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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10092003 Min · · · CITY OF PORT TOWNSEND PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL JOINT WORKSHOP MINUTES October 9, 2003 CALL TO ORDER Vice Chair Richard Berg called the meeting to order at 6:07 p.rn. in the City Council Chambers. Cindy Thayer was excused. ROLL CALL Other Members of the Planning Commission answering roll were Lyn Hersey, Frank Benskin, Alice King, and Jeff Kelety; Bernie Arthur and Jim Irvin were excused. Members of the City Council answering roll were: Frieda Fenn, Michelle Sandoval, Catherine Robinson, and GeoffMasci. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE PUBLIC COMMENT -- There was none. NEW BUSINESS Draft Ordinance to consolidate and amend PTMC Chapters 17.30 (Waterfront Design Guidelines Overlay District) & 17.80 (National Register Historic District) Mr. McDonagh referenced a letter dated September 25,2003, from the Port of Port Townsend raising some concerns about the draft ordinance and asked if Planning Commissioners and City Councilors had received copies. He noted a Planning Commission workshop in late August and said they had tried to address the Commission's concerns in terms of formatting. He summarized what is new and what has changed with the consolidation ofPTMC Chapters 17.30 and 17.80 referring to the new GIS generated zoning map showing both the Historic District and Urban Waterfront Special District and a revised draft of the ordinance resulting from the Planning Commission workshop August 28,2003. He said there were no text changes to the ordinance, but it was an attempt to make it a little more readable, addressing the Commission's confusion as to what was new, what is similar and what is the same. The Issues and Options (White Paper) was agreed upon by both the Citizens Committee, a subcommittee of Council's CD/LU Committee, and by HPC although with some concerns to be clarified. Mr. McDonagh noted the Paper contains three issues and that the Committee considered other things besides demolition in respect to the Historic District regulations. Issue 3 is a laundry list of their other considerations, a through n. The committee selected a, c, and j -- a) make mandatory, rather than voluntary, compliance with design review in the uptown area; c) clarify the HPC design review role with the Urban Waterfront Plan; j) review, rewrite where necessary, and obtain Council approval ofHPC's adopted guidelines and put them in an Historic Preservation manual. HPC determined they also needed to review the recommendations, spent a considerable amount of review time on the draft ordinance, and expressed their wishes to continue to review, which they will do before it comes before Council for final adoption. The remainder of items a through n in Issue 3 is work that will have to be considered at a later date, perhaps Year 2004. Mr. McDonagh referred to his memo in Section 2 dated August 21,2003, from the August 28 Planning Commission meeting that summarizes the effects of the draft ordinance: Consolidating PTMC 17.30 and 17.80, making them more user-friendly, putting them into one section of the code; Establishing within the consolidated chapter a "Historic Preservation Design Guidelines Manual" with no proposed changes but the guidelines now used by HPC in their review. Mr. Benskin asked that they be supplied with copies; Mr. McDonagh will provide.. A significant change to adopt new preservation standards related to demolition; Also a change, make compliance with the Design Review process in the Uptown areas of the Historic District Planning Commission Minutes, October 9, 2003 / Page 1 · · · mandatory rather than voluntary; Red Boundarv on Map -- Entire Historic District encompassing residential zoned properties; excludes the high school; includes Chetzemoka Park, Point Hudson, down to North side of Water Street, all along the water. Blue Boundary. the smaller Urban Waterfront Special Overlay District, adopted with the adoption of Chapter J 7.30, and made compliance with design review mandatory within that area. (Previously design review was mandatory, but compliance was voluntary). Clarify HPC role in design review per the Urban Waterfront Plan, 17.30. Blue Boundary extends to the south and west all the way down to Boat Haven, including subdistrict boundaries (now HPC design review and compliance are voluntary). Staff, the Citizens Committee and HPC have decided to eliminate those guidelines and the boundary for Historic District review. It will still be in the Plan, and still be identified. The guidelines can be used if they undertake a SEP A review in those areas Mr. McDonagh pointed out that buildings in the Historic District are not frozen in time. Presently there is somewhat of a list of high category buildings that are designated as Pivotal, Primary and Secondary buildings; lesser categories include Recent Historic/Altered Buildings and Intrusions. Section 17.30.080 of this ordinance would eliminate that nomenclature, and subsection 4 establishes criteria that any regulated structure within one of the zones subject to review would be evaluated against. He also noted with the 50-year rule, there is no hard and fast federal, state or local regulation. A building over 50-years old becomes eligible to be on the National Register of Historic Places, but 50-years is a general time frame that communities and jurisdictions use to evaluate whether or not a building is significant historically. The Citizens Committee and HPC both looked at possibly adopting the Uniform Code for the Abatement of Dangerous Buildings (UADBC), related to the idea of demolition by neglect. Mr. McDonagh