We've officially called the meeting to order and going through the roll call.

I'm going to start over.

Brian Daniels.

Here.

Glenn Conley.

Here.

Josh Gerlitz.

Here.

Nancy McCormick.

Here.

And Lori Moore.

Here.

Okay.

And I'm Don Tice.

I'm here.

Okay.

Before we get to the Secretary's comments or I read the public charge, we're going to acknowledge Women's History Month.

And I'm going to read a little predetermined bit for you here.

March is Women's History Month.

Each March we join the nation in celebrating Women's History Month, a time officially designated by presidential proclamation to honor women's contributions to American history from civic leadership and scientific breakthroughs to arts, education, and social justice.

It began as a local women's history week in 1978 and grew into a month-long observance in 1987, reflecting a growing recognition that inclusive history is good history.

We proudly recognize several trouble raising women of Chapel Hill whose courage, intellect, and perseverance paved the way for future generations.

One is Sally Walker Stockard.

In 1898, she became the first woman to earn a degree from UNC Chapel Hill, even as she was barred from ceremonies and class photographs.

Wow.

Susan Gray Acres, in 1942, she became UNC's first ever female dean leading the School of Library Science.

Gwendolyn Harrison Smith in 1951, she became the first black woman to study at UNC, challenging segregation by filing a federal lawsuit to live on campus and register for classes.

Arlene Parker Neal.

In 1960, she became the first black woman to earn a master's degree from UNC School of Library Science, defying persistent racial barriers.

Betty Baldwin Greer and other local women freedom fighters.

These courageous Chapel Hill residents organized sit-ins and civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s.

Betty famously continued singing protest songs when many people passed out because of the heat.

Reminding us that the fight for justice is carried in song, solidarity, and resilience.

She stood up in the 1960s and 70s filing complaints against sex discrimination as a scientist and joining local consciousness raising groups that uh help ignite the women's movement here.

This woman's history month, we honor these this woman's history month, we honor these inspiring women, pioneers in education, civil rights, science, and community activism, whose determination and courage shape not only Chapel Hill but the nation.

Their legacies empowered us to move forward together, ensuring that the voices of women, especially those who have been marginalized, are heard, honored, and continue to inspire future generations.

Okay, now Secretary Reed Procedures, please.

I'll now read the following.

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.

Okay, now I'm gonna read the public charge.

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

Property owners may represent themselves or be represented by attorney.

However, professionals such as architects, engineers, designers, and others may provide factual evidence and expert opinion so far as they are qualified, but not legal arguments on behalf of the property owner.

And that is the public charge.

Next is the approval of the agenda.

The agenda is from February 10th, 2026.

Any comments from the board?

Someone want to Don, we wanted to remind you about the length of the agenda and ask if any items want to be continued.

Okay for tonight's agenda.

Yeah, if if you want to amend the agenda now.

Well, we can we can amend the agenda.

What we're discussing is we have three items on the agenda tonight.

We hope they don't go long, but if they do, we wanted everyone in the crowd to know that you're more than happy to what's the official term when you move it forward.

So all of the agenda items tonight can be heard, um, time permitted, but if anybody doesn't want to wait around, if you're later on the agenda, you can um elect to have your item continued to the next month's meeting.

Yep.

And what and I think we've said that nine o'clock is the latest, we'll take a new item.

Yes.

So the commission would not start a new hearing for a new business item after nine.

After nine o'clock.

So everyone understands that.

Is there anyone here that wants to continue to the next meeting, or they want to sit here and hope that we get them all three in tonight?

Okay.

Is there I'm Don Stanford, I'm interested in agenda item number two.

Please can you um step up to the microphone?

Sure.

Um of the concerns that we have is that we received notice of this on Friday.

And two days notice strikes me as pretty little notice given the fact that um this proposal is a is a major proposal, and it not only has implications as far as excuse me.

Um we are concerned.

Um my wife and I live next door to this property, and we are going to be the most uh directly affected individuals with respect to this.

And I think as well, this may wind up being um important as precedent, if I can put it that way.

Um it's my understanding that the commission hasn't faced a request of this kind in years.

Well, there's uh a couple of things there.

One, I need to ask staff.

Uh, did everything get sent out on time as per the rules and regs?

So this this part of the agenda is to approve tonight's agenda.

Um so I think we would need to hear from the applicant for that item if they want to continue.

Um what information is provided could be part of your discussion for standing.

Okay, but for now, we're just approving.

This is an approval of the agenda.

And if a applicant, if an applicant wants to continue their item to next month, they can elect to do so.

Okay, so I didn't hear that yes, sir.

Hi, I'm Jay Folkerson, and I'm I'm uh representing the project at 308 West Cameron, which is the one they're referring to.

We do not want to continue.

Okay, we'd like to do it tonight.

All right, very good, please.

Okay.

So given there are no continuances, so with uh recognizing the nine o'clock cap for a new item on the agenda.

I vote that we approve the agenda.

Would move that we approve the agenda for tonight's meeting.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, all in favor?

I think the agenda passes.

So are there any uh any other announcements?

Yes.

Um staff will be reaching out to the commissioners in the coming days to ask for your availability to start scheduling a retreat sometime this spring or early summer.

So just be on the lookout for that email from either Sharnika or I.

Okay.

And are there any petitions?

There are not okay.

Now approval of the minutes.

Sorry, before not at the previous meeting, but I did watch the video.

Okay.

Same.

So uh somebody want to uh I move approval of minutes of meeting of February 10th.

Is there a second?

I second.

Okay, all in favor?

I very good.

Thank you.

Now let's get down to business.

Next is administrative ZOS uh COA approvals.

So that's just uh report for staff approved COAs.

Um I don't you don't need to take any action, it's just for information.

Okay.

And then on the consent agenda is three oh four north boundary.

You do need to make a motion.

For the written decision for 304 north boundary.

A motion for what, sorry?

To approve the written decision for 304 north boundary.

Oh, the um for the consent agenda.

The what?

The consent agenda.

The consent.

So I I move that we approve item number three three oh four north boundary.

The written decision now submitted in the agenda.

Second.

All in favor?

I gets approved.

Thank you.

All right.

Now that takes us to the first item of new business, which is three oh eight West Cameron Avenue.

Maybe this is the time for me to place a formal objection.

Yeah.

Um I don't think we've received appropriate notice.

I think we'll hear from the HTC's attorney so he can help.

Yes, so before before we get into formal objections, that sort of thing.

I think the appropriate step, first steps are for us to run through our administrative matters, so conflicts of interest amongst the board.

Uh we can administer oaths to the applicant witnesses and those who wish to speak, such as yourselves.

Um and then at that point, I believe if um if there are individuals here, members of the public who wish to participate in the evidentiary hearing as parties with standing, that they would have an opportunity then to you know present the I I will discuss or present to the board kind of a general summary of the law on standing, what um their evidentiary threshold will be.

Um they will have the opportunity then to present evidence to you all demonstrating why they believe they have standing, why they meet that threshold.

Um regardless of whether they meet that threshold or not, or what regardless of whether you determine that they do, uh they will be entitled to participate in the evidentiary hearing at the very least as witnesses presenting your testimony your fact testimony on matters within their personal knowledge.

Um and I think regardless of whether they uh intend to participate either as a party with standing or as a witness, once we've run through those initial administrative steps, they'll have the right to ask uh the the HDC to continue the evidentiary hearing.

You'll also uh you have to consider the applicants uh you know reasoning or basis to continue with the hearing as currently proposed uh in the agenda.

But I I think that's kind of how I would recommend we structure the next several steps.

So first would be going through your usual kind of administrative steps.

Well, let's start with the administrative steps, please.

Thank you.

Um I'm sorry, y you know question or jurisdiction is squarely in the question of notice.

If the parties or at least potential parties have not been notified pursuant to the ordinance in the statute in a timely manner, then you can't hear it.

Um the statute clearly says well, first we would like to get through the administrative portions and then you'll have your moment to speak and we'll go back to our lawyer to help us with that, okay.

Okay, so does anybody here have any conflicts of interest?

No.

No.

Okay.

Very good.

All right, so let's start with the uh with the owner, and uh and I'm gonna read you an affirmation.

And Donna, I would suggest that everyone who may wish to speak or present testimony in some form or fashion to you all this evening.

This would be an opportunity to have everybody come up at one time.

And then you can administer the oath kind of in one batch to everybody.

Okay.

So could you please do that?

Could you come up?

Anybody that wants to speak, come up and sign.

And this particular just for this item.

Just for this one, sorry.

Just for Cameron, we're talking about the three oh eight Cameron signed in.

Okay, is everybody for 308 Cameron signed in?

Okay, sorry.

What I was gonna say was everybody saying how to say the name get up to speak as well.

Okay.

Uh while they're still signing up, uh we have an administrative question for you.

Typically we do the affirmation I affirm and they say their name and then they speak.

Um if we do it as a group, uh I do the affirmation, everyone says I affirm, and then can they each say their name individually when they get up to speak, or do they all have to blare their name out at one time?

So I I I would go ahead and I think in the interest of expediency, they can all stand and affirm, and then I think we would just ask that each time any member of the public who has been uh administering an oath gets up to speak, they state their name and acknowledge that they've taken the oath.

That would be a very civil way to do it.

Thank you very much.

So everybody that just signed up, if you could uh I'm gonna read an affirmation, and after I read it, if you could please say I affirm, and then as you get up, if you could say your your name before you start making your case, okay?

So I affirm that the evidence I shall give to the historic district commission and the referenced application shall be the truth and nothing but the truth, I so affirm.

Thank you.

So let's let's start with the owner, which is the typical path.

Don, I think before we dive into this, since we have a party who wishes to demonstrate to the board that they have standing to participate, I suggest we start there because they will, of course, then want to cross-examine the owner, the applicant, the applicant's witnesses.

So I think it's probably in everybody's interest to just go ahead and get that portion of the uh the hearing out of the way here.

Okay, so how do we begin determining if someone has standing?

So uh under North Carolina law, and this is uh general statutes chapter one sixty D, Section 1402 C sets out the different uh means by which a party may have standing to participate before a local quasi judicial board.

Um those means uh to establish standing are ownership of property that is subject of the application before the board.

Uh a party might have sta uh uh might suffer special damages as a result of the decision by uh the board.

Um the party, of course, can be um you know a member or a a uh uh of or an association either incorporated or unincorporated, so long as at least one of their members uh has standing on their own.

And then finally, of course, they can be uh the the local government with jurisdiction over the matter has uh standing to participate as well.

Um so I'll go ahead and and and guess most folks who wish to kind of intervene in these sorts of proceedings before the local quasi judicial boards wish to intervene on the basis that they will suffer special damages as the result of uh as a result of the board's decision.

Uh special damages are kind of a fact-specific inquiry.

Um, there are kind of three general factors that the local board must consider when determining whether someone will suffer special damages.

The first is ownership of property in pro close proximity to the property that's subject of the board's decision.

Um but that in and of itself is not determinative, right?

So you can own property next door and still not have standing uh if other factors are not also met.

The second factor to consider is the impact of the board's decision on uh the individual's property value, but again, that is not determinative in and of itself.

Kind of the weightiest factor are these other adverse impacts.

So this would be things like um the effects of storm water runoff on the individual's property as a result of um the board's decision, you know, n uh impacts from increased noise or light pollution, those sorts of things.

Um so in any event, it's up to the individual to demonstrate these other adverse impacts to the board, uh, and and then you all will weigh the evidence presented by the applicant to determine whether or not you believe that they would suffer special damages.

Well, it's it's interesting that a lot of those factors you present have more to do with the land use management ordinance than with the Chapel Hill uh design, historic design guidelines.

And so you're asking us to make some type of ruling, for instance, on floor area ratio or uh impervious surface or storm drainage, and that's not what we're here to do, or that is not our purview.

So, how do we dictate someone has standing when that is not in our purview?

That that is the individual's burden to carry.

So uh you're you're exactly right.

Um the special damages have to be the result of the board's decision, right?

So tonight, the decision that's before you is whether or not to grant a certificate of appropriateness.

Certificate of appropriateness, and I I know we've talked about this uh more times than y'all can probably count.

I we've talked about this until I've been blue in the face.

Your uh decision is whether or not the uh the application as presented to you is or is not in congruous with the special character of the district.

So anybody wishing to uh be a party with standing will have to show how uh your decision tonight, you know, in the event that you were to approve the COA and make that determination that what's been proposed is not in congruence with the character of the historic historic district, would uh you know uh affect them uh adversely.

Um so again, it's their responsibility to present evidence to you uh of that, you know, to meet that standard.

And again, they also have to demonstrate that the special damages that they would suffer are distinct to them as opposed to special damages that might be suffered by the the community or the neighborhood at large.

Um so that's another factor that that you all will have to consider when making your decision.

Okay, and just for clarity, uh since this is quad j quasi judicial, I want to make sure someone says it.

Um the COA that we if it gets approved, it gets a COA certificate of appropriateness.

Uh that goes to the town, and the town still has to go through the permitting and lumo process, and the COA is just attached underneath the permit, but they can't issue a permit without a COA.

The COA is totally separate from designations of LUMO permits, setbacks, that type of thing.

That's correct.

Yes, just yes, I want to see clarity on that.

So for the general public's awareness, but and you all are already aware of this, is that you all are not determining whether or not all of the applicable development standards imposed by the LUMO are or are not met.

Correct.

As far as I'm concerned, or as far as I'm aware, the materials that have been presented to you are insufficient to make that determination.

Correct.

The design that's been proposed is not incongruous with kind of the architectural character of the applicable historic district.

Okay.

Catherine, if the proposed intervener can talk only about how their buildings would be affected, or can they, based on their residence in the district, testify about what they have observed about the character of the district?

Well, so certainly if you were to determine that they are a party with standing, then they would pre-and I'll back up regardless of whether you determine whether they're a party with standing or not, they can certainly present testimony during uh the applicant's case in chief about whether or not uh you know what's been proposed is or is not in congress with the character of the district, right?

You know, they can still uh present factual testimony on matters within their personal knowledge about you know the the character of the district, um, how the application as it's presented is is or is not consistent or uh congruous with kind of that general character.

So just to be clear, they can present as fact witnesses about the district without necessarily being granted intervener status.

That's correct.

And we have regardless of whether they are they have standing to participate in the hearing as a party, they are entitled to present test testimony uh to you all about those matters.

Again, matters within their personal knowledge, and and we also will have to get uh, of course, into um you of course there are certain uh there's certain subject matter that only expert witnesses may testify to is certainly an expert witness, uh only an expert witness can provide opinion testimony on certain matters.

Um so you know, depending on what the intervener may wish to testify to, you will have to kind of assess the competence of their testimony.

Um, but you know, that may be kind of getting ahead of ourselves here a little bit.

So, Kevin, I have a follow-up question to that.

So if someone that's not the applicant that is an interested party in the public presents information tonight from an order of process standpoint, should we be asking follow-up questions of that person, or should we wait until the applicant has an opportunity to present their information?

We ask questions of everyone at the same time.

Well, so I I think if what you're asking is kind of the sequence of events here, yeah.

What I would suggest is that first we would can we'll we'll conduct kind of a mini evidentiary hearing on the stand-in question, right?

So uh they'll be able to present whatever evidence they believe demonstrates that they would suffer special damages or that they might may meet a different uh standing threshold under uh the applicable law.

Um I don't want to presume the the avenue that they might wish to to um you know to to go down to demonstrate standing.

Umce this board has made its determination determination on the standing issue, we would then turn to the applicant.

The applicant would be entitled to make their kind of presentation as usual.

Um and then at that point, the intervenor uh would have the opportunity to cross-examine the applicant.

Um if the applicant wanted to uh you know to present, you know, kind of redirect, so to speak, um, they would have the opportunity to do that.

Then the intervener would have their opportunity to present kind of their case in chief to you all, their you know, their own evidence.

Uh the applicant would have the opportunity to cross-examine the intervener.

Um and then at that point, the the intervener would have the opportunity to kind of provide redirect.

Then this board would have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions to you know whomever you might have follow-up questions for.

Then, you know, depending on kind of how you all feel about the evidentiary record that's been developed so far, it might be appropriate to close the evidentiary hearing at that point to deliberate and discuss um the evidence that's been presented, determine whether or not you have sufficient evidence to make a decision this evening uh or not, and then kind of proceed from there uh as is appropriate.

Thank you.

Okay, so we need to start the mini evidentiary hearing of standing.

Yeah.

And that begins, I think, by calling the person up that may be requesting standing.

Is that correct?

I think that's correct.

I'll try to make this quick.

Yeah.

I don't really want to be here all night.

Okay.

I think first make sure you give us your name.

Sure.

My name is Donald McKeever Stanford Jr.

I'm a native of Chapel Hill.

Um went to Chapel Hill High School.

My wife and I have lived at 129 Millette Street since 1985.

It's our home.

We are the long time or the the longest time residents of Millette Street.

Um can I ask if any of you are familiar with the property here?

Have you had a chance to look at it?

Well, uh, I'm not trying to give you a hard time and just don't want to go over things that may be obvious.

Well, we all live in Chapel Hill, so everyone knows where Millette Street is.

So I'll speak for everyone when I say yes, and that I've been here since 1985 myself.

So I've been up and down Millette Street more times than you can count.

So but no one here is has been there for this hearing because we aren't allowed to go visit specific sites.

Well, that's kind of a shift because um I've actually served on this commission before and um that's a major shift.

Um I agree.

The um the property in question here is at the corner of Millette and West Cameron Avenue.

And this property is just south of us, but it's uphill.

So that means that anything that happens, tree falls, it's likely coming our way.

That means that if as has happened before, um the plumbing fails there, then our yard winds up getting flooded.

But more specifically, you know, if we were to put our house on the market, it would clearly have an impact on its fair market value.

And to this point, the question of special damage is really one, you know, how do you convert this into specific money?

You know, something that is specific to our property that isn't specific, that isn't generally true of everyone else, right?

I mean, someone who lives two blocks away may be in the historic district, but they probably don't have special damages in standing because they're not sufficiently immediately impacted by the actions of that adjoining property.

There is no other property which is more adjoining than we are, except for the Granville Towers parking lot.

And I would suggest that the parking lot Gramble doesn't care, and they would be here otherwise.

So the point we're trying to make here is this.

