all right Bridget you ready to go it's all good all right I'll Now call to order this regular meeting of the Jersey City Historic preservation commission it is April 15th 2024 the time is approximately 6:43 p.m. right please be advised in a ordance with the open public meetings act the notice of the time date in place of this regularly scheduled meeting of the Jersey City Historic preservation commission has been provided to the Jersey journal the Jersey City Reporter and Ellis pelito on Thursday April 11th same notice has been provided to the city clerk for posting on the bulletin board outside of the city clerk's office in City Hall and on the city website I have proof of this notice here and evidence if we wouldn't mind marking that as B1 okay we'll move to a roll call commissioner amuso present commissioner GGA here commissioner San Camp here commissioner Cronin present okay uh commissioner Gunther is absent commissioner Lewis is absent commissioner sakong is absent commissioner blazak is absent Vice chair gucciardo here and chairman Gordon present okay there are uh five affirmative votes are needed for a certificate of appropriateness there are six members of the Commission in attendance tonight all right prior to moving on to the next item on our agenda we do have two Commissioners to swear in after reappointments uh commissioner s camp and chairman Gordon usually we just stand up in our spots unless someone else wants to go somewhere else swear them in sure they got you don't need to standar swear I support support the constition United States United States and theti of the state of newy constitution of the state of newers I will Al I will bear true faith and aliance to the same the United States to the government established in the United States and in this St and in this state under the authority of the people under theor the authority of the people and that I will faithfully and I will faithfully and partially and justly perform and justly perform all the duties of a commissioner all the duties of a commissioner hisor preservation Commission histor preservation Commission of the city of jerse city of the city of Jersey City ACC toil to best of myability all right uh moving on on the agenda um we have the approval of minutes we do not have any minutes to approve at this meeting next item is correspondence all copies of Correspondence and application materials are linked on tonight's agenda um if you do not have those links available there's a little QR code over here that you could scan for the agenda and access it on your phone with the public Wi-Fi in the building um at this time staff has no announcements which leads us to open public comment um this is public comment for items not on tonight's agenda if you're here to speak on an item on the agenda we will open public comment for each of additional item individually so if there are any members of the public would like the to address the commission regarding matters of historic preservation you may approach the public comment mik okay staff sees no members of the public approaching the microphone and recommends a motion to open and close public comment motion to open and close second all in favor I I right the commission has no old business on tonight's agenda so that just brings us to new business Robert if you'd like to call the first case yes I'll call case h23 d207 this applicant is Anime stefanelli applicant on behalf of Tom paresi owner the address is 177 York Street which is an altered contributing transitional vernacular neog GRE italianate mixed use building built Circa 1890 this is in the Paulis hook historic district and this application is for a certificate of appropriateness for the installation of a mural on a stuckle wall at the property your right you the testimony you're about to given is proceeding will be the truth truth the truth I do and please State and spell your full name anime stefanelli a n n a capital M AE s t f n e l l i Perfect all right Anna you're welcome to begin whenever you would like okay good evening everyone it's a pleasure and an honor to be here to represent the olc school um my as you know my name is Anime stefanelli I was the principal of the olc school for 10 years retired 5 years ago just about 5 years ago and was asked to come out of retirement last year to be the acting principal for the principal who was pregnant so I was avilable so I um was more than willing to come back and join the community that's why I'm here tonight is because when I returned in the summer to transition a student from olc school came a former student came to us with an idea and that idea was to paint a mural on Mr pes's building now Tom and the olc school have been neighbors and friends he's been a friend of the school he's been a friend of the church for years so when we went to him with this idea he was happy to sign the the the approve or the agreement for us to sign to a paint so the school itself this is the side of the building at 1 uh 77 York street that side of the building faces the olc playground where the children play originally it was a parking lot and was then turned into the olc school playground it's a perfect uh uh easel for a mural um and there is where the student uh would like to paint this mural and I'm going to tell you all about melli although it was always an idea I had in my mind when I was principal I never really got around to bringing that forward but when I returned lo and behold um mly came to me with this drawing this is her um um image of what she would like to paint on that building now matii was a student at the olc school for pretty much all of her Elementary um career in education she is now um a student at McNair where she is a member of the mural Club so when she came to me with the idea and this is hers this is not o Elie's idea or Tommy's but her idea so she came to us with this rendering and uh asked us about uh which could she do it I don't you know she knew it would be a process but she just didn't know how long these are her words the idea for creating this mural came about through inspiration from the thriving mural culture of Jersey City as well as a host Hope from a former olc student to give back to the school Community this design was created to represent the backdrop of the school which is Jersey City but also New York City just across the river it depicts a scene close to many olc students playing in the field at recess on a Sunday sunny day while Lady Liberty watches over from close by the students at olc not only used the playground when I was there but also the field across the street which was a uh which both St Peter's prep and ooc school used in certain sections so that's what she's referring to there is the games that they played on the lower field and on the football field matii is a former o olc student now attending uh McNair High School she is the artist of the drawing I showed you she's a member of her M of a mural Club at McNair and she has already created with fellow students two murals which they have painted in the halls of Mcnair uh as well as they have a few more projects u in progress right now she's a very eager teenager teer eager to give back to her community and there are S I have samples of her work that she has done here's the club there is a mural behind them that they as a group uh created and painted in the hall here's a better picture of that nice now why did how did they get an idea to do turtles in a coral reef the science teacher went to them and asked asked if they would consider painting this mural in the Halls to represent something she's passionate about and that's you know reserving the reefs um and the in the wild and the life in in the ocean so the girls or the students I should say got together and created this and it is now at it can be seen at McNair this is another mural they did at the request of a special ed teacher it um to make people aware of autism and they use the color blue because of its connection to autism so that's a small piece of a larger mural that is in the Halls at um in the hall at um McNair what have we done at the school level is we have gone to the arch dases um of newk to to inform them about the project and they have approve the project to move forward they have given us the waivers that the parents would have to sign for the children to paint the mural on the side of uh Mr pes's building we plan on fundraising for the supplies there aren't many and they're not too expensive um for to help the uh the students um paint the mural we project that if this all goes well that during this summer um the club will paint the mural and we would be able to have a ribbon cutting ceremony in the fall I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and speak about it I thank Maggie for her help in getting through um the process and Lisa too I thank Tommy for always being a friend and giving us permission and mailly who has a special place in our heart for allc but as you can see it's bigger than that it's Jersey City it's her high school and it's Jersey City I thank oie for allowing me to come here here today to represent them with I end with the the drawing that I find um so appealing I hope you do too do you have any questions just a well a comment first of all that um the mural Club has apparently done some very beautiful work so I was very impressed by the the samples that you shared with us um question is um this rendering or um example that you've provided that's going to be painted on the side of the building is it going to are they going to be painting this exactly or is this more a concept no uh from the students um explanation to us at the school is that that will be the exact drawing she has looked at the building and you can see the side of the building has big squares so she has measured it out to as to how which part of that drawing will go into each section um we realized that because of the wiring that's on the side of that building that the it would have to be above the wiring so um she we she did that those measurements and would be prepared to turn that into into sections so that it comes out looking that like that and it's not going to it's going to be centered if you look at the building there are many squares she's going to center it in leaving borders on the side I put that white border around uh just for it to pop but um uh it's actually without the Border okay just as I'm standing here I realize that's my addition not hers um the only other thing I would want to mention is that Tommy asked uh whether we could in one of those clouds um put his son's name who is deceased um and um certainly with the permission uh we would add that he would be happy to see that in the uh do you have the dimensions of the mural oh jeez I'm sorry um I if I can step in um they were submitted with the application for application materials and it is um 15 by5 thank you feet to CL ft by 5T yes that doesn't mean 15 okay I'm sorry could you just clarify that Maggie the size 15 ft by 5 ft would be a long narrow strip right it would be so 15t I'm assuming high right to go on the side of the building and 5T wide it might end I'm looking at this now it likely will end up being a little bit wider right because it's actually a square almost a square but I don't I staff's opinion is that we'll get to staff comments but like it's not going to exceed the stco area of the wall it's not very large okay any additional questions all right anything you want to add Anna are you just thank you so much for allowing me to come today it's happy to have you be back to Jersey City I miss it um and it's a pleasure to represent this student who I'm so proud of because she was a student there when I was principal thank you so much and have a wonderful evening okay are there any members of the public who would like to provide comment on this application if so uh you can approach the public comment mic right staff sees no members of the public present and recommends a motion to open and close public comment mot motion second all in favor I I okay we can move to staff comments um I cannot put up the staff report on the screen right now but you all have access to it and I will read staff recommendations and comments into the record um the first is I do want to just read the We There is um exactly one standard for mural review in supplementary Zoning for the HPC so I do just want to read it into the record murals proposed to be adhered to buildings or structures located within a designated historic district shall be referred to the Jersey City Historic preservation commission for review and recommendation prior to installation such review recommendations shall be limited to the size of the installation Andor the appropriateness of the structure for the placement of Art and shall shall not be content based so in this case the HPC is reviewing if the um proposed wall that the mural is going on is an appropriate place to put a mural not necessarily what the mural