JANUARY 23, 2012
LANDMARKS AND HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSION
MINUTES
The Landmark and Historic District Commission (LHDC) of the City of Florissant met at the Florissant City Hall on Monday January 23, 2012 in the second floor cafeteria room at 6:30 p.m., with Howard Nimmons presiding.
INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME
Howard Nimmons welcomed all LHDC members.
ROLL CALL
On roll call the following members were present: Howard Nimmons, Terri O’Neal, Edward Kiel, Kent Miller, and Gretchen Crank. Also in attendance were Dianne Lehmann, Recording Clerk, and Phil Lum, Building Commissioner. A quorum being present, the Chair declared the Landmark and Historic District Commission (LHDC) was in session for the transaction of business.
APPROVAL OF 10/24/2011 & 11/28/2011 MINUTES
Mr. Nimmons asked if there was any corrections or changes to the minutes as submitted for 10/24/2011. Terri O’Neal made a motion to accept the minutes as submitted. Kent Miller seconded the motion and a vote approving the minutes as submitted was done. Mr. Nimmons asked if there was any corrections or changes to the minutes as submitted for 11/28/2011. Curtis Gunn made a motion to accept the minutes as submitted. Ed Kiel seconded the motion and a vote approving the minutes as submitted was passed.
OLD BUSINESS
Item 1 Review powers and duties of LHDC and review ordinance that changed LHDC to a form of certified local government.
Phil Lum noted that he has supplied copies of the code to everyone recently that stated the status of the commission has been changed from the landmarks commission to a form of local certified government that only has jurist diction over landmark properties that have been re-designated within the historic district. He also mentioned that the guidelines that LHDC should follow are only guidelines not regulations. Gretchen asked that this item be continued for future discussion and asked why historic district was even a part of the commissions name if there is no one overseeing the historic district anymore. Gretchen also asked if anyone on this commission was interested in making changes. She also stated that this commission looks at guidelines differently that any other commission in the state of Missouri. Phil Lum stated that we don’t approach guidelines like regulations. Gretchen said that in the past LHDC helped many landmark properties help preserve properties needing repairs using the proper guidelines to complete necessary work. Phil agreed that he would like additional time to do research saying that he has asked our city attorney numerous times over the last 3 years about defining guidelines and the last time he spoke to him he said guidelines sometimes can be enforced. Gretchen said she thought that was how she understood guidelines from Joann Radetic. Phil said perhaps amending the present code might help give it a bit more teeth. Terri said it was beneficial to the entire city to preserve our historic district. Terri said we could compare the old guidelines to the new guidelines and then meet with the city attorney for additional clarification. Howard talked about the COA that was just granted for 298 St Francois and said that the owner had done all the research so LHDC was not asked to help with researching that repair, nor had he remembered any person coming to LHDC for help. Gretchen said that vinyl windows would have never flown with the old commission. Members discussed how many projects have not come before the commission and have not done work without approval of LHDC. Gretchen noted that vinyl siding was being done on a historic property on St, Francois but after checking she discovered that it was not a re-designated property. She also stated this was the same property that came to us for a COA on a fence replacement. Phil explained that the fence replacement was part of old town guidelines and had to be approved by LHDC. He also said it didn’t make much sense that fence replacement required LHDC approval but siding replacement did not. Gretchen also talked about the letter that was sent to the Party house with the pink railing saying that she didn’t think the letter really spoke about the issues. Dianne reminded Gretchen that the letter that was sent was sent from the Mayors office.
A motion was made by Gretchen to continue this discussion seconded by Kent Miller and approved.
Item 2 Review midterm budget report for 2011 Archeological Grant application
Phil handed out a copy of the budget report for the 2011 grant that has been submitted. He explained that the only real cost was that of Joe Harls contract, the rest was estimated cost of labor by staff and volunteers and printing. Phil said that our contribution must total at least $4.200.00 for the grant, stating that we are already at $4,025.00. Phil said we still had until August to complete our obligation to expend funds. Terri reminded Phil that we did a show at Our Lady of Guadalope. Phil said we should get something from Joe acknowledging that he did this show as our grant required us to do at least 2 outreach programs. Joe’s information should include any additional cost and hours spent on additional outreach he has done. This application will be submitted as soon as the additional information regarding additional outreach hours is forwarded to Phil.
Item 3 Review and discuss 2012 Archeological Planning and Outreach Grant application.
Phil explained that for the 2012 year we will be applying for a $15,000.00 grant which is $4,000.00 more than the previous grant application. Phil said that this grant will concentrate on development and maintaining landmark properties, increasing public awareness of our landmark properties and point out the significance and benefits of being a landmark property. Specific details on how we promote these landmark properties will be discussed at future meetings. Phil explained that his budget projection was based on the last grant stating that he felt the hours spent on this project would be similar than those of the last grant. Kent Miller asked if there would be a time line we should adhere to. Phil responded that the target date to get this grant completed would be August 2013, giving us approximately 1 year. He did explain that he leaned heavily on Kerry Luster and the media hours saying that the last grant program only aired once and the new grant programming should be aired approximately 6 times. A handout was given to all commission members detailing the proposed budget. A motion was made by Terri O’Neal to submit the grant application seconded by Kent Miller and approved. Howard Nimmons stated that he felt it was programming like what is being proposed in this new grant that brings public awareness to LHDC in a very positive way.
