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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHCAC.2023.0614.minutesHISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023 A Regular Meeting of the Historic and Cultural Advisory Commission was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 1:00 p.m. Members Present: Chairman David Corlett; Commissioner Bill Meade; Commissioner Jackie Miles; Commissioner Dianne Price, Commissioner Debbie Skehen Absent: Vice Chair Susan Obst-Dworkis; Commissioner Sandra Ursini (Resigned) Staff Present: Recreation Manager Linda Ayres; Executive Assistant Paula Woodward; Development Services Director John Wesley Audience: None https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES Post -Production File TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS JUNE 14, 2023 HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING Transcription Provided By: https://Otter.ai ********* Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ********* 2 https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES CORLETT: Afternoon everyone, I'd like to CaII the Meeting of the Historic and Cultural Advisory Commission Meeting for June 14th to order at 4 pm. May I have a Roll Call, please? WOODWARD: Chair Corlett? CORLETT: Present. WOODWARD: Vice Chair Obst-Dworkis is not here. Commissioner Meade? MEADE: Present. WOODWARD: Commissioner Jackie Miles? MILES: Here. WOODWARD: Commissioner Skehen? SKEHEN: Here. WOODWARD: Commissioner Price? PRICE: Here. CORLETT: Thank you. Now, the next item on the agenda is Reports by Commissioners if we had any outstanding project -related work, which I don't believe we do right now or announcement type of things that are not for discussion. MEADE: Debbie and I met, we had our little meeting and I just want to report quickly. I think I sent it to Linda on the historic sites' Points of Interest. AYRES: Points of Interest are on the agenda. MEADE: Oh, is it never mind. I'm sorry. CORLETT: That's fine. We can talk about it, then. Since it's a later agenda item. Reports are getting announced without calling them announcements. Okay, thank you. So, the next item up is Call to the Public. Do we have any requests to speak? WOODWARD: No Chairman. CORLETT: All right, thank you very much. So excellent. Now we get to the fun part today, we do have a Presentation by Mr. John Wesley, Development Services Director for Fountain Hills, and we would like to turn our attention to you. AYRES: So, before John starts, I want to just say thank you so much, John. He's taking time out of his extremely busy schedule and Paula who works alongside John to help us in this meeting today. We really appreciate it. And I'm going to let John when he gets started, I hope you include your background. We have an amazing presentation resource. WESLEY: Chair, commissioners, thank you for letting me be here today. I've never been described as the fun part of a meeting. So hopefully, I live up to that. So, as you may be aware, I'm currently the town's Development Services Director. I've been here with the town for a little over four years now. Prior to that, I was the planning director in the City of Mesa for 15 years. In 2008, there was a reorganization that took place in the City of Mesa organization, and the Historic Preservation Officer at that time, who chose to leave the City of Mesa was working under the Community Services Department with that vacancy, there was discussion about if that position really fit in Community Services or was it better in Development Services and being part of Planning Division was made it better to make it a part of the Planning Division. So, I inherited the Historic Preservation Office and hired a new Historic Preservation Officer who stayed with us for about six months, the economy was crashing, she couldn't sell her home in Florida, and her husband couldn't find a job in Arizona. So, she went back to Florida. And because the economy was crashing, and we were laying off lots of people, we couldn't hire. - 3 https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES another Historic Preservation Officer. So, I spent the next seven or eight years as the acting Historic Preservation Officer. And then was able to eventually take another one of my planners and make them Historic Preservation Officer for the last couple of years I was there. So, I don't have any formal training as a Historic Preservation Officer. But I have several years of on-the-job experience working with that. And then we had the Historic Preservation Commission that I worked with those years. And so that's what will be my background that I use to give you some thoughts that I have and some understanding about how Historic Preservation works. And then some ideas that you may or may not want to follow up on for here in Fountain Hills. I may be rambling a little bit, hopefully, I get to the things that you really want to talk about. And if I don't, hopefully, we'll get to those questions that you have afterward. And feel free to interrupt anytime. I don't have a formal presentation, just a few notes here, to kind of guide me, and how we might talk about this. But understand, this is a new commission for the town, and you're still kind of looking at your opportunities and ways that you might fulfill your mission for the town. And so, we're going to talk about some of the things that we did as Historic Preservation Office and Historic Preservation Commission in Mesa. And hopefully, I keep my terminology correct and don't call it the town of Mesa in the city of Fountain Hills, or whatever, I might transpose but just go with me if I do any of that. There are multiple levels that can happen regarding historic preservation history, culture, and so forth, in a community, kind of the base level would be something maybe it sounds like maybe talking about a little bit later your agenda is just looking around the town and trying to get a better handle on what has been your history here? And what are the important aspects of that in terms of who did what, where, where development started, what were the architectural styles that went with that what were the patterns of development that occurred, just having that firm understanding of the history and somehow putting that together, publicizing it, making it available to the citizenry so they just have that understanding of the history of the town. From there, you can move to things that are a little bit more formal. In Mesa, we had some areas of the city that were older and had some distinct history behind them. But they no longer really contained any significant enough architectural history or building things that changed too much. So, they couldn't be formal historic districts. And so, we created a different