DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION COUNCIL Historic Preservation Council August 6, 2014 Department of Economic and Community Development One Constitution Plaza, 2 nd Floor Hartford, CT APPROVED MINUTES PRESENT: STAFF: ABSENT: Chair Nelson, Ms. Kane, Dr. Faber, Ms. Maher, Ms. Cutler, Dr. Jones Daniel Forrest, Julie Carmelich, Mary Dunne, Laura Mancuso, Todd Levine Dr. Harris, Ms. Gilvarg, Dr. Woodward 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by 9:38 am. 2. REVIEW OF PUBLIC COMMENT PROCEDURES Chair Nelson reviewed the public comment procedures. Chair Nelson and Dan Forrest welcome new council member Dr. Brian Jones. 3. CODE OF CONDUCT/CONFLICT OF INTEREST Chair Nelson read the code of conduct and ethics statement. The following conflict of interest was reported: Chair Nelson Ms. Maher Agenda Item 9F1 Historic Windsor Wood Window workshop (NEC Architects under current contract with Town of Waterford a partner listed for this presentation) Agenda Item 9F3 CT Main Street Center Revitalization and Preservation Grant (Ms. Maher and Mr. Simone sit jointly on CPA board) 4. REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF MINUTES A motion by Ms. Maher, seconded by Dr. Faber was made to approve with a correction to the minutes of July 9, 2014. (Y-3; N-0; Abstained: Chair Nelson, Ms. Cutler, Dr. Jones)
Page 2 of 9 5. REPORT OF COMMITTEES 1. Report on HRF Committee: Chair Nelson reported that on July 16, 2014 the HRF Committee met by conference call. The purpose of the committee is to streamline the HRF review grant process. Council members made calls to other SHPO offices to various states to get an understanding on how construction grants were reviewed in other states. The final recommendation is the utilization of a subcommittee process for the grant application review. The applications are received in October; the applications are vetted in November for completion and the subcommittees will be formed in December. The number of subcommittees is contingent upon how many grant applications are received. Applications will be available for review at the SHPO office after the December Council meeting. The applications will be submitted for recommendation at the January 2015 HPC meeting. 2. Report of Statute Sub Committee: Ms Maher Ms. Maher reported that the Statue Sub Committee met by conference call at the end of last week. Although there was not a quorum, Chair Nelson, Mr. Forrest and Ms. Maher proceeded with discussion. Topics discussed were: current language in the statue that needs modification; review with Dr. Bellantoni / Dr. Jones to discuss a state model for protection language to strengthen archeological issues; modifying the language of council being instrumental in state museums and how do the CIA funds impact us. Ms. Maher stated she is putting together the notes of this meeting and will then distribute to the subcommittee members with a goal of presenting a modification amendment to the standing statutes. The other issue discussed was how the Council exists today vs the Advisory committee. Before the meetings ends today, date for the next meeting will be determined. 6. NOMINATIONS TO THE STATE REGISTER A. Coit Street West Historic District, New London Motion by Ms. Maher, seconded by Ms. Kane The Historic Preservation Council votes to list the Coit Street West Historic District in New London, CT on the State Register of Historic Places. A letter from a private property owner from the district requesting that his property be removed from the nomination was read by Chair Nelson and submitted for the record. (Y-5; N-0; Abstain: Chair Nelson)
Page 3 of 9 B. Rafael Building, New Britain Motion by Dr. Faber, seconded by Ms Cutler The Historic Preservation Council votes to list the Rafael Building, New Britain, CT on the State Register of Historic Places. Aileen Bastos, nominator, spoke in behalf of the application. Leah Glaser spoke in behalf of the application. Jack Collins, owner spoke in behalf of the application. (Y-5; N-0; Abstain: Chair Nelson) 7. HISTORIC DISTRICTS/PROPERTIES Motion by Ms. Maher, seconded by Ms. Cutler A. Maplewood Avenue Study Report, Westport The Historic Preservation Council votes to recommend approval of the study report submitted by the Town of Westport Historic District Commission for the proposed Maplewood Avenue Historic District Westport, CT. (Y-5; N-0; Abstain: Chair Nelson) 8. PROGRAMS: REVIEW AND DEVELOPMENT 9. STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION GRANTS D. Survey and Planning Grants Shoreline Arts Alliance, Guilford Motion by Ms. Maher, seconded by Dr. Faber The Historic Preservation Council votes to recommend the award of a Survey and Planning Grant, funded by the Community Investment Act, to the below-listed applicant in the amount shown. All grant guidelines and state requirements shall be met by the below-listed applicant upon receipt of a grant as administered by the Department of Economic and Community Development.
Page 4 of 9 Applicant: Shoreline Arts Alliance Project: Phase 2, Design Development Level Plans and Specifications, Academy School Amount: $20,000 (Y-5; N-0; Abstained: Chair Nelson) Chair Nelson leaves the room at 10:15 am Ms. Cutler takes over the meeting. F. Partners In Preservation Grant Motion by Dr. Faber, seconded by Ms. Maher 1. Partners in Preservation Grant: Historic Windsor, Inc. The Historic Preservation Council votes to award a Survey and Planning/Partners in Preservation Grant to the below-listed applicant in the amount shown below. All grant guidelines and state requirements shall be met by the below-listed applicant upon receipt of a grant as administered by the Department of Economic and Community Development. Applicant: Historic Windsor, Inc. Project: Lectures and demonstrations on topic of wooden window repair Amount: $7,457.00 Judy Hayward, Executive Director of Historic Windsor, Inc. spoke in behalf of the application. Greg Farmer, Circuit Rider from the CT Trust for Historic Preservation spoke in behalf of the application. (Y-4; N-0; Abstained: Vice-Chair Gilvarg; Recused: Chair Nelson) Chair Nelson returned to the room and resumed the meeting at 10:27 am. 1. Partners in Preservation Grant: Norwich Historical Society Motion by Ms. Maher, seconded by Dr. Faber The Historic Preservation Council votes to award a Survey & Planning/Partners in Preservation Grant to the below-listed applicant in the amount shown below. All grant guidelines and state requirements shall be met by the below-listed applicant upon receipt of a grant as administered by the Department of Economic and Community Development.
Page 5 of 9 Applicant: Norwich Historical Society Project: Website, Mobile Apps and brochures for two Discover Norwich Walking Trails Amount: $35,000.00 Bill Champagne, President of Norwich Historical Society spoke in behalf of the application. Regan Minor, Project Coordinator, Norwich Historical Society spoke in behalf of the application. Jason Vincent, Urban Planner, Norwich Urban Development spoke in behalf of the application. Mayor Deb Hinchey, Mayor of Norwich spoke in behalf of the application. (Y-5; N-0; Abstain: Chair Nelson) Ms. Maher leaves the room at 10:51 am. 2. Partners in Preservation Grant: Connecticut Main Street Center Motion by Ms. Cutler, seconded by Ms. Kane The Historic Preservation Council votes to recommend the award of a Survey and Planning/Partners in Preservation Grant, funded by the Community Investment Act, to the below-listed applicant in the amount shown below. All grant guidelines and state requirements shall be met by the below-listed applicant upon receipt of a grant as administered by the Department of Economic and Community Development. Applicant: Connecticut Main Street Center Project: Preservation of Place Program Amount: $200,000.00 John Simone, President of Connecticut Main Street spoke in behalf of the application. (Y-4; N-0; Abstain: Chair Nelson, Recuse: Ms. Maher) Ms. Maher returns to the room at 10:58 am. 10. THREATENED PROPERTIES UPDATE 11. PRESERVATION RESTRICTIONS 12. ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRESERVES
Page 6 of 9 13. REPORT ON MUSEUM PROPERTIES Please see report submitted by Karin Peterson. Ongoing work at museum properties was discussed. Ms. Peterson reported that the State has requested the SHPO to document the assets at the museum properties. Ms, Kane and Ms. Maher questioned the State s intent as quantification of assets does not follow best museum practice assigned value of a cultural artifact is meaningless. The concern was raised that there may be an effort to sell off assets held in the public trust. 14. REPORT ON STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE ACTIVITIES Todd Levine reminded the council that September is Freedom Trail month. Last year 15 events were planned; this year the goal is 20.. The kick-off event will be at the Prudence Crandall House on August 30 th. All the events will be posted on SHPO s website as well as on CTvisit.com and facebook. Information will be distributed to council members. Dan Forrest reported that the state has approved the recruitment for Stacey Vairo s former position as National State Register coordinator in a single step process. The job announcement will go out shortly. Job announcement will be distributed to the council members so they can help pass on the information to potential qualified applicants. Dan Forrest also reported that approval has been given for hiring for the durational project manager positions for the Hurricane Sandy Project. At the broader DECD agency level, Dan reported that Commissioner Smith has begun an initiative to do a top down review of the departments IT needs, which has not been done before. DECD has a very small IT staff that maintains the needs of the Hudson Street and Plaza offices, museums and welcome centers. The intent is to lay a course to do a unified document management across the agency s customer relations and a unified database extension over all the programs. The study by the consultants is due to be completed by October. In parallel with this, funding is in place for SHPO s digitization planning. ESRI will be sending their staff to meet with program management to begin plans of scanning and digitizing paper records producing a comprehensive GIS for all records. Once system is deployed this will have a huge impact on staff s effectiveness to do their basic work as well as the public having ready web access to basic historic preservation information. Dan also informed that he met at the capitol with a number of commissioners, the Governor s chief of staff, legislators and representatives from Connecticut s congressional delegation to discuss the concerns of the overall recovery efforts in particularly the slow pace in getting project underway primarily for the town of Milford.
Page 7 of 9 The state s approach to recovery of the largest tracks of money for disasters comes to the state through the Department of Housing/Urban Development. HUD has unique authority within federal government to fully delegate all aspects of program management. In Connecticut, those are usually municipalities. However, the unforeseen consequence to that is that we are working with staff that has no practical experience with overall compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. So in coordination with the Connecticut s Department of Housing we are working on a programmatic agreement that clarifies everyone s role and responsibilities as well as provide standardized treatment options when there s a historic property that is going to be altered using HUD monies, most common alteration being elevation. 15. GENERAL DISCUSSION 1. HPC/Staff roles for Grant Review In light of the Council s role in grant review, and in an effort to clarify and streamline, Council initiated a discussion to clarify roles and responsibilities of Council and Staff in grant review. Chair Nelson asked if all considered an application to be technically complete when forwarded to Council for review? Council members and staff do consider posting to Drop Box an acknowledgement of completeness. Chair Nelson asked if language should be added right before the motion that s an acknowledgement that the application is technically complete and that the staff is recommending it. Would knowing this help council members in their review? Is there anything else that could help streamline the review role? Ms. Kane stated that she assumed that when an application it is given to the council on the agenda, that application is complete and ready to go. The staff responded that indeed at that point application is ready for final approval of recommendation. Staff stated that if there is a non-significant deficiency in an application, it might still be put in drop box but they will inform the council in the email of what is still needed, otherwise the email will state that everything is complete. Ms. Cutler suggested that the sentence typed in the bottom of the page Staff recommends for funding should be part of the motion and as part of the record. Ms. Cutler requested if council could receive a list of the programs and allocations that SHPO will offer this new fiscal year for a better understanding of the whole process. Dan will make available SHPO s budget of the upcoming budget at next month s meeting. The council will email Todd Levine with any recommendations to improve the resolution language.
Page 8 of 9 16. LIAISON WITH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AGENCIES 17. OLD BUSINESS 18. NEW BUSINESS A. Hurricane Sandy Grant funding alternative and multiple property State Register nomination Dan reported that since the last HPC meeting, he went to Washington, DC to meet with the chief of our partnership grant program, his supervisor the associate director for cultural programs of the National Park Service and their respective staff about our frustrations with their lack of guidance and the inconsistent communication to the SHPO office since the disaster and during the review process for the grant program. The state was granted $8 million for recovery efforts from Hurricane Sandy specifically for historic properties. The money can be used for survey and inventory. The action plan submitted by the SHPO budgeted the vast majority of the money for physical restoration of National Registered listed or eligible properties that had documented storm damage. All of that work has to be consistent with Secretary of the Interior s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. The initial plan was to fund the same type of general restoration work that is funded under HRF with the expectation that we would see applications for lots of roofs, windows, and porches. The NPS identified elevation changes as an eligible expense under our Historic Preservation Fund grant funding. So as long as the elevation work was in compliance with the Secretary of Interior s Standards the SHPO s understanding was that they could re-grant funding to other parties to elevate a historic property. In addition, NPS would be giving SHPO guidelines on how to interpret the Secretary of Interior s Standards for elevating historic properties. Guidelines have not yet been produced. In the meantime, the office has asked repeatedly for specific guidance The office has been advised several times that the associated director of NPS had engaged a climate scientist; in turn it would be a large policy change for the NPS. We tried to get a sense of where they would draw the line, how high a property could be elevated. Their response was it depended on the unique and specific circumstances. At the end of the day after we took in applications and the staff reviewed and identified eligible historic districts for national register, this spring when NPS received their formal notices from us and our recommendations of sub grants of $25,000 for their approval, they rejected almost all of them. The 2 objections: 1. They were not convinced of the National Register eligibility of the districts we identified.
Page 9 of 9 2. Where to draw the line on how high you can elevate a historic property before you re damaging its historical integrity. The Town of Milford has an awful history of hurricane strikes. The folks there have been individually elevating their properties by their homeowners, so the tradition of elevating is already there. From a policy perspective we have taken a strong stance that where it is a decision between losing these buildings and potentially losing the underlying district because if the money is not in place the homeowners are not going to be able to elevate these properties. If they can t elevate them, they can t get flood insurance, they can t get local building permits, they can t get reconstruct, then we would vastly prefer a circumstance where there s elevated portions of the historic districts and still recognize them as important places. We have applicants that applied for funding in November. The NPS have denied those applications but have given us an opportunity to appeal. Based on the last meeting and strong worded correspondence with the NPS itself, they are going to be reconsidering. We are now evaluating the potential to use the CIA funds that we currently have to fund some of those projects that originally came in through NPS hurricane Sandy funding. For that to occur, it would essentially be a new program. We will update and inform our council members, as we continue to explore this possibility. 19. ADJOURNMENT Motion to adjourn was made by Ms. Maher, seconded by Ms. Cutler The meeting was adjourned at 12:31 pm. The next Historic Preservation Council meeting is scheduled for September 4, 2014 at 9:30 am, One Constitution Plaza, Hartford, CT. Respectfully submitted by: Lourdes Rivera Administrative Assistant