is good because they didn’t have any last year. So on the historic side, we’re going to be going ahead with either White or Howard Street, it looks like for a street renovation down town and Daniele and I believe John we still have to do that startup meeting on the designs. I think both of you we’re interested but for a number of reasons that’s been delayed but there going to be out there doing borings Friday and that’s kind of a first step. We we’re waiting on that before we start designs because we have to know where we can dig before coming up with nice designs, so that’s step one. But we’re looking at one of those streets, and we’re looking at an application for City hall roof and windows. It’s not going to fund all of that by any means but it’s going to be a phased application. We’re hoping you know OPRHP sinks their teeth into Phase 1 and then we can do subsequent phases as the years go on. So it’s all very expensive so we don’t expect to get fully funded for that kind of project in one year. And then the third one is going to be planning and design money for the restoration of the Erie Canal Parkway. So those are the three applications on the historic side that I’m looking into this year or applying for. Member Frainier; any progress on the two test windows at City Hall? Joseph Seman-Graves; yea so they actually came back in, our window guys, last Monday taking some more specifications or measurements on the windows themselves. We’re hopeful to get something to SHPO for review, I would hope this month or early next month. We’re trying to be very cautious because it’s to be blunt, we can send in an application with not detail and most likely……………recording ended. Meeting closed at 6:50PM.