New Business
Item 1 Election of new officers.
Phil explained according to the code every 2 years a Chair and Vice Chair need to be elected and those elected officers cannot serve longer than 3 consecutive terms, although terms on the commission are 3 year terms. Gretchen asked if this was Howards first year as Chair and Howard responded it was not, that he had been chair for years. Phil reminded Howard that Mr. Shulte was Chair 3 years ago and that Howard had only been Chair for the past 2 years. Howard said he has been Chair for a number of years, perhaps not consecutive, but would rather not Chair LHDC. Gretchen asked who was Vice Chair and Phil answered that we did not currently have a Vice Chair. Phil also said after the vacancy of Vice Chair 2 years ago we should have addressed the election of a new Vice Chair at the next meeting.
Gretchen said maybe we should just see who on the commission was interested in serving in a officer type role. Edward Keil said his plate was rather full with his recent board appointment at the Shrine. Curtis said he does have some conflict with his job and the school district but would be willing to act as Vice Chair. Kent Miller said as long as there was a Vice Chair that could cover those meeting that he would be unable to attend he would be glad to volunteer as Chair for LHDC. Kent explained that he does have experience chairing different events. Howard started the vote process and Kent Miller was elected Chair and Curtis Gunn was elected Vice Chair unanimously.
Miscellaneous Business
Item 1 Report on the closing of the Shrine Project
Phil Lum reported to the commission that Kerry Nichols from DNR was ready to close the project and was in need of additional material to do such. Phil also learned that MSD had been working on a creek project nearby, transporting the dirt to the street department over at Sunset Park. Phil asked if we could not have the dirt transported to the Shrine to supply Kerry with his shortfall. Mr. Jearls, Director of Public Works, agreed to do this. This work should be completed by Thursday. Phil also said that Gerri Debo sent her thanks. Gretchen asked how this dirt from the creek would affect the integrity of future digs. Phil said he was unaware of any problem.
Gretchen said she had some miscellaneous business she would like to bring to the commission. She spoke about the various names landmark properties have been given, saying that the houses were usually named after the people that built them or owned them. Gretchen said that the Peters House, being named after James Peters who built the house, was turning 100 years old this year and she was going to write an article on the property for the local press. She also said that she would like to propose that the naming of these landmark properties might be a hyphenated name including both the original owner and a long time owner. She said in many cases a second owner has owned the house and done more work on restoration that the original owner. Terri said this is very similar to what Ferguson does with there Century Homes. Dianne mentioned that many of the landmark properties that have historic status have two different names already and they are not hyphenated. Gretchen gave other examples of historic houses that have several different names. Dianne asked what would be the common name in the case of a house with more than 1 referenced name. Phil said that a procedure needed to be established for how a property is named. Howard said that he thought people would refer to any name they associated that property with regardless of what LHDC named it. Curtis stated that his home was coming up on it’s 125th anniversary this year. Howard said maybe we could have a birthday party for these historic properties that might fulfill part of our 2012 grant obligations.
Item 2 Request from the owner of the Pet Cemetery located at 115 N Highway 67 to expand.
Phil said that the people that currently own the Pet Cemetery have bought the property that is directly due South of them and they want to expand the Pet Cemetery. They have a current application before Planning & Zoning requesting that the additional property be used rezoned so they can use this property for an addition to the Pet Cemetery. Both properties are zoned residential R-4 and a Pet Cemetery is a legal non-conforming use in the R-4 because you can only have a Pet Cemetery in a B-3. Phil told the owner last year that the property could not be approved for expansion because a legal non-conforming use of property cannot be expanded. The owner is trying to double the size of her property but this can only be done unless she rezones both properties. Her request was just to rezone the new property to B-3 because she only has a survey for the new property. Phil told her both properties would have to be rezoned thus requiring a survey on both properties. Phil believes that she is trying to avoid this cost. Phil will be meeting with her tomorrow explaining that she will need to apply for a special use permit on both properties providing a development plan for both properties. Phil said that this development plan should be submitted to LHDC prior to Planning & Zoning since this a landmark property and she will be doubling the size of this property. She will need a Certificate of Appropriateness to move forward.
Dianne announced that the Green Line Tour was running on the cable channel at 1:30 and 6:30 and could also be viewed on demand on the web site. She also said that Kerry took some new still pictures to complement the show. Gretchen said she only had old pictures. Kent Miller said that he would be happy to take pictures of the houses on the tour if we could get him a list of those properties. He said the time is good now when he does not have to compete with trees and greenery. Terri said that this should count toward hours spent on the 2012 grant application. Gretchen asked what houses would be featured in the 2012 grant. Phil explained that we don’t know what houses will be featured because we don’t have the grant yet.
ANNOUNCEMENTS / COMMENT
Howard asked if there was any additional business that needed attention. Hearing none; a motion was made to adjourn the meeting by Kent Miller, seconded by Curtis Gunn. Meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted:
Dianne Lehmann, Recording Clerk
