Good evening.

Welcome to the uh January 13th Historic District Commission.

I'm gonna get started by taking roll call.

Uh Glenn.

Present.

Uh Josh.

Present.

Nancy.

Present.

Laura.

Present.

Uh and Don is not going to be here tonight, so I will chair, and I'm Brian.

Um if you would please, uh Sharnika or Anna Scott read the procedures into the record.

I'll now read into the record the following.

The commission operates under NC General Statutes 160 D 940, which gives local governments historic preservation authority, and the Chapel Hill Land Use Management Ordinance, including Article 3, which establish the local historic districts and sets forth regulations governing them.

And the Chapel Hill Historic District's design principles and standards, which sets forth standards for changes in the historic districts and the rules of procedure adopted by the Chapel Hill Historic District Commission, as well as the significance reports from all three historic districts and photographs.

I also call to your attention each of the applications and associated materials in your agenda packet.

All of these items are hereby entered into the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, and I will now read the public charge.

The body asks the public to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the body and with the fellow members of the public.

Should any member of the body or any member of the public fail to observe this charge at any time?

The chair will ask the offending person uh to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control.

Should a decorum fail to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until a gentleman commitment to this public charge is observed.

Okay.

Moving on to the next item on the agenda, uh approval of the agenda.

I think kind of before we approve the agenda, I'm going to add one item to the end of the agenda this evening, which is the discussion of historic preservation month, which we have traditionally in the month of May asked the uh town council to approve.

So we're gonna discuss that this evening.

Does anybody have sounds good?

Okay, that's great.

Any other uh requests for changes to the agenda this evening.

Okay, could I ask for a motion to approve the agenda in a second, please?

Move the agenda to be approved as submitted with the addition.

Second, thank you.

Uh all in favor, if you would please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Uh announcements.

Uh Kevin, did you want to take the mic?

So hopefully uh you all have received and you should have, I think, in front of you an updated guide to quasi judicial evidentiary hearings and procedure.

Should also have an updated motion script or example set of example motions.

This is something that I've prepared and we try to update over the years, every year or so for for your benefit.

The guide really is started out at one point as a very short guide.

It's now become fairly lengthy and detailed, but it's a guide that kind of helps walk through some suggested approaches to quasi judicial evidentiary hearings, the development of a factual record, those sorts of things.

Um so again, that's just for your benefit.

Um read it, you know, take as much of it into account and implement as much of it as you'd like.

Um this is your hearing, so you're not obligated to follow any of the recommended guidance in the in the guide.

Um, but I do recommend it.

Likewise, the uh motion scripts are are kind of a corresponding document as we've kind of changed our the HDC's procedures over the years.

The some of the necessary language to include in various motions has changed over time as well.

So this is um an update that kind of corresponds to our relatively new practice of uh uh you know taking a motion uh and vote to approve a COA and then returning at the following meeting with a proposed written decision for you all.

Um that eliminates some of the need for additional kind of factual information in the motion itself.

This is intended to help kind of clarify that and and streamline um the mo the motions process for you all.

So the these things are there just kind of for your benefit.

You are not obliged.

Again, likewise, uh or like like the guide, this motion script or these example motions, you're not obligated to follow them.

You can you know, craft your own motions as you see fit.

This is just kind of an example of of something that would suffice in most cases.

And as you'll see, the the underlying text is text that you can more or less just read verbatim.

Um the highlighted and bracketed spaces are spaces where you'll have to supply additional information.

So if you all have any any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them for you.

Kevin, we did a little email about it.

That's right.

Uh yeah, so Nancy made a good point.

She she uh emailed me about this earlier.

One of things that we did not uh that I did not cover in the uh guide is site visits, as y'all are probably aware.

You you recall one of the things that we often are that we always kind of ask you to disclose at the beginning of every evidentiary hearing is whether you've made any site visits to a particular property.

Uh that was not included in this guide uh because I know that's a topic that the that the board has wanted to revisit over the years.

It's also not um necessary conducting a site visit is not necessarily a statutory conflict of interest, which is kind of what the uh so it's kind of beyond the scope of what's included in the guide.

Certainly um there are reasons why you probably should not conduct independent site visits specifically to gather information related to a COA uh application that is or will be coming before you, and I still still my recommendation that you not do those independently.

We can discuss you know methods or or or ways by which uh we could organize site visits later on, but that's again that's kind of beyond the scope of of what's included in the guide right now.

Well, I really raised it because it's like a how to guide for conducting the meetings.

That is something that we have been asking along with the conflict of interest statements.

Yes, absolutely.

And it's it's a good it's a it's a good point, and I probably should have noted something about that in the you know, it's not necessarily a conflict of interest to conduct a site visit, but I probably should have made a separate note about that in the guide.

Okay.

I I didn't because I know that's something that we want to revisit at some point, and you know, once we've revisited that and had a set, you know, a new conversation and kind of established a new baseline for how we would like to approach site visits, you know, separate or additional guidance will be forthcoming at that point.

But um, but I I think the point is well taken.

It it's certainly something that the board should be aware of.

Thank you, Kevin.

So I have a question about the uh congruity motion and the COA motion.

Uh is it acceptable if we want to approve an application that we would make a motion sort of on both at the same time, or should they be voted on separately?

So I think the the most procedurally correct or the cleanest thing to do would be to do two separate motions.

There's certain certainly no reason why you can't do them in in kind of one combined motion.

Um but again, I I've set them out in kind of the manner that would be the cleanest procedurally, and again, I guess to repeat myself, the most procedurally correct.

Yeah.

Um, but there's again certainly no reason you couldn't do kind of one combined motion, squishing them both together.

Got it.

And so the the motion to for uh congruity and for the COA are made uh in the meeting where we vote on the application, but then the actual approval of the COA once it's written is in the following meeting.

That's correct, yeah.

Exactly.

Okay, got it.

A follow-up on the site visit issue.

Um I would like to place in people's minds the idea that I would like to discuss what a site visit is.

This afternoon, I I took I walk a mile and a half a day.

I'm an old guy, and this I'm supposed to walk a mile and a half a day.

My 10,000 steps.

So I walk past seven different projects that have come past this committee because that's my neighborhood.

I walk out the door, and there are all these projects.

Now, none of them that are on the agenda tonight, but I do want to figure out if that's a site visit.

Yeah, and and so that sort of thing is a site visit would kind of be categorized as a uh HDC member making a particular visit to a property that is on your agenda or that you know will be coming before you soon for the purpose of making observations, uh gathering kind of factual information that you intend to then use as part of kind of your deliberation on the COA application itself.

Yeah, there's certainly nothing wrong with uh you know, with you all uh walking throughout the town's historic districts, you know there are you you very well might walk your dog on a daily basis past the property that will inevitably come before you for a COA application, and that and that's perfectly fine.

But the point is is what you should what you should avoid doing is then stop in on your your daily dog walk, uh you know, making observations about you know the the conditions there, um and again I don't want to get too far into the weeds today.

Um again, I don't want to get too far into the weeds today.

Um this is certainly something that we should discuss again in the future, but keep in mind that your COA decisions based on on uh state under state law have to be based on competent material and substantial evidence that's present in the record of your evidentiary hearing.

So you know, if you make an independent site visit on a particular day under particular weather conditions, you know, you might observe or take a different you know a particular opinion about you know the massing or scale that can't be reproduced on the record for the rest of the board and for the applicant or and anybody in in opposition to an application to see and kind of get a sense of for themselves, right?

And so your decision can't or shouldn't be based on those independent observations that occur outside of the evidentiary hearing because then you're not comp your decision doesn't comply with it's not based on uh the kind of the the quality of evidence that our state law requires.

Now, of course, there are ways we could go about conducting a site visit, perhaps calling a special meeting of the HDC uh to you know where you would meet in the public right-of-way in front of the the site at a particular time.

All HDC members would be present, the applicant and anybody else who would like to uh you know observe would have the opportunity to be there so that everybody is seeing the same thing at the same time under the same conditions, and uh and you know you would conduct a meeting much like this, open an evidentiary hearing there on the sidewalk, or with the applicant's permission on the property itself.

You know, so your observations are being made on the record.

Any discussion that takes place there is on the record.

Um, would then be you know, in theory, kind of part of the evidentiary record of the COA uh discussion and deliberation.

Um but again that then requires staff to go through the effort of providing public notice of the special meeting.

We'd have to you know take the administrative steps of calling a special meeting, um, you know, clearing it with your schedules, the applicant, uh, and you know, any other party, any other individuals who may be parties would stand into the hearing beforehand.

So there are a lot of kind of administrative steps that that we would have to go through before we can get to that point, which is again why you know it's generally my recommendation that we avoid making site visits unless a c a particular COA case presents a really compelling reason, um, you know, a unique reason why a site visit would be particularly helpful in that case.

So it's probably much more information on the site visit issue than we really need to get into for today's purposes, but hopefully that answers your question.

Any other questions for Kevin?

No.

Okay, thank you.

Uh any other announcements no other announcements, just a reminder to make sure we're speaking to the microphones.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Uh any petitions this evening.

No.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh so uh next item on the agenda is approval of all of the minutes from the December 9th meeting.

Uh I was not in attendance at that meeting, so I will demure from voting on that.

Um, but I would ask for a motion, a second, and then I'll ask for a vote to approve the minutes for the December 9th meeting.

Well, I move we approve minutes of the December 9th, 2025 meeting minutes.

Thank you.

I second that.

Excellent.

Okay, all in favor, if you would please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Uh so uh information included in the agenda this evening was the administrative COA approvals, which is the report from staff on things that they approved between uh last meeting and this meeting.

So that's really just there for information purposes.

Um moving on to the consent agenda items uh number three and four.

Uh 132 South Columbia Street.

This is the approval of the COA placard uh that was voted on in the December meeting.

Um everyone uh if you would please say uh aye if you well, I guess we need to ask for a motion to approve the COA application for 132 South Columbia, and I'll do three or four now north boundary at the same time.

So if I could ask for a motion and a second, and then we'll vote.

I move approval of the consent agenda as submitted items three and four.

Thank you.

A second.

Thank you.

Uh all in favor, if you would please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, uh, I vote aye also, so that passes unanimously.

So we're gonna move on to new business number five on the agenda.

260 uh Glandon Drive.

So speaker notes and then the presentation, and then there's the screen down here.

And does that screen mirror this screen, which is to say is the pointer that's pointing at drive now visible to you as well?

Yes.

Great.

Okay, so you can use um click on that screen.

Yes, then it'll be controlling that one.

Got it.

But you can use the while they're uh doing the uh so thank you for that reminder.

Is there any um ex parte communication or unauthorized side visits to disclose from the commission?

No, no.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

I always forget that.

Uh hello.

Uh I'm gonna read a statement.

If you agree with that statement, if you would please say I so affirm and state your name.

Um I affirm that the evidence I shall give to the historic district commission on the reference application shall be the truth and nothing but the truth.

ISO affirm.

I Brian Jensen, so affirm.

Thank you, Mr.

Jensen.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Um good evening, everyone.

I'm Brian Jensen.

Uh my wife, Lisa Rahangala and I are the owners of 260 Glandon Drive.

Um 260 Glandon Drive actually is called out in the historic district's designs, principles, and standards document as being the only house that breaks with the traditional colonial revival style precedent of the Gimgul neighborhood, 1977 modernist house.

Um with a dark wood exterior that helps the house to blend with its natural surroundings.

And I'm gonna present to you tonight a proposal that I hope will allow our house to blend even better with the natural surroundings.

Um the historic Chapel Hill website has the following to say about our house.

Um this is a house that was designed and built in 1978 by Dale Dixon, whose name is unfortunately misspelled on the website.

Um the much of the description of the house is is still accurate today.

Um here I call out a couple of the design elements because I'll refer to them later uh in our proposal.

Um, one like casement windows or fixed windows and Claristory windows in the front gables.

Um this was in the 2013 survey deemed to be a non-contributing building.

So just to orient you, you are all of course familiar with the Gimgul neighborhood.

Um our house is here, situated such that the majority of it is visible from Glandon, where many people get their 10,000 steps in.

Um none of the changes proposed today will be visible from Glandon, actually.

Um the changes will be visible only from the secondary access to our house, which is our primary driving access, but no one else's uh access, um, which is along Ridge Lane, uh, which terminates in a cul-de-sac here.

Um from Glandon Drive, the house is set back somewhat and up the hill.

Um you get a bit of a sense of the modernist uh aesthetic and the dark wood that does indeed from this perspective blend relatively well with the natural surroundings, we hope.

Um this is the view from Ridge Lane.

Um again, the the changes that we propose will be visible only from uh various points along Ridgelane uh in including this one.

And I'll do my best to describe them to you fully and accurately as we go.

So this is pulled directly from and only lightly modified from the scope of work that I submitted to you last month.

Um the overarching purpose of the the project is to fill in a swimming pool that we no longer use.

Um it's a an interior swimming pool that um was a lot of fun for our kids when they were younger.

Um our kids are all in their late teens currently, the pool gets no use.

Um we hope to repurpose that space to something that's more useful to us, um which is to say a uh a large sunroom area, and here I've hence referred to this project as the sunroom project.

Um so the majority of the alterations will occur in the interior, primarily the the creation of a sunroom.

We also are going to take the opportunity from a um scaling perspective to to create a new bedroom and and redo our laundry room in the back.

None of that work will be will be visible from the the outside.

Um the primary change to the exterior of the house will be to replace the existing plexiglass roof, which I again I I would argue is the primary part of our house that does not blend with the surroundings and is as much as I love our house something of an ISOR.

Shingles to match the asphalt shingles on the remainder of the house.

Rather than read this to you, you have it in front of you.

I think I'll just go ahead and show the plans and and I'm happy to take questions as we go.

So this is an aerial view of the roof that we propose to remove.

It will be, as you see, replaced almost entirely with asphalt shingles that will match the existing shingles.

We are going to install three large skylights with the purpose of honoring the intention of this being a sunroom, and it's necessary to get to get sun in.

This just for fun.

This is leaky black, actually.

One of our neighbors decided that he he was going to film a commercial on it at our basketball goal.

And so fun little extra element to our to our aerial view.

Another aerial view, Sans Leaky Black of the roof here that will be changed.

And again, I hope you can appreciate from this perspective that this change really would only be visible from Ridge Lane and only parts of Ridge Lane, actually.

Shortly I'll show you an image from our interior courtyard, and just to orient you to the house and that particular view as I show it.

This is the interior courtyard.

It's labeled as south elevation, and none of that is visible from anywhere other than inside our our property.

This one out towards towards Glandon.

The loop here.

And again, you can see that because of the pitch of the hill, we sit up the hill from Glandon and the orientation of this roof or the location of this roof, it will not be visible to all of the folks who walk by Glandon on a daily basis.

Walking back a little bit further to the intersection of ridge and evergreen lanes.

But again, I hope you can appreciate that it's it's really visible only in part and only from here, and it's not clear to me whether or not the skylights that we propose would be visible from here or not.

So moving to the plans, these are plans that are provided by the grant group who is going to lead our project.

Now I'd turn to the proposed changes, and again, primarily that will consist of replacing this plexiglass roof with new asphalt shingles that will match existing shingles and the installation of three large equally spaced skylights here in the lower portion of the of the roof.

They may or may not be visible from some viewpoints on Ridge Road, Ridge Lane, excuse me, certainly not from Ridge Road.

But this certainly they would be visible from inside our courtyard.

And here are the proposed changes to this south elevation again as viewed from inside the the courtyard at our house.

We would propose to put five Claire Story windows here, again, in keeping with the original design as described on the historic Chapel Hill website.

I believe that's the sum total of the changes to the to the south elevation.

Next we move to the to the west elevation.

And here this is the view from Ridge Lane.

I I showed you a slightly different view in one of my earlier uh photos.

Um here we're standing on Ridge Lane directly across from our house.

Obviously, um there will be some changes that I will point out shortly to this, where we would propose some changes to this lattice here.

Um now this picture on the right is taken from the cul-de-sac at the end of Ridge Lane, um, which is really the only viewpoint from which the remainder of the proposed external changes will be visible.

Um here is the existing west elevation again to point out this lattice that we would propose to remove and replace with siding that matches the siding on the rest of the house.

Um the lattice is a bit of an eyesore like the the plexiglass roof.

Um we would we are creating or proposing to create a a new um hall internally that without a skylight would be quite dark.

Um these claristory windows um will light the new bedroom configuration.

Um and here again, this is a uh another view for on the west elevation of the proposed uh stainless steel flue and a depiction of the siding that would replace the lattice work that's that's existing currently.

I did not point out in the the submission, but will point out now that one of these claristory windows will replace uh an external storage door.

This is a we have some storage areas.

I didn't catch around the pictures, but there are three doors here that that open into to storage areas.

One of these doors will be removed, and I apologize.

I did not make that explicit in the submission.

Um but you can see it will be replaced with this window from the external view.

Um here is the the north elevation, and this is a picture I showed you earlier that is taken from the cul-de-sac on Ridge Lane, um, again, visible only from that cul-de-sac.

This is we're going we're proposing to put another window here.

This is essentially an internal courtyard.

This is taken, you can see I had to back up into the bushes to take this picture.

Um proposed window actually would be visible to no one from from the outside, um, not even our our neighbor Lars Schultz uh would be able to see that due to the hedges that separate his property from ours, and it's not visible from any road.

Um so here I've I've condensed the proposed elevation and photographs in an effort to show this this window here will go into the proposed new bedroom at this point here.

Um there is one a single fixed window here.

We will propose to add another fixed window here.

This is my son's room.

He's the only one of my kids who won't be in college next year, and and his room is lit only by this window, and so we thought we'd give an opportunity to to bring some more natural light into his room with that change.

And I believe that that's all I have.

Um I am more than happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Uh I'll ask the commission if they have any clarifying questions.

Okay, I don't I don't think we do.

Uh if you'll uh give us just a few minutes.

Of course.

Yep.

Um is there any member of the public that would like to comment okay?

Uh so we'll have a bit of a discussion.

Sure, great.

Uh does anybody have something they'd like to discuss?

Well, I would make the comment that I I think that these um changes are consistent with the style of the house.

Um like in some of the other projects we've seen recently.

Um on Ridgelane, there are there is not as much of a variety of architectural style as there is on boundary.

But um these changes are very consistent with the style of the house that Dale Dixon designed in 1977 or 78.

Any other discussion?

No.

No.

Okay.

I thank you for your very clear presentation.

Agreed.

Yes.

Okay.

If there's no further discussion, I would entertain a motion with our new script that Kevin gave us, which actually would have two portions.

So the congruity motion and then the COA motion.

Would anybody like to take a shot at that?

I move that the go ahead, Josh.

So I just read this.

And you might need to pull your microphone down.

Right.

I move that the application is not incongruous with the special character of the historic district according to the application of the relevant provisions of the LUMO and the HDC's design standards based upon the facts presented in the record.

And if you wouldn't mind, Laura, just maybe read the COA motion also and mention the date and the property name, please.

Okay.

This motion should be used what what?

So the COA motion.

So it's the it's the uh paragraph of time.

Okay.

Okay.

I move to direct the HCC attorney and town staff to prepare a proposed written decision summarizing the HTC's approval of the COA application and to present the proposed written decision to the HTC at our next meeting.

Our next date meeting February 2026.

And this is all all in reference to 260 Gland and Drive.

Yep.

Yes, to 260 Glinton Drive.

Thank you.

Uh no problem.

Laura made a motion.

Josh second, so I'll just take uh a roll call.

Uh if you would say uh aye or nay, please.

Uh Glenn.

I Josh.

I Nancy?

I Laura?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Thank you very much.

Good luck with your project.

Thank you very much.

Uh I I hate to push my luck.

Um I wonder if I could ask a procedural question.

Sure.

This is my fourth time in front of this commission over the past.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you.

This is this is my fourth time in front of the commission over the past decade.

And I I don't recall on the previous occasions the necessity to wait a month to have a document prepared and signed prior to approval.

Is is this new so North Carolina law requires that uh the qu these types of quasi-judicial decisions be uh kind of formally approved through a written decision.

The written decision has to summarize the facts and the evidence that's presented.

Um a relatively reason for maybe the last year or so, we've kind of shifted to preparing a written decision and bringing that back.

There's no you know that the the board at that point doesn't have the discretion to kind of undo the decision that's been made, and that you know that vote will not be it's a an administrative decision, so it's you know more or less kind of you know automatic.

Really they can quibble about you know whether the the facts um the recitation of facts in the written decision are an accurate reflection of their discussion of the evidence they heard, but they can't really change the decision at all.

I I don't know if that answers your question.

No, it it it does, and I think I heard you say as much uh initially in your comments.

I I just I'll just observe it it doesn't do much for the people of Chapel Hill to wait an additional month to have a written document that's and I doubt you're the only one that feels that way, and we're trying to stay in alignment with North Carolina law.

I understand.

Thanks again for your time.

Good luck with your project.

Okay, uh let's move on to item number six.

Uh National Registry of Historic Places for nomination for Cochra Hills.

So can you all see that?

Okay.

We we we can.

Okay.

Hi, Phil.

Do you need it?

I can see if I can make it bigger.

That would be great.

So Kevin, while Phil's getting his materials together, given the nature of what we're being asked to do here, do I need to read Phil in?

Do I need to ask him to this is not a quasi judicial evidentiary hearing?

This is just kind of an information and you don't need to do the oaths and all that.

Okay, great.

Done.

All right, great.

So they should be able to see the um Brian.

I will say at the end of this item, um, we do need the commission to vote on like a recommendation.

Um, and there is a form from the state for the chair to sign.

Got it.

Um, yeah.

And then I think uh when we ask for public comment, you'll distribute the letter that we received today.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Chairman, members of the commission.

Um for the record, my name is Phil Lyons.

I am a trustee with Preservation Chapel Hill, and have been working with the Coker Hills Neighborhood Association for about three and a half years now on this nomination for the National Historic Register.

Um a nomination for the National Historic Register must be under one of four criteria, and those criterion include community planning and engagement, architecture, and uh architecture is C.

Criterion B is individuals and events, and we chose not to focus on individuals and events in our application, and criterion D is archaeology, and there was there's nothing, there's no indication of any significant archaeological uh artifacts in this particular area of the Coker Hills.

In choosing criteria A, we decided to focus on early World War II development in the Chapel Hill area, responding to the growth of UNC, Chapel Hill, uh RTP, hospitals, large pharma, and the demand for housing uh for people with uh professional backgrounds, including uh academic medical uh pharma research, you name it.

So we focused on William Chambers, a hundred and twenty-acre gift to Coker College, and his uh bequest to Coker Hills, and also then uh Coker College retaining Henry Rule and Totten as the oversight of the project.

The project began in 1961 and concluded in 1976.

Um it focused with Henry Rowland Totten's oversight, the project focused on natural landscape and conservation.

So lot siding, streets, creeks, trails, parks, uh, street design, all those things were considered in the development of the neighborhood.

In fact, the neighborhood is unique in that all nine streets in the neighborhood are named after a botanist or a naturalist, uh, one of the few neighborhoods like that.

Uh like I said, it's not the first uh neighborhood to be developed after World War II, but one of the first.

Personally, I think Glenn Lennox and Little Ridgefield are close to being the first.

Uh my favorite is Little Ridgefield, and by the way, that's where Dean Smith had his first house.

Uh criterion C is architecture.

The architecture is a blend of custom built, colonial revival, minimal traditional, ranch, modernist and international homes, and the period of significance between 1961 and 1976.

Actual building in the neighborhood began late 1960s and concluded in 76.

I was asked at the last last time I I visited with the commission.

Where is Coker Hills?

Well, if you'll look at the chart, you will see that Eastwood Lake is to the north, and Esther's Drive is to the south.

Excuse me.

Can you can you enlarge that?

And also, could you move the mic a little closer to you?

Thank you.

Is that good, Nancy?

Is that good?

Anything else about this chart?

I'll move on to another one.

This is the detail of the neighborhood showing the roughly 13 blocks of land within the neighborhood.

And I'll note that approximately 80% of the structures within the neighborhood are deemed by the consultant, Heather Fernbach, as contributing properties, which compares quite favorably, for example, to East Chapel Hill, sometimes known as Franklin Rosemary, but it really it's it's East Chapel Hill.

And so what is located in the neighborhood?

Interesting blend of modernist.

This is probably one that many of you recognize, the Joel Fleischmann House.

A blend of mid-century modern all different kinds of things.

And these are some more examples.

So on behalf of the Coker Hills Neighborhood Association and Preservation Chapel Hill, we ask for your support in this nomination.

So Phil, could you maybe just end um describe what the next steps are?

So I know there's a sort of lengthy process associated with with what you're pursuing, you know, after uh the vote tonight, or what are the next steps for for this project from your standpoint?

Well, I'll uh also refer to uh to staff, uh, but my understanding is there has to be a hearing.

Yeah, so they have to have a public hearing, and any comments and a recommendation um this board have to be sent to the state um by February 11th, because the nomination is on the um North Carolina National Register Advisory Committee's agenda for their February 12th meeting.

Um if a response isn't received by that date, then they assume approval anyway.

Um so those are the the next steps.

Thank you.

I'm just a little confused because it seems kind of backward that the public hearing is after our vote.

Is that right?

This is serving as the public hearing.

This meeting in front of the historic district commission is also the public hearing where if neighbors wanted to come and speak in favor or against, they could do that.

Um that's this instance, and then any public comment that we have received, whether tonight or if we receive emails or letters will get forwarded to the North Carolina, what did you call it?

Say it was called the state office.

State Historic Preservation Office.

This was obviously on the town website, and who knows who looks at our agenda, but there may not be a requirement for this, but what other kinds of publicity was given to this?

Where is there anything, for instance in Chapelboro or the Daily Tar Heel or other media?

We use the news and observer, right?

Yeah, so the State Historic Preservation Office handled um like a legal ad for this hearing.

So they um published that in the news and observer.

Well, the the legal ad.

Yeah.

You know, like I just wonder the for the wider Chapel Hill community, whether required or not, what kind of publicity was given.

It was this.

It was also called out in the town talk, which is the email newsletter that goes out once a week.

Um so that was in the most recent email newsletter from the town.

So Phil, maybe if you could tell us a little bit about the neighborhood and the neighbor engagement and this recommendation, the 130 property.

Indeed, indeed.

As a matter of fact, it's very relevant.

Uh I began working with the neighborhood association in 2023.

And we sent out uh information to the community of the neighborhood association members uh kind of on a quarterly basis.

And on February 18th, 2024, we had a neighborhood-wide uh meeting at the library to discuss questions about the national register and especially its difference between the national register and local historic districts.

The conclusion at that neighborhood meeting in the library was virtually a hundred percent support.

So there has been communication within the neighborhoods been going on for approximately three years.

Yeah, thank you for clarifying that.

I think that's important to know.

Um is the neighborhood completely supportive of this?

And it sounds like pretty much they are.

How did you determine the boundary?

Was that from a the boundaries are basically the same as the neighborhood conservation district?

As I remember the conservation district.

Okay.

So that was the template you used was that's the template, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Which has some reference to its when it was developed and sort of what where the property came from originally, right?

I mean, so there is some correlation with the property that was donated to Coker College, and then sort of it was developed as kind of as one complete project.

Is that all land that Professor Cooker owned?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

And trying to through looking at at Nature.

And did it with his friend Henry Rowland Totten?

Who became a colleague?

Phil, uh what will be the impact on the homeowners and the property owners within the district?

Um will there be an impact on what they can do with their homes?

And is there is there a regulatory oversight um component of being um on the national register?

The answer is no.

East Chapel Hill, Gimgul, uh West Chapel Hill, and Rocky Ridge, aka Laurel Hill Road.

Uh and none of those national register districts is a owner required to do anything with their property or prevent it in some way of making changes.

And there's no oversight.

Right.

This is not a public hearing in the same way that like a rezoning might be that that affects you as an individual's property rights.

You know, I think we've talked about this before, but membership or ownership of property within a national registered district.

I think we've talked about this before, but membership or ownership of property within a national registered district in titles, or I suppose makes a property owner eligible for certain like tax credit programs, but it does not impose or uh impose additional requirements or regulations on a property owner or limit their use of the property, their property in the same way that uh inclusion in like a local historic district might so it's a long-winded way of saying it's a it's a there's still a public hearing requirement, but the notice requirements are a little bit different than kind of your typical public hearing or evidentiary hearing under the under the LUMO.

I didn't mean that they were required.

I just meant what was the level of awareness that had gone out to the town as a whole.

Any other questions for Mr.

Lyons?

No.

Uh Phil, we're gonna um ask for public comment, and then I think there was a letter that was distributed to town staff.

So if you want to take a seat, we'll sort of deal with those things, and then we'll um if we have questions for you, we'll ask you to step back up in a few minutes.

Very well, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

And thank you.

Uh so is there any member of the public that would like to comment on this?

Okay, I don't hear a member of the public wants wanting to comment.

Uh but uh Shanika is distributing a letter.

So Sharika, now that you're back at your microphone, maybe you'd give us context for what you just handed out.

Um yeah, so I handed out a copy of a letter we received.

Um the letter is addressed to the commission.

Um and it is in opposition of nominating Cooker Hills uh to the National Register.

So maybe we'll just all take a few minutes to read and then we can come back for a discussion.

So I I do have a question while others are reading.

So my understanding is that this sort of communication would be included in any um information that's passed along to the state office.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay, because I think there is a request by the author for this to be included, and I think procedurally speaking, that would happen.

Yes.

So these the the arguments would be seen by the people that are evaluating the application.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

There is a typo in this letter that I just checked to make sure that my memory from law school was correct, which is that racial covenants were outlawed in forty-eight, not thirty-eight.

I think in thirty-eight, they probably would have been just fine.

The um author of this letter sent a follow-up email with that correction, but not a new document.

It was just a a reply.

Um, it's important to clarify that that date.

But also merely because they were outlawed did not mean that they went away.

