Historic Preservation Commission

HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION Meeting Minutes Date of Meeting: November 9, 2021 Time of Meeting: Regular meeting 6:30 PM Meeting Location: Webster Groves City Hall, 4 E Lockwood Ave (via teleconference and/or Zoom) MEMBERS (9): Present Absent Anne Halvachs (Chair) x Vacant (Vice - Chair) x Vacant x Vacant x Steven Stovall x Michael Rose x Dacia Stewart x Jane Porchey x Angela Thompson x Ex-Officio Members (2): Karen Alexander, Council Member, Council Liaison x Mara Perry, Dir. Planning & Dev., Staff Liaison x Travis Ham, Building Commissioner x REGULAR MEETING: 1. Approval of October 12, 2021 Minutes – motion to approve by Steve Stoval; second by Angela Thompson 2. Visitor comments – None. PUBLIC HEARINGS: None NEW BUSINESS: 1. Election of Chair/ Co-Chair and Secretary – Discussion was to keep this open again until next month. Mara will discuss with anyone who has questions about the role. Motion made by Michael Rose; motion seconded by Jane Porchey. 2. 22 Wilshire Terrace – Demolition Request Single Family Structure - Review of submittal packet, staff memorandum and recommendation. HPC discussion, with lack of historical value noted and that it had been hit by two trees. Discussion about approving a house in relatively good condition is being requested for demolition. Questions about the prevue of the HPC for houses that could have been saved due to their condition. Focus on historic value for their review. Motion to approve demolition request consistent with Staff recommendation without holding for additional review made by Michael Rose; motion seconded by Steven Stovall; passed unanimously 5-0. Commission had a secondary discussion about demolitions. The request was made for Mara to send out the Historic code for review by members for future discussion of these types of demolition requests. Discussion of ways to protect homes with designations of additional historic districts. Possibility of looking into options for other protections to houses of this type. How to educate residents of benefits for historic districts and what kind of guidelines can be established. A project like this could take a sub-committee taking more time to work on a project of this magnitude. Discussion to add this to the agenda for the next meeting to discuss. 3. Douglass Hill Rezoning: Members discussed drafting a letter from the Commission to the City Council regarding the rezoning. Anne Halvachs started with summarizing the draft letter that she had worked on  based on the discussion from the last meeting. Steven Stoval and Jane Porchey stated it was a well written and diplomatic take on the comments to the Council. Discussion of presenting the history of the area and recommendations for what could be preserved. Jane Porchey had submitted names of historic figures that could be added to the end of the letter. Names came from the North Webster book and the North Webster walk. Discussion about whether “North Webster” is actually a designated district and whether it is an area that can be designated. Two properties are proposed to be saved as a part of the SG Collaborative project. Angela Thompson liked the focus of the preservation aspect on the letter. Steven Stovall made a motion to accept the letter as written barring any subsequent information received by Mara; motion seconded by Angela Thompson; passed unanimously 5-0. OLD BUSINESS: 1. HPC Projects for 2021-2022 - Members continued discussion of the projects to focus on for the new fiscal year. Steven Stoval presented information on the Joy Built homes that he had researched. Steven stated that he started with the historic records from the Library site to find his own house. He then used the draft GIS 100 year and older homes and added pins to the map showing the Joy Built homes. He ran into issues with houses not having the right date of it built per St. Louis County. All of Blackburn Place is built by Joy. The library has not records prior to 1908. The library does have tax records that show that the Joy family did own a number of properties. Edward Joy was known as the father of Old Orchard. Steven used the format that the historical society used in a spreadsheet and added all the Joy built homes with links to photos he had taken. Some of the properties have since been demolished. He has gone through 1912 with his research. There were three generations of the Joy family that built houses. Architecturally they are very similar to one another. For Blackmer Place, all the houses are architecturally different from one another. Steven shared images of the original plats from the Historical Society records. Discussion on this will move to the next meeting on next steps. Michael Rose moved to adjourn the meeting; Steve Stoval seconded; passed by unanimous vote. NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, December 14, 2021