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2008 11 20 HPC MinutesMINUTES HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MEETING A Regular meeting held in the Study Session Room at the La Quinta City Hall 78-495 Calle Tampico, La Quinta, CA November 20, 2008 This meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission was called to order by Chairwoman Puente at 3:02 p.m. who asked for the roll call. I. CALL TO ORDER A. Roll Call. Present: Commissioners Redmon, Sharp, Wilbur, Wright, and Chairwoman Puente Absent: None Staff Present: Planning Director Les Johnson, Principal Planner Stan Sawa, and Secretary Monika Radeva. II. PUBLIC COMMENT: None III. CONFIRMATION OF THE AGENDA: Confirmed IV. CONSENT CALENDAR: A. It was moved and seconded by Commissioners Wright/Redmon to approve the minutes of August 21, 2008, as submitted. Unanimously approved. V. BUSINESS ITEMS: None VI. CORRESPONDENCE AND WRITTEN MATERIAL: None VII. COMMISSIONER ITEMS: A. Reminder of Joint Meeting with the City Council. Planning Director Les Johnson said the Joint Meeting with the City Council would be held in the Study Sessions room and would begin at P:Uteports - HPC\200802-18-OSU-IPC_Draft_Min_l 1-20-OS.doc Historic Preservation Commission November 20, 2008 6:30 p.m. He thanked the Commission Members for their comments on the topics to be included on the joint meeting agenda. He said staff would include two out of the five items that were suggested due to time constraints. Planning Director Johnson stated staff was working on the completion of the report for the meeting. After completion the report would be forwarded to the City Manager's office for approval. He informed the Commission that the report would be delivered to the Commissioners by 5:00 p.m. the following day, November 21, 2008. Planning Director Johnson said the first item included on the report was the Points Of Interest brochure. The second item was the upcoming 2009 Historic Preservation Conference to be held in Palm Springs. He said the joint meeting would be a good opportunity for the Commission to discuss with Council what historically significant locations should be highlighted during the upcoming Conference. Planning Director Johnson stated staff could work with the Commission in contacting whoever was in charge of organizing the Conference to make him/her aware of the sites within the community; i.e. the Museum or the La Quinta Resort, to see if there would be any interest in incorporating any of those sites as tour sites during the Conference. Commissioner Wright said that Commissioner Redmon and he had already approached Cindy Heitzman, Executive Director of the California Preservation Foundation, during their attendance of the last Conference and found there was no interest in doing anything like that. He stated that Ms. Heitzman made it clear that the arrangements were set in stone and the Conference would not include sites outside of Palm Springs. Commissioner Wright said that it would be a good idea to discuss this with the Council and possibly they could send afollow-up letter to Ms. Heitzman. Commissioner Redmon said she had also tried to follow up with the California Preservation Foundation, but her a-mails were never answered. Commissioner Wright stated that while the response was that everything had already been set, it would be a nice gesture to have something in writing from the Council. They could extend an invitation to visit the City, conduct a tour or to contact the La Quinta P:\Reports - HPC\2008\12-18-08\HPC_Draft_Min_11-20-OS.doc 2 Historic Preservation Commission November 20, 2008 Historic Preservation Commission, even if the OHP decided not to take advantage of the offer. Planning Director Johnson explained that staff had put together very brief paragraphs on each of the items on the agenda. Then he gave an explanation on how the joint meeting would be conducted. Planning Director Johnson stated the other items suggested were also listed on the agenda, however, only in the format of headings. Those items were: 1) the Historic Context Statement, 2) Demolition Permit Requirements, and 3) a Museum update and the status of the Museum Manager Assistant with the curation efforts. He said if the Commission did not want to concentrate on the Historic Preservation Conference, any of the other items could be substituted. Commissioner Wright replied that the Conference should remain as a main item on the agenda because City Council needed to be made aware of the fact that the next Conference was going to be held in Palm Springs. He said that was the main reason why Commissioner Redmon and he had made it a point to talk to Cindy Heitzman and had offered her the opportunity to visit the City of La Quinta shortly after the Conference since she said she had never been to La Quinta. Commissioner Wright asked staff if in light of the fact that the litigations involving the Morgan House were almost over, it was safe to bring up the Morgan House and discuss it. Planning Director Johnson replied they could discuss it in very general