reported this is a section of the UBC the City has not adopted but utilizes by reference. He explained that if a person is aggrieved by an HPC recommendation and the BCD Director's decision, they always have the right of appeal to a Hearings Examiner and to the City Council. ClarifviDl! Questions of Staff: Q Mr. Benskin: The red mark on the map says Historic District, is this the boundary of the Historic District overlay? A Mr. McDonagh: The red boundary is the National Landmark Historic District established by the National Park Service when the City sought National Register listing in the mid 70's. Q Mr. Benskin: Are we proposing for this ordinance to be effective within that district or just within the two historic districts. . .? A Mr. McDonagh: It would be within the entire red boundary, Historic District, basically the boundary we have now. Mr. McDonagh confirmed Mr. Benskin was looking at the pink C-III zoning that is Uptown. Q Mr. Benskin: Asked if this would take in all the residential area and all the Historic District, the Port property. A Mr. McDonagh: It currently applies to those areas; the only difference between what we have now and what this ordinance would do currently going through the design review process, compliance is mandatory with the results ofthat design review. Outside the blue area, within the pink area, C-III zoning and anything else zoned public; purple block -- the community center; green block -- Chetzemoka Park; other associated purple public zoned properties, e.g. fire hall, Pink House, library. Currently any proposed changes to the exterior of those buildings would be required to go through design review; but compliance with the recommendations or decision of the BCD Director would be voluntary. The proposed changes to the ordinance would make mandatory review and mandatory compliance with the design review. There is no impact with this ordinance on any residential properties within the Historic District with the exception if a project involves a conditional use, e.g. B&B's. Q Mr. Berg: He and Ms. King noted the word "District" is referred to in a couple different ways in this ordinance -- Historic District; Historic Overlay District; Historic Preservation District. Do they all refer to the same thing, the red line? A Mr. McDonagh concurred and agreed they would make them all the same. Q Ms. Fenn: Questioned the intersecting area on the map where the blue boundary of the Urban Waterfront overlaps the Historic District. There is a section where it is excluded from the Historic District, but has in the past been included in the Urban Waterfront for mandatory review; she said it makes sense how that acts as a continuing entrance corridor to the historic downtown and makes sense that area would remain inside mandatory review. She said if they adopt the red boundary and eliminate the blue boundary as an area of review, they would lose mandatory Planning Commission Minutes, October 9,2003/ Page 2 · · · review for that section of town that doesn't make sense to her. A Mr. McDonagh: Replied that the Urban Special Waterfront District would remain; it has an adopted set of guidelines they would use, and this ordinance would still make mandatory review and mandatory compliance within that small square. Just like buildings shouldn't be frozen in time -- there has been some discussion about matching the Historic District boundary with the Urban Waterfront boundary. That would take an effort with the U.S. Department of Interior, the Park Service, to make that adjustment. Q Ms. Fenn: Asked if that would be put on the list to possibly do later? A Mr. McDonagh: Said it wasn't, but that is something they could add to do. There has been talk of having specialized areas of town looked at as well. There has also been a concept of doing a special individualized historic district boundary for Point Hudson. However, this ordinance was intended to basically make what we are doing, mandatory review and mandatory compliance, remain but make the areas where there is voluntary compliance now mandatory. There was discussion as to how to proceed. Mr. McDonagh pointed out that demolition, aside from mandatory review and mandatory compliance in the uptown area, is probably the largest substantive change. He suggested that at the conclusion of the discussion they take a couple of examples through the criteria he previously mentioned as to how the HPC might review a request to demolish a certain building. Mr. Masci felt that since some of members would be leaving at an early time, they should consider scheduling another one or two workshops. He had a lot of things he would like to see changed, and what he wants would require considerable staff time, along with others' suggestions. Ms. Sandoval asked for clarification of the process, that she assumed this is a workshop, that it would go to the Planning Commission and back to CD/LU and HPC with recommendation to full Council. Mr. Watts said at some point it would have to go back to the Planning Commission. The idea of the joint workshop was to see whether or not this helps further the process. At some point the Planning Commission determines they are ready to hold a public hearing. He indicated Staff is flexible, but the question is whether or not the Planning Commission recommendation automatically goes through the CL/LU Committee or goes directly to Council. Mr. Kelety spoke regarding going line-by-line; he explained that when the Planning Commission goes line- by-line that is a point where they are asking to make changes or recommendations. He thought if they were each going to do that independently, if they will now have the larger process done with clarifying their questions, it would be