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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-02-12 City CouncilCity of Palo Alto City Manager’s Report TO: FROM: HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT: PLANNING AND COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT DATE:FEBRUARY 12, 1998 CMR:139:98 SUBJECT:MINUTES OF WORKSHOPS 1, 2 AND 3 AND AN UPDATE ON ACTIVITIES TO REVISE THE HISTORIC~ PRESERVATION ORDINANCE AND THE HISTORIC INVENTORY This is an information report, and no Council action is required. The purpose of this report is to transmit to the Council the minutes of the first three community workshops regarding revising the Historic Preservation Ordinance. It also provides a update of other activities related to the ordinance revision and the historic survey process. BACKGROUND Following approval of the consultant contract with Dames & Moore Group in August 1997, work commenced on updating the Historic Preservation Ordinance and the historic inventory. The first task was to conduct an initial reconnaisance, via a "windshield survey," of all structures in the City constructed prior to 1948. This evaluation has been completed. An intensive survey of structures identified in the "windshield survey" as potentially eligible for the National Register is now under way. In mid-October, work began on developing revisions to the Ordinance with appointment by the City Manager of a seven-member Historic Preservation Ordinance Advisory Group (HPOAG). At the November 24, 1997 City Council meeting, the following occured: 1) the Council posed questions to the consultants and staff regarding broad policy issues related to revising the Ordinance; and 2) Council received a report from the consultants on the preliminary results of the "windshield survey" and on the survey methodology and the participation of volunteers in conducting the historic survey. The first two of four workshops to provide the general public an opportunity to participate in revising the ordinance were held in December 1997 and the third workshop was held in late January 1998. The minutes of these Workshops are attached to this report. DISCUSSION " Below is a brief summary of the following: 1) Workshops 1, 2 and 3; 2) schedule for Workshop 4; 3) a summary of the current status of other activities under way in the Historic CMR:139:98 Page 1 of 5 Ordinance and inventory update process; 4) input from the Historic Resources Board and the "HPOAG. Workshop !. Workshop 1 was held on Wednesday, December 3, 1997, in the City Council Chambers, with approximately 65 people in attendance. The agenda of the workshop focused on real estate issues related to the Historic Preservation Ordinance. The meeting was conducted by a professional facilitator, Bonnie Best, of the John Paul Jones Group. After a welcome by Mayor Joe Huber, the consultants Michael Corbett and Bruce Anderson gave a brief overview of the two components of the project: 1) revising the Historic Preservation Ordinance and 2) conducting the survey to update the historic inventory. Leannah Hunt and Eric Morley of Peninsula West Valley Association of Realtors (PenWest) made a presentation on the views and recommendations of the real estate organization. This was followed by a presentation by Gregg Whittlesey, a real estate appraiser from Pasadena, who specializes in appraising historic properties and who was invited by staff to speak on the topic of property values and historic designation. The last hour of the program was available for public comments and questions. There were 18 speakers. Most of the comments focused on particular experiences and dissatisfactions that they as homeowners, applicants, or real estate agents had with the Interim Regulations program. Workshop 2 The second workshop was held in the City Council Chambers on Saturday, December 6, 1997, with approximately 70 people in attendance. Nancy Yeend of the John Paul Jones Group was the meeting facilitator. The workshop was designed to stimulate discussion on a range of issues relevant to historic preservation in Palo Alto. After opening remarks by the Director of Planning and Community Environment, consultants Bruce Anderson and Denise Bradley of Dames & Moore Group gave a brief overview of the Historic Preservation Ordinance and historic, survey process. This was followed by a panel discussion with six participants. The panelists and their topics of discussionincluded: Jim McFall: "The Need for Revisions to the Historic Preservation Ordinance" Karen Holman: "Current Issues -- A Preservationist Prespective" o Steve Staiger: "Resources for Learning More About Your Old House" Leanna Hunt: "Real Estate Issues in Historic Preservation’" 5.Nancy Bjork: "Case Studies: Old House Rehabilitation in Palo Alto" Michael Garavaglia, fiJA: "Using the State Historical Building Code and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings". CMR:139:98 Page 2 of 5 The panelists were followed by approximately one hour of questions and comments from the public. Members of the audience were asked to submit written questions addressed to the panelists or to turn in a speaker’s card if they wished to speak. Sixteen written questions were submitted for the panelist or staff to answer, and 20 people spoke during the comment period. The questions and comments represented a range of views and were generally related to the various issues addressed by the panelists..Some comments were about difficulties that the speakers had experienced with the Interim Regulations and aspects of that program that they hoped would not be part of permanent historic regulations. Workshop 3 Workshop 3 occurred on Tuesday, January 27, 1998, in the City Council Chambers. The focus was on builder/architecture/development issues. The program included three guest speakers: Richard T. Conrad, FAIA, Executive Director of California’s State Historical Building Safety Board: "Using the State Historical Building Code" 2.Alan Dreyfus, A!A, and Michael A. Garavaglia, AIAz "Case Studies and Examples -- Protecting Historical Integrity When Maintaining, Altering and Making Additions to Historic Buildings." A video produced by the National Park Service, "Using the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings," was shown. The one-hour presentation was followed by one hour of questions and comments from the audience, which numbered about 90 ,people. Schedule for Council Action on the Revised Historic Ordina..nce The City Manager’s Report for the February 23, 1998, City Council meeting will provide Council with draft proposals and options on/~ variety of topics to be addressed in the revised Historic Preservation Ordinance. The Council will be asked to review and discuss these items and provide policy direction to staff for the preparation of a draft revised Ordinance. The draft revised Historic Ordinance is tentatively scheduled for Council consideration on April 13, 1998. If Council approves the draft Ordinance on that date, and with second reading on April 27, the effective date will be May 27, 1998. The Interim Regulations are scheduled to expire on May 30, 1998. Update on the Historic Survey The initial "windshield" survey of approximately 6,000 structures built prior to 1948 has resulted in the identification of approximately 32,000 properties that merit further research in the intensive survey. For the purpose of allocating project resources, approximately 500 properties have been identified as Study Priority 1 and approximately 2,700 properties as CMR:139:98 Page 3 of 5 Study Priority 2. Due to the non-linear nature of the research effort, properties, may be moved back and forth between these two categories as research progresses during the course of the survey project. As of this date, 110 volunteers are actively working on the intensive survey. The volunteer tasks under way include: 1. Volunteer organization, coordination and training; 2.Preparation of index and biographies of architects and builders; o Preparation of historic contexts, including African-Americans, Agriculture, Aviation, Chinese, Birge Clark, Eichler, Electronics, Fulton Street, Housing, Street and Park Names; Review of architectural journals for articles relevant to architecture and buildings in Palo Alto; Gathering and evaluating census information; Preparation and evaluation of Sanborn Maps (maps produced by Sanborn Fire Insurance Company that show building footprints and other structural information for the years the maps-were produced, from the 1880s to the 1960s); Photography of potentially significant properties for State inventory form; and Field survey to observe and record basic building and site characteristics. Input of the Historic Resources Board. the Historic Preservation Ordinance Advisory_ Crroup. and the Architectural Review Board The consultant has met several times with the HRB to solicit its views on what form ordinance revisions should take, and he has attended the bi-weekly meetings of the HPOAG. Both groups have had discussions about the issues that have been helpful and informative to staffand the consultant in considering a full range Of options on the key issues, and HRB members have submitted written comments and suggestions. With goal-setting assistance from Dave Robson, Quality Officer for Xerox Corporate Research and Technology, the HPOAG identified what it believed to be the long-term objectives of the Historic Preservation Ordinance to guide it in formulating recommendations for revisions to the Ordinance. The HRB and Architectural Review Board were scheduled to review and commend on these draft long term objectives and on a set of focus questions about Ordinance revision options at their meetings on February 4 and 5. Since these meetings were canceled due to flooding, this discussion will occur at the HRB meeeting of February 18 and the ARB meeting of March 5. A copy of the draft long term objectives and the focus questions is attached to this report. CMR: 139:98 Page 4 of 5 The two members of the HPOAG who are Realtors, Debbie Nichols and Stewart Kin’tz, met with Bob Gerlach, who recently assumed the position of vice-president for the Palo Alto District of PenWest for 1998, to discuss how the City. can work with his office to facilitate participation of Realtors in the Historic Ordinance and inventory update process. He expressed interest in keeping Realtors informed about historic regulations and in conducting training for Realtors after the new ordinance is adopted. The HPOAG members are investigating a program by Preservation Dallas that sponsors training sessions for Realtors that lead to certification as a specialist in marketing historic properties. Under the direction of Marilyn Bauriedel, an attorney on the HPOAG, the group has gathered and compared historic preservation ordinances from 16 other cities. Schedule for Workshop 4 Workshop 4 is scheduled for Saturday, March 7, 1998, 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. The topic of discussion at the workshop will be the basic elements proposed to be included in the revised Historic Preservation Ordinance, based on direction provided by the City Council at its February 23 .meeting. It will be an opportunity for the public to review, ask questions and comment on specific aspects of proposed ordinance revisions. ATTACHMENTS A.Draft Long Term Objectives and Focus Questions B.Minutes of Workshop 1, December 3, 1997 C.Minutes of Workshop 2, December 6, 1997 D.Minutes of Workshop 3, January 27, 1998 Prepared By: Virginia Warheit, Senior Planner Approved By: KENNETH R. SCHREIBER f Director of Planning and Community Environment City Manager Approval: EMI~ HAR~SON - Assistant City Manager CC~ .Architectural Review Board Historic Resources Board Historic Preservation Ordinance Advisory Group Speakers at Workshops 1 and 2 CMR:139:98 Page 5 of 5 Attachment A LONG TERM OBJECTIVES OF THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE (Draft, January 16, 1998) TheJe long term objectives of the cir.’ ’s historic preservation ordinance were developed by the Historic Preser’~’ation Ordinance Adviso~y Group, with goal-setting assistance by Dave Robson, Quali~.’ Of 3qcer for Xerox Corporate Research and Technolog3.’. Please review these objectives and make any suggestions for changes or additions. ¯ In years to come, the historic resources \vhich Palo Alto has toda.v will still be there, with their historical inte~ity intact, for the benefit of future generations. ¯ Owners of historic properties ~vho have a long term interest in the community will feel that the city’s historic regulations are compatible with enjo.vment of.their property rights. ¯ There will continue to be a general appreciation ofpropert.v values and the development and building business will continue to be viable in Palo Alto. ¯ Palo Alto will have a model Historic Preser~’ation Pro~am in which the City’s residents take pride. ¯ The city’s historic preservation regulations will be easily understood, no more complex than necessa~, and administered in an efficient manner. ¯ Historic Preservation regulations and progams will counter economic pressures to demolish historic resources and will support economical solutions to protect and restore historic resources. ¯ Historic structures will be safe and xvill meet the needs of contemporary living. a:\lngtmobj.ord FOCUS QUESTIONS Please discuss the pros and cons of the following items, keeping in mind long term objectives to be achieved by the Historic Preservation Ordinance: Categories of Historic Resources. Should all historic resources be regulated in the same way, or should there be a special category ("Landmark", "Treasure") of resources deemed particularly important that are regulated differently? Exterior Alterations of" Historic Resources a. Should the city review exterior alterations ofall designated historic properties? Or only ofa subgoup ofdesi~ated historic properties? b.Should compliance with the City’s recommendations be required? c.Should certain types or’alterations be designated "minor" and be reviewed by staff (with special training) in order to avoid delay for property owners? d.To xvhat exten~ should alteration or demolition of historic site features other than buildings (such as walls, fences, large trees, etc.) be controlled? -- Should alterations to buildings on the Historic Inventor?." that are now reviewed by both HRB and ARB continue to be reviewed by both bodies, or should they be reviewed only by the HRB, to simpli~ the review process for the applicant? Demolition of historic resources What protection(s) from demolition of historic resources should the revised ordinance provide? o Mills Act Should the City use Mills Act contracts? If so, for what purpose and under what conditions? a:\focusqu.ord o Should an incentive be considered in which unbuilt floor area permitted on the property may" be added in one or both of the following ways:. a separate d~velling unit on the property’ even though a cottage is not otherwise permitted subdivision of an otherwise substandard lot (may be a flag lot) o Should relief from other zoning requirements be ganted to historic properties, such as: Relief from on-site parking requirements; Not counting existing basements as floor area, so long as no exterior changes are made to the foundation area that are incompatible With the historic character of the house. 8.What other incentives could the city" offer to encourage historic preservation? a:\focusqu.ord Attachment B WORKSHOP #1 REVISING THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE Wednesday, December 3, 1997 Bonnie Best: Good morning. I want to welcome you to the first in a series of public workshops on this very important topic -- Revising the Historic Preservation Ordinance. There is a series of four workshops that are going to be held. The workshop today will go from 9:30 a.m. to 12 Noon. The second workshop will be this Saturday, December 6th. There will be two more workshops to be scheduled in February. There is a video tape being made of the session. The purpose of these workshops is for you to consider the topic of revising the Historic Preservation Ordinance. It is really an opportunity to provide a sharing of information. There will be presentations made, and then there will be an open session at which time, we can gather information from you. You will have a chance to ask questions and make comments. My name is Bonnie Best, and my role today is the moderator. The agenda today has been prepared for us to make sure that we have an opportunity to cover our purpose of giving you a chance to hear information and also to provide input. The first part of the morning will commence with my opening remarks. Then there will be a welcome by our Mayor, Joe Huber. Then we will have the project overview by Bruce Anderson of Dames & Moore. Then for the real estate interests, we have Leannah Hunt from PenWest who will be making a presentation on the real estate interests. Greg Whittlesey is here to talk about property values. At eleven a.m., we will open up the floor for comments and questions. My role is to manage the time. We have a very packed agenda this morning. From the very beginning, I will be tracking time. I will be giving notification vchen you are getting close to the end of the time we have allocated. I am here as a moderator/facilitator. I have no interest either for or against any of the issues that are going to come forward today. I do not live or work in Palo Alto. I am from Hayward in the east bay. So my role is basically as process facilitator and keeping track of time. For those of you who may want to know, I taught junior high school for nine years, and I developed a reputation of being an authoritarian, when necessary. I also want to make sure that you understand that I will see how many people want to speak between the time period from eleven to twelve. I will do my best to give everyone a chance to speak. For those of you who do not, I want you to know that you can at any time submit written comments. Write them out and give them to the City Council. They are happy to receive written comments at any time. I would now like to introduce Mayor Joe Huber, and let him give his welcome for this morning. Mayor Huber: For those of you who know me, you know that I will not be running over any time limits. In fact, when Virginia asked me to speak, I said that I really did not want to, because S: I Plan I Pladiv[ HRB I Wrkshp 1.rain Page 1 12-03-97 this is not something that is Council-directed or influenced. We are interested in heating from all segments of the community on how we best can proceed with a preservation ordinance of some type or other. We did declare the o~er night at the City Council meeting that there may be a majority of council members attending, so these are official council meetings, if you will. Former Mayor and current Council Member Lanie Wheeler is here today, and I am sure that as we go through the other three speakers, other council members will appear from time to time to get a sense of what is going on. A couple of quick observations. We are concerned about preservation in this community. We are well aware of the problems that have been generated by the interim ordinance. You have heard us say that we will attempt to cure those in our final ordinance, and that we will keep the final ordinance on track so that we can hopefully pass it by April of 1998. In order to get a good ordinance, we need as much input as we can, good constructive input that will be advisory to staff, to the historic preservation folks, and to the council. It is nice to get the input up front, so if you can give it in these workshops, that is great. However, there will be public hearings, as well, at the council level. So if for sbme reason, you feel you have been slighted, you can come down and give us five minutes of your observations when we do hold our hearings. But frankly, it is nicer to get it in writing ahead of time so that one has a little time to think about it. Obviously, all of us are available for contact at any time that you want to call us. So I want to thank you and encourage you to participate. It should not be confrontational. We are all working toward a goal, which is to make this a better community than it already is. So I wish you well. I will be here until about 10:45, and then I must leave for an arbitration in my real life as a lawyer. I will also attend another workshop in February. I also want to say that it is Council Member Wheeler who made the suggestion that we add some public hearings and forums and workshops.. We originally had a couple of them scheduled. She suggested at least two more. I, for one, think it was a great idea, and we ought to thank her for that. Thank you, all. Ms. Best: Our next speaker is Bruce Anderson from Dames & Moore. He is going to be giving us a project overview. Bruce Anderson: I represent Dames & Moore, the contractor selectedby the city for this project. There are two major parts to this project. One is the Historic Resources Survey and updating of the city’s inventory. I will introduce Michael Corbett to present that part of the project. I will then provide an overview of the second part of the project, Revisions to the Historic Preservation Ordinance. I want to be sure to make it clear that there is a very important interrelationship between the survey and the ordinance. We already have an existing inventory in the city, which we will explain in a little detail, and we also have an existing ordinance. Both are being updated and revised. This interrelationship, again, is most important. I will now ask Michael Corbett, who is heading the survey update, to make a brief presentation. -- S: ]Plan I Pladiv] HRB ] Wrkshpl.min Page 2 12-03-97 Michael C0rbett: Good morning. The first thing I want to do is to define a couple of terms a little more clearly. These are "survey" and "inventory." The inventory is the official list of properties that the city recognizes and protects under the ordinance. The survey is the identification of the significant buildings that exist in the community. The inventory is drawn from the survey, but they are not necessarily exactly the same thing. My role in this project is to conduct the update of the survey. In 1979, Palo Alto had a survey done,, which was a very fine survey for its time. However, it had some limitations that we recognize today. One of them is that it was overwhelmingly focused on architectural quality in relation to historic significance. It recognized properties of architectural distinction, but not necessarily properties that were associated with significant historical events. In addition, 1979 is nearly 20 years ago, and it is time to update the survey. -As time passes, we recognize things that are closer to us as being significant. So the first step in this project is to conduct an historic survey of the entire city. The 1979 survey looked at a more limited area. We hope and intend to do this in an objective way. We are looking for all of those properties which are significant. How do we recognize properties that are significant? We are using national standards, the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places. These are used throughout the country. They are federally established standards, but they are used in most cities and counties and states throughout the country. Again, I will say that the 1979 survey was very well done, but it was typical of the surveys in its time in that it was relatively personal. In recognizing primarily buildings of architectural significance, there was an element of interpretation there which we hope to minimize in this survey. So we are using the criteria of the National Register. In using those criteria,.we are recognizing not only buildings, but also structures, objects, districts, landscape features. There are three main areas of criteria, plus an additional one, Criterion D, which is one of the criteria of the National Register, but it has to do with archaeology, and is not a part of this project. So what we are looking at are Criteria A, B and C, which recognize properties that are significant for history, association with significant persons, and physical characteristics, i.e., architecture or structural features. Properties ordinarily need to be 50 years old or more, and they must possess integrity.. If we recognize something as being significant in the 1920s, and the building has been substantially altered since then, then it has lost integrity. Even if the president stayed there and signifi.cant events occurred, it is not significant under the National Register. The survey we are doing now has two parts. The first part is a preliminary windshield survey in which we drive.through the city with maps that show us all of those properties that were built before 1948. On the basis of this windshield survey, we establish priorities for the intensive s ~urvey which follows. The intensive survey is one that is conducted primarily by volunteers. I have done lots of surveys over the last 20 years, and I can tell you that in each one with volunteers, you enter into it, and you are not sure what is going to happen. You are not sure if the volunteers are going to do what needs to be done. In this case, so far we have over 100 volunteers, and it is going very, very well. I think that when this thing is done, Palo Alto is S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshpl.mln Page 3 12-03-97 going to have one of the best surveys of anyplace where I have worked. So the volunteers do this survey. They gather the information in the field; they take photographs; they conduct research. I evaluate the properties in relation to the National Register criteria, and we end up with a completed survey which is an identification of all of those things which appear to meet the criteria of the National Register. At that point, it is turned over for purposes of the ordinance. That is the raw material for the ordinance. The last thing I want to say is that just as we needed to update the 1979 survey today, survey standards now suggest that a survey should be updated every year. So part of what we are doing is also creating a process which can continue after the period of this project is completed. I will be present all morning to answer questions about the survey. Mr. Anderson: Thank you,. Michael. As Michael mentioned, the survey will produce the raw data, based on the National Register criteria that will then lead to the city’s consideration of making additions and changes to its inventory of historic resources. That is the basis of the ordinance in many ways. That is where we start, and it is our ultimate reference point as to what is significant, what is important to the community. I want to go to the overhead projector and refer to the existing ordinance which was adopted by the City Council in 1979, which was an outgrowth of the 1979 survey, as Michael mentioned. In 1987, the City Council then adopted the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation as the criteria to be used by the city’s Historic Resources Board when conducting project review. This is significant in part because these standards for rehabilitation, like the National Register, are national standards. I want to emphasize that they are for rehabilitation. The Secretary of the Interior has other sets of standards, for example, for restoration or for preservation. These other sets of standards are far more demanding or stringent. They would be used at Monticello, for example, or other national landmarks. The Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation are used throughout the United States by local jurisdictions, as well as federal and state governments, for taking existing historic buildings and making what many call "adaptive use" of those properties, where the use may still be valid, or in other cases, the use may be obsolete, but in any event, the building or the structure or the object or the place is rehabilitated. Those standards, once again, are used 95% of the time. The standards for restoration or preservation are rarely used in this country. So I.want to make that distinction. Bonnie referred to the process that we are going to be using, starting with the public workshops, for making revisions to the ordinance. Palo Alto has a well deserved reputation for its public participation. It is a very key part of the ordinance revisions -- these first two workshops in December bydirection of the council, and the two in February by direction of the council. As it has been structured, we are starting today to focus on the interests of the real estate industry. What are their interests in making revisions to the ordinance and in this project? On Saturday, we will cover what are called "General Interests," and we wi!l have designers, realtors again, a broad spectrum of people interested in the ordinance; interested in historic preservation in the S: I Plan I Pladlv [ HRB I Wrkshpl.min Page 4 12-03-97 city. In mid-February, the second set of workshops will have designer/builder interests as a focus, similar to real estate today, and a second workshop on general interests. The process also includes consultations with the Historic Resources Board, with the Historic Preservation Ordinance Advisory Group, with city departments and with a number of community stakeholders. I want to emphasize that those types of meetings are also very important. Of course, there is the City Council, which is the voice and the ultimate decision maker here in terms of what the community wants to do with historic preservation, including revisions to the ordinance. On November 24, we had our first discussion of the project and a discussion of general policy issues with the City Council. The.two staff reports for that November 24th meeting are available today, and will be available Saturday. I would encourage you to pick up a copy of those staff reports and read through them. They have extensive detail and information about the project and about these policy issues. In early February, we will have another meeting with the City Council, at which time, the proposed principal elements of the revisions to the ordinance will be presented. Those principal elements are like a skeleton, a basic outline of the revisions. That Obviously will lead into the mid-February public workshops. So subsequent to that early February meeting with the City Council, we will again have that second set of workshops and the opportunity to respond to those principal elements as presented, in April, a draft of the revised ordinance, and by the end of May, we hope to have an adoption of the revision to the ordinance and simultaneously, an expiration of the interim regulations now in effect. I now want to cover some major issues to beaddressed by revisions to the Historic Preservation Ordinance. Again, you will find most of these in the staff report. The.categories are "Types of Historic Resources in Palo Alto." This will change from the current numerical priorities or order of significance. A second one is "Keeping Palo Alto’s Inventory Current and Accurate." The existing inventory adopted in 1979 has had a few additions, but in going into the field, Michael and I have found some cases where the inventory does need to be kept up to date a little more. We are looking at the creation of additional historic districts. We have two - Ramona Street and Professorville. There are many other possibilities now, as we get into the survey, for looking at the creation of additional districts. We will be looking at the levels or degrees of protection for properties listed or included on the city’s adopted inventory. I want to stress that. Adopted Inventory by the City Council. We will be looking at the review process for proposed alterations for properties listed on the city’s inventory. We will be looking at monitoring and enforcement activities as they relate to preservation and to those properties on the inventory. We will be looking at quid pro quo exceptions, or tradeoffs you might say, to certain provisions of other ordinances Such as the zoning ordinance. Wemight have a historic property that does not exactly conform to setbacks or other requirements of the zoning ordinance, and an exception may be granted, based on that property being on the inventory. Then we will be looking at the roles and responsibilities of the Historic Resources Board. Major items not to be addressed by these revisions are, first of all, design review of single-family S: I Plan I Pladlv I HRB I Wrkshpl,min Page 5 12-03-97 residential properties which are not included on the city’s inventory of historic resources. Also, we will not be looking at issues of neighborhood compatibility or neighborhood conservation. That is not. part of the project. Of course, the existing interim regulations are due to expire in May, so we will not be looking at those or considering their pros and cons. Thank you very much. Ms. Best: Next we will have a presentation by Learmah Hunt from PenWest, the real estate interest. Leannah Hunt: Good morning. I am Chair of the Palo Alto District of the Peninsula West Valley Association of Realtors. I am pleased to see so many of my fellow realtors here, as well as members of the citizenry of Palo Alto. I see a number of people who have been involved in the process, using the interim regulations. The Peninsula West Valley Association of Realtors (PenWest) and its 400 members in Palo Alto are concerned about retaining the quality of life, character and charm of our community. I am here this morning, along with Eric Morley, to present some ideas for your consideration. As both residents and realtors living and working in Palo Alto, we offer the City Council, the Historic Resources Board, known as the HRB, Palo Alto planning staff, consultants and homeowners a real life perspective on how the ordinances’ impact our homeowner clients and your constituents, as we are addressing this issue on a daily basis. When the interim regulations were adopted last year, PenWest hosted educational forums with HRB members, planning staff and other city officials in an effort to educate our realtor community and be both proactive and collaborative concerning historic home issues. Over the past several months, PenWest convened a group of design professionals, architects, builders, attorneys and realtors with long-standing ties to the community and solid reputations for quality design and construction of homes in Palo Alto to address historic home and associated design issues. This group consisted of John Northway, a local architect, Shirley Wilson, also an architect, Tony Carrasco, architect, John Warren, a builder/developer, Skip Justman, an.attomey, Bob Gurlach, Manager pf Alain Pinel Realty, Elsie Begle ofAlain Pinel, along with Jon Schink, who shared his ideas about the process. We had a facilitator, Patrick Daw, who is an architect and planning designer. This group reviewed and analyzed the existing Palo Alto historic ordinance and the current interim regulations, as well as historic home ordinances in Oakland, Pasadena and Los Gatos. Based on the group’s review, analysis and comments, PenWest provides the following initial comments and recommendations on the issue of historic homes. For the past year, realtors and their homeowners clients have attempted to navigate the interim regulations and process for historic homes. The interim regulations and process are costly, confusing, time consuming and overly burdensome. Under the interim regulations, this process has become politicized and lacks objectivity. A disincentive has been created for many homeowners who might participate in the process. Insufficient time is provided for applicants to S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRBIWrkshpl.min Page 6 12-03-97 respond to staff analysis of home designations. Typically, staff repOrts are available at five o’clock on a Friday afternoon for the subsequent Wednesday morning hearing, thus giving really only two work days to consult with architects or other professionals. Too much authority has been placed in one staff position, which is charged with recommending home designations and then approving subsequent home designs. The interim regulations are not a good model for future ordinances to address historic home issues in Palo Alto. So we would like to offer the following goals for inclusion in a permanent ordinance. Homeowners should have the ability to reasonably remodel and rebuilding of their homes. The City of Palo Alto and its staff should recognize the importance of private property owners’ rights as a building block of~he Palo Alto community. The revised ordinance and associated information should provide clarity and certainty to homeowners Who want to improve or replace their residences. The revised ordinance should not penalize owners of historic residences or dissuade them from participating in the identification or home improvement process. This process should not be politicized. It should be simple and have checks and balances, with provisions for appeal to the City Council. The revised ordinance should not be expensive or time-consuming for homeowners. The historic home process should be incentive-driven, not sanction-driven. The city should ensure adequate time for the public to review the proposed inventory designations and ordinance. I would like to have Eric come up and continue with some specific policy recommendations, and then I will have some further thoughts. Eric Morley, Staff to the Peninsula .West Valley Association of Realtors: I will cover some of the policy recommendations that came out of the series of forums that were held by the study group. I will go through the historic home policies and also some process issues, as well. First, the revised ordinance, in concurrence with what the consultants have indicated, should apply . only to designated historic resources. Only residences with true architectural historic merit should be listed as.landmark structures. Landmark residence listings should only occur wi(h the permission of or request of the owner. Inclusion of homes on the National Historic Register requires homeowner consent, and we feel that Palo Alto homeowners should have that same consent and that we should remain consistent as a community with that criterion. The revised ordinance should retain the current numerical ranking system of one through four, and new categories should not necessarily be created in place of the ranking system. The city should not use the 50-year running historic criterion for identifying historic homes. The "Contributing Structure" category in the current interim regulations is overly broad and casts an extremely broad net. It should be more narrowly tailored in the revised ordinance. Relating to financial incentives, it is our view that the Ordinance and the policies and the financial considerations that the City of Palo Alto makes should be very much incentive-driven and not sanction-driven, and that the city should explore and implement every alternative S: [ Plan I Pladiv [ HRB I Wrkshp 1.rain Page 7 12-03-97 possible to enhance and create incentives for homeowners, including the relaxation of land use policies and regulations, streamlining the permit process, financial and tax benefits, and also the allocation of city funds for both education and assistance to homeowners. The revised ordinance should retain the existing, not the interim, regulations and policies regarding delay or d~molition of homes. The revised ordinance should address the exterior of homes, not the interior of homes, and only the portion of residences that are viewed or visible from the public right-of-way. Minor alterations and alterations not visible from the public right-of-way should be considered at the plan checker staff level with appropriate appeal processes. The City of Pasadena is a great example of a community that addresses and utilizes the criterion of those portions of homes and fagades that are visible specifically from the public right-of-way. We think that is a good design solution, a good policy solution, and we recommend that this criterion should be used for historic home alterations. Also, the revised ordinance should not apply to remodels or new construction of homes under 2,000 square feet. When we met with design professionals who have been in the community for decades and who are going through the process, it was very evident that over the last year when the issue of historic homes precipitated last year, a majority of the problems were related to large homes. Most of the remodels and small exterior modifications were not a substantial issue, so we are recommending that threshold. I also want to cover future application and review process recommendations. An appeal process should be established by which homeowners may present their case directly to the City Council. We feel that that is an essential aspect of the revised ordinance. Applications and review fees for landmark structures should be reduced to affordable levels. The city should work not only with preservation organizations, but other community groups to assist in paying for or subsidizing the review and processing of historic homes through the preservation process. Another major issue that came about related to the interim regulations, and again, our focus as the PenWest Association of Realtors and the industry has been to takewhat we have learned from the existing ordinance, take what we have all learned as a community, and the deficiencies of the interim regulations and try to move that forward. Those are the series of recommendations we are covering. A time limit of 15 days should be placed on the application reviews and responses. One of the major concerns that has been raised by homeowners isthe time constraint related to the process. Finally, the revised ordinance should retain the existing, not the interim, approach to HRB review of proposed exterior changes to non-landmark structures. According to the Palo Alto city staff, and I think this is certainly the case, homeowners who come before the HRB on a voluntary basis gather a great deal of good information that helps them to execute very good design S: I Plan I Pladlv I HRB I Wrkshpi.min Page 8 12-03-97 solutions to their homes. We are recommending that the city educate the public about the HRB process and resources, including a new emphasis on its voluntary, not mandatory, nature. The revised ordinance should not mandate design review for non-landmark residences beyond what is currently in place in the existing ordinance. The HRB should be reappointed as a result of its changing roles and responsibilities and revised ordinance. The issue there is that I think we all agree that. there is a great deal of expertise on the HRB. The members of the HRB provide an extremely valuable service to the community, given the wholesale and substantial change to the process, to the Ordinance, and to the roles and responsibility of that group. We are recommending that an appointment process be considered. Obviously, there would be a number or majority or several of the existing members that would want to continue todo that, but we feel that it is important to at least expose that process. Finally, the city should more aggressively enforce the existing contractor licensing laws through permitting and inspections. The city should revise the owner/builder category, if necessary, to limit abuses of these provisions. Those are a series of policy recommendations. Again, these are initial policy recommendations. As all of us know in the community of Palo Alto, historic home issues are very complex. We have an existing ordinance, we have an interim ordinance, and we have a revised ordinance. The realtor industry is trying to take a proactive, positive, collaborative approach drawing upon the positive experiences in other communities and here in- Palo Alto in order to create a reasonable and effective historic ordinance that will preserve the character of the community, and also enable homeowners to reasonably remodel their homes. With that, I will reintroduce Leannah.Hunt. She would like to cover a couple of process issues related to the ordinance and ultimate inventory. Ms. Hunt: We feel that the city should, as soon as possible, directly notify by mail all of the Palo Alto homeowners affected by the current inventory identification process, and inform them that the city is reviewing their residences and is considering historic designations and increased regulation of their homes. In the spring, the city should establish a comment period of 30 days prior to adoption of a final inventory, designations and ordinance. We need the time to allow Palo Alto homeowners and the public to have sufficient time to review and comment on the proposals. Typically, the staff will have a report prepared perhaps only the Friday before a Monday evening City Council meeting. We feel it is really incumbent upon the staff and the council to provide sufficient time for those directly affected to review all of the recommendations. With’ regard to this whole issue of landmark designations, the city must be very careful in assigning this designation. An owner must clearly be part of the process. They will be affected financially. Certainly just as the National Registry has included in more recent times a requirement that this be a voluntary process, we feel this definitely should apply in Palo Alto, as well. Certainly this designation cannot be given just from a drive-by observation. It is very -- important that the proper research be done. S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshpl.min Page 9 12-03-97 We want to have a user-friendly process. We want to encourage homeowners, those owners who truly have historical homes, to step forward and want to be part of the inventory. Certainly, we have a number of older homeowners who have been intimidated by the whole paper package process and the cost involved. We, as residents and citizens, need to shoulder the burden financially in order to preserve the architecture for these outstanding examples. The current process does include, as one realtor phrased it, an incredible paper package to complete the merit screening process, requesting homeowners to draw to scale their residences. Many people do not have access nor the funds to hire architects to do this kind of preparation work. Thus, they have not stepped forward to become a part of the process. So that is an issue we are very concerned about. Floor plans, all of the precise drawings that are required, are burdensome. Although staff at the counter will suggest that all you need is a floor plan similar to what you obtain in a pest report, these are certainly not drawn to scale in any of the pest reports that I have seen over the last nine plus. years. Oftentimes, the information that is suggested at the counter level clearly contradicts what is in writing. In the preliminary information that has come from the planning department in the November 24th document, it has been suggested that the boundaries of the Professorville historic district -appear to warrant revision and expansion. We obviously would be concerned about expanding the current Professorville boundaries when, in fact, there is an overlay to have all of Professorville right now be landmark status. If they are going to consider expansion, we will certainly want to take a close look at what the recommendations are. ~They have also suggested that bungalow courts and groups of cottages are a noteworthy residential building type. They appear in many parts of town and represent several styles and periods. So clearly, these are areas throughout the community that we will want to look at very closely. It was also referenced that there were homes built between 1940 and 1948 in the Midtown area, the Coastwise homes, that might, in fact, be considered landmark type properties. So we want to make sure that all of the homeowners in Palo Alto are aware that this is the dialogue that is taking place. We encourage those who are not here today to come out on Saturday, and of course, in February, to speak to the revisions and the proposed ideas for the revisions. The realtors have wanted to be part of the process to re_present homeowners in this community and to definitely state to the public that we feel there are many wonderful homes that we don’t want to lose. We want to encourage remodeling. We want to encourage renovation, whenever possible. I think it was a very good sign this m0ming at the HRB hearing that members of the HRB did acquiesce and decide that double-pane windows would be a good feature to include in a cottage at 100 Waverley Oaks. This is the kind of progress and constructive thinking that we appreciate. We are glad that they have revised some of their earlier thoughts on these kinds of renovations. Page 10 12-03-97 I want to publicly thank the architects and the builders who have helped us over these many months to assess where we stand, where we can go from here. Our local legislative government committee has met numerous times, under the leadership of Elaine White and Judy Ellis of our board. We have welcomed members of the HRB to come to our meetings and share information with us. We want to encourage and continue this collaborative effort. These are very important decisions. We know that the revised ordinance that will be determined and voted upon in the spring will set thestage for many years to come. We have enjoyed being part of the process, and we look forward to speaking with the consultants who have been hired to develop the permanent ordinance. I will look forward to having my fellow realtors make comments later this morning about their particular experiences. Thank you. Ms. Best: Thank you, Leapmah. At this time, I would like to introduce Greg Whittlesey, who is going to be talking to you about property values. Greg Whittlesey: Good morning. I appreciate everyone being here .this morning. Let me tell you a little about myself. I am a certified general real estate appraiser. I have been an appraiser forseventeen years, it is my. sole and only occupation. I have a practice in downtown Pasadena. I am also a member of the Appraisal Institute, a nationwide organization. The first point I want to talk about is the economic effects of National Register Listing. The question here is, does a property being listed in the National Register of Historic Places increase or decrease the value of a property? By definition, the property being listed in the register means that the National Park Service has determined that a parcel has a particular cultural, historic or architectural quality of value to the nation. You must keep in mind that the value is determined by buyers and sellers in an open market. The agents, brokers and developers can establish asking prices, and appraisers can itemize rehabilitation costs, and bankers can set loan-to-value ratios, but all of that is~ dependent upon and contingent upon actual transactions between buyers and sellers. They are the ones who really make the market. If a typical buyer and seller, or more importantly, the real estate professionals in the community, do not understand the significance of a National Register listing, or even the existence of such a thing, there is no way that an economic value can be attached to such a designation. We, as real estate professionals, have the responsibility to educate buyers and sellers, as well as the rest of the real estate community, in general. First, then, let’s consider how real property becomes designated. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 expanded the existing registry of national historic landmarks into the National Register of Historic Places. This was to include properties of state and local significance, as well as national significance. It also included whole districts and objects, in addition to buildings and sites~ That is why you will find things like ships on the National Register. A listing on the National Register is the single most important criterion triggering legislated benefits to owners of historic properties. But we must realize that the listing itself does not prevent alteration or demolition. Only local ordinances that are tied to that National Register listing provide these kinds of controls. Page 11 12-03-97 tn the first years after the passage of the 1966 act, most of the properties that were listed on the National Register were of national significance. Today, most of the properties that we are seeing coming up have only local significance. In many communities, the creation of a National Register district is the trigger for a parallel local district. Often, local historic districts provide protection for properties within the district that the National Register cannot..This is protection from inappropriate design or scale and uses of properties within the district that can maintain and often enhance the value of properties in that district. Let’s remember that real estate is an asset, the value of which comes from its context.- Therefore,. to the extent that an entire neighborhood becomes more valuable, the individual properties within that same neighborhood become more valuable, as well. The~’e is an analogy that is often used of a rising tide lifting all ships. Therefore, because of this value through context concept, one could argue that a National Register district and its local counterparts probably have an even greater cumulative effect on value enhancement than does an individual listing outside the district. That is why we see so many more districts being created today. It is the value in context design. "We want to preserve the whole ambience of the neighborhood, not just individual buildings within a district. Let’s talk for a moment about current trends for appraisers in preservation. Appraisers need to understand the current concern in preservation. As we just said, this is toward the totality of the built environment, as well as the natural environment, and away from a concern for individual structures that are standing in isolation. Today, preservationists and their appraisers have their focus on the whole community, rather than on specific buildings. This is why we are seeing districts becoming more and more common. In Pasadena, I believe we have five districts listed in the National Register. These are old Pasadena properties, Prospect Street, the civic center financial district, the civic center proper, and South Marengo Avenue. In addition to this, we also have a number of bungalow courts listed. I know there are a number of fabulous bungalow courts within the City of Palo Alto, too. Next, I will talk about legislative benefits. What are the conditions that a National Register has when a National Register listing adds economic value? I think that probably, the answer that is’ most common is when a National Register listing serves as a threshold for additional benefits. You’ve got to have the National Register listing as your first step. Most obvious is the availability of historic rehabilitation tax credits. A listing in the National Register, either individually or as a whole district, is a prerequisite for obtaining these federal tax credits. The tax incentives for historic buildings are .set up by the federal government through the Department of the Interior National Park Service. The National Tax Reform Act of 1986 established a 20% tax credit for the rehabilitation of historic buildings Used for income purposes. It also gives you a 10% tax credit for the rehabilitation of pre-1936 buildings used for non-residential purposes. This means 10% .for properties, even if they are not listed. If they are pre-1936 and you rehabilitate them to the Secretary of the Interior Standards, you get a 10% tax credit. This is a lot better than a 10% deduction. S: [ Plan [ Pladiv I HRB ] Wrkshpl.min Page 12 12-03-97 In addition, it also provides for a very favorable straight line depreciation period of 27-1/2 years for residential income property and 31-1/2 years for non-residential income property. This is based on the depreciable basis of the rehabilitated building, and it is reduced by the amount of the tax credit claimed. A couple of notations that go along with this is that the 10% tax credit is not available for the rehabilitation of certified historic structures. They would qualify for the 20% credit after they have been rehabilitated to the Secretary Standards. To qualify for the tax incentives, the property owner has to have certification of both the historic structure and of the completed rehabilitation. So they come back and look at it after it is done. Another interesting thing to keep in mind is that owners ofpr.operties listed on the National Register may use the state historic building code, as opposed to the uniform building code, UBC97, which is in effect fight now. The state historic building code allows for much greater flexibility for both interior and exterior work. That is a real asset. Let’s talk for a moment about the current tax proposals that are pending. In 1995, some of you may know about the Historic Homeowners Assistance Act that was introduced into both the Senate and the House. It proposed a new investment tax credit for non-income-producing properties, those that you and I own. The proposal centers on a tax credit of 20% for certified rehabilitation of historic properties if they are done in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior Standards. This is a credit that was proposed to be capped at $50,000. It would apply to condos, co-ops, single-family residences, or multiple-family residences which are listed individually or are within a district. These districts could be either a local district, a state district or a National Register district. The tax credit could be transferred to the buyer of one of the rehabilitated properties, and a homeowner could transfer unused portions of this tax credit to a mortgage lender who could then write down your interest rate perhaps. This type of residential income tax credit is currently available today in six states around the nation, and it has been very successful in encouraging rehabilitation of residential structures. As of today, however, this particular tax act is dead in Congress. It was not passed in this year’s Congress, and will be reintroduced next year. Those of you who are interested in that need to write to your representatives and tell them that you encourage the passage of the Historic Homeowners Assistance Act. Many of you may be asking yourselves, is my banker less likely to offer loans on older properties or ones that have been historically designated? The short answer to this question is, certainly not. Property owners should not be afraid of designating their properties for its effect on their financing ability. Lenders who have appraisers that are qualified to perform appraisals on these special types of properties are confident that their standard loan-to-value ratios should be used with historically designated properties, as well. Remember that your appraiser is your real property evaluation expert, and the lender must trust the opinion of his real estate professional. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us, as real estate professionals, to educate and inform appraisers when they are new to this historic property evaluation. I can tell you from my own experience S: I Plan [ Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp 1.rain Page 13 12-03-97 that one area of concern might.be a property owner who has a historic structure and winds up getting a lender who uses anappraiser from outside of the area. This happens a lot, especially with major lenders. If you find.that you are in the process of getting a loan, and your lender uses an appraiser who is from outside the area, I think it is very important to ascertain whether or not the appraiser has sensitivity and expertise with historic properties. If not, the brokers, the agents, and even the homeowners, especially the district representatives, can be critically important sources in educating an out-of-towner to the special requirements of these kinds of properties. One other topic we want to talk about is coordination between real estate professionals. It is in this same vein of cooperation that I feel that a concerted effort of coordination has to take place between real estate officials and the professionals involved in historic property valuations. The players in this are going to include neighborhood associations, the realtors, your city code enforcement people and your professional real estate appraiser. The point I want to make is that a historic designation is not a stigma working against a property’s value. Rather, it connotes a special property whose highest value will be to a special segment of buyers, just as properties with other special characteristics, such as a cul-de-sac location or a ranch style floor plan may appeal to a specific client. With respect to our jobs as real estate professionals, it is our job to inform and enlighten the appraiser about these points. They should be receptive to an informed voice. If you come across somebody who is not, feel free to call me. Thanks very much. Ms. Best: We have come to the time in our agenda where we will have questions, answers and comments. We will now hear from members of the public. Erika Enos: I am a realtor, and also a resident of College Terrace. I just wanted you to know that I was one of the people who was instrumental in getting the residents of College Terrace together to come to the City Council about a year-and-a-half ago to protest the demolition of what I considered to be two very historic houses in College Terrace that have subsequently been demolished. So I was initially really excited about this process. When I talked to the City Council, I asked them specifically, in the process of doing this review, to not swat a fly with an atom bomb. I am afraid that that is exactly what they have done. I always feel that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I have a picture of a property that I sold to some clients this past summer who wanted to do some remodeling. It is in old Palo Alto, and it did not sell quickly, because it really was a rather insipid piece of property, although it was designated as contributing. My clients wanted to tear down the garage, so look at the garage, not the house. This is a garage that was kind of attached to a house that was built in 1936. Barbara Judy told my clients, who wanted to tear it down because they thought it was ugly, and also not functional, because it was supposed to be a two-car garage, but really was not because it is only 16 feet wide, and you cannot put two cars in a 16-foot-wide garage. Barbara Judy told them that it was a historical garage and that if they tore it down, which according to the ordinance they could do because it is only the primary structures that are addressed, that when their plans came up for compatibility review, they would have a lot harder time getting approval from her and that it would take a lot longer. I think there has to be some reason in these ordinances, and to me, this S: I Plan I Pladlvl HRB IWrkshp 1.rain Page 14 12-03-97" is an example of one application that I feel is totally urtreasonable. Lucille W. Mellish, 2241 Wellesley Street. Palo Alto: I am opposed to this whole ordinance business, and I think it should be returned to pre-1991 when the ordinances were not so burdensome on the property owners. This heating they had a little over a year ago before they passed this latest ordinance. The simple majority of the people attending that meeting was against passing the ordinance at that time. Nevertheless, with all this community involvement that they talk about, they passed it anyway. There was only one person at that meeting that wanted the ordinance passed, and everybody else was against it, but still, the City Council passed it. I am just wondering if the City of Palo Alto wants to be one big slum because the old buildings that are termite-ridden and falling down are declared that they cannot do anything about it. Besides that, I think this whole thing has caused more strife than it has benefit to the whole community. Besides that, the City Council I think should be well aware that when you build a new house, they are going to collect more revenue. That is all I have to say at the moment. Virginia Briggs, 55 Waverley Oaks This is a small cul-de-sac in the 2100 block of Waverley Street. My acquaintance with the ordinance has been with the recent sale of the house across the street, the street being 15 feet wide, and the confusion and what I would consider to be the inadequate treatment which was given to the whole ordinance. In the first place, the contract of sale which the owner, who is the son of the deceased resident, made provided that it would sell if he were able to get a non-historic status, being a teardown. Oddly enough, not only was this one contract presented to him, but he had two backup contracts, all of which included the same requirement. Unfortunately for the rest of us who live there (and there are five residences abutting this cul-de-sac), what happens to one happens to all. It was not properly framed, and a very detailed examination and report was made as to the historic value of this in its relationship to the whole cul-de-sac. This was completely ignored in the hearing. The hours that were spent by the professional staff, who were apparently qualified to be there, were completely ignored by the hearing group which made the decision. One of the comments of a member of heating group was, "I made up my mind two weeks before this hearing." The report covering the hearing had not been filed until several days or less before the hearing. The research process had been very deliberate and carefully done, and was ignored. The terminology of the categories for which these houses are being examined is very misleading. What does "contributing" mean? What does "historic" mean? It did not mean, in this case, national historic status. It just meant that it had some value to the neighborhood. That was misunderstood. As a result of this, several of the neighbors have deliberately made an attempt to get their homes for what value they are and however they look designated as non-historic and suitable for demolition. I really question the ethics, if not the legality, of allowing a real estate contract to demandthat the owner, who will be long gone and not concerned with it after the sale is made, to include in the contract of sale that it is his job to go down to the city hall and impose his will on the city review board. I think this has been brought up by the real estate discussion, and I hope some improvements will be made. Thank you very much. S: I Plan I Pladivl HRB IWrkshpl.valn Page 15 12-03-97 Maddy Stein: I live at 2301 Waverley Street in a house that was constructed in 1929. I actually support some regulations, but I think the current system is family flawed, and I will tell you just briefly what happened to us. On October 23, we applied for a 76-square-foot addition under something called the home improvement exception to expand our garage four feet by 19 feet so it would be a true, two-car garage. That required $300 to notify all of the neighbors and full architectural plans. On December 11, we received a note saying, "The granting of the application is desirable for the preservation of an existing architectural style or neighborhood character which would not be otherwise be accomplished through the strict application of this chapter, i.e., code." During this time, we could have put a carport in our yard, but we chose to expand our garage by four feet by 10 feet. When we went to get a building permit, we were notified that now that the new regulations were in, we would have to through that process. Another $813 later in fees, which is about $15 per square foot in fees, we appeared before the Historic Resources Board, and they were very nice, saying, for God’s sake, help this woman. She cares about the house. It is a great house, etc. So they then gave me the full application package that I would have to tilt out if I were going to tear down my house. When I called the city, they said, Mrs. Stein, we are really sorry, but this is what you have to fill out. In addition, I was seen photographing my neighbors’ houses, because the current regulations do not recognize that certain houses built before 1940 actually have the garage as an integral of the house facing the street, which ours did. We were told that we could add our four feet if we stepped it back two feet. That is a rather interesting garage configuration. Finally, on June 13th, we did receive a permit for this project. So we had almost a full year’s time and $1,200 worth of fees. My favorite thing, though, was when I had gone into the neighborhood, we had to have an aerial photograph which we got from the city archives, we had to have a full map, which we got from the city archives, and in addition, I submitted th.e photographs of several conforming houses, one adjacent to mine and one across the street, which have the garage in the front. I don’t know what was wrong with those architects at the turn of the century, but they put them there, and we were then asked, could you submit drawings. Unfortunately, I was never very good at art, so my architect had to submit sketches of these garages. We have now spent $10,000 for 76 square feet of remodeling in Palo Alto. I would just like to add that I am one of the original people who helped save the Gamble Gaiden Center at a time when the city had very little interest in it. I have spent my life raising money for that project, and I do support some sanity, but I am appalled that there is no congruence between the home improvement exception process and historic preservation. Lastly, when they were describing our house, which I believe is a wonderful Colonial, they noted our mature and beautiful landscaping. I was very pleased. We put that landscaping in in 1985. It is beautiful and wonderful. It would have been very sad ifI had been unable to remove the original juniper bushes because it was the original landscaping. I believe in gardens. Obviously I have spent my life supporting them and building them. On the other hand, I believe in people and families and reasonableness, and I would hate to see Palo Alto look like a Disneyland with 400 copies of our house. So I think there are lots better ways to achieve these things, and for God’s sake, let’s get rid of carports, which I could have legally put next to my beautiful original Colonial house S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB ]Wrkshp 1.rain Page 16 12-0.3-97 without running afoul of any regulations. That is my story. Herm Harrow: I am with Seville Properties, and I have another sad tale to tell of the process that we had to go through in representing the owners of 1078 Forest Avenue, which you may have read about in the past. First, I want to make a comment about what Mr. Whittlesley observed in terms of the appraisal process. We, as realtors, know that the true appraisal is what the buyer is willing to pay for a house. Let me tell you what happened with respect to 1078 Forest Avenue. The original contract we had on the house was not contingent upon the house being rated as contributory or a landmark or anything, because we did not expect that our property would be designated as a landmark. When it was designated as a landmark, the buyer withdrew from the contract and defaulted on his deposit. We then received another Offer. That offer also was not contingent upon designating the property as a landmark, however, when the HRB people refused to review our application for the landmark designation, that buyer also withdrew. We have now withdrawn the property from the market, because we cannot market the property. The reason we cannot market it is that being designated as a landmark, we cannot demolish the property. With that scarlet letter of the landmark designation, the property is not marketable. We can tell you that from personal experience. Let me review some of the things that went on as we went through the process. When we received the designation from city’s preservationist, we received it, as indicated before by Leannah Hunt, two days before the HRB review. That was not sufficient time for us to get any expert advice or any input from anybody other than the historic preservationist retained by the city. After the HRB made its decision by a 3-2 vote~ by the way, we asked the city