 We are live. This meeting will now come to order. Good morning, everybody. And welcome to this virtual meeting of the Durham Historic Preservation Commission on this ninth day of November, 2021. My name is Matt Bouchard and I am chair of the commission. This commission is a quasi-judicial board of record and as such, all testimony will be recorded. Under this procedure, our meeting today will also be live streamed on the city's YouTube channel. The proceedings of this board are governed by the zoning laws as recorded. As such, please note the steps we have taken to ensure that each party's due process rights are protected as we proceed using this remote platform. First, today's meeting will be conducted in accordance with North Carolina General Statutes chapter 166A-19.24, which allows for remote meetings and quasi-judicial hearings during declarations of emergency. Second, each applicant on today's agenda was notified before being placed on the agenda that this meeting would be conducted using a remote electronic platform. Every applicant on today's agenda has consented to the board conducting the evidentiary hearing on the request using this remote platform. We will also confirm today at the start of each evidentiary hearing that the participants in the hearing consent to the matter proceeding in the remote platform. If there is an objection to a matter proceeding in this remote platform, that case will be continued. Third, notice of this meeting was provided to the applicants and to the public in multiple ways, including signage posted on site, notification letters mailed to all adjacent property owners, informing recipients regarding the remote platform and a general announcement via our website, informing the public of the same. The notices for today's meeting advise the public on how to access the remote meeting as the meeting occurs. Individuals wishing to participate in today, excuse me, today's evidentiary hearings were required to register prior to the meeting. Information about this registration requirement, along with information about how to sign up to participate was included in the mail notice letters sent to each adjacent property owner. The information was also included on the board's website. The public was advised to contact the city immediately in case of objection to the evidentiary hearing or to the remote meeting platform. At least one case and perhaps two cases are proceeding today in which the city has been contacted by an individual with an objection to the case or to the matter being heard in this remote platform. All individuals participating in today's evidentiary hearings were also required to submit a copy of any presentation, document, exhibit or other material they wish to submit at the evidentiary hearing prior to today's meeting. All materials that the city received from the participants in today's cases, as well as a copy of city staff's presentations and documents were posted online prior to this meeting. The agenda and all materials to be discussed today may be viewed at any time during today's meeting by visiting the web link for today's agenda via Durham's Agenda Center. Finally, all individuals who registered to participate in an evidentiary hearing on today's agenda, as well as all city staff participants were emailed a witness oath and consent to a remote hearing form prior to today's meeting. Any individual planning to testify or submit evidence in an evidentiary hearing was notified that they must sign the oath prior to today's meeting. We will also reaffirm everyone's oath on the record at today's meeting. Are there any members of this board that would have any conflicts of interest with respect to any of the cases before us today? Sure. Go ahead, Jonathan. No, please. Chair Bouchard, I would need to recuse myself from the last two COAs while I'm not with Stuart anymore. I did have involvement in those while I was with Stuart. Commissioner Hamilton, is that the two COAs, the ones ending in 077 and 078? Yes, 077, which is 400 West Main Street and 078, which is 501 Washington. Great, thank you. And I have a conflict of interest, sorry. No, Commissioner Day, I'm gone. I have a conflict of interest with 1005053. Great, the first case. Do any other commissioners have any conflicts with any of the cases before us today? Are there any early dismissals being requested by any of the commissioners? Okay, hearing none. As Chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. Excuse me, Chair, you heard none, but I've been communicating with administrative staff. I just want you to know that I will be transitioning from this format to the phone about 930. 930? Yeah. Okay. I'll still be in, but I will not be sitting in front of the camera. Commissioner Waiters, thank you for that update. We'll see how things break. Maybe we can actually make that transition between cases, but we'll see how it works. As Chair of the Historic Preservation Commission, I'd like to remind everyone that our quasi-judicial hearings function similar to a court proceeding. Staff will first present an overview of the case and then the applicant will have an opportunity to present their evidence. Opponents, if there are any, will then present their evidence and the applicant may then present its rebuttal. Board members will refrain from questions or comments until each speaker has completed his or her presentation. Testimony should consist of facts each witness knows directly, not hearsay. Evidence already presented need not be repeated. All witnesses who have signed up in advance will be given the opportunity to speak and their testimony will be recorded. The Board will vote on each case after the presentation of all evidence pro and con concerning the case. All decisions of this Board are subject to appeal to the Board of Adjustment and then to the Durham County Superior Court. If we could please have a roll call of the attendance of commissioners here today. All right, Chair Bouchard. Present. Commissioner Dayan. Present. Commissioner DeBarry. Present. Vice Chair Gulsby. Present. Commissioner Hamilton. Present. Commissioner Crager. Commissioner Waiters. Commissioner Waiters present. Thank you very much, Clerk Holmes. So as of this moment, am I correct? Am I understanding that right now we are missing commissioners Fieselman and Crager? We are missing Commissioner Fieselman, Commissioner Johnson, and Commissioner Crager. And Commissioner Johnson. Great, thank you. Commissioners, you have been forwarded an agenda today's meeting. Would anyone, including city staff, like to recommend any adjustments to today's agenda? Chair Bouchard. Yes. This is Christa Kukar with the city attorney's office. Before we proceed regarding the commissioners who are not here that gave advance notice of their absence, we actually need to vote on their absence as an excused absence. And we need to vote on Commissioner Gulsby's excused absence from the last meeting just to sort of make sure that we're fully complying with our rules of procedure, please. So I don't know if Carla can provide input of those commissioners who provided advance notice for today. That would be helpful in making that motion. Yes, we received notice from Commissioner Johnson and from Commissioner Fieselman. And I'll note for the record that we did receive advance notice for Vice Chair Gulsby's absence last month in advance. Christa, do we need to vote on each separately? I think you can vote on the ones for today as one motion and then vote on Commissioner Gulsby's from last meeting separately. Okay. Can I have a motion from one of the commissioners? I'll move. And if you could state the motion for the record. That we approve the request of absence. Yeah, an excuse absence for... Excuse absence, sorry, for the, who's today? Do we need to name them or? Yeah, but I don't remember. So for today it would be... Commissioner Fieselman. Commissioner Johnson. And Commissioner Craig are the three. And we received notice from Commissioner Johnson and Commissioner Fieselman. So those are the only two that would have excused absences. Right, so it's correct or it's not. So I'll move Craig from the motion. Okay. I will second the motion to excuse the absences of commissioners Johnson and Fieselman from today's meeting. If we could have a roll call vote. Clear call. Chair Bouchard. Approved. Commissioner Danyin. Approved. Commissioner DeBairi. Approved. Vice Chair Gulsby. Approved. Commissioner Hamilton. Approved. Commissioner Waiters. Approved. Motion passes five to zero. Now I'll follow that up with a motion to excuse the absence of Vice Chair Gulsby from the meeting conducted on October 5th, 2021. I'll second. And Claire Combs. Another roll call vote please. All right. Chair Bouchard. Approved. Commissioner Danyin. Approved. Commissioner DeBairi. Approved. Vice Chair Gulsby. I was excused. Okay. Commissioner Hamilton. Commissioner Waiters. Approved. Motion passes four to zero. Is that four to zero? Yes. Bouchard, Danyin, DeBairi, Gulsby was out. Johnson is out. Crager is out and Waiters, so four. I think Commissioner Danyin also approved. And Hamilton. Hamilton is the fifth, I think. Yes. Apologize. Five to zero. Apologize. Just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Returning to the agenda for today's meeting. Are there any adjustments to the agenda that any of the commissioners or city staff would like to recommend? Carla Rosenberg Planning Department. No, no adjustments. In that case, let us move forward with review of the minutes from last month's meeting on October the 5th, 2021. Commissioners, this set of draft minutes should have been included in your materials for today. Does anyone have any adjustments to the draft minutes that they would like to recommend? Hearing none. May I have a motion to approve the minutes, please? I'll move. And may I have a second? That's from the October 5th meeting. Thank you, Commissioner Danyin. Thank you, Commissioner DeBerry. Claire Combs, Raul Cobb, please. All right, Chair Bouchard. Approved. Commissioner Danyin. Approved. Commissioner DeBerry. Approved. Vice-Chair Gulsby. Alison Sches. Commissioner Hamilton. Approved. And Commissioner Waiters. Approved. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you very much. We're keeping you busy, Claire Combs. If we could now proceed, please, to swear in all city staff that will be presenting today's case. All right. Do you members of staff swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give in the public hearing proceedings for today's cases is the truth by your own knowledge or by information and belief? Carla Rosenberg, I do. Great. Thank you very much. I believe we are ready to proceed with our first case. Chris, if you could bring in those who have signed up to speak for or against this case. We are starting with case COA 210053, 625 Moorhead Avenue, 1005 Vickers Avenue, new construction in site work. I understand that Commissioner Dayan will be recusing himself from this case. Is there any one of our other commissioners who have any conflict of interest in hearing this case? Okay. Hearing none and recognizing that we do have five commissioners to hear this case. So a quorum has been established. Let us proceed with this wearing in of anyone who plans to speak for or against the case. Claire Colms. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give in the public hearing proceedings for today's case, the truth by your own knowledge or by information and belief? Tom Miller, I do. Ari Medoff, I do. Ryan Gibson, I do. Rob Kramer, I do. Janie Howell, I do. Paul Fox, I do. Adrianne Field, I do. Today on top, I do. Great, thank you all. I'm gonna go around to each of you and confirm that you each consent to this case proceeding today using this remote platform. And I will start first with Mr. Medoff. Yes. Mr. Gibson. Yes. Mr. Kramer. Yes. Mr. Howell. Yes. Mr. Hopp. Yeah. Ms. Field. Yes. Mr. Fox. Yes. And Mr. Miller. Yes, and for preservation Durham, yes. I got everybody there. I think I did. Did I miss anyone? Great. We may now proceed with the staff summary. Carla. Great, Carla Rosenberg, Planning Department. This is case COA 21-0-0-5-3-625 Moorhead Avenue and 1005 Vickers Avenue, New Construction and Site Work. The applicant is a Rosa 617 LLC and the owner is 310 Architecture and Interiors. The location is at the Southeast Quadrant of the intersection of Moorhead Avenue and Vickers Avenue and its own office and institutional and it's a non-contributing parcel in the Moorhead Hill Historic District. So this case, as you recall, was continued from September 7th hearing. The applicant has made some revisions to their proposal to construct a new one-story primary structure as well as associated site work such as parking and landscaping. I'd like to introduce this revised staff report into the record and invite the applicants to present their case. Carla, thanks so much. I believe Mr. Medoff, you were leading the discussion last time. Floor's yours. Good morning, commissioners and thank you Chairman Bouchard. It's a pleasure to be back with you all and just very briefly as a reminder of what this project entails and what it's all about. What we are trying to do here is to build a ABA therapy clinic for children. So this is serving Durham's youth who are on the autism spectrum and with the most cutting-edge best clinical therapy available to them. This is a service that across the state and in Durham children have waiting lists. They're waiting lists for families, for their children to get this incredibly important therapy. And so we are incredibly pleased and excited to be providing this service for the community in partnership with CCABA who will be using this building. Since our September meeting, a couple of things have happened. One is we took the feedback that we heard from you all at that meeting and started to work on revisions. In addition, I met with the Moorhead Hill Neighborhood Association and heard a lot of very positive feedback. A couple of constructive pieces of feedback as well that we've incorporated. And I met with Jennifer Martin who the commission may remember had presented and spoken at the last meeting as well. So with the commissioners insights and with the neighborhood feedback, we've made some very positive changes that we feel strengthen this already strong project proposal. And I will turn it over to my colleague Rob Kramer with 310 Architecture to describe a bit more about the design here. Thank you all. Thanks, Ari. Carla, if your slides are in the same order as I understand them to be, can you go a few pages down to the site plan overlay? It's like page 31 or so. Thank you. Yes, as Ari was starting to say, we took your comments seriously. We appreciate them. And I'll run through some of the adjustments we made to highlight them. And I hope you'll be able to see that we did take your comments to heart and tried to address them all in careful and meaningful ways. Carla, I'm looking for a couple more pages. There's a red overlay. One more, there it is. All right, yeah, this page is very instructive, I think. So one of the biggest concerns we heard was regarding how the building's placement on the site would block views to the adjacent historic structure, especially from the intersection. So this overlay highlights the considerable changes we made to the parking layout as well as the building placement. The red is the old layout overlaid on top of the new site plan. Essentially, what we did is we went to a one-way drive aisle with angled parking, and the narrower parking bay with the angled spaces allowed us to shift the building south away from Moorhead by nearly 10 feet. And additionally, significant floor plan changes allowed us to reduce the total building area, which let us pull the north elevation back or south, if you will, plus or minus eight feet. So with the building footprint reduction along with the parking layout change, this resulted in pulling that northeast corner of the building back by over 18 feet from where it was previously. Next image, I think we want to see is the rendering. Carla, that's about page 25. Oh, so up a few. There we go. Beautiful. As you can see in this rendering, the adjacent historic structure is now fully visible from the intersection. That was the goal. Moving on to just the design of the exterior itself, the window placements have been reworked across each facade to convey rhythm, repetition, and symmetry wherever possible. Let's look at the elevations. They're two pages up, I think. Thank you. Windows are now typically repeated in pairs, and they're either arranged symmetrically across the entire facade or symmetrically within each material change. And the high horizontal mullion that we had last time remains creating a transom expression, which is a nod to, of course, similar elements on existing nearby contributing structures. Additionally, the materials were simplified a little bit. Now there's just one brick color as opposed to two in the previous proposal. Viscinity map, please. That's right after the rendering, down a few. Because as we consider the design, of course, we believe it's important to remember where the building is sited within the context of the district. It's true, much of Moorhead Hill can be characterized as a relatively dense residential neighborhood with house after house neighboring one another. You see that in the darker blue buildings it's characterized much of the neighborhood. But that's not necessarily the character of the intersection of Moorhead and Vickers on which our building is proposed. This intersection is not the dense house after house fabric that you see in much the rest of the neighborhood, but rather it's a much more open and commercial in character with larger structures and much more open space between them. Therefore, it seems to us this intersection is the ideal location for a project such as this in the overall context of the district. The next thing I want to mention is the site lighting. Let's probably down a few pages in the site drawings. There it is. The site lighting was reselected. We now have a decorative acorn-style fixture with a 12-foot fluted pole. It's a much more historic aesthetic than the shoebox previously proposed. The last thing I'll mention is the landscaping. I think that's the next plan. One of the other concerns we heard was the proposed street trees and their coordination with the overhead power lines along both streets. The species Japanese Zelkova is proposed for the new street trees since it produces a relatively narrow canopy. So the new trees are shown a minimum of 13 feet from the existing overhead power lines and therefore we do not anticipate any future conflict between mature tree canopies and those power lines. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Madoff and Mr. Kramer. Is there anybody else who would wish to speak on behalf of the applicant? If I could. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for lending on the rendering whenever possible. Thank you. Before we give Mr. Miller a chance to speak, I would like to see if any commissioners have questions for either Mr. Madoff, Mr. Kramer or any of the other speakers who have signed up on behalf of the applicant today. Hearing none and seeing no hand raised, I will provide the floor to Mr. Miller at this time. Chairman, members of the commission, my name is Tom Miller and I appeared before you today in connection with this case as president and representative of preservation Durham. When this case appeared before you in at your September meeting, a member of our advocacy committee, Jennifer Martin, spoke on behalf of preservation Durham. She wasn't able to be with us today. And so I'm filling in for her. The first thing I'd like to note is when I looked at the minutes of your September meeting, the minutes noted that no one spoke in opposition. Of course, that's not correct. I do not know whether you corrected that error in the minutes when you took them up in October, since no one from our organization was present. And then moving on. Preservation Durham still objects to the placement of this building. The standard is locate new primary structures to be compatible with the predominant placement of similar structures in the block face and within the district. And of course, although this building has been moved back a little bit, it is still non conforming to the predominant building placement. It's too close to the street. Like I said, I recognize the progress that was made in moving the building, but it is still considerably closer to more head than the other buildings in that block face. And also throughout the district. Even the staff notes that it's somewhat closer, but it's still less than half or about half of the distance that the standard requires. Then moving on to be in the staff report and I'm on page three. It says it's not appropriate to obscure character dwelling elevations. It's true that from some places in the district, you can see the house next door, but there this building will still obscure the house next door from other places. And I want to point out especially that the house next door will be visible from the edges of the district from the East and from the North, but from the more interior viewpoints from the district to the West, especially if we're one were to stand on the Southwest corner of this intersection of Vickers and Morehead, the new building will almost completely obscure a view of the of the house and cut it off, have the effect of cutting it off from the rest of the district. And we object to that. Feel that it's inconsistent with the standards. We also have continued to have concerns with scale height and massing. We note that this building will have more than 4,000 square feet all on one level. That's very inconsistent with other buildings in the district. And that's contrary to the massing standard. Breaking down massing is required. But here the supposedly the massing is being broken down by materials changes and also by the placement of windows. Actually materials changes and pardon me, let me begin from a different direction. Proportionality and and massing are