Music

Chair, we're ready.

The meeting is now called to order.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Ziff, you can please unmute.

Vice Chair Merker.

Commissioner Ombacher.

Commissioner Burns.

Commissioner Rico.

Commissioner Cross.

Commissioner McSlovakian.

Chair Nair.

Chair Nair.

Thank you.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

I would like to remind members of the public in chambers that if you would like to speak on an agenda item, please turn in the speaker's slip when the item begins.

You will have two minutes to speak once you are called on and after the speaker, we will no longer accept speaker's slips.

We will now proceed with today's agenda.

Do we need the federal agents for writing?

Yes, so let's do the end-ignolagements.

These rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous People and Tribal lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nesanon people, the southern Maidu, Valley and Plains, Miwok,

and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's Indigenous People's history contributions and lives.

Thank you.

Please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance to the five of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Our first business today is approval of the consent calendar.

Clerk, are there any members of the public who wish to speak?

Thank you, Chair. We have no speakers on the consent calendar.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak?

All right.

Do we have to pass a motion to accept it?

Yes.

All right. Is there a motion and a second for the consent calendar?

Motion to accept the consent calendar.

Second.

Second.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Yes. And that was a motion by Vice Chair Merker and a second by Commissioner Cross.

Commissioner's please unmute.

Vice Chair Merker?

Yes.

Commissioner Ombacher?

Yes.

Commissioner Burns?

Yes.

Commissioner Rika?

Yes.

Commissioner Cross?

Yes.

Commissioner Mixlovkin?

Yes.

And Chair Nair?

Yes.

We'll proceed with the public hearings calendar.

Item two is the ordinance listing for 11, 1240th Street as a landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historical and Cultural Resources.

Is there a staff presentation?

Do we have a PowerPoint?

I see the screen is blank.

The whole screen is blank.

I have this.

I have this.

I have this.

I have this.

I have this.

I have this.

Okay, great.

I'll get started while we're waiting.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Henry Fuse, preservation planner for the City of Sacramento.

I'll be presenting a landmark nomination for 11, 1240th Street under file M2413.

The property owner of 11, 1240th Street retained the services of historic environment consultants who prepared the historic evaluation for the property.

The historic evaluation attached to your staff report concludes that the property at 11, 1240th Street appears eligible for listing on the Sacramento Register of Historical and Cultural Resources under Criterion 3,

pursuing to Sacramento City Code Section 17604 210 as a good example of the American Craftsman-style architecture, which was inspired by the Arkansas Crafts movements of the early 20th century.

Staff presented a statement of nomination to the preservation director who concluded a public hearing on January 23rd, 2025 that the property appears eligible for the

CITC in the year 2025 that the property appears eligible under Criterion 3.

11, 1240th Street appears eligible as an embodiment of the Craftsman-style.

Distinctive characteristics include projecting eaves with open soft fits, clapboard siding and ribbon-courst cedar shingles, a clinker-prick chimney, decorative knee brackets, an arch front door with beveled glass and let it glass windows.

The property remains a high degree of historic integrity. The neighborhood and building remain mostly unchanged and the building has had little to no alteration since initial construction outside of a small addition on the rear and the side in 1917.

All elements of the facade appear to be in near original condition.

Staff recommends the Preservation Commission make a recommendation to City Council to determine listing the property as a sec on the Sacramento Register is exempt from review from the California Environmental Quality Act.

And to adopt an ordinance listing the nominated property as a landmark on the Sacramento Register.

A notice of the hearing describing the proposed landmark listing was sent to the property owner at 11, 1240th Street. Preservation Sacramento, eSacromano Improvement Association, eSAC give back, eSacromano Chamber of Commerce and eSacromano Preservation have been notified of landmark proceeding.

No objections to listing have been received by staff. This concludes my presentation. Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Members of the public who just came in if you wish to speak on this item you may put in the speaker slip now.

Any commissioners who wish to speak on this item?

Go ahead, Mr. Mercury.

Thank you. Just a clarification question. I saw there were a handful of very beautiful photos of the interior of the house.

I wanted to confirm that only the exterior would be considered as part of the significant part of the listing.

Yes, that's correct as a as a private residence only the exterior is protected under this ordinance.

Go ahead, Patricia.

I just had a question to only DPR form. It makes it sound like they're also nominating it under the other criteria.

Is the city not supporting that? It's just supporting it under architecture.