looks like although it looks lovely um so in this case um it's a stucco wall on the side of a building stucco can take paint the stucco will not be harmed by the application of paint um that is certainly not the original historic material of the building either so staff sees no adverse impact to approving the location and size of this mural um the size of the mural is pretty consistent with what we see throughout the city if not on the smaller side um so we do recommend um approval of the certificate of appropriateness for this mural um we do have some conditions that we recommend adopting as well um again because I can't put the staff report up I will read them into the record um the conditions that we're recommending is that the approval does not include the installation of any uh additional exterior and oror signage lighting so no mural lights um the proposed mural shall comply with any and all zoning regulation and ordinances just our catch all cover there um and any changes or deviations from the approved mural dimensions and installation area are to be submitted to HPC staff prior to work beginning depending on the degree of change or deviation addition or review by the HPC may be required so if suddenly the mural is going to be 20 x 15 we we would like to know um and then that this certificate only approves the work applied for under the application that this certificate only approves work applied for under this application so again no interior work as a result of this improval right any questions from Commissioners no okay if not again the recommendation is to approve with conditions I'll make a motion to approve with conditions second okay we do a roll call vote commissioner amuso I commissioner GGA I commissioner samp I uh commissioner Cronin I commissioner Gunther is absent Comm commissioner Lewis is absent commissioner sakong is absent commissioner blazak is absent Vice chair gucciardo I and chairman Gordan I okay there are six votes in favor none against with no abstentions the COA and recommendation for approval passes thank you Miss stefanelli yeah I will now call uh the next matter which is the historic preservation master plan element presentation of final draft plan plan for recommendation to the planning board the presenters are San chaven aicp PP h2m Consulting and Siri Olsen with eastn Architects good evening please bear with us till we um get this started sorry about that I have question I don't think we did the but I don't remember they're giving testimony it's the board's history okay I can go first as you set up right hand SW do you swear or affirm the testimony your BS given is proceeding will be the truth the whole truth about the truth yes I do and if you could State and spell your full name for the Siri Olen s i r i o l s o n was the uh o l s o n HDM yeah I do I think yep just we to go busy desktop okay wonderful you raise your right hand sure you swear orir the testimony this proceeding will be the yes I do um it's Sita n y o g i t a the last name is t as an Tom a as an apple last name is chaan c h a v a n from H to M so uh good evening so good evening my name is Senita chaan from h2m and I'm joined by Siri Olsen from Eastern Architects and we'll be presenting the plan um together um so before we begin I just wanted to give an overview as to what are the statutory requirements for historic preservation uh Master plans and as you all um are aware where the municipal land use law sets forth the different plan elements that a municipality can adopt which forms like a a policy framework um to adopt ordinances and this particular element provides a policy guide for the protection of the city's historic resources and um districts um the M Municipal land use law stipulates what a historic preservation master plan element uh should uh contain and um these are the three things that are specifically mentioned in the land use law um one is to indicate the location and significance of historic sites and districts to identify the standards used to assess worthiness and to analyze the impact of each component and element of the master plan on the preservation of historic districts and sites so in simple words that the historic district um historic preservation master plan element is not prepared in a silo but it should be consistent with what's written in the land use plan and other uh Municipal master plan elements uh why does one what are the benefits of having a historic uh preservation as we all know that modern development replaces existing buildings they end up looking uh the same and more and more uh places um look look identical to each other so therefore it's very important for communities to keep the ident their identities intact and in fact even one or two striking historic buildings can uh Define a community and provide a link to his to his past and then when its entire neighborhoods are preserved then the impact is even greater and um the other benefit of historic preservation as we all know here is they often centers of Tourism and commerce uh that draw Regional populations and um in fact the New Jersey historic trust conducted a study which said uh which revealed that for every 1 million dollar invested in preservation of New Jersey residential Historic District 25 new jobs and $1.1 million in economic activity are generated at the state level and then those uh increased to 75 jobs and $2.5 million uh on a national level so to we here today to present the draft historic preservation plan but we also had um extensive public Workshop we had an online survey but we also had a in in person Workshop which was a first Workshop um almost a year ago 11 months ago and and this was the first meeting to obtain input from the members of the public and it began with a short presentation an interactive session to get input from the members of the public we encourag the participants to express their opinions ideas ask us questions and state their concerns and um we everything is in detail and an appendix with the reporter has been included but I'm just summarizing uh the main points here so the participants mentioned the importance um and praise parks and Street Scapes uh U dissatisfaction was expressed with new construction and historic district and rooftop additions historic preservation requirements um can be too restrictive in some areas as uh some members of the public Express that ume it they express to preserve Green Space and to discourage Paving for environmental and last scale development um then to there was a support for reuse of interior spaces while maintaining the historic elements of the exterior so adaptive reuse and increased designation for historic properties to discourage demolition of older homes um we had after that on 27th of July we had a second public meeting and in that what we did was um it again began with a short presentation and then halfway uh we broke into sessions after the presentation then halfway through the workshop it transitioned into breakout sessions where attendees were encouraged to offer additional um feedback and learn more about future and exhaust uh existing historic sites and districts as well as potential historic preservation treatments and then the workshop wrapped up with the final segment where um h2m and Eastern architects and I and the town staff um City staff and attendees reconvened to discuss potential recommendations that may be included into the uh plan we had a third stakeholder meeting which was held virtually um and during the workshop um again we had breakout sessions to um enable obtaining greater feedback from the participants and delving into spefic specifics about what they would like to see in their areas of the city so I'm going to pass on to Siri thank you s so one of the main components of a preservation element is an inventory of historic resources and so one thing that was particularly evident coming out of the public Workshops the stakeholder meetings and working with the city staff generally engaging with this topic is that Jersey city has a large number of potential uh historic resources some of which have been recognized or designated and some of which hadn't been looked at in a in a while so as you know there are many many properties in Jersey City to be considering so a master plan element update is an opportunity to look in a broad sense at developing kind of an inventory and assessment of those potential historic resources and themes so the last inventory on this broad scale was conducted in the 1980s and so that was really one of the primary starting points for the inventory update was looking at that categorizing those informations the findings from the different phases of that inventory and looking at what it was covered and was looking at change over time particularly so a historic resource inventory broadly really outlines kind of a list of potential individual historic resources and potential uh historic districts for areas that might be eligible for local designation or listing on the state and National registers and this is where we want to do you know an important difference between those two levels of designation because they work together but have different levels of protection and the public workshops were a great opportunity for providing a lot of public education about that so as I'm sure you all familiar listing on this New Jersey and National registers um can help make you eligible for certain funding sources but it doesn't restrict uh the property rights of the owner uh it doesn't come to you for review it has different levels of protection but is largely honorific or as local designation offers the greatest level of protection and review really only occurs when projects are proposed and they come to you so one thing that was really important throughout this process was education about inclusion in the inventory does not AC we to designation it's really about developing a broad inventory sense and upto-date Foundation of information that helps the HPC the city staff and the planning board be involved in uh consultation for potential projects and in development projects in the future in accordance with this Municipal land use law so some of our findings were particularly that many of the buildings that had been assessed in the 1980s survey did still remain and were exent and on you know in a windshield sense in a very broad sense had retained many of their historic characteristics and that there were a lot of neighborhoods where there was still a lot of intact historic character um that had been that was of potential significance we had we did find that there had been a number of demolitions and change over time and some areas that naturally would have seen a lot of change but it was an opportunity to look on a very broad scale at those places but then primarily with a lot of the public input uh information you know there are many many opportunities that exists to protect and expand the themes and areas that can be considered potentially significant for the city with a view towards formal designation or protection using some other kind of preservation tool so we were also just able to update the existing information about how the city has five historic districts currently potentially a sixth pending and 14 locally designated landmarks and the city has 35 listings in the state and National register of historic places which are areas that have been recognized but also have the potential for future designation so again the inventory was a really great way to assess what is there update the information that's available particularly to the the city's preservation staff and their planning department and the information that they're working with and then to add um areas that were larger areas and neighborhoods that were in of interest to the public and also brought in some of the themes and historic contextual themes that could be added and considered for future study and by which properties or certain areas might be able to be nominated for for designation thank you cie so um as we mentioned that we had um public uh engagement M sessions to get input from the members of the public um we also uh looked into identifying the historic um uh resources in the in the city uh to prepare a master plan element um it's also equally important to look at what the issues and existing conditions are so um that enables us to set forth the goals uh objectives and recommendations so so um again from page 31 onwards it's described in detail I'm summarizing right here so we reviewed what the development Trends are and um you know one of the overarching uh theme is that um demolition leads to destruction of historic homes and um the a historic preservation master plan enables the town to protect its historic resources and assets um having an inventory is one step towards that local designation adopting we have ordinances but perhaps augmenting them um so this provides that policy framework and um you know there's been a rapid