attorney to give us some advice as to how we could have this matter reconsidered by the HRB. She advised us that the only way this could be done was for one of the three people who recommended the designation of landmark to vote to have the matter reconsidered. That advice, as it turned out, was incorrect. It turns out that the ordinance that we currently operating under (his time was running out) well, I may need more than one minute, if you don’t mind. I think you should have the benefit of what actually happened instead of telling us what could happen and telling us about benefits that are available. They are only available to non-residential or commercial properties. We are talking about residences here, not commercial properties. Just as an aside, I can say that we have been advised by Barbara Judy that we have the benefit of the Mills Act and that we have tax benefits. It is not so terrible having a landmark designation. Well, as it tums out, the Mills Act benefit is only available to two properties currently in Palo Alto -- Mildred Mado, who happens to be on the HRB, and the Juana Briones property, which is known throughout the county as being a historic site. Only two houses. A third house asked for the benefit just recently at 420 Maple. The City Council wisely sort of demurred, and said, we!l, let us think about this. Of course, they have to think about it because there are economic consequences to the city. There are also economic consequences to the homeowner who has the landmark designation. S: I Plan I Pladivl HRB I Wrkshpl.min Page 17 12-03-97 I might remind the city fathers that they are supposed to represent not only the preservationists of the city, but other homeowners, as well, when you take a property right or place a de facto deed restriction on the sale of our properties, the deed restriction being that you cannot demolish this house. I am meandering because I have heard a lot of irfformation here this morning that pertains to our situation. When we asked the city attomey for the opportunity to appeal the process, she said that it had to go back for the HRB’s approval. That information turnedout to be incorrect. It turned out also that the Director of Planning, Mr. Schreiber, had t.he opportunity to present our case back to the HRB under the ordinance. In a letter that I received from him after the fact, he said, well I declined to refer it back. I would ask you, what would be the basis foi" an appeal, for a citizen to take an appeal back to the HRB, if it were not for the grounds that we had. They were, first, that we only had two days to prepare for the hearing. Secondly, the homeowner did not want the property designated as a landmark, because we knew that it would affect the marketability of the property, and thirdly, because she was running a day care and she was losing money at the time that we put the property on the market. We had to delay any action on the thing until we got through a City Council review which was really not something that we wanted to do. We wanted it to go back to the HRB in order for us, as we indicated to them, to hire a consultant. We said we would hire one and have the consultant’s report at the next meeting, and they refused to do it. We then had it appealed to the City Council, which took two months to get before them. The City Council’s process is not the process that you want to go through, because it is a political review. It is not a factual review. When you designate a property as a landmark in this city with the restrictions that you have, you better have very hard facts to defend that position, not the neighbors, not the fact that the neighbors like what they see on the street, not the fact that the neighbors are used to having this house. The neighbors are not the ones who own the house. The property owner ought to have some extra say. What we have maintained is that if there is doubt as to the authenticity of the material that you are reviewing, it ought to be resolved in favor of the homeowner, particularly when you have such an economic disadvantage to the landmark designation. So a couple of suggestions that I would make to our city fathers is that first, if you are going to designate the property as a landmark, you really ought to consider that that should be treated in a little different way from the properties that are designated as contributing. The contributing status at least gives you an opportunity. It may cost you money, $10,000 for the review, but at least, it issomething that you can manage. When you put in a landmark designation, which says, bango, you cannot demolish that property, Barbara Judy reminds us that oh yes, you can, under certain circumstances. We don’t know what those circumstances are. The house would have to be failing down 100% in order for that property to be permitted to be demolished. This property was not. We would say, first, that you should give the property owner sufficient time to have their consultant or input made. The second comment I would make is, if there is an appeal process Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshpl.min Page 18 12-03-97 written into the ordinance, it really ought to be pretty specific as to what the grounds are for the appeal instead of leaving it up to the Director of Planning on his own to determine whether or not he is going to allow an appeal to be made back to the HRB. When you are affecting the homeowner’s property rights, you ought to give the homeowner the right, on whatever grounds, but certainly the grounds being, "I want time to give you additional information." Thank you. Ann Barbee, 1106 Bryant Street: I have to’come to speak at the real estate forum, because I am not available this Saturday and because my knowledge of real estate in Palo Alto and historic ordinances is considerable. Some of you know that I bought a piece of property at 1106 Bryant Street in the fall of 1994. It was an estate sale and an as-is sale. I went to court to bid on that property, and I was very excited because I had wanted to live in Professorville for the whole 30 years that I have lived in Palo Alto. A~er having the house for about six months, I talked to my architect, etc., and found that it was impossible for me to have the kind of house I wanted on that piece of property, that structure. I applied for a demolition permit. I went to the HRB. The HRB, in its wisdom, put a one-year recommended moratorium on my demolishing the house. That was in June of 1995. At the time, I want you to know that I thought that was really onerous. This was a small, asbestos-shingled, relative nondescript house. It is true, it was built in 1906. There was nothing special about it. It was just this little house. But it was in Professorville, which is a boundary that has changed over the years. I went back to the library as a part of this, and I looked up Professorville. I looked up the process when it became a historic district, and I know that there were hearings, but let me tell you what the paper said, both in 1979 and again in approximately 1989. They said, well it is a problem for people who live in Professorville, because you have more paperwork. Let me tell you that more paperwork has turned into something completely different. Even though I thought it was onerous to wait a year before I could build my house, I cannot do it now. No one can do it in Professorville, because by definition, every single house in Professorville is a landmark structure. I have pictures of 15 houses that I took as I walked around my block. I encourage you to take a look at those and decide which ones are landmarks and which ones probably are not landmarks. All of those, under the interim ordinance, are landmark structures. I am a little uncertain about the new structures in Professorville. To my count, there are four new structures in Professorville. There is one on Melville between Waverley and Cowper. There is one on Waverley between Lincoln and Kingsley. I know there is one on Bryant between Lincoln and Kingsley, and the fourth one is on the comer of Waverley and Lincoln. I think those are now landmark structures simply because there in Professorville. I would encourage you to look at those houses. Those are the four new houses that somehow have managed to sneak .through the regulations, one way or another, either by concerned effort or oversight, or whatever. Those are some very powerful~ interesting houses. They are not Taco Bells, and they are going to be great historical credits to the neighborhood. Thank you. Steve Bellumori: I am with Seville Properties. I have been a broker for 24 years in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, all the surrounding communities. By quick background,. I haste had about S: [Plan I Pladlv I HRB ] Wrkslapl.min Page 19 12-03-97 14 months experience in San Marco County in the rezoning of homes primarily from the standpoint of getting some control over what was built on lots. Some of the properties that were being developed were absolutely preposterous on the lots, and the like, so I have a great sensitivity to both the size of homes on lots, as well as having represented quite a number of clients over the past 24 years who have purchased older properties with the intent of preserving them. I want to speak because I was the broker who handled the property at 70 Waverley Oaks. I won’t go into too much detail in terms of correcting some information, Virginia, that was categorically not true regarding contracts and the like. But regarding 70 Waverley Oaks, I do need to say that this was a property that was owned by a family for fifty years. My clients were what you would refer to as "sophisticated." He was a construction litigation attorney. His son was an architect. The family had owned the home for fifty years, and the point he kept making that I thought was often missed was that they were the preservationists Of that home. They maintained the home, almost to the extent that it was built in the late 1920s. When it came time for a sale, it became the subject of too much neighborhood involvement, I felt, too much whimsical, subjective kinds of decisions regarding the home and the like. The point regarding their sophistication is that from my standpoint, as well, having had background with this, anyone who tells you that the process is easy or that it is not subjective is not telling you the truth. I.am telling you this from the standpoint of someone who is very supportive of this. But I have been through the process, and I am saying, this went too far to one side. In an attempt to gain some control over what was happening with the wholesale demolition of beautiful homes, it went too far. Now it is time to dial it back, and I think that is what this all about. So I have no ax to grind, nothing else of the sort, and the property has closed escrow and we are long gone. This is for the intent to try and give some input here that I hope was helpful. I will touch on some quick things regarding the elements of the process. Hopefully, some of these will disappear. The requirements to require homeowners to turn in drawn-to-scale floor plans of their homes is really preposterous, as I think people have touched on, at the phase of going through historic designation. That should come in at a later time when properties are being reviewed for what they intend todo to the homes. But that amounted to too much additional cost to a homeowner that was selling. I say that that will probably will disappear as the city finishes the whole overview of the designations, but in the interim, it is an excess cost, as was the time spent in laboring through the whole process. I want to touch on the time response, because these are key elements of it. A comment was made that there was tremendous research put into our property in all of this time. I am going to tell from our perspective that we had to submit a tremendous amount of material, regarding the property, the neighborhood, the floor plans. It went for six weeks time before we had a response. When we got that response, we had 24 hours to contradict the information being given. I don’t that is much time. , S: I Plan I Pladlv t HRB I Wrkshp 1.min Page 20 12-03-97- The other point I want to touch upon is just some social comment regarding the landmark designation. I absolutely do believe that a property designated as a landmark will have a higher value in the long run. But we have to be very clear that if we designate 400 to 600 properties as landmarks, that is silly. We have gone way beyond. This is not the National Register. This is setting up something that is really artificial, and it is not from my 24 years experience the reason why people buy in Palo Alto. They don’t buy for pretentiousness. They don’t buy for excess government control. I think that is how far the process went. The last point I will mention is just to comment, i am selling a wonderful, wonderful old Victorian right now, built in 1877. It is in Atherton. My clients are going to put a tremendous amount of money into restoring the property, probably in excess of a million dollars to restore this property. They paid a handsome price for the property. They live in old Palo Alto, and this is not a great big political comment, but their comment to me (andI think it is important to recognize these things) is that they would not have purchased this property if it were in Palo Alto because they would not inflict this process upon themselves. We need to be attuned to that. So that is what this all about. I am happy to give any input at any time for things where I think I could help, and at the same time, being supportive because I know it needs to be corrected. Shirley Ledgewood: Everyone who has spoken has been an expert in something, either an expert in real estate or an expert in experience of working with the city or trying to work with the city. I am not an expert in either direction. I am a total amateur. As an amateur I want three questions to be answered that will probably seem simplistic to everyone here, but I think we need to go back to very simple terms. I have heard a lot of stuff that I do.not know anything about. Here are the three questions. How do we know that our house is on the inventory? I think I heard somebody say that we would be notified, and that it would be sent out in the mail? I am not sure of that: Number Two. Evidently, there is a lot cost and expensive stuffthat you have to do to have your house designated. So my second question is, what is required to designate your house as a landmark? And is it costly? My third question is probably the most simplistic of all three. Please define in detail the word "rehabilitation." The speakers all brought these up. Ms. Warheit: In response to knowing if you are on the inventory, the city currently has an inventory. The way you would know if your property is on that inventory is by calling the planning department or going to the planning department, and ask for a list of all properties on the inventory. So if you are referring to the current inventory, there is a list in the planning department available for everyone. For example, there is a handbook about the Historic Resources Board, and at the back of that booklet, there is a list of every address that is curt’, ently on the inventory. That is how you would know if you are currently on the inventory. If your question is, how will I know whether, in this existing survey we are doing, my house is going to be proposed to be on the inventory, for properties that are being considered, the owners will be notified that their house is being proposed to be on the inventory, probably through the mail. Page 21 12-03-97 The second question is, what is required to designate your house as a landmark? And is it costly to do that? There again, I would distinguish between whether you want to know right now, that is, you want to go through the merit screening .process to find out right now if your house would be considered a landmark. I believe the application fee is $100 for. merit screening. I think the information you need to provide is just anything you have that you would like to volunteer. The historic preservation architect and her staff do the library research that is needed to answer the question about whether it is on. But they always ask each owner, "Do you know anything about your house? Do you have any information about who built it or who has lived there previously, etc.?" You can volunteer that information, but I believe the fee is $100. Ms. Ledgewood: Someone said you have to draw plans to sc~e. Ms. Warheit: That is only if you are proposing to do work on your property, not for merit screening. Ms. Ledgewood: That brings up the third question. Please define "rehabilitation." Ms. Warheit: That is the easiest one you have asked, as I can read that answer. Rehabilitation is defined as "the process of returning a property to a state of utility, through repair or alteration, which makes possible an efficient, contemporary use while preserving those portions and features of the property which are significant to its historic, architectural or cultural values." Basically, it means having, at the same time, protection of those significant features of the property which give it historic importance while accommodating an ongoing, contemporary use. Ms. Ledgewood: Such as seven more feet off of the garage? Ms. Warheit: Yes, that would definitely be a rehabilitation. Dr. Richard Hemdon: My bona tides are that i have been a real estate broker for many years, and I have remodeled a large number of houses in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, some of which I still own. Four of them were built by Pedro de Lemos, who is a Palo Alto architect that merited some newspaper articles sometime in the past. I see before me an impassible ditch or an unclimbable wall, which I think some of the rest of you are fearing because of the possibility of your area being designated as historic. I want to give you some details, since I have done a lot of building. I know the difference between a two-hour fire wall and a shear wall, and I know whereofI speak. Do not be misled by charm, as thinking that Pedro de Lemos was doing deluxe work. I have four houses built by him in the Seale area, and one day while cleaning up on the sidewalk, a nice, elderly lady walked up to me and said, "I was the first person that moved into this house in 1923. When it was completed, they had excavated and called it the sunken gardens." The effect of this is (1), if E1Nifio lives up to its expectation, the basement is going to fill with water, as it has before, an error of excavating it S: I Plan I Pladlvl HRB [ Wrkshpl.min Page 22 12-03-97 and then digging a basement with the surrounding properties being higher. You do not have the advantage that they have in Bermuda, an island with no water sources where they house all of their drinking water in the basement. The first thing it does is to put out the furnace and the water heater. The next thing it does is to make the basement wall want to .collapse. Now, as for the foundations of a house built in 1923, whether it has three sets of rebar in it or not, I seriously doubt. Whether the mud sill is bolted to the foundation, I seriously doubt. In this particular house, the plaster is cracking all the way around just above the foundation. It makes it look very attractive. Don’t be misled by the fact the de Lemos or another person put a wrought-iron grill over a window for the senorita to be serenaded by her caballero, or put tiles in the wall or made an arched front porch with tile on it. This is.stuff worth nothing. The fact that he had a flat roof with only one drain (and I had to dig a dry well), a fiat roof with parapets so that it acted as a swimming pool on the top, the fact that some of the plaster was so thick on the houses that you ~ can see the metal mesh showing through. Eichler was not the first person to build the cheapest house he knew how. There were pioneers before him. I am afraid that the name de Lemos, which is certainly justified here with the charm of this place, will apply to these junkers. One of them is aching for a backhoe and a dump truck. It wants to go bye-bye. Somebody will want to fill that lot up to grade and perhaps not dig a basement which will flood. You will try sump pumps, but somehow, I am not able to get the water out’as fast as it comes in, but who wants to have that sort of thing designated as historic? It is only becaus6 they are rentals. I don’t think any owner would have tolerated these conditions. I am afraid that the bureaucracy that we have created is going to preserve this for us for all time. I hope not. Pat Ahlo_uist: I am with Seville Properties, and I am here today because I have a client that is in the middle of this process and has been so disconcerted by it and terrorized by it that they desire to remain anonymous and not tell their story. The reason I am speaking is that I think it is sad when there is a family who are basically preservationists and have lived in Palo Alto for a long time, who want the community preserved, have tried to comply with the process, and now, they feel so intimidated by it that they do not want you to know who they are, where they live, what they are doing, what their plans are, because they feel that the process itself continually makes them go back to the people who first reviewed the property, they give all of the improvements that are done after the fact. Their point is, if you want to get a designation, that’s great, but just don’t plan to do any work under this system. I think that the stories that have been told this morning are very reflective of the current system. No matter how good is the heart of the people that are involved, it doesn’t matter. It costs them time, money, energy and a lot of emotional anguish that is just unnecessary. Hopefully, at some time, my clients will feel comfortable enough to come forward and feel like this process works like a democracy and they can be heard without feeling personally threatened. Thank you. Sandy Ress: I live at 253 Seale. It seems to me that this is not the place to debate whether or not ¯ we have a landmark designation. In any event, it would be preaching to ttie choir, so I do not- want to get into that. It seems to me that at the beginning of this, we were distinguishing S: [ Plan I Pladiv [ HRB [Wrkshp 1.vain Page 23 12-03-97 between those properties that are being preserved because they have architectural significance and those properties that are being preserved because they have historical significance, and that we are mm, ing away from architectural and toward historical. Yet I have not heard anyone describe what constitutes "historical." Clearly, I would assume it is Stanford’s house or Stanford’s barn or the Hewlett-Packard garage, or possibly Herbert Hoover’s house. So would you tell us what constitutes "historical." Michael Corbett: Looking at the criteria of the National Register, things are of significance if they are associated with significant patterns or events of history or with significant persons. Patterns and events in Palo Alto would mean, in addition to the kinds of things you mentioned, association with Leland Stanford or the electronics pioneers, would be things like a connection with early agricultural history of the area, the early Chinese population, and we will learn better as we get into the survey what all the possibilities are. Properties would be significant if they had an association with an important aspect of Palo Alto’s history and if they retained integrity. There are not going to be a lot of early agricultural properties that retain integrity, for example. ’ Mr. Ress: I don’t want to get into a debate with you, but let me ask abotit a couple of hypotheticals. In 1900, there was a farmhouse, and the area has grown up around the farm. There are lot of houses around that farm, but the original farmhouse is still there. It is not a particularly pretty farmhouse, but it still exists. Is that historical? If someone was at Stanford and wrote a book, no one reads that book anymore today, but they wrote that book back in 1910. Does that become historc, etc., etc. Instead of general terms, I would like you to tell us, whether you use concrete examples or hypothetical ones, what actually constitutes "historic." Mr. Corbett: Regarding the Stanford professor who wrote a book, it would have tobe a pretty important book to make it a significant property. It would be part of the history, and it would be a part of the information we would collect, but very likely, it would not, by itself, mean that the place was significant. Regarding the agricultural property, since you mentioned that the farmhouse is not very pretty to look at, if the house possessed integrity, in other words, if it had not been altered, yes, it could be a significant property. Integrity is not only the object. It is the context. So if the house was originally associated with a barn and a tank house and all kinds Of other things, and none of those are there and there are new things right next to it, you would perhaps say that it did not have integrity, and therefore, it was not significant. I. am sorry to be vague about it, but you really have to look at each of these sites individually. One more thing I wish to add is to say that what I am doing with the volunteers is the survey.. We are identifying those places that possess significance in relation to these national standards. That is not necessarily what gets protected in the inventory. I think everyone would agree that it is important to look at these places initially objectively to see what are the significant places. For anything that we say is significant, we will write a context. It is not just a history of this particular property, this agricultural property, but we would w~ite a context which talked about agricultural buildings or the agricultural history of the area. Then if we said that it was S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshpl.min Page 24 12-03-97 significant, I think it would be very clear why we said so. One real advantage to doing things in relation to the National Register is that it removes a lot of what appears to be arbitrariness or personal opinion in the former way. If we say it is significant, I think it will be pretty clear to people that yes, we see that it is significant. You may not think that it deserves to be protected because of that. I would not necessarily think it deserved to be protected because of that, either, but we start by doing an objective survey that tells us what are the significant things. Then it gets filtered through the political process~ and from that poo.1 of significant stuff, some or all may be selected to be protected by the ordinance and protected in the inventory. Mr. Ress: (From audience) IfI understood his answer, we are only talking about three properties in Palo Alto. That may not be what you meant to say, but that is what I heard you say. Mr..Corbett: I did not mean to say that there were only going to be three properties. Mr. Ress: There aren’t going to be 400? Mr. Corbett: I don’t know how many there will be. Member ofthe..audience: So what you are saying is that there is going to be a criterion set. Mr. Corbett: The criteria are the ones that I talked about a little earlier, the criteria of the National Register, and those are applied to everything that is fifty years old or more. Corrine Goldstick: I am a realtor with Alain Pinel. The previous two speakers have pretty much gone over the particular incident I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention. Going back to the Waverley Oaks property again, I just happened to have tuned in to the original staff report on that and listened to some of the testimony. I was appalled to leam that one of the criteria that the staff report prepared on that was that at some time, as I remember in the thirties, an owner or a renter, I do not know which, had lived there for a relatively short period of time, an attorney who wrote a book, and this was considered significant enough to designate the property, along with other architectural considerations, of course, as historically significant. I would hope, just to reinforce what the gentleman here said, this kind of ridiculous thinking will no longer be included in the HRB reports. I hope that there has been some outcry, other than my bringing it up. No one recognizes his name, and I don’t think the name of the book was ever even given in the report. So please, let’s not be ridiculous about these designations. Martin Bemstein: I have a question for Bruce Anderson. In the example of an existing house currently designated a Category.4, if that house were to be reevaluated today and determined, rightfully so, to be a true landmark, would you explain how the inventory update process would affect that house’s current historical designation of a Category 4? S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshpl.min Page 25 12-03-97 Mr. Anderson: Regarding a property currently designated a Category 4, the lowest category, if you will, because numerical categories were used, this is not part of the survey project. We have not yet reached the point where we know what to do with the existing categories and the properties which are listed within those four categories. It is not in the scope of the survey project to go out and review each one of those properties that are already on the inventory. We are only evaluating properties which are not currently on the inventory. But again, in terms of folding in or including existing properties, whether it is a Category 4 or whatever category, 3, 2, 1, for that matter, into the revised ordinance language; I do not have an answer for that yet. We have not yet reached that point. Mr. Bemstein: Since that is not part of the project, I guess it should be understood that we are at risk, ifa structure such as that truly should be a landmark, there is a risk that we could lose a true landmark. So I just want to point out that that might be one of the limitations of the current project. Would you agree that that is one of the limitations? Mr. Anderson: I don’t know that I would use the term "limitation." I suppose that is good enough. Each project, as it is defined by the city, and contractors such as ourselves bid on that project, we bid accordingly. So if we have a Category 4 property today that perhaps, upon reevaluation, would be a Category 1 or Category 2, the so-called landmark residential properties, under the interim ordinance, that is a possibility. Therefore, that is perhaps a limitation of this project. That is adjustable, should the city so desire. Earl E. Schmidt: We own and live in the property at 201 Homer Avenue. We also own the properties on the other two comers of Homer and Emerson. We are very proud of the fact that we have maintained and preserved properties that date back to 1896 that have been in the family now for the third generation, and we have set up our estates in order to keep them in two more generations. We. have pride in what we have done in historic preservation. I have been involved in historic preservation studies, commissions and committees in San Mateo County adjacent to here for more than 25 years past until we moved into Palo Alto. So I have some background in the field. One of the properties that we own, incidentally, is the little jewel in this book at 209 Homer. It is one of those that we are very proud to preserve and to maintain, and have ever since it was moved to the property in 1910. It was the original Episcopal rectory in Palo Alto. I am very pleased to see the fact that the realtors have .done such an excellent job in preparing and presenting a sound plan for protection of properties within Palo Alto. I hope that there might be some means of forcing the related staff and council members for the City of Palo Alto to listen to the proceedings of this meeting to hear the indictments, since that is what they are, of people who have been affected by poorly thought out preservation rules and regulations. Our particular property at 201 Homer, by the waving of wands at my wife’s aunt who has lived there all of her life, was forced to start paying an annual fee to continue living on the property after an earlier city study Waived the property being residential, and making it commercial. She $: I Phn I Phdiv I HRB I Wrk~hpl.min Page 26 12-03-97 was never notified until she started getting bills. At some point later during her ownership and before we took over ownership of the property, the property was zoned, and still is, as Hotel Motel! This is the comer directly across from the Whole Foods Market. I have a basic question. We have maintained the property, and we intend to continue maintaining. the property. From long experience in historic preservation (we also own a historic building dating back to the early 1850s up in the gold country town of Murphys), the advantage to the owner of owning historic properties, with very, very rare exceptions such as those that have been granted in Palo Alto, is at zero. There is no dollar advantage potential to the normal property owner in preserving property. I would like to raise further the fact that it is almost impossible to insure current properties in Palo Alto. Our property, which is historic at 209 Homer, is under some state-funded special insurance program. We cannot find a local insurance broker, nor insurance brokers that insure the other property, to insure that, even though it is perfectly maintained, solely because of the age of the building. I challenge anyone to come and find fault with it in the manner in which we have preserved it and maintained it during our ownership. These are serous problems that must be reflected in any recommendation that comes out of this current study, or we are going to go back into the same damn thing of will-o’-the-wisp political maneuvering to change the designations of properties, to the disadvantage of the property owner. Monica Young..Arima: I am the homeowner of a landmark property in Professorville on Bryant Street, a proud owner. We are just like.any young couple, when you start out, you want to build your own_ house. We had a choice to look for a lot on which to build a house of our own, but we chose not to do that. We love old houses, so we bought this home a year ago to try to renovate and preserve it. We have not gotten to the point where I can tell about my own experiences yet, but just the initial feel I have is that the time it takes to get to the point where I want to be is taking much longer than I thought it would. Also, the dollar amount that wa~ originally estimated has kept on going up and up. I would like the city members to kind of understand the homeowner’s perspective, and be a little more sensitive to the homeowner’s cost aspects of doing a project. Time is money. A lot of the speakers before me have echoed the points I wanted to make, so I will not repeat them. I remember the rent controls when I was going to the University of California in Berkeley. Rent controls did not do any good to the Berkeley properties. It made me feel that too much - control would not do good to the properties here. That is just my sense, and I don’t know if people around me agree with me, but I would like to have people think about the more positive aspects of preserving these old properties. Maybe people should be educated with more information. People have mentioned the Mills Act, the tax reform act. I find it very difficult to have access to that information. Thank you very much. Elsie Begle: I am a realtor, and actually, I am very historic! When I was president ofthe Board S: [Plan I Pladivl HRB [Wrkshpl.min Page 27 12-03-97 of Realtors in 1855, no, not that long ago, we were lucky in that the City of Palo Alto bought our cinder block office on Bryant, and we had to find a new location. I must say that the men said, let’s go to California Avenue or Midtown. It is cheaper. I said no, downtown is the heartbeat of Palo Alto. What we bought was a Victorian. It had been used for teenage problem children. It was a residential center. We spent a pack of money renovating it, and it is a proud part of downtown Palo Alto. Go by 610 Cowper. We sold it, but to me, it was indicative of