category, just locally, that we called Preservation Neighborhoods. And so, it just gave us a way to provide some recognition to a neighborhood, they got some special street signage that said they were a heritage neighborhood, and we've kind of documented some of their backgrounds so, they have that available. Again, just to give them some recognition, but carried with it no formal rules, regulations, no benefits beyond just some recognition. The next level up from that is creating official local historic districts. And with that, you would go through a more rigorous academic type of review of a neighborhood or an area or buildings, to document the history of those. And with that, you could be doing things like local plaques or other kinds of designations. So, it's good, it's more formal and recognizable as far as being the historic property. Corollary to that you can actually create Historic Preservation districts in the zoning ordinance, and 4 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES historic preservation landmarks and that carries with it then a zoning overlay that then puts some standards on those neighborhoods or those buildings, to where if anybody wants to make any modifications to those, they have to come through what's called a Certificate of Appropriateness, I want to make this change gets reviewed against the historic character and are you doing something that maintains that historic character or not, if it's not, then you can't do it. And so, it gives a little bit more punch behind it. So, you make sure whatever the building is, or the neighborhood is maintains that character into the future. And also limits the ability to demolish anything that doesn't prohibit it, ultimately. But typically, they will put a stay, if you want to demolish a building, you have to try to save it, or it can it be moved, and you do other things and take six months to really think about it before you can do that. So hopefully it preserved it. The next piece up from there it would be to go to State Historic Preservation and go through their procedures to get something put on the State Historic Register. And the next level up from that would be the national register. And to get to the national half go through the state. And so that again, puts to a very rigorous study with a lot of criteria that have to be met to document the historic building or the historic neighborhood to get it approved through that level, there's nothing about being on the state or national register that really protects property, you get the designation, you can decide to tear it down the next day or go change all the features that made it historic property owners completely free to do that. If you do that, though, then would likely come off the register, or no longer be contributing if it was a contributing member of a neighborhood. But the benefit that goes with having something on the state or national register is that you can get a property tax rebate from the state for any county tax, we're going to have local ones, it'd be the county taxes. So that's the benefit from that, that a resident could have the theory is, by getting those savings on your taxes, you can use that money to help maintain the property consistent with the character. But again, with those, you need to have that initial review to document the history. And then you also need to have some design guidelines that go with that neighborhood that says, here are the characteristics. So that if there are any changes, you have something to judge it against. So again, it's going to require those hiring consultants to do the type of work that would be needed to get you to that type of level. So that's all the kind of formal things that typically go on with historic designations. Before I go into some other things about what we would do as a commission, any questions about any of that? And how it might apply or what you might be thinking here? MEADE: John this could have saved a lot of time talking to you first. Can you comment on one of the things I found in just doing the research on preservation versus landmark status, like a historic landmark versus preservation? There just seem to be things that got a lot less complicated with historic landmark designations, versus preservation, to some of the things you alluded to in terms of structure, legal remodeling, and all that were historical. This was researching, you know, different towns and different cities across them. But those landmarks were just kind of, you know, you could put a sign on the corner or a plaque on the door or whatever. And there needed to be some criteria or whatever. But is that what you've found in your experience too or not? WESLEY: Chair, Commissioner, similar, maybe a little bit different. And again, my own experiences, Mesa, and so how other communities might have done things that sound similar but could be a little bit different, you know, might correlate might not, but for Mesa, for my experience, sounds like the 5 https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES the difference there was, if it's a landmark that used the individual building, and if you're talking about state or national designation, yes, that's all you really get from that is a plaque that you put on the wall. And you're listed on the register. So, if you go to that you can see it and learn about it and see some of the history but it doesn't protect anything. MEADE: That was one of the things that doesn't protect anything, but at the same time, from legal compliance, all those other things it was like seemed to be simple. A simple way to go. If you want it to have. WESLEY: Still takes fairly rigorous documentation to get in locally, we can decide whatever level of criteria you want. But to get on the state or the National Register requires fairly significant documentation. I MEADE: I meant just at a municipal level. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. WESLEY: And then as far as preservation and the difference there. To me, the difference is a landmark versus a district landmark being an individual district being a group, a neighborhood, or a street. That would become a designation. PRICE: Thank you. I have two questions for you. Number one, I heard you say neighborhood a lot. And this is how green I am. What constitutes a neighborhood? WESLEY: It can be any number of things. Typically, it's going to be a subdivision would constitute that neighborhood, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. As I recall, in Mesa, we set the minimum number of seven lots, as being required to be a district or neighborhood for historic preservation purposes. PRICE: So those are those identified by this town? WESLEY: Yes. PRICE: Okay. Do you already have neighborhoods in Fountain Hills designated? WESLEY: Not in that term? Plats, really, it's what we have here by the Plat numbers. PRICE: Question number two, when you had this work going on in Mesa where you were identifying historic areas landmarks. Did you also accompany that with some kind of attracting business and tourism? WESLEY: So, Chair, Commissioner Price. Think about the best way to answer that. So um, I can't think of the right term I want to use. But tourism related to historic preservation is something that communities will do that has active historic preservation programs. And there was some work in that area. So, in addition to the Historic Preservation Commission, that the city has, there's also a Mesa Historic Preservation Foundation, a private group, that voted for historic preservation, and they did more of that type of work in Mesa, as far as promoting the historic districts and trying to develop any of the tourism -type aspects. PRICE: I have to say that I'm very jealous of Mesa. All the work they're doing and all the attractions and entertainment in the restaurants and the downtown. I watch it closely. It just amazes me. WESLEY: Lots happened over the last few years. Yeah. Thank you. CORLETT: You open Pandora's box when he said questions. So, if you're coming to any of this, please just ignore my question. But two things come up with this so far, and one where you're talking about like, overlaying a designation over a neighborhood, and it's a zoning thing. So how did that work and your work correspond with like a P&Z Commission within Mesa, because it seems like it's competing and overlapping responsibilities? https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES WESLEY: So, the creation of a district first starts through the Historic Preservation Commission, and the consultant that hired that is hired to establish the district in terms of its documentation. And usually, it follows the path of going then through the state to the national approval process first although it can happen the other way around. Then someplace along that line, if there's a desire to also have the zoning overlay, then that is an application that does go through P&Z and the Council for approval because it is a zoning matter. Then once the zone is in place, any work that happens within that, again, for the review of any new building projects, remodels, those kinds of things come through the planning staff, or this Historic Preservation Officer to then review and approve or not, and potentially. with some input from the Commission, when there might be questions, or I can refer out appeals, I think we'd have appeals of decisions to the Commission. If somebody didn't agree with the Historic Preservation Officer, and how they applied the standards. CORLETT: So, it sounds like you're creating the concept and then even the neighborhoods, it's an image thing to start with recognition in teeth in it is a P&Z type of thing. So related to that is just the nature of your office and commission compared to what we have, because we're advisory. And so our ability to do things is a lot more limited. And maybe you can make some recommendations at the end for how we could work within a system where it's like, "Hey, this is a neat idea". We have to pass it through different places, we have to wait for, you know, any sort of approval. So, I'd love to hear your take on that. And maybe that can wait till you finished. WESLEY: It might come up more as we talked about the commission itself and some of its actions. Anything else? Questions? Okay. Very good. So, as I said, in addition to that staff work, we did provide staff support to the Historic Preservation Commission. And there were a number of things that they were involved in. First of all, was creating some studies that sound kind of like that something y'all are already getting started with. Creating a Historic Preservation Plan was one of the first things was okay, what's our plan for promoting and handling the process of historic preservation? Historic Preservation Plan was in place, and then the studies of the different neighborhoods and different topics. One of the big things that came up over time in Mesa was historic signage. You had the historic Main Street highway, that back in the 40s and 50s or 30s, whenever it got started, had all those motels along there with all the big neon signs, and you know, preserving things like that was one of the things they were really focused on was types of objects in addition to buildings and neighborhoods. So, looking around trying to understand where the next important historic preservation thing was? Every, you know, as you move along in time, more things become 50 years old. And so, initially, all the work was done in Pre - World War II neighborhoods. But then we got to the point where it's important to start looking at the Post World War II neighborhoods and trying to figure out a way to approach those and what should be the priorities. So, the commission was involved in doing that and making those kinds of recommendations on how to move those forward. And then they also did a lot of things to promote understanding of historic preservation. And you know, why it was important to the community. And that really happened on a couple of fronts. One was to have a historic writing contest and now I see its historic writing slash video contest. So that was with the schools, and it seemed like when I was doing it, we were focused on like third, fourth, fifth grade, but now it looks like they're doing junior high age. Annually, they pick a topic, and get it out to the schools and try to work to include homeschoolers and 7 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES charter schools and everybody, but they have a contest where they give them a topic, and they write then or now can produce some drawings or other visual images to respond to that. So, it gets the students involved in, okay, what was the history of our community, and having to redo a little research and write it up, and then have some small awards for them, you know, $10, $15, $20 kind of awards and recognition at a town council meeting, type of thing. And then also had Historic Preservation Awards for anybody who was involved somehow in historic preservation in the community. So, every year, they would take nominations for historic preservation. And you get applications for people who have somehow been involved and review those, and again, select a winner or two different categories and present those at a city council meeting. And so again, getting that recognition in front of people and front of the council and in the newspaper and so forth, promoting historic preservation. Beyond that, then they would put together an annual report of historic preservation activities in the