growth following the 2008 recession and um it's described in detail in the plan but um also uh What uh The Next Step was also a decrease in affordable housing because a lot of multiun unit um buildings were converted into uh one unit buildings um so as a result of this there's been a loss of units in certain neighborhoods and a decrease in affordability as uh larger units are more expensive as compared to smaller ones um then uh significant immigration population immigrant population with unique cultural heritage that was identified in the theat Thematic nominations uh uh then most importantly historic preservation and economic development they go hand inand um now Redevelopment is a tool that can C cat catalyze economic growth by creating Innovative and attractive housing commercial open spaces and um Jersey City uh has re Redevelopment uh areas um close to Historic preservation and has continued to balance uh Preserve preserving areas uh historic properties assets while still allowing development and should continue to do so um given the uh fact that it it's a waterfront city um we found about 12 historic landmarks and districts that fall within areas that are identified at risk of flooding so it's also equally important to uh prepare and adapt uh historic buildings and structures to withstand and quickly recover from natural hazards while maintaining the historic uh inventory so we conducted that analysis um and then um put our heads together which culminated into the next step uh oops um which are the goals and um these are the six seven goals that uh six goals that are set forth um one of which was to balance new development in the city with the preservation of historic buildings and districts to ensure the continued preservation of uh historic districts and buildings and to promote the city's rich and diverse histo history and assets and we're talking about the Thematic nomination that um uh We've um mention in the plan to encourage the use of historic preservation tools and incentives to advance housing goals and to promote sustainability and resiliency in historic preservation regulations and to encourage AG adaptive reuse of historic assets um now uh again all the analysis that was conducted finally culminated into these recommendations and we have them we put fourth in subcategory so under the general category um o it was to seek U the CLG designation um through the uh State historic preserv ation office um we also um recommended establishing a program to provide incentives such as rehab tax uh abatements through designation of area need of re Rehabilitation uh through the uh local Redevelopment and Housing law um to improve signage for historic districts so it's um Place making so um if you will to increase staff due to potential increase in historic designation to explore the potential to utilize historic preservation easements and to conduct Research into the cities African-American history to explore the possibility of developing an African-American history Trail to conduct research to highlight the impact of immigrants immigrant groups to the uh to Jersey City um to educate owners of historic properties of application process and design guidelines because um really informing the members of public um is very essential to be successful uh to implement any kind of uh historic preservation program um then in terms of recommendation for the local state and National listing to codify criteria for local designation to consider the expansion of the H historic district along uh the boundaries of the districts and to review existing monuments statutes and uh statues and memorial for potential local historic designation to explore designation eligibility of specific historic district that Siri just mentioned um and then to increase awareness of historic districts and properties within the city and public Outreach is of course very important in anticipation of and during the designation uh process um and then we specif would you like to sure yeah we just in our recommendations in the synthesis sort of of what's included in the plan we wanted to highlight specific properties that um that came up in the specific research that came up you know either several times or with numerous kind of um mentions in the public comment or Explorations and discussions um of looking at past research and other subsequent studies that have been done since the 1980s um so that included the Hilton Holden house at 7 and Clifton Place a lot of interest and support in terms of historic districts in the Bergen Hill area the communal offet um and as well as um conducting additional research and further in-depth survey to support uh potential historic districts um in the Sherwood Claremont historic district uh so one thing that I wanted to kind of highlight here as well is that an inventory and historic preservation element really provides you with an excellent Foundation for future specific study and particularly um applying for Grants or indepth architectural studies that provide the level of detail necessary to refin boundaries refined areas and definitions of significance to really conduct that deep dive that doesn't happen at a master plan level this is your sort of enabling step to really look at specific areas and areas of interest but to provide you with a pretty broad uh foundation for conducting many different specifics at once so while we highlight specific ones it's also important to remember that the inventory doesn't preclude any property from having potential significance or being recognized as such it's just a way of having a lot of upto-date and comprehensive information and providing a starting point for that further study thank you so uh the next step is recommendation in terms of Regulation and um as uh I we mentioned this historic preservation plan element serves as a policy guide um so one of the things U and also in during the review of um the existing conditions and the fact that there are few um areas that are prone to flooding uh what we're recommending is to update existing guidelines to provide specific standards to incorporate Sustainable Building designs and and it's equally important to also communicate funding sources because it shouldn't be just be daunting that you put these um recommendations but it's important to know what funding uh sources are available as well um to investigate the potential to allow for an increase in increase in permitted height uh to account for the blood uh base flood elevation uh which are located in the femar or or FEMA or NDP designated flood plane um um then uh to also consider incorporating the department of interior's guidelines on flood adaption uh adaption for Rehab rehabilitating historic buildings um to incorporate standards um for for those buildings that are located in identified flood Hazard areas to create standards for adaptive reuse and to update guidelines to incorporate flexibility in preservation treatments to allow for more modern materials to be utilized but that continue to maintain the historic uh character so um we also um upon review of um the existing ordinance we are recommending to separate the design guidelines within the historic preservation to create two separate policy documents and um these tools are complimentary but recommended to be individually adopted uh documents we also uh recommended to consider uh increasing the maximum permitted density in the H historic uh Zone District but of course continue to maintain the existing bulk so that allows to include smaller units um which goes back to the point we noticed about how uh units were getting Consolidated to have larger um you know multiple units were getting Consolidated to have single units um we were also we also recommended to consider amending the rear setback to be based on a percentage of the lot dep depth rather than a set distance to account for lots that do not meet the minimum lot depth requirement um we're recommending to incorporate design standards in Redevelopment plans uh that are adjacent to established historic districts to continue to maintain the character of the area um also uh we are recommending to consider amending the city's demolition ordinance to discourage demolition by neglect and to implement enforcable standards of proof and to incorporate historic district transition areas as part of the zoning code to ensure compatibility with historic districts so the next step after tonight's meeting would be to present the plan and to the planning board for adoption on May 7th 2024 and this is it with our presentation uh opening um to for questions or comments do any Commissioners have any questions that was a lot of information we covered at once but I'm sure San or Siri would be willing to flip back to any other parts of the slideshow if there's something you needed to look at in order to formulate a question I think it might be helpful if um if the witnesses could put the the recommendations back up sure there are yeah there are a couple different pages of recommendations yeah so yeah we can also start at the beginning and kind of talk through anything sure have so if in the plan the recommendations are put in a matrix format towards the end um I believe it's page 54 onwards and what we have tried to do here is um include in that the time frame of that recommendation the implementing party and what plan element goal it forwards so that way everyone can understand and then also whether it's completed or not and the year that's completed so our goal with this Matrix is that for um Maggie's uh group to continue um tan and Maggie's group to continue to check if um it's been implemented or not and it's a good resource for the planning board for the historic preservation commission um this is going to be um our goal here is to not make it a self shelf document but the fact that you can Implement these uh strategies and these um recommendations are all um put together from our analysis since the past year I think we P kicked off the project um a little over a year ago and actually a year ago we went on a first field visit with the uh City staff so we've there's a lot of thought that went into this and we tried to make it as concise in the 58 pages did you have question could you just um tell us what the what a historic preservation easement would entail yeah so um a a preservation easement or a conservation easement is um a a separate tool from something like designation where it's essentially an agreement that goes with the deed of the property so it's a an agreement that the property owner enters into with um a an entity that's receiving the conservation easement and it's essentially they often it's used especially in New Jersey um in terms of receiving grants um where it's the property owner agreeing to preserve like exterior elements of the facade or agreeing to certain preservation restrictions that are placed on the property and that run with the property as it goes and in return either they receive funding or often in cases um if it's not a grant-funded project in fact it it ends up sort of lowering the tax value of the property so it can uh be assessed you know can be kind of seen as a um a negative in some ways so it can lower the assessed value of the property so it there's a a savings that's a tradeoff for preservation restrictions so often uh there are like nonprofit or advocacy groups that hold the easements that enter into these um agreements with the property owners The National Trust for historic preservation uh has an easement program uh the New Jersey historic trust also has an easement program and during this process we found a handful of municipalities that have worked with the trust and operate their own easement programs um but it is a um it's a tool that can often sort of be underutilized but it's a a property by property way of U maintaining usually exterior preservation features um kind of imp perpetuity so why would you pursue the easement path rather than local designation or would you do those simultaneously they can be done simultaneously it's usually um uh it can be a historic property owner's preference um it doesn't have the same amount of Regulation that a easement proper I guess it can depend on the program and the agreement you make but an easement property and proposed changes wouldn't necessarily come before you they wouldn't necessarily be protected or covered by your ordinance in the way that the local designation would so oftentimes it can be a tool if it's a single property owner and maybe there was a proposed historic district that didn't go through or only they're interested in it or they have this grant for another rehabilit a project maybe they um maybe it's going I'm thinking of like if there's a larger adaptive reuse project um that is receiving grant funding it provides these preservation restrictions which is sort of a separate process then that would not go through the nomination process that you would see for local designation