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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05/10/2000 - Regular Minutes - Historic Preservation Committee 9/isioric (-Preservation Committee (Worksbop/%egular Weefing College ó/a/ion Conference Cenier 1300 georgic (Bush (Drive (Wednesday, Wag 10, 2000 - 5°,30 pm. MEMBERS PRESENT: Deborah Jasek, Chair; Russell Duke, Co-Chair; Bill Lancaster; Shawn Carlson; Monte Trenckmann; Margaret Griffith; Joan Perry; Elton Abbott; Marsha Sanford MEMBERS ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: David Gerling, Special Facilities Superintendent; Pamela Springfield, Committee Secretary VISITORS PRESENT: Mike Luther; Dennis Maloney; Benito Flores 1. Call to Order: Deborah Jasek called the meeting to order at 5:37p.m. 2. Approval of Minutes: Russell Duke made a motion to approve the April, 2000 minutes. Shaw Carlson seconded. Hearing no objection, the motion passed unanimously and the minutes were approved. 3. Hear Visitors: Benito Flores had nothing to present. Mike Luther stated that in addition to the information he'd provided, which the members had received in their packets, there was a great deal more that would be made available to the Historic Preservation Committee (HPC). He stated that he had over ten hours of oral histories/interviews from people involved in the study he was doing on Southside. He said it was his intention that the original black community - the people who were the first residents of College Park - not be forgotten. Shawn told the HPC that the methods Mike was using were the same methods she used as an historical archaeologist. She said that he was doing everything correctly. 4. Historic Home/Building Plaque Applications Submitted for Approval: No applications had been submitted for approval. 5. Update on the Status of the A&M Church of Christ Letter from the Committee — Presentation, Discussion, and Possible Action: David Gerling said he'd written the letter to the Pastor and Building Committee, and needed approval and signatures before it was mailed. Deborah read the letter to the members. After a brief discussion, everyone agreed that: a. The letter should state that it was the old Church of Christ building the HPC was referring to; and b. Because the minister of the church was leaving, copies would also be sent to the co-chair of the building committee and board of directors. June,00 Historic Preservation Committee Minutes Page 2 The members signed the signature page. David said he'd call the church and get the names of the board of directors, and Pam would make the corrections to the letter so that it could be mailed. The tape was stopped at this point so that everyone could eat® 6. Update on Oral History Book — Presentation, Discussion, and Possible Action: David said he'd talked to Jeff Carroll, who told him that he had not worked on the book for a couple of weeks due to the end of the semester and finals. He told David that he would work on it over the summer and hopefully have something ready for the HPC to review by August or September. 7. Report on the Texas Historical Commission (THC) Annual Historic Preservation Conference, David Gerling/Shawn Carlson — Presentation, Discussion, and Possible Action: David stated that he'd gone to the conference and it was very good. Shawn said she had been unable to go. David said he found out that the HPC was very organized. He said some groups are strictly volunteer groups, whose only focus is one or two specific projects. He said the THC is very willing to help, but they have limited resources. He stated that they want to know exactly what's needed from them when they are contacted in order to direct you to the right person, because everyone is specialized in what they do. David said they had an excellent presentation on ordinances for historic areas. He said that the City of Dallas had recently written their ordinance. He explained that Austin and San Antonio had done their ordinances first and a lot of co munities adopted those ordinances only to find out later that it did not work for their city. For this reason, THC does not recommend using another city's ordinance as a boilerplate because it will be difficult to change the ordinance once it has been passed. David said he had not had a chance to go through all his notes and handouts. He said it would be a good idea to make sure that one or two people from the HPC attend every year. He said the conference will be in Austin next year, and he will make sure that everyone is notified in advance. Shawn asked if the HPC could draft/write its' ordinance. David said that THC recommends that each city get with their city attorney, and since there is a very small percentage of attorneys who know to write historic preservation ordinances, there are certain questions that should be asked prior to hiring one. David said the HPC could probably do most of the work, however, an attorney would have to look at it. Deborah asked if anyone knew what Planning & Zoning (P&Z) was doing. David said he had heard they were working on the same issue. Dennis Maloney said that P&Z wasn't doing anything at present because it had three people on that committee whose terms were expiring. He added that the City had just contracted with someone to rewrite all the City ordinances. Shawn said perhaps the committee could draft the ordinance and then give it to the consultant to have it written correctly. David asked if Dennis knew the consultant's name. Dennis said he did not know it, but it could be gotten through Tom Brymer's office. David said he would do that. 8. Southside Area Lighting Project Update from Subcomittee Presentation, Discussion, and Possible Action: Elton Abbott reminded the members that a motion had passed at the