community that can be published, and keeping the website up to date with different districts and policies and requirements is important. Because, again, of the districts, people who lived in a district need to know okay, well, I want to make a change, where do I find the right kind of window or you know, when I look for, for this or that, and so having that type of information, resource information available is important that type of thing to keep people educated on. And then they would hold an annual retreat where they could kind of delve into some of those things in a bit more detail and plan for coming near to where the activities are. So those are some of the main things that they did, to try to promote Historic Preservation to the community. They too, were advisory to the council there. The P&Z Commission here is advisory also to the council, there's only one or two things actually can take action on. And so, they'd be part of that process. Then as ideas get generated, we think we should do this a town would benefit from that. Then it's a matter of working with the staff and getting those things in front of counsel. Sounds like you have something coming up already to counsel and give them the recommendation and see if they agree and allocate the time and or funding to make it happen. MEADE: John what did you just use as an acronym? Is there existing anything outside of us today in Fountain Hills? WESLEY: Dealing with historic preservation? MEADE: Yes. WESLEY: Other than the River of Time Museum? MEADE: Oh, the river? Okay, gotcha. WESLEY: I'm not aware of anything. Okay. But again, I'm still somewhat new here. I'm focused on my lane. So, there could be. AYRES: I thought you guys would light up at the writing contest because I'd mentioned to John that I think the thought of trying to get some curriculum into the school might be more challenging, but having the kids do a writing contest sound like something that aligns with some of the passionate things about getting awareness out and that they might be interested. I didn't realize that they do a video too. I'm sure that most middle school kids can take their cell phones and make videos. WESLEY: As I recall before I left and was still actively involved with the commission, they were trying to do something with the high school age that would maybe actually do some video -type things in their classwork to try to do some but I don't know, I don't if that has ever actually come to fruition. - 8 https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES AYRES: I'm sure a lot of the high schools there have tech schools might have Boys and Girls Club teen center actually has all that equipment to make video and stuff. They got quite the production over there. Any other questions for John? CORLETT: I don't have any at the moment. But I appreciate some of those comments as Linda's saying it's helping us focus some of the desires that we have, and we haven't had a way to focus it or the guidance in doing so we are very much trying to find our way right now. Actually, some of this is making me rethink what we will present to the Town Council now in the fall, which actually the delay is quite good for us. And will take a little bit more to them. So thank you. That's I really appreciate it. WESLEY: Yeah. Glad to have and I'm just upstairs. So anytime I'm welcome to come down. AYRES: Be careful what you say. I did want to bring something because I know we're working on the fountain being a historical landmark. Right. So that would be you know, rather than a zone, it's a historical landmark. And then one of the other projects we were doing and what doesn't really fit into probably, like wouldn't fit into normal Historic Preservation 50 years or more, but kind of points of interests that are historic, you know, this store was here from 19 whatever this was the original place for whatever kind of those top points. When Grady was here. He was kind of looking for those top 10 so to speak. Points of interest that are his, you know, historic. WESLEY: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned I forgot about that. Because that's another thing that the Commission did was prepare a walking tour of downtown. A little brochure could be picked up and go on a nice route, walk through the town, and point out the different buildings downtown. So, something like that walking tour. AYRES: Awesome. Does anyone else have any questions for John? PRICE: Yeah, very quickly, what is the role of a Development Services Director? WESLEY: The Development Services Department is responsible for long-range planning; we have the planning division. So, we produce the general plan and other planning -related documents. We administer the zoning ordinance and subdivision ordinance. So, rezone site plans, Platts, those types of things all come through the entitlement process to get something ready for development. And then we also have the building official. So, we issued the building permits to do the inspection of buildings as they're constructed and issued certificates of occupancy. We have code compliance. And so after it's built, we're out there making sure people maintain their property in accordance with the codes. And we also have geographic information, and system specialists to keep the maps up. PRICE: Big job. Thank you. WESLEY: There are a few things. Okay, again, thank you. AYRES: After I chatted with him in my office, I was like, can you come and speak you have a lot of background and experience and, you know, some things, you know, we're pretty small. We don't have a historic officer or staff, and the ability to get a master plan or anything like that right now, but I think he's given us some good things to start with. And to think about it a little bit more. CORLETT: Especially coming at it from a no -budget perspective, pretty much right. We're very limited depending on what the council does. We hadn't talked about that, that possibility of public recognition is free. And it's something that if the council is willing to do like, I think the mayor is a great student program that she's been doing and I know there's some cost without with like, some sort of plaque with it, but that's a neat way of awareness and so they're, they're things that we can do here now. - 9 https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES AYRES: Yeah, I mean, I really liked that writing, I think we could spend several months trying to develop what that would look like and then potentially introduce it at the end of the year. So, it's something that they could kick off with the, you know, the next school year. of really what that contest looks like, how would it be? Would it be, you know, I mean, video, I could see some of those junior high, high school kids jumping