what I thought Palo Alto was. I was the first realtor who plunged into the Historic Resources Board hearings. I had clients who had innocently bought a house, and before we knew it, it was dubbed a landmark. I said, I can’t believe it. It couldn’t be. At any rate, that is what got me into monitoring and attending HRB meetings. I have had serious reservations, so I hope that the new regulations will be more attuned to the homeowners who are really taking a beating in the interim regulations. Realtors are really the amicus curiae of the homeowners. I have told realtors to go with their clients to the HRB meetings, take a lawyer, take an architect, because you never know what you may want to refute. I am concemed to.hear about this feeling that we must look into not only the house itself but the people who lived there. That gets very sticky. I also feel that the present serap puts the homeowner in double jeopardy. Barbara Judy, who is a preservation architect and highly ~rained, does a drive-by, (I call it a .drive-by shooting) and designates it. Then the owner can come, and it is presented before the HRB. If there is a split decision, as there often is, it can only be appealed to the City Council, and there it stops. So there should be more leeway for what the owners can do. Then if they get a designation, they have to go through Barbara Judy as the architect for the renovation. So in a sense, the homeowner is put in double jeopardy. I don’t think there should be that same person designating it as historic and then saying what they have to do to keep it historic. So there is much more to be done when you are drafting the permanent ordinance in taking into account the concerns of the homeowners. I really am not all that thrilled to hear you talking about the prominent people who lived there. For instance, the first one that was designated historic was because a Castilleja French teacher had lived there. I didn’t think that was that historic. So I would like to see the permanent regulations less prejudiced towards people who taught French at Castiileja. Thank you. Guy Blase: I live at 356 Coleridge. My family has restored ahouse at 271 Addison, and my deceased wife served on the Historic Resources Board. So we have a deep interest in historic property in Palo Alto. I am a lawyer, but I have pretty much retired, and I have narrowed down my practice to representing people who are interested in availing themselves of something called the Mills Act. I would like to offer my services in the process of helping to development a policy for the City of Palo Alto regarding the Mills Act. The HRB, in a recent hearing, seemed very leery of embracing the Mills Act as a way to encourage historic preservation. When I hear that the de Lemos houses are considered junkers, I urge you to find out about the benefits of the Mills Act and sell those junkers to someone who has an interest in preserving them. They are S: I Plan [ Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshpl.min Page 2"8 12-03-97 going to pay a lot of money for the junker, and they are going to have high taxes to pay. If they get the property certified as historic, they can come in and enter into a historic property preservation agreement with the City of Palo Alto, and enjoy a dramatic reduction in their property taxes under the Mills Act. That is a very positive incentive to get on the right track with regard to historic properties. Historic properties really should be preserved. About the only arrow in the quiver of the city to encourage people to do that is the Mills Act. The stick approach, which is what the historic process we are involved in now is perceived to be, is not a very felicitous way to encourage people to embrace historic preservation. Mr. Schmidt should be honored, not harassed, in the glorious work he has done to preserve that property. It truly is a jewel in Palo Alto. One of our properties is in Professorville. i think the historic designation of Professorville has been an immensely helpful act in maintaining a really significant, important historic district. We should not get too hung up on how a property is described in the effort to make it result in a historic designation. By any test, Waverley Oaks is a historic treasure in Palo Alto. Whether or not a lawyer lived there and wrote a book is really unimportant. That property, just on its own merits as an architecturally significant and historic property, should be preserved, and it is being preserved. There is another owner who is not interested in the Mills Act or anything else, but he should get a lot of credit, and the city shoulddo everything it can to keep him happy. If that means that you don’t hassle him so much, that is a good idea. So I would like to see this process include developing some ideas to make the Mills Act-more available, and not considered as some kind of welfare for the rich that Palo Alto is opposed to. I hope that the City of Palo Alto will recognize this as a really important way to preserve historic property. Member of the audience: What is the Mills Act? Don’t leave without telling us. Mr. Blase: That is going to take more time than I have. It was passed before Proposition 13. Then Proposition 13 came along, and property taxes were dramatically reduced, so the attractiveness of getting your property taxes reduced by qualifying it as a historic property went away. Now, we have people who are moving into the city, paying a lot of money for their property, and they have high taxes. The Mills Act, if it is a truly historic property certified by the city to be historic, or is on the National Register, if the city is willing to do it, it can enter into a historic property preservation agreement between the city and the property owner, unless the city loads on a whole bunch of additional requirements, and not surprisingly, this city does load it up. I can understand why they want to do that, but no other city loads it up the way Palo Alto seems to be headed toward loading it up. We have only done one under this new attitude, which is the Squire House. There, the owner could not do enough to more than satisfy the city. The Mills Act lowers the tax to about a 99% reduction. Ms. Best: It sounds like that is a very important subject, but our time is almost up, so I have put it up on the easel to get more information. Remember, this is the beginning of a process. You will have an opportunity to get more information about that. I am sorry I have to cut this off today, but this is just temporarily delayed. Page 29 12-03-97 Member of the Audience: Can I ask one more question about the Mills Act? That is, what is the city going to do about it? Sunny Dykwell, 143 Santa Rita Avenue: I represented the buyer on 70 Waverley Oaks. I work for Alain Pinel Realtors. I felt the urge to come up and say something, because a lot of people spoke about 70 Waverley Oaks. From a buyer’s perspective, I can tell you that she was aware of the many hours that Steve and the seller and I put in just to get it designated "contributing." The amount of time we put in did not equate to the amount of time we were given to contradict what Barbara JudY was going to place it as far as its being designated a landmark. So she was very disappointed about that. The house at 70 Waverley Oaks was. the first home I showed to them. When I disclosed tO them the existence of the historic preservation ordinance, she refused to make an offer on it, even though it was thefirst house that she really really liked. So we proceeded to 10ok at some other houses while she continued to review the materials. Let’s.talk about the materials. From a buyer’s perspective or from a layman’s perspective, and her husband is vice president of a very big company, and she herself is in corporate communications, the materials were totally confusing to them. In fact, she would like to volunteer to write it up when you guys come up with something so that it is more user-friendly. The concern that they had when I told them, let’s go ahead an make the offer subject to a contributing designation, the concern they had because they knew the amount of time it would take to go through the process, they were very concerned about having owned many houses before, what would this mean when it comes to the time that they would sell the property. As far as they are concerned, a contributing designation does not mean anything to them, although now, the only thing they have done to the home is to replace the roof, which Virginia Briggs said was lovely. It is a slate roof, and they spent $32,000 just on the roof alone. They are going tobe doing the foundation. When they bought the house, we told Virginia that they are not going to be doing anything. They are not going to demolish it, but the fact that because of the buyer’s awareness of what it means as far the landmark designation or contributing designation, there are those buyers’ concerns. They did not know anything about it, so let’s skip this property and moveon to the next one, which is what I expressed with my client. So what I can tell you, when you are looking at this regulation and when you put it in writing, to make it user-friendly, and secondly, you should make it a point to tell the community that it is not really a bad thing, however you guys can put it, as to how you would like to write it. Make it a voluntary process. I would like to congratulate the review board, because they spent a number of hours, and we spent a lot of hours, but I am sure that they also spent as much, if not more than the hours we spent. It is a very long process, and maybe needs to be shortened: Thank you. Ms. Best: We have had an interesting morning, and .I thank all of you. I also want to let you know again that this is the beginning of the process. You have opportunities to put in written comments. We will be back here on Saturday. Also please realize that this was an open forum, and there is always the situation where people are saying things that other people will refute and say that is not correct, this is correct. As a mediator, I know how that is. Each of you has your S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wxkshpl.min Page 30 12-03-97 own perspective. You have had a chance today to offer your perspective and your opinion. There is still a lot of dialogue that I am sure you will be having in the next few months, so good luck, and Saturday will be the next workshop, same time, same place. Have a great afternoon! S: I Plan I Pladiv I HRBlWrkshpl.min Page 31 i2-03-97 Attachment C WORKSHOP #2 REVISING THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE Saturday, December 6, 1997 Ms. Yeend: Good morning, and welcome. This is the second workshop in a series of four sponsored by the City of Palo Alto to gain information and to expand dialogue when considering the Historic Preservation Ordinance. I hope all of you had an opportunity to sign in and get a copy of the agenda and other materials. As a welcome, I would llke to introduce myself. My name is Nancy Yeend, and I will be the moderator. My role this morning is not totake sides nor advocate for any position, but to make sure that this comprehensive agenda is covered today and that everyone has an opportunity to express their ideas. I have a sample copy of the agenda on the overhead projector, and I would like to draw your attention to a couple of things for points of clarification. After my initial opening remarks, Ken Schreiber will give an official welcome for all of you at this workshop who came outhere on a Saturday morning. Following that, we are going to have a presentation by two of the consultants who are gathering information that will become part of the ordinance. This workshop this morning is not focused on a single issue, but is going to cover as many issues as possible that need to be brought up when considering the ordinance. While we get our seven panelists up here, we have introduced a - short question and answer period. You have a cream colored sheet for comments. If any of the first three speakers say something that you did not understand or on which you needed a brief clarification, just write the question down, and I will read it to either the consultants orto Ken, and have them give a very quick response while our seven panelists.are being seated. This is not going to be the time for the full public comment. Once we have our panelists settled around our conference table, each one will present their own points of view on a different topic and information to share with all of you that may be very important for your consideration and for the consideration of the ordinance. Following the seven- panelists’ presentations, we will then open the discussion, at which time you can ask questions or give comments to express your ideas. The purpose of this workshop is to have as much dialogue as possible. Since there are so many people who would like to comment, we are going to have to do time management, and that is where my role comes in. I am not always so subtle. For our speakers on the panel who have a specific period of time to talk, I have a five-minute waming to them, and then get down to the stop signal. We will end at twelve noon today. If there are just a few people left, we may extend it by a few minutes. At this particular point in time, I would also like to mention to you that the city, the staff, the P: I Pl~n I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 1 12-06-97 council and the consultants are very interested in everyone’s point of view and comments ¯ regarding this significant ordinance. Therefore, at any time, you can submit written comments and letters to the council. Also,-today’s workshop is being video taped, which will be available for individuals who may have missed the proceedings today or who would like to acquire information. Again, I remind you that if you have a quick question, please put your name, your organization, and just write the question¯ down and pass it forward to me. Then I can ask the questions. For those of you who would like some time to speak at the end, if you would just indicate "Would like to comment" so that I know you are going to be speaking at the end, that would be helpful. Without further ado, I would like to introduce Ken Schreiber. .Mr. Schreiber: Thank you, Nancy, and welcome to all of you who have been able to come out on a Saturday morning, which I know is a significant effort for some of us. We really appreciate your being here today. We appreciate your involvement in this process, and hope that we will’ see you not only today but that we will see you at future City Council meetings and future discussions of this issue as we move along, trying to develop new regulations that will, by our target and the City Council’s target, go into effect by the end of May, 1998. So keep track of this process as we get into February, March and April. We anticipate going back to the City Council in February, and there will be additional workshops in February, also. Then there will be further City Council review sometime in April. A couple of comments on where we are with all of this. First, the existing interim regulations which, as many of you know, were put together very rapidly over a year ago. Question from the audience: Can you tell us what you are the director of?. Mr. Schreiber: I am the Director of Planning and Community Environment for the city. My department has the lead responsibility for both implementation of the interim regulations and the assignment to develop the permanent regulations which will replace the interim regulations, hopefully by the end of May. Very briefly, the Planning and Community Environment Department is responsible for the interim regulations and is responsible for the coordinating and handling of the assignment to develop the new historic regulations. That will be reviewed by the City Council this coming spring, and hopefully will be adopted in time to be effective by the end of May when the interim regulations expire. A couple of comments leading into this by making two observations on the interim regulations. There are two major parts of the interim regulations, and any number of you, I am sure, have had to deal with at least one, if not both of those. One is merit screening, which is the effort to figure out whether a particular property is historic or has some historic qualifications. The other is the compatibility review, the review of changes to identified historic properties. It is essentially a form of design review. We anticipate that the merit screening is going to disappear as a result of P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 2 12-06-97 this process. That will not survive beyond May, because the work on identifying a new inventory should take care of that job. We should be able to get rid of merit screening. Secondly, the regulations that were adopted in 1996 combine historic preservation and some single-family neighborhood concerns. That, in notable part, is where we got into compatibility review. We have recommended to the City Council that those things be pulled apart and not have compatibility review, at least involving non-historic structures, and that whatever .comes out of this process focus on clearly identified properties that have been identified in the survey work you are going to hear about, and have been identified in whatever regulations the city adopts. So I am sure some of you have had a great deal of frustration with merit screening and/or compatibility review. I will simply indicate that staff has a lot of frustration with that, too. We are looking forward to seeing those things go by the board and have the permanent regulations which have not yet been drafted go into effect.. Finally, two issues that I would hope the panel can grapple with and you can grapple with in your comments. One is~ to what extent should the city be regulating historic resources? I think most people, if not everyone, agrees that for certain gems like the Squire House, as one example, some level ’of city regulation is appropriate. These are National Register-identified buildings. They are the landmarks of the community. But in the past interim process, we have dealt with a very wide range of structures from those that almost nobody would disagree with to be preserved and treasured in the community to properties that are down on the margin somewhere, and to the extent that people can give us some input in terms of what level of city regulation and involvement is appropriate for different types of historic resources.. I am starting from the assumption that what is appropriate for the Squire House is not necessarily appropriate for a small cottage someplace that has historic value but certainly is not the Squire House. But I may be wrong on that. We need to figure that out with the City Council, and your input will be very important in that. The second issue is, a lot of folks talk about incentives.. We really need to have an incentive- based system for historic preservation. "The devil is in the details" on that one. What I would hope people can do is to take a look at the issue of incentives and regulation, and what is the balance? What type 0fincentives? It is easy to say, "Provide incentives." But in this real estate market, I am not sure what combination of incentives would be effective in preserving structures that in some way or another, the community decides should be preserved. If people can be specific on the issue of incentives, we would greatly appreciate that. What level of additional density or parking reductions or financial benefit? If you are going to pursue those things, give us some specifics. We really need help in that area. So with those overview comments, I will turn this back to Nancy, who will introduce Bruce and Denise. Ms. Yeend: I would like to introduce Brace Anderson and Denise Bradley. They are consultants with the firm of Dames & Moore. They have been involved in the survey that many of you have heard about. They are going to give a 15-minute presentation about the survey, their findings, P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB ! Wrkshp2.min Page 3 12-06-97 ¯and to provide you with information that you can consider in the context of the seven panelists you will hear from later. Denise Bradley: Good morning. I am Denise Bradley, and I work with Dames & Moore. We are the consultant that has been hired by the city to help do two aspects of work related to historic properties in Palo Alto. The first thing that we are doing is updating the inventory of existing historic structures in Palo Alto. We are doing this by conducting an intensive survey in which we are identifying the National Register eligibility of historic properties in Palo Alto. This list will then be submitted to the city so that they can, in turn, consider these structures for inclusibn in the inventory. The person that is directing that is Michael Corbett, and he is working with the volunteers, a very dedicated and wonderful group of people here in’ Palo Alto who are assisting us on that. He is not present this morning. The second aspect that we are doing is updating or revising the Historic Preservation Ordinance. The member of our team who is overseeing that is Bruce Anderson. He will now give you a brief overview of what we have been doing, to date, and what we will be doing to provide you with information related to that. Thank you. Bruce Anderson: Good morning. Denise mentioned the two parts of the project, the historic resources survey and updating of the city’s historic resources inventory, plus the revisions to the Historic Preservation Ordinance. I am going to give a brief overview of each part. of the project. The two parts of the project are highly inteuelated, although for some people, looking only at the ordinance, they may not see the direct relevance of the survey and the updating of the inventory, but they are very highly related. Let’s start with a little overview of the existing inventory. The City Council adopted its existing inventory in 1979, based on the survey work that was done by consultants in 1979. It is important to recall that the significance of each property in the 1979 survey was based largely on architectural merit. That kind of survey work that stressed architectural merit was very common in the 1970s and early 1980s. Palo Alto’s survey work done by John Beech and Paul Begoshian is a very good piece of work, at least in the opinion of many, and I share that. They also had an outside panel look at these resources,.as identified by John and Paula. This panel decided to-assign significance to each identified property by numerical categories, as many of you know, Categories 1, 2, 3 and 4. Again, at that time, that was not uncommon. The inventory today consists of about 520 properties, and that includes additions made subsequent to the 1979 survey work. We are beginning, this time around, with a windshield survey. We reviewed in the field approximately 6,000 pre-1948 properties. In the review, we annotate block and lot maps in order to assign priorities for research. The research, the intensive survey, as Denise mentioned, is being performed by a very dedicated and large group of volunteers, a wonderful group of volunteers. This survey consists of a great deal of archival research and additional field work by the volunteers. We are working with the volunteer P: I Plan I Pl.div I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 4 12-06-97 coordinators to provide oversight. We, as the consultants, will prepare significance statements and evaluations for each qualifying resource. Also, with the volunteers, we will prepare what are called Historic Context Statements. That is where this survey differs significantly from the one of 20 years ago. We are using evaluation criteria which are contained in Bulletin #15 of the National Park Service National Register, which is available at the front table. These four criteria, consist of Criterion A, Events; Crited.on B, Person’s; Criterion C is Design and .Construction, such as a famous architect or some type of building material or building technology. Criterion D is Archaeology, which we are not doing as part of this project. I want to be sure to underscore again that, not just architectural merit as in 1979, which was largely based on architectural merit of this current surveys, but in addition to that, the research that will be done is a very important component, you might say a shared component in determining the significance of historic properties in the city. We will provide the city with a list of National Register-eligible properties, and I underscore "eligible." It does not mean that they will go on the National Register. That determination is made elsewhere. The Historic Resources Board will review and make recommendations to the City Council for properties which should be added to the city’s existing inventory of approximately 520 properties. I would now like to move to the second part of the project. It is the revisions to the Historic Preservation Ordinance. The provisions of the existing ordinance were adopted in 1979 as an outgrowth of the 1979 survey. It is also significant that the City Council, in 1987, adopted the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation as the criteria to be used by the city’s Historic Resources Board when conducting project review. There has been some discussion on that, perhaps even a little bit of confusion. We are talking about rehabilitation. There was a . question the other morning about what is rehabilitation, in comparison to preservation or restoration. It is basically taking a property and adapting it to current contemporary use and standards. It is not loaded up with more stringent requirements or the demanding standards of. the Secretary’s standards for restoration or preservation. There is a process we are engaged in for making reviews to the ordinance, such as these public workshops held last Wednesday and today. The next set in February is where we will have designer-builder interest and also another general workshop. These two sets of wof~:shops are very critical. As Ken mentioned, this is our opportunity to learn from you what kinds of things you are concerned about and what kinds of things you would like to see in making revisions to the ordinance. The process also obviously will consist of consultations with the Historic Resources Board, with the Historic Preservation Ordinance Advisory Group, and with other city departments and community stakeholders. On November 24th, there was a first presentation of the project and discussion of general policy issues with the City Council. We will go back to them in February with proposed principal ~ elements for making revisions to the ordinance. The principal elements you might think of as a Page 5 12-06-97 skeleton or some structure, the basic framework for those revisions. In April, a draft, and in May, if we hold to the schedule (and we certainly hope to do so), adoption of the revisions which will also include expiration of the interim regulations. Let me cover a few of the major items to be addressed by revisions to the ordinance. What are the different categories or types of historic resources in Palo Alto. We are most likely going to depart from numerical types of categories and get into more descriptive types of categories. Another issue is keeping the existing Inventory accurate and current. In doing the windshield survey over the past couple of months, we have found some changes to the existing properties on the Inventory. As time goes on, with each passing year, it is important for looking at what is out there to keep the inventory current. We are probably looking at the creation, if the city so desires, of additional historic districts. There are currently two-- Ramona Street and Pi:ofessorville. There certainly appear to us at this point to be additional historic districts, potentially. Also looking at levels of protection for resources. Again, as Ken mentioned, that is a very important part of your input. What types of regulations and protections would be appropriate for properties listed on the city’s Inventory? Monitoring and enforcement activities also have been brought to our attention as an issue or item to which to give close consideration. Quid pro quo exceptions were mentioned by Ken. What kinds of tradeoffs might we.have when we have a significant historic property, but there is some kind of issue regaiding setbacks or parking requirements. Again, looking at properties that are on the inventory, considering those kinds of tradeoffs. Also the roles and responsibilities of the Historic Resources Board. There are a few major items not to be addressed by the revisions. An obvious one is the existing interim regulations. As Ken has mentioned, we will not be looking at those, because they are due to expire with adoption of the revisions. As he also mentioned, we are not getting into neighborhood compatibility or neighborhood conservation, though certainly, these are related to historic preservation. You might think of this project as historic preservation with a capital H and a capital P.. So I would say neighborhood conservation and neighborhood compatibility again are certainly related, but not a part of this project. We will not be looking at design review of single-family residential properties which are not included on the city’s adopted Inventory of historic resources. That concludes my presentation. Thank you very much. Ms. Yeend: We now have just a brief time for questions. I have two questions, and will have the speakers quickly comment. We are doing this for buying some time for logistics considerations. Ken, a question came in as to why the HRB is involved in variance applications. Mr. Schreiber: I believe that as a matter of course, the HRB is not procedurally involved in various applications unless the zoning administrator, who is the city’s public hearing officer for variance applications and decision maker for variance applications, refers an application to the HRB. The zoning administrator has the discretion to refer an application wherever she wishes if P: I Phn I Pladiv I HRB I Wd~hp2.min Page 6 12-06-97 she needs additional information or insight. Sometimes, it can be the Public Art Commission, sometimes the Historic Resources Board, sometimes the Architectural Review Board, and sometimes back to city staff, or even a special district such as the water district. So that would be a situation where the zoning administrator feels that additional information is necessary for her to make the decision on the variance. Ms. Yeend: Bruce, what are the four categories, and on what are they based? Mr. Anderson: The four categories in the existing inventory are categories established by this outside review panel in conjunction with the consultants in 1979. I would have to get a copy of the existing inventory. It is at the back of that existing inventory document. It is also in all of the HRB materials. It inclUdes landmarks and contributing properties. The exact nomenclature or terminology is also in the back of the existing inventory. As I wanted to be sure to get across,- we will be reviewing that, not only just in terms of the numerical categories but also the use of those terms. Ms. Yeend: Another question which is probably for Bruce.’ Someone says they are confused by the last items discussed. If your review does not include existing interim regulations or homes not on the inventory, how will those issues be addressed? Mr. Anderson: The project, by direction of the City Council, does not include design review of single-family residential properties which are not nor will not be included in the adopted Inventory. The City Council will have to be the body which adopts any and all additions to the city’s official Inventory. So any single-family residential property which is not on that adopted inventory will not be addressed by the ordinance revisions. Ms. Yeend: We have seven panelists seated before you who will be bringing you information from the perspective that they have regarding the ordinance. The first speaker will be Jim McFall, former member of the Historic Resources Board. His topic is, "Need for Revisions to the Historic Preservation Ordinance and Inventory." Jim McFall: As Nancy mentioned, I spent six years on the HRB, and I also served three years on the ARB, so I think I am eminently qualified to ramble on at length, and I will ask your indulgence. Early on, when I was appointed in 1988 to the HPd3, the board was very different than it is now. It was a five-member board, and we met in a back room at the Hostess Hall of Camp Fremont, better known as MacArthur Park. It was very low key, and public attendance. tended to be very sparse, due in part to the fact that we started at 7:30 in the morning, and also that the room we were in was unheated. So it was usually pretty brisk there. Seriously, times were different, and the pressures that are being experienced now, both economically and from a real estate perspective, were not there at the time. In fact, I think the real estate market was moving in the opposite direction. So we did not have a lot of the issues that have brought you here today. P: I Plan ] Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 7 12-06-97 We would occasionally add properties or upgrade properties on the inventory, and it was a very low-key, relaxed process, from my perspective. We received Certified Local Government status in 1992, which was a nice recognition and affirmation ofPalo Alto’s efforts in preservation. Also, it was a source of funding in order to computerize the inventory, which has since been done. Around 1991, we had a elderly couple come to the board voluntarily because they were in the process of selling their long-term home on Melville. It was a Category 3 structure, a wonderful old rambling, shingled house that was marvelous, but needed work. They were concerned that it was going to be torn down. They wanted to know what the c!ty and HRB could do to help them preserve their house, once it was sold. In retrospect, I feel that what this did for the Board was to cause us to move in two directions. One was the expansion of Professorville, which happened in 1991-92, when we looked at the District in terms of creating a better defined boundary geographically for the District. We also included some properties which, for whatever reason,. had not been included originally. We did some research on early professors who lived in the area and taught at Stanford. We also looked at the architectural character of some of those properties that should have been included in the district. We did end up partially expanding the District to what it is today. The other item that I think the board was pushed in the direction of was the ordinance and what we or the city could do to make the ordinance work better. We had run into some problems using the ordinance, and oftentimes, there was confusion on the part of the public as far as what the four categories meant. Why was one property a Category 3 and another a Category 4? What were the differences? Is a Category 1 better than a Category 4? There was a 10t of confusion in that regard. So we Started looking at the ordinance. It was internal. We had study sessions. It certainly was not the process that we have here now. We looked at several specific areas, one being the categories. We looked at ways to make them more usable for the public, using ~ adjectives to describe the categories, things like that which would make it easier to understand. We looked at other cities’ ordinances who had similar situations to see what their ordinances were like. ~what did they do that was successful? What did not work? Also the HRB was concerned about enforcement or lack of enforcement. If you read the ordinance carefully, the board really has no enforcement mechanism. Review is required typically on most properties, but appliance is purely voluntary. Early on, that worked very well. People tended to be receptive to what the board had to say, and it was a positive process. It seemed over time, however, that there was very little that we could do to push People to preserve what they had. So I am pleased that the city is now in the process of revising the ordinance. I will just briefly comment that I feel it is important to simplify the categories, and not have many, many categories; and, trying to integrate incentives into the ordinance to encourage people to preserve their property. It doesn’t work to force people to save something they do not want to save. You really want to try and make it .a situation where people are excited about preservation P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB [ Wrkshp2.min Page 8 12-06-97 and really want to make it work. I think that is the way the ordinance should go. Also, creating an educational or informational component in the ordinance was another goal we had set. Lastly, we realized that it was such a big process, and is not something that the Board could take up and handle on its own. I think that having the consultant involved is a very positive step. Thank you. Ms. Yeend: Next will be Karen Holman. Karen is the former president of the Palo Alto Stanford Heritage. Karen is going to comment on "Current Issues: A Preservationist Perspective." Karen Holman: Thank you. As someone who has been involved in preservation for the last several years and interested for probably most of my life, I do not expect that everyone is going to absolutely share my views. But what I do hope to convey ~o those who do not consider themselves preservationists and quite frankly feel put upon by it, is that historic preservation, like most things, is not an isolated issue with narrow benefits to the community. While it is partially about old structures, it is certainly not strictly so. People much wiser than I have had the view that we cannot understand the future without first understanding the past. And as surely as the written word is history, so also is architecture. It is thebuilt journal of any culture, any era, any community. And how each culture, era, community chooses to relate to its built history is also "joumaling". In order for a community to maintain its vitality, I believe it is important to take stock of its assets and to protect them. What was happening in Palo Alto in the months prior to the interim ordinance points out very acutely that we had not kept up with modem ordinances dealing with historic issues. The notion of a current inventory and ordinance are not novel to many of our surrounding communities -which have been addressing this subject very ardently since the beginning of the decade, Other communities, such as Belmont, Half Moon Bay, Pacifica, San Mateo, Santa Rosa, have very current ordinances and inventories, and that is just a partial list. The Historic Resources Board had raised the need certainly long before the public outcry in September of last year, as was just mentioned. ’ The definition of what is considered historic has changed in the last several years since our previous inventory and ordinance. Currently it recognizes the importance of not just the architectural worth of large buildings but it also recognizes the importance.of a site’s context within a neighborhood, its histo~ry, cultural influences, etc. There is value in knowing how laborers lived, just as there is value in knowing how the affluent lived. Palo Alto’s current ordinance does not reflect these values. So I am very glad that these issues are being addressed. There are demands that come into play every so often in a community that make it necessary for an appraisal of its internal and external pressures and what the community’s and citizens’ goals are in regard to these issues. If too much change happens too quickly, it is not possible to evaluate either the positive or negative impact of this change. You just have change without the assurance that it is built solidly on Palo Alto’s foundation, in this case. A new preservation ordinance should give us the opportunity to recognize what is important to maintain while also giving us some buffer from too rapid and too rampant change. P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 9 12-06-97 Speaking from a design perspective, not everything old is wonderful and merits saving. Good design is good design, be it old or new. At the same time, what I personally find to be true is that much of the older construction offers things that simply are not possible today. A Couple of those things are craftsmanship and detailing that would be desirable in new construction, once common in new construction due to lower labor costs. It just is not affordable today, even if you could find the tradesman that could implement this kind of craft. Also, certain materials are no longer available. Just one, for instance, is wood used in doors and trim that at the same time is very beautiful and so tightly grained that it would outlast generations to come. Short of cutting old growth trees, lumber is now cut too young to afford such durability and quality. As to the structural value of these materials, I will leave that to the experts like Laura. While it is true, I think, that the majority..of people in Palo Alto take great care with their property and make sensitive choices, not only regarding their own property but also in consideration of their neighborhood, with current economic pressures, not everyone does. We can all probably conjure up decisions of uninformed property decisions. While it is somewhat unfortunate, it is very common that guidelines need to be set forth in communities which govern everyone because of the actions of a minority. And what we have seen in Palo Alto points out that it is no longer realistic to assume your neighbor will make decisions based on the overall character and value of the neighborhood. I would also like to point out that the interim ordinance is just that. It is an interim ordinance that was put in place quickly to deal with immediate concerns. There has been a lot of misinformation about what is possible and what can be done. I would like for people to please make sure that they are informed and understand that the permanent ordinance will not be one and the same with the interim ordinance. Our society has become very quick to condemn what is, and to eliminate it without consideration in search of a quick and easy solution. Personally, I think this is too often driven by short-term thinking rather than the long-term consequences and value to the community. A building is som,~times viewed in terms of its current siding, sagging porch, and outdated kitchen. The first house I bought in Palo Alto might well have been torn down if bought today. I~s shingles were brittle, it looked tired, the bathroom was tiny, but its bones were good and its timbers were strong. We fixed up the house and lived there for ten years. It sold quickly to the two subsequent buyers. The most damning feature of a house these days appears to be that it sits on a large lot. What is lost by the elimination of these buildings impacts not just our historic inventory but also some of the other objectives of Palo Alto. Two of those would be maintaining a diverse housing stock, thereby supporting a diverse population, and also promoting conservation, thereby lessening land fill demands. I have restored and amended two houses built just after the turn of the century. Last year, I upgraded a 1940s cottage. Next year, I hope to freshen up and add a bit of living space to my 1936 house. A couple of things I hope to see in the permanent ordinance to ~help with this a~e the P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.rnin Page 10 12-06-97 implementation of the California State Historic Building Code that Bruce mentioned earlier, and a clearly defined process. Thank you. Ms. Yeend: ’Next is Steve Saiger, Historian, Palo Alto Public Library and Palo Alto Historical Association. Steve will give a brief presentation on "Resources for Learning More About Your Old House." Steve Saiger: When someone comes in and is interested in researching their home or when these new volunteers come in researching a lot of homes, one of the places they will be visiting will be the Palo Alto Main Library on Newell. In the main library, you will find a lot of the resources you will need to fill out the house genealogy of the structure you are investigating. There are lots of other resources that can be discovered outside the library, such as interviewing neighbors and former owners of the home, investigating the home itself, but there are a lot of resources that you will need to look at which you can only find in the library. Between my job as the historian for the Palo Alto Historical Association and as reference librarian for the city library, undoubtedly, you will be meeting me. I am there to help you discover some of the secrets of your home. As the historian, I gather material today to add to the collection to help people in the future discover information about their home and other aspects of Palo Alto history. We maintain an extensive collection of obituaries of former Palo Altans, now exceeding some 30,000 names. These are people who lived in the homes that you will be researching. There are other tools in the library or in the historical association that can be used. We have a collection of Palo Alto city directories. These are similar to the telephone book, but they have listings by address in the back,. If you are researching a house on Churchill, you do not need to know who lived there. You just need to know the number, and you can find it and find out who lived there. We have other things such as the Sanborn maps and maps of other types that will tell you what the house looked like at that time. We have an extensive collection of photographs, newspaper clippings and other materials by occupation. So if you know that your former resident was a plumber, you can find out where he or she worked and what the business was like in those days. We also have collections of telephone books and other things of that nature if you need to fill out information about who lived there and perhaps who owned the house. Information you need to lo0k into as to what style of house is, etc. is not really found in the library, but we have material that will describe the styles that you might be able to affix to your house. Thank you. Ms. Yeend: Leannah Hunt will be our next speaker. She is the Vice President for the Palo Alto District of PenWest, and Leannah is going to speak today on "Real Estate Issues in Historic Preservation." Ms. Hunt: Good morning, and thank you for inviting us here this morning. I am actually the Chair of the Palo Alto District of the Peninsula West Valley Association of Realtors. We have about 400 realtors and affiliates who are members in this community, and we are concerned P: I Plan I PladivI HRB [ Wrkshp2.min Page 11 12-06-97 about retaining the quality of life, character and charm of our community. I am going to make some remarks this morning. For those of you who were here Wednesday, I will be basically repeating some of those same comments, so forgive me for that repetition, but I think it is important to bring out some of the issues that we have been dialoguing about for well beyond a year. We, as residents, have also been concerned about the changing environment, and we do live in a dynamic society here. When the interim regulations were adopted last year, PenWest hosted educational forums with HRB members, planning staff and other city officials in an effort to educate our realtor community and be both proactive and collaborative concerning historic home issues. Over the past several months, we convened a group of design professionals, architects, builders, attorneys and realtors with long-standing ties to the community and solid reputations for quality design and construction of homes to address historic home and associated design issues. Included in this group were Tony Carrasco, architect, Shirley Wilson, John Northway, John Warren, a builder, along with Harold Justman, a real estate attorney and Jon Schink, who also contributed his thoughts about this process. We had a facilitator, Patrick Daw, who is an architect and planner, and Realtors Bob Gurlach,. Elsie Begle and myself participated in three round table discussion. The group reviewed and analyzed the existing Palo Alto historic ordinance and the current interim regulations, as well as historic home ordinances in Oakland, Pasadena and Los Gatos. Based on the group’s review, analysis and comments, PenWest p~ovides the following initial comments and recommendations on these issues. For the past year, the realtors and their homeowner clients have attempted to navigate the interim regulations and process for historic homes. These regulations, especially under the interim process, are costly, confusing, time consuming and overly burdensome. SO we know that they have become politicized, and they have really lacked objectivity. There really has been a disincentive for homeowners to step forward and participate, which is not what we wanted. We wanted to definitely expand the list of historic homes and encourage people to step forward. But unfortunately, the process involved time and money, and we were very surprised that they had not volunteered in the numbers we had anticipated. There really has been insufficient time for applicants to respond to staff analysis, so this clearly needs to be corrected. There has been too much authority placed in one staff position. These interim regulations, as I think everyone now concurs, are not a good model for future ordinances to address historic home issues. So we would like to offer some specific goals. Our primary concern is that homeowners should have the ability to reasonably remodel and rebuild their home. The City of Palo Alto and its staff should recognize the importance of private property rights as a building block of this community. The revised ordinance and associated information should provide clarity and certainty to homeowners who want to improve or replace their residences. They certainly should not penalize owners of historic residences or dissuade them from participating. This should be an incentive-driven, not a sanction-driven process. To respond to Ken’s request, certainly there are a number of tax credits within our own community, such as the transfer tax which right now is- P: I Plan ] Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.rnin Page 12 12-06-97 $3.30 per thousand upon transfer of a property. Tha( certainly could be looked at. The utility taxes, the school bond taxes, and certainly the aspects of the Mills Act. The revised ordinance should only apply to designated historic properties, really those residences with truly historic merit. We are really concerned about the architectural aspects and elevations, rather than too much reliance upon the actual history of previous owners. The revised ordinance we feel should retain the current numerical ranking system. Obviously, there probably are some clarifications and some tightening up needed, but we feel that new categories should, not be created to replace the existing numerical ranking system. The city should not be using an ongoing, 50-year-old criterion for identifying historic homes. Many of the homes built in the postwar years were of very poor quality, and most people would accept that premise. The contributing structure category is overly broad, and certainly should be narrowly tailored. Financial incentives should be available for those homeowners who volunteer to be involved. There should bea relaxation of land use regulations, streamlining of the permit process, and there should be an allocation of funds by the city to assist homeowners. Many of our older. residents do not understand the myriad of issues you have to go through when you approach the planning department. So we are concerned about the exterior. We are not concerned about the interior. We are concerned about that area from the visible right-of-way. The revised ordinance should retain the existing, not the interim approach to the HRB review. The city should more aggressively enforce the existing contractor licensing laws for permitting and inspections. The city should revise the owner/builder category, if necessary, to limit the abuse of these provisions. Most of the really truly abusive, poor quality construction came about through contractors who were not licensed, who were using other people’s licenses. We would like the city to notify by mail all Palo Alto homeowners affected by the current inventory identification process, and inform them about the fact that their residence is being reviewed. We ask the city to establish a comment period of 30 days prior to adoption of the final inventory designations and allow Palo Alto homeowners and the public to have sufficient time to review and comment on the proposals. Realtors recognize the importance of this historic preservation effort, and we look forward to assisting further. Ms. Yeend: Thank you, Leannah. We will now hear from Laura Ferrell, general contractor and owner in Palo Alto. She has the company "Woodenwings Builders Inc." Laura is going to talk this morning on "Cost-Effective Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings." Laura Ferrell: Good morning. I have lived in Palo Alto for over 20 years. I am a career carpenter with over 21 years of bags-on experience. I own, along with my partner, Barb Kamm, Woodenwings Builders, Inc. Our company specializes in residential remodeling and historic restoration. I agreed to participate in the discussion this moming to offer my perspective and expertise on the topic of the viability of remodeling and restoring Palo Alto old homes. P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 13 12-06-97 The three facets of viability I would like to talk about today are Material and Environmental Viability, Economic Viability, and Community Viability. First on the topic of Material and Environmental Viability. We live in a society which is driven by profitability, the profitability of obsolescence. It is built into our products now, from our computers to our automob!les, and most of us just accept it as a fact of life. But when this new way of thinking looks at our community of older homes, I think we must reflect carefully on its impact. Sixty-five percent of landfill nationwide consists of construction debris. When I first became a builder in this area, there was a dump in every town. Mountain View and Redwood City have closed their dumps because they have filled up their land, and Palo Alto is rapidly approaching the same condition. They have tripled the rates at the Palo Alto dump to slow down the inevitable closure, and have restricted it to residents only. We are simply filling up, and construction debris is a big part of it. Our only other option now is to go to the San Carlos transfer station, which then trucks all of the debris over to Ox Mountain, all the way over Highway 92 near Half Moon Bay. The environmental impact of this disposable, "gotta have it new" way of thinking is monumental. Let’s look at those materials we are throwing out. Remodeling and restoration is a specialty, and it takes a special type of builder. This builder must have a patient mind. Putting a level and plumb addition on an older building that has found its angle of repose takes creativity and experience. Interfacing older material like true two by fours with new material takes time and attention to detail. It takes thinking carpenters with mechanical reasoning and patience. Every situation is new; every problem is solved individually. It is that challenge and my love for old homes that drew me to this profession. ¯ Let me tell you what kind of materials I have found in the bones of our old homes in Palo Alto. I have found first growth douglas fir, true three-by and two-by fours, sixes and eights, so solid. with age that we have burned up drill bits going for holes for our electrical and plumbing runs. I have also found first growth redwood and fir trims even in our modest older homes. With protection from the elements and from infestation, these materials are better equipped to stand the test of time than anything I can buy now. The levels of tannic acid, the ingredient that deters termites in first growth redwood, is much higher than anything.I can afford to put in most homes now. This brings me to my second facet, the economic viability. I Will give you an example from one of our current projects. This will remain generic and unidentifiable, as to disclose the specifics would be an invasion of our client’s privacy. We are currently doing a historic restoration in Palo Alto. We are changing a 2-bedroom, 1-bath home into a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home. We are adding a master bedroom, master bath, family room and kitchen. We are completely redoing and refinishing all of the interior and exterior surfaces. We are replacing 75% of the foundation. When we are finished with this jewel of a home built at the turn of the century, remodeled in a period with modem conveniences, it will have cost our clients $260,000. I am a frugal builder with a 4-1/2% profit margin annually. I could not afford this finished product new for anywhere close to the amount we are remodeling it for. This is just one story from my years of remodeling. P: I Plan I Pladiv [ HRB [ Wrkshp2.min Page 14 12-06-97 Lastly and possibly most important is community viability. As our modem society has evolved and grown so crowded, our sense of need for protection of interior space and privacy has grown, as well. I feel the end result is a loss of sense of relationship to each other. Architecturally, homes built in a time when people felt more connected to each other promotes that connection. Front porches, front gardens, side yards and side gardens, detached garages and many of the other characteristics of our older homes promote neighbors getting to know each other. My house at 1024 California is a great example of that. We have a large front yard, and I have no children, so I have no way of knowing my neighbors who do have children, yet when I go out into my front yard and garden, my neighbors stop by and ask me what kind of roses I plant, how did I get the lawn to grow under an olive tree, all kinds of things that create a connectedness to my community. If I did not have a big front yard, that would not have happened. Individuals have rights, but so do people who buy into a community. Palo Alto’s rich architectural history cannot be destroyed by profit. I have heard one contractor in the public hearing say, you will drive the good builders out of town. Remodeling and restoring our older homes is a good and profitable business. It is a business where qualified remodelers team up with an architect and a courageous homeowner to become the stewards of what our grandparents left us, homes built with pride by good carpenters. Thank you. (Applause) Ms...Yeend: Thank you, Laura. Our next speaker is Nancy Bjork, a resident and home restorer. Her topic will be "Case Studies: Old House Rehabilitation in Palo Alto, How and Why." Nancy Bjork: I feel rather unqualified in this group of people. My viewpoint is a very personal one..All I am here to do is to tell you what I did, and that it can be done. I love old houses. I love the waYthey look; I love the way they feel. I love the way they come to rest on their property, and I share Laura’s real love for the materials that go into them. Every time I saw into one of those two by fours and it still smells good, I am glad I did it. I participated purely because I love them. I am not a professional. I really did not know what I was doing when I started, but I participated in restoring six of these houses for fun and for profit. All I am here to do today is to tell you how it worked and to say that you really can do it if you want to do it. But you need protection. We need these ordinances. We used the ordinance for the contributory structure. It was not difficult. Yes, it held us back a few weeks, but that was nothing compared to the contractor problems. It really was not a big deal. The first house that I restored was the first time when I and my husband moved from a new house to an old house. We chose to restore it, rather than remodel it. I loved the process. I loved the Way it looked, and we sold it after nine years because I saw a tree in the back yard of another old house that I couldn’t live without. We moved to that one, and again restored it, and enjoyed it, although I did not really enjoy living in it while the process was going on. So I decided that the next time, I was going to try and do one without living in it. Along the way somewhere, we had two grown Page 15 12-06-97 children, and my husband and I realized there was no way in the world that they could ever live in Palo Alto without our help, so with one of them, we ended up in a joint purchase joint venture, and that worked very well. If anyone is interested later, I would be glad to discuss how it worked financially. It has worked very, very well. So with Sarah and John remodeling their little cottage, I no longerhad a project to do. I decided to see if I can do this and make some money doing it. So coincidentally, I began to look for a partner that might like to do this with us. They are all over the place -- people who would love to live in old houses but cannot afford them. We ]~ound some friends who had been unable to buy into Palo Alto over a 20-year period, and were very pleased to do this. Then we started looking. While it seems impossible to find houses, it really is not. It just takes tenacity. If you love them and look at open houses every~Sunday anyway, sooner or later, you come upon one that really calls out to you. We did, and with our partners, we bought that one, and worked on it. Part of our financial agreement is that the partners who are the majority shareholders, if you will, live in the house. As part of their interest, they do physical work on the house. This is only our system. They paint, they sand, and they do assorted other things. So within a year, we had that one somewhere near to being finished, and the agreement was that they could stay there for a specified period of several years. We worked it all out with a real estate attorney. Coincidentally, at that time, the house next door to mine on Chaucer became available, or was obviously going to become available. It was one that realtors had looked at and said that it had to be torn down. I couldn’t bear it, and the neighborhood couldn’t bear it. We all said, if that house goes, the whole block is destroyed. We knew immediately that if that house were torn down, one of these great big ugly (personal judgment here) new houses would go up that would encompass the whole lot, destroying the character of the neighborhood. So our partners decided to sell the first house way before we had planned to, and move to the other one. So now we are working on one that did come’ under the interim ordinance. We did not find that to be any big problem whatsoever, partly because we did what they wanted us to do, which was, to get the house back to the way it had been as best we could. As with many of these old houses, the original house was fine. What was bad was what people did sometime after the war. Some of that is very hard to get back. It is not pristine, but it is pretty close. We are in the middle of it now, and it is going very well. With each one of these houses, we have been able to make a profit, a really nice profit. It has been tim. It has been challenging some of the time. It can be a nightmare when you cut into that walol and find things you do not expect to find, or when you discover that you cannot do something the way you wanted to, and you have to rethink it. We have assembled a list, over time, of contractors and subcontractors whom we have found most helpful and willing to work with us. Yes, it has always cost us more than we thought it was going to, but we have always been able to sell it for more than we thought we could. So it has always worked. I am a garden designer by profession, and the only other example I would like to point out is a garden client who lived in a charming little old cottage in Mountain View. They discovered that P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 16 12-06-97 their family was going to increase radically, and we started looking for new houses for them. They actually put in a bid on one of these new, big houses in Palo Alto, but fortunately, they did not get it, because the whole time, they said, how can we live in a house that we are embarrassed about. Fortunately, they lost the bid, found an old one, and were willing to pay $100,000 more to get the old one. There are people who want these houses. It is not true that you cannot sell them. We have had no trouble selling any of them. We havehad multiple offers on them. We need these ordinances to protect the neighborhoods. In my estimation, even though it is not the issue today, we need the contributory ordinance every bit as much as the historic one. The houses we have restored are not the Squire House. They will fall by the wayside without something to protect them. They are the houses that were built in the 1920s and 1930s that have charm, that have character, that are houses that certainly more people can afford to buy than the Squire House. I hope we can protect them. Come and see any of them that you would like at any time. ’Thanks. Ms..Yeend: The last panelist we have is Michael Gatavaglia. He is an architect, and this morning, Michael is going to speak on "Using the State Historical Building Code and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings." Michael Garavaglia: I am a practicing architect and have had my own practice for over 11 years. I have been in the business for almost 20 years, and preservation has been one of my mainstays and of major interest to me. Trying to synopsize these two documents in seven minutes is a daunting task, so I am just going to give you my general feeling about what these are. To me, I consider them to be tools. I look at these documents almost on a daily basis to try and make decisions about how to deal with existing structures, whether they be historic or non-historic. As the panelists have talked about, these older buildings are a great resource. Not only can they be historically important and culturally important, but they are important because the materials and craftsmanship that go into them are essentially irreplaceable. Starting with the State Historic Building Code, it is a document obviously created by the State of California as part of the state building code. It is a mandatory document to be used. It is part of the same code that creates the energy conservation rules and handicap accessibility rules that we work with on a day-to-day basis. This is an adopted code. There is no waiting to use it. It is current law and should be implemented in every jurisdiction for any qualified historic structure. "Qualified" in this case means any building that is on a federal, state or local register or inventory, whether commercial or residential. So I thought I would talk about some of the types of work that people can do with a historic structure. Obviously, you can tear it down, but that is not really considered to be an option for the objectives of this particular panel. Some of the main efforts we can undertake to increase the viability of a house are reconfiguring existing space, adding on to an existing structure, P: I Plan I Pladivl HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 17 12-06-97 conversion of under-used or under-utilized areas of the building, such as a basement, storage area, attics and garages. Raising a house is potentially an option, or moving it on the property for better lot utilization. Current code constraints that the Uniform Building Code (UBC), adopted by almost all jurisdictions in California, lay on heavy requirements that cause extensive upgrades to structural systems, life safety systems, fire rating systems, all the things that cover a building. The State Historic Building Code essentially relaxes a lot of those requirements in trying to create a lesserimpact when we try to rehabilitate a structure. Regarding some of the structural changes, typically vertical additions (second-story additions) will almost always trigger a full seismic upgrade of the buildi~ng under this standard UBC. Under the State Historic Building Code, you can do a second-story addition and.only upgrade the portions of the building that are directly affected by that particular addition. So that is a major benefit. I actually look for this opportunity to try to find out ira building is historic, as this is of major importance in trying to minimize the impact that an addition can have on a building. Next is Energy Conservation. Energy conservation measures typically required by our codes are not required. You do not have to comply with energy conservation measures when dealing with a historic stnacture. Regarding exiting. Existing exiting, if it is not non-compliant, can remain in use as long as it does not create a life safety problem either for the occupants or for fire fighting personnel. Keep in mind that the cod~s are not only for people using buildings but also for people that have to go in and deal with some kind of a disaster. Regarding electrical, plumbing and heating systems. Again if these have a useful life left and do not create some kind of a hazard, they can remain in use. Regarding light and air requirements, every habitable room has to have a minimum size window. In the State Historic Building Code, it is allowed to be smaller than what the regular code would allow. Repairs can be done with similar materials and with similar construction technology, which is a little different from the standard code. Regarding change of use, that can apply more to commercial buildings, and there may be some folks in the audience with commercial buildings. A change of use will trigger full code compliance. Let’s say you take a warehouse and convert it into residential units. All aspects of the code are triggered under the regular code. Under the State Historic Building Code, there are many, many opportunities to minimize the code requirements. A lot of the things we deal with on a day-to-day basis for code requirements, such as fire rating of walls, story count, all of those. things are mitigated through fire sprinkler systems, etc. I now want to go on to the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. The basic concept there is that this document creates a sort of industry standard or common language by P: I Plan [ Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 18 12-06-97 which to deal with rehabilitation of structures. It is quite simple. There are only ten standards to follow. Let me give you one quickly, as I am running out of time. "Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of the deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture and other visual qualities, and where possible, material. Replacement of missing feattuies shall be substantiated by documentary, physical or pictorial evidence." Let’s say I am working on a project, and we are looking at a deteriorated or destroyed feature -- a window. Common knowledge says the window is falling apart. We have to rip it out and put in some state-of-the- art new window,~ sometimes vinyl windows, although why anyone would put in a vinyl window I haven’t the foggiest idea. It is made of plastic, and the cost of removing that window and putting in a new one obviously disrupts the window itself, both the exterior and interior finishes but to repair an existing double-hung window, usually the problem is on the sash. The top or bottom portion of the sash has had some deterioration in it which may or may not require replacement of the sash itself. Existing double-hung windows can be weather-stripped and made to perform fairly well. With windows being one of the most important elements of a historic structure, you. have just done a great amount of preservation work with a relatively minor amount of expense. So the standards, in a way, look at common sense approaches to this. That is one of the most important aspects. A lot of this is very much common sense. Another one of the standards talks about how to handle the maintenance of a building. You don’t sandblast a building. These standards tell you that you