determined in a building like this by its broad faces and its long lines. So here the lines, especially on Vickers and Morehead are where the foundation meets the ground. The long Eve line and the ridge line. These are the things that define the edges of the building and determine its mass and weight in the district. To, you know, adding windows and changing materials in the broad faces really doesn't break this up. Articulation of the building might do it. But the way the building is drawn, there's very little articulation. And the dominant feature of the building is that very long Eve line, which I believe is about 85 feet long. If I'm not mistaken, on the on the one front and 65 feet on the Morehead side. And so, and it's not like any other building around. And so we object to that we would like to see if we're going to break up the mass of this building. Articulation of these faces. Somehow there's a slight articulation towards the rear of the building on the Vickers face, but that's not enough really to to address the concern that's expressed in the standard. And moving along. Now I'm on page four of seven in the staff report. Materials. We strongly object to the use of fiber cement panels and arrange in a board and baton fashion. The staff suggests that this is. Suggestive of brick. If that is the case, then I suggest that this is no standard at all. Board and baton arrangement of fiber cement panels suggests. Perhaps a board and baton wood structure. There are certainly historical examples of such such structures was American Gothic in the middle of the 19th century. But there are no examples of the use of vertical board and baton. Building techniques in Morehead Hill. And so this use of this material on this building and this case is completely contrary to the standard, despite the staff's conclusion. I think that it might suggest brick. It doesn't suggest brick at all. The buildings. All around this building are almost uniformly brick with the principal exception of being the clap sided buildings. Further down the block face. The Sweeney house on the one side and the house across diagonal across the street from it. That's my understanding is to be moved. I think it would be more appropriate to do with the development project going on there. So it seems to me that if we were going to use a fiber cement board. On this building, it would be more appropriate to place it in a lap fashion. Suggesting. Clabbered siding. Then it would be to arrange it in a board and baton style. I realized that. It's not appropriate for this location. It's not consistent with the standard. I also want to then move on. With materials. The staff report says store. And the, and the application says store front. That they're. The use of. Residential applications of fiber cement panels. On. In Durham is this vertical board and baton style, but it's not appropriate for this location and it's not consistent with the standard. I also want to then move on. With materials. The use of store front windows. Store front windows are not appropriate in a, in a residential historic district. And so we object to that. I think there is a different, a better way to organize these windows, especially their light patterns to make it more consistent with what's going on in the district rather than these great big broad. Single pane glass windows with the, the transoms above. Finally, the. I know that the standards say that. Exposed concrete walls are not appropriate and not favored, but this project has one of those right on the front facade. In direct contradiction to the language of the standard. And so I don't think this project can be approved as long as that. Standing man. It's not addressed in the staff report. At this time. And I refer you to page five of the staff report construct new fences and walls and materials historically used in the district. Generally not appropriate to use chain link wire, vinyl fencing, or an exposed concrete block walls. On properties and it's not concrete block, but it is concrete and there are no examples anywhere around on the block face of a wall like this. So I think it's inconsistent with the standards and we would ask that you. You know, either deny this application or defer action on it until the building can be made to conform to the minimum expectations of the standards that are recited in the staff report that are applicable in the case. Unless there are questions, Mr chairman, those are the comments of historic preservation society of Durham or preservation Durham. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. We do hope that the very minimum that you will correct the staff report. So I think it's important to remember meeting that indicates there was no opposition at that meeting. If you have not already done so. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Miller. Are there any commissioners who have questions for Mr Miller? Before we go on, could I, I want to say thank you for pointing out for the minutes. We will look into that and we will bring those minutes back for approval. If we find that error. I also want to correct your reading of the staff report. Let me go to some seeing it differently. What I had said. Was that the proposed cladding appear materials appear to meet this criterion because they include extruded bricks and cementitious fiberboard siding in a vertical orientation, which resemble traditional brick. Usually read and would lap siding usually horizontal materials throughout the district. So perhaps I could have clarified by saying respectively so that you knew that the brick was. The extruded brick resembles traditional brick and the board and batten or the cementitious siding in a vertical orientation is similar to lap siding yet in a horizontal orientation. So it wasn't that brick was resembling. It wasn't that brick was resembling traditional brick and cementitious fiberboard. It was. A equals a B equals B. Is that clear? Did that help clarify? It did for me. Okay, great. And so. Thank you, Carla, for that clarification. Are there any commissioners who would like to ask. Mr. Miller, any questions. Before I provide a rebuttal opportunity to the applicants. Mr. Miller. There's a house at, I think it's 12, 19 vickers. That has Gordon batten, just like we see here. It also has. Some very interesting window arrangements where there's actually. A massive glass that goes around the corner. And then it's got some smaller windows. I know it's one example, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's two blocks from this site. It is set back a little further from the street, but it has some of these elements. And I feel like. We have. We've asked these folks to go back and look around. The area. And I kind of feel like they have. Thank you, commissioner. So I'm aware of the, the, the modernist structure that you're referring to. It's located further down vickers. I don't know. I will say that that's the exception for the districts, not the rule. And I believe the standards are meant to guide the construction of new buildings based upon what predominates in the district, not what's exceptional in the district. Mr. DeBerry, any follow up questions? Nope. Thank you. Commissioner Hamilton. Mr. Miller, when you mentioned not seeing. The edges of the sidewalks throughout the districts. Now they're lower concrete walls. So is your issue more with the placement and scale of the wall. Or the materiality of the wall because you. Seemed more focused in your. Discussion on the materiality, but this does seem to me a material. That we're seeing. You know, with lower walls along. The streets. So I just wanted to get some clarification on. How you think it doesn't meet the criteria. So there are here and there in the district. Concrete retaining walls. That are usually located near the sidewalks. And. But in this instance, though, as a, as essentially an architectural feature of the building. There's the concrete wall that you see in this elevation. And, and we feel that that's contrary to the. Letter and spirit of the. Of the. Standards as they relate to, to the construction of a new building. It might be more appropriate. If this wall is necessary. If this wall is necessary. It might be more appropriate. If this wall is necessary. To clad it with some other material. Then a simple block. Very concrete. It's inconsistent with the way. Materials are used in other buildings. In the immediate block faces. Thank you. Thank you both. Any other questions from commissioners for Mr. Miller? Okay. Seeing and hearing none, I will now give the floor back to the applicant for any rebuttal. Evidence that they would like to present. Thank you. I'll start and. We'll see if any, if any of my teammates here think I missed something. The, the placement of the building. If I could just stress again, the considerable changes we made and including a significant reduction to the square footage of the building, you know, which is, which is at a. At a cost to the owner, you know, less square footage to use for the, for the purpose of this building. So there's ongoing financial implications there. We would argue that there isn't really a primary. There's not a primary street facade. There's really just one other building, the one you see next to us in the rendering. And the site just simply isn't, isn't feasible to actually have our building face back aligning with that. You, you. The building gets, gets too small to be viable. So hopefully the changes we've made will. Will be agreeable and acceptable. The board and baton or the, the vertically oriented siding is perhaps fair to say. That's the intention of that is, is the vertical lines helping to balance the, the horizontal nature of the building. Could it be lap siding? Certainly. I think, I think that would be okay. Is it, is it our preference? No. But I, I think that could be something we would look at. Is it, could it be an all brick building? That's probably something that would need to be reviewed as a team here, because there's cost implications there. But I think, I think there are options on the exterior. But we were, we put our best foot forward here. We believe that the vertical oriented siding is, is, is the appropriate choice here. I think that would be the, the concrete wall. I'm surprised to hear that. That feedback. Cause that was, that was kind of chosen on, on purpose concrete. It's, it's in contrast to the rest of the building. And it's also as Katie Hamilton helped, helped me out here. Yes, we see the, the cheek walls or the stairs out front, the little bit of retaining along the sidewalk. And we also at the south side of the site, we see a six to eight foot. Carged CMU wall, which for all intents and purposes appears like, like an eight foot concrete wall along the south side of our site. So that material was intentional and, and meant to be in keeping with what we already see around us. And the large windows and maybe just the use of storefront and the general aesthetic of the building, you know, thinking about all that together. It's important to realize the