a duplication. It was determined this is a workshop, informational only, they could not take votes and HPC has requested to see the final draft. Chair Berg suggested they continue with general questions, proceed to examples, fmish with any other questions and close with a decision as to the next step. General Questions of Staff: Q Ms. Sandoval: Section 2, Summary of Existing Historic and Waterfront Design Review -- she interpreted the bullet items to be what the basis is for waterfront design guidelines, the basis for design review for the Historic District, and goes on to what has been rather blended together. Mr. McDonagh concurred. Ms. Sandoval questioned bullet #3, the division into eight subdistricts, if they coincide with the Shorelines designation. Mr. McDonagh replied, "No." Ms. Sandoval then asked, with the new and improved combined district, had the eight different subdistricts been eliminated. A Mr. McDonagh: Four of them have been eliminated. The four that would remain are in the blue boundary on the GIS map. There are another 4 Urban Waterfront subdistricts that are described in the existing Chapter 17.30 that lie way outside the Historic District, go all the way down to Boat Haven. That chapter reads that design review in those four subdistricts is voluntary at the option of the applicant, and voluntary compliance. He explained there are eight subdistricts within the Urban Waterfront District; the blue boundary on the map has four of those eight subdistricts. The eight are not going to change -- Staff has tossed around either reserving a place holder in 17.30 for those other 4 subdistricts or incorporating them into Shoreline. Q Ms. Sandoval: Given they have just done the new Shoreline designations, she thought they should match up somehow. A Mr. McDonagh: Even within those designations, you hope not to have Shoreline designations and then Urban Waterfront designations on top of those. Q Ms. Sandoval: Summary of Existing Historic and Waterfront Design Review. and Planned Provisions, 8/29/03, C. New Proposed "Combined" . . . .bullet #4, exempt from review. It talks about churches. A Mr. McDonagh: Clarified that churches are conditional uses; as he understands it, they are still subject to Planning Commission Minutes, October 9, 2003 / Page 3 · · · the design review process. What they are exempt from is demolition; there is some federal case law that relates. Mr. Watts: There are several state cases that say you can only go so far with your regulations before you start impinging on the freedom of religion. Ms. Sandoval noted there are several very beautiful old churches Mr. McDonagh: There are; they could be demolished if they were exempt from review, but someone wanting to construct a new church on a residential property would be subject to the design review process. Q Mr. Masci: Continuing on C, Summary of Existing Historic and Waterfront Design Review. and Planned Provisions, A and B contain no new provisions. A Mr. Watts: A and B are intended to be highlight key features of existing 17.30 and 17.80 sections of the code. Q Mr. Masci: In C, he could not fmd where the new proposed authority over uptown is listed. A Mr. Watts: This is a summary so there is some shorthand. The requirement that the uptown area go through mandatory review process and have the mandatory criteria apply is Bullet #3. In the draft ordinance that provision exists to make mandatory review as well as mandatory compliance apply in the uptown area, one of the significant changes in the ordinance along with the demolition provisions. There key issues are: 1) Raising the bar with respect to what it takes to demolish a building. Mr. McDonagh indicated an historic building, e.g. City Hall, the Baker Building, Waterman-Katz Building could be demolished at the owner's discretion so long as the new owner builds a new structure to the design review criteria. That issue was presented to the Citizen's Committee and to the HPC. Both groups unanimously said that doesn't meet the vision of the City, doesn't adequately protect the City's historic cultural resources and puts the City out of step with what other cities have done to protect historic resources, e.g., the other three Victorian seaports -- Fernando Beach FL, Galveston TX, Eureka CA. That is one of the key points of the change. 2) Making the compliance with the historical criteria applicable to what is referred to as the uptown area. 3) Clarifying an earlier question, that is only the commercial uptown area and residences that have conditional use permits. It does not change the existing exemption for residential. The only other change is the combination of the two existing separate sections of the code into one section, to make it more user friendly. In his view, everything else is secondary tweaking and attempt at clarification to the existing code. Q Mr. Masci: He was hearing a group of people have an opinion that the bar needs to be raised. He said it has not been presented with compelling evidence that the bar needs to be raised, and asked who authorized that the bar be raised. A Mr. Watts: The City Council tasked the CDILU to review the issue of whether or not the current regulations were adequate or appropriate, of whether or not they needed change. One of the issues that was part of that assignment was the demolition issue, and the CDILU Committee tasked the Citizens' Committee who in turn made their recommendation back to the CDILU Committee. The CDILU Committee, with the permission of the City Council, and, at the request ofHPC, referred the matter to HPC. They also recommended that the existing regulations should be modified. Q Mr. Benskin: Where did the mandatory versus voluntary change for the