do not sandblast a building, but most people don’t know that. Thank you. Ms. Yeend: .I appreciate the panel’s keeping their remarks to the designated time. I will now ask the questions that have come in. This may be a question for Virginia Warheit. "Why did the 1979 survey not designate all pre-1940 structures? Was the non-designation because they were not deemed to be of merit?" Ms. Warheit: Yes, I believe so, and Bruce may have something to add. I am Virginia Warheit, a staff person with the Planning Department. All of the pre-1940 houses were not designated in the 1979 survey for the same reason that all of the pre-1947 houses are not going to be designated this time. It is a little like if you need to be at least ten years old to play on the soccer team, all people over ten years old are not going to be on the team. There are just going to be a few people on the team, even though everybody over ten might theoretically be eligible for consideration. So that is the main answer.. Age alone does not do anything except to allow you to be considered. Beyond that, in the 1979 survey, there was a less complex and thorougfi approach to evaluating the pre-1940 buildings. I have heard Ken Schreiber, who was here when that survey was done, say that it was more of an "Oh, wow" approach. They went driving down the street, and when they slammed on the brakes and said, "Oh wow," that building went on the inventory. Now, it is a much more sophisticated approach based on 20 years of subsequent national P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 19 12-06-97 experience with the whole nation asking themselves, what is the meaning of a historic building? What are the structures that we want to keep around for our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren so that through those buildings, they will understand something about times now gone. So it is much more based on the relevance of that structure in the history of the place, and not strictly on its architectural characteristics. There does have to be at least integrity of architectural qualities to qualify. Once again, I would stress that just being pre-1940, or in this case, pre-1947, in no way indicates that a building will be on the inventory. There will be a very small percentage of those buildings that will be identified as historically significant. Ms..Yeend: We have a question that has come in for Leannah Hunt. "Why do you wish to ignore the national historic standards?" Ms. Hunt: I don’t believe I made any comment that we wished to ignore the national historic standards. That may .be someone’s impression, but we never made that statement. Ms..Yeend: Another general question that came in is, "Does Palo Alto want to require additional quid pro quo from the Mills Act or other than a commitment to preserve historical policy and property?" Ms. Warheit: The answer to that is that we do not know the answer yet. That question is going to be something that we will propose that the City Council address in establishing the new ordinance. The Mills Act is a state law that allows a city to forgive up to about 90% of the property tax on a property in exchange for certain aspects of preservation of the property. The city presently has two Mills Act contracts on properties in the city, Council has never established what the criteria will be for granting this kind of property tax relief. We do expect to address that question in the new ordinance. Ms. Yeend: This is probably another question for Virginia. Someone wanted to know why the real estate community is overly represented in the hearings. I think that is regarding the workshops. Perhaps it would be helpful if people understood the context of the four workshops and the topics that are designated. Ms. Warheit: They mayseem overly represented now simply because real estate was the topic of- discussion at the first workshop. This is the second workshop, and clearly, there is a much wider range of topics being considered. There are four workshops, and two of them have very specific topics. One of them was to deal with real estate and property issues, and the other one was to’ deal with topics that our last three panelists talked about -- physical design, architecture, and building issues with regard to historic preservation. When we get to the workshop in February, the architects and builders will have their day, and we will be focusing on what we hope will be a lot of very useful, interesting and technical information on restoring buildings. The fourth workshop will be more on general topics. It was by council direction that that is the way the four workshops are to be focused. Page 20 12-06-97 Ms. Yeend: This may be a question for Bruce. What are the neighborhoods under consideration for historic designation, and what would be the impact on houses within those neighborhoods? Mr. Anderson: To date, we have conducted the windshield survey, which is assigning priorities for research. And then driving around the city, it is not difficult for us nor for lots of people to see obvious candidates for possible inclusion on the city’s adopted inventory. Our work addresses National Register-eligible resources or properties. These can be individual properties, or they can be groups or collections, sometimes called neighborhoods or districts. When we finish the intensive survey with the volunteers and present a list to the city, it will include potential National Register Historic Districts, those whose resources make it a potential National Register Historic District. It will be up to the HRB, and then the City Council, to adopt those districts that it wishes to put on the city’s official inventory. Regarding the question about which neighborhoods, again I just want to say that these are by no means even put into a preliminary list for anyone. They are simply our observation, and again, obvious places s.uch as College Terrace and portions of Crescent Park and Fulton and Cowper Streets are just a number of streets and a number of areas or districts in the city, primarily residential, which would be eligible as National Register Historic Districts. But I would ask you not to draw any conclusions, please,.at this time. Secondly, what kinds of regulations or impacts would there be on residential structures in those districts? Because Palo Alto is what is called a Certified Local Government City (CLGC) which is part of a state and federal program, the Secretary’s Standards for Rehabilitation would apply to what are called contributing properties to those districts. Within those districts, there may be some non-contributing properties. The standards would not apply to them, but to the contributing properties, the standards would apply. Palo Alto is a CLGC and the City Council, in 1987, adopted the Secretary’s Standards for Rehabilitation. Ms. Yeend: The next question is for Michael Garavaglia. How would our building officials know how to apply the state historic building code? Mr. Garavaglia: That is a good question. A lot of jurisdictions are grappling with this, because it is an under funded program with the state. The state does not provide a lot of help in local jurisdictions educating themselves about the State Historic Building. Code. I have dealt with communities that do not even realize it exists. If they did not realize that the State Handicap Accessibility Code existed, they would be sued by the State of Califomia. San Francisco is a good example of where that happened. They were not implementing the code properly. The community has to reach out to the building official. They can make requests for state assistance. There is an Executive Director of the State Historic Building Code, and they have to educate - themselves about it. The state will help to facilitate that, but there are a lot of other really good resources, like the California Preservation Foundation, which can help educate building officials about this code and the process. P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 21 12-06-97 Mr. McFall: The building department here does know the historic code, and they use it occasionally. Fred Herman knows it very well. They are flexible in that regard, although with issues regarding life safety, they tend to be sticklers for that and usually do not allow exceptions to the current code on that basis. Ms. Yeend: Someone wanted to reconfirm that the Historic Building Code is not preempted by existing local building codes. Is that a correct statement? Mr. Garavaglia: It is the mandatory code. Because it is a state code, it overlays the local code. Again, the local code is usually the UBC as adopted by the City Council. The state is a mandatory overlay over all local codes. Ms. Yeend: Some of these questions are quite long, and I’m going to paraphrase. One individual wanted to know that in their neighborhood of 270 homes, these are Eichlers that went up in the 1950s, and the materials were post world War II, and nevertheless, in a few years, they will be 50 years old. The covenants there provide for architectural design review. How should we go about protecting the civil rights of the homeowners to develop their homes as needed, and are they historic? Ms. Warheit: Those buildings are certainly not designated now as being historic. They are not old enough to be included in the current project. I think they are referring specifically to Green Meadow, and I know there are some residents in Green Meadow who are working on historic designation at some point in the future, because they consider their neighborhood to be of possible historic significance. That is something that will be answered out there in the future. Ms. Yeend: Another question is whether there is a financial mechanism to help people living in historic buildings to maintain them so that they do not have to sell those buildings? Mr. Garavaglia: The Mills Act helps reduce property taxes, including basic maintenance. A lot of stuff that one does in preservation is maintenance. So that is one tool. For a commercial building, you have the 20% federal tax credit for qualified rehabilitation work. They are actually considering at the federal level a tax credit for residential buildings. That is for non-income- producing buildings. I do not know where that stands at this time. It is further down in the pipeline, but that is something that can be considered. Ms. Yeend: Will all homes in Professorville be declared historic and thus subject to all pertinent rules? Ms. Warheit: Pr0fessorville is a National Register Historic District. Everything except non- contributing buildings, buildings which are not a part of the original district or contributing to that district, are already on our current inventory and are considered to be historic resources as contributors to the district. P: I Plan I PIadlv I HRB IWrkshp2.min Page 22 12-06-97 (Member of the audience) Can you explain the term "non-contributing"? Ms. Warheit: Bruce can speak to that. Mr. Anderson: Very briefly, a non-contributor is a property that has lost its integrity. (Laughter) Ms. Yeend: There is a question that someone asked, and they are apparently involved in building an addition to a home. The fundamental question they want answered is, what is compatibility? What does it mean? Does it mean replication of the oldest elements of a house? Or does it mean design that harmonizes? They would like to address the question to either of our builders who are here. Mr. Garavaglia: Using the standards again~, to replicate a historic structure, you wind up losing the division between what is historic and what is new. In most cases, we do not want to replicate and make it look exactly the same. We want to somehow make it distinctive. At the same time, we do not necessarily go in exactly the opposite way in juxtaposition. This is discussed in architectural circles. Sometimes, you will have something very historic, and you put something extremely modem right next to it. Sometimes, that can be successful. The main thing you try to look for when altering or adding to a historic structure is to look for the massing of the building, materials, similarity of materials, similarity of proportion and scale, window sizes. You can have, say in a Victoriati, a tall, narrow window with relatively ornate trim work around it. You can take that same size window and maybe simplify it or abstract it on the new addition. That way, you are hinting and alluding at the scale and the proportions, but you are not replicating it. Someone can come back and look at it and say, okay, there is the historic building, and here is the addition. It is very definitive, yet it is still in harmony. So I hope that helps. Ms. Yeend: This is a question directed to Leannah Hunt. They were at the Wednesday presentation and today, and they heard you mention that the proposal you brought forward would be protecting only houses greater than 2,000 square feet. The question is, what about the many bungalows and those structures under 2,000 square feet? Ms. Hunt: In the study group that discussed all of these aspects, the primary concern was that the public seems to have a primary concern with total new construction that is really in excess of¯2,000 square feet, more likely involving anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000+ square feet. So our concern was that if there are minor remodelings, minor additions, a homeowner should not have to be troubled with this entire process. So the builders and the architects in our study group had thought about using the 2,000-square-foot mark as their suggestion. Ms. Yeend: I now have 20 people who said they want to comment and 44 minutes left in the designated time, so. your comments need to be limited to two minutes. Jean Wilcox, 4005 Sutherland Drive: This is the area designated as Charleston Gardens bounded P: I Plan I Ptadiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 23 12-06-97 by Charleston, San Antonio and Middlefield Roads. The hosues in my area were built in the early 1950s, and precede any Eichlers or Brown and Kaufmanns. Therfore, under the proposed new claassification for b_istorical homes being older than 40 years, these little houses will automatically possibly be assigned into the category within the next two or three years. I oppose such a reclassification for the following reasons: These houses were very poorly built 40 years ago. The concrete slab foundations are paper thin. In fact, I understand that several of the houses have complete cracks in their foundations from front to back, due to earth movement. They were built with zero insulation, no decent heating system, gas stoves because the electrical wiring does not allow for electric stoves outside water heaters. They were built originally with only one bathroom, and were sold in 1950 for around $12,000. Frankly, in their original condition, they are rather ricky-ticky and mass produced, low-cost houses. However, I am glad to say that many of them have been owned by conscientious Palo Altans. Many of them have had additions built on which have minimally given them two bathrooms and in many cases, additional bedrooms and recreation rooms. Most of them do not even resemble their original design. The current zoning regulations have allowed residents the freedom to upgrade and improve their homes over the years. In some cases, where houses have been too run down to improve, they have been tom down and rebuilt very nice new ones. We rather like the status quo. I have lived on Sutherland Drive for the last twelve years, and I have been very impressed with the fact that the neighbors have used the current Palo Alt0 zoning regulations to upgrade the neighborhood. If we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where we cannot easily upgrade or tear down the few remaining, rundown houses, our neighborhood will very quickly go downhill. We do not want that. Thank you. John Bender: I have lived in Palo Alto for more than 25 years, and I guess that with only two minutes, my concern, while I think the designation of historic structures is terribly important, I believe all you have to do is to drive down the Tennyson corridor of horror in old Palo Alto to see how important .are the issues about vernacular context raised by Ms. Bjork. To me, designating 6,000 houses before 1941 is really a way of keeping Palo Alto from being destroyed by people who want trophy houses, giant houses. Modem is okay with me, but modem that fits in. I would take the modem house next to the Stem house as actually to be okay. There was a nothing house there before. The lot is big. It’s okay. But I wish every member of the City Council could drive down Tennyson. The issue is not just what is being put in place. It is what was lost in terms of vernacular context. I think we are in the process of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. People want to live in Palo Alto because it is a wonderful, contextualized place, but then they come in, and here I think the big issue that the City Council has to face is how to deal with thwarted egos. I want it bigger. I want my electrical outlet there. I want a giant rock in my front yard, so I don’t think these historic issues really can be separated from the issue of design context and taste. We have people in this town or moving into the town who do not have either one, and do not understand either one. If they don’t want to live here, they don’t have to. It is not a civil right to live in Palo Alto. P: ]Plan ] Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 24 12-06-97 Harold Justman. 750 Ashby Drive: My parents retired in 1964, and we moved here at that time: I went to Palo Alto High School, graduated in 1968, and I went to Stanford. I am a long-time member of the community. In 1979, we were able to buy a home at 945 Lincoln for our family. We have four kids, and we remodeled it. You can drive by and verify that we did a tasteful job of preserving the history of the house. We do not live there anymore, so don’t go up to the front door and ask for an inspection. In 1985, I bought a duplex at 834 Ramona. Again, I remodeled it, and did a tasteful job. You can verify that if you go and look at it. Last year, my mother wanted to buy a rental house and remodel it, so she bought a rental house at 828 Ramona, and she asked me to take on the job of remodeling it. I have been through two remodels, one in 1979 and one in 1985. Inboth 1979 and 1985, I felt like the staff‘was working with me. We were a team. We were trying to accomplish something that we could both enjoy while preserving the history of Palo Alto. This current remodel has been a nightmare. My mother spent $12,000 in architect fee~, and we do not have a building permit. It has been protracted, expensive, delayed. Because my mother encouraged me to become a real estate attorney, I have been viewed with some suspicion, and there has been some immediate assumption that I am out to destroy the character of Palo Alto. When I talk to other homeowners, I find other homeowners who feel that anyone who wants to do a remodel is viewed with suspicion, and there is delay and animosity. We cannot polarize our community on this issue. We must work as a public partnership with the homeowners to preserve Palo Alto. We cannot marginalize homeowners. Thank you. (Applause) Mary_ Pat O’Connell: My husband and I own a home at 449 Monroe Drive. We have demonstrated our commitment to historic preservation in this community. We bought a home for one dollar in 1985 that was about to be destroyed on Homer near Ramona. It was, by anybody’s visual assessment, ready for demolition. We moved it to 449 Monroe Drive, and my husband spent two years evenings and weekends rehabilitating it, using historic materials, maintaining the integrity of it, etc. We have lived in it for the past ten years. We positioned it on the lot that we purchased at the time with the full intention of putting an addition on the house, because we knew we wanted to have children. It is now ten years later, and we have just negotiated the interimprocess that exists. I would like to suggest that that interim process is disrespectful of our commitment to historic preservation. We did not find, as our previous speaker mentioned, that anybody has recognized in any way our previous commitment to historic preservation in the .city. We have had to pay added fees and experience considerable, lengthy delays in the process. We both have full-time jobs. We were not interested in turning a profit. We have to do this in an economically reasonable manner, so it did not matter to us whether or not we could resell the home for a tidy profit. We wanted to live in the home, and continue to live in the home. We do not have unlimited resources. Our home was originally a Category 3 home on the historic inventory. We benefited from the fact that it was on the historic inventory. Otherwise, it would not have been preserved. The demolition permit would have gone through, and the house would have been knocked down and P: [ P, lan [ Pladiv [ HRB [ Wrkshp2.mln Page 25 12-06-97 in the dump. So we’appreciate the existence of the historic inventory. Category 3 is "contributing." After our home was moved, without any notification to us, our home was moved up to a Category 2. That put us in this round automatically into landmark status_. Our home was built by a Danish carpenter. It was a modest Victorian style, and it remains a modest home. I want to say just two things. I would like to suggest that this process include a survey of all homeowners who have already participated in the process. I would also like to suggest that you survey all homeowners who are potentially going to be impacted by these new regulations so that people have a chance to be involved in the process. I would also hope that we would clarify and narrow the purpose of this interim historic ordinance. Martin Abadi: I have lived at 1220 Waverley Street for the last ten years. It is a very small, modest house on a fairly large lot. I do not have any plans to do anything to it at the moment, but at some point, I may need to have a bigger house. I may want to remodel this house, or even, heaven forbid, demolish it and rebuild a different house. If I cannot do that because of the regulations (this is a Category 4 house at the moment), then unfortunately, I will have to move to a different town for a larger house in a less historic district. So from that perspective, as a future seller in some indefinite future, I would like to suggest that when the city designs incentives for historic buildings, that they try to offset any negative impact on property values that may arise because of the regulations. Thank you. .Pat Burt: As many of you are aware, for the last several months, there has been a diverse group of stakeholders meeting under the chairmanship of John Northway to discuss a range of interrelated residential housing issues. The stakeholders have included neighborhood representatives from throughout the city, north and south, preservationists, realtors, designers, developers, and key city staffers, commissioners and council members. The limited objective of this group was to try and define the housing problems we are facing and to avoid the temptation of leaping into solutions before we have defined the problems. For many of us, this approach’ is somewhat unnatural. In our culture, we typically spend a small fraction of our time defining problems, and a much greater portion of our time debating solutions. This is sort of the Ready, Fire, Aim approach to problem solving, which is pervasive. Because of the urgency under which the interim regulations were developed, there was not much opportunity at the time to analyze and define problems. Our.groups hope to fill this gap and to provide the council and the community with a framework for a more comprehensive discussion. We included man3) issues beyond historic preservation, such as affordability, property rights, design compatibility, and architectural innovation. Our group has now completed its work, and it is summarizing the results for council consideration inJanuary. We hope this effort will help provide a framework for the February public workshops, as well as for future council discussions. Lee Brokaw: I am a general contractor, and I have remodeled a historic home in the City of Palo Alto. Using a phrase that I got this morning from Pria Graves, the College Terrace Residents Association leader, we have a two-headed calf. What does our city look like now, and what our city going to look like? What our city looks like now has to deal with historic preservation. Page 26 12-06-97 What will our city look like has to deal with historic preservation and design review. You cannot separate the two, something that has not dealt with except on personal levels here about how difficult it has been to deal with the interim regulations. I would propose that with the new regulations, we have two paths for people to take, an easy path and a hard path. The easy path should be for homeowners, and the hard path should be for developers. You need to have some sort of regulation, some sort of set of rules that say that when someone actually lives in the property and has lived there for a period of time, they are enabled to exercise their property rights within the context of design review so that it does not destroy the home or the character of the neighborhood. We have a developer in town who uses the existing resident address as his home address for every project that he builds. He lives in Barron Park, but the building permits (and I have seen them for the houses that he scrapes and builds) list that residence as his address. That kind of stuff doesn’t work. They are only in it for the money. They are not in it for the character of the neighborhood. I live in College Terrace. My neighborhood has been severely altered by people who have come in and have scraped Big Blue and others. I also have realtor issues. Most old homes are less than 2,000 square feet. They did not build mega homes in the old days. If you want to see crummy construction, go look at the stuff that has been built since 1980. Millie Mario: I am on the board of PAST. I am on the board ofPAHA. I am a preservationist. I am on the board of the HRB. I am also one of the two people who has a Mills Act on her house. I am here today not with any of those hats on, but with the hat ofa preservationist and someone who has gone through many of the processes. I was the person who asked Leannah why the real estate community would like to ignore the national standards. One of the biggest issues I have with the presentation that was made at the first meeting and again today is that you do not believe that houses 50 years old and older should be looked at. Well, the national standards say.that is where it starts. Fifty years old and older is when you look at them. It doesn’t mean you designate them. The real estate community doesn’t want us to look at all of those houses, but I think it is very necessary to look at them. I also think that the real estate community has a negative attitude toward preservation when they should have a positive attitude. What about the real estate community creating some educational courses to certify realtors who enjoy historic properties and enjoy selling them, certifying them as experts on historic properties so that they can give people advice on what the negative is and what the positive is also, not just the negative. I think the real estate co .rnmunity in Palo Alto has been very fortunate to have all of these properties that are historic properties, because if you look . back, you will see that they have held their value better than any other properties. The Mills Act is not only for preserving something. When you get a tax benefit, there must be a public benefit that comes back to the citizens of Palo Alto. Therefore, you can’t just get a Mills P: ! Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 27 12-06-97 Act, because one was turned down not too long ago. You need something that pays the citizens back for taking away some of their tax dollars. Therefore, you have to have something that gives them something. You can see the house. You can look at it. Personally, we open our house many, many times of the year to non-profit organizations. This-year, it was about 15 times that we had things there. I don’t have any more time so I will have to stop, but I would just like to encourage especially the real estate community to look at the positive aspects, not only the negative ones. Unidentified Speaker: I am not on any board. I am a homeowner in Professorviile, and it is not easy for me to be up here speaking, but I tremendously disagree with the spirit in which ihe interim regulations were implemented. I am a true believer in preservation of historically ¯ important homes, however, history is not static. History is not simply buildings.. Believe me, I love our older home, and we spent an extraordinary amount of money restoring it, exceeding some of the Secretary of the Interior standards. But people live in these homes. Society has changed since 1940. Our street on Waverley I am sure has far more cars. It is no longer safe for our children to play in the street for fear of being run over. I have elderly parents who cannot move in with us because we cannot add that extra room, even though we have plenty of land left. We are willing to put out the money necessary to build it. Society has changed. You have to remember that. I came here angry, but inspired by two people, ironically, Ms. Hunt and Ms. Ferrell. This has to be a process driven by affection and care for the homes that are not the gems, but by individual choice. I am dismayed that an extraordinarily wealthy community like Palo Alto, an obscenely wealthy community, c,an find nothing better to do with its time, energy and money than to focus on marginal preservation of some of these smaller homes. I was told P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 28 12-06-97 when we went into the process by three different architects that we worked with that one did not want to work with the City of Palo Alto. He said, you would have an easier time making an addition if this were Nazi Germany. Secondly, I was told by the people on the council that it would only be $500. It is not $500. It is more like $5,000. I would suggest that anyone take that money, bring it to any school teacher, homeless person, East Palo Altan, and ask if that is not very much money. Thank you very much. Tom Wyman: We live on Washington Avenue, and we are in the process of putting in a porch rightnow which was delayed several months as a result of the interim regulations. This was annoying, but it was acceptable, in view of what the ordinance was designed to do. We accepted that as one of the problems we had to put up with. I think the key to this whole issue today is neighborhood compatibility, neighborhood conservation. What is neighborhood incompatibility? You might quote the member of the bench when he.said, Well, I carmot’define it, but I know it when I see it. So incompatibility is what we are concerned with today. Just to run over a few of the items which I think lend to the incompatibility of a structure in a neighborhood. The bulk of the structure as compared to the adjacent and surrounding areas. How "hulky," if you want to use that term, is the structure? What is the footprint or aerial spread of this proposed structure that is moving into this neighborhood or being proposed for this ,neighborhood? What are the setbacks? How about the placement of the garage? Does it fit in with what is in the neighborhood right now? And finally, what are the architectural features of the-proposed building that is being suggested for building in the neighborhood? Is it" ostentatious? Is it too ostentatious for the neighborhood? This is one of the problems we are seeing so often today. Somebody mentioned Tennyson, and we See that on Tennyson in quite a few spaces. All of these points have to be looked at with reference to the other homes in the neighborhood. I myself think the HRB is well qualified to make architectural assessments which involve design review and to ensure neighborhood compatibility. I think that is where we are today. It’s neighborhood compatibility. If developers had not been so greedy in building large homes, we would not have these interim regulations today. My closing comment and point is that it is .essential that the interim regulations that we have today be retained after adoption of a Historic Preservation Ordinance until a new ordinance or other planning mechanism has been developed and is in place to ensure neighborhood compatibility. Maria Kwok: I am a 16-year resident of Palo Alto. My husband is a 24-year resident of Palo Alto. Together, we own a historic building which is a Category 2. First, I would like to emphasize that I am a strong supporter of the historic preservation measures. I don’t want to be misunderstood, but the current ordinance that we have right now is unfairly penalizing the owners of historic homes. They have tO put up extra fees for Historic Resources Board review. There is extra time involved in the process, and there are extra professional design fees involved. So in order to fairly distribute the cost of historic preservation, I am proposing the public to P: [Plan I Pladlv I HRB I Wrkshp2.mln Page 29 12-06-97 consider the following: The goal of the ordinance should include establishing historic preservation guidelines which are fair and equitable. The objective should include, One, provide design guidelines with financial and other incentives commensurate with the degree of compliance. For example, if somebody is maintaining everything in the home, there should be no increased assessed value resulting from the improvements. If there is 25% compliance, then maybe there should be a 75% increase in the assessed value resulting from the improvements. Two, allow for additional floor area ratio and other zoning exceptions, depending upon degree of compliance, without going through the variance process. People are addressing compatibility, but if you have a two-bedroom house next to a four-bedroom house, it is totally unfair for the historic preservation measures to prevent somebody who has a two-bedroom house from expanding it to a four-bedroom house in order to preserve the building. I think that is totally unfair. There should be guidelines and restrictions. I think the idea is to be fair, and also maybe collect fees from those people who do not own historic homes so that the burden of preservation is carried by everyone. Kathry. n Conley: Good morning. I have been in this community for a really long time. I attended the Lytton School, ifybu remember that, which is now Lytton Gardens. I hope I don’t look that old, but I remember the place at be time I attended that school. It is very different now. I have heard a lot of frustration expressed by people who have come up here about difficulties in dealing with regulations. I am a regulator, and I am cer(ainly no apologist for regulatory difficulties and capriciousness. I think it is really important that the ordinance that is developed out of this is developed in a way that is intelligent. I would really like to reiterate Lee Brokaw’s suggestion that there be a two-tiered system. We really have to ask, when we are making this kind of thing easy, easy for whom? Easy for somebody who is coming in that has absolutely no vested interest in staying in the community or being a part of the community, or someone who is clearly a part of the community making that decision to remain in the community and build it. The big question is, why do or did you want to live in Palo Alto? I think that as realtors and developers and all of the people who are profiting from the reason that Palo Alto is desirable really have to stop and ask, why is it desirable? In my estimation, it is community. We really have to stop and take a big, broad overview, a perspective. Community is what we are valued for. What contributes to a community? In my view, there are a lot of small houses under the giant Squire status that contribute to a community. As an example, I would just like to say that there are a lot ofpe0ple who have taken time out of their work life to be with their