That's correct. We disagreed with the findings that the that the person was significant as well and for the association with the history of the city.

So we decided to only list it for this architecture.

Okay, so they're not changing the form set or anything like that. It's just as is.

I have one question. The garage is not identified as a contributor to the property. Is there a reason for that?

Typically accessory structures are not included with the significance of the property to allow for additional development.

And especially since the main building is really the is where most of the architectural detail is.

That's what our typical practice has been. Sean, if you may have additional information on that.

I think that pretty well covers it. I think these 1920 garages are usually fairly plain.

So, you know, I would agree with what Henry said.

Any other commissioner comments?

Would anybody like to put forth a motion?

I'll go ahead and make a motion to recommend to city council the ordinance listing 111243 as landmark on the Sacramento register of historic and cultural resources.

And I'll second.

Clerk, can we call the vote?

Thank you, Chair. Commissioners, if you can please unmute. Vice Chair Merker.

Yes. Commissioner Onbacher. Yes. Commissioner Burns. Yes.

Commissioner Rika. Yes. Commissioner Cross. Yes.

Commissioner Mixlothkin. Yes. And Chair Nihar. Yes. Thank you. The motion passes.

All right. Hold on. I had a chair. If I might, it would be more appropriate to recommend or recommend the motion to be to pass staff's recommendation because there are additional elements involved in the recommendation that were encompassed in the motion.

So, should we revise that then?

I'd like to amend my statement motion to follow the staff's recommendation.

That works.

Do we need to reduce the role of the second and redo the role? Yes.

I will second that.

And commissioners, if you can please unmute one more time. Vice Chair Merker. Yes.

Commissioner Onbacher. Yes. Commissioner Burns. Yes. Commissioner Rika. Yes.

Commissioner Cross. Yes. Commissioner Mixlothkin. Yes. And Chair Nihar. Yes. Thank you. The motion passes.

All right. I will move on to the next agenda item number three. Ordinance for listing San Francisco Boulevard as a landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources.

Go ahead, Henry. Good evening again, commissioners. My name is Henry Fuse, Preservation Planner with the City of Sacramento. And I will now be presenting the landmark nomination for San Francisco Boulevard under file M24006.

In 2013, when a disease began to cause the decline of palm trees on San Francisco Boulevard, which is a public roadway segment between Stockton Boulevard and 55th Street, Preservation staff were consulted to assist with selecting an alternative compatible species.

This prompted the creation of historic resource evaluation that found the nominated resource to be eligible for the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources and the California Register of Historical Resources.

Due to staff shortages, landmark proceedings for the nominated resource were not brought forward at the time. In early 2024, work being undertaken by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District included the removal or significant trimming of palm trees located along the nominated resource.

City staff were contacted by concerned citizens and advocacy groups and in response, staff brought the historic resource evaluations before the Preservation Commission for reviewing comment on September 17th, 2024.

At the time, the Commission recommended staff proceeding with initiating a nomination for the Sacramento Register.

The historic resource evaluation attached to your staff report concludes that San Francisco Boulevard appears eligible for listing on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources under criteria 3, pursuing the Sacramento City Code Section 17604-210 as a unique example of city beautiful movement infrastructure from the early 20th century.

Staff presented a statement of nomination to the Preservation Director who concluded at a public hearing on January 23rd, 2025 that the property appears eligible under criteria 3.

Distinctive characteristics of the nominated resource include the wide boulevard made up of four lanes of travel divided by two parallel seven foot wide median strips, prominently featuring California fan palm trees, side park strips that featured dissaduous shade trees and sidewalks.

The Palm tree a laze in the middle, mediums of the boulevard have undergone minor changes due to age and disease related losses specimen.

However, the landscape continues to retain a high degree of historic integrity and new trees have been a compatible species.

Staff recommends the Preservation Commission make a recommendation to the City Council to determine listing San Francisco Boulevard on the Sacramento Register, is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act,

adopted in ordinance listing the nominated resource as a landmark on the Sacramento Register.

Notice of the public hearing, describing the proposed landmark listing was sent to the property owners of San Francisco Boulevard, the City of Sacramento.

Preservation Sacramento, the Colonial Heights Neighborhood Association, Oak Park Little League, baseball and softball on the South Oak Park Community Association have been notified of landmark proceeding.

Letters of support have been received from several property owners and residents adjacent to the historic landmark.

