The Rochester Heritage Preservation Commission convened on November 25, 2025, at 5:07 p.m. for a meeting focused on reviewing a proposed statue installation in Central Park, establishing a special committee for historic context development, discussing the potential reinstatement of the Louise Hill Award, and clarifying the economic hardship process for landmark status removal. Commissioner Bedaker, Gandhi, Schable, and Wasmer were absent, excused, or absent without excuse; Commissioners Connell, Dobmeyer, Mutchler, Poyer, and Chair Zastro were present.
Welcome everybody to the November 25th Heritage Preservation Commission meeting. Before we call to order, we start each meeting with a 15-minute public open comment period. This is an opportunity for the public to comment to the commission regarding items that do not have a public hearing on today's agenda. Comments regarding agenda item 5A would be appropriate at this time. Each speaker has up to four minutes. The commission will not discuss or respond to any comments made during this time. Please be concise and mindful of your time during your remarks so that everyone wishing to speak has the opportunity to do so. Will the first speaker please step forward and clearly state your name into the microphone. Hi, hi all. I want to congratulate the committee, the commission on uh the fact that the city council approved another um a landmarking. I think it's great. I I always liked it because I've been I was on it for a number of years. I always liked having when one of the landmarking was approved. To me, it's a major accomplishment of the HPC. Not just this one, which is an accomplishment too, but all of the ones when you do it. To me, it always made me feel good. So I congratulate you, you know, for doing that. Um, I I hope you also approve the Central Park certification today as a worthwhile addition to the park. Um, on the uh HPC committee formation um for the uh context. I I think that's a good idea too. The only thing is I'm hoping when you look at the context, you look at the context that might be relevant for as many of the of the buildings on the uh the so-called potential list or the inventory list as possible. So you don't wind up doing something that is has no relevance to the buildings that are already there because we're very far behind. So I'm just hoping that you can pick good context to write about that has some relevancy to the to the workload. Um then uh the downtown historic vision. I'm hoping that includes information on how the city can work better. What I heard on how the city could work better on um reducing demolition by neglect, as well as working with the property owners to help them uh keep their properties uh uh uh up to date and and to make it useful for them also. Um again, I've never seen the final report. I'm just hoping it says something about how to make it useful to the business owners. Yeah, and hoping. Um I'm also hoping you uh have um specific targets for Indian Heights, both in terms of when the consultant will be chosen to do that, just a timeline, a target, and then also how long they think uh it will be uh for that consultant to complete the work. Because I know it's a lot of work, but I'm just wondering if it's like a month, two months, three months, and how to say the uh rescale award. I I I was on I I wasn't on the H the Heritage Preservation Committee before the commission, but I used to attend those meetings when I first came here about 16 years ago. And I I remember when I attended some of the ceremonies, and they always were attended by other people, and it was always a welcome award, uh, both John Krisel and uh and and other people and Judge Lund is on that as well. And you see it in your packing. I just think that's a good word award too. And uh I'm just hoping we have a nice meeting tonight. Anyway, thank you all. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Skullnick. And the next speaker, go ahead and state your name. My name is Barb Hudson. I stand here again talking about Indian Heights Park and hoping it will be landmarked. A year ago, uh this month, I was also standing in front of the commission. Uh you were getting ready to do the work uh that it takes to landmark Indian Heights Park. And it was going to be done the first of the year, and here I am in November, you know, almost a year later, and it's still not there. I just want to remind the commission also that there was an ethnographic review of Indian Heights Park as well as a Silver Lake Park. And that uh was that is a hundred and seen pages worth of information, a lot of information. It costs 30,000 to do it.