on a video opportunity. CORLETT: Definitely. That could lead to one of our proposed speakers, where we keep talking in the schools, but this would be great to get someone from, broadly speaking, the social studies to come and talk to us or just start collaborating, to see, how would this work with you and support what they're already doing? And that's exciting. Well, that was the fun part of the meeting. Well, thank you. The next item on our agenda is Consideration Possible Action is Approval of the May 3rd Verbatim Meeting minutes. Are there questions about those minutes, corrections, or additions? PRICE: I move we approve the minutes. CORLETT: We have a move to approve from Commissioner Price. MEADE: Second. CORLETT: Bill Second. All in favor of approving the minutes. Opposition WOODWARD: Passed 5-0 CORLETT: Thank you. The next item on the list for Discussion of Possible Action. We may be able to delay this. Linda wanted to confirm we were getting back on the council scheduled for fall at some point. AYRES: I don't know what the actual date is. The June 20th meeting agenda was packed. And so, the Mayor had asked, can we put your name change on consent? Fine. We're okay with that. Right? Consent is like, good. I'm wondering if maybe we should try to get on more around November kind of end -of -year report rather than come in September. And we're still in the midst? You know, I feel like we'd have more to report if it was more toward the end of the calendar year. But what do you guys think? CORLETT: I would agree with that Debbie, and I were chatting before the meeting that we'll be able to talk about what we've done, as opposed to some of what we've done and a lot of what we plan. It'd be a more robust presentation, I think. Yeah. And that way, when we come back in the fall, we'd have reports on that. We'd really update those slides to talk about what we've accomplished. AYRES: So, we should plan for that. And I can talk to Linda Mendenhall about maybe what would be that best date and everything what's the time where there's not so many things on there. And we can try to shoot for later towards the end of the calendar year. CORLETT: So, do we need to formally table this item? I'm thinking procedurally, I'm not quite sure. WOODWARD: You can table it or you can continue it to a later date, but you have to name the later date. CORLETT: We will continue it at the September meeting. Okay. There you go. Thank you. Okay, so the next item for discussion and possible direction is a conversation about the workgroups and the summer projects that we set up at our last meeting is a reference if you look at the bookmarks on the left side of your screen. If you click down on that, it will show you the three projects that we were breaking up to do over the summer one was Points of Interest with Bill and Debbie, and we can get some updates here in a moment on those. The Insider and Fountain Hills Times articles to look - 10 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES toward the future. And then the National Historic Registry for the fountain in particular. And if you don't mind, I'd like to start with that one. Mainly because Susan isn't here. And with Sandy's resignation, we now have a one -person committee for that particular project and that's probably one of our central efforts right now. And with two people missing an emergency, hard to say who would join in on that. I might be inclined to swap over and work with Susan on that project unless someone else really wants to do this is the national historic registry in the Fountain, kind of getting that kick-starting that process. AYRES: Yeah, and I think we can get anything that Sandy has already done over there. I'll get that from her. CORLETT: Okay. Yeah, she did a lot of legwork on that initially with this. So I'd be happy to work with Susan on that. SKEHEN: I think also Jim Dickey gave me quite a bit of information on the National Register, did you get that as well? In talking about the Fountain. CORLETT: I'm not sure I have that could you forward that on? SKEHEN: Okay. But there was quite a volume of information that he had. And I think I only have it in hardcopy, but I can give you that copy. And then we could get it from Jim too. CORLETT: Okay, so that's one of our three projects. Bill, we want to you want to go back to you, because you and Debbie, were starting on the Points of Interest. MEADE: Yeah, sure. Debbie has, you know, an extensive list of what are potential Points of Interest. So, you know, we met I volunteered to just go research. Like I said, I should have gone met with John. But I did, I learned a lot. And I guess the thing for us along well, I mean, one of the things that I kept getting pulled into was the National Historic Register the state, you know, Historic Register. And as he said, everything has to work its way back. So relative to the points of interest that just seemed to me, for us, we needed to keep it simple, going back, again, to the budgetary issue, and all those other things. And it seemed the best way to do that would be it to be more of a, you know, point of interest or a landmark or whatever, which, again, would be limited cost or whatever now, then the question became, you need to set criteria and who's going to our group that they would have a subcommittee that would, you know, establish the criteria and establish what point of interest was, or is that again, a separate group of people. On the criteria themselves, if you again, stay away from preservation, and you just go towards a point of interest or a landmark, what I found from a lot of other municipalities was just along the same lines, I think there's a consistent to be between 30 and 50 years old. buildings should have a specific, as he said, characteristic to the community, the building location should have historical significance in some way being it's the first, a first or battlefield or a birth residents are a place where someone of notoriety lives, their significant contribution to the community all seem to be things that were designated as points of interest, or unique heritage value, you know, value to the community. But it just got once you moved outside of that, it got very complicated. It got into, you know, as he said, I mean, in terms of remodeling or restoration and legal requirements, and it just seemed that our short experience here that that would be something we would probably want to stay away from, and it would be more you know, that but still, you know, the only question would be really some group that would finalize criteria for it and then who actually would be the responsible commission group or whatever for evaluating and designating? - 11 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES CORLETT: A suggestion