We've lived next door to this house for a long time.

Um we knew the longtime homeowners who who were there, the the Claphams, they were good neighbors.

We enjoyed having them there.

It was a pleasure.

They made our lives easier, and vice versa.

So the issue of special damages really is I to some extent I just have to pose it this way.

If we don't have special, if we don't have standing under this doctrine, no one does.

Then standing has no meaningful legal application.

Um I should tell you that, in the interest of, I've been a lawyer in this community for a long time, and a member of the business school faculty where I teach law and ethics.

I'm pretty much retired now for a long time.

I'm pretty familiar with these issues, and I don't want to bore you with the sometimes the difficulty associated with standing issues.

But the point I guess I really want to make here in terms of standing is this.

If we don't have standing, what's the point of notifying people with a hundred feet of their property, of the property that's subject property, and clearly we are within that zone.

Uh the the ordinance and the statute really contemplate that those individuals are obviously impacted by these kinds of things.

Now, if we were just talking about a minor shift here, that you know, they were building a shed in the back or something like that.

Okay, you know, maybe.

But we're talking about a proposal that would insert a new house between the existing house and our house that is actually larger than the existing house.

It would cast increased shadows in our direction.

It will, I mean, you know, common sense tells you that because they're going to be uh more impervious surface, that that means that we're gonna get a lot of runoff.

We're also gonna get more runoff because they're putting their proposal puts four parking spaces and parking pads uh on our side as well.

Um we have to look at it every day, and that has a direct impact in terms of the preservation issues and so forth.

We live in the preservation district because we want to preserve the character of the district.

So, you know, in a broader sense, that dovetails with our specific information.

In my opinion, as the owner of the property, I I think I'm also um qualified to express an opinion as to what kind of impact this would have on our property.

And I think it couldn't do anything but hurt it, um, largely because right now what we have is is a backyard that's on the upside of where we are, and and now what we'd be looking at is uh you know, a nearly two-story building that is you know 20 feet from us.

So it would seem to me that we have um we can demonstrate that we would suffer special damages as a consequence of what this proposal uh would do.

So I'll leave it at that.

Could I ask you about the notice?

Yes.

Um this really concerns me because there is according to the statute um it has to be mailed 10 days in advance of the hearing.

So in this case, we got a postcard Friday, four o'clock.

Uh check with the neighbors who were within 100 feet, and and they confirmed that basically that's what they got as well.

There's no postmark on the postcard, so it is it's not possible for me to determine when it was deposited in the mail.

But I would suggest to you that if it had been posted 10 days in advance, we would have gotten it before Friday.

They would it would have had to have been mailed the previous Friday, uh the 27th of February.

I'm pretty sure that the town doesn't work on Saturdays.

And I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that that's the case.

We have talked to our neighbors, and many of them have said that's not enough time.

I've got other things that are scheduled tonight.

I can't be.

We have one neighbor who is here.

Um I think that you know, in terms of due process, it puts you at a significant disadvantage.

I mean, my wife and I spent today plowing through this stuff.

Um we have other obligations.

Yesterday we were involved in some other things.

This is a lot to digest.

This is not a shed in the backyard.

Well, I I agree with that, and I appreciate the question about the notice, but this little mini hearing is about standing.

Um that gets us off onto a whole nother subject.

I have a quick question for you.

Um it's it's because I'm an architect, I know you said you were a lawyer, so uh, and I don't even pretend to know a little bit about law.

But as an architect, I asked it's a stupid question.

We're here there again, I say for the purview of the historic district commission, which is dictating the guidelines of Chapel Hill Design Guidelines.

So are we setting any kind of are there any other boards that 308 Cameron is going to have to go like go before, like a Board of Adjustments for its approvals?

No.

And my question is, will we be setting any kind of precedent by dictating standing or not standing for future boards?

Well, this so again, I mean, you you are not dictating precedent except insofar as the decision you make tonight might be analogized in future cases presenting similar circumstances, right?

So if you decide that these folks do have standing tonight, that doesn't mean that hypothetically speaking, you have to decide that every neighbor uh in the future has standing.

Gotcha.

You would look back and make a determination about based on this case whether somebody might present very similar uh testimony or evidence to you all, in which case that should that might be persuasive to you in future cases.

Um now to answer your what I think is your your more specific question.

I don't believe, and staff can confirm this, that there are other boards that kind of this project will need to go through if you know you grant to COA this evening.

I believe that the remainder of the approvals would be staff level approvals.

You know, so uh approval of a residential site plan, for example, setting out the design of the you know the the location on the property, the design of the proposed uh uh you know structure, and that sort of thing.

The height, for instance, he mentioned it's two stories.

So there that's a board of adjustment issue if they're more than Luma will allow them, that kind of thing.

And right, and and then of course there is a right to appeal those sorts of staff approvals, like of a residential site plan to the Board of Adjustment if they believe that uh you know the approval uh approval of the um uh you know of a specific site plan is in violation of setbacks or of building height requirements, those sorts of things.

Gotcha.

But there is in that sense, there is uh the potential for other board involvement.

Okay.

So right now uh the person requesting standing has has said his piece.

Do we uh have an open discussion here?

That's right.

I think it this would be an appropriate well, first, you know, the applicant may wish to cross-examine uh or present you know their own evidence um on the standing issue.

I don't know if if town staff might wish to provide comment or evidence, uh testimony on any of this stand or related matters.

Um but you know, so I I would suggest that you invite the applicant to say their piece if they wish, uh staff if they have anything to add, and then once you've heard what you believe is uh sufficient evidence you can deliberate.

Okay, and please say your name again just for clearing.

I'm Jay Folkerson, excuse me.

I'm an architect, registered architect in North Carolina.

I've been here since 1988, have a had my own practice since 1998.

Um I work in this realm a lot, although I was commenting earlier, I haven't been here, the historic district commission for about seven years, so it's been a while.

Um but I I guess what I would say in a nutshell is that uh I wonder uh whose purview is it to make such a decision really as you had raised, and as a that's a question.

And the other thing I would say is that as it relates to LUMO, what I'm presenting is as per the ordinance as it's been recently updated and setbacks have been modified and uh in a quest to create higher density in Chapel Hill, among other things.

Um to the extent that there is something that's not per the ordinance, it will be before it's ever approved for a zoning and building compliance permit.

But I I think we're totally in line with with the ordinance as it is currently.

Um which seems to me that establishes what the rules are in terms of building heights and setbacks and all those sorts of circumstances.

Uh solar setbacks, for instance, which have been reduced as per the current ordinance, the new ordinance.

Um at any rate, uh I wonder what damages someone is going to suffer if we follow the LUMO and we address those things that LUMO asks of us in terms of drainage control during construction and afterward and uh and all the other common things that uh that all projects have to adhere to regardless of who they're next door to.

Can we ask clarifying questions at this point?

Certainly.

There is a section on new construction in the design guidelines where those consulted as part of your project.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that that's outlined in my application.

And I'll talk about that tonight as well.

Thank you.

Well, I so it's interesting in this case we have an existing house that we are renovating.

So we're addressing getting beyond standing.

Yeah, are we I I would right right now.

We're focusing on the standing issue.

Right.

That's right.

So we've heard from the applicant in your opinion towards standing and the the neighbor, I'll say, if I'll use that term uh issue and standing.

So that's that's it from the public right now.

We just need to discuss it and determine right now.

Certainly, and I don't I don't know if town staff might have comments that they might wish to make at this point as well.

Do I need to get sworn in?

Yeah, we did you think so.

Okay, so then we'll administer the oath to Sharneek and Anna Scott as well.

Okay.

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

I so affirm.

I affirm.

I affirm.

Okay, and say your names before you talk, please.

Sharnika Harrell.

And a Scott Myers.

Thank you.

Um so I can speak to the notice requirement.

Um for all evidentiary hearing staff prepare the notices.

So that includes the mailed notice that's sent.

Um we have to put it in the mail, not less than 10 days and not more than 25 days before the hearing.

And we also have to post a sign on um site.

Um and for this meeting, the notices were mailed February, we put them in the mail February 24th.

Um, so we use like an online site called Amazing Mail to do all of our notices.

So we completed that on the 23rd, and it said they would be scheduled to be mailed on the 24th.

And on the 23rd, we also posted signs on all the I think it was the 24th that I placed signs.

On the 24th, we placed signs on the properties.

That's it.

Okay, thank you.

So that's staff, that's public, that's the applicant.

I think we're sorry.

I think this would be an appropriate time for the commission to uh discuss and deliberate on the standing issue.

So given the concern that was raised about size, scale, and height, and not specifically addressed in the historic district commission guidelines.

I believe this person has standing.

As a neighbor.

Josh?

Yeah, I would like to draw a link that I see between notice and standing.

Um our attorney has mentioned regarding standing.

One of them does have to do with um financial impact, economic impact on another party.

And as somebody who's involved in real estate and involved in architecture and has been involved in um regulatory review for a long time, um, the evidence that I appreciate for affecting value has to do with a licensed appraiser, and the engagement of a licensed appraiser to evaluate whether or not something an act on one piece of property will affect the value of a second piece of property.

And the engagement of a licensed appraiser to evaluate whether or not something an act on one piece of property will affect the value of a second piece of property.

And for that to occur, um appropriate notice has to be given because you can't engage an appraiser on a day's notice.

So I do think there is a relationship between the amount of notice.

I think two weeks is fine, because you can certainly get an appraiser to do their work and give evidence, licensed evidence to a body like ours in that period of time.

Two days is not.

So you think that this party has standing on this?

I think that I don't know if this party has standing, because I don't think it's provable that there will or will not be a financial damage, economic damage to the adjacent property owner, because the adjacent property owner has not had the opportunity to engage a licensed professional to give us the information to make up our minds.

So you're giving us no direction as other board members.

You're giving us absolutely no direction as board members.

Well, I'm saying that I don't if it were me, I don't think I could make a decision tonight.

Because I don't believe that if in fact the notice through no fault of the town, but through the fault of the post office or at whatever, um, if in fact the um Mr.

Stanford has had two days' notice, I don't think that gives him enough time to prove that he has standing.

And I think So I think we can't make a decision because we don't have that information.

So you're thinking you're saying this application should be continued to the next meeting?

That that would be, yes, that would be my position that um I don't have the particular information.

I can look at the application relative to our HTC guidelines, and I can I can do that tonight for sure.

But this is a discussion having to do with standing and whether or not an individual has standing.

Can I give you my perspective on that?

I think given that the person that's asking for standing raised some very specific concerns about size and scale of the historic buildings that are in this context, in my mind that gives them the opportunity to have a voice.

And because we have you know 4.1 and the guidelines actually goes into a lot of detail about how to establish principles for new structures, and because they're raising concerns about that, in my mind, that gives them the opportunity to be part of the hearing.

But Kevin, if I'm misinterpreting that, please correct me.

So two things, I think uh Josh, to your point.

Uh there is some law out there that talks about this the necessity to have expert uh testimony at the stand-in stage.

And it's not directly on point, I think to your question, but it might be kind of illustrative or helpful to the to the commission.

Um what the law tells us is that um at this stand-in stage, expert opinion testimony about, for example, property values, and you have an appraiser present to testify is not necessary.

You all can rely on uh lay testimony at this stage about impacts to property values.

Now, you know and and this is not necessarily relevant in the HDC context, but for example, like in the Board of Adjustment special use permit context, one of the the uh approval criteria is typically something to the effect of you know the proposed special use will not have an adverse impact on adjacent nearby property values.

When you get to kind of the substantive decision on the actual application before the the commission, you typically do need uh competent uh testimony as to all criteria.

So you will you might under those circumstances need uh an appraiser to testify about that property value criteria, but at this stage at the stand-in stage, that's not a requirement.

Now, uh you know whether you believe that there's been an adequate opportunity to present you know, otherwise competent uh testimony is is a still a fair question.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then I got two things.

I almost forgot the second one.

Brian, I think to your point.

Um I would encourage the commission to discuss a little bit about the testimony that you've heard or the evidence that you have received about the impacts on uh the Stanford's property uh as a result of their concerns about massing scale, those sorts of things, just to make sure that we have a an evidentiary record.

And to be clear, because we are not allowed to do site visits, I would want to see evidence that reinforces their supposition.

But the fact that they're raising that concern in my mind gives them the opportunity to present evidence that backs up their point of view.

That's my point.

So withstanding, they'd be able to present their own evidence without standing.

They can't.

Well, so one way or the other, they can present their own evidence.

They can testify as a witness, both at the stand-in stage and during the substantive uh COA hearing itself, right?

And if they have photographs, that sort of thing, they're more than welcome to present those into the record.

What they can't do is you know, cross-examine uh the applicant, the applicant's witnesses.

Um they can't object to the introduction of evidence by the applicant, um, th those sorts of things.

Well, for me it's still a conundrum because the the basic things that the neighbor and the neighborhood would be uh would have trouble with come through the LUMA and the permitting process and the approvals processes.

And if something wasn't right, it'd have to go to the Board of Adjustments.

We're just here just to say it does or does not adhere to design guidelines in this section of the historic district guidelines.

So it seems to make sense for us.

We need to move forward and have the applicant present it.

And our question still is standing is what kind of response can the neighbor give?

So should we take a motion and vote on if they have standing or not?

Yes.

So I would recommend uh that the board make a motion and vote up or down on standing, and then you you know from that point we can determine how to move forward.

I I apologize, I forgot your name.

If you would remind me of your name, please, sir.

Yeah.

Okay.

I would like to make a motion that Mr.

Stanford's um request to have standing in this matter uh is approved by the Commission.

I second that.

Okay, I'm gonna ask each each person instead of just saying uh to to say yay or nay, start with Josh.

Yay.

Sorry, I'm having uh Yay.

Yay.

Yay.

Yay.

Yay.

Well, there we go.

Okay.

Mr.

Stanford has standing.

Okay, now can we move forward with the applicant actually making their previous?

Can I ask a question?

Um does the standing apply to both Mr.

and Mrs.

Stanford, or is it just Mr.

Stanford?

At this point, only Mr.

Stanford has presented evidence.

I think that it would be fair.

Mrs.

Stanford, would you like to have the opportunity to speak tonight?

Yes, please.

Okay, then I would like to amend our motion to be Mr.

M as Stanford Second approved the amendment.

All of all in favor.

I'm sorry.

We are husband and your wife, her name is Donald Bryan.

Okay.

I would like to move the Mr.

Stanford and Miss Mrs.

Bryan, Ms.

Bryan uh have the opportunity to speak this evening on this matter.

Second.

Okay.

We're gonna do all at one time.

All in favor?

I now I would recommend that we give the applicant a chance to make their presentation so that we have that as part of the evidentiary hearing for 308 Cameron.

If that's how the commission would like to proceed, I think you guys have a problem with that.

Sounds good.

I tried that.

Are you okay?

Okay.

I think the uh I don't think we need a motion for that, but everyone here has nodded their heads, yes, they're okay with moving forward.

Right.

I I think the the only question at this point is I believe the Stanfords have requested a continuance, so it might be appropriate for the commission to consider that request to decide whether you wish to uh proceed with the evidentiary hearing this evening or to continue the evidentiary hearing to next month's meeting or to a uh a future date.

Okay, can we hear your argument for contingence, please?

This is tricky for me, okay.

Uh just let me be honest with you.

We have a long-standing obligation that takes us out of town on April 14th.

That's been true since the beginning of the year.

It is my understanding that the next meeting of this commission will be on the 14th.

We're not able to be here.

So I, you know, I'm not interested in trying to uh you know, I know there's 180-day requirement.

I'm not trying to push this, you know, into the next century.

I I'm just trying to to give us an opportunity to make our pitch.

And I just want you to understand that you know, we haven't had much of an opportunity to prepare for this.

Um, you know, to Mr.

Gerlitz's point, I mean, you know, the best I could do was just to touch base with our neighbors and see whether they'd gotten any information and to make sure that you know maybe they had some information here.

And so I you know, I mean, i in a perfect world, I would say, you know, it would be better to maybe hear what they have to say today, and then maybe postpone a decision until the May meeting.

But you know, that's because we can't be here on the 14th.

So I I kind of leave it to you all.

I don't I'm not trying to take advantage of the situation.

I'm just trying to let you know that you know we're ordinary people who have ordinary lives and certain things that just have to be there, you know.

So I appreciate your honesty, but at the at the same time, um I myself designed and built a house for my wife and I at uh 119 Battle Lane in the historic district.

And that was during a previous iteration of the HDC and the board in 2018 and 19.

And uh we got pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.

I I've I added up I said where these people are sitting for 20 hours of my life waiting just to present my application.

And as a chairman, having been through that as a citizen, I would prefer not to push the applicant back a ridiculous amount of time.

So but I really appreciate your honesty and where you're coming from in this and and the hardship of of the next meeting, you not being here is this is a tough one.

Yeah, and I I again I'm I've been on this side.

I mean, I remind you, I've been a member of this commission.

I've sat through a lot of long hearings on this now.

This is before 2018, so I understand the position you all are in, and and gosh, I've sympathize with applicants too.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

So I think it's in everyone's interest that we hear the applicant's presentation tonight to the end of the year.

We'll speak a little closer to make sure you're in.

I would like the applicant to speak tonight so that we understand what they're proposing.

I think that will benefit everybody.

I agree.

It would be nice to to hear the the applicant.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

I agree with that.

And um after we see that, perhaps I'll answer some of all of our questions.

Jay Folkerson.

Um I'm I'm wondering, I have a question.

The way I put the presentation together, I've uh my first subject matter was gonna be the existing house, and then talk about the new house.

And you'll see, in fact, and just so it's clear to you that's your house.

Of course, you see that, and uh as part of putting this presentation together, I was uh I had photographs of that house.

I use Google maps, uh street views, I've estimated the heights of all these things just like I estimated for for all of uh Millette Street, really.

Um so what I'm what what I've shown here is as diminishly accurate as it possibly can be, and I and I feel very comfortable that it is.

In fact, but I included this house because it is the one that has the greatest proximity to the new house.

And uh an impact at decision making.

And so I'm I'm thinking I should skip discussion about the existing house at this point, just in the interest of saving time and focus more on the new house.

Well, if you did that, you would have to thank you.

If you did that, you'd have to come back for the well for the existing house.

