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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-11-14 Historic Resources Board Summary Minutes City of Palo Alto Page 1 HISTORIC RESOURCES BOARD MEETING MINUTES: November 14, 2024 Council Chambers & Zoom 8:30 AM Call to Order / Roll Call The Historic Resources Board (HRB) of the City of Palo Alto met on November 14, 2024, in Council Chambers and virtual teleconference at 8:30 AM. Present: Chair Alisa Eagleston-Cieslewicz, Vice Chair Samantha Rohman, Boardmember Christian Pease, Boardmember Geddes Ulinskas (remote), and Boardmember Caroline Willis. Absent: None. Public Comment There were no requests to speak. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz moved the Chair and Vice Chair elections to the last item on the agenda. There were no further agenda changes. City Official Reports 1. Historic Resources Board Schedule of Meetings and Assignments Historic Preservation Planner Steven Switzer noted there were two more HRB meetings before the end of the year, including this one. The December 12 meeting will include tentative bonus floor area projects, which may be pushed out to January. He updated on the recent Veterans Day Recognition Event and described that the removal of "potentially eligible" historic status from the parcel report would be coming forward in the new year after the recent Council determination. Boardmember Willis asked for clarification on the potentially eligible status. Mr. Switzer explained that the removal is only for the 1500 properties that were effectively unevaluated and identified for potentially having other eligibility or meeting some of the criteria for Historic Resource designation. None of the previously determined or designated properties will be affected. Assistant Director Jennifer Armer added that the only change is that when someone prints out a parcel report on their property, there will no longer be the potentially eligible tag on it as it has not been updated or analyzed in 30 years and the label was given primarily based on age. City of Palo Alto Page 2 Study Session 2. Discussion for Establishing a Historical Preservation Award Program to Implement Goal #5 of the Approved Historic Resources Board 24/25 Work Plan. Mr. Switzer presented four items for discussion on building out the Historic Preservation Award Program: selection criteria, frequency of awards, timing of awards, and amending bylaws to include an article on the award program. He reviewed the considerations under each item, including determining what projects to include, retaining flexibility in award criteria, staggering awards with the ARB Design Awards, considering a 5-year cycle, potentially aligning with National Preservation Month in May, and considering adding an article to the bylaws, with an example of language used by the ARB. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz thought the outline sounded good. She felt the five-year cycle made sense and gave enough time to evaluate a good number of projects. She liked the flexible selection criteria as there could be really different features within the bucket of projects. PUBLIC COMMENT There were no requests to speak. Boardmember Pease agreed with Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz's comments. Boardmember Willis was worried about stepping on the toes of PAST Heritage and suggested coordinating and building a relationship with them. Vice Chair Rohman agreed and felt this program should complement any programs PAST is already running. She also thought there was an opportunity for the HRB to recognize properties PAST may not otherwise recognize, as she noted they focus to a large extent on residential and community properties, whereas the HRB may look at business projects in the downtown corridor like the Graduate Hotel or adaptive reuse in the Ventura Area Coordinated Plan. She suggested the flexibility of award criteria would help with not overtaking PAST as the Board would have the discretion to tailor it in a way that provided for some differentiation. Boardmember Willis wanted to be diplomatic and not seem as though HRB was trying to take over something PATH has worked hard on. Vice Chair Rohman questioned the timing of the 5-year cycle, whether the Board would be expedient enough to talk to PAST and get the criteria in order to do an award for 2025 or not start until 2030. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz noted the suggestion was to start in 2026 to avoid doing awards in the same year as the ARB, giving an additional year. Vice Chair Rohman asked if the ARB did a recognition celebration and wondered if it made more sense to coordinate and do it the same year so that could be joined. Mr. Switzer described the ARB hearings for the selection of the projects and stated the recognition event could be aligned. He suggested the Board could extend an invitation for PAST to attend a future meeting on the topic, and/or the Chair could establish an ad hoc for further coordination with PAST. City of Palo Alto Page 3 Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz was open to both options. Boardmember Ulinskas thought this awards program was a great opportunity to educate people about well-done preservation projects. Owners of those projects are often happy to share about the process, and he wondered if there was way to could build on the preservation program as an education tool. Boardmember Willis believed the Board should be more active with Preservation Week, as it had been more active with community outreach in the past. She suggested getting out during Preservation Week to see what is available in the community and supported using 2025 as a test period to get a better idea of what the awards could look like in 2026. Vice Chair Rohman looked at the PAST website and their preservation awards page. They have been actively giving awards since 1998 on "people, business, and groups," but did not explicitly list categories. She felt HRB had an opportunity to define categories, and she was interested in including adaptive reuse. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz asked if there was interest in participation in an ad hoc committee regarding outreach to PAST. She wondered if that would allow more natural dialogue than a meeting would permit. Boardmember Willis and Vice Chair Rohman were both interested in participating in an ad hoc committee in order to be more involved in building that relationship. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz suggested meeting with PAST and reporting back on their reactions. She thought it would be helpful to broadly agree on a general proposal as a basis for discussion. Based on the staff report and discussion, she suggested awards potentially starting in 2026 and a 5-year cadence with an acknowledgement via proclamation, a lobby display, and website content. Boardmember Willis was unsure about a 5-year cadence starting in 2026 as it was more difficult to remember than 2025 or 2030. Vice Chair Rohman agreed on coupling with Preservation Week but also thought it made sense to be on the same cadence as the ARB awards. Mr. Switzer noted the ARB typically does awards in the spring. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz was concerned about lobby density. Ms. Armer had the same concern, wanting to make sure there was sufficient space to showcase both ARB's and HRB's awards. She felt having both displayed at the same time would be less clear. Boardmember Ulinskas questioned how long the displays are up for. Ms. Armer believed the displays were monthly but would look into that. Boardmember Willis did not believe that should sway the decision and felt it might get more people in to look at the historic awards rather than distract from it. She suggested 2026 followed by 2030. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz agreed that 2025 was too soon and felt 2026 was achievable. City of Palo Alto Page 4 Vice Chair Rohman added that the Board also needed to evaluate whether to look at projects from the past 10 to 20 years, what the criteria is, and whether to consider only projects that are finished. Boardmember Ulinskas agreed about 2026, noting that announcements for submissions for awards usually come out 6 months before submissions, followed by a 2-month evaluation period. Boardmember Pease asked if there were categories for the ARB awards. Ms. Armer responded the ARB has multiple awards in each cycle under different categories that are defined each time. Boardmember Willis questioned how many awards the ARB typically does in a cycle. Mr. Switzer noted it can be anywhere from one award to five. The numbers change based on development and what the Board thinks of note to recognize. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz liked the idea of recognizing completed projects in case something changes dramatically or goes wrong. Vice Chair Rohman asked Boardmember Ulinskas about awards his firm has participated in and what type of recognition is involved. Boardmember Ulinskas explained that awards are often associated with design magazines, so the prize is to be featured in the magazine issue. He felt it would be nice to be able to give the design teams involved a lot of recognition and visibility. Vice Chair Rohman questioned whether this was something that would be opened up for nominations or applications or, since it is a small local honor, the Board would just proactively review projects. Mr. Switzer believed it would be the latter; Staff could compile the list of projects that have come before the Board as well as completed ones. He also directed attention to Work Plan Goal #2, creating more user friendly and educational resources regarding historic preservation. He thought including the awards or featuring these projects on the website would be in alignment with that goal. Ms. Armer added, regarding the discussion on timing, that while there would be no requests for submittals, one way to characterize the award is projects completed through the end of 2025 on a 5- year cycle, to tie into that easier-to-remember number, even if the award is actually given in 2026. It was discussed that the awards could be considered the 2025 awards in that case. Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz asked if it was reasonable for the subcommittee to check in with PAST in the next couple of months and check in with the Board early in the new year. Boardmember Willis suggested coming back in January for an update. Mr. Switzer confirmed for the record that the ad hoc committee was Boardmember Willis and Vice Chair Rohman. City of Palo Alto Page 5 Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz confirmed that there was a general outline, the committee would discuss with PAST, and the Board would talk about it again in January. Approval of Minutes 3. Approval of Historic Resources Board Draft Minutes of October 10, 2024 Boardmember Willis requested in the future to add a section in the minutes reviewing future discussion or agenda items. There was further discussion on this. Ms. Armer felt that doing an independent summary out of order of what was actually conducted during the meeting would not be appropriate as part of the meeting minutes. Boardmember Willis wanted to correct her statement on page 20, "She hoped PAST Heritage would share some of their resources," to reflect that she meant the homeowners' resources and not PAST's. MOTION: Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz moved to approve the minutes from the October 10, 2024, meeting. This was seconded by Boardmember Pease. VOTE: The motion carried by roll call vote, 5-0. Action Item 4. Chair and Vice Chair Elections Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz opened this up to general discussion, noting this would lead to a very abbreviated term because the election typically takes place in the spring. She asked if there were reactions to maintaining the status quo until the typical election because of this. Boardmember Pease thought that was an excellent idea. Vice Chair Rohman was also supportive of the Chair and Vice Chair continuing their terms until the spring election. MOTION: Boardmember Willis made a motion to continue with the current Chair and Vice Chair until the next election. This was seconded by Vice Chair Rohman. VOTE: The motion carried by roll call vote, 5-0. Board Member Questions, Comments, Announcements or Future Meetings and Agendas Boardmember Willis stated she went to the Veterans Event, which she really enjoyed. She felt people should visit the charming MacArthur Park more. She had spoken with Council Member Burt at the event, who was looking forward to incorporating MacArthur Park into the new plan for the train station. She also noted questions for the community from Steve Staiger, who is on the board of the History Museum: What do you expect to see when you walk in the History Museum? What is something significant about Palo Alto history that might not be included in the History Museum? She encouraged providing this City of Palo Alto Page 6 input for the new director. She felt the Board could schedule a group or individual tour of the museum and asked for input. Vice Chair Rohman was interested in a tour of the museum. Mr. Switzer stated Staff would need to check with the attorneys to ensure there was no Brown Act violation for such an event. Boardmember Willis felt it would be good to have that information in writing for the future. She noted she did not like the present venue and requested moving to the conference room. Mr. Switzer responded Staff could look into it but that the Council Chambers were equipped with everything needed for the meetings. Another venue would require investigation and planning. Ms. Armer explained that since it is a hybrid-style public meeting, the Council Chambers was set up for that with the cameras. There was some discussion about the setup required to move the venue. Vice Chair Rohman noted she had registered for online learning through the National Association of Preservation Committees, which she needed to do before the end of November. She wanted to get on the agenda for January to come back with a brief readout of the sessions she attended, specifically one on community engagement. Adjournment MOTION: Chair Eagleston-Cieslewicz moved to adjourn, seconded by Boardmember Pease. The meeting was adjourned at 9:22 AM.