but they are non mutually exclusive you can have you can have both um if I could interject so there are a very small handful of building downtown heavily concentrated in vanor park that have easements held by a nonprofit in Philly um they are facade easements my understanding is they've been in place since prior to local designation so like I think they I think they've been in place since like 1979 or something like that um and at the time they got a tax write off for the value of their facade so a onetime tax deduction for their taxes that one year and every once in a while I get a letter from that nonprofit in Philly saying we sent someone up there and it looks like this property owner is not maintaining this um we're just letting you know that we're going to yell at them and the property owner generally has to meet the standards of that easement um it is nice because it does run in perpetuity with the deed um but objectively there is nothing we can do from a local level regarding that easement it like Siri said it's just another tool that people can use and it's equally important to know that from a master plan point of view having me having these different tools um in the plan allows the city to implement what they think is most suitable because it's not a one-size fit all like um Magi said there just few properties so uh you know those it would work for a few properties it may not work for all the properties so but of course that it's not to be used it's not mutually exclusive from a local designation I have a couple of questions um can you explain how um recommending an increase in density is a historic preservation issue it's not a historic preservation issue per se it is but it is a part of when they buildings in a historic district it's a zoning issue uh but it's not you know historic preservation is one aspect but these buildings also have an underlying zoning and we actually provided an explanation of what that increased density really means um in on page 45 we've um spoken about you know what basically the way the current ordinance reads that a maximum density and a maximum lot size restrict a townhouse building to no more than three units right so what we are saying is should it be feasible and that's something when they actually should the uh governing body decide to adopt an ordinance there'll be an when you write the ordinance if if it's a feasible option then it's worth taking uh a look at without trying to change what the bulk requirements are in the zone District but my question is how is that a historic preservation issue it sounds like you know an issue about creating more available properties but I'm not sure how how that's a historic preservation recommendation because it it is a historic preservation recommendation because we're talking about um zones which it's the it's the zoning District in an historic how do I put this more clearly oh let me maybe if I maybe I can add something to my question so hearing cases as a commissioner over time right um there are there's always an interest in creating more units out of the same building either by adding extensions on it or trying to increase the height doing full height extensions at the rear of the building and all of those are become difficult when you're trying to preserve the original building and all of its historic assets so often increased density from my perspective puts more pressure on the historic resource to go along with that you're also recommending possibly a change in uh property uh of depth of what can be built on a property and this is another area where we have a lot of difficulty because some Commissioners would believe that the interior spaces the areas behind the building those areas of open space that different neighbors share is greatly impacted by uh buildings that choose to use the maximum depth that's currently allowed which is 70% coverage has tremendous impact on the historic structures and historic settings so I'm kind of questioning uh the the appropriateness of adding density and increasing uh you know footprints on these properties we're not we're not talking about increasing Footprints what we're trying to say is that you know if in on page 45 we actually tried to explain that um you know what has been happening and what we've observed is that multiunit buildings are now being Consolidated into larger units which has made it lose the affordability of these housing units and what we are seeing is that um you know in newer buildings that are in alignment with the historic um units we we are saying that to give the ability to have more units within that and that's that's the only goal we're not trying to overdevelop any historic uh building that's not the that's not what the intent of uh this recommendation is right and I provide some context from a staff perspective as well so as we were developing this plan right we Siri and S spent a significant amount of time looking at the data that we provided them on our applications year-over-year um and as the board is very well familiar with we see a lot of applications that are recommendations to planning board and Zoning Board um when we look at the variances that are applied for within the H zone so let's let's take the historic district out of it we have the hzone which is the underlying Zoning for all of the downtown historic districts which is what their recom the the recommendations are talking about is that H Zone rather than historic districts as a whole the two most common variances we see requested and the two most common variances that the board grants are density and rear yard setback so from my perspective the recommendation that they are suggesting be adopted as part of this master plan is really more of a corrective zoning right we are constantly seeing um people and when we say like a percentage setback it's actually something that the city adopted in almost every Z every Zone except for RH every Zone except for the H Zone cuz we knew that this was coming up and we didn't want to jump the gun um so that percentage sent back would look something like uh we have the uh minimum lot size lot depth in a historic district is 100 ft there are so many Lots so many Lots downtown that are 70 ft and people come in and a 30ft reared setback on a 70ft property looks a lot different than what is most commonly constructed there right so this would just be a percentage which is how frankly the board does the rear yard setbacks and undersiz lots anyway we constantly see people coming in looking for a rear yard setback variance because they are it's a 70ft deep lot they are proposing a rear yard setback that is 23 ft so a little bit over 30% um but it's still under what we would require so that's frankly the recommendation here just corrects the zoning to be something that the commission already does on a regular basis and for it to reflect the rest the zoning in the rest of the city so could it possibly affect on a 100 foot lot uh a More than 70% uh lot coverage no okay only if we chose to adopt something less than 30% right so that they the you'll see in both the um the recommendations for both density here and um the way we calculate rear yard setback which are the only two bulk standard changes that recommending we look at um they don't Define what that number should be for either because it is this is the purpose of the master plan is to make guidance that we should look at something and then we'll do an internal study to figure out what that best number is in our case I can't see us doing anything less than 30% right that's a 30ft reared setback on a 100 foot lot that's a minimum 21 foot setback on a 70ft lot it's something that again the commission regularly approves and it matches what what we've already done but we only approve it because it's the current you know we we're we're we have to be guided by what what we're given we're given 70% I mean sometimes 70% is it doesn't feel appropriate right right and we it's something that we have told applicants in the past but the bulk standards are a maximum not the only thing you're allowed to do right and that's something that we have told applicants in the past when they come in and they're like or I'm sorry maybe not you guys at the staff level I have this conversation all the time when people come in with a rear addition and it's full width of the building full height and I say well no one else on this block has full width full height everyone else either has a half width full height or full width but it's only two stories we're not recommending this unless you match one of the existing conditions and that part wouldn't change okay and could you shed any light on number of units in terms of density without increasing bulk staff position I mean and that's just that's something that we see on a regular basis at the commission the right now A conforming lot in the historic district so 18 ft wide 100t deep would be three units right and that I mean first of all historically right just historically in the historic districts way more dense way they used to be way way more dense than they are now right um for a variety of reasons mostly I mean not just cuz units were smaller back then but also because we've seen people dramatically down um downsize their zoning and make it one unit um I mean my in From staff's perspective I think a reasonable density here I mean I don't know the numbers but right in theory I'd like an opportunity for us to do one unit per floor on an 18 by lot right now it's three units per floor which leads to these massive unit sizes right if if you have 18 by 100 you're looking at like a 12200 ft unit that's two bedrooms or three bed like but that's the most common unit unit unit size for the that the HPC sees is a two-bedroom 1200t apartment which is huge by increasing the density slightly and I say slightly because it would be slightly we could bring that unit size down a little bit right I think a th000 square foot unit is still for two bedrooms is still pretty big it's I mean way bigger than any apartment I've ever had um and get an extra unit in there and again that's something that the commission frequently and they've re you guys have recommended in the past they they're not giving us a number here I'm giving you a number now right but that is something that is flexible would be none of this would be decided you know on a whim any ordinance change requires a host of public meetings um we've been doing them for other parts of the city for the past couple of years that would not change I know Tanya and Matt spent a considerable amount of time doing neighborhood walks and public meetings in City Hall and public meetings in this room um none of that would change it would all be a collaborative process to figure out what those best numbers are for us they're just making the recommendation that we should look at it Maggie just for the record a 12200 foot two-bedroom when you have kids is not huge I don't think any size house feels huge when you have children uh I had a thought about that as well um um if the density bonus could be just directed toward historic buildings in the historic district not to any lot it would also help prevent demolitions by neglect if you could I don't know if it's if is that targetable can we do that legally just give it to a historic building that's not something that a master plan would that's something to be really tweaked in the process when actually writing um I've I've used density bonuses um in when I wrote ordinance for other towns where it was like a conservation to make people conserve areas and have uh cluster zoning you could do that um but I what we are trying to do is provide a framework um so that um the city staff can then prepare the appropriate ordinances for What would would be because any kind of zoning any kind of development should be by zoning and not variance and when there is a lot of variances that are granted it's time to go back and uh rewrite the ordinance or tweak the ordinance and that's what this master plan recommendation does right um where I go with that is I think that the carrot Works a little bit better than the stick sometimes I mean you were talking about uh demolition by neglect and the demolition by neglect portion here and you're talking about how um other cities have implemented that well and put penalties um I'm not sure penalties would work here people will leave buildings vacant they'll don't do nothing to the building for years here because the property underlying the building is so valuable and it continues to increase in value so I'm not sure that that penalty would work unless it was a massive penalty and I think um you need a sort of a carrot situation um if if that building gets demolished and then subsequently they can put a much larger much bulkier building with many more units in it they'll do it we've we've observed it for many years so just a another staff Amendment here um the concept of targeting only historic resources in terms of a density bonus is something that we do in other zones in the city um as part of the R1 amendments last year um we wrote into that into those amendments that if you're in the R1 Zone um and you are denied a demolition permit for historic significance you can choose to rehabilitate the building to the Secretary of the Interior standards and receive a density bonus as a result of that it's a conditional use so it still goes to the planning board we wrote in some design standards to reflect um what Secretary of the Interior looks like you know broadly you know using contextual materials of the period things like that um so it's something we've done in other zones that we could probably figure out in a historic district as well becomes a little bit tricky when you have uh districts as old as ours where um the because they're an older district and they were done many many many years ago the nomination forms and the distinction between contributing versus non-contributing is not as clear that makes it a little bit trickier but we could figure something out so as we're taking this Slide by slide there there are two bullet points that I wanted to ask about on this particular slide um one is the certified local government designation I know Maggie this is something you've talked about for years and one of the things we needed to do to accomplish that was to have uh official minutes for I forget what the length of time was one year and I believe we're well beyond that now so what what other boxes do we need to tick to accomplish that one paperwork um and a resolution at city council all right easy peasy yeah that'd be an easy thing to check off the action plan with a short time frame and it's something I would very much like to check off because if once we get clg's uh designation that opens up funding opportunities for some of these other things on the list all right and the other one I wanted to ask about was there's a bullet point here about um researching The Jersey City African-American history and then there 's another one about the impact of immigrant groups and referring to the report on pages 13 and 24 and 25 uh when you look at the um immigrants in Jersey City it specifically refers to Puerto Rican and Filipino immigrants and the impact they've had on Jersey City I was just wondering if there are any other I'll call them Affinity groups that were considered as also being uh worthy of consideration in the plan so I think every these are highlights is certainly not to assign any level of worthiness I would say to to any you know to group that could you know there that's why we were really trying to really bring home the bigger point of expanding sort of cultural and thematic definitions or the idea of a definition of um evaluating significance providing expanded Frameworks so those were particular um groups that came up and were very vocal during the public outreach program so or uh you know workshops and participation periods so that's really what what drove that um but it's exact really the big picture emphasis here is expanding underrepresented communities and histories in formal these sort of formal and established preservation tools basically designation and listing so we highlighted them based on the public input that we got and certain places that were um and members of the community that were able to highlight you know specific Properties or streets or locations or something that was a really a built resource that is a place to start or built areas of the city so it is by no means precluding any other group um from from being recognized on in this sort of inventory or official designation capacity and just to add to that and we recognize that that we are identifying just these two groups when there are other groups as well and it's increasing uh you know um and that's why we ended that section on page 25 saying that this is just a few themes that were um that were discussed and the list is not exhaustive but it just provides a framework for the city to move forward so all right thank you we want to go to the next slide we can look at those sure any questions I know we talked about some of these previously but in the interest of going Side by slide on the recommendations to make sure there are any questions or anything anyone wants to discuss or have clarified if not we can move on to the next slide thank you c i got this is most specific um again any questions happy to answer so in terms of inventory if something's not on your recommend recommended list it doesn't necessarily exclude its potential for becoming uh a city Landmark correct correct okay yeah the if something's not on the inventory that we want to designate we just add it to the inventory through um a what's called a reexamination process of the master plan we actually did one in the winter 2022 to add Sherman Place um that identified district and we also did it in 2015 to add West Bergen um so it is it's a relatively simple process where we internally prepare a report um get and the reports on what we're adding to the inventory it's presented to the HPC for recommendation to the planning board so for example if if uh Reservoir three for that matter which people have always talked about becoming Historic Landmark never quite happened right or possibly portions of the Bergen arches or that's something we can introduce at a later date correct um I will just say Reservoir 3 is State and National register and it's in the inventory for local okay great thank you but that's an excellent question thank you that's a really important distinction well it's hard you have to frame this properly if you're thinking if it's not here well then it's out that's that makes us a little bit more nervous knowing that there are other possibilities still available to us makes a big difference y absolutely and as time passes by um resources that might you know be may may qualify so the you as Maggie said through the re-exam process you can include more but I would say that we've tried very hard to give a very exhaustive list it's exhaustive but that certainly doesn't mean that identification isn't an ongoing an iterative process I think my last question was about modern materials um there's a couple of mentions of um you mentioned modern technology at one point incorporating that into historic preservation and you mentioned um use of modern materials that's something I'm sure the commission's interested in because we're challenged by that on certain buildings where the materials that are required are no longer maybe even available either available or you know in certain large um uh Office Buildings where Windows large wood windows were used before maybe they can no long they're not even functional in the current materials in the way that they're made so we're did you recommend anything specific or just a consideration of introducing that yes I see because it's much better to leave it open-ended okay yeah the um um doign the recommendation of appropriate or not appropriate modern materials or replacement alternative materials is too specific and not appropriate for the master plan aspect that would come into a design guidelines update or development process which would be again a process that would go through public comment could be eligible for CLG funding right um and that would be your opportunity to investigate specific instances specific materials specific conditions for approval of modern materials all those instances um so including it in the master plan sets the groundwork for you within you know the long short medium long term to say it's time for us to update our guidelines we want to look at that specificity certainly needs to be looked at yeah can I move on so so this this slide brings to mind for me uh an application that we're still currently res wrestling with where the property is dealing with issues of flooding as well as security and you know the commission had extensive discussion internally and and with the applicant about reaching the right sort of balance to ensure historic preservation without you know throwing the baby out with the bath water and and potentially allowing the property to be damaged by climate change or to be unusable due to security threats so so uh I wonder if there's any way that we could update our ordinance to better account for those legitimate concerns that directly impact the functionality and usability and whether that property can be preserved we actually we are providing recommendations um in the plan if you look at page 36 37 uh we are we are talking about what um the Secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation are um and that's again provides a a framework uh for the city to um update the uh standards and that also goes back um you know a lot of towns uh in New Jersey uh Shore communities who are hit by Sandy hit by um storms um have the height increase which is one way is about the BF so that's one commonly adopted mechanism that uh municipalities in the state have adopted but that's one but we are also recommending others um for the town to ex uh for the city to examine so um and they are very clearly given by the uh Secretary of interior um guideline the there that book um that describes it in great detail yeah so you you know you specifically talk about the permitted height um I think there different measures that depending on the specific circumstances there might be other measures apart from that that might be appropriate that could detract from the you know that could harm the historic fabric to some degree or another but could be integral in preserving the property so I think my understanding is that the ordinance is currently constituted doesn't make any allowance for that I does it I don't believe it does I don't remember the top of my head in this specific instance our ordinance so our ordinance does have some leeway that we have used in the past for sustainability measures like the most common one we see are things like solar panels which we review as a utilitarian and mechanical installation on a rooftop so you guys don't see them usually you see all rooftop installations especially when they're additions or Leisure space but we count those we count solar panels kind of similarly to like a air conditioning compressor um and we're able to do it that way other installations like the one you're referencing really don't they don't comfortably fit in any place in our ordinance um they are like quite literally counted as an addition to the building and and that's the issue I don't know that I think we're kind of tying one hand behind our back if we try to carve out specific methods of addressing climate change especially because we don't know how things are going to play out in the next couple of years little Al decades and so there may be introduction of and development of new technologies um you know new best practices and I think we need to be flexible in adopting those and so maybe one of the ways of doing that would be to Simply um make the preserving the property and preserving and protecting it from these flood events and other catastrophic um weather issues a consideration just one factor for us to balance against others um and that would give us some additional flexibility so long as there's some guard rails in place and general guidelines so it's it's just a thought at this point I we and we I understood and we also are looking at it more from a you know 100 foot above um there are other ways you could do that you know in older cities most of the times the flooding is due to stor water management or having a higher percentage of impervious surface coverage so when we talk about um have incorporation of sustainable buildings design what we went into detail in the master plan is options of a green roof options of having you know when you're talking about uh best management practices the D St AO management regulations from 2005 until now have changed drastically over the years and they will always overrule any local ordinance so but from our end when it comes to preserving historic preservation what are the different mechanisms that the town uh can adopt one of which is these are the guidelines based on that guidelines um look into uh having specific standards that apply to Jersey C so that's the whole goal uh behind this recommendation and these recommendations sometimes uh tie um into each uh other like for example having Sustainable Building designs or having green infrastructure so that was the thought process when we put in these recommendations and to add to that that the master plan element is really an opportunity for expressing preservation opportunities and challenges and sort of expressing what could be accomplished in the future so this is an like this this is exactly the expression to say this is a challenge that's facing Jersey City and more specific you know guidelines or parameters and Direction but also flexibility given these considerations flexibility