Historic Preservation Commission Meeting

MINUTES CITY OF DRIPPING SPRINGS HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION Monday, February 4, 2013 Regular Meeting City Hall, 511 Mercer Street Dripping Springs, Texas I. MEETING CALLED TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chairman Ted Lehr calls the meeting to order at 5:37 pm and takes roll call. Present: Commissioner Ted Lehr – Chair; Commissioner Kathryn Chandler; Commissioner Charlie Haydon; and Commissioner Tao. Absent: Commissioner John Holdridge; Commissioner John McIntosh-Vice Chair; and Commissioner Karl Seelbach. Also present are City Administrator Michelle Fischer and Brent Luck, Landscape Architect consultant. II. PRESENTATION BY CITIZENS-no one speaks. III. CONSENT Discussion and Possible action regarding: A. Approval of Regular Meeting Minutes, January 7, 2013-Commissioner Haydon makes a motion to approve the minutes, seconded by Commissioner Chandler. VOTE: all in favor. The motion is carried. IV. BUSINESS Discussion and Possible action regarding: A. Report on the January 19, 2013 Meeting of the State Board of Review for the Nomination of the Dripping Springs Downtown Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places-Commissioner Lehr reports that the Board approve the nomination but discussed concerns with the Mercer Street Pedestrian Improvement Project. In order to discuss these concerns, Commissioners go to the next agenda item for discussion. The National Park Service is expected to consider the nomination within 45 days of receiving it. B. City of Dripping Springs STP MM CAMPO Project CSJ: 0914-33-065: Mercer Street Pedestrian Improvement Project 1. Project Timeline 2. Construction Plans 3. Texas Historical Commission Review 4. Business & Property Owner Concerns At the meeting with representatives of the Texas Historic Commission (THC), there were brief concerns regarding compliance with the guidelines. Commissioner Lehr is concerned about them regarding sidewalks. Flagstone sidewalks were there historically, as per Commissioner Haydon. He is also concerned that the street is made into a museum rather than a functional historic district. He wants to understand what the THC really wants in limiting us in our changes. Commissioner Haydon says there were street lights, but they were hung on the existing light poles. He feels we can do this and still maintain our historic quality. We can do round outs that don’t change the character. What would any modern construction look like that brings the district up to code, but keeps its historic character? This is our role entirely. Introducing new concepts such as bump outs needs to be done with great care. Commissioner Haydon feels we can connect porch to porch rather than flush sidewalks where possible. Odette Tan, one of the project engineers, has some thoughts on that. Having the sidewalk from porch to porch ends up on private property. Perhaps caliche or some distinguishing material that clearly separates the sidewalk from parking spots could be used. Recommend angled parking which tends to not narrow the street. THC gets to review our plans because it has determined that we have historic landmarks worth preserving and there is federal money going towards this improvement. They only recommend, they don’t dictate. Focus on safety improvements rather than enhancements. It will all come down to presentation, especially with Charlie doing the presenting. We can come to the meeting with a time period selected that we are going to follow then we present the best plan we have through Charlie’s perspective. Kathryn – should we commit to a time period so that we can start thinking about it? We’ll shoot for 1930-1940’s since this is when most of these changes were made. The changes stopped around 1941 until 1960’s. Tx Dot meeting is March 11th. Landscape design will come later although we may need cutouts for trees. Are final plans needed March 11? Basically 95% of the plans must be finalized from concept from survey to integrate plans as laid out. Tx Dot wants to make sure we are ADA compliant and that construction follows CAMPO guidelines. There will need to be a special meeting with City Council to approve the plans by the March 11th meeting. The beautification grant may now be pushed back to June rather than April or May. This could be problematic as we start constructing the project. Brent suggests that the THC recommend what cities they’ve seen that are good examples and places where they think it was not good. It would be quite helpful if we brought some images of the time period – either of Dripping or of other cities that THC has approved and liked. Engineer design team to give a potential time frame to meet with the property/business owners- not tonight, but this coming week. Would like to marry the 2 – THC and design recommendations from DS HPC then we can have a special meeting with the Commission members. After the survey and concept are laid down, the engineering design team wants to meet with Mercer street business/property owners. The plan will be presented at that time to them. This needs a 2-3 week lead time. C. Proposed Collaborative Agreement between the City of Dripping Springs and the Dripping Springs Community Foundation for Downtown Revitalization-Susan Santamaria, the Foundation President, states that she thought that attorneys Alan Bojorquez and Rex Baker had a final draft of the agreement completed. Ms. Fischer explains that she and the City Attorney did not agree with all of the revisions sent by Rex. She goes through the draft collaborative agreement with the Commissioners. A motion is made by Commissioner Lehr to approve the draft with the changes as approved by the City Administrator. Commissioner Chandler seconds the motion. VOTE: all in favor. The motion is approved. V. ANNOUNCEMENTS A. Regular City Council Meeting, February 12, 2013, 5:30 p.m. B. Regular Planning & Zoning Commission Meeting, February 26, 2013, 7:00 p.m. C. Regular Historic Preservation Commission Meeting, March 4, 2013, 5:30 p.m. VI. ADJOURN-Motion to adjourn made by Commissioner Tao and seconded by Commissioner Chandler. VOTE: all in favor. The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned at 6:41 pm.