balance we're walking. This, this is not a house. It's a commercial building in a commercial, at a commercial intersection within a residential district. So it needs to walk that, that line between the residential and commercial. I mean, the large windows are as opposed to, you know, much smaller, more intimate windows of a house, which are much more private use. The large windows are important for what's going on inside. The views out the natural light. It's important for the program, the therapy for those children with autism to have that, that natural light and that connection with what's, with what's outside. Rob, I thank you for those points. I would also like to respond to the point about the size of the building. Mr Miller mentioned 4,000 square feet in being out of keeping. And we do not believe that to be the case based upon this corner alone. Graystone across the street is a significantly larger footprint on that one story. The size of the 617 Moorhead, I believe is, is right out 4,000 square feet or right around there. And, you know, and as you can see as well with the apartment buildings planned for, for the adjacent graystone site. And, and even 617 Moorhead, the Arosa club is nearly that size on that one square foot and Camelot Academy just down the, just down the block. So while this is a larger footprint than some of the residential area, when we consider this commercial part of Moorhead Hill, we believe this is a very appropriate size for the structure. I'd say something. Okay, this is full box. I would like to address Mr Miller's comments. And this is something that from the historic preservation group that was noted on the previous meeting. It was addressed about we talking about the sighting and if Carla, could you look at the 1955 circa photos? And the committee didn't, I don't think acknowledge this, but I think Mr Miller's associate did with historic preservation is that the existing image on the bottom is that existing house that used to be on the site, which at the same time as if we're referring to blocking the building, which we've actually addressed that now. This building was closer to the property line. It did do that where I don't think we're from her, I think from her, from her comments, we're not allowed to have credit for that, but I think we're trying our best. We just, we started designing this project knowing that building was there at the time and trying to respect that. So just, just to bring that up, we wanted to just mention that again from a sighting, we've tried to really address that and take that into under advisement and do our best to unblock as many views as possible. That's all actually. Sorry. Carla, this is Danny Howell. Can you go back to the vicinity map for just one second? Thank you. That's perfect. Just to add to our in Robin Paul's comments too, as if you look again at the surrounding area here, you see we're talking about this setbacks off of the street, the future apartments that are going to be on the north side of more head when they come in there close to more head Avenue. The learning services rehab directly to our west. You'll see that the new town home units that come in are actually lined up with our building face along the setback off of more head Avenue as well as well as a setback off of vickers. So I think it is kind of in conformity with the proposed outcome for the development. So I just wanted to bring that to the commission's attention as well. Thank you. Thank you. Do any of the commissioners have any follow-up questions? In response, any of the rebuttal evidence and testimony that we just heard. Okay. Seeing and hearing none. I am going to close the public hearing. To permit. Opportunity for the commissioners to discuss amongst themselves. I will lead things off. And just in terms of. In terms of setting the stage. My recollection was. Myself and I think a couple others express some concerns about setback back in September. Vice chair. I believe had concerns about fenestrations and rhythm. Commissioner Johnson had concerns about lighting. My impression is that those concerns were taken seriously. They were addressed. And I certainly hear what Mr. Miller says. About ongoing concerns that preservation Durham has. I guess what I'm curious to know is, are there any commissioners who. Number one feel that the concerns expressed two months ago simply have not been incorporated into. This most recent effort. And number two. Would like to speak at all in terms of the. On-going objections that Mr. Miller has raised. And it calls me. I don't, I think I agree with you that this team has taken the comments seriously and worked really hard to. Balance the site to be able to push this building back. Has looked at the. The rhythm. Of the building. And certainly I think. It's for the better of this structure. So I appreciate. What they've done. I think the questions that Tom has raised are ongoing. I think that's where we're using your ongoing conversation as a whole that we're having about these structures. In all the districts. The materials that are used the. What, what is being done just in construction. And I think that's where we're going to go. I think that's where we're going to go. And I think that's where we're going to go. Of how people build. Built today. And, and. It's what. That construction and those materials. Are producing a lot of similar types of. Of buildings. And ways things look. And so it's, it's, it's a hard balance that we as a commission have to. Review these and then say, all right. Should it go forward? I think that's where we're going to go. I think that's the basis. That we're going to after review. These projects and say. All right, this, this. Balances being in the district. With today's standards. So. But I think this team is has again. Taking things a heart and brought us a project that. At the risk of putting you on the spot, Vice Chair Gillespie, how do you feel that balance has or has not been achieved here? I think one, in pushing back the setback of the building to be able to allow the existing structure to be more present, it's not ideal, right, in an ideal scenario, this building would be in the backyard of the historic structure, right? So you have full view, but it's a separate property, there's only so much that this team can do with their goals and their program, shy of not doing the project at all. And so I appreciate the, I think 18 feet is what I heard, and I don't think that's nothing between reconfiguring the parking lot to a configuration that isn't ideal. Angle parking is, in my opinion, a hard thing to work with. Also taking out some square footage of the building, I mean, I appreciate that they took back on and removed square footage out of the building to be able to say if they're going to push the building back. Let's see, also the organization of the windows and glass, I think it's more balanced elevation, which we see in the district in terms of the bigger buildings, more order in the elevations as opposed to a result of where the classrooms sell and then, hey, this is where we're going to put a window. I think there was a real effort on this team to organize the elevations a bit more. So. Perfect. Thank you for those observations. Here, Richard. Commissioner Hamilton. So I really appreciate everything that was done. I do feel like the calling of this like a storefront to me is not necessarily like they are storefront windows, but they're done in individual, you know, pains, and so that's very different than, you know, grouping and amassing windows that we were seeing last time. Also I just have to say that, like, the idea that we should push buildings to the back of a lot to preserve a view of another building is not what's typical of the district. Like, so I find with the placement of the building, I think this idea that we should like open up every view of every side of the buildings is not what you see in a historic district. That's not how these neighborhoods were developed over time. There was one that's part of what's great about these neighborhoods is that it's not a cookie cutter or same setback on every building. And so this idea that new construction should be set back so much further to preserve views of the sides of buildings that were never visible is just not really my mind. What historic what this district was or should be. So I really appreciate the effort that they did make to make sure the front facade was visible, which is, I guess, based on the sandborn a little bit closer to what it was previously done and the more traditional rhythm along the street. So overall, I think I'm satisfied. And the wall being I just the wall being cast in place materiality wise. And, you know, it's not a cement block wall or anything like that, which is what our criteria clearly are against. So I don't think we really have any way to go against that. So overall, I'm happy with all the changes that were made. Terrific. Thank you so much, Commissioner Hamilton. Terms of folks who are part of our quorum that leaves commissioners waiter in DeBerry. Do you have any comments you'd like to add? Commissioner Waiters, can you hear me? We can. OK, I just want to say, first of all, I am very pleased with my further commissioner statements. They were all very accurate and clear. And I would also say that I think that Tom Miller was extremely clear as well. This group has done a great effort in going back and improving on what our concerns were during our last meeting. And my comments back to you today are into formats. I mean, Historic Preservation is my first heart. I am also a health care provider. From that standpoint, I think that they've put exceptional effort into making this work. So even though this whole issue does cause a bias, I can say that with the efforts that they have done that at least with the improvement of their efforts to make this work. Trot off a little bit there, Commissioner Waiters, but I think we got the gist of what you were communicating with us and to us. That leaves commissioners DeBerry with any thoughts? I just have one comment, which I really had not considered previously. I think Paul showed us that overhead of the neighborhood and we've approved the Greystone Apartments and we've approved those townhouses across the street. And they are more sort of city-centric if they're on the street. And I'm just not sure how we can hold this group to a different standard when we've approved two very large projects right on either side of them with very small setbacks. So I just had not really considered that, although I think they made tremendous progress in many other areas. I I don't know how we can support this at this point. Thank you, Commissioner DeBerry. Any other discussion among commissioner commissioners? Hearing none, I would like to request a staff recommendation. Well, a Rosenberg Planning Department, staff would recommend approval of the application. Thank you, Carla. So I would have a motion. I'm happy to do so. Can you give me a second to find it here? Thanks, Andy. Also give me a second to read through