on this then, because he's, you say that that particular project can go in a lot of directions at some if we have like this, we'll call it the registry workgroup right now, which is now me and Susan. And then we have the points of interest, which are kind of two separate elements here. And one is the research and the finding of the identification for local interests and recognition purposes. And I liked that and keeping that as a relatively simple criterion. And then if we see things that we say, hey, it's worthy of this, then we can help those individuals through the process of state and federal recognition. Now as far as the criteria that you're talking about, and like local recognition, I have a feeling it might be good for us to set that up. And then that might be something to send on to the Town Council for approval if it's going to be an official town way of recognizing things. So, if we establish that and then brief the council then I would recommend that we are the group to monitor it right. Can't quite say enforce it, of course. But that's my thoughts on it. SKEHEN: Yeah, I don't think we want to get complicated here at all because well, for example, some of the things that that he brought out for, we don't want to get into a state where we say, this property has to be updated, but you have to do it according to certain architectural, all of that kind of thing. I don't think we need to do that in this town, we're not a huge city with 300 years to go back over. So I am going through stuff. There are a lot of ways to figure out what his first building and his are simple, because they were done on a certain date and, and have a certain significance and all. But you also, before Fountain Hills began here, it was a ranch. So, everything was a first, once things started building in the town, MCO took the property and started going. So, you have things like the architectural committee formed in order to try and control structures that are built in our town. Well, this was done in 1971, right at the beginning. So this is a group that's formed to govern the town, at least one aspect of it. A little later, you have the districts set up the fire district, road district, and school district. But those are not buildings, but they're still first in development. So, when Bill and I were talking, I said I need a little help here. If you want to stick to just buildings, that's simple, I can put it together because I've got the first 10 years anyway, done for the town. So that's simple to go through with that listing. But if you want to get on into different, like cultural development or something, when did the FHCCA actually get started? That was a movement towards all the cultural elements that we have in town. That's another whole subject and that's a little harder to define and organize. So, I needed a little help. How do you want me to start out with the simple stuff, the buildings, and obvious landmarks? CORLETT: I'd be inclined to do the tangibles. And like, don't forget the retention dam over in the Botanical Garden. The answer to the little retention dam over in the Botanical Garden? SKEHEN: Oh, oh, yes. Yes. Right. Yeah, the P Bar. CORLETT: So I do think, yeah, that the locations like that, that goes with the preservation. Well, yeah, we're going to have to redefine preservation in the future here too, for talking culture as well. SKEHEN: I want to start simple I don't think we want to hit preservation too hard, except for the concept that these are treasures in our town. And but we can't tell the first home that was built and lived in, for example, we can't over until those people that live in that now that they can't change anything or do anything, we just have to encourage them, you know, to keep the outside similar, similar to what it was or whatever, we can use that polite pressure, but we can't go into a property owner and tell him what he can and cannot do. - 12 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES CORLETT: That's where promoting awareness is really kind of our big thing. It's like, hey, there are these designations that could add benefit, right? There's this and that, and that the idea of historic districts, probably a bit premature in Fountain Hills. But it's not it's something that's commission could deal with in the future. So yeah, I think you're right. It's like we start with small pieces, and then that can evolve in the future. SKEHEN: Okay, that's fine. Now, then I know what you want out, put it together. And how many do you want? AYRES: I totally agree, just with the start with the low -hanging fruit, you know, and those landmarks, what are those historical landmarks that we can identify and would be interesting for people to know, I mean, the first ranch the first you guys had listed the P Bar Ranch marker, time capsule, some things like that. So, I think I think that's a great start, you know, getting historic districts. I don't know if that'll ever even happen with the town. And I think that's kind of where John was going, where that's really complicated. And I know I used to live in a historic district in Phoenix, and I was all gung-ho and I moved in to have that historic designation until I realized all the stipulations that came with it. You never mind. That's not worth it. Have a tax write-off, SKEHEN: You need a lot of lawyers to get him to. AYRES: So, you know, he even mentioned to get around that they had the heritage district is what they did instead of going through the state and national and all that stuff. I think you're you and Bill, I would even recommend, Bill, what you just mentioned to us having that written up, and maybe here's our guidelines that meet that and that's what you know, we can vote on in September, these are our guidelines, this is what we're going to use moving forward. I like what you read to us, it's very simple, concise. SKEHEN: Okay. And then I'll give the data to match with criteria so that they come together. AYRES: And yeah, you're the historian Deborah. SKEHEN: Okay, that's, that's easy. CORLETT: The simplest place to start on all this is going to be buildings or locations that are public. SKEHEN: Right. CORLETT:. And so other than like, like the first house, I agree, or like the first, wherever Ace Hardware was first you all know this, but we can identify him. But the ones to start with that will have no complication with pretty much in the public spaces. SKEHEN: Yeah. Agreed. Okay. I'll do that, then. We'll be awesome. CORLETT: So the other item on here is the insert for the Fountain Hills Insider and in the Fountain Hills Times. MEADE: Could we just go back as I just have a question, because you were kind enough just to jump into the historic, you know, committee and all that. But when I was just reading