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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11/03/1999 - Regular Minutes - Historic Preservation Committee v6. ill afre III [ t9 ffistoric Preservation Committee Wegu(ar .Meeting Coliege Station Conference Center 1300 George Bush give Wednesday, November 3, 1999 -- 5:1 5 p. m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Deborah Jasek, Chair; Russell Duke, Co- Chair; Bill Lancaster; Dock Burke; Shawn Carlson; Elton Abbott; Margaret Griffith; Monte Trenckmann; Marsha Sanford MEMBERS ABSENT: Joan Perry STAFF PRESENT: David Gerling, Special Facilities Superintendent; Pamela Springfield, Committee Secretary VISITORS PRESENT: Dennis Maloney; Mike Luther; Jeff Carroll; Colleen Kavanagh, The Eagle; Benito Flores- Meath, 901 Val Verde, College Station, TX 77845 1. Call to Order: Deborah Jasek called the meeting to order at 5:17 p.m. 2. Approval of Minutes: Pam Springfield stated that she'd Jeff Marsha Sanford's name off the minutes under "Members Present" section from the minutes of the October meeting. Margaret Griffith made a motion to approve the minutes. Russell Duke seconded, and the minutes were voted on and approved unanimously, with one change. 3. Hear Visitors: The visitors had nothing to present. 4. Chairman's Report/Update: a. Bryan Tax Incentives: David said he'd talked to the City of Bryan's development services, and they don't do tax incentives for their historical district. Jeff Carroll stated that he was on the Bryan Historic Landmarks Commission, and the subject has come up several times. Their committee has supported it, however, Bryan City Council does not. b. Veterans Park and Athletic Complex: The site dedication would be held on November 11, 1999. The members would be contacted with the time. A 50' lighted flagpole will be at the entrance on Highway 30. An American flag and a P.O.W. flag will fly until the park is completed, at which point the flagpole will be relocated within the park. c. City Zoning and Platting Requirements: The latest regarding 600 Welsh is that the citizens in the neighborhood have filed a suit against the owner of the land regarding deed restrictions. The initial hearing in the 85 district court was heard on October 25th Historic Preservation Committee Page 2 to determine if the case had enough merit to set a court date. A court date was set for February, 2000. In the meantime, there is a restraining order against the owner and no building can occur on the land until this is resolved. The Planning and Zoning Commission (P &Z) and City Council met in joint session on October 28 Several people spoke out and said that the ordinances, comprehensive plan, and adopted policies from various citizen committees should be reviewed to make sure they weren't in conflict with each other. They will meet jointly again November 8 and 9 to review those items. They will also hear from Legal on the possibility of coming up with a moratorium on zoning and replotting in the old neighborhoods, until everything is sorted out. Dock said that given the imminence of the upcoming P &Z meeting with Council, he would like the committee to encourage the City Council & P &Z to write into ordinance elements of the Neighborhood Preservation Committee's report, that are needed to preserve the historic neighborhoods. The report deals with infill and replotting of existing lots in historic neighborhoods. He said that even though everyone agrees in concept, when something needs to get done, the City staff doesn't have the tools necessary to enforce what's been adopted as policy. Historic Preservation has been written into the City's mission statement and vision, and now's the time to take what's already policy, and put it into code. Affer some discussion, it was decided that Deborah would get a letter written so that it could be signed, and out by Friday. d. Deborah would be meeting with the Mayor during the upcoming month regarding a recognition program for neighborhoods. Every so often, an award that's presented by City Council could be given for enhancing one of the historic neighborhoods. It would be given to someone who's done a nice job on a renovation, refurbishing, or landscaping project in an older neighborhood. A sign could go into the yard to indicate that the HPC is proud of the person /job that was done. Deborah has talked to the Mayor already, who thinks it's a great idea. Deborah wanted the members to consider the criteria for the award, which would be discussed at the next meeting. 5. Historic Home /Buildina_Plagues: No new applications had been submitted. David said he talked to Suanne Pledger with Loupot's Book Store, and they have a lot more information. She said she'd get everything written up and get it back to the committee. 6. Oral History Book Update - Jeff Carroll: Jeff said he was curious as to the reactions about the book so far. Originally, it had been discussed that the book would stop at 1941, however, he believes 1938 is a more logical breaking point because that's when the City incorporated. He said there was a lot of information gathered from the oral histories, however, a lot of it is redundant and it's mostly recent information. The problem he's encountered is that the history doesn't go back very far, so he had to spend most of his time building up to that point. He is up to about 1900, and can start fitting some of the oral histories in. The earliest oral history is from around World War 1, and there's not much of it, but then it builds up. He said that somewhere between one -half to two- thirds of the book has been done. There have been a few relatively small studies done, but no good specific cultural sequence has been written about this area. Historic Preservation Committee Page 3 All the members said they liked what had been done so far. David said Joan Perry, who couldn't be at the meeting because she was ill, did not like the style it was written in. Margaret said she was more interested in the history from 1938 forward. He asked the members if he should pursue some of the origins of the animosity between Bryan and College Station. The members agreed that it was important, and to include it. Jeff said he had done a little more on the book, and had included some other topics because they were part of the history of the area. He has a chapter on the original route of Highway 6, which wasn't called Highway 6 until 1938. Shawn Carlson told Jeff that his style of writing worked very well for oral histories, and it made it easy for her to understand the prehistoric portions of the book. Marsha felt that there was a lot of information missing regarding black people in this area, and the Civil War era. Jeff said he has not found anything in his research to indicate that blacks actually lived on the ridge between two rivers. They lived all around, in Millican, in the river bottoms, in Robertson County