No objections to listing have been received by staff. This concludes my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. Clerk, are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair. Yes, we have two speakers. Our first speaker is Ian, followed by William.

Thank you. I am Ian Thompson. I'm a homeowner on the street. I'm part of the park committee for the Neighborhood Association and M. Lansky Park Tech as well as representative of our neighborhood.

A few of the key things about this that make it important to us.

You can look at, I think, exhibit three A or four A I believe it is. It shows the street profile. There's a lot of interesting things there showing the space that sort of created.

But what it doesn't show is the shade that it sort of creates in our neighborhood. It doesn't show the place where people walk their dogs and the neighborhood along those two sort of quieter sides.

It doesn't show people take their kids and strollers, people jogging, kids playing. They sort of spill out of their houses into this area if they can.

And it's safe, much, much safer. It's also a neighborhood connection. It connects us in and out of the neighborhood. It's when people drive through, they see the street and they maybe come into our neighborhood. It's sort of our welcome sign.

It's also much safer for people getting in and out. The alleys are sort of protected by that sort of secondary street.

So a lot of people have their garages, their access to their houses, ADUs, all down that little access street. So it helps with traffic as well.

So concerning the palms, I know that's one of the things that people might say, well, palms. It's a sort of a monoculture. They can sort of be a problem with maintenance and things.

But if you look at the street, if you look at that example, you see the character that upright in nature of those and that sort of gets out of traffic ways and it just opens the space.

And again, it creates that sort of multi-tiered gateway and that tunnel that you drive into that's just so welcoming.

For a neighborhood, it's overwhelming. I go to every single neighborhood association meeting and I bring it up.

Because I want to hear our neighborhoods. If anybody has any challenges with it or any feelings, like maybe this isn't the right thing.

And since we're not including the houses, everybody's overwhelmingly supporting of it.

You see Willie and Maria and Andrea and Shirley Casey all behind us. They're all taking part here because they care.

Thank you for your comments, your time's complete. Our next speaker is William.

President of the preservation Sacramento Board of Directors, we've been working with this group of neighborhood advocates since the past summer on this project.

And we've been pretty amazed by the positive response from the neighborhood. We did a tour there last weekend and three quarters.

There were about 30 people from the neighborhood and a handful of our members and all the neighbors had stories not only about the trees, but of the stories of the boulevard.

And we asked, well, what function do these trees serve beyond just looking pretty as well?

Shade, which is actually unusual for a row of palm trees. There's a lot of shade that's produced by this particular design.

And they're a windbreak. They're traffic calming. They're actually animals living them.

They're animal habitats. And they also do produce oxygen. So these are multi-purpose. Plus they're just really darn pretty.

And it made for a fun walk and an enjoyable place. I live in a neighborhood that used to have a tree row. And the Alhambra Triangle along Sarah Way.

And you can kind of tell, even now 50 years after it's removed, there's a vacant bit. It's a different feel to a street. It's less comfortable.

It loses that shade and that aspect of design. So this is a resource worth keeping. It's a great piece of landscape architecture.

And I hope you will give it your enthusiastic recommendation to the city council. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Chair, we have no more speakers.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak?

I had the pleasure of attending the public walkthrough with Preservation Sacramento and the neighborhood groups.

And I just want to say that it was wonderful to see how much you guys care about your neighborhood.

And it's a beautiful place. And I'm happy to see something getting landmarked outside of the central city potentially.

And keep up the good work.

All right. Thank you. I'll just go ahead and repeat comments that I made at preliminary discussions on this matter that I am a former resident of Colonial Heights.

And I had the privilege of appreciating those trees as a resident as well.

And also repeating the comment that I hope that at some point in the future, the neighborhood is able to go further and actually include the houses in a landmark nomination because there is no guarantee that those trees will maintain their significance alone.

I think the architecture and the landscape architecture have a synergy with each other and they speak to each other.

The extended front porch is the character of materials on these homes from the street car era, the level of craftsmanship of the people who built them by hand.

And maybe they were cookie cutter or from a box or maybe they were completely custom.

And that character I think enhances and works with the LA of trees. So I hope in the future there is an additional nomination that we're looking at here in this in this body. So thank you.

Thank you. Is there a motion for the item?

I'm a motion to forward the recommendation of staff to council.

I will second the motion.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Zip Week and please unmute. Vice Chair Merker.

Yes. Commissioner Ohmbacher.