So correct, Brian?

I mean, don't you agree with that?

Yeah, it's one COA for both structures.

So I need to hear it.

Okay, I'll just go ahead and go through your presentation as laid out because we've reviewed the application material.

That's it's a nice presentation.

So if you just move through that, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Very good.

Um my clients, Melita and Rom Kalindris and their son Rom.

And they've owned uh 308 West Cameron Street since 2001, and they're interested in improving the existing house and as well as building a new house on the same property.

Um in fact, when as we go forward with this uh under the new ordinance, it would be considered a detached duplex.

That is uh the existing house and then the uh the new house both on the same property.

Uh that is it it meets the guidelines for no larger than 5,000 square feet between the two and so suits that aspect of the uh of the ordinance.

And the existing house faces West Cameron Street principally.

It does have a facade on Millette Street.

The new house specifically faces Millette Street.

Um let's see.

All right.

And in the context of this design, I did look at the uh four point any number of uh considerations as it relates to a new house, and put together information about estimated heights of those uh opposing the property and next to the property and some others as well.

And I I do think it's notable that the uh okay.

I think it's notable that this house is closer to 129 Millette Street than the new house will be, and in fact, is taller than the new house will be.

Um for clarity, real quick, on the right side of the screen.

Could you point to the uh where the new house is going to be, so everybody on the board is very clear.

Yeah, on the right side of the screen.

There you go.

Yeah, that's the new house.

129 Millette, 127 Millette.

Yeah.

And then of course, this is the existing house on the property.

Um in the context of Millette Street, it's a it's a very diverse mixture of houses.

It's really it's rich, a rich mixture in that some are two stories, some are probably two and a half stories, some are single story, some are one and a half story, and the design that we developed is uh one and a half story house.

Um this is the this is uh 129 Millette Street.

This is 127 Millette Street, so north of uh of 129.

Um and of course, our our property 308 is is south of that property.

This is the uh the building that's across Millette Street from the 308 property, and this this house is essentially across, also just a little bit further north.

Uh and this is the house that's across uh directly across Cameron Avenue from the existing house, which is a uh a 1960s ranch house.

So what we're proposing is that uh well, first of all, much of this area on the existing site is currently impervious surface.

There is uh parking area here, there's uh a brick patio, there's a ramp that comes up and stairs that come up to the rear of the house, and uh a number of small retaining walls and a larger, there's a larger retaining wall that cuts all the way across the property here.

129 Millette Street is just north of this property line.

Utilize the existing curb cut, place the new house effectively as close as we can put it to the existing house, and have the parking in the buffer between the north side of the new house and the north side property line.

And we're proposing that the driveway and parking here is going to be gravel.

And I recognize the town recog recognizes that it is impervious at least 90% compared to concrete, for instance, after it's it's tamped in over the years, but but that would be a gravel surface that uh would be for the parking in that location.

I'll just go back here quickly too and and just talk a little bit about the particular scale and materials.

I mean, on Millette Street and on Cameron Avenue, um, again, they vary quite a bit in terms of overall composition and scale, and uh principally wood-sided houses, but not exclusively so.

There's some brick veneer houses on Millette Street, and certainly uh I don't have a picture of the large brick structure that's on Cameron Avenue that's across the street.

Uh that's a fraternity house, but but there is that as well.

So I'll talk about I'll talk as briefly as possible about the existing house.

Uh it was built in the 1960s, sometime in the 1960s.

I I haven't concluded exactly when uh when the application went in for establishment of the historic district, the National Register District, um, it's it was classified as non-contributing because of its age.

Um I don't know that there's any different consideration at this point because that was 1998, and now it is in fact 50 plus years old.

Um I've proceeded with a design that is paying attention to adhere to the applicable design standards as it relates to this house.

And basically uh it's a brick veneer house.

The brick had been painted years ago.

Um it's wood trim, otherwise it's presumably had a uh fiberglass asphalt shingle roof on it for years and years, although we are proposing the demolition of an addition to the house that uh has a modified bitumen or uh uh an EPDM type roof on it because it's a flat, a flatter slope.

Um what we're proposing in the work is that we'll put a new roof on it, a new fiberglass asphalt shingle roof, uh we'll repair or and or replace existing gutters on the house.

We're gonna uh install new simulated divided light windows, replacing the existing uh uh the new windows would be double hung, replacing the existing double-hung windows and the storm windows, excuse me, that are on the house at this point.

So, of course, the new windows would have no storm windows.

Uh we'll install new or repaired and repainted trim.

We'll make every effort to retain what we can in terms of uh the existing trim on the house and other aspects as well.

We're intending to retain the existing uh exterior doors on the house.

And one point I wanted to make here, I was not clear in my application, I don't think, that we're intending, we propose that we could install three solar tubes that would be on the back side of this primary ridge and not visible from Cameron Avenue just to introduce some daylight to the center of the house because it's it's pretty dark inside.

Um the existing house has shutters that we would retain, has shutters on some of the windows, you know, principally on the the two street facades, but also on the back of the house.

There are a couple windows that have shutters, and we would retain those as well.

Um we are proposing that the existing addition on the back of the house be demolished, and that we would uh and and also the stairs that come down from an existing rear porch be demolished, and we would build new stairs adjacent to the house uh adjacent to the uh existing rear porch.

And we're also proposing that the uh there's an existing side porch that fronts on Millette Street, and we're proposing that this be demolished the porch as well as the stairs, because we're intending to take this door out.

It's uh it goes into an existing bedroom, and we'd rather there wasn't a door to the exterior into that bedroom just for safety reasons.

Um we're proposing that we'll remove that door and remove the porch as well.

So I think I'm I think that's all I'll say about that existing house.

And if I could, I'm gonna grab my water bottle here.

Um the new house is designed to adhere to these considerations in terms of setback spacing and orientation as it relates to the existing houses on Millette Street and Cameron Avenue, building scale, proportion, and form, uh, roof form materials and details, building materials and architectural details as it as they relate to new construction, doors and windows and porches and entrances.

Um again, back to Millette Street, a variety of of different forms and shapes of houses on that street.

And there's actually a uh a house that's at 114 Millette, which is on the west side of the street, close to Franklin Street, it's two or three houses back from Franklin Street.

Uh that house was was built around 1999, 2000, new house on a property that had been subdivided.

Um frankly, I mean it was referenced in the design manual for uh the Historic District Commission, and I think it's a really good example of a house going into a neighborhood that pays attention to such things as scale and proportion.

Uh being a story and a half house is uh how I decided was the most appropriate way to do it because you can contain so much space under the roof and minimize the overall scale of the house, uh, regardless of what's around it.

But but you can in fact do that.

And so that was the impetus for taking that approach.

And uh as it relates to the front of the house, which is the primary uh facade addressing Millette Street.

Um I'm proposing that we would have a separate front porch, it would be a single story high.

Uh we would have a 5V crimp metal roof on it, a traditional metal roof in uh well in much of of the south, frankly, um, and at a smaller scale, such that it it reduces the overall scale of what's behind it visually.

That is it grabs your eye first and and helps establish a lower height as it relates to the street, and uh, and is frankly more in keeping with uh with the smaller scale houses that are on Millette Street.

Um the other spaces are contained on the second floor are contained under the story and a half roof, with the exception of one space that has a dormer which faces the back of the existing house, so faces the south uh uh away from 129 Millet Street, as it were, and beyond that, I would just say that again, this is my representation of 129 Millet Street in terms of its relationship to where the property line, which is approximately here, where the property line is, approximately here.

And frankly, I I took pictures and I looked at uh Google Street views and I counted bricks and I counted siding, you know, the the how many courses of siding we had in an effort to establish what the heights were approximately.

And and it's clear that uh in the information as it relates to the application that that's exactly what I should do.

I should estimate those things based on my expertise and what I'm seeing uh in the neighborhood.

Um so again, we we've pushed this house just about as close to the existing house as we can.

We have a six-foot setback from what is what is an imaginary property line at this point.

Uh I'll talk a little further about that later, but um so we we've reserved this space from here to effectively this is the perimeter wall that's on the north side of the property.

We've put the house here so that we wouldn't impinge on this house.

And and I'm gonna venture that there isn't any time during the year that there's a shadow cast from the ridge of this house beyond the property line.

Um but in any case, it it's well within the the realm of what the setbacks allow.

Uh that that is the setback on this property now is six feet, which from this point would be approximately there.

So that's potentially you could build a house at that point, um, which we didn't think was a good idea.

And just back to this quickly, the the overall height of the house as I've shown it uh is well within you know the maximum heights for houses in this neighborhood on this street.

And I'll I'll just also add at this point that uh the existing grade is here, and this existing wall immediately adjacent to the sidewalk is a retaining wall to about to about this point.

So what I'm proposing is that we're gonna grade this down uh to the extent that we can in order to keep the floor of this new house as low as possible.

And what I've shown here is in fact higher than that, just because I'm not sure what we're gonna be able to accomplish, but if we are able to push this down, I would probably bring it down two more feet.

So there'll only be a couple steps up into the house, which of course is going to reduce the overall height of the whole house.

Um, but it really has to do with how much we can manage cutting grade out.

We we could probably cut it down such that this could be just barely above grade.

Uh but we've got to ensure that we've got appropriate drainage on the back side of this house.

Um this is just talking about the materials that we'll have on the house.

We'll have the 5V crimp on the porch roof, fiberglass asphalt shingles on the the primary and the dormer roofs.

Uh I'm proposing that we'll use hardy siding, smooth hardy siding, of course, and that all the trim would be in uh southern yellow pine.

Of course, all of that will be painted.

Um, and I prefer Southern Yellow Pine is trim because I I just think it has a better look, and I feel and and dense Southern Yellow Pine, it's got a really good track record in terms of its longevity.

And frankly, it looks better than the Hardy Trim.

The Hardy Trim's a little rougher sort of surface, and I don't think it doesn't look as much like wood as the siding itself does.

Um we'll be using uh these are Marvin elevate windows, which have exterior fiberglass integral colors, they have uh three-dimensional simulated divided lights, and they also have uh you know a shadow bar between the glazing.

So that's what we're gonna be using on both the houses.

Uh and on the existing house, we'll be using the same shingles as well.

Um separate, I'll just talk briefly about the site work um site features, walls and fences, walkways, driveways, and off-street parking, and exterior lighting.

Um an interesting wall that's built at the perimeter.

This is right on Millette Street.

So it's effectively it's CMU, but it's it's full-size uh concrete uh concrete bricks the same size as a module or brick.

And there are there's a retaining wall that's adjacent to the street, and at this point it's not retaining, and then as you come a little further down beyond where the existing curb cut is, uh it's a lattice type wall that's built in this.

And we're proposing that we'll we'll keep all these walls, we'll uh repair and stabise them in kind.

You know, you can see this one's is coming apart here, and it needs to be taken care of.

Um Cameron Avenue, there's an existing uh aluminum fence.

It actually is it carries along Millette Street here and around the corner, and then to the edge of the driveway, and then in front of the house, it carries to the property line, and then at this point it's a taller aluminum fence that is uh for the uh for the dormitories, the parking around the dormitories.

So we're gonna address that, which is on our property, of course, on our on my clients' properties.

The new sidewalk and the parking areas at the existing house will be concrete consistent with what's all already there.

That is, there's a concrete driveway, and uh we're proposing parking and a drive uh and a sidewalk there.

And on the new house, the sidewalk and the uh parking would be gravel.

And I'll bring this up because I think it's it's it's in the context of this uh certificate of appropriateness, I think.

Uh as I talked about the properties, this is potentially a future property line.

We're considering that we're gonna ask to subdivide the property into two so that each house would be on its own property.

And we haven't done that yet, and uh Sharnika and I have had some discussions about what will be my client's responsibility to dedicate uh 30 inches of property to the town of Chapel Hill to increase the width of the right-away on Millette Street because it's considered a collector street.

It's a 40-foot ride away, and uh that would be my client's obligation.

Uh if there ever is a widening of the uh the right-of-way, then the other 30 inches is gonna have to come from the other side of Millette Street.

But uh it's a 40-foot ride away and it needs to be 45 feet minimum.

But we haven't gone through that process at this point.

Uh and I'm anticipating that we will want to subdivide the property.

So what I've included here for your consideration is that we're gonna lose 30 inches of property at the street, which is gonna push the property line back, it'll push the setback, the 22-foot setback back 30 inches.

So this is the house as it's been submitted that's 49 feet four inches deep that extends from Millette Street, which is out here, and the porch is eight feet deep.

And if we were gonna subdivide it, I would say, well, we got to cut 30 inches out.

We're gonna take 18 inches out of the front porch, so it'll still be above the recommended minimum of six feet for the historic district.

Uh, but there's 18 inches that we would pick up, and then we pick up another 12 inches here.

And I just bring this to you, and and I spoke with Sharneika and Ann a little bit before the meeting.

Um it seems that this kind of decision may potentially be an administrative decision after we receive a certificate of appropriateness.

Um, but I'm bringing it up just so it's clear to you that if you think it isn't, I'd prefer that this option be uh considered as another option in the event there is a subdivision because I don't think there's a material uh aesthetic impact on this house.

That is the the fact that it's shortened in its length is is gonna be hardly noticeable to anyone.

And the only difference on the front facade is basically that as this eight-foot porch gets reduced to six feet six inches, it has a little bit shorter ridge at the top of the the hip roof where it meets the house.

It's five inches five inches higher in this case.

And that's a little hard to recognize as being noticeable, I think, to anyone, but but it is notable in that it is different.

And what I have left in this presentation is really just some views of the existing house and the neighbor's house in this case, and the uh and the new house as it sits between the two of them.

And I I'd submit to you that what the new house is certainly appropriate and and in harmony with the neighborhood uh with with Millette Street specifically, which is where it has the uh it's where it really has to fit in.

Um that's there's sort of a view, there's a view from basically down Millette Street, and you can see how the new house fits in behind the existing house, and you can also see the neighbor's house beyond any any questions.

I'm sorry I talked so long, but we will have some questions, but given the potential contentious nature of this one, um before the presentation, I didn't uh consider that I may uh have a conflict.

Um because Mr.

Fokelson used 114 Millet as a precedent for his new design.

I need to tell you that 30 years ago I designed 114 milled street.

So thanks for not saying anything bad about it.

I I liked it very much.

Okay, so does that a point where I need to recuse myself, Kevin?

Uh I think it just I wouldn't have even considered it until you used it as a precedent, and then that's that feels like a conflict to me.

But I'm asking the powers that be.

So what uh the North Carolina General Statutes tells about decision maker conflicts of interest in the quasi-judicial context is that uh a member of the decision-making board shall not participate uh in or vote on any quasi-judicial matter in a manner that would violate an affected person's constitutional right to an impartial decision maker.

There's an impermissible violation uh due process include or not limited to a member having a fixed opinion prior to the hearing that's not susceptible to change, undisclosed expartate communications, a close familial business or other association religion with a party or financial impact uh interest in the outcome matter.

It doesn't sound like what you describe uh meets any of those conflict standards.

I I think it would be up to you to decide you know whether or not you believe based on your past work, you know, nearby whether you have a fixed opinion about the character of district uh and perhaps this application's you know fit with that character that's not susceptible to change.

Um if you believe you have a fixed opinion, it's not susceptible to change, saying you ought to recuse yourself now.

Well, that's not the case.

But let me take it off of your plate and give it to the vice chair.

That's what vice chairs are for.

Since I'm the chair.

Do you think I should recuse myself, Mr.

Vice Chair?

No, I don't.

Okay.

There you go.

I just wanted to enter that into the record just to make sure.

Okay, thank you.

Um can we ask questions of the applicant now, or do we need to let Mr.

Stanford stand?

I would uh I think it would be appropriate to allow Mr.

Stanford to cross-examine the applicant's architect, um, and then following that cross-examination, I think the board could uh ask questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

Shall shall I be seated or I think if Mr.

Stanford has a question for you, I would suggest you both stand here.

Okay, your response.

That works for me.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to see you.

And both of you, please just make sure you're speaking into the microphone, please.

Yeah.

So really the questions I guess I have really are are focused on two or three things.

One, I'd like to look at the um the retaining wall.

Um the property has this I I would call it cinder brick.

The existing house is is a very strange item because it's center block, but it's in the form of a brick.

The retaining walls are center block, but in the form of a brick, with the exception of the side that's closest to us.

Now, on the wall itself, on our side, um, it's the same kind of thing, and it has seen a lot better days.

And it's so the question I have for you is if you considered changing that and replacing that with the stone walls that are characteristic of Chapel Hill, considering the fact that there is on the east side an existing classic Chapel Hill stone wall.

On our side, there's also an existing um classic Chapel Hill stone wall on top of which that cinder brick sits and it's it's in terrible shape.

There's no polite way to put it.

It's coming apart, there are chunks of it, I mean, blocks that are actually fallen on our side and falling on their side.

So I guess I'm asking you what do you think about trying to kind of make the whole place look more congruent with the district because the cinder brick really doesn't fit with you know it's it's clearly a non-contributing property, and I think the major characteristic of why it isn't is that brick.

That yeah, yeah.

Well I would say first of all, well, uh I mean we're not gonna discount any potential solution.

But I would I would say that the house is considered non-contributing because of its age.

That's the reason that it was not considered contributing.

Like most of the house, well, the the small ranch house that's immediately across the street from you is also non-contributing because of its age.

And that says less well, that doesn't say anything about the materials.

That is, it was not included because of its age.

And yeah, and when I when I saw this initially just in pictures, I wasn't sure what I was looking at.

I thought I was looking at a brick wall, but when I came out there, you're absolutely right.

It's uh it's a CMU brick, solid uh CMU or concrete brick.

And I my personal opinion is I find it to be a really interesting composition and material.

Now you can see in in this picture where you know it is in need of repair, and further back.

Um I might have some other pictures in here that show it further back along your property line.

That is back in this area, it's probably even worse.

I don't see any of it that has fallen down, but but it is in need of repair.

And as you said, you know, when you get when you get back to the back of the property between uh uh the east side property line of 308 West Cameron.

Can you hear me?

Am I okay?

Um that's where the stone wall is.

The whole eastern edge of uh 308 West Cameron has a stone wall that has a chain link fence on top of it.

That's the uh Granville Towers.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

The Granville Tower side, the side for their parking lot.

Um so I mean, we we could, I mean, you potentially could build a stone wall, but that's not what's existing there, and it wasn't ever existing here, apparently, because as you can see that I mean, here in this case, it's a retaining wall.

Uh once you get up closer to Cameron Avenue, it's it's not a retaining wall, it actually is mostly above grade, uh a little bit further beyond here.

And if you were to go down the rest of Millette Street, you would see either wooden fences or you would see those stone walls, right?

Um I don't know.

But yeah, I mean certainly the stone walls are are most common.

Um and if you were to go across the street to um 400 west, in other words, the other corner property, they also have on their side uh the classic Chapel Hill stone wall that actually looks around to uh I'll I'll get back to this picture.

Yeah, that's the case.

Um of course that house I think was built in 1860.

I understand.

And this was probably built in about 1960.

So I think that accounts for why it's why it's different, in fact.

Actually, let me get to well, it's yeah, it's this house you're talking about, but it's the other facade.

The Allen House.

So if I guess my question then would also be that house also has a um there it is a stone that's the that's the one I'm referring to.

Yeah.

So it it also around on the Cameron Avenue, similar to the um instant house here, it also has a metal fence.

It's I think an iron, you know, it's a whole style fence.

So I guess what I'm saying is have you considered the possibility on our end of um replacing that either with a higher stone wall or with um a similar kind of um metal fencing that would uh be consistent, I think, with uh the district and the and the immediate neighbors, whereas right now, well, I'll leave it at that.

Well, yeah, that and and we haven't considered that, but again, we would.

I'd have to talk with my client and see what their interest might be on such a thing.

But um they're interested in having a good outcome overall in terms of aesthetics and uh well, aesthetics and just you know, having a nice site and a nice new house.

Yeah, and can we take a quick look at the fenestration?

I want to ask you a question about why the the windows seem to be.

Please speak into the mic.

So can you speak into the mic?

Sorry.

Um so can we look at the finestration on your exist on the plans for the new house for the new house?

Yeah, yeah, the the windows.

So I'm I'm gonna interject for just a second because I feel like you're having a conversation that probably should have happened before this came to the commission.

And so my question is, because I feel like you have several things you want to talk about.

We have other people on the agenda tonight.

Would you like us to vote to continue this application so this conversation can happen offline?

You can resubmit having considered this party with interest concerns.

You know, this is why getting notice late hurts.

Understood.

Really, my question was for the applicant.

I'm sorry.

Given because you you just expressed interest in taking this feedback and and working with your client.

It's awkward to do that in front of the public and in front of us at 810 on a Tuesday night.

So would you like to continue this conversation and have us continue this application so you can resolve those open questions and then come back to us when those have been taken care of?

Well, let me be clear.

I I'd really rather not do that.

I feel like what we proposed in terms of the wall, for instance, I think it's most appropriate historically for this house in this neighborhood.

Okay.

Um but and so then your party with interest has the opportunity to continue to ask questions until his own.

Okay, and and and I would just say I've not had the opportunity to speak with my client about it.

So then the situation you're gonna put us in is if you are making representations on behalf of your client in agreement that's not in this application, we'd have to um not approve the COA.

Even if I tell you I'd rather not situation that you're that you're setting up.

Yeah.

I'd rather this be considered just as it's been presented in the application.

Fair enough.

Um sorry, let me think I'm have any further questions at this stage.

So Kevin, would it be appropriate for us now as a commission to pose questions or should we ask for other comments from the public?

Yeah, there you should ask for other public comment first and then ask questions.

I'm I'm hearing that perhaps Donna Bryant wishes to cross-examine the applicant as well.

So I think we should afford her the opportunity to do that.

I think then as is typical, you should afford the public the opportunity to make public comment on the application before closing the evidentiary hearing and deliberating.

Thank you.

Kevin, yep.

Did y'all do commissioner questions?

No, that's what Brian was asking.

Should we ask the applicant questions now or after the after so at kind of as is typical after so as is atypical, I suppose, allow the parties with standing to cross-examine the applicant.

Then we'll allow the public to ask you know any questions that members of the public might have or uh allow any public comment that that members of the public might have before commissioners wrap up because I have several questions for Jay.

I think it's actually typical to do uh presentation from the applicant and cross-examination, and then commissioner questions, and then public comment, and then discussion from the commission, and then at which point we can close the evidentiary hearing, or you can make a motion to close the evidentiary hearing and then um proceed with uh motion on the COA.

Sure.

And whatever and ultimately it's up to the commission's pleasure, whatever you choose, whatever order you choose to I think the other person was standing should get up and say her piece now, and then we'll ask questions to Mr.

Folkerson.

So at some point, really we wanted to kind of go by the the specific standards point by point and say, okay, these are the things that concern us about the existing problem.

Uh you know, when I was cross-examining him, uh all I really wanted to do was to try to get his opinion on alternatives that we were talking about.

But as it now exists, we do have an opinion as to why uh we think that certain portions of his proposal um are not congruous um with respect to the standards, the principles and guidelines of the historic district.

So I don't know when you want to hear from that, but we'll we both I think we want to hear from right now.

Well, can we before we hear their kind of case in chief or their evidence about why this is not incongruous?

I think we should probably wrap up cross-exam if there's if if I hear Dr.

Bryant, is that correct?

If dot if Dr.

Bryant has cross-examination for the applicant, I suggest she be afforded the opportunity to cross-examine the applicant.

Okay.

Then we'll do questions from the commission.

Then at that point, we'll allow them to present their their case in chief.

Same thing.

Um I ask questions.

You'll have questions, you may have questions for them at the end of their presentation.

Then we'll hear public comment, I suppose at that point.

Then you can uh close the evidentiary hearing for deliberations.

Got it.

My name's Donna Bryant.

Um I'm gonna show you eight pictures.

I and it's can you speak?

I'm gonna show you eight pictures, and that's my cross-examination.

Okay.

Okay, and I'm gonna help in loading this.

And what what I what I would I'll just ask you, Dr.

Bryant beforehand, are these pictures relevant to specific testimony that the applicant provided, or are these pictures that are relevant to your position that uh the proposal is not congruous with the character of the district?

I frankly both.

Okay.

I just need a little help here, please.

Yes.

Kevin, I have a a quick question.

Because I heard Mr.

Um Stanford say that their position was that parts of the application are not congruous with the character of the district.

Is that what they're looking for when the commission's purview is what's not incongruous?

So they're not looking for the most congruous.

That's right.

And so that I know that that has been a much discussed topic with the commission.

Remember, state law mandates that your role is to determine whether or not the applicant's proposal is not incongruous with the special character of the applicable historic district.

That is a subtle but but significant distinction from uh whether the applicant's proposal is in fact congruous with the character of the district.

And it's ultimately it's up to you to to weigh the evidence that is presented to you to make a determination on whether your the app you your remit is to ensure that an application meets that you know arguably lower, not incongruous standard.

Go.

All right.

My name's Donna Bryant.

I live at 129 Millette Street.

And um I think what's missing here tonight is a real feel and understanding of what height differences are.

And um, although I appreciate Mr.

Fulkerson's careful, it's very clear that he has followed all of the new guidelines, or else we wouldn't have two houses 12 feet apart.

But that's the kind of thing I think is not in is not in congruity with being in the historic district.

So this first picture the you've seen our blue house there.

And the uh center of that is the driveway now that's there, and the next picture will show you going moving to the right.

I'm gonna be quick really.

Okay, so just stay here.

Thank you.

So move moving to the right uphill.

Um you can see the uh retaining wall, and you can see the driveway.

There's often a car in the driveway, often two cars in the driveway.

The calendar is a half owned the house for 25 years, but it's been a student rental the whole time.

Um and the next one will show you an even closer view, and all of that is going to be parking.

There'll be at least four cars there.

If there are four spots, there'll be five or six cars there usually, um as with student housing.

Go to the next one.

Okay, there's the retaining wall.

And the um next picture will show from the street view, the um formerly a dining room when Shirley Clapham lived here, but now another bedroom.

And the next picture will show from across the street, the eleven the the part right behind the telephone pole and that um tall bush there, that's where the new house will be.

And it'll be two-story house.

It's almost a shotgun house, it's 20 feet wide, it's 12 feet from the existing house, and it's just unlike any other two houses on our street.

And then the next picture.

It's closer up, meant to delete that.

Next one.

Yes, please.

We didn't have a lot of time.

We did this today.

Um that's the view from basically from our side of the our side of the lot, um, basically almost from our bedroom window.

And so what's there are uh a lot of vegetation.

Um the house with a 29-foot roof is placed on top of that retaining wall, it's gonna look like a three-story house.

A two-story house on that retaining wall.

Remember, we're sloping down here on Mallette Street, and I just think that ruins the character of our end of the street, and feel like what's the historic preservation?

What's the historic district for, other than to help preserve the character of our street?

So, oh, one more, one more.

There's one more there.

Oh, yeah.

This is um, I believe there's a parking pad put in there uh on the right.

Um, but students park anywhere, and so a parking paddle just encourage them to go over instead of 50% of the yard to go over 60 or 70 percent of the yard.

So I don't think that's a good idea.

And I'll just rest there.

Could you go back one picture?

Yeah, please.

This this is a this is a really good picture, I think, because it it gets to what I was referencing about.

That retaining wall is going to go away.

We're gonna try and get the floor of the house as low as possible relative to what is the brick paver terrace.

So it'll be substantially lower than than you just suggested it would be.

Um and again, this this shows how much grading could take place.

That retaining wall is about 40 inches tall.

And so our intent is to grade from four feet the back end.

Oh, at the back end, okay.

Uh but we'll we'll grade down from the back of the existing house, and of course, the addition that you see in this picture is what we're proposing, is is gonna be demolished, which allows us the opportunity to grade a little bit closer to the existing house and set the new house at a lower level, which is is the intent is is to do that.

So it won't be we're not sitting on top of the retaining wall.

And am I right?

That they're angle in parking spaces right here in this bourg ground.

That's correct.

And and I understand what you said about student housing, but I don't understand the relevance of that to this conversation.

Right.

I'm sorry that mental health isn't uh one of the issues that can be considered when uh one makes decisions about housing.

But there will be four parking places on that lower concrete pad there.

Well, that yeah, that's correct.

That is in that vicinity.

Um I'm horrible with PCs.

Can you get my presentation up here again?

Yeah, thank you.

And you can just use the just wanting to get back to the discussion about how close houses are to one another.

Sorry, Don, I don't know how close 114 is to 116, but you know, it's pretty close.

And uh and that property was subdivided to allow that house to be built.

Um these two houses are really pretty close to one another right across the street.

This this house is much closer to your property than this house or to your house than this house will be.

And you're right, these these two are relatively close to one another, but I I I would submit there were probably precedents in that neighborhood, just like this one and this one that where there are conditions that exist where houses may be that close to one another.

Okay, so now can we ask questions and then we hear from the public?

Um I think we should hear any evidence that the parties withstanding would like to enter into the record.

Is that correct, Kevin?

Yeah, so I I would let the parties with standing present kind of their case in chief for why they believe this is incongruous.

Uh the application is incongruous with the character of the district.

Then we'll hear from public comment if there is any questions and we'll close for deliberation.

This one.

Yeah.

So I want to just take a moment here, as we're as long as we're talking about this to address this issue.

The the property at 116 and one.

Can you speak into the property at 116 and and 114?

Um that subdivision occurred before the historic district commission, the historic district was created.

And I want to point out the two brick houses that he mentioned were uh jointly owned by a family for a long time.

When I grew up in Chapel Hill, Millette Street was full of families.

Right now, there are five of 21 residences, five homeowners occupying our street.

And that's the kind of shift that we're we're dealing with at this stage.

So I don't want you to get the wrong idea.

These things that proximity exists prior to the establishment of any historic district in Chapel Hill.

Okay.

Um I wanted to talk specifically here about our concerns in this proposal.

Um, this question of congruity, if you will, or um, you know, and again, it's lawyers writing it backwards, you know, the double negative.

It's not incongruous.

Um there need to be standards, of course, in order to establish that.

And so we have principles and guidelines, which clearly have been put together.

When I was on the commission, um, I continuously raised hell about this.

And we finally got those guidelines, and they're the ones you see.

And when you look at those guidelines, you might notice that the existing example of the folk Victorian house is our house.

And there are other examples on Millette Street.

It's because it's known as the Millette Street cluster.

This is the oldest street in Southwest Chapel Hill.

It is so narrow because, of course, when it was built, there were no motor vehicles.

The reason these houses are sited so close to the roadway is because it was not a motorized throughway.

Now, fast forward a century, our house is built in the 1880s.

The characteristic that is most common in Millette Street are what are known as AAA's, and that's what our house is.

It's got a two side gables and a center gable.

And you see that house originally, you also see it in some replication from that standpoint, too.

So the real question here, I think, is contextual evaluation in the context of this question of are things not incongruous.

But I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that the underlying justification for this commission and for these ordinances is preservation.

The idea is to continue to give the place the same sort of feel that it has.

And that field accommodates certain kinds of inconsistencies, like the existent existing house.

It accommodates some diversity in terms of construction.

The house next to us is a craftsman, for example.

It's not a Victorian house.

But I think you have to consider that form ordinarily follows function.

And one of the problems that we are facing, I just touched on it, is that these are houses that are being built for student occupation.

They're student stuffers.

That's what this house is, and that's what the existing house is.

And we all know the constra, you know, the issues that are surrounding that, but that drives this design.

It's parking.

It's those students who want to rent those, and that's why you're seeing four bedrooms in there and four bathrooms.

Form follows function.

So what you're seeing here is a new construction that is largely designed to accommodate that.

That's its goal, not staying in touch, not in congruous with the rest of the um buildings on Millette Street.

So it's a real current concern.

My my wife said it looks like a shotgun house.

If this were New Orleans or maybe Charleston, that would be maybe appropriate.

But I would suggest that, you know, even if we went down to 116 and 114, that's not the same deal as what we're looking at here.

This is a very narrow house, and it has a very specific kind of design that is that is again trying to make the form follow the function.

Okay.

Let me talk specifically about the guidelines and the kind of design obligations that the commission has to follow in making this kind of decision.

This new house is bigger than the existing house.

You know, the town started with this idea that we're gonna have granny units, you know, we're gonna have little additions and so forth.

We're gonna increase the density.

And now they've moved to the point where we have a proposal here, which I think is unprecedented in that the addition, the additional house is bigger than the existing house.

I think the house is simply out of scale.

And I want to just remind you that when we talk about this core evaluation criteria, we're looking at height, we're looking at scale.

We're looking at setback, we're looking at placement, we're looking at materials and texture, fenestration, and then maybe a pertinent structure.

So in this case, it seems to me that the height is pretty darn high.

I mean, you saw the the uh slide that he showed, the distance, the difference between the height of the roof on this additional house, that's a lot of distance.

I don't know whether that means that we're gonna wind up with a solar, you know, with a shadow or not.

I don't know.

But the point is it doesn't have the it doesn't have the right feel for Millette Street.

And I think you should consider that the scale is out of scale.

Um I mentioned that the the center block, the singer, what I call cinder brick walls, um, which I think are you know are an inappropriate design and to try to repair them and to promote them, to retain them, if you will.

It was inappropriate to bring to begin with, they're not in good shape, and it's inappropriate now.

And I think that the design should incorporate what I talked about earlier.

We've got Chapel Hill stone walls, we've got some existing um fences that would be appropriate on this property and the one next door, and those should be the ones that we are promoting.

Those should be the ones.

Um I want to talk, and and so it's in specific terms, what I just talked about is really in 4.1, 4.11-7, um, and in 4.2 and in 4.4.

Um, let me just mention in passing the parking issues, you know, we're looking now at trying to create space for officially eight parking slots.

Now, if you think that that turnaround space is not going to be used as a parking lot, a parking space, you're dreaming.

I mean, we live here.

We know what kinds of problems.

This house has been cited on more than one occasion for front yard parking.

The town is fine, the current owners of this for that reason.

We know what the the we know what to expect from that standpoint.

I w I'd like to spend a moment talking about um, let's see, and before I get past there.

So again, talking about the walls, I wanted to also mention sort of 1.0 and especially 1.1 and , excuse me, 1.4 and 1.3, which addresses that issue.

Um in 1.6 exterior lighting, you know, it's pretty clear that we don't want spotlights, floodlights, and the rest of it.

I mean, it couldn't be more specific from that standpoint.

It remains a problem in the historic district.

We see it across the street at um the the Allen House.

Um if they if if you permit them to put motion detector lights and that sort of thing on that house, I guarantee you, you know, our bedroom is on that side.

We already have blackout curtains, and that's going to be the problem.

Um if you put recessed lights underneath the porch, we can probably live with that.

But if you put lighting on our side, you know, we already have a problem with Granville Towers.

I mean, you you know, uh I don't need to tell you those sorts of issues, but I do want to specifically point that out because I think that's a real concern.

And they have talked about, and one of their examples was um exterior um motion detector spotlights, that's what I would call them.

Okay.

I think that's uh inappropriate.

And again, that's under 1.6.

Um I do want to point out that I mentioned again the existing house, those that's center brick.

That's not the the drawings actually suggest that they're clabberts, and they're not.

Okay.

So I just want you to keep that in mind.

Um you know, this business of removing the um the porch in the back edition.

You have to ask yourself, what's the point here, okay?

And the point is that we're making that house small enough so that you can build the new house so that we now have 2,000 square feet, I'll say roughly in the existing house, maybe a little bit more on the new house.

I want you to think about the scale here.

You saw those those photos.

Um the excuse me, the design schemes.

Our house is 1,000 square feet.

Okay.

These two houses will be four times that size.

So when you talk about context and height and scale, I think you should consider that when they're adding this whole new space, this whole new building, this is really throwing the scale, the context off in a significant way.

And I think as a result, this is not.

This is a problem.

Okay.

Um I want to point out on the on the front of the house, the new house, those columns look to me to be craftsman style.

Um they shouldn't be craftsman style, okay.

Um that's sort of the 4.6.

Um, I noticed that the porch ceiling is metal, but the roof of the house is actually asphalt.

I'm inclined to think that if you were, you know, it ought to be one or the other.

Um that would be consistent, I think, with the other houses on Millette Street.