last meeting empowering the Southside Lighting subcommittee (Russell Duke, Margaret Griffith, Bill Lancaster, and Monte Trenckmann) to make a decision on the placement of the lights. Monte said the subcommittee needed to set a date to meet with David Massey of the City's Electrical Department. June,00 Historic Preservation Committee Minutes Page 3 9. Bonfire Memorial Plaques in Brison Park — Review, Discussion, and Possible Action: David said he'd been contacted by WTAW about the HPC doing this project and the information he'd given them had been posted on their website. He said he'd been misquoted as saying that the project would be completed by the start of the fall semester, however, there was no money in the current HPC budget for this project. He said he would see what he could do about getting a plan together by the start of the fall semester. There was discussion regarding what to put on the plaques, the type of mounting, etc. The members agreed that they wanted the plaques mounted on the light poles in a secure manner, instead of with some type of adhesive. Margaret made a motion to use the symbol of the burning bonfire on the plaques. Joan seconded. Hearing no objection the motion passed unanimously. Elton made a motion that Deborah be given credit for coming up with the idea for the memorial. Marsha Sanford seconded. Hearing no objection the motion passed unanimously. After some discussion, it was decided that the student's name, class year, hometown, and state would be on the individual plaques. It was also decided that since the larger marker would be a City subject marker, the symbol at the top of the plaque would be the College Station railroad depot. The marker would be mounted on a pole as opposed to a concrete base, and would look similar to a state historic marker. There was discussion about the College Station railroad depots, and a depot available for sale in Caldwell. David said he'd get price estimates for the bonfire memorial plaques. Margaret asked if a letter needed to be written to City Council informing them of the project. It was decided Deborah would mention it in her update to the City Council on May l8 , and a follow-up letter would be done. Dennis stated he had informed Council at the last meeting that the committee was going to do the project, and Council was excited about the idea. He suggested that Deborah bring the estimates of what the project would cost to the meeting with Council. Shawn said she would contact Professor Sylvia Grider with TAMU to see if she would be interested in writing the text for the subject marker. She explained that Professor Grider was the person in charge of all the bonfire memorabilia that had been collected. Margaret made a motion that Shawn contact Professor Grider to do the text for the marker. Elton seconded the motion. All were in favor and the motion passed unanimously. 10. Historic Area Ordinances — Discussion and Possible Action: Deborah said this had already been discussed. David asked if a subcommittee should be appointed or if copies of the handouts/notes he had from the THC conference should be distributed to everyone first. Deborah said she would like for everyone to get copies of the handouts. After David has talked to Tom Brymer about the consultant and more information is known, a subcommittee could then be appointed. Deborah said she would contact the members if something needed to be done before the next meeting in July. 11. Historic Area Boundaries — Review New Maps from GIS (Shawn), Discussion, and Possible Action: It was decided that the maps would be made available to any person or group that needs them. Shawn suggested doing a memo to go along with the maps that would explain what they represent. She said the memo should be given to City Council and Planning & Zoning since they have discussed the historic areas in broad terms. Deborah said it would be sometime after May 20th before she could do the memo. The members took a ten-minute break® June, 00 Historic Preservation Committee Minutes Page 4 12. Pending HPC Projects — Review, Discussion, and Possible Action: David explained that in order to figure out which projects were pending, Pam had gone through the minutes from the last twelve meetings to see which projects had not been completed. a. Neighborhood Recognition Program (last discussed in November & December, 1999 — see attached). There was lengthy discussion regarding whether this recognition should be historic in nature, and how often it should be awarded — either as-needed or annually. Deborah stated that she had wanted to limit this program to the historic neighborhoods. Several members expressed concern about the HPC giving an award for just anything and the message it might send. Mike Luther suggested that the award state that it was for a "historic contributor" or "historic contribution", so that it's clear the award is historic in nature. Deborah said the criteria probably shouldn't be set in stone = just some general guidelines for what could be nominated. Once nominations were received, the HPC would determine if it qualified. Bill suggested going ahead and doing an award/recognition for one or two obvious projects just to get started and then using those projects to help set the guidelines. It was decided that this topic would be revisited in July to finalize guidelines or criteria. b. Historic Home Aliases - (last discussed December 1999 — see attached): David reminded the members that Gus Roman with GIS had initiated this project as a result of the database they had created. David stated that at the time, the HPC had pretty much named the aliases that were known for certain College Station historic homes. The remainder of the homes either did not have aliases or they weren't