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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-ILPC-2021-03-16Approved by ILPC: 15, June 2021 1 Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission (ILPC) City/Town Historic Preservation Partnership Working Group Special Meeting Minutes — March 16, 2021 Present: Ed Finegan, Chair David Kramer, Vice Chair Stephen Gibian, Member Avi Smith, Member Susan Stein, Member Donna Fleming, Common Council Liaison Rod Howe, Supervisor for the Town of Ithaca Tom Campanella, liaison to the Town of Ithaca William Lesser, Town of Ithaca ad hoc committee Bryan McCracken, Historic Preservation Planner and ILPC Secretary Anya Harris, City of Ithaca staff Absent: Katelin Olson, Member Pursuant to the Governor’s Executive Order 202.1, this meeting was conducted remotely via the online meeting platform Zoom. Chair E. Finegan called the meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. I. INTRODUCITONS ILPC members and representatives from the Town of Ithaca introduced themselves. Chair E. Finegan said he has been on the Commission for about eight years. He said he owns several properties in the East Hill Historic district. He said he works in real estate as well, which has afforded him the opportunity to see the inside of many historic buildings around the City. Vice Chair D. Kramer said he’s also been on the Commission about eight years. He said he’s an English professor who got into real estate to augment his income. He said he owns and has rehabbed several properties around the City, including rentals in the East Hill Historic District. He said he got interested in historic preservation as a result of his work restoring older buildings. S. Stein said she’s not sure how long she’s been on the ILPC, but she’s been on the longest of the members, for around 15 years. She said she and her husband own a home in the Cornell Heights Historic District that they have been slowly restoring for the past 30 years. She said her family goes way back in Ithaca, so preserving the historic fabric is important to her. A. Smith said he’s the newest member of the Commission, having been a member for just over two years. He said he got interested in historic preservation as a result of taking on several projects, first renovating what became Brookton’s Market (and the apartments above) in 2007, and later restoring 408 E. State Street, the Argos Inn. He said he learned more about historic Approved by ILPC: 15, June 2021 2 preservation and building in the four years it took to renovate that than he learned in four years of college. He said he ended up winning an Excellence Award from the State Historic Preservation League for that project, which increased his interest in historic buildings around town. S. Gibian said he is an architect with some experience in masonry. He said he didn’t really know much about what the ILPC did before he joined the Commission. He said Lynn Truame (former City preservation planner) invited him to join the Commission when John Novarr’s Collegetown Terrace project on State Street led to several buildings being torn down, and Markle’s Flats was threatened. He said he had joined in hopes of preserving bigger areas of the City, but he has since learned that their work is largely restricted to historic districts only. He said that he has bought and is restoring an old dairy barn, and most of his architectural work involves renovating or adding on to existing buildings. Alderperson D. Fleming introduced herself as the liaison from Common Council. She said she took the position as an appointment several years ago, but she has learned to love it. She said she’s excited about the prospect of the partnership with the Town. Rod Howe introduced himself as Supervisor for the Town of Ithaca. He noted that the Argos Inn is also known as the Cowdry Mansion, and Belle Cowdry’s diaries are available to read at the History Center. He said they are worth a read. R. Howe said he and Susan Ritter would not be regular members of the working group, but they would attend occasionally. R. Howe said he has renovated several historic homes and is a founding member of the NYS Barn Coalition. Tom Campanella said that he is serving as a liaison to the town. He said he also has experience in restoring historic homes, and he works as a professor in the Planning Department at Cornell. He’s also the historian in residence for the New York City Parks Department. William Lesser said he is a member of the ad hoc committee. He said several years ago he and his wife moved a Greek Revival house on Coddington Road on South Hill. It had been slated for demolition, and he said he thinks that might have been a prod to the Town to consider historic preservation systematically. He said he is interested in historic architecture. He worked as an agricultural economist, but now in retirement, he’s working on restoring the house they saved from demolition. B. McCracken then introduced himself as the Historic Preservation and Neighborhood Planner for the City of Ithaca. He said R. Howe had approached him several years ago to discuss the possibility of a collaboration between the City and Town to look into establishing a historic preservation program for the Town, either independent of or jointly with the City. Approved by ILPC: 15, June 2021 3 II. WORKING GROUP CHARGE • Investigate the appropriateness and practicality of a shared City and Town of Ithaca historic preservation program. • Prepare recommendations for next steps for the City of Ithaca Common Council and Town of Ithaca Board based group findings. B. McCracken next reviewed the “Working Group Charge” as described above. He asked for questions. S. Gibian said that at the last meeting, they were presented with a couple of options. One being a joint Commission and the other being separate Commissions. He asked if all options are still on the table. B. McCracken said yes, it could be a complete overlap, a partial overlap or two separate programs. R. Howe said their goal is to look at all the considerations and come up with a strong set of recommendations to present to the Town. III. TIMELINE AND MILESTONES B. McCracken presented a tentative schedule of items to review over the next five to six months and possible recommendations. He said the goal is to have recommendations to present to Common Council and the Town Board in October, so if the Board and Common Council want to make changes to their ordinances, they can feasibly do so by the end of the year. R. Howe noted that March 16 (the date of this meeting) is the Bicentennial for the Town. He also said that he had been in contact with the Village of Cayuga Heights, and their Mayor is interested in having someone from Cayuga Heights join in on the committee too (as long as the current participants are amenable). He said he’s not sure if that would be too much, or if they want to wait and see what comes from the working group and include them at a later date. B. McCracken said he is interested in hearing what others have to say and would be open to recommendations. He said the Town has invested in the process financially, but the Village has not. He also suggested that a representative from Cayuga Heights might sit in in an advisory capacity and do some fact-finding so they can take the information back to Cayuga Heights and share with others to see if or how they might move