Um, and that's in 4.3.

Um I've also noticed that the collaborates in the new house, and this is under 4.4.

For some reason, at least on the drawing, the claby, once you get above the first floor, get wider.

And it makes the house look hulking.

You know, it it gives the impression that the upper portion is bigger than in fact it is, and it's already pretty darn big.

Um I also wanted to point out the fenestration.

If you will take a look at the ex the um fenestration on the on the new house, it's just it's pretty random.

If you're going to build a house that has some symmetry to it, and certainly our house and all the triple A's are by definition symmetrical structures.

It seems to me that you really want to try at least to get the the windows to look like they've been placed there with some kind of balance.

That symmetry strikes me as is really important in the new building.

And it just not there.

Um I'm not sure what to tell you about the the lights on the the windows themselves.

We have unusual windows in our house.

We have eight over two.

I don't know what they were thinking in 1880, but that's what they did.

Um most of the houses around us are six-on-six.

Um but I think whatever the finest ration is in the end for both the existing and the new house, um, that deserves some attention.

Um I don't think that they're sufficiently, you know, that the plans do enough to try to make that work.

So wanted to leave you with that thought.

Um and I think that's under 4.5.

The collaborates is 4.4.

Um one last point, and maybe I can um uh maybe you can help me sh if you can show me the I'm I'm looking for our elevation so that I can see the stairs on the back of the new house.

Let's see here.

That's right.

Uh that's yeah, that won't shut.

So let me let me advance.

I think it's in just the plan further here.

Well, I've got I know I've got a 3D view that shows that as you proceed south.

Yeah.

So you can see that kind of bump out there, and you've got sort of the underpinnings.

That should be better.

Um we had the same problem when we were dealing with the house on the other side, and they wanted to expand the back.

And it I mean, you know, push can be a little bit more.

Can you speak into the mic?

Pardon me.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Uh it's it's just it looks like you know, uh uh, it's an a pertinent fixture, if you will.

It looks to me like somebody tacked it on a beach house.

And uh, you know, there's not a polite way to put that.

It just ought to be better.

You know, if you look at the front staircase, it's sort of enclosed.

There is some um I don't know, sense of the front and in that is successful, but I think the rear just doesn't work.

And and honestly, I don't I don't know.

I I don't know whether there are safety standards that require rear rear extra rear exit.

But I think it would be better if actually stairs went the other direction.

Uh the height of the ground is higher, and it would be more consistent with what you see in other houses um on the block.

Um that's the reason I think that there are serious um incongruities here, if you will.

And so I don't think it meets the standard um according to law.

And I think that they need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that's better.

Thank you.

Do I have the opportunity to respond?

Yeah.

That's up to the pleasure of the commission.

Sure.

You can respond, then we have a couple questions.

Okay.

Very good.

Um the rear stairs.

Yeah, you may be right about that.

We could we could do something that offers a greater sense of enclosure.

Uh it could be brick under the stairs.

Just like we have brick in the front that uh defines the bottom edge of the porch.

And again, the goal for us is going to be to potentially eliminate three or four or five risers on both of those stairs.

And and this, and I will say the stair at the back is not necessary from any egress standpoint.

It's it's not.

That is egress is provided by windows and the front door egress.

Um the muttons on the windows.

Um, I mean, the way I think about muttons is that as houses, as time passed and uh houses, more and more houses were built, they were able to make larger pieces of glass.

And so muttons became obsolete, finally.

And that's why I've shown them this way, that is, with the detail of the muttons in the top sash and and none in the bottom sesh.

And again, you can you can do that any number of ways.

And I I didn't recognize that you had two sash or two mutton or a single mutton, I guess is a vertical one in the bottom of the sash, uh, which is interesting that that it's done that way.

But but there be any number of options on that, I think.

Um I would say uh I don't feel like the fenestration is random when you consider what the street looks like, and there's a lot of variation on such things, and the the back of your house, you might say is random in the sense that it it is it is symmetrical as it faces the street, but as you move to the back of the house, it's not um and and and I think that makes sense because the back of the house isn't as prominent.

And uh and and I will just say too, just as an aside, I used to be on a historic district commission.

I I was a young architect, just got registered 42 years ago, and I was in on a historic district commission in Endicott, New York, and they had just established this district in uh Endicott, New York, which is where a lot of people moved when they came from Ellis Island.

And nobody in the district was happy about this.

You can imagine, and and ultimately I I didn't last very long because I I kind of agreed with some of their points of view about it, and that they felt like their property rights were infringed upon.

And I feel like in Chapel Hill, there's a really good establishment of what property rights are.

And it's as it's defined by the LUMO.

And that's all I'll say about that.

Um the walls that we have on this site are inappropriate because they don't hearken back to something earlier, you might as readily say that the house that's north of your house is inappropriate because it doesn't hearken back to your house, or perhaps your house is inappropriate because it doesn't hearken back to the house across the street.

And I think the charge that they have is they've got to consider how time passes and how culture changes, and that impacts the nature of architectural design across the board, not just in historic districts.

But and and because of that, again, that the house, the existing house on this property is considered non-contributing.

Well, I I don't I don't know that they ever come back and reconsider those things, but houses become considered to be of historic nature when they're 50 years old.

And it wasn't when this was established, but it is now, and you know, there aren't many ranch houses in this district, but there are some.

Um the existing house, the actu actually the the square footage, if you consider the house plus the garage, it has a garage, so there are two spaces uh of parking that are inside the garage, which is why we're only indicating there were two spaces that were adding in front, really in an effort to organize for people park because they they do park on the grass currently.

And um so the square footage of that house is about it's about 2100 square feet when you count the garage that's part of that.

The finished square footage is sixteen hundred and change, and the new house that we're proposing is eighteen hundred and change square feet.

So it's less than four thousand square feet in any case.

Uh that is four times the size of your house.

But um yeah, the new house is somewhat larger when you talk about conditioned square footage than the existing house.

Um I didn't understand your your point about the clabberds um, but in any case, yeah, I I've shown a four-inch exposure clabbered on the first floor and a six-inch in the gables, really just to offer some differentiation in terms of scale, but it it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

That is it could all be four inch.

Um I think it's our turn to ask questions.

Yes, I think this would be an appropriate time to ask questions.

So uh I think I I've counted three different instances this evening where you have signaled openness to changes or a different point of view based on the information that was provided, and I've seen you consulting with your clients.

Do you want the opportunity to resubmit, continue this application, resubmit, taking into consideration what you've heard tonight before we before you put it to a vote?

Do you want an opportunity to change anything?

Uh uh I would say I don't.

And and the reason why is that I feel like we've we've met the onus of creating a new house that is uh adhering to the character of the district.

But if you make if you make changes to what you apply to tonight, it would trigger you coming back for your approval.

Is that what you want to do?

Uh no, what I'd like you to do is approve it as it is.

But you're minimizing the opportunity for us to do that if you're communicating that you're going to make changes after we approve that which I've heard you say three different times.

Okay, well, I I guess the reason I say that is I'm wondering.

It's been established that the neighbors have standing, but and and I understand that you know they they live next door and it is pertinent in that sense, perhaps.

But otherwise, if we've met the onus that it is appropriate, congruous in harmony with the neighborhood, of course that's up for you all to decide.

Um I kind of wonder if we hadn't had this whole discussion before this, how you would think about that.

Uh I'm I think that's immaterial because we're perhaps agree that they had standing, so I'm not sure that's a relevant.

Yeah, well, that it it perhaps it is irrelevant, but uh but I'm just relating how I'm thinking about this.

And um and and also I would say I mean to the extent that we could talk about this and make decisions that would be suitable as far as they were concerned and suitable as far as my clients are concerned.

So they're they're talking to staff.

Do you want to just consult with them for a minute before we continue the conversation?

Yeah, yeah.

You were four minutes.

Yeah, I'd like to.

Just be please uh say your name before you keep going there.

Thank you.

My name is Romulo Kalindris, and I'm the son of the homeowners.

And Brian, I get your point completely.

Uh, but I agree with Jay.

Um just to say, by the way, I went to Chapel Oh High, born and bred Tar Heel, uh, born in Memorial Hospital, three times student here, so I went to undergrad here, med school, and school of public health.

Um so I'm a doctor, not a lawyer, so I can't give the great discourse that you did.

But I would humbly say that you know the purview of this board is based on the whether it's non-congruous or not.

And I humbly would say that that has been met by what was presented.

And I think that's why Jay is saying that he would like a vote based on the plan.

I think you plan on making no changes to what been submitted tonight based on the conversation, just to be clear.

Correct.

Got it.

Yeah.

So but I mean, and I understood Brian, what you were saying, which is why I wanted to come up here.

Three times there was discussion, which which I think is healthy, by the way.

But if you choose not to make changes, we'll consider what you've what you've submitted tonight.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Fair enough.

Okay.

Finally, questions.

I I have a question.

Wait, sorry.

Should I you get that?

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

Several times you said, well, we hope to do this grading.

We expect to do this grading, but it appears that would make a pretty substantial difference in how the House sits.

And it seems to me you would have to come back to us if you do any grading, because your application is based on the way the ground is now and the heights from that, and you're hoping to lower it, but you don't know for sure that you can.

So I'm just wondering what's your you guys if if you can't grade everything, we'll just stay the same as your submitting, right?

No.

No.

In fact, what we're doing is what I've presented is that we will be grading.

I've tried to be thoughtful about just how much we would do that.

That is the existing retaining wall that cuts across the property is is being removed as part of this, which necessarily means we've got to deal with that grade.

And we will be bringing the grade down.

Um that that's what's shown in this view, for instance, is that it it comes down probably two and a half feet.

And if we could get it down to four feet or increase the grading to four feet, then we would definitely do that in order to make the house shorter.

And and my thought is that if we're making the house height less, that it it it does not make it incongruous if it was approved when it's higher.

Well, it could.

It could, but there's there's two points here.

Okay.

One is you have a parking space in front.

That's not a turnaround space, it's a parking space.

It seems like without being able to lower the house like you hope you can, you wouldn't even be able to park there.

Your car is gonna be like a and and and in fact what I'm showing is a parking space.

That's that's right here.

That's what I'm indicating right here.

And that we would cut the grade to to be able to do that.

And you're absolutely right.

That's that's the most critical.

But the the other point of taking the house up or down isn't necessarily the height of the house in relation to um uh Mr.

Stafford's house, Stanford's house.

Sorry.

Stanford, sorry.

Um it's been a long day for me.

Um but it's relationship to the back of the existing house of 308.

Um, there's you could end up with quite a substantial grade difference between the back of the existing house and the foundation of the new house.

Is that gonna be a problem?

Well, that's that's physically physically.

Uh well, no, it wouldn't necessarily be a problem physically.

We would just have to ensure that we've got the proper drainage.

Yeah, I mean it's just it could be quite an unattractive position in terms of the relationship of the two houses.

So well.

Um if I could, can I show you uh so it's uh we don't need to cut the grade nearly as much in this area as we do here.

So I'm anticipating that to the extent we can bring the grade down further here.

We could still we could still cut it perhaps a little more here, but this is really gonna be the controlling factor in terms of where the floor is.

So if we were to push it all the way down, you're right, it's gonna have to be cut more in this vicinity, just to ensure we've got proper clearance above grade with the floor system inside.

I want to pause conversation for just a second because it's nine o'clock and there's two additional pieces of new business that we're not gonna get to tonight.

So I think we should pause and let those that are not gonna be heard tonight depart if they choose to.

We also probably need to take a bathroom break because we've been at this for two and a half hours.

So I would suggest we take a five-minute bathroom break.

And Kevin, keep me honest, and this is kind of what we agreed to at the beginning is that if there's new business we're not gonna get to by nine o'clock, we're gonna tell this folks it's gonna get 10 years next week.

So let's let those folks have a conversation if they need to.

Uh give us all a second to go to the bathroom and come back in a few minutes.

Good.

Kevin, you good with that?

Yeah, so what I would suggest is we close, make a take uh a motion and a vote to close the evidentiary hearing.

We'll take a I didn't want to, I didn't mean to cut you off.

I just procedurally where if you still have things you want to say, we should absolutely hear you out.

I just want to respect everybody else's time.

Are you done?

Uh I think I am done.

Okay.

Uh I don't think it matters because we're just gonna close evidentiary hearing for five or ten minutes.

And then we'll come back and have a motion to reopen it.

And and and I and I suggest, and this can be either before or after the recess, I would suggest before, just to be respectful of the other folks' time uh this evening is that we make a motion to continue the remaining cases to your April regular meeting date.

I would also suggest that we give the applicants in those other two cases the opportunity to consent to that continuance rather than you know stick around.

I'm gonna I'm gonna take a crack at that then.

Okay, so I'm gonna make a motion that we would continue 208 Glandon Drive and 209 North Boundary Street to our April HDC meeting, which is 19th, I think.

I think it's the 14th.

The 14th of April.

And so those of you that are here for 208 Glandon and 209 Northbound North Boundary, do you consent to us continuing that to April?

Hi, Sean.

Sure.

First of all, we have a bump to the beginning of that agenda.

Um that depends.

Good question.

Um then I don't want to consent if I'm not getting bumped to the front of the agenda.

It depends on this could happen again.

So with this with the 308 West Cameron Avenue item, if they continue it, then that would be the first item as old business.

And then you're the order would be the same, and then you would be the first new business item.

So if the commission doesn't act on this, doesn't take a vote to approve this application tonight, they would continue it to the next meeting.

So I will stay and wait and see how they act on this before I consent to bumping to next month.

And and Sean, you're 208 Glandon.

Correct.

Okay.

So I'll retract that because it sounds like you want to stick around.

Well, I do because I don't want someone standing to come next month.

Two and a half hours and have this whole thing happen again and then get bumped all good another month.

So I I retract two oh eight glandon.

So 209 North Boundary Street.

Would you consent to us um continuing your application to next month, which would be April 14th?

I'd say yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I move that we continue 209 North Boundary Street to the April 14th agenda.

I think I need a second and then we need to vote.

I I would say if you don't mind coming to speak into the mic.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Um hi, I'm Jennifer Hoffman.

And our um request is for the 209 North Boundary project.

And I would also agree that it'd be great to be in the same sequence on the agenda.

So that we would be second or third.

When when staff creates the agenda, it is in the order of the application filed.

Um in time order.

So the 208 Glandon submitted before yours, so they would be first on the agenda, or they would be before you on the agenda and then your application, and then if we receive any other applications, they would be after you.

Okay.

Thank you.

But it's the same thing.

If if this application gets continued, that would be on the old business.

It would be it would go first.

No, I I understand that.

So we would stay in the same sequence.

Yes.

Yes.

So we don't lose our spot whether we're first, second, or third.

You're not gonna get skipped.

Great.

I appreciate both of your patience.

We're trying to navigate this as quickly as we can, but also follow the guidelines we've been given.

So I apologize it's taking place.

No, no problem.

Thank you.

Okay, sorry, one more comment.

I mean, it does mean no good to not consent now, I guess, because whatever happens is gonna happen with this application.

So I'll just consent to it so we don't waste any more time of your time here tonight.

And I do appreciate, you know, I spent five years with you all on that side of the table, so I know how difficult it is, but thank you.

You set a good example, Sean.

Okay, so um so I I will go back to uh I'm gonna make a motion that we uh move 208 Glandon Drive and 209 North Boundary Street to the April 14th agenda.

We've heard from the applicants and they've agreed to that.

Thank you both very much for being helpful.

I make that motion.

I will second it.

Okay, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say you're not okay.

So now we now need a motion to um go to stop the dentistry hearing or not stop.

What's the right word?

Well, to clear we could close the evidentiary.

Um and then take a five or ten minute folks plan to use the restroom, but a five or ten minute recess.

Somebody want to make a motion to close the evidentiary hearing.

Let's close the evidential hearing and be back in our seats at 911, which is five minutes.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

There you go.

Thank you.

Okay.

Nine eleven ish.

Um so we need a motion to uh resume the evidentiary evidentiary hearing, please.

I make a motion that we resume the evidentiary hearing now.

A second.

Okay, all in favor.

I so we were uh as a board asking questions to the applicant.

Were there more questions, or are we ready to go to the public comment?

I have a couple of questions.

Okay, Josh.

Okay.

Um the first question I have is the this lattice wall that faces Millette Street.

We understand that the wall um comes back and extends to the back of the lot.

It heads east.

Yeah, that is uh not solid concrete block.

No, but it is a lattice container.

Yeah, it's it's in this picture.

It the street is here.

Right.

And it's a lattice all the way across to the the back corner.

Thank you.

And then there's this little bit that is on Millette Street.

It's got a little planter at the base of it.

Second question is that I noticed that you're using this articulated architectural shingle.

Yes.

Um, which I really like as a use.

That's a house that had been renovated around the corner on Cameron.

Um honestly it's almost become the standard in terms of roofs, not necessarily in the historic district, but I'm thinking, is it the standard in historic in out in Cameron Macaulay?

Yeah, I I can't say for sure.

Okay.

I I don't know.

Third question I had um did I miss a lighting plan in here?

Or is there a lightning plan?

There is not a lighting plan.

There is uh in my application, I talked about using recess fixtures on the porches.

And uh in the new house and the existing house.

That is where we'll have a new porch on the the back of that house.

And I also mentioned at the existing house uh that well, there are motion detector fixtures there already.

And I'm proposing that we would have at least a few of those, but they would be focused, they would be shielded in the sense that the bulb would be recessed, and that's what I had shown in um the material, the picture of the materials I had here, which I'll get to here in just a moment.

Or did I pass it already?

Yeah, so in the sense that the bulb is recessed in this, and you can focus it downward versus many that you see where the bulb is flush with the face of the the motion to take.

Where in the house does do those go?

Uh we we probably put one at the front porch as you come up the steps.

So when you when you'd be on the wall, the vertical wall facing down towards the steps.

Or it could be mounted on the soffit.

Okay.

And in any case, pointing downward.

Those are all my questions.

Any more questions right now?

Let me see.

I have a bunch of comments, so but they'll wait until we close the evidentiary hearing.

I think those are the questions for now.

Okay.

And I just like to make a a final statement about this if I could.

That I want to I want to be clear that what we'd like to understand is the design as it's been submitted, if it is considered to be uh incongruous or congruous.