it one more time and make sure it's up to date. Let's make sure I have the square footage. Correct. That's that was the one I was going to ask. Can someone from the applicants team update us to the current square footage? We we have five thousand five hundred. But I know you guys took some out. We're all looking to me and I don't know if I have that number handy, but I'm trying to find it. OK, thank you. Rob, this is Danny, a site plan. We have five thousand four hundred and seventy square feet for the CCA VA building. And you would have gotten that number from me, so I'm good with that. Yes, sir. That's five thousand four hundred seventy square for the building, plus a two hundred and sixty square foot porch. I'm going to use the the square footage. Yes, sir. So again, that's five thousand four hundred and seventy. Yes, I have that. Thank you. No, OK. All right. This equals me. The Disc the Durham Historic Preservation Commission finds that in the case, COA two one zero zero zero five three six twenty five Moorhead Avenue, 10 five Vickers Avenue, the construction, new construction and site work. The applicant is proposing to construct a new one story structure on a vacant parcel along with associated site work. The new structure will be set back 33 feet from the street and will measure approximately five thousand four hundred and seventy heated square feet and will be constructed of vertically oriented, smooth, cementitious plywood board siding, brick, aluminum store front windows, concrete site walls, a modern metal roof and a wood door. A parking lot at the rear will contain 12 foot black metal post lanterns on fluted concrete poles. Nine canopy and or street trees will be removed from the site and replaced with seven new street trees. Therefore, the conclusion of law is that the proposed addition and alterations are consistent with the historic character and qualities of the historic district and are consistent with the historic properties, local review criteria. Specifically, those listed in the staff report and the Durham Historic Preservation Commission approves the certificate of appropriateness for case COA two one zero zero zero five three twenty six twenty five Moorhead Avenue, 10 five Vickers Avenue, new construction and site work with the following conditions. The improvement shall be substantially consistent with the plans and testimony presented to the commission at this commission hearing and attached to this COA to the improvements may require additional approvals from other city or county departments or local or state agencies. The applicant is responsible for obtaining all required approvals relating to building instruction, site work and work in the right of way. Is this is this third condition or is this need to be the conditions haven't changed this? Oh, I see this approval is I think they still have a site plan pending if the applicant can clarify whether case D twenty one zero zero two four nine is still pending. This is Danny Howell, the Zahn team. We have submitted our first round of site plan review through CDERM and received comments and we plan on resubmitting shortly. OK, well, I can keep this in. Yes, keep it in, please. All right. So back to the condition is the third condition being this approval is conditioned on the approval of the associated site plan case D two one zero zero two four nine and four. A compliance inspection shall be performed immediately upon completion of the work approved hearing. Commissioner Hamilton second. Gary Bouchard, your reading of those words. The world in which we live. Thank you, Vice Chair Gillespie and chair, excuse me, Commissioner Hamilton. Clerk Holmes, if we can have a roll call vote, please. All right. Chair Bouchard approved. Commissioner DeBairi approved. Vice Chair Gillespie approved. Commissioner Hamilton. Great. Commissioner Waiters. Commissioner Waiters approved. Right. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you very much, Claire Combs. Thank you all very much for your patience, for everybody's perspectives, and we certainly wish the applicant best of luck moving forward with this project. Thank you all. Thank you. OK, Chris, we could go ahead and bring in the participants for our next hearing. Next case on our agenda is KCOA two one zero zero zero seven six twenty one thirteen Englewood Avenue modifications amendment. Before we hear from staff, is there anyone of our commissioners who may have a conflict of interest in hearing this case? Seeing and hearing none, let us proceed with swearing in of anyone who plans to speak for or against this case. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give in the public hearing proceedings for today's case, the truth by your own knowledge or by information and belief? I do. Jeff Moncine. Mr. Moncine, very good to see you again. If I could also get on the record confirmation that you consent to this case being heard through this remote platform today. Yes, I do. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Joe Barini, my builder is on the line. He doesn't have a camera, but I think he needs to. Joe, are you there? I don't see him yet. This is Chris Peterson from the planning department. We have two individuals. One is listed as conference room three and another is a phone number ending in four seven nine three. Joe, if you are either of those, if you're on the phone, please press star nine. If you are a conference room three, please raise your hand. And there should be a raise hand button at the bottom of your screen. Okay. I see them coming over. And can you repeat the name of that individual as well so I can rename them on the record? Joe Barini. Perfect. All right. Joe Barini has now joined us if they can start their video if they have one available. They can also unmute if they have that ability. Mr. Barini, can you hear us? Mr. Barini, if you could somehow figure out a way to get off of mute? Miss Sabrina? Is this Joe Barini? This is Jared Martinson speaking. We're in conference room three, which is registering on your phone. I don't think we meant to raise our hand and tag in. Apologies. Okay. So Chris, it appeared that they have been mislabeled. He says he texted me. I hear I can hear but I can't get on. Is it with Joe just texting me? It might be the individual on the phone. Press star six to unmute yourself on your phone. Star six, Joe. All right. We should be able to hear you now. Can you hear me? We can. Hey, all right. Welcome, Mr. Barini. Mr. Barini, we need to do a couple things here administratively. Make sure all the formalities are observed. First and foremost, do you consent to this case being heard using this remote platform today? I do. Wonderful. And Miss Holmes, if you could please administer the oath to Mr. Barini. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give in the public hearing proceedings for today's case, the truth by your own knowledge or by information and belief? I do. Wonderful. Thank you both. Let's go ahead and get started with a staff report. Carla Rosenberg Planning Department. This is case 2A 210076 2113 Anglewood Avenue modification. It's an amendment to a previously proved application. That was COA 210031. The applicant is JB Cole Pepper and the owner and represented today by Mr. Monsign. And the owner is Monsign Investments LLC. It's located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Anglewood Avenue and Hill Street, Zoned Residential Urban 5 and its contributing structure to the Watts-Hallondale Historic District. If you recall, the previous COA was approved with request that the applicant modify the roof design to stay within a certain height above sea level. And in doing so, the applicant needed to add a dormer onto the back of the roof slope. So I'd like to introduce the staff report into the record and invite the applicant to present his case. Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Monsign and Mr. Barini, the floor is yours. Okay, Joe, Joe Barini, I'll start. So basically, we were able to lower, you know, the term is substantially or subordinate to the main structure. And originally, we were a little bit lower than the main house. But Joe Barini, the contractor, we were able to lower lowered about two and a half more feet to 22 feet four inches. So it's significantly lower than it was. And in order to do that, we had to add a dormer to the back, which won't be visible from the street. But obviously, we needed to get it approved. And then Joe, if you can just explain why we had to do that, make this modification to lower the roof, I'd appreciate it. Yes, the dormer was needed on the rear of the structure. After we low, we lowered the main roof 30 inches, two and a half feet. But in to achieve that, we had to add the dormer on the rear, where the stairway is. So we could still have headroom in the stairway to get to the second floor bedroom. So that's why the dormer was added. And other than that modification, that's the only change. We haven't changed anything to the front. We just as everybody requested, you wanted it lowered. So we went back to the drawing board. And that's what we came up with. So we hope that it meets your approval. Thank you, Mr. Monsign and Mr. Burini. Are there any commissioners who have any questions they would like to ask about their Mr. Monsign and Mr. Burini? This is Commissioner Rolesman. Mr. Monsign, it has been a while since we put this. Can you just remind me which are the street facing elevations for this project? Sure. I think Carla, right there, the front elevation. So that it's on the corner of Englewood and Hale, and that front elevation is going to face Hale Street. Okay. Which one faces Englewood? Well, which one? They're about the same, aren't they? Yeah. Yes, sir. The right side. What would it be? Yeah, it would be the right side. That's correct. All right. Thank you, Mr. Monsign. Welcome. Any other commissioners? Okay. Seeing and hearing no additional questions. I'll ask for the record if there is anybody present today who wishes to speak in opposition to this application. Seeing and hearing none, I will close the public hearing to permit discussion among the commissioners. I will leave things off just very briefly and observe that it does look like the roof line has been reduced as we had requested, acquiring a dormer that if it were on the front elevation, I think I might have some concerns about it. But since it's on the back elevation, I'm not sure that I do. But I'm curious to hear if any of the commissioners do have concerns about the proposal. Okay, looks like there's nobody with a raised hand or with their microphone unmuted. And I will therefore ask staff for a recommendation. Carla Rosenberg planning department staff would recommend approval of the application. Thank you, Carla. May I have a motion? Move. Richard Dayan for yours. The planning that the dormitory preservation commission finds that in the case COA 210706 2113 Englewood Avenue modifications amendment the applicant is proposing an amendment to COA 2103031 enabling the installation of a new shed dormer on the