children, who have the experience of going to the playground and only being able to talk to nannies because those are the only people who can afford those houses. If you cannot have the quality of life that you are paying for to be apart of the community because everybody is priced out of.it or because everybody who has made that choice to work or not work, it is a very emotional situation, but it is also very clear to me that we cannot price people out of Palo Alto who belong there, whether they have the social skills and college degrees. They may be choosing to cut their life back a little bit in order to raise their children. I would like to see those people have a place to live. P: ] Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 30 12-06-97 Pria Graves: Good morning. I am the coordinator of the College Terrace Residents Association, and that is the hat I am wearing this morning. A little over a year ago when the big blue house on College Avenue was demolished,the College Terrace Residents Association held a series of meetings to discuss what we thought the problem was and what we would like to see as a solution. A number of factors came out repeatedly as we had these discussions. We talked about the fact that a lot of the smaller, less architecturally stellar buildings were important. College Terrace’s look and feel does not derive from the handful of large and significant houses that remain in that neighborhood. Rather, it comes from the many modest bungalows and other vernacular homes that line our streets. These buildings reflect our neighborhood history. We are not the rich neighborhood of Palo Alto. It has always been an area that is a bit more affordable and where the average folks have lived and made their homes. This is an important thing to retain. In conjunction with that, we understand that it is not only the architectural beauty of the house that gives it merit. It is also what has taken place in that house and what stories are hooked to that building. Buildings such as the Hewlett-Packard garage and the AME Zion Church, as well as the Donaldina Cameron House in which Laura lives,are very important partially because they give us links to our past, not just because they are architecturally interesting. It is also clear that voluntary preservation measuresare not sufficient. The big blue house was a listed house. I believe it was a Category 4. We recently lost a landmark structure following a one-year moratorium. It is the old Victorian on College Avenue. So we need mandatory measures, not merely voluntary suggestions that people should retain historic buildings. George Koemer, 2130 Yale Street: The interim ordinance has been a blue tarp that has protected our historic homes from a storm of contractors and realtors. Our job now becomes even harder, because we need to permanently fix the problem while the storm continues, and even intensifies. A particular area I would like to see addressed in the new ordinance is the matter of owner - neglect of historic structures. That is when it is declared historic, but it is allowed to run down to where the termites own it. In our neighborhood, at least two homes have been lost due to this problem. The interim ordinance has been a great start. Please continue the good work. Linda Randolph: I am an architect in the east bay, and I have a current project on Lincoln. Unlike Nancy Bjork’s experience, we have gone through a five-month, very frustrating cyclical thing, and I feel like the project has had no b.enefit from this. I don’t want to complain, but I would like to make the following suggestions in the review that is happening over the next few months. I think the historic compatibility review needs to be performed by two or three people to give an objective balance of opinion. (Applause) I think an in-house administrative approval system for a variance needs to be put in place so that things dictated by his.todcal prescriptive requirements can be handled in house, rather than over a month or two period with public review. There needs to be a written, codified definition of demolition which is applied to all projects in Palo Alto, not just the historic ones.. We need to define whole neighborhoods as historical or get rid of the contributing category altogether. Neighboring houses need to be held to the same P: I Plan I Pladiv I HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 31 12-06-97 standards. We need a category now for existing, non-conforming, so that if nothing changes, it is allowed to remain without having a variance that is called into play by the historical prescriptive requirements. The whole process needs to be streamlined so that good projects and compliant, enthusiastic residents do not get swallowed .up in red tape and their enthusiasm lost. We need to remove the adversarial aspect, or have. a simple form of appeal which is more round table in element. Thank you. Susan Cole: I live in the Evergreen park area of Palo Alto. I am a 15-year homeowner there of a pre-1940 structure. The main reason I want to speak is to add my voice to those who are expressing a sense of frustration and inequity over the burden that the interim regulations placed on us. I feel that a fundamental mistake was made when the interim regulations were enacted. It seems to me that there are issues that iaeed to be addressed. One is the protection of the true gems, as Ken Schreiber put it. I don’t think anyone would disagree that there are certain treasures of architecture or historical value that need to be preserved. Another concern is the over building and replacement of homes that are tom down with huge, incompatible and often unattractive structures. The trouble is that these issues were conflated. The result was that only owners of older homes were burdened with replacement and design review controls that provide protection as far as what went in place. I think what we need to see is, first of all, doing away with the micro management in the remodeling of older homes so that there are not situations as there have been where the replacement of clear or non-clear glass is an issue, or double-pane or non-double pane windows. These both appeared in the Palo Alto Weekly in the remodeling of contributing structures. The other thing is that design review should apply to all homes that are built, not just to homes that replace older homes. There is no justification for putting that burden only on owners ofpre- 1940 homes. Emily Renzel: I am not representing any one group. I wanted to speak on one brief point. That is that a group 0fus has been working and reviewing the building permit cards and recording the data. It is quite apparent that an enormous amount of our historic resource has been lost in the last 40 or 50 years. What we have left is very important for us to identify and to protect in the best way we can. I certainly concur with those who have said that we need something stronger than our present ordinance with respect to those homes which are designated historic. Carroll Harrington, 830 Melville Avenue: I am not here to speak about the proposed Historic Preservation Ordinance, per se. I would like to speak about the process. I think there is general agreement that the city’s interpretation of the interim ordinance has been overly burdensome, more expensive than need be, and certainly political. Even sadder is the treatment that many Palo Altans have received when going through the process for permits that relate to an historic house, contributing structure, or just a single-family residential. I formerly worked as a public P: I Plan I P|adiv I HRB I Wrkshp21min Page 32 12-06-97 employee for the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District, and I believe that public employees have an obligation to serve the public in a polite and helpful manner. I have heard many times in the recent years that this has not been the case in the planning department. I believe that in some cases, citizens are treated in an authoritative and adversarial way, rather than a collaborative manner by the ARB and HRB. This moming, I also want to speak on behalf of the number of people I have talked to who will not speak up because they are in or will be in the permit process, and are afraid of retribution. The rights of citizens to speak out freely and openly, plus the property .rights of individuals, has diminished greatly. I believe this is unprecedented in our community certainly to the degree that it is present now. I hope that as the council and staff review the interim ordinance, they also consider the increasing levels of frustration, anger and even fear in our community, and explore ways to remedy what I consider to be one of the most serious problems in Palo Alto today. I urge serious consideration of the recommendations presented by the Peninsula West Valley Association of Realtors on Wednesday and today, and the other recommendations that were made today. Thank you. Roger Marquis: I have been a Palo Alto resident, on and off, since 1972, and I would like to some degree expand upon the theme that was presented by our last speaker, the fear and anger. Only I am talking about a different fear and anger, that of those of us who are residents in the neighborhoods that are being severely changed with the destruction Of our beautiful houses and the building of new houses that very often do not fit the character of the neighborhood, that degrade the neighborhood, and degrade all of our lives in the process. We are all here today because the old ordinance was not working. That is the reason we have spent so many nights here with the City Council, and why we have been here all morning. The old ordinance was not working. I think all of us recognize that. We do need an ordinance that does have teeth, that will prevent the destruction of all of the contributing structures, the Category 3 and Category 4 structures that we know will be demolished if they are not protected. The price of property in Palo Alto is only going to go up, and people do not pay $500,000 for an 1,800-square foot house in any other neighborhood in the bay area, but they do in Palo Alto, precisely because of our beautiful neighborhoods. If we build houses that are more appropriate to Fremont or Santa Clara, we won’t be able to retain those property values nor our appreciation of our neighborhood. As far as the specifics of the regulations go, I would like to see some mechanism for review, either by the neighborhood association or by residents within a 300-foot area. I know that when Big Blue was tom down in College Terrace, I was amazed, because I knew people who did want to buy that house, who did try to buy that house, who would have restored it. It seemed that the real estate agency was more inclined to have someone tear the house down, build two homes on the property, and of course, for the real. estate agent, the bottom line is the dollar. That distinction should be recognized by all of us. That is an important factor in real estate, but I -- think that 50 years from now, nobody is going to know who made what dollars from those P: I Plan I Pladivl HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 33 12-06-97 properties. I hope that 50 years from now, people won’t be saying, What a beautiful place Palo Alto used to be. For my own information, in order to see what percentage of people support a strong ordinance, could you stand and be recognized? Ms. Yeend: Okay. We have just a few minutes left. There were four questions that were not answered initially. Virginia is going to very quickly read the questions and give a response so that we can respect your commitment of the morning. Ms. Warheit: One question was, when will owners of historic homes have a chance to give input into revising the ordinance? The answer is right now. This is it, in the four workshops and the ’ hearings before’ the City Council. If you did not sign in when you came today, please sign in before you leave. We will be checking our mailing list. Anyone who is not already on the mailing list and came today will go on the mailing list and will receive notices of the workshops and the council hearings. Someone asked about implications for Secretary of the Interior Standards #10 for remodeling residential properties. That is a fascinating and very important question. We will be definitely addressing that at the architect/builder workshop in February. I hope whoever asked that will get in touch with me so that we can coordinate the things that we cover in that workshop. One question was whether a 1950s addition to a pre-1900 house could be removed under the interim regulations? The answer is yes. The last question was, why does the AME Zion Church not appear in that booklet that is available called the Historical Architectural Record of Palo Alto. That is because that is a 1979 document. That is the report from the 1979 survey. It is not the current inventory. There is an address list in there, but it is from the 1979 survey. The report from the 1979 survey, and we do not update it. It is a historical document, and it was furnished you as a historical document. Ms. Yeend: I would like to thank all of you who came and took the time and thought to comment to our seven panel members who gave very precise presentations, also to our consultants and staff. I am sure that all of you who had me flash the pink cards in front of you thought, wait, I just started. I do appreciate the fact that you did honor the time commitments and that everyone got an opportunity to speak, brief though it may have been. I do encourage you that if you have comments, and many of you had very thoughtful comments, that if you have written remarks or points to be made, you can pass them to Virginia: The staff and the council are very interested in your input. Thank you so much. There will be two workshops in February. One will be specific on architecture and design, and the other will be more of an open forum such as this. We hope to see you in February. Thank you. P: I Plan ] P|adiv ! HRB I Wrkshp2.min Page 34 12-06-97 P: [Plan [ Pladiv I HRB ] Wrkshp2.min Page" 35 12-06-97 Attachment D WORKSHOP #3 REVISING THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE Tuesday, January 27, 1998 TOPIC: Maintaining, Altering and Making Additions to Designated Historic Buildings Nancy Yeend: Good evening, and welcome. This is the third workshop in a series of four sponsored by the City of Palo Alto regarding revising the historic preservation ordinance. Tonight, we are going to have a very full program, and we will provide opportunity for comments, questions and feedback. I will go over the agenda with you briefly. Atter my initial opening remarks, Ken Schreiber, Director of Planning and Community Environment, will make a few remarks. Then our consultants, Bruce Anderson and Denise Bradley, will also give a summary of where they are in gathering information for the ordinance. We will then have a video. This video is something new, and is put out by the Secretary of the Interior regarding the rehabilitation of historic buildings. Following that, we will have two brief presentations from architects who have experience in this area. Following that will be at least one hour open to those of you in the audience who may have any questions or comments that you would like to make. Also, members of the Planning Commission and City Council do appreciate written comments. If you do not have time to make all of your remarks, please send a letter either to Virginia Warheit, Ken Schreiber or Council members so that they have the benefit of your thoughts and ideas in this important matter. My name is.Nancy Yeend, and my job tonight is to facilitate the program. In the amount of time that we have at the end of the program for questions, we will invite you to come up in order to ask your questions. When the panelists are making their presentations tonight, we also would ask that if a question comes to mind as they are speaking upon which you perhaps want expansion or clarification of any point they may make, also fill in a card, pass it up, and I will read those questions to the panelists so that we can clarify anything before the Program goes any further. I would now like to introduce Ken Schreiber, who will make a few remarks. Ken Schreiber: Thank you, Nancy. A very brief welcome to all of you. We greatly appreciate your turning out this evening. As Nancy indicated, this is the third of four workshops that are part of a fascinating and very difficult task that we have been given, which is to develop the new historic regulations for the city. Most of you, if not all, are aware of the process we have been in in terms of both that process and in dealing with some interim regulations. We are looking forward to getting rid of the interim regulations, as I am sure many of you are, too. To accomplish that, we really need your help in participating tonight and in the rest of the process so that we can come up with a final historic ordinance that can set in place the permanent regulations. s :\plan\pladiv%rb%istsord\wrkshp3.min Page 1 1"-27-98 First, a couple of process comments tonight. One is that in the handout in terms of timing, it talks about City Council meetings, the first of which was in November. The next one is scheduled for February 23rd, so if you are interested in confi.’ng to a council meeting, we certainly would encourage you. That will be a council discussion of the proposed elements of the ordinance. It is to give us the "marching orders" in terms of what type of framework ~hey want for the ordinance. Then we will come back to them in April with a draft ordinance. The resource people present tonight include Sheila Lee, Assistant Building Official, who is available for responding to questions after the presentation, taking the place of Fred Herman, who was called out of town for family reasons. Als0 Reinhard Hanselka, the Fire Protection Manager for the city, is present and available for questions from the standpoint of the fire code and the expectations of the fire department. Both Reinhard and Sheila have quite a bit of background in this area. Now let me turn this back to Nancy. Ms. Yeend: I would next like to introduce Bruce Anderson, who is going to let you know the type of study that has been done by the consultants and the information that they have brought in. We Will then go to the video. Bruce Anderson: There are two parts to this project.’ The first is the Historic Resources Survey. This part of the project has been ongoing since late August/early September. The second part is, of course, the updating of the city’s historic presentation ordinance. I want to emphasize that as anxious and as interested as everyone is in what is going to happen with the revisions to the Ordinance, the survey and the updating of the inventory of resources is integral to making revisions to the ordinance. There is an existing inventory of historic resources which dates back to 1979. There are approximately 520 properties on that inventory. The survey was done by consultants, and was based largely on architectural merit. Back in the late 1970s, that was pretty much the way surveys were conducted. There were changes made in the mid-1980s in the way surveys were done and in some of the standards and criteria coming out of the National Park Service. Those changes are reflected in the survey work we are doing now. The first part of that is a Windshield Survey where we have visited approximately 6,000 pre-1948 properties, as identified by the city in what are called assessor’s block and lot maps and records. We are annotating field maps as we visited those 6,000 pre-1948 properties. As a result of that .. windshield survey, three categories or study priorities have been developed -- Study Priority One, Study Priority Two, and Study Priority Three. Those categories are for purposes of the work that is to be done as part of this project, namely, by the end of the summer, identification of those resources which are eligible for listing on the National Register. Those are pretty much the resources that are included in Study Priority One. That study priority involves a considerable amount of archival research, record searching and field work by a large group of dedicated volunteers. Dames and Moore, the consultant, will conduct evaluations and fill out the forms that eventually go to the State Office of Historic Preservation. The evaluation criteria for the National Register I think are pretty much self-explanatory. We can talk about those in greater detail, if you wish. They are listed on this handout. As indicated, we will be submitting to the Historic s:\plan\pladiv~hrb~hists ord\wrkshp3.mln Page 2 1-27-98 Resources Board this list of National Register Eligible properties which would include individual properties and potential historic districts. I also want to say again "potential National Register Eligible properties." We cannot make that determination. We do not do that. That is only done ultimately upon nomination forms that are submitted to the State Office of Historic Preservation, and ultimately, to the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. This first viewgraph goes through some of the revisions to the Historic Preservation Ordinance and how we are addressing it. The existing ordinance, in place since 1979, is a result of the 1979 survey. Also, the City Council in 1987 adopted the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation as the criteria to be used by the city’s Historic Resources Board when conducting project review. I would like to emphasize that these are the Secretary’s standards and guidelines for rehabilitation. There are other Secretary standards for other types of preservation projects and restoration projects, but these are for rehabilitation. The process for making the revisions involves these workshops. Of the two that were held in December, one focused on "Real Estate Interests" and the other on what were called "General Interests. Now, this second set of two focuses this evening on designer/builder interests, and in early March, again "General Interests’" will be the topic. The process for making revisions also includes extensive consultations with the Historic Resources Board, the Historic Preservation Ordinance Advisory Group, and of course, city departments and community stakeholders. As Ken mentioned, the first presentation to the city was in November of 1997 and was a discussion of project and general policy issues. The next one on February 23 is a presentation of proposed principal elements for revisions to the ordinance. In April, a draft of the proposed revisions will go to the City Council. We are addressing a number of major items in the revisions, including the categories or types of historic resources that exist in Palo Alto, keeping Palo Alto’s inventory of historic resources current and accurate. Also, just by identification of what is out in the field, we will be looking at the creation of additional historic districts. There are different levels or degrees of protection potentially for properties listed on the city’s inventory, roles and responsibilities of the city’s Historic Resources Board, etc. There are a couple of major items that we will not be addressing in the ordinance revisions. One of them is design review of single-family residential properties which are not included on the city’s inventory of historic resources. We also will not be addressing provisions for neighborhood compatibility in this ordinance, such as has been addressed by the interim ordinance. And of course, we are not dealing with the interim regulations in the revisions. That is why we are doing the revisions. I would next like to introduce the video by saying that this video by the National Park Service provides the Secretary’s Standards .for Rehabilitation, the standards used by the city since 1987 for designated historic resources on the inventory. Please try to keep that in mind. It is where protection of the integrity of those resources is the principal aim. Thank you very much. (The video is shown.) s:\plan\pladiv~hrb~histsord\wrkshp31min Page 3 1-27-98 Ms. Yeend: Before I introduce our first panelist, I have been asked to take an informal survey. We are curious to know how many of you in the audience tonight are architects? (A lot of hands are raised.) Wonderful. That’s really nice, because the emphasis tonight is, of course, architectural considerations, although with the comment period at the end, if people have comments on other aspects, they would certainly be welcome. How many of you are builders? (A few) Okay. How many of you right now own a historic building in Palo Alto, either residential or commercial? (A lot of hands are raised.) Okay. We have two presenters tonight. We will begin with Richard Conrad, Executive Director of California’s State Historical Building Safety Board. He will make a 15-minute presentation on using the State Historic Building Code. If, during Richard’s presentation, a question comes to your mind that you feel he would"be able to answer as a resource, would you fill in one of the cards and pass it up to me. We will ask him at the end of his presentation. Richard Conrad: Good evening. It is a pleasure to be here. As mentioned, I would like to give a brief overview of the State Historic Building Code and the advantages it may hold for dealing with historic properties. I might say "qualified historic properties" because unless you are listed or are eligible for listing on a local, State or national inventory, the code is not applicable. The State Historic Building Code actually comprises both statutes and regulations. The statutes are contained in the Health and Safety Code for the State of California in Sections 18950 - 18961.. The regulations are contained in Part 8 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations. We will deal specifically this evening with the regulations, although we will talk a little bit about the statute that gives them their basis to do that. The Purpose of the code, Section 18951, is to provide alternative building regulations and building standards for the rehabilitation, preservation, restoration (including related reconstruction) or relocation of buildings or structures designated as historic buildings. Such alternative building standards and building regulations are intended to facilitate the restoration or change of occupancy so as to preserve their original or restored architectural elements and features, to encourage energy conservation and a cost-effective approach to preservation, and to provide for the safety of the building occupants. These are alternative standards to what we will call the "regular code." Current Part 8 refers to it as the prevailing code. So we are looking at these as akernative standards that are reasonably equivalent. You will see the term "reasonably equivalent" throughout the code, and is intended to provide equivalent levels of safety without adhering to the strict requirements of the regular code. Regarding "...provide for the safety of the building occupants," the State Historic Building Code is not intended to protect the building. It is to protect the occupants in the building. That is to facilitate the preservation of historic fabric and features of the building. Obviously, we want to protect historic resources, and you may do that above and beyond what the State Historic Building Code would require, but in many instances, it is not always financially feasible to go to those lengths. So our first goal is to protect the occupants of the building, enabling them to exit safely and provide a safe environment while the building is in use. s :\plan\pladiv~hrb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 4 1-27-98 The Intent Section 18953, is to provide means for the preservation of the historical value of designated buildings and, concurrently, to provide reasonable safety from fire, seismic forces or other hazards for occupants of such buildings, and to provide reasonable availability and usability by the physically disabled. This is really the crux of the whole code. The code is in force and effect to protect historic properties. But keep in mind that it is for the safety of the occupants. Section 18954, Repairs. Alterations and Additions; application of building standards and building regulations; physically handicapped accessibility standards. Here we focus on the fact that "The building department of every city and county shall apply the provisions of alternative building standards and building regulations adopted pursuant to Section 18959.5 in permitting repairs, alterations and additions necessary for the preservation, restoration, rehabilitation, safety, moving or continued use of a historical building or structure." In 1985, the State Historic Building Code became mandatory. It was originally adopted in 1978 as an advisory code. But the statutes were changed in 1985, and the code became mandatory. Ira property owner wishes to use the code, the building official must accept that and work within its confines in dealing with qualified historic properties. Section 18959.5, Alternative building standards, rules and regulations; historical building code board. This section basically states that the State Historic Building Safety Board shall adopt and submit alternative building standards for approval. This gives the board the authority to create alternatives to the regular code for qualified historic buildings or properties. The four sections I have gone over are basically the crux of the statute. The rest of it deals with administrative aspects. Really the backbone of the State Historic Building Code is those statutory provisions. What I am showing is a comparison. In the left ~olumn are the current chapters in the State Historic Building Code. Chapter 8-1, Administration, is basically the methodology by which the code is organized, and are some very basic administrative requirements. Chapter 8-2, the General Requirements, talks about the code and its use in greater detail. Next is Chapter 8-3, Definitions, and then Chapter 8-4, Occupancy Classification and Use. Chapter 8-5 is Alternative Structural Regulations. Chapter 8-6 is Mechanical, Plumbing and Electrical Requirements. Chapter 8-7 is Exiting. Chapter 8-8 is Fire Protection. Chapter 8-9 is Archaic Materials and Methods of Construction. Chapter 8-10 is Housing. Chapter 8-11 is Historic Districts, Site and Open Spaces. Chapter 8-12 is State Health and Community Care Facilities. Chapter 8-13 is Alternative Handicapped Provisions, and Chapter 8-14 is Appeals, Alternative Proposed Design, Materials and Methods of Construction. The right column is the format that the revised State Historic Building Code will contain. We are now in the process of revising the code, and have been working on that for over a year. The proposed revisions actually will be noticed for adoption onFriday, February 6. If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy or be on the board’s mailing list so that they can be informed of that process, make sure that I have your name at the end of the evening. The proposed revisions and the notice have been prepared, and the formal process will start next Friday, February 6. s:\plan\pladiv~rb~istsord\wrkshp3.rnin Page 5 1-27-98 The new structure, Chapter 1, Administrative, draws upon a number of the other chapters in the previous organization. We have the Title, Purpose and Scope of the code, its Application, Organization and Enforcement, Review and Appeals, and Construction Methods and Materials. So we have really taken everything that is administrative in nature and have lumped them into one chapter. Definitions are, again, in a separate chapter. Under Use and Occupancy, we have basically approached it as being general occupancy issues, and then Housing, residential occupancies, because they do have some distinct differences. The State and Community Care Facilities have been eliminated from the proposed code. Those were contained in the original code because, at the time, the regulations were not mandatory. So if the state agencies did not identify specific occupancies because of the advisory nature of the code, they were not applicable. But since the code became mandatory and applied to all qualified historic building~ or properties, whether it be a state-owned community care facility or not, we were able to eliminate those from. the regulations because of its broad application. Chapter 4 is Fire Protection. Chapter 5, Means of Egress. Chapter 6, Accessibility. Chapter 7, Structural Provisions. Chapter 8, Archaic Materials and Methods of Construction. Chapter 9, Mechanical, Plumbing and Electrical, and Chapter 10, Historic Districts, Site and Open Spaces. The revised format will be consistent with the organization of the Uniform Building Code. -In order to make the new code more usable, it was made to be consistent with the organization of theUniform Building Code, which is basically the regular code for purposes of our discussion. The chapter numbers may not be the same as the Uniform Building Code, but the organization and order is consistent with the Uniform BuildingCode. When the code is Published, we will publish it as a chapter in the California Building Code, so if you buy a California Building Code, you will get the State Historic Building Code as a part of that code. We will make references throughout the California Building Code, say in the Exiting Chapter, "For qualified historic buildings, see Chapter 34, Division 2." That will contain the State Historic Building Code. So we think that that will at least bring widespread distribution of the code and hopefully more widespread use of the code, as well. I will now take questions. Ms. Yeend: For those of you who may want more information regarding the Secretary of the Interior Standards forRehabilitafion which the video tape addressed, there are some booklets available at the rear. We will now take questions from the audience. Martin Bernstein: Does the property owner have the final say on which building code will apply, or is it up to the city’s building official to decide which one will apply? Mr, Conrad: The property owner can invoke the State Historic Building Code and use its provisions in presenting a project to the jurisdiction. The jurisdiction enforces it. There is some give and take involved, obviously, depending upon the type of project, what you are asking for, the historic code versus the regular code, but the provisions are applicable to qualified historic properties. s :\plan\pladiv\hrb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 6 1-27-98 Mr. Bemstein: Is a qualified structure a city determination? Mr, Conrad: A qualified historic property determination is based on the definition in the State Historic Building Code. It is a property that is listed on the national, state or local level, or is eligible for listing on the National Register and the criteria contained in that. Mr. Bernstein: And the city determines ks criteria for local -- Mr, Conrad: Yes, whatever Historic Preservation Ordinance is in place will have those criteria. Mr. Bemstein: Can a property owner pick and choose chapters from, for example, the UBC, and chapters from the State Historic Building Code, or does it has to be all one code? Mr. Conrad: It is used in conjunction, so you can use some provisions ofthe State Historic Building Code. Remember, the goal here is to preserve the architectural fabric and character of defining features. Mr. Bemstein: And public safety. Mr. Conrad: Yes, but the goal of the code is to ensure that you preserve the historic aspects. In some instances, the regular code can be used if you are not going to impact the historic fabric or character of defining features. If it does, then you want to use the historic code so that you do not create that impact. If I may make one editorial comment, briefly. The code that was shown in the video was the State Historic Building Code for California, although they did not mention it. We are one of the few states that has a state historic building code that currently exists. Ms..Yeend: We will now move to our second presenter tonight. Michael Garavaglia is going to talk about Case Studies and Examples: ~Protecting Historical Integrity when Maintaining, Altering