I have um comments on each of these three reasons, which I'd I think I feel are material.

Um in the first, the author of this letter conflates historic districts with national registers.

He says that an argument to make Cokra Hills a historic district.

Well, we have a a def even though it's not capitalized here, we have a definition of a historic district, and that's certainly not the intent of this application.

Um because we have learned that there's no regulatory oversight as there is in a historic district.

So I I find that the first statement is not really clear or to the point.

Um C Modernist is a wonderful organization, but they do not they do not um perform exhaustive surveys.

They identify buildings and places that they may happen across or that are proposed to them rather than doing a survey as we would expect.

So even though NC Modernist has only identified two houses of significance in this area, um doesn't sway me at least, because of the fact that NC Modernists does not do exhaustive surveys.

Um they wait for the houses to come to them.

Lastly, and hardest for me is um I I think that throughout history, I mean, the the university is a the university is on the national register, or parts of the university are.

And certainly the founders of the university and the people who um paid for many of donated many of the buildings were racists, and they um their wealth came from the enslavement of black people.

Now I find that abhorrent, but I don't find that to be a reason not to have the university on the National Register.

And so I find his third statement to be reactive, but not um doesn't sway me.

So I each each each of these I think has a weakness and would certainly not inform my opinion on whether or not this should be a on the national register.

Sir, any other communication from the public on this topic?

Just no just the presentation and then the letter tonight.

Um procedurally speaking, because this is not in our quasi-judicial um mandate.

I it's probably a we we make a motion to approve or disapprove, and then we take a vote, is that generally speaking?

Yeah, and I and I and I think in the staff report there are a couple of different options or I suppose actions that the commission could could take, but but that's correct.

Yeah, this is just kind of a simple traditional motion and vote, the motion second and vote.

Yeah.

And so like the the statement that the chair will have to sign says like the commission has reviewed and discussed the nomination, and you find that the property meets the criteria for listing, and then you recommend it for listing, and then a statement like that's you you don't recommend and you don't find that it meets the criteria.

So very helpful, thank you.

Um is it in this situation acceptable for me as the chairperson to make that motion, or should I ask somebody else to do that and then we take a vote?

Certainly no reason why you couldn't what and what I would suggest is so hypothetically speaking, I don't want to put my phone on scale here, but say for example, the commission wanted to take that first recommended action or the first option in the staff report.

I would suggest that you also that the motion also include a direction to you or to Don, I suppose, uh to sign the form on behalf of the commission.

So that you're making the the factual finding, the recommendation, and then there's also specific authorization delegated, you know.

I I suppose maybe it's to you tonight since we're here um to sign the the form on behalf of the commission.

Got it.

And it's just procedurally speaking.

Do you have something that I would sign tonight or would you just okay?

So then I'll make the motion that I do that just so we can take care of that piece.

Okay.

So I'm I'm going to make a motion uh that the commission finds that the nomination meets the criteria for listing in the National Register of Historic Places based on the materials that Mr.

Lyons presented this evening.

Um I also would recommend that the letter that was distributed go along with this material so that we're just being very transparent about the information that was provided from the community.

Um and I would also make a motion that I sign the required paperwork so this could be passed on to the state office after this meeting.

Do I need a second?

Yeah, I need a second.

Second second.

Second.

Thank you, Josh.

And then I'll just take a roll.

Uh Laura.

I Nancy.

I.

Josh.

Hi.

Glenn.

I.

And the chair votes aye.

Thank you.

And good luck.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, members of the committee.

Thank you.

Phil.

And a long road.

It sounds like it.

Uh Phil, if you wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind you sticking around for the next conversation.

We're getting ready to have it if you don't mind about uh historic preservation month.

Um so I think we're we're so I'll I'll sign that tonight.

I think we're done with the agenda that was published.

Um Nancy, would would you mind if I asked you to um talk about the discussion you and I had about uh historic preservation month, or would you prefer me to summarize that?

I think I would prefer that you summarize uh so uh for the last couple of years, the Historic District Commission has uh recommended to the town council that there be a designation of May as national uh as preservation uh month in Chapel Hill.

My understanding is that that is also kind of happens at a state level, so there are other um efforts underway to designate national uh historic preservation in the month of May.

So this would be a local, a local designation.

It it's national.

It is national.

So that this is sort of in addition to the national designation, it would be a Chapel Hill recognizing that and celebrating that for um for our town.

Um I think the um conclusion has been that the support for that has been lukewarm, maybe at best.

And so there's a question around whether or not we'd want to pursue that again this this year, and if so, are there um additional efforts we'd like to put against that to ensure that there is um recognition of the town more broadly and that it actually has the desired effect?

I think that's fair.

I mean and Josh can you know speak to this also.

It last year I think was the first time the town actually made some effort with putting stuff up on the website, and so on, but it every year it's had to come from us.

The town has not kind of incorporated it into its regular recognition of events, like I mean, every month is about like 17 different recognition months, and so I you know, I'm just interested in seeing without us as the HDC really having to kind of push for it every year, whether there is a way to get the town to focus more in its whole even marketing, you know, that it's not just UNC, it's a very historic town.

A lot of cool stuff has happened here.

So that's just a Josh and I have been very involved in this from the beginning.

And at least I am kind of willing to pass the baton to the town, and not have to you know, kind of start all over every year.

Josh?

Well, I I would underscore that.

Um I think that I would say that I I characterize the overall response as tepid.

Um this grew out of a this whole effort grew out of a um of something that came up at one of our retreats, and that is to be able to um more robustly um promote and advertise the fact that we exist and we are a historic town, and that um both events and buildings and people and places have existed here.

And um I'm not sure that this particular initiative has served its purpose in that regard.

Um I know we've made great efforts, but I'm just I and when I say that the response has been tepid, I don't actually even mean from town itself.

I know we had we we did have um challenges getting the town to put things on the on their website um because some of the promotions are private, and the town does not put links to private things on their website, and I understand that, but it did provide us a challenge.

Um this is in no way a criticism of the staff because we knew from the get-go that staff has a lot of other stuff to do.

We were hoping to get like communication staff, marketing staff more committed to just routinely, you know, as part of what the town does, is to point out that yes, this is a historic place.