And if in fact it is, what aspects of it are incongruous and that need to be addressed so that we could come back and address that if you find it's not appropriate.

Um I don't want to entertain other options specifically as we've had some discussion about here.

I just want to make sure I'm clear about that.

That uh we want to know what you think about this design.

And not about what other alternatives have been suggested in the conversations that I've had.

Um the the other thing that I would say is that I think the issue of height is obviously a relevant one.

And again, as I I had said my application and have included in um in information here, many of these houses are higher than what we're proposing.

And uh as I said, even the house that is directly north of 129 Millette Street is considerably higher.

Uh the house across the street is considerably higher as it relates to uh the land level that we have uh on this side of Millette Street, in fact.

Um I feel like our design is congruous.

And I guess you'd expect me to say that, but that is how I feel about it.

Truly, yes, imagine that's a good one.

Okay, sorry.

Okay, so uh is there any other member of the public that would like to speak?

Please say your name.

My name is Elizabeth Sasser, Chairman Tice and members of the commission and staff.

Thank you for your time tonight.

My family and I live at 403 West Cameron.

We bought the house exactly 20 years ago this month.

And we can see 308 West Cameron from our front porch.

There, as you saw, often cars parked in the yard, under trees.

See the idea of doubling the number of occupants on this property is hard to bear.

And as I said, it's been a nuisance for the neighborhood.

So my concern is that we're doubling the occupancy of what's already been an unpleasant situation, where you know, we're supposed to have four um unrelated members in a house, and it appears that we're gonna have you know eight at minimum on this property.

And for as long as I can remember, they've been young undergraduate men.

So allowing the property to house eight, ten young men, um, is effectively letting it become a fraternity of sorts.

Um it inherently changes the nature of our lock.

Um as Mr.

Stanford said, the um our community, our neighborhood has changed dramatically in the 20 years that I've owned our house.

Um we've lost lots of owner-occupied housing, and this change to this one house will surely lock in this property for student rentals for years to come.

I am not opposed to density.

I support density.

However, I don't think that this property is built for young professionals.

I think it's built for students.

And if you look at the number of parking spaces alone, that'll tell you.

In fact, I have school-aged children who walk down Millette Street to go to Franklin Street regularly.

I walk to campus to go to work.

Um, I'm really concerned about these four additional parking spaces on Millette Street.

I've studied the rendering tonight, and if you look at the driveway that would be on Mallette, I think you would have to back out on Millette Street.

And I, you know, at best case scenario, there'd be four cars in that in those parking spaces.

I imagine they'll be backing out, and that street is already quite narrow, and it's heavily trafficked with pedestrians, other students, people of all ages.

So that's a real safety concern for me.

Um I'm also concerned about the additional parking on West Cameron Avenue.

Um, I understand with the number of occupants currently in 308 West Cameron, they're squeezed for parking space, and they're pulling into the driveway.

They don't use the garage as a garage.

I think there's some weightlifting equipment in there.

Um so I I'd I object to the amount of parking that's being considered in this application.

And I also object to the fact that it's uh it's it hasn't been well maintained, so I have little faith that the new addition, the track regard of this current property does not bode well, and I have little faith that it would be well maintained, that they're gonna well maintain the current structure as in addition to the new building.

So that's just wanted to share my concerns.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Can I respond?

Sure.

Okay.

Um this would be a detached duplex, which uh I I agree.

We uh the ordinance is clear, you can't have more than four unrelated people in a unit.

Uh there are two units.

You can have a up to eight unrelated people in this case.

Um and this house, as it's built, it is going to be rented.

And at some point in the future, it will be sold.

And and I would say that this design would be a perfect house for someone who came as a family and wanted to purchase it, really, just like the existing house is and and would continue to be.

But really, I I don't think any of that is the purview of the historic district commission.

Those are those are all things that are determined by the by the uh land use management ordinance, and your your purview is determining what is determining what is congruous or not in in the historic district commission, uh in the historic district, rather.

Um I understand the concerns as they were expressed, but uh sometimes density in a in a university town creates more student housing.

And that's obviously something that Chapel Hill wrestles with all the time.

And and it often focuses on parking, and I get that.

Um so what we're trying to do is structure the parking more at the existing house, as well as provide parking for the the new uh house that's a duplex unit.

Okay, so I think we can close the evidentiary hearing.

Do I need a motion?

Yeah, motion and vote.

Could I have a motion to close the hearing, please?

I move we close the evidentiary hearing.

Second?

I second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

No opposed.

Okay.

So now we're gonna just have some discussion among the board members.

Um I'm gonna start if you don't mind and address something uh Jay finished with there.

It's it's not under the HDC's purview to dictate the four people per house or per property.

I don't even know exactly how the LUMO says it, but it is under our purview uh to address the effects of that, such as in this case, specifically parking.

Um my opinion that the the parking off Mallette um is incongruous with anything in any of our historic districts.

Um it uh it looks like a mess before it's even started, and the reality sets into how students actually park.

So parking's an issue.

Don, can I ask a question?

Yes, you can.

Are you referring to like the parking area, like the material or the number of parking spaces?

The configuration.

So the number of spaces.

The number of spaces and the configuration of those spaces.

I think the number of spaces is outside of the commission's preview.

Well, I'm not concerned with the number of spaces.

I'm concerned with it's not a driveway in the traditional sense, and there's not organized parking.

It's four little octopus arms, um, which when you first build it will look somewhat organized, but within six months it will not.

That's just my opinion is part of the discussion.

People can disagree with me on that one.

So I I agree from uh congruity measure, it does not appear to be congruous with any other parking in a historic structure in the district.

Well, yeah, and that's that's my only point.

I'm not I'm trying to dance around uh making judgments on LUMO and what is and is not legal because I have no doubt Jay son a great job because what architects do is they they take the owner's program, then they overlay the various codes and ordinances and uh arrive at different options and solutions, and he's done a good job doing that, and I think he's working within the within the Luma.

So what there again we're just considering the guidelines, the Chapel Hill Design Historic Design Guidelines.

So and in this case, I think because it is housing for four bedrooms.

We're not gonna even use the the student work.

It is housing with four bedrooms and a very small lot that doesn't leave you enough room to adequately park it.

Um you're trying to get up a whole lot and a little bit of space um without going up even higher, which you wouldn't be able to for LUMO standards.

So that's that's my challenge is I just think there's a whole lot going on here.

And since since I'm in the role, then I'll let you guys jump in.

Um the other thing that I feel is not congruent, and we'll get the wording right later, Kevin.

Um, is the distance from the back of the existing house at 308 Cameron to the side of the new house, uh, regardless of the final height, which will affect the overall look and feel of it.

Um having the side of a house crammed right up against the back of another house, which you said you may create a property line, it'll be two separate structures.

Um that's a tough design precedent to set in my mind.

Um having houses right next to each other, uh, there's plenty of examples of that, and density is awesome.

So like Ms.

Sasser said, I'm not against density.

It's just the juxtaposition of one house facing Cameron, another one facing Millette, and then them being so close together, I find to be a little difficult in terms of its congruency.

So I'm gonna let somebody else jump in.

So I'm I'll continue sort of where you were going, Don, which is I number one, I feel like there's conflicting um evidence tonight, and I think this is an instance where a site visit actually would be warranted given that we're adding a new structure, which I believe we have the right to do, but it requires some it requires some effort, right?

So I actually think this is an instance where you know in film in field development is being encouraged by the town, and I think this is there's an attempt to have this sort of fit within those standards, but it is precedent setting, and it's at a transition point between a commercial use and the uh historic district, which has some special considerations actually, even in the in the current guidelines.

And so, you know, my concern is about just inconsistent evidence as it relates to 4.2.1, which is mainly, and this is in the um standards for new structures, maintain the established pattern of scale and portion and proportion that exists on the block of streetscape design new buildings to uh so their size and scale to not visually overpower historic buildings in the immediate surroundings when size and scale are important in defining the overall historic character of the district.

And I think that's sort of the spirit of the conversation tonight is there is variety on that street, as there is in all of Macaulay, um the Macaulay district.

Um I I'm not sure I understand exactly without actually seeing it, and I think seeing it in its context and the slope of the street is actually quite important in this particular decision.

Um I also think you know scale new buildings to be consistent with height and width of existing historic buildings.

There's been concerns raised about that tonight, so it's 4.2.2.

Um, and then 4.2.3 talks specifically about sites between two distinct areas of scale.

So there's been you know comment about Granville Towers, um, the fraternity house that's also in the historic district, and the smaller scale houses on uh Mellette Street.

I just I'm I'm not sure I completely understand sort of what how this is going to fit in that context, and I don't feel comfortable making a decision without additional evidence or a site visit.

I feel this is actually not a complete application because we're being asked to rule on something hypothetical, like if the grading works out, and that's why I think what Brian's idea of a site visit is important because of the way the site works.

And what if you get in there with the grading and it turns out differently from what you anticipate?

I I don't feel very comfortable approving something based on a hypothetical.

I I would add to that that based on what they've submitted, you can see there's um in some cases eight feet of fall across the site from the existing house to the property line on the north, and somewhere that eight P has to be taken up.

It would be preferable possibly to um in terms of scale for the new house to be lower than it is, and and they mentioned that, but that this doesn't tell me this plan right here, doesn't tell me how that's gonna be accomplished.

So I need more information, and the site visit would be great, but there's eight feet of fall across there.

That's a fact.

Um the second thing is if the site is to be subdivided, which that might be a great idea, I don't know, but I think you need to decide because again, where the wall goes to take up the eight feet of grade, maybe that influences your subdivision line.

And then one more thing.

Um you note the remove existing portion of the concrete brick wall along the front, and maybe on the sides, when you do the regrading, that wall may not be um intact anymore.

And we don't know that because we can't see what your final intention would be, which then allows me to say, yes, I think it is congruent with the streetscape and the the neighborhood in general.

I I agree that there's insufficient information on the materials that would be used for the new structure, also, which I think is oftentimes a more complete application.

What do you mean?

What do you mean by concern the the proposed new structure, the new house?

All the houses, yeah, the house itself is supposed to retain the walls.

We can't contain sorry, yep.

I have a concern about the presentation.

Which is essentially a single building.

It's separated.

And we're being asked to, however, it's being presented as two separate buildings based on perhaps a subdivision in the future.

And we consider a duplex and very differently than we consider two separate buildings.

So I feel that there's a there's a discontinuity in the presentation, and it really can't be presented today as two separate buildings.

Um so I did want to point out that we're veering into the use of the property in this discussion.

We're we're talking about the use of the property, and that it's um being proposed as a duplex, but it could potentially be subdivided into two single um family homes.

But regardless, the zoning allows for two units, whether they are attached in a traditional duplex that you think of or detached.

Right.

I get it.

I get that.

In this case, the addition is bigger than the original building.

It's not an accessory unit.

So they're they're viewed as two separate houses.

That's what the LUMO allows.

I think it would be different if the application was for an accessory dwelling unit or like a cottage that those are allowed uses across all residential zoning districts.

But what's the case?

Can accessory cottages be larger?

An accessory cottage has a floor area limit.

It's a smaller house, I think it's like a thousand-foot um building footprint and maybe 1200 to 1500 square feet.

But what this application is proposing is two detached single-family houses, which is allowed, and the floor area of the combined houses can't exceed 5,000 square feet.

So there could be a scenario where the new house is larger than the existing house.

But why is it considered a duplex?

That's because there are two units on the property.

So you think of it as one singular zoning lot, and there are two units, and the way the ordinance is written, it allows for the two units to be either attached so they can share a wall, or they can be stacked, or they can be detached as long as they meet the building code in terms of distance between structures, they are allowed to build them separately.

Thank you.

And also I wanted to um pose a question about the grading plan, because I don't think it's anything that we've required applicants to present for any application, and I think this commission has reviewed properties that have varying degrees of like steep slopes.

Um what the applicant presented, or what I heard him say is what that rendering you saw was like the highest that the new house could be, and if they could grade more, it would be lower.

So I I think the the grading comes up because it has to do with the scale of the new house, the proposed new house, in relation to its neighbors.

Yes.

But I think that that in my mind is the reason that the grading I think came up, is trying to understand how much taller is the new structure than the houses that are around it.

Yes.

And there's a specific consideration around that in the and the standard.

So that's sort of my concern.

Yeah, but what he said was that the what he showed was the highest that the new house would go.

And I don't think there's sufficient evidence based on what I saw tonight to actually me to be able to understand exactly what that means and the scale of the other buildings around it.

Okay, can I respond to that?

Actually, no, not right now because we're having a discussion amongst ourselves.

Well, the the other issue with the grades side with the landscape architect over here.

Um is high.

The it's the reality, and Josh knows this when you start digging next to a an old wall like that, that old wall is not going to be there for much longer.

Um, so that just brings up another comment that was mentioned an hour and a half ago about the wall.

So I'm gonna make a quick comment about that.

Um the uh the mesh wall, the the I started to call it a brick, it's actually concrete.

I'll call it brick.

The uh the brick mesh wall uh would be a really sweet detail if 308 Cameron was uh true mid-century modern kind of house, but it's not, it's a ranch house.

So the mesh wall seems a little odd and out of place because it's it's not part of a larger thought, um, which would be a mid-century modern design.

Um and in that case, I think it would be cool to keep it right now.

I could care less about it personally because I don't I think it's inappropriate to 308, and I think it's inappropriate to 129.

Um so that's just the the issue with the wall, cause we'll be discussing walls a lot in the future, I'm sure.

So I just wanted to go ahead and I feel like the wall needs to be appropriate to the house if there's an existing house there.

So I'm just putting that in the record.

Um so what are the comments do we have?

I can I do want to comment.

I had a second issue.

So I do want to comment on the shingles.

I think that we need to be um I need to be convinced that those shingles are um appropriate to the district.

I know that's a small issue relative to the larger issues we're discussing.

Um, but I do love the articulated shingles.

I just don't find them to be um consistent with the district.

So it I'm not aware of them being consistent.

If I may, I think it might be worthwhile for the commission to consider how you might structure this deliberation.

So remember, your remit is to determine whether based on the competent material and substantial evidence that's been presented to you this evening, the applicant's proposal is not incongruous with the special character of the Cameron Macaulay Historic District.

So I think first you might consider what is the special character of the district as it relates to this particular application.

I think you might refer to the special character essays that are contained in your principles and standards.

I believe the Cameron Macaulay Historic District uh character essay is on page 31 or begins on page 31 of your principles and standards.

So I think I think I might encourage you to take a look at that character essay and to pull from it your relevant provisions or your uh relevant elements of the character of the district as uh as the town defines it.

Next, I might suggest that you all consider the uh evidence that's been presented to you and determine what uh evidence you you believe is competent, material, and substantial.

And then I might uh uh suggest that you consider whether um that evidence leads you to believe that the applicant's proposal is not in congruous with the character of the historic district rather than this kind of scatter shot concerns approach.

I think you know determining kind of a more structured workflow for your decision might be helpful here, especially because I I think we are starting to get into the realm of things that are outside of our uh the the HDC's purview.

Um before we start spinning our wheels on on those sorts of things.

And can I add to that?

Because uh back to the the grading issue and what we require for COAs is like architectural drawings, and we don't get into construction drawings and whether something can be built as shown on architectural plans.

So I would caution us from asking the applicant to prepare construction um drawings for the commission to review, because I think that's outside of your purview.

What you could there the approval of the COA doesn't compel the applicant to build what is approved.

If while they're developing their plans, they realize they do need to like they can't grade or whatever the case might be, they come back to the commission to amend their COA and staff could also approve minor amendments to a COA that the commission has approved.

So just to keep that in mind with the materials that you're asking the applicant to to provide to put a point on it, I would reiterate.

I think what we've heard from the applicant is that they are asking you to consider the application as it's present.

I know there's a lot of discussion, and there the applicants kind of made some comments about well, we might consider changes to X, Y, and Z.

I think what you've heard is you're being asked to approve or to consider for approval the application exactly as it's presented to you.

I think to Sharnika's point, yeah.

The applicant would be obligated then to come back, you know, and again, I guess it depends on what specific elements of the C the approved COA need to be changed based on kind of their further construction uh permitting process.

But uh you those changes would need to be approved either at staff level if that's uh kind of an authorized method of approval, or they'd need to come back for you uh to you for uh approval of an amended COA at that time.

Um so I I guess to the extent that that addresses some of the concerns about hypothetical or speculative changes to the materials that have been presented, you know.

I I hope that's helpful.

It's a little bit helpful, but it doesn't address what Josh was saying because I feel like what Josh was saying is exactly in our purview, which is discussing architectural materials.

Um, so I'll I'll go back to something I think is sort of squarely in our purview, which is size and scale of new structures.

And so I think you know, my biggest concerns are Ford.2.1, 4.2.2, and 4.2.3, and I'll just read forward.2.3 for sites between two distinct areas of scale, such as between commercial and traditional residential uses, which I think is applicable in this situation because of Gramble Towers and the historic home next door.

Um just read it again.

For the sites between two distinct areas of scale, such as between the commercial and traditional residential uses or between residential and institution uses, scale should follow the buildings with the same historic use, which is a single family home.

And so there's a there's single family homes on that block that seem to be smaller in scale and sit on the lot differently, and that is my biggest concern.

And I don't feel like I have enough evidence in what was presented tonight, or have conflicting evidence around whether or not what's proposed fits within the size and the scale of what's on the street.

That's my biggest concern.

So I would propose a site visit on that specific.

So you'd propose a continuance so that we could have a site visit.

And so that everybody on the board could get familiar with page 31 that you just outlined, Kevin, which is which we all can't sit here and read right now.

So the applicant, I believe, during their presentation said that there are buildings on Millette Street that are taller than what's proposed.

Um just to reiterate that that point was.

I just don't I don't think it's an issue, not to get argumentative, but I don't think it's an issue of this is taller and that's not taller.

It's an issue of this mass next to the next mass next to the next one and how close they are together.

I think it's a it's a contextual thing where you have to take all the facets into account.

Is this isn't a standalone piece.

Like Luma would lead you to believe.

Our job is to look at it as within context of the entire Millette Street and the larger commercial property that buds up to the back of it.

So I understand the idea that there may be buildings that are the same height or or taller.

Um, but they aren't sitting next to 129, which is a small Victorian house.