rear of the approved accessory structure. This shed dormer will accommodate a reduced roof peak height of 22 feet four inches, 442.15 feet above some level. The shed dormer will be clad with smooth cementitious fiberboard siding roofed with architectural singles fitted and fitted with a horizontal four light fixed solid PVC window, all matching material purposely approved in COA 2103031. Therefore, the conclusion of law is that the proposed addition and alterations are consistent with the historic character and qualities of the historic district and are consistent with the historic properties, local review criteria, specifically those listed in the staff report and the Durham Historic Preservation Commission approves the certificate of appropriateness for case COA 210706 2113 Englewood Avenue modifications amendment with the following conditions. One, the improvements shall be substantially consistent with the plans and testimony presented to the commission at this commission hearing and attached to this COA. Two, the improvements may require additional approvals from the from other city or county departments or state or local agencies. The applicant is responsible for obtaining all required approvals relating to building construction site work and work in the right of way. And three, a compliance inspection shall be performed immediately upon completion of work approved herein. Commissioner waiters second. Thank you commissioners Dan and waiters. Clerk Holmes, if we get up a roll call vote, please. Abou Shard approved. Commissioner Dan approved. Commissioner DeBarry approved. Vice Chair Goolsbee approved. Commissioner Hamilton approved. Commissioner waiters Commissioner waiters approved. Motion passes six to zero. Thank you Mr. Monsign and Mr. Burini. And good luck with this project. Thank you. Can I make one comment real quick? Yes, sir. So and we appreciate your input. So we have completed two of these ADUs that you approved in the past. One at 1111 Georgia Avenue and the other one at 2301 to Englewood. And I'm not sure if any of the committee members have had a chance to get out in the field and look at them. But I think Joe and I are pretty proud how they look and how they blend in with the neighborhood. So I'd welcome anybody to to take a ride by and and check them out because I think they add a lot to the neighborhood. Mr. Monsign, can you give me those two addresses again? Sure. 1111 Georgia, which is that ADU is behind existing dwelling. But you can see it certainly see it or pull in the driveway and look at it. And the other one is 2301 Englewood, which is on the corner of Englewood and Oakland and that ADU faces Oakland. And they're both completed, occupied, land, you know, everything. And of course, the final one, approval from the historical people. I'm not sure who they are, but Carla can tell you that we've got all the approvals, but they look great. And I think this one will look just as nice. Thanks for that information. Appreciate it. I just want to mention it because I think we'll be back for another one soon. I don't doubt it. Thank you very much for your help. Thank you again. Thank you for giving. Take care. Bye. Would my fellow commissioners appreciate a five minute comfort break? All right, we're in recess for five minutes. See you at 10 30. OK, if there are any commissioners who are back to serve your cameras off, please turn them on. So I know that you're here. I thank you so much. Mr. Waiters, you're right. Thank you. So we're waiting for the return of Vice Chair Gulsby. Carlos back, Mr. Chairman, can you tell me which case you're going to take up? Is it the third one on your agenda? Yes, I believe we're going to be doing four hundred West Main Street next. OK, I wanted to let you know that I signed up that one for that one prophylactically. We had not decided what we were going to say. Preservation Durham is not going to be making a presentation connection with that case. And while we're talking just for my own convenience and I apologize, I had received not long ago a message from staff indicating that the fourth case, the Washington Street case, was going to be postponed until December. Is that still the case? I believe it is. Carla, can you confirm? Yes, we were going to request a continuance. So not postponed, but a continuance after opening the case today. OK, so you're going to open it and continue it. Is there any reason for me to stick out the rest of the meeting? Carla, do you think? We will not have a substantive hearing on that case. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. I'm going to sign off now and make your meeting probably much shorter than it would have been otherwise. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Happy Thanksgiving. You too. OK, I think the band is back together. Get the. Hearing back on track here with case number COA 2100077 400 West Main Street demolition of primary structure before we hear from staff. Is there anyone of our commissioners other than Commissioner Hamilton who may have a conflict of interest in hearing this case? Seeing and hearing none. Let us proceed with the swearing it, excuse me, swearing in of anyone who plans to speak for or against this application. Clerk Holmes. All right. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give in the public hearing proceedings for today's case, the truth by your own knowledge or by information and belief? I do. So Oliver with Ella Street, P. I do. And this is Alden West with Stewart. Thank you, gentlemen. If I could start with Mr. Oliver, then to Mr. West. Do you consent to this case being heard using this virtual remote platform today? I do. I do. Thank you both. With that, let us proceed with a staff report. Carla, this is Carla Rosenberg with the Planning Department. This is case COA 2100077. It's 400 West Main Street demolition. The applicant is Stewart. The owner is five points Durham LLC. It's located within the boundaries of West Main, Morris and North Great Jones streets. It's own downtown design core and it is a non contributing structure within the downtown Durham Historic District. And the applicant is proposing to demolish the non contributing primary structure on the site. I'd like to introduce this staff report into the record and invite the applicant to present their case. Thank you, Carla. Mr. Oliver, Mr. West, the floor is yours. Go ahead, Alden. OK, sure. Yeah, so as Carla mentioned, the building is non contributing you know, to the historic character of the neighborhood of downtown Durham and the five points area. It wasn't constructed at the time of historical significance for downtown Durham. It was built in the 70s. The the building is cited in the the center or the middle of the property and surrounded by a parking lot. And that's that's not Congress with the, you know, the historical character of five points. We submitted some photos of what five points used to look like before First Federal Bank came in and leveled the block. And all of those original properties there address the the streets. And there were some, you know, there were some retail stores, you know, and there was much more conducive to public and pedestrian interaction and traffic. And and so the, you know, First Federal Bank and now which is now South Bank came in and put a bank, you know, in the middle of the property and surrounded it with parking lot. And and so, you know, we're we're proposing to demolish South South Bank in the parking lot. And this is part of a new projects where we'll be submitting a separate COA to construct a residential high rise building. You know, that'll meet all the all the current standards and will be much more in line with the the historic character of five points and of and of downtown Durham, you know, and significantly, you know, we'll meet the the bill to zone requirements and we'll have have retail back, you know, along along the street frontages, you know, more more in line with the historic character of the area. Thank you, Mr. West, Mr. Oliver, anything to add? The only thing to add is the current building is substandard in its current condition for reuse. It has significant asbestos problems that need to be abated, which would precluded from really being used that it also has footprints that are not conducive to being reused in its current state either height wise or in the overall size of the footprints. Thank you, Mr. Oliver, I'll go ahead and kick off the questioning and just try to pick up on that last point. Where is the asbestos located? Is this ceiling tile, flooring tile, you know, rapid mechanical equipment? What helps us understand sort of the extent of what we're talking about here? Yes, to all three of those to some degree. There's a I believe we've submitted in the full asbestos report and I don't have all the detail. I don't have it in front of me right now. I do know that it's it's fairly pervasive throughout and so it's the embayment team has been looking at it. I think primarily the flooring in the ceiling. Carol, so did you submit the report to me? The last I remember you hadn't gotten it yet, Mr. West. Did you send it to me since our conversation? Yeah, yeah, I did. I did eventually get it to you a couple of weeks ago. Oh, OK, I apologize that I, yeah. So I did not include it in the staff report. But if the commission chair would like for me to find that and show it. Then we could do similar to what we did in a previous case with another report. Well, let's see if it's possible that that issue is even going to be dispositive of the commission's deliberations here. So I would say right now it's that's hold off on having that added to the record. I guess my only other questions are born out of curiosity. What what are we looking here, gentlemen, in terms of architectural style? I mean, clearly, we're talking about something that is modern. You know, I I practice construction law by no means an architect. And so I'm always learning something new every day. And I mean, this looks like sort of a hybrid of brutalism in terms of just the massing, I guess, new formalism in terms of the the columns that we see at the base level, a little bit of minimalism and just how randomly the building is cited. I mean, what what can you share with us about the the I guess architectural heritage of this building and what might be lost if it's demolished? Boy, that's a tough question. I think you've clearly pointed out the mismatch of design aesthetics that that were put in here. I mean, this is a classic building in terms of its statement piece was intended, you know, obviously as a monumental building in the form of what a bank wanted to appear to be in a community at the same time trying to provide a sense of security and sense the lack of sort of substantial windows on the lower level. This is, you know, that as you see the north side of the building has the drive up window as part of that again. So I think you know, I struggle with this building a little bit because the heritage was lost when it was it was originally torn down to build this building in my opinion. And, you