So it is no reflection on y'all, because we knew that you could not do very much with all your other responsibilities.

So I you know I would be in favor actually of um exploring other opportunities, and um, you know, this is this is national, like Nancy said, and um the town could offer a proclamation as they have in the past, but I'm not sure that we would want to continue spearheading the kind of detailed stuff that we have in the past, because I'm not sure it's been particularly effective.

So I I think there is a uh importance of continuity, which is something has been started to recognize the historic nature of town, and having that be something that's sort of annually recognized, even though it may not have completely caught traction.

I think longevity oftentimes has its own benefit.

And so I I would and so I think the I think it's worth the effort of pursuing a proclamation and having the town recognize that if for no other reason then we speak it into being, and it reminds people that it's important.

So I I personally feel like um at a minimum the things that have been done the last couple of years are important to continue, so that the probability that it will pick up steam in the future is still there.

If you stop, it won't.

So that I just have a little bit of a you gotta kind of keep going even if it's hard.

I think the proclamation is a good idea.

Yeah, and that we should continue that.

And I agree that it's not sufficient for what we would what the aspiration is.

And so I I think it is um it would be important to include Don in this conversation because I think as the chairperson, he has a bit more um uh he could clear his throat a little louder.

This guy may be the way I would say it to get attention, and I'd like to enroll him in that, and given his background and experience, I think he would be more than willing to do that.

Um we also have a new council liaison and Elizabeth, and I would like to enroll her in that conversation as we have prior um council liaison with Camillo and then Amy Amy before that, because if we're gonna have a spokesperson at the council, it needs to be the person that's working that's working with us.

So I think there in my mind, there's sort of two practical steps.

Um there are others in Chapel Hill, like Preservation Chapel Hill that have in their charter recognition of the historic nature of town, and so I wonder about ways for our you know, commission to better partner with other organizations, and even if we are a small part of a larger effort, is that not perhaps more effective than us trying to do something a little bit solo?

And so and Phil, that's that's part of the reason I wanted you to stick around for this part, the part of the conversation.

If there's anything, any advice you have to give or any perspective you'd like to provide, you know, now or later, we would we'd love to hear that also.

It is one of our responsibilities under our enabling legislation to I don't remember the exact language, but promote knowledge about historic preservation and and so on.

So it is a function that you know we are mandated to do, at least in some degree.

And I believe that's where the effort initiated was out of a discussion at a retreat maybe three years ago, and sort of you know, looking at the documentation, or like, why does this district like why does this commission exist?

It's one of the um provasos, or it's one of the reasons why these exist, and it's part of part of part of our charter.

Um Glenn and Laura, I think you're both maybe a little bit newer to this conversation, so if there's any questions you've got or perspective you want to add, or volunteer step.

I wasn't gonna go quite that far, Nancy, but just would love to hear if you have anything to add or questions for me.

Um what is the um parameter for being historic?

Like we just saw this discussion about homes built in the 70s and the eight sixties with wonderful architecture and site design and all these really beautiful features, and and we're considering that historic now.

And for me, historic means much older than that.

So maybe it's a sense of educating the public that historic comes right on up to not that long ago, and that our town is bigger than just the historic districts that are regulated in town.

Maybe that's very naive, but that's my perspective on it.

Well, I I think the reason that sometimes the conversations that we've sponsored um strike people as odd is because we have a very specific charter to oversee buildings in the historic districts.

But as you say, the history actually has a much broader narrative, and I think that's kind of what Nancy is alluding to is that it is the first public university in the country can conveyed the first um degree in the 18th century from a public university in our country.

I mean, there are some things that happened here that are actually quite historic, and I think that's part of the spirit of this, but sometimes our sponsorship of that feels a bit out of step with our charter.

It just doesn't quite connect for people, I think is what part of our challenge, you know.

And maybe a little bit of reputation management also from people here, historic district, not everybody has a positive reaction to that because of you know prior problems.

Um Nancy and Josh, can I ask a question about when um for the proclamation?

When you say like the reception has been lukewarm, um what does that mean?

Like, are you is that council?

Is that like staff, are there barriers to doing the proclamation?

I think to me it's more that it's kind of not I wish Brian could do this.

He he knows advertising.

I don't, but more that it's not just one month, yeah.

They do the proclamation.

We wrote the proclamation.

So and last year they did uh on the website, there was a a lot of really nice information on the website, but I don't know how well that was communicated through other town uh media or throughout the year.

I mean, it's always historic in Chapel Hill.

So when I said tepid, I did not mean the proclamation or even being on the town's website.

I meant that we did the proclamation, we did things that we thought were effective.

And two weeks into the month, I would um tell one of my neighbors that this is you know that this month was celebrating historic, you know, Chapel Hill's history.

And I would get a blank look.

They had no idea what I was talking about.

And so that that's what I meant by a tepid response.

Um there was just no nobody I talked to actually knew anything about what was happening, even though we did, and the town certainly did.

Um but none of my neighbors did.

So you know, I think that our initiative grew out of publicizing what we were all about, and it wasn't it wasn't working.

So it wasn't staff, it wasn't town council, it wasn't any of that.

It was really anybody knowing what we were doing.

Now we did have a problem getting things on the town website.

You probably are very aware of that because there are definite rules about linkages, but I'm not even sure that really made a difference.

I'm not sure why my neighbors didn't know anything about it.

But they sure didn't.

I think last year they did link to like some of the walking tours and other sites.

I think they changed their position on that between 2024 and 25.

I think they had more um links, like maybe to the Jackson Center and so on to the wall last year.

Yeah.

Um I think I'm I'm hearing a desire for like the broader community to know more about historic preservation that's like beyond the historic districts.

Um I think it would be helpful if y'all had like a future meeting where y'all talked about what the commission wants to do for like education and outreach opportunities.

Um activities like that are stuff that we do report on for the um the annual certified local government um report, and in that there's like a question about how is the commission um like supporting the like North Carolina preservation plan, and there are like a bunch of different goals and like ideas for things that you could do.

Um, so we could go through that, and maybe y'all could talk about um some opportunities for this um reporting yeah, and um Anna Scott and I can be a part of those conversations and see how we can support y'all with those those efforts.