I can tell you don't either don't agree with my argument or don't understand my own.

I don't know.

I don't think a site visit is the answer because they are very difficult to coordinate the applicant would need to be there.

I feel like it might be lay this item.

And now that the that we have a a party with standing, they would also need to be there, right, Kevin?

Yeah.

So that's a lot of the reason I suggest that is I do think that it would actually provide some clarity in this situation.

I know that we've been advised against that.

I also know that we have been we've talked about in certain situations that are complex that is actually a remedy that's available to us.

That's the reason I bring it up.

Well, so you're correct.

There is no rule that pre or law that prohibits us from conducting site visits.

Um I think Sharneek and Anna Scott are correct.

It does present conducting a site visit does present kind of due process concerns.

We'll have to notice a public hearing uh or uh we'll have to notice a meeting of the HDC uh for a specific time and place at the site.

We'll have to obviously coordinate that then with the applicant.

We'll have to have the applicant's consent to enter onto the site.

I also have similar practical concerns or or I guess questions about what specifically we believe a site visit uh or what's what evidence a site visit is going to uh introduce into the record that we don't already have.

The building, the the potential second structure doesn't exist, and so simply by standing on the site, you're not gonna gain uh any perspective that doesn't that you're you're not already able to gain through photographs of the site.

concerns or or I guess questions about what specifically we believe a site visit uh or what's what evidence a site visit is going to uh introduce into the record that we don't already have the the building the the the potential second structure doesn't exist and so simply by standing on the site you're not going to gain uh any perspective that doesn't that you're you're not already able to gain through photographs of the site what I think might be appropriate or helpful is asking the applicant to produce you know new renderings that perhaps include additional site details like the existing vegetation and that sort of thing to provide a perspective you know and perhaps present renderings uh that that include different perspective of the site um that do show kind of that massing and scale relative to the other area uh to to the adjacent structures and then perhaps to present uh prepare renderings or present photographs of the other kind of you know uh structures on Millette Street that show the relative height of one structure to the other adjacent structures in order to kind of compare you know that that massing and scale within the district but ultimately it's it's up to the a majority of the HDC to decide how you'd like to address what each one of you just said is um the artist the lawyer uh there absolutely without a doubt is something to gain from being at the site because you cannot duplicate a sense of place in a render or drawing and I understand that a render or drawing is evidentiary and you can put it into the record and you can check that box but the reality is our historic districts are about the cool sense of place and they're created by our stone walls and our different housing types they don't all have to be craftsmen they don't all have to be whatever so the actual house style itself I personally have no problems with because there's a thousand different types of houses in our historic districts but uh and it's about the spaces in between the houses as much as the houses and the masses themselves that's important.

And that's what I think you could get from a site visit is is this thing gonna going to change the character of Millette Street or is it going to add to the historic character of Millet Street.

That's what that's the difference between being congruous and not congruous is are we are we adding to the historic character or blending with it?

So that's what a site visit Kevin sorry can I ask a precedable question um can the applicant ask for a vote tonight like hypothetically speaking if the the applicant insists on getting a vote on whether or not the commission finds that the the project is incongruous with the character of the district and that vote um they deny it the applicant can appeal it to the board of adjustment that's that's correct now you know I I don't know whether that whether there's any rule or law that would compel the HDC uh to take a vote tonight simply because the applicant has asked for it however you're correct I think you know if the applicant insists on the having the HDC make a decision based on the at the uh evidence that's been presented the application as it exists right now and if that uh if if the HDC's decision was to deny the application because they feel it it is it is incongruous with the character of the district the applicant would then have the the right to appeal the HDC's decision to the board of adjustment make sure I heard that last part so if if we voted it down they could take it to the board of adjustments.

That's correct.

Okay.

I didn't realize that so I I think we have a decision to make we can either make a motion and see how the vote goes or we can ask the applicant if they'd like to step back up to the podium and say anything before we do that.

Yeah let's have the applicant come back up if you don't mind because you seem to have a couple more things you wanted to say there I thought because so you've closed the evidentiary hearing now there's no reason why you can't reopen it and allow the applicant to present new or additional evidence or testimony.

However if you do that the uh the neighbors would will have the right to cross examine based on any new they they'll have the right to present any so let me be more specific about what I would like to hear given the conversation we've just had would the applicant like to weigh in on whether or not they are going to change this application or enhance it which means they would like for us to continue it or do they have no intention of doing that in which case we'll make a motion to take a vote.

So I'd like you to contain your comments to that question.

So we're not here for another hour.

Sure.

So I I think just to be clear, what you were asking is not for new or additional evidence or testimony.

You are asking the applicant to um provide a point of view and some advice on how they like us to proceed because we're trying to help actually.

Right.

So you're asking them to either um with the benefit.

Either for their input on whether or not with the benefit of the conversation they've just heard us have on the podium and sort of what the sentiment is and what the concerns are, and that there was prior conversation around openness to changes, which sounds like it was retracted after the break.

Do you want to reconsider that and have us continue this to next month and bring new evidence?

Or would you prefer, as you said prior, to continue with the existing application, in which case we'll make a motion to take a vote.

So I think if if that's the question, I don't think it's necessary to reopen the evidence you're hearing.

You're not asking for new evidence, you're asking for them to you're essentially asking them to call the question, right?

Do they do they want uh a vote taken tonight on the application as it's been presented, or would they like to continue the event year into the next month?

Bearing in mind the public comment and bearing in mind what their neighbors have said can I Kevin, because you mentioned them talking, the commission talking to like um decide what information you're finding is not in congruous, or yeah.

So if you could summarize that for the applicant before you pose a question about what they're willing to change, I think that would be.

Yeah, can you say more?

I don't think that the maintain the established pattern of scale and proportion that exists on the block or streetscape.

I don't have sufficient evidence to determine that that's the case.

Scale new buildings to be consistent with the height and width of existing historic buildings.

I think we have some evidence on both sides of that equation tonight that was presented as new information tonight.

And then for sites between two distinct areas of scale, such as between commercial and traditional residential uses or between residential and institutional uses, scale should be followed the buildings with the same historic use.

I think there are examples immediately adjacent of historic use that has a different scale.

I concern this house's scale too large.

And does the like collectively does is that a comment the commission would like to pass on to the applicant?

Say that again.

I'm sorry you faded away.

Does everyone agree with it?

It's not just Brian's opinion.

Well, and and I think maybe equally importantly, are there other you know are there other concerns related to the congruity uh standard or you know, concerns with uh you know consistency with other uh principles or standards set out in your materials?

Well, the for example, Josh brought up materials.

Are there other materials, other site aspects, um design aspects, architectural things that you're 4.3.1.

Uh design new roofs to be compatible in form slope and orientation with historic buildings and the immediate surrounding when the form slope and orientation are important but in defining historic, which I think Josh specifically asked a question about that.

So I think there are some very specific principles in the design standards associated with new buildings, that there's insufficient evidence to determine if it meets that principle or not.

And with insufficient evidence, I think our our remedy is either to take it on faith or ask for more evidence and take a vote on that.

Yeah, I think what Kevin and staff are asking for is to be like hyper specific on which standards you feel the application as presented does not fit the character, isn't is incongruous with the character of the district, so that the applicant can take that information from you all and um if they choose to rework their application, they may do so.

They may come up with something entirely new if they want to, but they have your um reasoning for approving or denying the COA to rely on in order to inform their next steps.

So we're were the specific um numbers of the items and we reading those on was that clear.

Brian, I I I think the question is not whether you've been clear about the specific you know concerns you've already raised, but the the question is whether there are concerns about other standards.

Here's where I think we're going to be able to do that.

I'm looking for like us going into the standards saying here's the numbers of the things that I'm concerned about.

Is that what we're looking for?

Yeah.

Is that in the right point?

And here's where I'm going with this is uh what I would be concerned about is the potential due impact on the applicant's due process rights and also the neighbors' due process rights, if what happens is you identify that specific standard um and ask you know whether the applicant is uh will consent to a continuance to allow the applicant to come back with new uh or additional evidence addressing that standard, and then the commission says, okay, great, you've addressed that standard, but here are some other standards that we feel have not been adequately addressed, right?

If you're gonna ask if you're gonna propose a continuance to allow the applicant the opportunity to come back with additional evidence to address you know the commission's perceived uh deficiencies as as they relate to specific standards set out in the design principles.

I I think you ought to make sure that that you're being exhaustive.

Well, it's a little frustrating.

The first three articles that Brian read basically say there's too much building on this site.

Just breaking it down into pedestrian words, okay.

It means it's talking about massing in scale.

It's talking about it being too tight up against the building back behind us because there's so much footprint on the building, there's really not the appropriate amount of space for parking.

That's all wrapped up in those first three articles that are in there.

You're saying that those three articles aren't enough to for us to have basically.

I think I hear you saying you want to make sure that there are if there's others, we're being specific.

Right.

I'm not saying that those are not enough.

I think it's just perfectly within your purview to ask the application or at least to state that you feel you don't have sufficient evidence as it stands right now to address those particular standards.

I think what I'm saying is if there are other standards in addition to those that the commission feels have not been adequately addressed, you ought to be specific about that now so that the applicant has a similar opportunity to come back with newer additional evidence addressing those standards.

So what's awkward about that is that we established um a new player on the field that had that presented evidence tonight about an hour and a half ago, maybe two hours ago.

And so to have the opportunity to take into consideration that new evidence and be thoughtful about that is challenging.

If we'd have the opportunity to review that in advance as we did these materials, we could be more precise.

But to go through a document this comprehensive and be that specific when new evidence was presented tonight puts us in a very awkward position.

Right, which then begs the question, are we creating due process concerns for the applicant or for the neighbors by uh proposing a continuance to allow new evidence to be presented, right?

I I'm I'm simply asking for enough time for us to consider the evidence that was presented tonight and then to be specific about where we have open questions because the evidence was inconsistent.

Right.

And so I I again I think that begs the question of what are we proposing tonight?

Are we proposing a continuance to allow the commission the opportunity to review to to conduct further review of the evidence that's already been presented, or are we proposing a continuance to allow new evidence and what whether that's presented by the applicant or the neighbors uh to be presented for the commission to consider it a further at a future date?

Well, as Brian and Don have both said, the site visit would address a lot of these issues, and we realize all the technical issues associated with that, but we have never before that I can recall in almost seven years, ask to have a site visit because this is an unusual configuration of buildings in the neighborhood.

I and I realize that that puts a burden on everyone involved, and if that is not a tenable solution, I would like to entertain alternatives to the proposed site visit, which I think is the best answer, but if that is not an acceptable answer, can accept that.

But we need to find an alternative that allows the evidence to be presented to make a quality decision.

And I don't think we feel like we do collectively.

Am I misspeaking?

No, you are not misspeaking.

You're right in the money.

Um to read the page 31 you were talking about to go down to the standards, pick every one of them.

Uh knowing that we could be setting precedent for other infill.

Uh feel like we're a little too pressed right now.

So can we just all ask for a continuance next time just to give us time to base on the current evidence?

And then make a ruling at the next meeting.

I'm I'm also gonna put other options that we've considered in the past on the table, which is we can also call a special meeting in between now and our April meeting, which it actually would give us time to reflect on what's been provided.

And this may be unconventional, but I'm gonna put it out there.

If we had three days to consider what's been presented tonight, to come back with more specific questions that could be submitted to staff, which could then be submitted to the applicant.

So we're being more precise, which I understand what you're saying.

Kevin, do you need to be able to do that?

No, no, no, we're okay.

We're all set.

Okay.

Mr.

Mr.

Stanford, when you said you would not be at the April meeting.

When are you leaving?

We have some flexibility other than we have some flexibility other than April 14th.

We just will not be here on the 14th.

So I I'm not sure.

I'm putting options on the table just to get reactions.

Yeah, I I get the options.

Um Anna and I have conflict, so I don't know if we'd be able to make a special meeting work between now.

And I think that's so Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong.

Procedurally, um, when you continue a hearing to the next meeting, that serves as the proper notification for the requirements by state law.

If you were to call a special meeting where we we ask you all your schedules, we find a time, we would then need to re-notice that meeting because we can't notify at this meeting right now while we're talking about this application.

So it would have the same implications as a site visit.

Kevin, am I wrong?

Speeding it up is not enough.

I mean, that under understood.

Am I right, Kevin?

Yeah, so Anna Scott is correct.

Uh if we can if we can if we continue uh the evidentiary hearing to a future meeting, uh and if we can identify if if we continue the evidentiary hearing to a date certain, that satisfies uh the town's obligation to provide public notice of the the new meeting, you know, the continued meeting date.

If on the other hand, what the commission says is we're we want to continue the evidentiary hearing to allow an opportunity to conduct a site visit, and uh you know staff can coordinate uh between and among the HDC and the relevant parties uh to identify an appropriate time for the for the whether it's the site visit or for the new future meeting date, then the town has to provide you that same you know um mailed and posted notice, you know, not let not more than 25 days before the new meeting or the site visit and not less than 10 days before the new meeting or the site visit.

So I I Anna Scott's having a consultation with the applicants.

I feel like we should let do all let them finish their conversation and we'll decide how to proceed.

And um I'll add because you mentioned needing to like consider the evidence that was presented.

It is up to the commission to decide what is competent material and substantial evidence.

And I think you've heard a lot tonight.

Um of it is well, outside of your purview that does I don't think needs to be considered at all, but it's something to keep in mind.

Yeah, I I think that's a fair challenge.

I think there was photographs that were brought tonight that in my mind are in conflict with what was in the application.

That is new physical evidence that was presented this evening that doesn't, in my mind, kind of all match up with this application.

And I'm not suggesting that there was anything unintentional about that, it's just unclear.

And so, because we're making a very weighty decision, I think it's appropriate for ever all stakeholders for it to be very clear about what information we're using to make that decision.

Which photos?

The the photos that the Dr.

Bryant presented?

That's right.

That's right.

Um so I you know I feel like to be fair, we should have time to consider that.

I understand Kevin's question about wanting to be precise.

I think with new evidence in the last hour, we're trying to be pay attention and listen to what everybody's saying, it's difficult to be that precise in a very dense document when new evidence was presented this evening.

And I'd like to find a way to be able to consider that as a commission and be precise in what the ask is.

I can be precise about the things I had concerns about coming into the conversation that were amplified by the evidence that was presented.

So Anna Scott, do you given the consultation you just had, do you think it's appropriate for us to ask the applicant to step back up and speak?

I I think um it is appropriate to ask the applicant how they want to proceed with um reopening the hearing, continuing to um another date to be determined, um, or if they would like to um get a decision tonight.

Okay.

Thank you, probably so we can have the applicant back up.

Sure.

I think if yeah, I I think it'd be appropriate to ask the applicants to provide their perspective on how they'd like to proceed.

Okay.

Would you like to do that, please?

Well, we're we haven't made a motion to open the to read.

This is an evidentiary.

Exactly.

Yes.

So I'm just making sure we're clear that we're not presenting new evidence right now.

Yeah.

Because we haven't had a motion.

Yeah, so so I so Kevin, I think the advice you gave us a little while ago when we talked about this is we're asking the applicant to come back up to uh provide a point of view on whether or not they would like for us to continue this application to allow us to weigh the topics that we've just talked about, or if they would like for us to proceed to a motion of vote tonight.

Yes, right.

Okay.

Okay, Jay.

I have an I have a question.

I don't want to present new evidence.

Can I reiterate evidence I presented previously?

No, not without reopening the evidentiary hearing.

Okay, is it possible to do that?

That's not the question that we asked you.

Sure.

I I mean, I I think it would be possible to do that, but I think that the what the commission is asking is for the applicant's perspective right now.

Okay.

I I would also say that if you want us to consider new information three hours into this is probably not the best time for us to think clearly about what you're asking.

No, I'm I'm I'm I I said reiterating something I said previously is what I was addressing.

But um we'd be okay with the continuance.

I I would just like to know, and and I realize you you probably don't know this now, just from what you've said previously, but I'd like to know what you do find in total uh incongruous.

You I know you you referenced 422 1 and 3, but if there are other items so that when we come back, we we can address that at the next meeting, be prepared to do that.

I I think that's fair.

I think the thing we're trying to navigate with the logistics of that is because it needs to be a public hearing.

How do we do that in a way that respects everybody's time, but also give you the information you need from us and give us an opportunity to think carefully about what we're saying?

All volunteers, by the way.

Oh no, right, I get that and um make sure that it's fair.

And I think we're just trying to navigate.

Sounds like special meeting, it's not a good option.

Site visit, not a good option.

So we're trying to look for an alternative to be able to come back, and I'm and I'm not sure what that alternative is.

But I think what you've said is we need more time to cut consider all the points to be as specific as Kevin wants us to be.

That's what it boils down to.

We can't sit here right now for the next hour and and go through the standards and everything else and go through everything and try to do that.

Yeah, also trying to balance that we had two other applicants tonight that were clearly irritated with us because we didn't get to there, right?

I mean, just to be fair, and they also deserve sure.

They deserve due process also.

So we're trying to navigate several different things.

If we can go ahead.

I was gonna say if we well, that that's what we would like is to be able to have that information so we could address it.

Um also I understand they might be irritated, but we want to we don't want to get bumped down the schedule just because they they don't want to be bumped down the schedule also.

Just it's it's I'm I'm simply trying to communicate.

We're trying to be efficient.

So all stakeholders are taking care of and that we're not seen as um uneasy to work with, right?

Maybe maybe just in conclusion, because we've all been here a really long time.

First of all, big appreciation to all of you guys very much.

I know this has been a big effort.

Uh love Chapel Hill, love the historic district, live for many years on Macaulay as a student.

So just to be clear, we are good with the continuation.

We're not asking for a vote, Brian.

So I think everyone's on the same page there.

What I would like to understand is when we come next, is it just this plan, or if there's changes in the meantime, could those be submitted, or we would just be talking this this specific way?

So I I think this is where we have a decision to make, and I'm gonna look to staff and Kevin to give us advice on this, which is I think we would like the opportunity to be thoughtful and the feedback and be precise, which I think is what Kevin's asking for.

I don't I'm not sure that we feel like we have go ahead, Shiny.

Good.

Um to Kevin's point in and and the applicants, if you continue the hearing, I think tonight you need to tell them like things that they can attend.