uptown come from? He is hearing that it was recommended by the task force, but has not heard there was any comment from the uptown business or tenants concerning possible change. He said this is a large change for a whole district of people, and he did not find any comment from anyone involved. He asked if it had been done. Ms. Sandoval: That is what the public hearing is for, and we have not had those yet. Mr. Benskin: We have done a lot of research on this, and have come up with a lot of conclusions making changes to the law without public comment. It seems a lot of decisions have been made. Ms. Sandoval: They are all open meetings. She said what they want is to have more with the all-out- request for a public hearing. Q Ms. Robinson: Regarding the residential area and conditional use bed and breakfasts, are there other conditional uses in that district in residential zoning that would be affected by this? A Mr. McDonagh: The three big ones he could think of were B&B's, churches and schools. Q Ms. Hersey: Asked about cottage industry. Don't some have a business permit and conditional use? A Mr. McDonagh: Replied that is a home occupation. They don't have a defmition; there has been talk about expanding and revising the home occupation chapter to maybe differentiate between small homes businesses and cottage industries. Q Mr. Berg: Home occupations do not require conditional use? A Mr. McDonagh: Replied they do not. There was a short discussion regarding particular businesses. Planning Commission Minutes, October 9,20031 Page 4 · · · Q Ms. Sandoval: Under C, the same area, the list of buildings, pivotal, primary and secondary is removed. She believed she read in terms of follow up for that to be redone, designation of the types of buildings; it basically says the nomenclature is old, "update downtown historic inventory." She asked Mr. McDonagh that since they were advised that was not the way to go, is this removal essentially following that directive and instead more of a blanket rather than pinpointing specific buildings? A Mr. McDonagh: Concurred saying there is inventory going on that the Historic Society is doing. They are cataloging buildings, identifying what is significant about them. That is a separate process through the Historic Society that will be useful when doing design review, but is not something in the ordinances they have examined and identified significant, historic, subject to review and others are not. You don't really deal with the issue of time; that was 30 years ago and a lot of buildings were labeled under that nomenclature. Now a number of those buildings are considered rather important to the Historic District. Chair Berg asked if there were other general questions. It was determined that since there were several and possibly the need for another workshop, Staff should present some of their site specific examples to help understand how the ordinance might work. Staff Examples: (HPC minutes, Section 4, Page 8; Draft Ordinance criteria, Section 1, Page 12) Ms. Hersey asked if they could go over one of the Point Hudson buildings that are being considered for demolition, since they received the letter from the Port giving their concerns. Mr. McDonagh suggested considering buildings at a couple of different levels, maybe come back and do something at a middle level, maybe something at Point Hudson. He reemphasized that going through these examples would not obligate the HPC, or the business owners. It is going to have to depend on the review process at the time, criteria a-h. Burrito Depot: Owner wanting to demolish, to replace it with something else. Steps under this ordinance: Owner schedule ª meeting with HPC indicating why they want to demolish. Replacement design not yet required. Mr. McDonagh concurred with Mr. Berg that under current city law, before you get permission to demolish something, you have to have plans to replace it with something different. Mr. Watts clarified that under current rules, unless the HPC recommends and the BCD Director grants a waiver to the requirement to show what they are going to build, the BCD Director could approve so long as the building proposed to be demolished is not historically significant. The only thing that really changes under the new ordinance is that the existing regulations really don't give any direction or criteria to the City, HPC or BCD Director as to how to determine what is an historically significant building, and under the proposed new regulations there is now criteria. If the owner comes in and it is determined that the building is not historically significant, you basically proceed as you do now with demolition and replacement with a building that meets design review. Only if the building meets these criteria listed on Page 12 of the proposed ordinance, non-existent under the current ordinance, you are then an "historically significant building." Mr. Masci asked regarding buildings, e.g. the Thai Restaurant or the Antique Mall that would qualify under the 50-year building but are essentially ugly buildings; you could have a lawyers fight over criteria a - h because it is a matter of opinion. What about Mind Over Matter, a building architecturally changed through about 19 different incarnations -- a gas station in 1923. Unless we really do have criteria they end up in litigation. Mr. Watts felt the point was good and was one that was dealt with at all of the previous levels before this level. The function of the HPC is to make a collective determination on whether or not the criteria have been met, make a recommendation and is then up to the BCD Director to either affirm or overrule that recommendation. At that point there could be either agreement or