That that would be amazing, and you know, something that you both said about it not being just the month makes me wonder whether or not the proclamation is a part of a broader plan, not just the only plan.

Does it actually need to be something that we talk about more regularly?

And and I'm you know, Sharonika, as you mentioned, if there are ideas from the state office or from others around sort of things that you can do on a regular basis, maybe that becomes a little bit more of our study diet, yeah of things that we talk about.

So it's like that it's almost it's almost like May is the beginning.

Yeah, not like a one-off, you know, episodic.

And last year, um our the commission's previously as an Anya worked on the Art of Preservation Workshop with the Orange Chatham Realtor Association, and so Anna Scott, and with um preservation Chapel Hill, and so Anna Scott and I are planning to reach out to them to see if they want to hold that again this year.

And we did that in May because it was national preservation month, but it sounds like maybe a preference to have it not be in May being a different time of year, so that it's the conversation around preservation is happening throughout the year and not just for 30, 31 days, whatever it is once every year.

Yeah, I I think uh if you can get the attention and they agree, you should do it when you can do it, and if it works in May, amazing, go for it.

Yeah, right.

And I and it and I you know, I don't know that um that would have happened had it not been you know, historic preservation month.

So I think there may be things that happened because we've been focusing on this that maybe aren't quite as transparent, but actually did have some butterfly effect associated with something, and so in my mind it is the sometimes you just have to keep after it, like you just the persistency and longevity actually over time sort of builds up, and so you know, my opinion would be that we should put this on the agenda as a as a topic for our next meeting, kind of budget time for it.

Um, I will kind of debrief Don on this conversation, and then you know, Sharika, I I really appreciate the offer of if there's information that you will have access to that could stimulate a conversation, that would be amazing.

And then I I do think we should plan to do a proclamation again this year, and then I I'll talk to Don about how we enroll Elizabeth in that conversation also as our new liaison.

Okay.

Phil, do you have any words of advice for us?

No pressure.

I've been racking my brain over the same thing.

Okay.

Well, misery does love company, so I appreciate I appreciate that.

And you've been busy, you've had something else on your on your plate with Cooker Hills.

So we'll we'll add this to the agenda for February.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I'm just something that might I guess be relevant to this conversation and to your prepar commissioners' preparation for next month's meeting.

Do you do you when do y'all start making budget requests for this?

I mean, I know bud budget seasons coming up in beginning in May.

Now last week.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I suppose there's probably some real urgency then if y'all have ideas for like a plan that's gonna require additional funding.

Probably need to like have that you're ready to go tied up in a bow.

Yeah, next month.

I I think the um the truth is the town priorities and the priorities from council have many other places of focus from a budget standpoint, just based on the letter that the mayor sent out this week and sort of summarizing the council's um agenda, essentially.

So I mean, not to poo-poo that, but I'm not sure that they would that would be received particularly well.

I think it probably is more um our collective efforts and volunteerism that would be more effective given current state of affairs.

Just saying you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Yeah, so if there's some you know uh some concept of a plan uh about you know putting together a kind of a a real program that's gonna that may require funding, I think it probably behooves you guys to to come ready to really discuss specifics and like dollar figures and what you have in mind next month because it sounds like we're if if there is gonna be a request, we're already behind the eight, you know, and regardless of how likely that request is to be approved or not, we're already behind the eight ball to even submit that.

Yeah, and I was gonna say that would be a good topic of conversation with um Elizabeth as the liaison.

Yeah.

Um I'll add that um the budget discussions.

Uh I don't want it to like deter you from talking about it because we can always have ideas for what the commission could do and plan for it for next fiscal year.

Well, and it's there are grand opportunities.

I mean, there's other ways, there's other funding sources that have to come from municipality that we could choose to pursue.

And for what it's worth, uh there's another historic district commission that I do some work some work for as outside council.

And one of the things they've tried to do over the years with um you know with budget restrictions and with varying degrees of success, but they've tried to do kind of like a quarterly, you know, find speakers, you know.

Perhaps you could have Phil come as a as a speaker at some point, but do like a quarterly, you know, one of your meetings, you know, kind of each quarter would be more of an educational um event.

You'd advertise that to the community.

It'll it'll be advertised and posted on the town's website because it's a meeting of a town body, and hopefully, you know, maybe they can do a little bit more marketing for that, the communications folks can.

But then you you have you invite somebody who's knowledgeable on your preservation topics, who can come and speak to the board, educate you all, but also educate you hopefully you get interested members of the community who will come out, they'll learn a little bit more about what what the HDC does in the process.

They'll also learn about whatever you know, the speaker might be uh uh speaking about or or presenting to the commission.

And and any where I'm going with this in the the other commission that I work with had similar budget con uh constraints.

This was an idea that they could do without um you know any additional funding.

Like uh it's it's our it's volunteer hours primarily.

Right, and right, so you ask for volunteers who who can educate you all, but who can also hopefully draw some community engagement.

Um then you know, as that hopefully takes off and gains a little bit more traction, you know, then hopefully uh you can kind of they can demonstrate to the their governing board why this program merits a little bit of additional funding, then you can you know maybe spin that off into you know events outside of your formal meetings on your regular meeting agenda and that sort of thing.

It's that plan has not gone exactly to play in with the other community, but it's something that I thought you're and it's uh having outside um people come in and talk is something we've done in the past typically when we don't have a COA on the agenda um rather than not having a meeting.

We'll ha like Phil has come in the past.

I think you came last February to talk to the commission about work you were doing.

Um but like Kevin said, if you want to do that more regularly, we can certainly do that.

We'll need help hearing from you all who you want to hear from, reaching out to people to come and talk about the topics you're interested in.

But that's certainly something that staff can keep in mind and add to the agenda regularly with your help as commissioners.

And I Josh, I suspect you and Don both have ideas just given what you've done professionally that would help populate agenda.

I think we could do that three or four times a year.

Okay.

Good.

Good conversation, lots to think about.

Kevin's gonna bring his list for us next week.

Or sorry, next month.

I'll start and see if we can do that.

Good.

Okay.

I think we're adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.