It's not fair to the applicant to say we're going to continue the hearing so we can consider the application that you've submitted, and then at the next meeting, say, well, it's not incongruous because of this, this, and this, which was submitted in the original application.

And this is our point.

We cannot be that precise tonight.

We need a little bit of time to be to give that level of precision, that legal level of precision.

So yeah, so what I'm so how do we get from here to there?

So what I think we would what we would love is a couple of hours to hear to process everything we've heard tonight, pour back through and be precise.

The the challenging part of that is it has to be the conversation has to be a public hearing.

And that comes with some burden for staff and some burden for you all, frankly, and how we do that.

And so the most practical way of doing that would be to continue the evidentiary hearing to April, which give us a chance to kind of come back and be more precise about that.

I've tried to navigate different ways of us doing that sooner.

I'm just not sure it's practical.

Given the other demands people have, just you know, so you know, the the um painful answer is continuing the evidentiary hearing to April, and the commitment from us is we would be more precise in that conversation.

That's not going to give you the relief you want, which is going to be a yes or a no in the next conversation, because I think we have to consider it more carefully to be perfectly honest.

I wish there was an alternative to that.

If I could wave a magic wand and say, hey, in five days, we're gonna have met and come back and tell you so you can come in April, amazing.

I'm not sure that's practical given the constraints that the people that I mean, you get you guys tell me if the I'm just trying to be really practical.

Yeah, Kevin, Kevin, can they can the commission take some time to percolate on this?

And then if they have concerns individually, they can email staff those and we can share them with the applicant.

Or could you know, can we do it in writing and the other parties to avoid like them on an email thread or trying to schedule a meeting and then at the next hearing, the applicant can um address how they responded to the comments or if they you know disagreed with um so certainly one thing one of the things that the commissioner commissioners cannot do is have exports in communication.

Now, I I think what I certainly I'm not aware of any rule or law that would prohibit, for example, uh the commission from continuing the evidentiary hearing to their April meeting, then from uh then would commissioners uh providing you know their independent written providing their a written summary of their individual concerns with the evidence for the application as it's presented to staff, and then allowing staff to uh provide you know those summaries to both the applicant and the neighbor.

Um and and then I think one of the things that staff would then probably need to do is publish as part of the uh agenda package for the April meeting, the individual commissioners' written summaries of of their concerns or the questions so that it's it's available.

Yes.

Um there is one thing I would like to be brought the next time, which is you have individual photographs of houses in the district, but I think it would be helpful, especially in those ones that you're saying are real close together to bring in pictures, you know, the entire street scape.

But I think it would be helpful, especially in those ones that you're saying are real close together to bring in pictures, you know, on the entire street scape.

Yeah, more of the context, more contextual.

These how these are together, and really it's not a very big area, you know, like all down Mallette Street, and wherever you're saying there are similar, you know, groups of structures because just looking at a bunch of individual photographs doesn't really give you the context for and that's one of the reasons I think we all thought a site visit might have been quite.

I think that's kind of what's what we're longing for.

And I will tell you, I was shocked to hear that you didn't make site visits.

I I thought that was possible.

It's not allowed.

Yeah, that believe it or not.

Yeah, it's not it's not it's not allowed.

Yeah, from our point of view, the site visit would be very welcome.

But it sounds like is that even it puts a burden on others management.

It's more like the logistics of it.

It's not that it's not allowed, but if the commission is so it's not proactively allowed, meaning we're not allowed to come visit your site when we see the application.

Uh if the HDC members were to make site visits for the purpose of of making observations of this you know of the site, the existing features, uh taking photos relative.

Right.

The the question then becomes how is that how do your observations get reproduced in the in the evidentiary micro photos could be one, right?

And so once if they want to do that through a site visit, um the most practical way to accomplish that would be to then host an evidential uh a meeting of the commission at the site at a particular time, so that everybody's present at the same time, you can make the same exact exact observations, the public it's a public hearing you're saying.

It's a public hearing.

It's a public hearing on site, right?

Alternatively anyway.

That's why it's called logistic concern with uh hosting.

Okay, that's it's it's it is a we we accept that that is the policy, none of us like it, but it's but it's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to follow the rules.

Well, again, we're very appreciative of your time efforts.

This has been uh a big discussion.

We're agree in agreement, I think, with the continuance.

Well, and I've got one thing for Kevin, but first for you guys.

Uh we were talking, it would be nice, and Anna Scott will help you do this, Jay.

If next time you come in, have a street view.

We've had a couple people come in and they do the Google Street View and actually walk up and down the street.

And it comes up on the screens extremely helpful.

So uh taken from Google directly, you're saying yeah, you can she can bring it up for you here, and we can watch it in real time as you as you walk down the street.

It's very okay.

So just we're negotiating.

Yeah, and I I think again that's like a that's an example of something productive that came up in the conversation that if we had more time to reflect, there might be two or three other things like that that kind of moves things along.

Right.

So I think we're just longing for a little bit more time to give good advice.

No, I get that.

And and Kevin says what it sounds like is we could present a uh a motion and a course second it um that lists the specific things that Brian have already said, but also say that we can in writing send to Anna Scott and Chernico or pick one or the other over sometime in the next five days.

Um that can be our motion, and then we have a continuance based on that motion.

Sure, or I mean, or alternatively you can just continue the evidentiary hearing.

There's nothing that would I think prohibit individual commissioners.

Okay, great communicating your concerns in writing to staff, and then staff would of course then transmit those those written concerns, the applicant, the neighbor, and then would make those you know the publisher written concerns or questions or whatever it may be as far as the application or the agenda package for the shop.

I would also then of course remind you all that we've heard from a party with stand that you determine as standing that they will not be available at the April 14 meeting.

So then the question becomes do you want to continue the evidentiary hearing?

Do you still want to continue the evidentiary hearings?

My my only question about that is the um statute of time and what our statute of time would dictate.

If we continue this till May, what are the timing implications?

I think they have 180 days.

I defer the staff what exactly the Lumino says, but I think it's 180 days from the same application.

This is dated February 2nd.

We can ask that correct.

That's when the clock starts.

So it would start in March.

It starts today.

We would have to look in our records the February 10th.

It's when the application is deemed complete, which is both in material and also the fee.

So I believe Shardik has pulled up the record in our record keeping system.

So it would be February 10th.

You have a hundred, I think 180 days.

Um I haven't looked at the ordinance.

Can uh the person in standing have a representative here on April 14th.

Could the could the lawyer have a lawyer?

Sorry.

I mean, I'm I look, I'm I'm trying to be cooperative with what we did.

Mr.

Stanford, could you come speak into the mic?

Could you come thinking?

I want to be as cooperative as possible, but you know, again, I just want to point out you we've had basically two days to prepare for this.

This, you know, I mean I don't think it's unreasonable given the fact that we have a an obligation that dates from the beginning of the year.

It just so this is what I would propose is that uh we're going to make a motion to continue this application to the April 14th meeting.

Um I would whether we put this in a motion or not, commissioners will uh consider everything that was presented tonight, provide to staff if they choose to, very specific concerns.

That information can be public notice to everyone involved before the April 14th meeting, which I think gives you an opportunity to address it.

I think it also gives the neighbor the opportunity to put your own information in writing if you choose to.

I'm uncomfortable continuing this to May, given that there's some question around the date.

So I think it needs to continue to the next meeting to be respectful of you.

I'm I'm I'm sorry that that creates a timing issue, but I think that's the most practical.

But it also gives you the opportunity to document.

I will um add that the problem is as a party, we actually do process you know, requires us to have a meaningful opportunity to comment and and a written response is not going to be under oath.

And so it won't satisfy the evidentiary hearing requirement.

And and my concern is that there is a clock ticking on this application.

I understand, but it's again it's it's uh it's a very long clock.

It's and you know, looking at this more practically, if the it's how the commission tonight had simply said we find there is insufficient evidence presented by the applicant to show that this is not incongruous, and therefore we turn it down.

The applicants would be free to reapply and to adjust accordingly.

I mean, I thought, frankly, that was what they originally asked, was they wanted a decision to today, and in that decision, they would based on that decision.

Obviously, if you were to approve it, then they move to the next stage.

If you were to deny it, then they would take the reasons that you laid out there.

You know, they don't have to be super precise.

I think that's that's the conundrum we're in is we want to be more precise around what our concerns are, and I don't think we feel like we have enough time to be as precise as would be fair in a denial.

So we're trying to we're trying to provide time for us to think and be helpful.

But bear in mind again, the burden of proof is upon the applicant to demonstrate.

Yes, as a party.

As a party.

So I think you've spoken a lot about the evidence that the applicant has presented, but the board also has um you have to decide if the the evidence and testimony that Dr.

Bryan and Mr.

Stanford provided.

Um what they provided is enough for you to say that what their their argument is is that it is not in congruous or it's not congruent.

It is incongruous with the character of the district.

We asked a specific question, you answer the question, thank you, and thank you.

Maybe just give us a second to decide what we're doing.

Yeah.

So do you need more information from Dr.

Bryant and I'm gonna make a motion.

I'm gonna make a motion to the commission that is I would like to continue the application, can continue to the April, sorry, the May meeting, the May meeting.

Um and the date of that meeting is the May meeting is May 12th.

I would like to continue the application for 308 West Cameron to May 12th.

Let please let me let me finish.

Um to continue the evidentiary hearing.

In the meantime, commissioners will um consider whether or not they want to provide information to staff that would be public noticed and share it to all concerned parties.

And I'm saying May because of the conversation that was just had.

If somebody wants to make a motion for April, then that's a counter proposal.

Can you clarify that the information that the commission can provide is in response to both testimonies that you've received?

So the the information we provide would be in response to the um evidence that was provided tonight, some of which was provided for the first time tonight, and the commission would like the opportunity to give that consideration as we respond back to what we view as congruous or incongruous.

Ryan, unfortunately, we will not be we have a wedding in Columbia for that May Day, so we will not be there in May.

Well yeah, and I also wonder what will be the mic, oh sorry.

I also wonder what will be presented before the let's say the April meeting, and but what date would that be dispersed?

Yeah, so that that's another spawn.

That's another thing because we we do need the applicant to provide materials to include in the agenda before you publish it.

Um so depending, I mean, if it's in April or May or June, I mean, I think they would have enough time.

Do we need a motion to continue this meeting beyond 1030?

I don't think we do.

Do no, I don't think we do.

We're we're we're wrapping it up here.

What I would suggest is when is it when are both parties next available?

Okay, but like what we need to identify the so I'm back to I'm back, I'm back to everybody's favorite topic special meeting, which we have done before.

And so I would also say we could, you know, if we did it between the two dates, so it's not April, it's not May, it's May 1st.

We that which gives us plenty of time to notice a special meeting, it also gives us the opportunity to clear the other two applicants in the April meeting.

I I think it would be really good to have a special meeting because of the other applicants.

I think they deserve to have their cases heard in April.

Well, there's there's no reason if we continue this evidence here here in Hawaii to May or the June, there's no reason why the other applicants would not then be able to be heard in the A.

But that's what I'm saying.

I'm saying let's separate this out from the routine.

So if this if this hearing is continuing to May, the other applications will be heard in April uh in the case.

I'm gonna make a motion.

Okay, I'm I'm I'm gonna make a I'm gonna make a motion, and I would like for the commission to weigh in on this motion, only the commission.

So I would like to uh make a motion that we're gonna continue through the application for 308 West Cameron to a special meeting just on this topic that would be scheduled.

I'm proposing Tuesday, April 28th, which does not conflict with either party's determined conflicts this evening that also gives staff time to notice that meeting.

So it's not in four weeks, it's in six weeks.

And in that and in the intervening period, the commission will make efforts to be more specific about our concerns about um non-congruity with those standards that would be provided and public noticed in advance of that meeting.

And I would like to just hear from the commission on that, please.

Do other commissioners we can have discussed?

Yeah.

So we can have discussion on it before the second.

Okay.

Just want to make sure I'm following the rules.

Um I think it's a great way to do it because it gives us time to put in writing uh the specific points so that we can be very specific and let the applicant know exactly what our problems are.

Um and it gives uh the members in standing a chance to to see our uh what we write and they can respond to it if they want, and then everybody can be here at one time.

You look like you have a question for me then.

Well, I would just want to make sure that we are specifying a specific date by which your comments will be provided to staff so that staff can transmit those, the applicant and uh partisan standing so that they have an opportunity to provide any updated materials to staff in time for staff to March 7th, their agenda publication deadline.

Tuesday, March 17th would be the deadline for information from the commissioners so a week from today.

Okay, that would be your deadline to provide comments.

Yes, correct.

Correct.

That'll give staff, I think only time to meet their agenda publication.

Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna amend my motion.

Okay.

I was gonna ask, are you going to amend it so that we are now meeting uh in April or in May on this topic?

Special meeting.

So in addition to the April and May meeting, we would do a special meeting sort of in between the two.

I'm proposing April 20 28th.

Thank you.

I'm not even gonna look at my calendar yet, but yeah, we'd have to get quorum, just you know, so we're getting off the city.

Does that date work for everyone now?

I'm not even gonna look because the the question is would we even get a quorum if we pick a date out of the hat like that?

I just think that's what you need to decide right now.

So Brian picked it up.

There's no point in meeting if we can't get a quorum.

There's no point in meeting if the applicant and the party withstanding can't make the meeting.

And a quorum would be for people.

So I can be there.

I will be out of town.

Okay.

Unfortunately, I can on April 28th.

Cannot.

I cannot.

Okay.

I can be there.

I can be there.

I can't be there.

So no quorum.

No quorum.

But I will write my comments and have them in before uh next Tuesday.

What about the 5th, April, May 5th?

I can make that no problem.

Me too.

I'm still out of town that day.

I can do that.

Okay.

Winter winter, May 5th.

Is there any town conflict?

We're looking at the town count calendar, and pretty much every Tuesday there is another board meeting.

Um not every single board meets in council chambers or even in person.

So it yeah.

Yeah.

There's a planning commission meeting on the 5th.

Um, I think there's we typically don't like to double schedule commission meetings.

Um creates an issue with uh a public meeting being held at the same time for two different topics.

What if we back up and said we could have our comments in by what date did you say?

March 17th?

Yeah, next Tuesday.

Could we still make the April meeting?

And I understand you may not be in town, but I'm just asking the question.

Can the town publish what you need to publish?

Could you get your plans ready?

Or any revisions?

We need to publish the agenda 10 days before the meeting.

Staff typically does that two weeks before to give us some time in to meet the requirements for notification.

So I think us going down the path of trying to be more thoughtful and precise.

Yeah, about a week provided.

It just creates some timing challenges, I think, practically speaking.

Yeah.

Um Tuesday, April 21st.

Or should we not do a Tuesday?

Should we do a Thursday given that that's a standing?

Um Tuesdays, there's a meeting pretty much every single Tuesday, Wednesdays are council meetings, Thursdays the first meeting, the first Thursday of every single month is a board of adjustment meeting.

So, how about April 23rd?

Which is a Thursday.

Sounds like a perfect day.

Okay.

I got four, I got a quorum of HTC members for April 23rd.

So I'm gonna be in New Mexico.

Like I grew up there, we're you know, I mean, look, I try to work with it.

Like I grew up there, we're you know, I mean, look, I work with the only one doing on the 14th.

And and we we have to have quorum.

I mean, just practically speaking, if we don't have quorum and we don't have access to staff, then we can't meet right.

Um I think that we can find the staff for the meeting.

It may not be myself or Sharnika, because I am getting married in April.

So a lot of these dates that you're throwing out, I will not be there.

And that's that's okay.

We have we have other people from the planning department that can come staff the meeting, and I think um uh Kevin, I don't want to speak for you, but I think there can also be a uh a replacement attorney if you're not available.

Kevin has friends, Kevin's irreplaceable.

So I I think the schedules that you should consider if we are determining a date right now is getting quorum with commissioners, and it sounds like you are trying to be amenable to the parties involved with this application.

Well, and I mean at this point, you'll have to be a debate that the applicant and the neighbors who you determine have stand in will also be available.

I mean they're entitled now have a due process, right?

Each year to have their ad.

I'm I'm gonna keep going with dates then.

So Thursday, April 30th.

Everybody please pull out your phone.

So should we respond to that date?

I'm asking.

Yeah, I think we're we're down to trying to pick a date to do a special meeting, so if there's any input on that right now, that would be super helpful.

Yeah, I think if if you were unavailable, if you are unavailable, if you are unavailable for any of the dates that you're throwing out, we can't meet.

Yeah, April 30th.

April 23rd doesn't work for me, but I'm gonna change my plan so that it'll work but it doesn't work.

But it doesn't work for the my current proposal is Thursday, April 30th.

Thumbs up, thumbs up?

Okay, thank you.

And Dr.

30th sounds like April 30th, so go I think we've got we have quorum.

Okay, so here we go.

April Thursday.

Please put it in your calendars.

Thursday, April 30th.

So I just want to confirm we have quorum because that we've heard from the from the parties.

Yeah, we do.

Okay, we do.

I have a concert that night, but I'm just for everybody's I'm gonna cancel, I will give my tickets to somebody else just so we can land the plane on this.

It's all good.

I'm not getting married, just going to a concert.

Was it all good?

Okay, so I'm gonna make a motion.

Um I'm making a motion.

So uh I would like to continue the application at 308 West Cameron to a special meeting Thursday, April 30th, to continue the evidentiary hearing.

The commission will provide their input if they choose to in writing to staff by Tuesday, April 17th, which should allow time for distribution of that information to everybody in the public that's allowed that information.

It's public notice, and public uh March 17th, Tuesday, March 17th, thank you.

Um public notice for the special meeting, which again is Thursday, April 30th.

Wow.

Is there second?

I second that.

There's a second.

Okay.

We should probably just do a roll call vote.

Roll call vote.

Josh.

Yay.

Yes.

Roll on down.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

That's unanimous.

It's a special meeting on April 30th.

Do we have a tie?

It's the same time, 6 30.

Is that practical?

That would be the simplest.

Unless you want to make it easier or earlier in case uh you think it'll go another five hours, but that's up to you.

6 30 allows people to get out of work and whatnot.

We can say 6 30.

Yes.

6 30 is good.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Well, wait, I'm gonna do this.

I think we're adjourned for example.

The meeting is adjourned.