context. He added that staff was in communication with the new owners who were supportive of the preservation and re-use of the Morgan House. He said that staff had recently signed an environmental contract with Impact Sciences who was hired as asub-consultant for the resort. They also hired Architectural Resources Group was a specialist in adobe structures to do an assessment of the entire La Quinta Resort community. Commissioner Sharp asked if the new owners were the Hilton Hotel. Planning Director Johnson replied the Hilton Group was the one in charge of operations and Pyramid was the owner of the hotel. He mentioned that recently there was re-roofing completed on some of the older bungalows and the work was exceptional in terms of P:\Reports - HPC\2008\12-18-08\HPC_Draft_Min_11-20-08.doc 3 Historic Preservation Commission November 20, 2008 matching not only the materials, but also the original method used for laying and mudding the tiles. Commissioner Wright said he was asking because a year to two years ago the City Attorney had given specific instructions not to mention the Morgan House. Planning Director Johnson replied that the litigation had not yet been resolved. Planning Director Johnson asked the Commission to pick one of the other three items to replace the Conference as a main item on the agenda and move the Conference to alternate items. He explained that the way the joint meeting was conducted last time was that the Mayor addressed the Planning Commission Chairman, Ed Alderson, and asked him what items the Commission would like to discuss. Planning Director Johnson said that staff was anticipating the format of the meeting to remain the same. He wanted to make sure that Chairwoman Puente felt comfortable with presenting the items to the Council Members and informed her that Planning Manager David Sawyer, Principal Planner Stan Sawa, and he would all attend the meeting in case she would prefer to have staff present the items or needed staff's support. Planning Director Johnson said he would pick one of the three items to replace the Conference as a main topic of discussion and swap them on the agenda. He reminded the Commission again that the joint meeting was going to be held on November 25, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. in the Study Session room and that the packet would be delivered to the Commissioners by Friday, November 21, 2008. VIII. PLANNING STAFF ITEMS: A. Copy of 2007-2008 CLG Annual Report Commissioner Redmon asked for clarification on several typographical errors on the report. She inquired as to why the Ethics Brown Act Seminar attended by Chairwoman Puente, and herself, the month before had not been included under section "E. Training Received." She said she noticed the timeframe the report encompassed was from October 1, 2007, through September 30, 2007, and in this case the training would be outside the scope of the report, but she wanted to confirm that. P:\Reports - HPC\2008\12-18-08\HPC_Draft_Min_11-20-08.doc 4 Historic Preservation Commission November 20, 2008 Planning Director Johnson replied she was correct and confirmed the training would be included in the 2008-2009 CLG Annual Report. Commissioner Wright said he also completed his Ethics Brown Act Training on November 19, 2008. Commissioner Wilbur noted that a letter handwritten by him was misplaced in the packet and was included with the credentials of Commissioner Redmon instead of his. He said he did not want that letter included in the report asked staff to remove it. Commissioner Wright said the letter was not included with Commissioner Redmon's credentials, but rather with Commissioner Sharp's. Commissioner Wilbur asked staff if he could submit a revised resume to be included in the report. Principal Planner Stan Sawa replied he could. Commissioner Wilbur said he would submit his resume to staff by Monday, November 24, 2008. Chairwoman Puente asked staff to provide her with a copy of the final draft of the 2007-2008 CLG Annual Report. Staff replied they would. Commissioners Wilbur, Redmon, Sharp, and Wright stated they did not want the final copy of the report. Commissioner Wright referenced the last sentence under I, C, Design Review Responsibilities, on page #1 of the report. He asked staff what was the established process for defining what structures were historically significant and who had the burden of determining that. Planning Director Johnson replied it had to pass the Planning Department staff. He explained that since the Historic Records Survey was updated in 2006, the Planning Department gave a copy of the records to the Building and Safety Department. He added his understanding was that at that time, the Building and Safety Department committed to updating their system and flagged the properties identified in the Survey so that when someone were to come to the City not only with a request for demolition, but also with a request for a major addition or alteration to a historically significant structure, the staff member working on the plan check would see the flag and