and doing the research on that, I mean, the stuff I read relative to just examples that were given pursuing, like the fountain. It's an unbelievable effort. I'm just trying to understand, who's doing all of this. I mean, is it really this subcommittee within this committee? Because what I read was like, I mean, you would need staff you would need I mean, there's just, the paperwork in and of itself. You got to go through the state first, but I just jumped to national. - 13 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES CORLETT: I have a feeling it would be a collaboration with, especially with, with town staff on this, because it's, say we take the fountain I mean, it's a town -owned and maintained and operated object. And so it'd be conversations with those folks gathering the right data. And that's why, like with what you all are doing, is we could be identifying things potentially for the future for something like that. But that's not really our goal right now. It's more about creating a local atmosphere of historical awareness and preservation awareness. SKEHEN: I doubt very much other than the fountain that we have anything we can put on and has national, historic, so I, I can't see that. But that's why I think it's best if we keep things simple. And then maybe in the future, at some time, what we set up or get going. might work for a state -level registry. I don't see that either right now, but who knows? CORLETT: With well with the fountain? My thought is if we can't get that done. Maybe that'll be the end of the national attempts at things. AYRES: Well maybe you do the research you come up with what does it take to get on the state? And then if we on the state the next steps in the national, and when we do our presentation to the council, we ask them for further direction. Is this something that you support? You know, Paula, do you have anything to say? WOODWARD: I like your approach to counsel and asking them if they support and also if they support the research that would be required by staff to assist because that's what it would take. AYRES: Absolutely. So that's kind of what you guys are doing the research on here's the leg work, this is what it needs. And then we would need staff buy -in and see if counsel wants you to move forward. MEADE: The last thing I've just is not too far before we get too far down the road. I think that somewhere early on the town attorney needs because there were so many legal potential ramifications on the National Historic Register. I mean, if somebody could look at that and just say, that's way beyond anything we would be interested in it at this point in time. I mean, I was just really surprised how complicated it all got. AYRES: And I think that's where at our presentation, we got direction from the council. You know? Yeah, they were like, here's what it takes for state a presentation, here's what takes for national, what direction ask for direction, and maybe they say, I think you should just work on the state right now and or, you know, we can support it or we'll come back and give you a decision. But I think outlining the steps and making it known that it's not an easy thing. You know, it's not just filling out paperwork. MEADE: It sounds easy, hard to do. CORLETTE: All right. The third project we have out there is the Fountain Hills Insider/Fountain Hills Times just the publication ideas, these are short -written pieces. I don't know if we need to talk about that in detail now. Dianne, Jackie, and I were collectively part of that. And I think our goal was to hopefully get something in the fall. PRICE: There was a deadline wasn't there? I don't remember what it was. AYRES: I don't remember off the top of my head either. But the Insider is probably in August, I want to say it's coming up pretty quickly. CORLETT: We will not make that. - 14 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES PRICE: Maybe our subgroup could just brainstorm some topics. And how many issues come out? Is it 12? Or 11? AYRES: Paula are there three or four Insiders? WOODWARD: Once a quarter. PRICE: That's only four topics. CORLETT: Yeah, it's just four. But we could also look at any that we don't send in there we could send into the Times to see if they'd be interested. PRICE: Yeah, so that's I think you can get actually more exposure and more room? Photos. Yeah, illustrations. So, can we meet as a subgroup? Let's do that. AYRES: The Insider goes to every household, the newspaper doesn't. CORLETT: It just migrates from one house to another. Subscribers are what about a quarter of the town and most of the town reads it? Every week can help outside of our area. Okay, so those are our tasks for the summer. And then when we come back for our September meeting, we'll get reports in, and then that will be used to modify the presentation to the Town Council in late fall. We'll just say that for now. PRICE: Just to clarify the next steps who will call who will set the date for our workgroup? Do we do that? AYRES: You guys because it's not a quorum, and you're small. You guys run with it and meet whenever and how you want to do that. CORLETT: Okay, so the next agenda item is coming back to our Brainstorming on Cultural Awareness and what that's going to mean for this commission. And perhaps how we're carrying it out. Linda, you did add maybe it was you or maybe it's Patti, who added this brief bit from the Scottsdale Historic Preservation Commission. Was that your addition? AYRES: I think that's what I pulled from theirs to give to Patti. PRICE: Commissioner, or chair, we have five minutes. Do you think it's time? We have just five minutes left. Do we have enough time to talk about that? It's a big subject. AYRES: That's up to you if you want to move it or not. CORLETT: I would move it as well, in fact, what might be beneficial would be and I hate to say another word group, but to have a small group actually research this and talk about it and then come back to the group because we've talked about this a variety of times, and I think we're all coming out from different directions. So maybe if we create a kind of focused conversation. AYRES: Can we create that then at the September meeting when we have a full committee? PRICE: I'd like to be on that one. Just putting it out there and I did talk to Susan about this subject. last week, and I think she's pretty interested in that. AYRES: Okay, if you already have a group and you want to do it PRICE: Bill doesn't want to be. CORLETT: That was your agenda item. AYRES: He's got a big job cut out for him in his work group. CORLETT: I just think it might be helpful to have that, as you say, and then actually devote the time to it. Okay. And I do think our conversation today, our presentation, gave us some food for thought