Yes. Commissioner Burns. Yes. Commissioner Rika. Yes.

Commissioner Cross. Yes. Commissioner Mixlovkin. Yes.

And Chair Nair. Yes. Thank you. The motion passes.

Thank you.

We'll move to the discussion calendar.

The 2023 to 2024 CLG program annual report.

Thank you, Chair. Sean DeCorsi, Preservation Director. I just have a verbal report on this item.

As you're aware, the City of Sacramento is a designated certified local government. As part of that designation, the city is required to submit an annual report to the California Office of Historic Preservation each year.

This year, the deadline to submit the report is March 1st. The Office of Historic Preservation requires each annual report to be reviewed by the Preservation Commission prior to submit to the state.

The Commission comments on this item will be incorporated into the final version of the document when it is submitted to OHP staff in the coming weeks.

That concludes my comments on this item.

Are there any comments or questions from the commissioners?

Any public comments on this item? Thank you, Chair. We have new speakers for this item.

The next item is the Director's report.

All right. Again, Sean DeCorsi. I do have some items to report for the Director's report this evening.

First of all, I'm proud to announce that we have selected two interns. Alexis Bansill is an undergraduate design student at Sacramento State, who's joined our staff.

And Sadik Shah, Bajandari, is a PhD student from UC Davis who's studying geography. Both have started in the last couple of weeks and will be with us for at least the next semester.

Next, I wanted to let the Commission know that we've released two requests for proposals recently. One is a request for proposal associated with the National Park Service Network to Freedom grant that the office received.

That's intended to document and nominate the Hackett House site as a network to freedom site associated with Underground Railroad History in Sacramento.

That RFP is out and we are seeking proposals. And then the next RFP that we released recently is for a National Historic Register amendment to the old Sacramento Historic District listing that would include and be specifically focused on underrepresented histories in old Sacramento dating back to Native Americans.

Forward through the Gold Rush Air, African Americans, Chinese immigrants and the like. And I should say in others that are included in the listed in the RFP.

And a little background on this item, so on this RFP that we've just released, we originally submitted an underrepresented communities grant to the National Park Service. But that grant request was denied by NPS.

However, we've partnered with the city's Office of Economic Development who have agreed to provide the funds to support this project. So we're going to be moving the project forward despite the unsuccessful grant requests from the National Park Service. So we're happy to partner with economic development on this and we're glad for their support.

And then lastly, I wanted to let the commission know that we are beginning our public outreach associated with our signage district update for old Sacramento.

This will get started tomorrow with a meeting of property owners and business owners where we'll discuss the update to the sign regulations in old Sacramento.

This effort was a request from the downtown Sacramento partnership in anticipation of specifically of the arrival of the A's to West Sacramento and trying to clean up the signage in the district over the coming years.

So we'll be updating the very outdated sign regulations. And that is likely an item that will come before this commission in a draft form.

That concludes my director's report and I can answer any questions the commission might have.

Yeah, Sean, there's been a lot of community buzz around the bowling alley on free port that had the fire and there's discussion that I wasn't fully sure about what it meant of it being historic is that coming to us.

I'm just curious if you have any update on that.

Yes, that should come before the commission at your next meeting.

Any other questions for the old Sacramento thing is it for the NHL nomination was it for the National Register that they're going to be updating the old Sacramento National Historic Landmark listing is not included in the amendment.

It would just be for the National Register of Stork Places listing which actually it's an interesting story because there isn't a nomination.

The National Historic Landmark resources were automatically listed in the National Register of Stork Places when the National Register was created.

And so the documentation is very, very sparse. It's the National Historic Landmark nomination that's listed the district on National Register.

So it's essentially like a new nomination.

Okay, that's why I was wondering because I didn't think like an official one existed because of the process of how it got listed so early.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to Commissioner comments, ideas and questions.

Anybody have anything they'd like to bring up?

I'm sure some of you know or aware that Paula Bagotian passed away last year in November.

I'd like to just personally acknowledge that and her contributions to this community.

I'd like to ask if there have been any prior resolutions either by the Preservation Commission or the City Council recognizing her efforts toward this community in the past.

And if not, would ask if we could agenda as possibly creating a resolution for Paula on this commission.

We'll take that on advisement and report back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have no speakers at this time.

That concludes today's agenda. Thank you everyone for your participation.

This meeting is adjourned at 6 p.m.