and Making Additions to Historic Buildings. Following his presentation, we will take questions. In addition, as Ken Schreiber mentioned, we have other resource people available to take some initial questions on information before getting into the public comment period. Michael Garavaglia: Good evening. I am an architect in San Francisco, and we do a lot of residential remodeling and historic preservation work. I will present a variety of projects that we have worked on, specifically residential projects, that are older homes or historic homes, and try to show how we use both the State Historic Building Code and deal with the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. I will be showing slides of a variety of projects to give you a sense of the kinds of issues that an architect is going to deal with on a day-to-day basis when dealing with what most people would consider to be remodeling or addition projects. The issues we are all grappling with here are the issues of having a so-called historic property. s :\plan\pladiv\h~b~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 7 1-27-98 To give a little personal philosophy, my feeling is that with the kinds of issues that we deal with on a day-to-day basis to create well designed buildings whenever we get the opportunity, and having a historic structure, there is really very little burden that I personally find on a day-to-day basis in dealing with these issues. I actually find it fascinating, and there is a lot of added creativity for an architect in dealing with a historic property. There is a very strong sense of quality in a tot of older buildings which I know homeowners appreciate. So what we are trying to do is to bring out those strong qualities and a sense of neighborhood and community while trying to modernize the buildings for life in the nineties and beyond. Those are the issues that we have to grapple with. (A series of slides are projected. Some remarks edited out, as there is no reference point.) This house had a kitchen remodel that was done in the 1970s, and it was very poorly done, not something you would want to keep. The owner wanted to redo the kitchen and bring the rear yard of the building more into the views of the house. This shows a very plain, existing rear of the house. Many homes built around the turn of the century have very functional looking rear elevations. We added on a little breakfast room addition, dramatically increasing the usability of the interior of the house. The kitchen remodel cleaned up a lot of the modernization work that was done in the 70’s. It resulted in a nice, traditional looking kitchen but with all the modern features and a very friendly, cozy environment. On the front of this home, it has some cornice elements, and underneath are some brackets and moldings that tend to define the roof element. When we did the addition at the back of the house, we tried to put in some of these elements to bring in that sense of detail that was at the front. That is one of the Secretary of the Interior’s standards that comes into play, i.e., the addition should have some sensitivity to somehow bring the quality of the appearance of the construction into the addition work without necessarily replicating it. We have tried to give a sense of that here. These, quite frankly, are very sensible ideas. They are not that difficult to work with. This project really did not have any kind of State Historic Building Code issues that we could use, although I will say that in the basement space of this house, it was brought from storage space to living space. That is another thing you could consider doing, that is, using under-utilized space, space that was meant for another purpose, giving it a new use. In concept, that is what one of the Secretary of the Interior’s standards is trying to portray, giving the space a new use, making it ¯ useful for today. Next is a masonry warehouse. It is unreinforced masonry, and we converted it into two live/work spaces, partly by reworking the interior space, putting in rooms for each unit, but also doing an addition on the second floor. Again, this second floor addition does not try to use brick for the construction. It uses some of the shapes and general feel of the fagade of the small masonry building at the faqade level. Also, in the middle of the building, we carved out the roof and created a courtyard by which various rooms can open onto it, providing basic light and their requirements. This is a San Francisco city house. This building sits on the property line, so it’has a totally different feel to it than a typical house, but it is an example of how an adaptive use project can use work, and again, finding a new use for an existing, outdated building. s:\plan\pladiv~hrb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 8 1-27-98 In the interior space, you can see the red beams on the wall. That was done for seismic reinforcement. In the State Historic Building Code, bringing this building up to full seismic compliance would not be mandated. That is a very expensive process. The State Historic Building Code would allow the reused space to have minimal upgrades. Nowadays, with a masonry building, you would bolt the roof structure to the walls. In this case, that is quite simple, and probably put that X-brace on the front of the building to give some stability up there. In the area of the addition, you have to bring the seismic forces down to the foundation line. The particular piece of the building that is affected by that addition has to be strengthened to meet current code. The other thing here is that the State Historic Building Code does not require energy conservation compliance. The?e is a lot of expenditure that can be made in trying to bring the building up to current code. In a wood frame residence, it is not necessarily that complicated an issue, but you do not have to do it. These things start becoming voluntary. If you want to do a full seismic upgrade of your building because you are doing an addition, that is an option for you, but no longer a requirement. The buildings that can use the State Historic Building Code do not have to be landmark buildings. They can be on an inventory, as long as it has been adopted by the local jurisdiction such as the City Council. The buildings that are identified as being historically important will be able to use the State Historic Building Code. On the second-story addition, we have created roof decks to create more outdoor area for this particular project. Next is a Project in San Jose. It is an entire historic district on which we have done a study. It had to do with a flood control project in a Section 106 review. We did a feasibility study of how to reuse 43 of these structures in the district, and we went through a long, arduous process of eventually using nine structures that had to be relocated because of this flood control project. It was a mitigation measure to relocate these structures. At first look, you might ask, "What can they do with those? They should just tear them down." But there is a lot of very useful structure here. These buildings are built of very high quality materials. They still have a lot of life to them, and that is one of the issues that I like to tout when dealing with historic properties. We are concerned about recycling and conservation of materials, land fill issues, etc.. Building waste is one of the major contributors to land fill, and there is all sorts of energy that goes into the construction of buildings. It is very easy to tear down of these. It can be done in hours, but it took a long time to build it, and there is a lot of very useful structure there on which to take off. It has a lot of useful years lett. So here, we are rehabing these structures, looking for original detail that can be replicated when need be. In this particular project, we are providing handicap access ramps, and also lit’~s in some instances. Because this is a National Register Eligible district, the houses were all located in such a way as to create the same type of pattern and distances between buildings, setbacks, height above grade, all done to give some semblance of what the original district was like. Whenever you move a historical building, it is always controversial and must be done very judiciously..In this particular instance, there probably was no other choice. So I wanted to show you the condition of these buildings. They can be brought up to what a brand new house can look like, essentially. So what may look like junk here is really very useful. One of the Secretary of s:\plan\pladivLlarb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 9 1-27-98 the Interior’s standards is that you repair rather than replace. So here, I have shown how We use useful building materials and keep them. Windows are always a big issue to deal with. In simple buildings like this, it is one of the strong, character-defining elements of a historic structure. It is controversial because a lot of people want to replace these windows with new windows. With this window, in its horrible appearance, one probably only has to deal with a little bit of dry rot at the bottom of the sill jamb and possibly some repair of this sash. This whole sash could get replaced, but generally, this window still has a lot of life to it. It is made of materials that you cannot find anymore. A lot of this stuffis virgin growth redwood, and is a wonderful material. So these kinds of situations look horrible but are very workable and can be brought back to a functional standpoint. What we typically do with a window like this is to repair the window and weather-strip it. For the architects and builders present, the question comes up, "How do you go about deciding what gets repaired versus what gets replaced?" We went through a process of walking through each building and taking a quick look at each window, door, all the various architectural features that were on the building, and make a determination as to whether it could be repaired or needed to be replaced. We used a key system whereby the contractor can look at these elevations that contain little lines, indicating recommended upgrades. He can use this to make the bid. It is not as complicated as it may seem, and does ,not take that much effort. This has a handicap ramp, which obviously does not apply to a privately owned residential project. Next is a project in Palo Alto, a little 1908 Craftsman style bungalow with some classical detailing. It is a very simple structure, not atypical for a lot of the projects you folks might be dealing with. It is in the Professorville district now, and is under construction, so there are no finished pictures. We went through several phases on this project. In Palo Alto, you have your residential standards, and you also have the home improvement exception (HIE). It is like a mini variance process. In this case, we were trying to work on a design that fit with the little house which, with this type of fagade, is very difficult, since it is so small. We were trying to do a second-story addition which worked for the structure. We were coming up against a bit of a conflict with the residential standards, so we turned to the home improvement exception for this project. We had to balance the design of the facade, which is a very symmetrical fagade, while trying to do an addition that is very symmetrical. So in trying to work with the residential standards, we were in conflict with the historic aspects. We came up with this building massing that balanced it more. This required the HIE, but because of the historic nature of the property, it made that process just a formality, frankly. Our predominant issue was trying to work with the historic structure, and that process helped us along those lines. Here you can see at the back of the building, the character starts changing fairly dramatically. That is one issue that we, as architects, have to deal with. That is, how do you deal with the front faqade of a building like this which is part of a historic district, and the main face is on the street. The back of the building seemed to be more functional, with little garage structures at the rear, so the back of this building is a little more utilitarian looking with a fiat roof and a roof deck on top of that. Throughout this.process, the owners decided that the cost of the project, in general, was s :\pl~n\pladiv~rb~istsord\wrkshp3.min Page 10 1-27-98 becoming too extensive, and they decided to downscale the project. It had nothing to do with the historic nature of the building. So they went to a sing!e-story addition at the rear of the yard, and again, that HIE helped us through the process. We had a minor lot coverage issue to deal with and some daylight plane issues, exceeding the height of the daylight plane, minor encroachrnents, etc., and the HIE helped us through the process. In doing an addition to a building that is already a very simple design, the difference between the existing building and the addition is not really defined. If the front of the building was much more ornate and we had done a simpler addition, using the same mass and proportion and scale and types of.window details, etc., you would see more of a difference between the existing structure and the new one. So in these simpler, almost more vernacular type structures, the differentiation is not as strong. In the HIE process, we also relocated the garage from one side of the garage to the other, just to make the yard more useful. These are the kinds of issues that arise between those that are successful and those where you feel a lot of compromises have been made. This is an 1880s farm.house. There was some porch work that had been enclosed with aluminum windows. We took some cues from the front of the building for this scroll work, and the porch is not a replication but gives a sense of shape, etc. that you find on the building. Ms. Yeend: I have had a couple of questions.come up for Richard Conrad. One is, "Can you describe some alternatives for the preservation of hollow core tile buildings and brick buildings in California, other than demolition?" Mr. Conrad: Yes, I can. One of Michael’s projects, the warehouse, is an example.. That was unreinforced masonry. It is not a weak story, because it is only a one-story building, but it has a weak front in that there are a lot openings and not much wall. So you would do a momentframe or other structural enhancements to provide stability. You tie the roof diaphragms in to provide anchorage, things like that. Regarding hollow clay tile, you can add elements over the face of the tile. There are probably a great many alternatives you can use. You just have to look at the buildingconfiguration, and contact a qualified design professional to assist you. There are as many available options as the mind can create. So do not be afraid because you have an unreinforced building or a hollow clay tile building. Ms. Yeend: We also have additional resource people present tonight. We have Alan Dreyfus, an architect who may have some comments, and also Sheila Lee from the City of Palo Alto who is filling in for Fred Herman, and from the City of Palo Alto Fire Department, we have Reinhard Hanselka, so if any of you three have a response, please let me know. Alan Dre.vfus:- First, let me tell you where my expertise lies. I am an architect with about 18 years in residential experience in doing additions and alterations to historic buildings. "Now, what I am doing is consultations mostly on tax credit projects and the rehabilitation of historic buildings, usually larger, commercial buildings at this point. I also serve on the State Historic Building Code Board, so if there are any questions about the practical application of either the. s:\plan\pladivUarb~hists~rd\wrkshp3.min Page 11 1-27-98 Secretary of the Interior standards, especially as they apply to tax credit projects, or the practical application of the city’s historic building code in the field, I can respond to those questions. Ms. Yeend: We have another question. "Sometimes the Chief Building Official is hesitant to assume the responsibility for an alternative solution. Is there some affirmation/support which the state can provide?" Mr. Conrad: The State Historic Building Safety Board can act in a role of consultant. One of its charges is to consult with local government in the application of the State Historic Building Code. So that is available. If push comes to shove, the board will also hear an appeal if it has statewide significance on the application of the State Historic Building Code. We like the consultation much better. There is usually a solution when we put our heads together and work diligently to achieve it. Sheila Lee: I am the Assistant Building Official for the City of Palo Alto. I want to address this question. As Richard mentioned, the State Historic Building Code is a mandated code. The City of Palo Alto has adopted this code. So if your project is indeed on the historical list, and you would like to use the historical building code, you are allowed to do so. Of course, we also would not give away everything. You still have to comply with certain accessability standards and life safety standards. Most of the time, we have to go on a case-by-case basis. We will sit down and talk about it if you think that in compliance with the building code, you are affecting the historical nature ofyo.ur building. Are you going to provide certain alternative solutions to meet that particular building code requirement? So in most of the cases, we have to sit down and look at the individual case, so you cannot say that you are using the historic building code and do not have to comply with any of the regulations. That is not the case. What I would suggest is that if there is a question, give me a call or any of the plan checkers, and I am sure they can give you some kind of an answer. Ms. Yeend: I have a question from Judith Wasserman, Architect. Her first question is, "Are previously inventoried properties (1979) being re-evaluated?" Ms. Warheit: Those buildings are not being reevaluated in the sense that we are going back and re-evaluating whether or not they have historic Significance. They will be reassigned to whatever new category system we develop for the new ordinance. The survey that was done in. 1979 was done by a very well regarded professional team, and the survey report that they produced makes it very clear that they sent all of those buildings forward to the city With a recommendation that they were significant. If anything, they have become more important since 1979. They were essentially identified as the most outstanding examples of the early formative years of the city. Even in the lower categories, Categories 3 and 4, 55% of those were all built before 1919, and 87% of them were built before 1929. So that body of work is essentially the product of one of the most highly regarded teams that were operating in the state at the time, looking at our building stock that was present at the time, and identifying those buildings that were best representative of the city’s history during those first three decades. So we are not going to go s :\plan\pladiv\hrb\hists ord\wrkshp3.min Page 12 1-27-98 back and re-evaluate the historic significance of those, but they will be swept up together with whatever new system is put in place, and have an appropriate designation. So if, for example, we go from four categories to two, those will be given their proper new category designation. We will have one inventory at the end with everything being consistent. Mr. Anderson: On a slightly different note, there have been changes. Life goes on, and part of our responsibility in conducting the windshield survey was to review those properties in terms of their existence. Some of them no longer exist, and some of them have had alterations. We made notes on that which have been conveyed to the city. That has nothing to do with significance in terms of the 1979 work or re-evaluation, as Virginia just explained. Ttiere have been alterations and some demolitions to some of those resources in the 1979 survey. Ms. Yeend: Judith Wasserman’s second question is, "What incentives will the city offer for preserving historic buildings?" Ms. Warheit: You will have to stay tuned in for the answer to that question. Staff will be going back to the City Council at their meeting on February 23rd with a report suggesting a whole range of things for the council to consider with regard to the ordinance, in general. One of the topics that they have asked us to look at are, what kinds of incentives can be proposed. We are looking into a variety of things, so just watch for that report, come to that meeting, and see what the council does. Ms, Yeend: We will now have speakers directly from the floor. .Shirley Wilson: I am an architect and a homeowner of a historic building. I think an interesting issue has just been raised, and I want to pose the dilemma that I think we are facing right now. We have a 1979 inventory that had certain categories, a certain system. We have an interim inventory that has a new system, and weare going to have a permanent inventory that is perhaps going to have a third system, or a combination of these two. I think the challenge is, how do we deal in an equitable way with property owners who have been caught up in these changes? Being a homeowner of a home that was a Category 2 in the 1979 inventory, I learned through the process of the interim ordinance that my house was suddenly a landmark structure. No one ever spoke to me about this, nor did I receive a letter notifying me of this change. It is something you read in the newspaper. I find that highly offensive and an infringement of my property rights. I know that at the state level, you cannot do this, and I will be very upset if the city enacts an ordinance where they act in this Draconian fashion with people’s private property. Under the new system, whatever that turns out to be, it will be interesting to me to see how decisions that were made in the interim ordinance are dealt with in retrospect. Are you going to go back and look at that concept that was sort of a shoot-from-the-hip reaction, in my opinion, to what was considered a crisis by some people in the community? I think it is really important that the new inventory and the new ordinance deal with these things in a fair manner, giving some historic perspective to people who have been caught up in this. I am sorry that the gentleman s:\plan\pladivkhrbkhistsord\wrkshp3, min Page 13 1-27-98 who was here from the state is gone, because I really do believe from my research that at the state level, if a building is considered of landmark quality and the owner does not wish it to be a landmark and will not agree to that, then that building is held on the list until some compliant ~ person comes along. I think that is probably the appropriate way for this kind of situation to be dealt with. I also have a comment about the Contributing status that has been in place for the last 18 months or so. I think it is a very poorly veiled attempt to control property in neighborhoods. It is far beyond a historic issue, and I think it is something that should be eliminated in the future inventory. I think that historic preservation should be historic preservation in a very honest way and that thi~ Contributing category be eliminated, going back to something more resembling the original system which I felt really dealt with history. Ms. Warheit: I would like to respond to the question about how the properties that were identified during the interim regulations will be treated. They will all be re-evaluated. When the survey team went into the field, those were not identified differently from any other building that was not currently on the inventory. As you all probably know, that was an emergency action by the council, and those categories that were in place were identified just to solve what they saw as an emergency situation for the interim period. So the fact that something was identified as a contributor during the interim period -- that building is going to be re-evaluated in the same way as all of the other buildings that are not currently on the inventory. All of the research that has been done will be passed to the survey team. We won’t lose any of the effort and the information that has become available, but those designations are not going to shape the final designation of those properties. Monica Yeung Arima: I am a resident of Palo Alto, and I own one of the landmark properties. I have a question for Virginia. You mentioned about incentives for homeowners of historic homes. I wanted to find out if there is a Way that homeowners can participate or give their input about the incentives and the difficulties we are going through in getting some things done, for example, our house perhaps does not have the right setback or maybe does not have the right ceiling height or whatever, and our floor area ratio is being counted. So during that process, instead of just waiting to see what comes, is there a way that we can give you our input? Ms. Warheit: Yes, see me before you leave, and I would be happy to hear any ideas you have about incentives. It is not easy to come up with them. Not many people have submitted written comments on the subject, but some people did, and there was one person, in particular, who submitted a whole page of ideas. We followed up on several of those. One in particular did not come to anything, but the person had suggested, for example, that maybe we could have an arrangement whereby when someone made improvements to an historic house, that it not trigger a reassessment for property tax purposes. We checked with the Assessor’s Office as to how that works. What we were told was that the kinds of rehabilitation improvements that people make to a historic house usually do not trigger a reassessment. A brand new addition with new square footage would trigger an assessment, but the kinds of things that people normally do to s :\plan\pladiv~hrb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 14 1-27-98 rehabilitate and reuse historic houses, just because they spend money on that, the assessor does not count that and does not reassess the property. So that was happy news and was not something that we had to do anything about. I really would like to hear any specific suggestions or ideas that people have which we could follow up on. Michael Goldeen. 2330 Tasso. P01o Alt0: I do not have an historic building, but I have a building which is pre-1940 and fell into the sadly Contributing category, and it made me begin to ask some questions, Everybody talks about rehabilitation, but I’ll give you the example that I have. The lot has a negative grade with the lowest part being at the back comer of the building. The foundation is one-foot-high improperly cured concrete which has broken into about 14 pieces. Of course, the cripple wall is unreinforced, so you lo0k at this building and say, okay, if we are really going to do a job on it, as far as I can see, it has to come down. So my question is, are you going to consider buildings that are non-rehabilitatible as historic, or to turn that around the other way, is there some point at which a historic building no longer qualifies as a historic building? It is like the old Chinese saying, "The dead have to be buried." The unburied dead can make a lot of trouble in the present. Mr. Garavaglia: This is an ongoing issue with any structure, be it historic or not. When does a building still have a useful life? I have seen a lotofmisinformation, and again, this is from my personal experience, but there is a lot of misinformation about when something is no longer useable, and when,, in fact, it can be remodeled and restored to some degree and have a lot of useful life leftin it. The house that I showed in Palo Alto has the kind of foundation and cripple wall that you referred to. We made some minor improvements to the foundation, and quite frankly, it is perfectly fine at this stage of the game. If there is dry rot or termite damage in the members, that can be removed, and the entire pony wall can be removed, if need be, by shoring up the house and replacing it. It is not a complicated issue, but there is an expense involved. As I have had contractors tell me, you have an existing structure that you are working with, and you cannot rebuild that existing structure at the cost it takes to replace the foundation. So these things have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Every house is as individual as the person living in it, so you have to look at all of the issues that come into play. That has been my own experience. Ms. Yeend: Dennis Backlund, a member of the Historic Resources Board, asks, "Are there other cities in California where landmark residence alterations are governed by the Secretary of the Interior Standards in a compulsory manner? I am referring to landmark residences outside of historic districts." Can anyone respond to that? Mr. Dreyfus: I can speak for Oakland and a couple of other cities. The Secretary of the Interior Standards are recognized pretty broadly as being the proper way to deal with historic structures. Whether they are mandatory or not usually is not based on city ordinance. I-do not know of any other city where an ordinance is actually in place that mandates that the Secretary of the Interior s :\plan\pladiv\hrb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 15 1-27-98 Standards be applied to buildings that are not otherwise required by state or federal law to comply with the Secretary of the Interior Standards. There are many buildings that are required, because of their historic status, because of the funding that is being used to rehabilitate them, because of the agency that is involved -- if there is a public agency involved, they are required by CEQA, by Section 106, which is a federal guideline, sometimes by Executive Order of the Governor of the State of California -- to comply with the Secretary of the Interior Standards. Those buildings are reviewed’ for compliance by the State Office of Historic Preservation. As a broad based standard for other professionals and for other cities to use, the Secretary of the Interior Standards have a broad application. If you read the standards, and there are only ten of them, you will find that they are not very restrictive. They are broad standards, and they set a general tone. There are.guidelines that are produced as part of the standards that give more specific applications, but they are not part of the standards themselves. I would caution anyone who finds the standards to be onerous to read them and see how they apply to their specific project. You might find that they are a good deal less restrictive than you might have imagined. Bob Jenks. Architect: According to the handout tonight, I believe that the interim regulations are going to be adopted by the City Council in May. Is that correct? (Inaudible answer) I am wondering what structure there is now to deal with some of the landmark homes in Professorville. Is there anything that can move forward before May? Ms. Warheit: I am not sure you mean by "move forward." Alterations may be done right now under the interim regulations to landmark structures. The alterations go up for review before the Historic Resources Board. That can proceed now. Mr. Jenks: Perhaps "landmark" was not the right word. Some homes are still in the categories of cgmpatibility or landmark, and they are still going t.hrough the process. I think that some clients are handicapped at the moment by not knowing whether the landmark status in Professorville will stay valid, or stay put. It has become quite an expensive operation for some of them to hold on and try to see what can be done. That is my question. Roger Kohler. Architect and Chairman of the Historic Resources Board: I have dealt with landmark situations. For the record, Professorville is a national historic district, and was so prior~ to the enactment of the compatibility review requirements. So nothing has changed. It is still an historic district, and there is nothing I know of that could change that. It is always going to be an historic district, as far as anyone knows. So if you have a landmark structure in Professorville or it has been declared a landmark as part of the compatibility review, it is an easier process than if it is a Contributing structure. You go in, you have a prior meeting with Barbara Judy, you review- what you want to do, and she gives you her suggestions and ideas as to which way to proceed. You go back and do some drawings to define what is new, what is old, what are the changes, and how it is coming about. Then you go back in and meet with Barbara Judy again, and she reviews it. If you have done your homework, you are approved, and that is it. She sends it on to the Historic Resources Board, and that board has generally been very kind toward landmark s :\plan\pladiv\hrb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 16 1-27-98 alterations as long as they are done in a sensitive manner and respond to the existing house, and respond to the Secretary of the Interior Standards. I would have to admit that we are not quite as strict as those standards, so es.sentially, I have decided that it is a much easier process to go through than with the Contributing structures. So I recommend that if you have a landmark review house right now, I would go through it right now. I would not wait. Ms. Warheit: I would like to respond to an e~lier question as to whether there are cities where following the Secretary of the Interior Standards is mandated. We are what is called a CLG city, a Certified Local Government city. There are many in California. There are seven in Santa Clara County, and. one of the criteria for being a CLG city in California is that your review board base their review on the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. The reason is that those are standards that generally guide a project toward a solution that maintains the integrity of the building. The terminology in our agreement is not "comply with" -- It is that the board’s decisions will be "substantially in conformance" with the Secretary of the Interior Standards. So "comply" means that you either make it or you don’t make it. The only time that comes into play is, as Alan said, when you are applying for federal tax credits. The I.R.S. will send that plan to the Secretary of the Interior, and they will decide whether you comply or not before they let you write it off of your taxes. That is not the standard to which local design review boards usually hold things. It is more that the standards are the basis of the review and that the project should be substantially in conformance. Ms. ,Yeend: Reinhard Hanselka has a few comments he wishes to make. Mr. Hanselka: I am the Fire Protection Manager and Hazardous Materials Manager for the city. I would like to reinforce the fact that we are here as a resource for you, whether it becomes asbestos abatement or the detergent to use or questions on lead paint, please call us. We are happy to assist in any way that we can. After you have made a decision to make an alteration or a repair, as Sheila said, we are happy to meet with you and discuss alternative methods, methods of maintaining compliance and helping you to get on with your project. So please consider us a resource, and do not hesitate to call us. Ms, Yeend: Not seeing any more requests for comments, I would like to let you know that the fourth and final workshop will be held on Saturday, March 7th from 9:30 a.m. to Twelve Noon. The City Council has an important meeting on February 23, at which time some of these issues will be discussed. More importantly, for your feedback, there will be another presentation of a more general nature on March 7th, with a lot of time for questions and comments. I would reiterate that the Council members would greatly appreciate any suggestions or ideas that you have. Please send them in. Everything is being reviewed, and as Virginia said, they would love to have any ideas on incentives. Thank you very much for coming this evening. s :\plan\pladiv~hrb~histsord\wrkshp3.min Page 17 1-27-98