on that to have ways of approaching it. - 15 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES AYRES: I'd like to ask Paula for her expertise. So now we only have six. So does that change the number for our workgroups? Because our workgroups or there's some three on some of them, does that still fall within you don't have you can meet by yourself? I don't know the legality. WOODWARD: It's interesting because we have an even number. And I want to say, I would really need to check with Linda Mendenhall. Yeah. I've never had that experience. AYRES: Yeah, that just happened. We had a resignation recently. WOODWARD: So, and you may have someone that will be able to fill that. AYRES: Yeah. But over the summer, they didn't want to do a workgroup., I'll email you guys and let you know. And Paula and I can double-check that. PRICE: Question. Will they be recruiting another Commissioner for this Advisory Council? AYRES: That's my understanding. CORLETT: Okay, so we'll move ahead as we are until we have guidance, and then we can adjust based on that. And I'm like the third on a couple of these so I can easily shift as necessary. Okay, so we will move that to our September, part of the Reports from Commissioners. So, our final discussion agenda item tonight is Future Agenda Items. And I think we've already established a couple one being a Discussion on the cultural element of our commission for September. Do we have others that we want to add? Again, not for conversation now, but just agenda items for the future or considered agenda items. AYRES: I think the report -outs will take a while then will that one? Yeah. CORLETT: We still have a backlog of things to work through as well. AYRES: I don't know if I'm allowed to interject this. It's not a Future Agenda Item. So shut me out. If I'm going to be in trouble. I know you guys were interested in historical files. And I just want to throw this out there and you can talk to me offline. Dori Wittrig from FHCCA has a lot of historical documents and files. She wants to get them all scanned so we can have access to those so, if there's anybody that wants to help her scan, and if you're interested, shoot me an email later. SKEHEN: No. PRICE: Question on that. I thought most of the files were going to the River of Time Museum. Why are those separate? Shouldn't she just send them there? They've been micro -fishing those scans. AYRES: She wants them all. She asked me for volunteers because she wants to get them all scanned and digitized. PRICE: I believe that's what the Museum does. AYRES: I thought they were separate. I don't think it's the same. SKEHEN: Can I give you some information? AYRES: Absolutely. SKEHEN: Okay. I worked with Tammy Bell, who at the time was president of FHCCA. And she talked to me about giving the records to the museum. And I said we'd be delighted to have them, especially the older ones when there was no government here to speak of there were the districts but no cohesiveness at all. And I thought it'd be fascinating to see how they interacted how they worked and the early development of the town. Later things, of course, are not as much as much historical interest to the museum. But we said we'd be happy to take the records from her, her board decided that the records were so precious, that they wanted to make sure nothing got lost in the transition. And therefore, they wanted to have them scanned and then they'd give us the originals and they would keep - 16 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES the scan digital copies. And I said fine. For the first box that we were given, I got a couple of volunteers to work on and then scanned them, but it took forever to do it. And I can't find anybody to do it now. And I said, if the board wants to have it done, why doesn't the board help out and do it? I mean, they're all volunteered retired people on the board, and they could step up and do that, and why they want all of them scanned I don't know, especially the last few years and stuff because people have them on their computers and everything. You know, why scan that kind of stuff? But that's the gist of it so that's why Dori is desperate for finding somebody. But they'll eventually end up at the museum. CORLETT: There are grants available for stuff like that. If people want to write a grant, I can point you to it to pay for this historic preservation. Okay, thank you. So, we can definitely have that is an agenda, and or not really, it's not okay. All right. Thank you. So, our final agenda item tonight is Meeting Dates for September. And as you'll note, because of Labor Day, the Town Council is moving their meeting, which would overlap with our scheduled date, which I'm trying to recall our original scheduled date. CORLETT: Usually we are the first which would be the sixth. So then do we not need to move our date? AYRES: We need to move because I am going to be out of town. That's why we're moving. Sorry. CORLETT: Oh, it's okay. Town Council then is there on Tuesday depending on the availability, I guess of chambers. AYRES: Are you able to get that information? WOODWARD: Looking at Wednesdays? So again, it would be the 13t'' 20th or 27th. As far as I know, I usually have a count on different calendars. AYRES: Can you guys do the 13th? I'd rather keep it as close to the first weekend. I'm sorry. I'm on vacation that whole week. CORLETT: So, you can phone in? I'm kidding. AYRES: I might not have cell phone access where I am going. CORLETT: Can we have a Motion to Move our September 6, meeting to September 13th? MEADE: I'll move that we move our September 6th meeting to September 13, 2023. SKEHEN: I second. CORLETT: Commissioner Meade then Commissioner Skehen. Thank you all in favor. ALL: Aye. Motion Passed 5-0 CORLETT: All right. Our meeting is moved to September 13. If there is no further business, then can I get a Motion to Adjourn? PRICE: I move to adjourn. MEADE: Second. CORLETT: All in favor? ALL: Aye. WOODWARD: Motion Passed 5-0 CORLETT: Our Meeting is Adjourned at 5:04 p.m. - 17 - https://otter.ai HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION JUNE 14, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES Having no further business, Chairman Corlett adjourned the Regular Meeting of the Historic and Cultural Advisory Commission on June 14, 2023, at 5:01 p.m. HISTORIC AND CULTURAL ADVISORY COMMISSION avid Corlett, Chairman ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: Patti Lopuszanskiec Assistant CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Historic and Cultural Advisory Commission held in the Town Hall Council Chambers on June 14, 2023. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. TED this 6th Day of December 2023. 0 Patti Lopuszanski, Assistant - 18 - https://otter.ai