disagreement with the application's position. If disagreement, there is the opportunity to appeal the City's position to the Hearings Examiner, who then makes the Hearings Examiner's professional considered exercise of judgment as to whether or not the City or the applicant got it right, with further appeal to the Council, and to the court. The opposite approach, considered and rejected by the other levels, is to have the list of 50 buildings that will go through heightened review if someone seeks to demolish thern. There is a certain bright line aspect to having that list, but there are also drawbacks; one, creating the list; second, adjusting the list over time -- a continual process to determine whether or not a building stays on the list and whether other buildings are either dropped from or added to the list. It becomes a time consuming, difficult process to have a current list. The the criteria approach was taken by every other jurisdiction they examined (see samples of ordinances from other seaports in LaConnor). It is not a bright line; it is like land use in general. Reasonable people can differ and ultimately somebody has to make a decision. Also, there is no bright line with respect to the age of building; it Planning Commission Minutes, October 9, 2003 / Page 5 · · · doesn't automatically put you on the list as to being an historically significant building. The approach now is that if a 51-year-old building meets 3 of the 8 criteria, the building would go through heightened review. Evaluate ~ of the building, older than 50 years? Burrito Depot, assumed to be younger than 50 years; the first criteria -- the owner wishes to demolish, does not know what he wishes to replace it with but will show it before he actually demolishes the building; he wants to know before he goes to that trouble and expense, would he be allowed, would this meet these criteria? HPC's cursory review -- Criteria #1 is Burrito Depot associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of national, state or local history -- determined it wasn't. Similarly with Criteria #2 - #5; if it is less than 50 years and didn't meet five of the first eight criteria, it's off the list, not deemed a significant historic structure and wouldn't have to go through the heightened review of providing structural and economic analysis. Then, it would come to the question, if you want to demolish the building, what is going to replace it? If it is important enough as a structure to remain, what will take its place. If that building did not meet the design guidelines for compatibility for the rest of the Historic District, the HPC could still recommend denial or continue to work with the applicant, taking maybe 4 - 8 meetings with HPC to work through massing, size and scale of the building; its openings, materials, hardware; landscaping and the exterior of the building. Mr. Masci raised the issue of significance. Mr. Watts replied that to build in the Historic District, you have to build according to the design criteria. There is mandatory design review; you cannot erect something that doesn't work according to the criteria. The criteria to be applied to a new building are not proposed for change. He answered Mr. Masci that there is an established standard that is not being threatened in any way by this. Homer Smith Buildinl! Mr. McDonagh said that in HPC discussions it was not deemed to meet Criteria #1. Some felt it embodied a distinct architectural characteristic of a type, period, or style. HPC said it did meet Criteria #4; exemplifies or reflects special elements of the city's cultural, political, economic, engineering and architectural history. Penny Westerfield, minute taker, noted she had grown up in Port Townsend and that Homer Smith had been a long time resident and important figure in Port Townsend. Criteria #6, there aren't that many 70's buildings here in town Ms. Hersey was concerned the criteria are so subjective and dependent on who is sitting on committee making recommendation whether or not to keep a building. Ms. Sandoval said there needed to be criteria for people who sat on the committee; that criteria was changed some time ago to loosen it. She thought they needed to hear from the chair or representative from both the Citizens Committee and HPC at their public hearings. She said this has been a very long 2-year process and they need to hear from them. Mr. Benskin asked regarding process, that some members had to leave. Chair Berg proposed having another joint workshop to cover questions page-by-page. There was discussion regarding the method to conclude discussion, that there seemed to be a considerable amount of unanswered questions and that they were not ready for a public hearing. Options included having another joint informational workshop, proceed to public hearing, a Planning Commission only workshop, or a Planning Commission meeting scheduled where votes could be taken. MOTION SECOND VOTE Mr. Kelety Have a Planning Commission meeting without Council to discuss the ordinance Ms. Hersey Passed, Unanimously by Planning Commission members,S in favor by voice vote Mr. McDonagh will attempt to schedule a Planning Commission meeting for November 6,2003 requesting the chair or representative from each the citizen's committee and HPC to attend. UPCOMING MEETING A meeting date for the Planning Commission to continue this discussion, tentatively set for November 6,2003. ADJOURNMENT A motion to adjourn the meeting was made by Mr. Benskin and seconded by Mr. Kelety. All were in favor. The meeting adjourned at 7:45 p.rn. Planning Commission Minutes, October 9,20031 Page 6 . . . tM Richard Berg, Vice Chair ~~ Planning Commission Minutes, October 9, 2003 / Page 7