forward in a similar fashion. T. Campanella said that that seems wise, so they don’t have to duplicate the efforts down the road. Approved by ILPC: 15, June 2021 4 W. Lesser said it seems like it would be a good idea to include Cayuga Heights in the discussions. IV. ORDINANCE REVIEW • Ithaca Landmarks Ordinance: Chapters 73 and 228 (Sections 1 and 2) • NYS Model Law – Sections 1 through 10 B. McCracken reviewed some differences between the City of Ithaca Landmarks Ordinance and the NYS Model Law: • Model Law recommends five Commission members, but the City of Ithaca has seven. • Ithaca’s ordinance does not require annual training, but the Model law recommends at least four hours of training annually. B. McCracken said they should develop recommendations for size and composition of any combined Commission, also any required qualifications for the membership, powers and duties, and any training requirements. He said the joint committee is the driver of what questions they want to ask and, ultimately, what recommendations they make. W. Lesser asked how difficult it has been for the City to recruit volunteers, given requirements for qualifications and background. B. McCracken said it has been somewhat difficult, but he noted there’s also the option of appointing people to an ad hoc or at-large seat. T. Campanella asked if they would add seats to form a combined Commission, or if they size of the board would remain the same, but change compositionally. B. McCracken said that that is one area where the joint group would need to make a recommendation. D. Kramer said that he’s really excited by this proposition, but he’s concerned that the work of the Town and the work of the City would be completely different (with the Town just doing wholesale designations for the first few years, and the work of the City primarily involving reviewing individual projects.) B. McCracken said that that is correct, but there was a survey done in the Town that would aid them in determining what resources to consider for designation, and the work of designation is something in the wheelhouse of the Commission. He said they have 50 years of designations to look back on in the City, but it happened slowly. He said the Commission is familiar with the work of designations, and he thinks they can keep the volume of work small enough so it Approved by ILPC: 15, June 2021 5 wouldn’t become overwhelming. Chair E. Finegan said he thinks the Commission works really well with seven members, and he’s concerned that if they reconfigure that, it won’t work as well. He said the absence of the seventh member (who is on a temporary leave) has been noticeable. He said that it might be okay to increase their number to nine, but they have no way of knowing that. S. Gibian said they have done several designations in his time: creating the Henry St. John and the Downtown West historic districts, and designating an individual landmark on Albany Street. He said Historic Ithaca helped with those. D. Kramer said that they don’t want to do that work anymore. B. McCracken said that that work was funded by a grant. The Town has already done some surveys, and the grant the City used is still in existence and could potentially be used by the Town to do similar work. He said resources are available, and that should be part of the discussion around whether to apply for a Certified Local Government status for the Town. R. Howe said they fully expect the rollout to happen slowly for the Town, and he said another consideration is that separate Commissions would be vying for the same pool of members. B. McCracken said that when he discussed this with the State Historic Preservation Office that they suggested they might have one Commission for both the City and the Town (or two Commissions with overlapping membership), but that they could meet on different days to consider either City or Town business (which also would help prevent confusion from the public). B. McCracken said he thinks a seven-member Commission works well, and he thinks nine members could also work well. S. Gibian said he thinks it would be important to have members from the Town so the Town residents don’t feel like a bunch of non-residents are coming in to tell them what to do. S. Stein said she thinks two Commissions with overlapping membership sounds like a good idea. She said she can’t imagine adding onto the current ILPC’s agenda, especially on nights when they have had a lot of business to consider. Chair E. Finegan said even if they add onto the current Commission to make nine members, it’s still a membership dominated by residents of the City. He asked how the representatives of the Town think the Town residents would feel about that. W. Lesser said he thinks it would depend on whether the Commission or an elected body would make the final decision on designations. He said he thinks those concerns would disappear if elected officials are making those decisions. He said it wouldn’t eliminate concerns about Approved by ILPC: 15, June 2021 6 determinations on individual projects, but it would diminish concerns around designations. D. Fleming expressed support for having a seven-member Commission with two from the City, two from the Town, and three from the County at large with particular expertise (like Gibian and Olson). A. Smith suggested making it proportional by population. Chair E. Finegan said it looks like a joint Commission would require some restructuring. A. Smith suggested a transitional period during which they have more members or the City is over represented until current members retire, or maybe the Town take on the work of doing some designations independently before the two groups merge. Commission members and those from the Town then briefly discussed the possibility of designations being approved directly by the Commission, as opposed to being approved by an elected body. Overall, it seemed that a majority of those present felt it was better to leave designation decisions to the elected officials. S. Stein said it seems like there would be mostly individual landmarks in the Town. B. McCracken said there were several potential local districts, particularly Forrest Home, which is already on the National Register, as well as a couple of mid-century planned developments (which is something the City doesn’t have). B. McCracken said he could see benefits to either way of determining designations (appointed Commission versus elected Board). He asked if there were any further questions or comments. W. Lesser said he thinks a major advantage of a combined Commission would be that the Town could take advantage of the experience and expertise on the City Commission. B. McCracken noted that they have run past the allotted time, and thanked everyone for their excellent comments. W. Lesser asked they address the question of training requirements at the next working group. B. McCracken alerted those in attendance to a few upcoming events of interest, a Stewart Park event, and an informational session regarding the potential expansion of the East Hill Historic District (both conducted remotely) and invited everyone to attend. Approved by ILPC: 15, June 2021 7 V. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned by unanimous consent at 6:42 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Bryan McCracken Secretary Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission