HPC Meeting Summary 08232023 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Orange County HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION Approved Meeting Summary August 23rd, 2023 Bonnie Davis Center, 1020 US 70 West, Hillsborough MEMBERS PRESENT: Tom Loter, Art Menius, Cecelia Moore, Paul Noe, Steve Peck, Todd Dickinson, Anne Whisnant MEMBERS ABSENT: None STAFF PRESENT: Peter Sandbeck GUESTS: Abby Mattingly ITEM #1: CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 6:34 pm. ITEM #2: CHANGES OR ADDITIONS TO AGENDA: Staff introduced new DEAPR staff member Abby Mattingly, who handles our general administrative operations. ITEM #3: APPROVAL OF MINUTES for April 26th, 2023: Whisnant noted that she was present in April so asked that the minutes be revised to reflect that. Peck moved to approve as corrected; seconded by Noe, motion approved. ITEM #4: ITEMS FOR DECISION: None ITEM #5: DISCUSSION ITEMS a. Planning for Ridge Road School public hearing, moved to Sept. 27t" regular meeting: Staff noted that due to schedule conflicts, the hearing date will be moved to our next regular meeting on Sept. 27th. We need to have a quorum in order to hold this public hearing. This is a routine hearing with no opposition, so it will not take very long to hold this event. Most members indicated they'd be able to be present. b. Evaluating prospective new candidates for future landmark and National Register designation projects, and review of past evaluations: Staff discussed the evaluation form that was developed by this group back around 2010 to provide a relatively objective process for evaluating prospective landmark candidates. This is our equivalent of what the SHPO does to evaluate candidates for the National Register. Initially the HPC used the National Register as a possible evaluation tool to help identify future landmarks. Staff walked members through the roster of past evaluations. Over the past 10 years, members have raised questions about some criteria used in our scoring process. It seems to be overly weighted toward older properties and those listed on the National Register or Study List. We are not bound by the past evaluation scores in the event that an owner wishes to reopen the process for a landmark that didn't get a high score years ago. HPC established that properties needed to achieve a score of at least 50 points to be considered to be potentially eligible for landmark status. Staff noted that our task tonight is to look at the evaluation criteria and offer suggestions/recommendations to refine/improve the criteria. Are some of our criteria weighted in favor of"traditional" historic landmarks—bringing the unintended consequence of skewing our evaluations away from what might be considered non-traditional candidates? This might apply to more recent Modernist properties or properties associated with underrepresented communities that might not score well for integrity. Is there a way to imagine a scoring system that allows us to add points for 1