for a property owner flexibility for you and for staff is those are priorities for the city and the way that you could then Implement those is through uh updated design guidelines and or ordinance updates so we can understand how sometimes you know we want to get into the specific exact you know the what those parameters are but this is really the step to say developing those parameters is a priority for the city because this is a challenge that's being faced that your current ordinance or your current standards kind of aren't Le aren't totally covering as Maggie said you have new technologies and new gaps that you need new guidelines to fill and so this is kind of that inim step to say this is how we get there right so so I I'm not flagging any specific I'm not making a specific recommendation but I do think that could be something to be earmarked that we can build a better mouse trap so to speak and we commonly see in design guidelines now um kind of Provisions for new technologies you can list out examples and provide guidance for you know visibility and where things should be placed how things might be screened but then including some general parameters for applicants that say you know as if you have a new technology that's not covered in these districts come come to your staff come with these questions consider the visibility consider the color consider how many penetrations you might need bring those in bring that information to the HPC to the staff and we'll consider it within these contexts we're always trying to balance it so we're are seeing design guidelines develop with those those kind of C caveats shall we say right and and just to bring it back to this this situation I I think um the the ordinance governs how we eval valate specific cases and if there's a factor that's not um specifically uh enumerated under the ordinance it's outside of our purview so this is just something you know when we're talking about um preservation of property in the face of climate change or uh security considerations I I think those should be somehow accounted for to give us the ability to explicitly consider those factors in our determin ations um and then just moving on from that um the bullet point on creating standards for adaptive reuse is that referring to um preserving the exterior facade of the okay so my my comment on that would be that um the the interior of the building is always seemingly an afterthought for us I I I feel like in the time that I've been on the commission we have rarely if ever considered the interior we're really mostly con concerned with the um the exterior that's visible from a public RightWay primarily the the primary facade of the building um and I'm all in favor of adaptive reuse I do think though to me it brings to mind if you go to I don't know I haven't been to Disney World in a while but when I went there many years ago they had those cartoon Villages you know and it's just there's doors and awnings and everything and there's knobs on the doors but if you try to turn them they don't turn because they're just there's nothing behind them and I I just would not want to see our historic resources turned into you know that Disney World model where there's a historic facade and then absolutely nothing just a completely modern interior and structure behind it um so I think there are there is a place for adaptive reuse but we should also consider um preserving the interior of the building as well because For Me part of the value of the historic structures is its living history history and it's something that we can actually walk through and experience um rather than just reading it in a book so I wouldn't want to give that up without a fight all of that would be discussed as we develop those guidelines if we choose to do so because that's the other part is not to discredit or play down any work that you guys have done on this uh the recommendations in the last master plan we did we did not go through with all of them mostly because of time availability and staff availability and resources but if we develop those guidelines we will do it in context of everything we know and everything we think is coming down the line uh oh sorry yeah just just uh plan the hand I've been dealt here I know I know same quick question uh the tax abatement the 5year uh initiative that was mentioned here do we currently have one or that's go back a SL maybe are you talking there's a you talking about area need of Rehabilitation you do have area need of Rehabilitation and that allows um short-term tax abatements so but we are saying to continue that we're putting that as a recommendation to continue it yes okay yes CU we're talking about what are the different resources available to the city to continue resources and this is a very valuable resource that a lot of times people are not even aware of uh of it and um so that's why putting that in the master plan is a way of reminding people that you have this this is a resource and Maggie you said that there was like a nonprofit who checks in like once a year so I think you're confusing the area in need of Rehabilitation and the easement um an easement there is that um when people have done easement in the past and again like these easements are very very very very old and I at least have not seen any new ones that does not mean to say that they don't exist because the city does not control these easement um but usually in the experience I have with the easements that are held in Jersey City they're either held by a nonprofit the most common one I see I can't even remember the name of it out of Philly I just know it's out of Philly cuz the first time I got a letter I was a little bit confused um and there were a couple of them help by the New Jersey historic trust as a result of grant funding um on different historic sites in Jersey City that have gotten uh Capital grant funding from the New Jersey historic trust like the apple tree house and the Lowe's so how do we enforce that if like they don't keep up with with it on the rehabilitation side so do you mean the easement or the area in need of Rehabilitation area in need of Rehabilitation like let's say an initial I'm looking at Tanya because she might be better off answering this than me sure switch quick you're talking about enforcement yeah yeah so the planning department has really no reach of enforcement it's um it's a violation that goes out and get handled at Municipal Court most likely um it really is kind of at that case once the violation goes out it's really in the hand of the prosecutor and the Municipal Court um what I've seen more than not working with the zoning is that people are more than willing to pay the fine and keep doing the wrong thing yeah thank you y okay should we let's maybe take a five minute recess sure do we have uh well before we do that do we have more questions on these just only because we're at the end of the presentation was there another slide yes we've we we've been going back we got all the way to the end we've been going back and forth so I think we were here and um this is the last one this is the last one just in the interest of we'll take we I'm more than happy to take a break just if we have one slide left let's just finish out the presentation sounds good and we've touched on a couple of these already as well right we actually did almost all of them all right um could you just tell talk a little bit about what a historic district transition area would entail sure so um historic so we have not specified the boundaries for that we just saying that um we noticed on a year ago when we went on on a field visit how the district ended and then you had a building next to it which was 20 stories high completely detering from what the historic district like you step back a few steps and it's like wow and then you go out and it's like oh wow you know so uh based on that what we were recommending um is that we understand that there will be development we understand that you know the market really um the Market is a driving force for any kind of development Happening Now what we could to hear from our end is ensure that that development happens in such a way that you continue to keep the character and that's why we are recommending establishing transition zones and in fact you have many um Redevelopment areas in in your um in in in the city that are approximate to Historic preservation um zones who have uh continued to sort of establish a transition area in their design guidelines and what we are saying is to go beyond just those Redevelopment areas and have that um for the city to determine what the those boundaries would be so again I want to make it very clear that we are not recommending to um enforce stringent guidelines but to transition it out so maybe in terms of how the buildings would look or how the density would be that there's a four story structure and a 20 story next to it isn't a great transition from one area to the other yeah I know that we've we've said to applicants in the past you know not not in such harsh terms but essentially you know you knew what you were buying into you were buying into a historic district and that comes with certain responsibilities I I am have some concern that someone who didn't buy a historic district might take umbrage with being told how to develop their property um so I I guess you're saying it wouldn't be it will not too restrictive No it should not be too it's more to trans that's why the word is transition and again um you know we're making this recommendation um the city uh staff when they develop the ordinances it'll again get vetted out um you know there is no uh again no restriction in terms of if of the kind of materials or anything it's just the appearance it maybe in terms of how dense it can be or um you know it's very broad at this point but we are allowing um you and the HBC or the city or the you know planning board to actually put forth ordinances that would protect your interest and it would be more about oh no no s you go finish that it' be more Broad in ter you know the things about more sort of typically about massing or contextual cues from the buildings around there so you kind of we see sometimes like percentage based increases in height or setbacks or it's it's much more about being kind of contextual rather than the same process of a certificate of appropriateness with the guidelines and through that stringent element so it's kind of picking those broader parameters as you say and where there's flexibility and where there's um you know a couple guiding components to hold to and also the ordinance would probably I me I've seen those uh where you set for five or six points and give any potential developer option select three of these or four of these so the whole idea is to not have stock contrast next to each other just from a just from a city perspective um if your concern is just how we have these design guidelines and it like someone else who owns like every Zone in the city regardless of if it's a d zone or not has design guidelines um it's something we already have they're just ours are a heavily enforcable because of the ML and we have like very um thorough design guidelines um the zones in the city throughout the city that have design guidelines um they're Lake Siri and Sansa more contextual talking about picking up on cues and roofline shapes and adjacent Heights and adjacent setbacks and things like that and would the HPC have any involvement with no enforcement no okay all right thank you any other questions all right so then we can take that five minute yes now that we've reached the end of the presentation I I would recommend we take a five minute recess and thank you for your presentation thank you very much thank you very much all right do you want to just put on the record what timer I'll come back so it's 8:19 we'll come back at 8:24 Bridget just let us know when you're ready all right I'll call the meeting back to order it's 8:25 all right are there any additional questions from commissioners before we open public comment all right if there are any members of the public present who would like to provide comment I'll ask you to step up to the mic in just a moment I do just want to review what public comment looks like at the HPC um everyone has allotted 3 minutes for public comment I will keep time up here I will do my best to warn you when you have between a minute to 45 seconds left I'll try not to cut you off sometimes I do sorry about that in advance um all questions should be directed to the chair uh myself and Michael will write them down following the end of public comment we will get all of your questions answered from our professionals um we don't stop public comment to answer them as we go um I think that covers it and we will swear you in at the beginning of public comment so um I'll start your timer once you are sworn okay that being said um if anyone would like to make a motion to open public comment motion second all in favor I I okay and anyone who's interested in public comment can approach the mic hello hello my name is Natalie cback n a t h oh yeah no it's Natalie n a t h a l i e call back k a l b a c h okay Natalie your three minutes starts now okay hello um good evening I'm here for the Jersey City landmarks commission um I am a trustee so um we submitted a letter that was co-signed by several um Community organizations regarding the historic Pres reservation master plan and while we appreciate some of the changes reflecting the concerns I'd like to um emphasize three key points three minutes three key points I guess um firstly there remains a lack of clarity regarding Staffing and the action plan the increase in staffing needs to ensure efficient um handling of existing tasks which we think is not uh provided right now while also addressing um the new responsibilities that are outlined in the action plan such as additional districts community outreach and landmarking efforts um the current master plan draft lacks a clear ratio and guideline for the staffing increase and we think that it's crucial for budgeting and operational efficiency really highly recommend looking this over secondly while some Outreach efforts like workshops and at farmers markets were made to include public Outreach or community's vision and goals in the master plan we think that these efforts were kind of lacking especially regarding underrepresented communities uh I want to underscore that the jclc um swiftly brought together 18 organizations Citywide for collaborative feedback after the master plan draft was posted for feedback and we even held a workshop to address key elements and concerns which we reflected in our letter to the hpo and we seek a more substantial partnership in get General um a partnership role to enhance Community engagement strategies and bridge the gap between Community organizations and the preservation office one minute lastly we are also here to broaden the focus from just High style architecture to a plan that Embraces preservation capacity that everyday people can relate to many of our culturally and historically significant build significant buildings worthy of preservations are actually not high style uh but they are nonetheless important to our communities so in conclusion I would urge clear Staffing plans and enhanced Community engagement strategies to create a more inclusive and effective historic preservation master plan thank you thank you hello doar or ttim youred truth truth I do Charlene Burke c h a r l n e b u r ke good evening Commissioners good to go Charlene firstly I I have to say I'm amazed that you all read this plan from beginning to end given that you just got at the end of last week and I didn't get to read it all but I have a few comments firstly to speak on nathaly's point staffing has to be number one on this plan even in the executive summary it should be called out specifically as an increase of Staffing to address the current needs of what historic preservation is in this city as well as anything else that this plan presents because without adequate Staffing you're just not going to do any of this honestly in this city number two the one thing under Point number two it had seek CLG establish uh incentive programs Etc I want to see an increase online access accessibility of current and future revised historic resource surveys they should be available online for any of us to read and download and look at all the time and I find that digging into this database or the city's website is just a hor Horror in finding this kind of information Community engagement I really have a problem with how this went come on we had very little Community engagement I attended all the meetings 40 50 people that's not enough out of this city that really are affected by historic districts or potential historic districts I don't believe the recordings of the virtual Workshop were ever put online as it claims because I know we kept asking about them all the time farmers markets okay seven out of eight of them they will downtown how about my farmers market in Lincoln Park in my Westberg and East Lincoln Park historic district they didn't even have one in ours I mean our our community goes to that every Sunday but yet they didn't H ever a due Outreach there okay page nine has a map one minute there's a lot of errors on that map I suggest to be reviewed those listings of items numbers don't match items number three's missing 10 and 14 are the same 19's not even on the map recommendations add more local designations cannot be overstated greater efforts should be made to designate additional resources excuse me we have Sherman Place who who it's the community who is doing it not Jersey City the community raised their own funds and hired Hunter research to do the research about their houses and now they're actually applying for New Jersey trust Grant to go pay for the additional monies it needs to do the nomination where's Jersey City in that Pro in that that whole thing I mean really you have this list but where is Jersey City in getting this done even when West was being done West Bergen if I wasn't involved in that West Bergen would never have been done either because Jersey City doesn't make this important sorry I have a lot more but I'm out of time if there's anyone else there welcome to read off your sheet thank you Miss Burke you can also submit the comments and writing in email will thank you yes I do Nathan McCormack n a t h an last name is m a c o r m a c k three minutes starts now thank you good evening everyone um I would like to Simply reiterate the the same um hope and desire that's already been expressed for the whether it's an increase in the budget for the off office of historic preservation or whatever means is necessary to increase the Staffing in that department um I my my wife Shireen and I purchased a home on Glennwood Avenue about 5 years ago and when we first purchased the foam excuse me first purchased the home I was honestly relieved that our house was not in the historic district because I felt like any um you know renovation that I wanted to do would be much easier in the last few years um our block has received quite a bit of media coverage because we actually have uh a huge amount of development going on to the point that we're now clamoring and contacting anyone and everyone that we can to turn our row of historic homes into a historic district to protect us from the development that is uh you know infringing on our in our territory and so again I think our situation cannot be unique when you look at the number of highrises going up around the Journal Square area and the McGinley square area so again just reiterating that hope for for increased Staffing um at the same time uh we did fill out the questionnaire and Survey that's being discussed this evening and while most of our block is on the on the on the list somehow our property was excluded of 130 Glenwood so that's just something that hopefully can be um addressed before it's too late and um I think that was everything I wanted to discuss so thank you all for your time thank you thank you right are there any other members of the public who wish to provide public comment hello yes Shireen McCormack s sh i r i n m c r m k okay three minutes starts now thank you Jersey City and his HP department for um revising the master plan element for HP I am the President of the McKinley Square community board and this year here received a women of action award for Boo's Ward uh as well I'm newly on the board of the Jersey City landmarks um Conservancy historic preservation remains at the very heart and core of our community group's earliest days of formation one year ago um we seek to preserve cohesively the Mayu terce from 120 to 130 Glenwood with its architectural and sociocultural significance okay um uh and protect the cohesive Mayu terce from 120 to 130 Glenwood with its architectural and sociocultural historical significance now well within uh public awareness based on Research uncovered by JC Lamark Conservancy we began due to events that we think were influenced by some gaps in oversights within the current HP plan uh regarding our 1895 Queen an Victorian Mayu terce Cottages which stood for 12 128 years framed by an ancient stone wall at top a hill um they were the first structures of their kind and now they're the last ones north of Montgomery they are one may block from the designated West Bergen East Lincoln Park historic district and they are some of the last vestages of affordable housing and of lower density in this area what gets built ends up multi-units that are each 250% more in cost than an entire property once the initial thing gets demoed um on January 25th at zoning a developer attorney implied that maybe these don't belong here anymore on the contrary we believe that only not only do they belong they belong preserved and protected with historic designation um it also aligns with the City's goal of preserving locations with diversity sustainability and adaptive reuse so thanks for including them now for the first time in this recent revised draft please to better capture public input also include the Mayu Terrace's westernmost 130 Glenwood and consider the greater block for surveys to capture the greater context of the existing area including all the large apartments up the hill and also the 138 to 140 St Peter's dorms already um considered by Hunter research in the AP office as significant um also please increase the funding other people spoke on that um and please um become a CLG ASAP um also one minute okay please uh caring about the city's historic unique architectural and cultural Treasures please consider adding if it is an already Mo's Lounge uh St Aiden's in the building slated to become the pompy DW Museum um in case anything happens there and while you can add properties later this is the time the time is now it's best to do it now because yes Sherman Place is doing it but it has been a whole long complicated process that residents had to as Charlene said pay out of their own pocket please consider expanding the ethnic diversity mentions in the current draft and also please please consider requiring a notification letter for demo applications on buildings that are over 50 years old um if you wrap it up notification letter I'm sorry a notification letter and holding a public hearing for applications on buildings over 50 years old please also lastly commit to formally revising the plan again in 10 years in 2034 rather than another expansive 20 plus years this itation will endure for at least 10 years so let's please be sure to make sure we get it right now more than ever it's now or never preserved today before gone forever thank you are there any other members of the public that would like to provide comment okay staff sees none and recommends a motion to close public comment motion second all in favor I I okay so there were a couple of not many a couple of questions that came up or items that I think staff can address um as a result of that public comment um the first so uh Charlene I just I regrettably we did not make it to the Westburg to the Lincoln Park Farmers Market um not out of any reason other than we I contacted them every two weeks from April until October and I never once heard back I can't just show up with a table it was very very very frustrating um the I don't live in the area but I did go one Sunday um or Saturday Bly I went to so many I can't remember which day would each one is Sunday and I couldn't even find anyone to talk to I asked around and people would say oh I'll go grab them and then I stood there for like 40 minutes um it's something I would have very much liked to do we had planned when we planned out which farmers markets we would like to attend in what kind of um like schedule we had put them on the schedule three separate times because we know um West Bergen can be difficult to get public feedback from um so I was certainly upsetting that we were not able to uh table at that farmers market um for the inventory uh I will be honest I have no idea how we missed 130 I went through Glennwood last week to make sure we hit it all and I did not hit it all so I will make sure 130 and 130 and the building directly adjacent to you are also added to the inventory um St Aiden Moors lounge and I don't remember the last one pomp yes they're all um either in the inventory or covered within a Redevelopment plan is a historic Zone um and then regarding notification for demolitions um that is something that unfortunately it ex so we are not able to to do um we had tried to do something similar for and when I say tried I mean many many many years ago um in historic districts notification when applications would be heard um and it was struck down by the courts because it exceeds the ml so uh a municipality cannot make their own law that goes beyond what is required in the