from Bryan north, but none in this area until the oral histories talk about them over along Lincoln Street. He said this is the biggest gap in information he's come across so far. Deborah suggested that Jeff talk to the pastors of Washington Chapel Baptist Church and Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, both of which are over 100 years old. Mike Luther stated that one of the reasons Jeff may not have been able to find any information may be due to the mass exodus (1907- 1911 ?) from the Wellborn, Millican, College Station area, because of a major yellow fever epidemic. Deborah stated that A.C. Clark was the Pastor of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. His mother, Robbie, was a landowner in this area and the family goes way back. She would also have some information. Shawn said she had done oral histories on Robbie Clark and the Peterson family a few years back, while researching an African American farmstead in White Creek, and she would get Jeff a copy of the report. Deborah added that Ms. Clark had attended several of the oral histories done at the Conference Center. She said she'd get with Grace Calbert to find out which sessions, and also earmark a couple of other names for him. She also has about 12 pages on the history of black education in this area that she would also get to him. She told him if he still has some gaps, then more interviews could be arranged or information gathered. The HPC advised Jeff to continue in the same style with the remainder of the book. 7. Wall of Honor at.the_High School - Update from Subcommittee: Margaret said she and Joan had met briefly, but decided nothing could really be done until it was known how much money would be available for the project. David said there is a small budget set aside for historic preservation for supplies. In addition to that, there is an additional $600- $900 for state plaques. Additional funds could be asked for from Council, which was how the oral history book deal was done. March, 2000 would be the time to ask for any funds for this project. 8. Possible Southside Project: David said he had been told that there was money in the budget which was not earmarked, but would more than likely be spent for historical purposes, or on a Southside project of some type. He was told that he would need to get the HPC involved. He said that he would be attending a meeting on November 4 which would establish parameters for what the money could be spent on. He should have an update at the next meeting. Historic Preservation Committee Page 4 9, : • m • • I • • • • • 1 • k • 1 1 • 1 1 1 • . • 1 • 1 • ' • •• - Action: David brought signs for South Side as requested at the last meeting. He said where the signs are currently located designating the Southside historic area, came about when the Special Event parking signs were put up. A current HPC member at the time, persuaded the appropriate people to use the historic preservation train logo used instead of the College Station logo. The HPC put money towards the project for the logos that were used. At the time, the committee had designated the area where those signs would be used: down Timber across Park Place, down Dexter - making a loop in order to include Luther Jones' home, down Luther to Wellborn, up Wellborn to George Bush and back to Timber. Russell asked if the historic designation would be expanded upon to include other historic areas within the city. David said the only reason Eastgate and Northgate weren't done at the same time was because there wasn't enough money. Deborah said that Southside had been done first, because the first two subdivisions in College Station were there. There were no clear boundaries or definitions as to what the other historic areas included. Jeff Carroll said it would be nice to know what the boundaries for the other areas were for the book, since he's progressing section by section. Bill Lancaster said one way to designate the other areas would be to go by the date the areas were developed. He said the original College Hills went just a little past Walton Drive. Jeff said defining the Northgate area was critical. Elton said the City's Planning Department had chronological maps showing development in stages and each development is listed. David said the City's GIS Department has all the historical information on the system. GIS wants the committee to see if there's anything else that needs to be added at the December meeting. For that reason, the next meeting would be held at the Utility Service Center on Krenek Tap Road. Deborah asked that David check and see if GIS had the chronological maps with dates that the committee could look at, at the same time. Elton stated that the Northgate Revitalization Board had the boundaries broken down and defined for Northgate, and he would bring the information to the next meeting. Deborah asked that everyone consider what the boundaries should be for Eastgate and Southside, for discussion and possible action at the next meeting. 10. Updates /Discussions from Last Meeting: a. TAMU Old Athletic Office -- David Gerling had spoken with David Godbey, who didn't know much about it. Elton said the building has been renovated so many times that it looks new, and nothing about it is historic any longer except for its location. Since it has been moved onto the site, it takes it out of the running for State recognition. b. Status of Old Main Society - Margaret said that Patricia Heilwiner (sp ?) and John Lindsay were the people who had endowed the Old Main Society, and someone in the Architecture Department was interested in it for awhile. However, everything they tried to do was blocked. Eventually, out of frustration it all fell apart, because anything they tried to preserve didn't matter. So the society was done away with and the money the committee had been endowed with was funneled to other student activities. c. A &M Liaison - Elton Abbott said he'd talked to David Woodcock about acting as liaison to the HPC. He'd just been elected President of the International Preservation Society, and declined to take on anything else. He's also head of the Historic Historic Preservation Committee Page 5 Resources Imaging Lab, which is a lab of graduate students that study historic preservation within the College of Architecture. Elton said he asked him to nominate one of his graduate students that could do the job. He hasn't heard back from him yet. 11. Agenda Items for Future Meetings: David suggested that December's meeting begin at 5:30 p.m. instead of at 5:15 p.m., to give members a little extra time to get to the new Utility Customer Service building on Krenek Tap Road. a. Boundaries for historic areas b. Criteria for Historic Neighborhood Recognition Program c. Wall of Honor -- subcommittee update d. Chairman's Report/Update e. Historic Applications submitted 12. Adjourn: The meeting adjourned at 6:47 p.m.