would notify the Planning Department staff. Usually, this type of requests would be reviewed by either, Principal Planner Sawa, P:\Reports - HPC\2008\12-18-08\HPC_Draft_Min_11-20-08.doc 5 Historic Preservation Commission November 20, 2008 Planning Manager Sawyer, or Planning Director Johnson. Once notified, the Planning staff would go over the plans and what was being proposed with Building and Safety Department's staff and determine if it should be handled administratively or through other avenues. Commissioner Wright said he was concerned because the majority of the historically significant structures that had been lost were due to the fact that they were never identified in the Statement and the City and staff were never even aware they existed until it was too late. Thus, if staff was only relying on the Statement, structures not identified, but yet historically significant, would be overlooked. He stated that as long as the determination of the historic significance of a structure was in the hands of the Planning staff, he knew it would be handled correctly because staff would pay attention to the date it was built and even if the structure was not identified in the Statement, the time frame during which it was built and its age would raise red flags. Planning Director Johnson explained the Survey provided to the Building and Safety Department to red flag the identified historically significant properties was completed by CRM TECH in 2006. He said the Survey was very comprehensive and it included structures that qualified only on the basis of their building date. Planning Director Johnson stated the position of the Planning Department was to have the Building and Safety Department red flag all properties that were identified in the Survey. Commissioner Wright asked staff if the age of an old structure would raise a red flag even if it was not included in the Statement. He said there were a couple of haciendas that were lost because they were not identified. He noted as the City continued to annex property and add additional areas in the Sphere of Influence, especially out in the Thermal area, there might be structures that would not be listed in the Statement and staff would have to look further into it. Planning Director Johnson replied if and when the City of La Quinta annexed property that would be a matter that staff would have to file. A lot would depend on the size of the property being annexed and how much staff was or was not, aware of its history. If it was a matter of a few hundred acres, and it was essentially vacant land, it would not require another survey. But if it included thousands of P:\Reports - HPC\2008\12-18-08\HPC_Draft_Min_11-20-O8.doc 6 Historic Preservation Commission November 20, 2008 acres and staff was not fully aware of its history, the property would either have to be flagged for an update or the City would have to try to obtain a Survey update within a reasonable period of time. Planning Director Johnson said the last Survey was extremely comprehensive and it took CRM TECH a tremendous amount of time to complete. He said there should not be any more properties in the community that had not yet been inventoried. Planning Director Johnson said if and when the City does annex property it would be on an annexation-by-annexation basis for assessment and determination as to how much additional information was needed. He said currently there were two potential annexation areas that were at various stages of being processed and one of them did not have anything on it. Commissioner Redmon wanted to clarify that when referring to the identification of these areas staff was referring to the Historic Records Survey or were they referring to the Historic Context Statement. Commissioner Wright replied he was referring to the Survey. Planning Director Johnson said staff was referring to the Survey as well, and it was the Historic Records Survey that was provided to the Building and Safety Department to red flag the identified properties. Commissioner Wilbur pointed out to staff one more typographical error on the Certified Local Government Program - 2007-2008 Annual Report. Staff noted the correction. Commissioner Wright asked staff if the Commission needed to make a motion to approve the report. Planning Director Johnson replied no motion was required for the approval of the report, it was only provided for the Commission to review and make comments to staff. He thanked the Commission for the feedback provided. P:\Reports - HPC\2008\12-18-08\HPC_Draft_Min_11-20-08.doc ~ Historic Preservation Commission November 20, 2008 X. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, it was moved and seconded by Commissioners Wright/Wilbur to adjourn this Meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission to the next Regular Meeting to be held on December 18, 2008. This meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission was adjourned at 3:27 p.m. Unanimously approved. Submitt d by: Mon a Radeva Secretary P:\Reports - HPC\2008\12-18-08\HPC_Draft_Min_t t-20-08.doc $