known. He explained that sometimes the alias attached to a house is the name of the most famous person that lived there or the name of the person who lived there the longest, and not necessarily the original owner's name. It was decided that this was something Gus Roman had only suggested as being put in the database, and was not required or necessary. All members agreed that this was a dead project, however, if an alias was discovered, Gus would be notified so that it could be added to the database. c. College Station Street Naming Project — (last discussed April & May 1999 — see attached): It was decided that the focus of this project should on the streets in the historic neighborhoods only and not the entire city. Having gotten most of the stories behind the names of those streets (except Northgate), it was agreed that this project was complete. d. A&M Liaison to the HPC (last discussed November 1999 — see attached): Elton said he had asked David Woodcock to nominate someone to act as liaison but he never heard back from him. He said he would get in touch with David Woodcock again. e. Criteria for Wall of Honor at the High School (last discussed October& November 1999): It was decided that although CSISD had been tolerant of this idea, they had just renovated and already had plans for the walls. Marsha suggested putting plaques on the walls at the library or at the Conference Center instead of the high school. This way the people it would have meaning for could see it. It was agreed that this item would be revisited in September. 13. Timelines for HPC Projects (Pending & In Pro.ress) Review, Discussion & Possible Action: The projects that were still in progress were reviewed. Timelines were not established. a. The book was pending; however, it was agreed that no timeline could be put on a book. b. Southside lighting project c. The Bonfire Memorial d. Wall of Honor Recognizing Educators e. Historic Neighborhood Recognition Award f. State and City Historic markers —these are an ongoing project June,00 Historic Preservation Committee Minutes Page 5 14. Agenda Items for July Meeting: Margaret said she would like to have an item for discussion on the next agenda regarding moving the HPC so that it fell under Planning & Zoning's jurisdiction instead of being under the Parks & Recreation Department. Elton explained that Planning & Zoning was another committee and not a department. Margaret said that perhaps better communication between the two committees was what was needed. David stated that agendas for the committees that the HPC interacts with could be included in future packets. In this way the HPC will be able to keep up with what they are doing. Agendas for Planning & Zoning, Parks & Recreation, and the Cemetery Committee were requested. Deborah said she'd missed the last Veteran's Park meeting, however, the committee had previously drafted the paperwork necessary to create a corporation so that fundraising could be done for the memorial that will go in the park. She said it's been agreed that it will be a representative piece of art — not an abstract. She said it would be a major fundraising project to possibly raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. Deborah said that archaeological areas had been discovered and further digs will have to be done. There are one or two areas on the creek ridge containing Paleo Indian artifacts, which may be considered significant sites. She said they are anticipating dedication possibly in 2003. She said the memorial would be for all Brazos Valley war veterans in all branches of the service, living, and dead. There will be representative na ing of the streets and possibly the fields, to tie in with the veteran theme of the park. She said there would be a board of directors of about fifty people who will be divided up into different committees to do different things. She said she'd keep the HPC informed. Bill said that moving the railroad had been discussed at previous meetings, and asked if the HPC had ever expressed itself regarding this issue. Deborah said no, adding that currently a whole new study was being done. She stated that Union Pacific has projected that the existing single track will be unable to handle the doubling in traffic that is expected over the next 5-10 years. Once the new port in Houston opens, if the current track is not moved, a new track will have to be laid next to the old one. Deborah said she did not know when the new study would be finished. Future agenda items include: a. Veteran's Park and Athletic Complex (VPAC) Updates (all future agendas); b. Wall of Honor (September Agenda); c. The lighting project; and d. The Ionfire Memorial e. Margaret asked that ideas for new projects for next year be added to the agenda for discussion. David stated that the Brazos Heritage Society has asked the City for $75,000 to go toward the production of a documentary about the history of Brazos County. The documentary will cover both Bryan and College Station, and it would be shown on hotel channels and local education channels. David said if the HPC wanted more information, he could get it. David said the Texas General Land Office had sent a letter stating that they were in the process of trying to save/preserve about 35 million State maps that are deteriorating. Some of those maps date back to the 1700's. They were asking for a $500 donation, which would allow the donor to adopt a map of a certain area for preservation. For that donation, they would send the donor a lithographic map of the area that was being adopted. Everyone agreed that they wanted to adopt the map of Brazos County. 15. Adjourn: Marsha made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:03 p.m. Elton seconded. Hearing no objection, the motion passed.