know, again, I think all the touched on and we said the objective here, I think, is to bring this block back into more into a more traditional sense of, you know, being front on the frontage and this building is since it's surrounded by parking on all sides becomes very difficult to approach. I'm not sure there's a huge or significant loss by removing it and replacing with something that is is significantly better for the community. Appreciate it. Any commissioners with follow up questions? Commissioner Bolesby, if you were to get approval to demolish without any delay, what is the timeline for your proposed building construction? And really, my line of question is I don't want to approve a building to be demolished. It done so in the next or starting the next 10 days. But then open lock be vacant for four or five years in a downtown district. Oh, no, absolutely not. This is this project we've already submitted and all the correct me if I'm wrong, we've submitted the site plan. Yeah. And we submit permit, excuse me, submitted a preliminary site plan for demolition and excavation. So we we're intending, ownership's intending to start construction next year. Commissioner Waders, I just wanted to comment to that and that our normal first of the month meeting was delayed until today, which we already agreed upon. However, I believe it was just the day after that meeting, I read an extensive article in the Triangle Business Journal, I believe it was about this project and it was extremely informative, well written, but it explained that the timeline on the project, if I did not misread it, was for the spring of next year, as well as the owners doing another project in Apex. And it came as a surprise because we had our materials to review today, but it was listed as a project that was already approved. And I was just curious about that, I might be inappropriate, but could you explain why that was done? I can't speak to that article per se. I'm not sure I've read that article, but I think that might have been a misquote about it being approved. Obviously, we obviously have not gone through that process yet. So I think there's hopeful there's, you know, that ownership is hopeful that we get permission to to proceed in a timely fashion so we can begin construction fairly quickly on this project. Mr. Waiters, did you have any follow up? No follow up is just that I read it and and it was clear that it was saying it would start in the spring of twenty twenty one, I mean, twenty twenty two. And it was it was very well written. And of course, did the marketing of what the area would cost to the consumer and all of that. But I was just surprised and wanted to make sure that I did have an inquiry on how that was done today. Well, this this project is a is. I think slated me around a 30 month build project time frame thirty. And so I think the idea here is again, starting early in the spring, we're starting in the spring of next year, it's going to take a long time to get going and to get it completed. So I think there's just optimism within that article. Again, I have read that article. So I'm not quite sure exactly if that answers your question. Yeah, just sorry. Well, just thank you for responding because it was just a bit unusual. And I did want to inquire on that. Mr. West, did you want to add something? Yeah, yeah, I was just going to add to be clear. We did just submit a site plan to to Durham for approval for the new building just last week. And so we're going through that approval process and waiting on comments. So we're sort of at the at the beginning of the the permitting process for this for this project. Thank you. Matt, Matt, just make a comment. Yes, Commissioner DeBerry. So this is for city staff and the folks in the planning department. When one city center was being built. That that project overwhelmed that neighborhood. To the point where retail, anyone that was living or working in that area was severely impacted for years. Big cities all over the country throw huge buildings up without the impact that one city city center had to Durham. I'm hopeful we learned from that process and that if this building goes ahead and they build out to the sidewalk, which I think is entirely appropriate, that appropriate scaffolding and mitigation efforts will be made to allow the life of five points to continue both in terms of automotive traffic and pedestrian traffic while this project goes on. What happened at the center of town just should not happen again. It it I feel for the especially the retail in that area, you know, they really took a hit and there was no reason for it except for I think poor planning. So comment, thank you, Commissioner DeBerry. Not sure. Well, if Mr. Western, Mr. Oliver, you want to respond to that, I realize that we still have a ways to go here with this process and another COA will be considered. But if you'd like to respond to Commissioner DeBerry's comments, by all means, please do so. I guess I can address that a little bit. I think we have a little bit more room to work with on this site because we're it's a phase project. And so we'll have essentially a portion of the if you look at the site plan, we'll have a portion of the site to work with, which will help alleviate some of the concerns with with the density and its location. So and we'll take under advisement concern, obviously, and on pedestrian and vehicular access and free movement. So we'll we'll we'll address that. We'll be addressing that as part of our future submissions. Thank you. Do any of our other commissioners have questions for the applicant? OK, hearing none, seeing no hands raised, I will for the record ask whether or not there is anybody present who wishes to speak against the application, seeing and hearing from nobody. I will close the public hearing and open discussion for the commissioners, Commissioner Dayan. Thank you. This question is to Carla to staff in the section one, the demolition. It's the first time I've seen this, and this maybe relates also to what one that was speaking to towards. It says, therefore, the proposed demolition does not appear to justify a delay of demolition. And so staff is making a recommendation usually before our hearing. OK, I'd like to understand that, please. Yeah, so that the criterion is working to pursue an alternative to the proposed demolition. And so I was just speaking on, you know, there would be no need to seek an alternative if it weren't if there were no delay. So it was kind of written into the into the criterion itself. Will will there be? Yeah, I was I was I mean. No, it's OK. It's all right. I didn't mean to put it in demolitions are a little bit different than the other ones because it's we approve them regardless and what is being deliberated is whether there is a delay. And so pursuing an alternative happens in the case of a delay. Thank you. So I will confess that I did more like reading related to architecture and modernism and philosophy of historic preservation on this and I have for any other case. I don't even know why I was so fascinated by it, but I but I was and maybe it's partially because in continuing with the true confessions, this building is younger than me. And that's kind of a weird thing to contemplate in terms of historic preservation. The questions that I asked of the applicants about the architectural significance are really geared to just trying to get some understanding as to what it is we might be losing in terms of our architectural heritage downtown. And I'm not surprised to hear the answer was was not much. When I heard that Mr. Miller was thinking about speaking in opposition, I was going to be curious to hear his justification for why this building is worth saving. I'm not familiar with any sort of public outcry about this building going away. And there's all kinds of interesting philosophical questions about what do we do with properties that are not part of the historic district or would not be not part of the period of historic significance. We've been having those discussions over recent months. And I didn't want my subjective feelings about this property, this building, which is I don't see a lot here worth salvaging, which is, again, incredibly subjective to interfere with my analysis of whether or not there was something here that is venerable or approaching sacred that would truly be lost if it were to be demolished immediately. And I just haven't heard any evidence. No one's spoken in opposition to it. I just share all these thoughts that there's sort of stream of conscious thoughts just to let folks know my fellow commissioners know what I've been thinking about. And through all the work, I've kind of come through this to the same conclusion, which is I can't think of and certainly I haven't heard any evidence supporting a delay of any period of time on this project. And so I'm prepared to support the application without any delay. And if anyone- Matt, can I touch a couple of things that you spoke about right now? Absolutely. Thank you, because I did do some research as well. And maybe Andy can talk more than I can explaining this, but there was a time for Durham that this kind of architecture was the city plan and it wasn't only Durham, but it was across the country. The idea was to put people pedestrians above ground and they can move from the buildings. So it's different to where we developed. The other building that is very similar to this building from what I understand and see is the city hall. And it would make city hall a solitary building in that sense, once this does go. I agree with you that I don't understand a lot in it and I don't see the beauty in it too, much of the beauty, but there is architectural significance for sure from what I understand. And Andy maybe could put more into it. Are you referring to the city hall annex? What do you mean annex? There's a building right beside city hall that is our annex. We have offices in there that is more in the style of this building. The city hall itself. Okay. I don't see the similarity, but okay. The annex, I would say yes. I'm not sure what the annex is, but okay, sorry. Vice Chair Goseby is our resident architect. Yeah. No, I think you guys are definitely hitting on that this building does have some sort of architectural significance of its period. It certainly is somewhat contributing to the downtown being a larger building. So hence my concerns of a lot itself if it was demolished and this lot was vacant. I do fall into the same category we did in our previous discussions on these types of buildings that what our charge is, is to compare this to the historical significance of this building. The period in which the district was formed, which this building would fall outside of that. But I think there is something to say that we need to be careful about demolishing buildings in the downtown district and them being left as vacant blocks. But I do have comfort knowing that timeline is fobbling this demolition. But no, I think Matt and Jonathan, your research is spot on. I mean, this building does have, it was thought through. It wasn't just put up. I mean, someone carefully designed it at some point and may not be a style that a lot of folks relate to. But I think it does have some significance and a period to it. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Commissioner DeBerry, sorry. So this building echoes a fairly famous mid-century architect, Edward Durrell Stone, who designed our state legislature building, Kennedy Center, the library at University of South Carolina. He uses this sort of form a lot. And you know what, if he had designed this building I think we might be having a different conversation. But I just don't think the execution on this building, even though there are some design elements and cues, it's not a good copy, maybe is a little bit of a copy. I think it echoes a lot of what was going on at the time, but it never was a super high quality building to begin with. And although I struggle with contributing and non-contributing and architects or even this commission making these determinations, it's non-contributing in that it didn't fit in a cookie cutter mold when they did this district. But it does contribute something, whether it's good or bad or indifferent to the district. So that's maybe an argument for another day, but at the end of the day, I think it's indicative of its time. I don't think it was a great super high quality example of architecture myself. And so I'm falling in line with the rest of this group and saying, I think it can probably go. Commissioner DeBarry, it's interesting that you comment about the legislative building. As I was doing my research and reading up on new formalism, one of the examples I saw on one of the websites I visited actually had our legislative building as an example of new formalism. And it occurred to me, if you take just that sort of bottom part of the South Bank building and imagine a hip roof on top of it and then squint, it would look a little bit like the legislative building, but- Absolutely. And the same with the Kennedy Center. If you pull back and you take the tower off of this one, you've got the same lines and the columns and the massing of the facade and the windows, you know. All very interesting stuff. Any other commissioners with thoughts or comments before we proceed with a staff recommendation? Seeing and hearing none, I will ask for a staff recommendation. Carla Rosenberg Planning Department, staff would recommend approval of the application with no condition. Thank you, Carl. I'll go ahead. I'm sorry, that last piece. Or no condition of delay because I'm remembering that you read out our standard conditions. Just clarifying. Thank you. I'll go ahead and make the motion. The Durham Preservation Commission finds that in the case COA 2100077, 400 West Main Street, demolition of primary structure. The applicant is proposing to demolish a non-contributing primary structure dating from 1973. The commission has determined the structure to lack sufficient historical value or structural integrity to preserve it. The commission has determined that the property owner has shown substantive evidence of facing extreme hardship or being permanently deprived of all beneficial use of or return from the property by virtue of the delay. The site will be stabilized with grass seed and straw following the demolition. No further construction has thus far been proposed. Therefore, in accordance with UDO requirements and NC North Carolina General Statutes, Chapter 160D, Section 949, the COA for the proposed demolition is approved without a delay. Second. Andy Colesby. Mr. Coltens, roll call vote please. Chair Bouchard. Approved. Commissioner Danyin. Approved. Commissioner DeVairi. Approved. Vice Chair Gooseby. Approved. Commissioner Waders. Commissioner Waders approved. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you so much. Mr. West, Mr. Oliver, thank you for your time. I presume we'll be seeing you again here sometime soon. So until then hope you have a great Thanksgiving. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. And we will move to what I believe will be brief consideration just for today of the next case on our agenda, which is COA 2 1 0 0 0 7 8 5 0 1 Washington Street. New construction continued. Carla, if we can have an update on this case. Carla, you are on mute. Sorry, I hit that button. For this case, there was an issue with the notification. So we are requesting a continuance to the December hearing to allow for the full notification to take place. Is that notification involved with Jason property owners? Correct. Okay. I'm prepared to make a motion unless the commissioners feel like they need additional detail about the need for the continuum. One question I have is, I saw on the meeting minutes that this site was up for demolition. And I wonder if I can get some understanding if it was a 180 or build a 365 delay on the demolition on these property? Ultimately, the commission determined it would be a 365 day delay. Okay. Thank you. We did have an understanding that if something, that if they come with a plan that answers some of the questions that we had, that delay can be shortened. I'll go ahead and make a motion to continue consideration of COA 210078 501 Washington street, new construction to our December 2021 meeting, which if I am correct, will take place on Tuesday, December the 7th. Second. Thank you, Vice-Chair Gould. Clerk Holmes, roll call vote please. Chair Bouchard. Approved. Commissioner Dayan. Approved. Commissioner DeBarry. Approved. Vice-Chair Gulsby. Approved. Commissioner Waiters. Approved. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you all very much. That is our last hearing for the day turning to old business. I don't know if this would fall under old business or new business. I guess that there could be an issue with our September 2021 meeting minutes and the indication that there was no objection to COA 210053, which is clearly not the case. Has anyone checked to see whether or not the minutes are in fact incorrect? The minutes did not speak to any opposition on that case. So we need to add that individual in. Okay. At least what's online. And it was Jennifer, I am Martin Harden. Martin. Martin. Thank you. It was Jennifer Martin who spoke in opposition. So I will go ahead and make a motion to amend the September 2021 meeting minutes to reflect that Ms. Jennifer Martin representing Preservation Durham spoke in opposition to case COA 210053, 625 Morehead Avenue, 1005 Vickers Avenue, new construction and site work. She also was a resident of the district and made that clear when she made the presentation. With that clarification from Commissioner DeBerry, do we have a second? Second. It equals me. Thank you. Clerk Holmes, another roll call vote, please. Chair Bouchard. Approved modification to the minutes. Commissioner Dan. Approved. Commissioner DeBerry. Approved. Vice-Chair Gulsby. Approved. Commissioner Hamilton. Approved. Commissioner Waiters. Approved. Motion passes six to zero. Thank you so much. An item of new business on our agenda is the 2022 meeting schedule, which I will confess I neglected to open up. Are there any highlights? I mean, typically we go with the first Tuesday and we try to avoid the first Tuesday and November for election day. Is that sort of what we've got here for 2022? Well, I will say that in the schedule proposed, the January date is moved back one week. So it's the 11th instead of the fourth when we have advertised online the fourth. So we did that because of concerns of people being out on vacation still. So that is one change from what was previously approved. So generally speaking, we're looking at second Tuesday for January, November, but first Tuesday, the other 10 months. And I can share my screen if people may have to see it. I would propose that we move back to July 5th, meeting a week. That's not a bad call. I could go ahead and choose a January date and I can add that for the 2023 just because our deadlines. So it looks like 2023 is January 3rd is the first Tuesday. So even tighter. So we can make that. Make it a 10. Our applications to middle deadlines are in November. So yeah, I'd be in favor of Andy's suggestion that we move July 5th to July 12th. And I'd also be in favor of going ahead and establishing January 10, 2023 as the first meeting of that year. Is this something we need to vote on or? Yes. Okay. And should we go ahead and vote or should we have a revised schedule printed up and vote on it next month? We should. If you're okay voting on it as amended it would be better for us to get it done this month. For planning purposes. Okay. And letting the public know because our deadlines are already upon us for the beginning of next year. Could you scroll up to the top real quick? So we've already got January 11 and can we scroll down to the bottom? Okay. So right now there isn't a January date for 2023. Right. We would be adding that. All right. Well, I'll go ahead and move to approve the draft schedule for the Durham Historic Preservation Commission's meetings in 2022 in the beginning of 2023 with two proposed adjustments. Strike July 5th, 2022 and substitute July 12th, 2022 and add to the list as our first meeting in 2023, January 10, 2023. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Wanda. And if we could have a roll call vote. Amanda. Chair Bouchard. Approved. Commissioner Dayan. Approved. Commissioner DeBarry. Approved. Vice Chair Gulsby. Approved. Commissioner Hamilton. Approved. Commissioner Waiters. Approved. All right. Motion passes six to zero. All right. That is the end of the agenda. Does anyone have anything to add? Yes, I do. I believe in the beginning of the meeting when the commissioners, you all voted on the, to approve the absence for Fieselman and Johnson, I had said that it passed five to zero. I believe I said that it's actually six to zero. No, I think that Gouldby could not vote at that point. No, sorry. No, he could. That was the second one. That was the second one. Yeah. I think excused absences were 6-0 for today and 5-0 for the next one. Last one. Yes. Yes. Correct. Thank you all. I think that's all we've got guys. I take the newsletters out the door now. Yes. You received some. It's in the homes and businesses of property owners. That's terrific. Received them in some of the districts, I know. Thanks to everyone who was involved and made that happen. We're going to get a little flurry of phone calls right after it's gone out. Carl, would you all print some extras for me to take to real estate offices? Sure, we can get that. Do you want us to mail you a small box of them? Could I just pick them up at the front desk of City Hall one day? Oh, probably. Yes. Just email me when they're ready and I'll come after. Great. I think that's it, everybody. Hope everyone has a great holiday coming up. Enjoy the beginning of college basketball. Enjoy the beginning of college basketball tonight. I know I'm looking forward to that. And we'll see everyone in December. Thank you. Thank you and happy Thanksgiving everyone. Bye. Bye, everyone.