state law so it was struck down I I will say though um as part of our revised hearing process for demolitions in the city so um like under our current ordinance um the HPC does review all applications for buildings that are recommended to be denied a demolition permit um because that's something that staff can no longer um do at a staff administrative level so the HPC does get those applications where they review the ones that are recommended for demo and make the recommendation themselves to the zoning officer did I miss any anyone else yes you missed a big one what the the funding of the historic preservation office uh office and uh the list that's provided uh in the uh the U overview that was created here um gives us a lot of work to do too check out that uh check out the list at the back a lot of things they want the commission to take care of and the question is how um and you know if we could fund historic preservation department depart we would but I don't think we I don't know what we could do about it but is it maybe a discussion could be had maybe the commission needs to write a letter to support uh historic preservation office uh having more more resources that is possible right it could I believe it probably would be best in the form of either like a resolution or something like that but um I would not be opposed to adding some kind of metric to the recommendation as was suggested um like uh we I don't know what that metric would be but I don't think I certainly don't think that's a bad idea um and for what it's worth I took that as a comment less as a question or else I would have addressed it but I mean of course the more people that most of our limitations are due to either lack of funding to because you know we we don't have the staff capability nor is it necessarily appropriate in all cases for staff to be conducting research on things sometimes you want the outside group to be impartial um but we our limitations are almost always funding based or staff based so an increase of Staff would certainly alleviate some of these um concerns yeah and more specifically some funds for educational purposes I think a lot of difficulties we have as a commission is a lot of applicants come not knowing what the requirements are and that's been going on for years and you know I personally feel remiss in not recommending that more times uh finding a way to to a a brochure a flyer something that tells uh the people within the historic districts uh what the requirements are and how they can be be assisted you yeah I I certainly agree with that it's a recommendation we were very happy to see come up as a result of this planning Pro Master Plan process for sure um you know you can't you can bring a horse to water you can't make it drink but we can certainly make the path a little bit easier to find for sure well and and it may be a pipe dream but I when I first joined the commission and I and we talked about educating the public you know I had Envision things like Outreach to to school children and like sharing materials with the kids in public in public schools in Jersey City so they could have better appreciation and understanding of the value of historic preservation and get them started young uh get them hooked while they're young you know but um I don't know if we'll have the funds for that that's that's kind of low on the list but that would be great if we could accomplish that one day yeah we it's something that I a remember discussing B is certainly something that I think has a lot of Merit we are thankful that um the Jersey room at the public library actually has been doing more of that than usual that's true they John beakman um who's the chief librarian and also the head of the Jersey room um has really taken on a lot of that role from the commission um and it's something that we could definitely either take back or help some I I Envision more of a like a complimentary relationship where we help supplement some of the great work that the library is doing um but they have I know I specifically know for a fact they've been working with um some second graders at ps16 I think organiz some field trips all right well my son attends there so we'll look forward to it um just to highlight a couple other comments to make sure uh nothing is overlooked there was a comment about broadening the focus on preservation so that it's not just High style but perhaps more vernacular uh buildings is is there anything to be said about that um I I'm going to assume that comment was in context of demolitions rather than um the existing historic districts because the existing historic distri or guidelines do a good job of um at least in my professional opinion do a good job of um having our restoration Mark be guided not by what was typical for the style necessarily but what was uh present on the building either through documentation or physical site evidence and then some of that sty stylistic stuff is really a last resort for us um yeah there are a couple of very good examples of where the our guidelines held up for buildings that didn't look like much they were definitely not high style but they wound up being protected right yeah um and then in terms of demolition it's really is Le frankly has less to do with style and more to do with with um what is extent on the building but it's something that you know as we are looking at revising certain parts of our ordinance both the historic district standards the historic district guidelines or demo ordinance anything like that it's certainly something that we will heavily consider and hopefully be able to implement there was another comment about the city's website and accessibility of some of these materials and if we could make it more navigable andess accessible yeah so the the inventory has and always will be available on the data portal um I can understand that that is difficult to navigate sometimes right you got to type in the correct combination of words and I do my best to tag not only every combination of words but I also sometimes put like Mis common misspellings on there too um but our hope is not only to make the inventory uh more easily available either through mapping or something like that but um eventually down the road we do also have to Res survey which will help with um both the inventory and accessibility yeah anecdotal and accessibility or the inventory inventory and accessibility sure so anecdotally there have there have been times when I myself was trying to locate something on the city website something that I knew to be there and I could not for the life of me located so I share that frustration um there was a specific comment about uh recordings of some of the meetings I think being placed online yeah that's something the that's the last stakeholder meeting for the master plan that was done virtually um we did that meeting in forms of breakout rooms um so it was recorded like our like for example how our meetings used to be on Zoom there's a feature where you can combine um sorry you can break out into rooms and you can put people in different rooms um at the time that we planned that meeting I greatly underestimated how difficult it would be to combine the videos of all of those rooms into one video cuz they're all recorded separately and locally so it was like one room would record over here and one room would record over there um and putting them in a logical order has proven to take far longer than anyone could have anticipated um and I I have provided all of the information to uh the public information office who's the people like I don't I don't have video capab capabil video editing capabilities both uh from a I I don't know how to do it and I also don't have the software to do it um but I will touch base with their office to see if they've completed it there was another comment about errors on the map with number numbers that didn't match up numbers that were missing or duplicated or not on the map we'll review that um and then I think the last one was a suggestion that we do the next plan in 10 years so the this the guidance from the state is to do a master plan element every 10 years um especially in an urban area like ours that is increasing uh that the development rate is either higher rapidly increasing um it's certainly something that we would like to do every 10 years I would love to commit to doing it every 10 years I don't see why that wouldn't be feasible it is something that's out of both my hands and the hpc's hands um but it is something that hopefully we will be able to continue to do on a on a significantly more regular basis than every 23 years whose hands would that be in funding for City Council of course becoming a CLG would help because that helps make funding available certainly the availability of CLG grants and the amount um would certainly not cover a master plan element um my understanding at least last time I looked a CLG Grant would be up to $50,000 and the budget for um this master plan element was almost triple that um maybe less less than triple but more than double um so that funding would help but it is still something that the city council has to actively allocate money towards would doing the plans more frequently reduce the cost I'm not sure and I think that that's something that you wouldn't be able to answer until you got responses back from a request for proposal um because it really depends on how much has changed in that time period right well I I suppose the more time elapses the more change there'd be in correct con quently there would be a greater expense Associated so sleeping on it is not necessarily to our benefit no okay thank you yeah just for context too because it was so long like it was so long between the last draft and the last element and this one that we're proposing tonight um we did essentially have to just completely rewrite it um which is great in some ways because it gave us an opportunity to like really dive into some of the things that we thought were missing in the previous element but of course then meant that it took longer Magie I have one question sure and this pertains to our demolition ordinance m is there a way that we can require um homeowner who wants to demolish their house um that's covered in siding to at least do a first peel to see if there's any historic fabric left because we all know as we drive around I just drove past a house being demolished the other day was covered in Gold aluminum siding but it was an actually Brick House below behind it that was being demolished I feel that and we lose too many houses because of this I I feel that and it's there are times we look at the Demos in the office and we're like well I know there's a Cornus under there but um unfortunately because they're not designated I can't so first of all even in a historic District right um if someone doesn't want to do work to their house I can't make them um all of our reviews are prompted because an applicant is applying for something um in this case a they they wouldn't be designated so the HPC would have no jurisdiction to require them to do anything for their permits um but also we can't ask like we it's we we have absolutely no jurisdiction outside of historic districts to ask an applicant to peel some layers away from the house I understand your frustration with it we get frustrated by it too but it's there's very little that we can do in that specific case I mean there's nothing to really stop a homeowner from removing historic elements or wrapping the house in vinyl sighing and then applying for a demolition permit and covering up their what would right what would cause them to be denied yep the only part in the ordinance that we have is that you uh you can't apply for a demo get denied and then take the historic elements off your house and apply again that part is enforceable in our ordinance um everything else that we've looked into is not something that we would legally be able to enforce that's unfortunate it is is there any consideration being given to making the penalties more stiffer across the board just to have greater enforceability because I know that's something that we've struggled with I believe in certain cases I know there's one case that comes to mind where I was asking you at every meeting has this been addressed yet and the response was you know there's really not much that can be done at this point it's going through the process but at this point I think it might have been years that the issue remains unchanged enforceability is or enforcement in general is such a sore spot in not just with preservation but with the planning office in general because we are not our own administrative officers we don't have our own fine structure like Tanya said all of our enforcement and all of our fines are done through the municipal prosecutor's office so we don't determine what those fine amounts are or anything like that and it's up to the municipal Prosecutors office to enforce them so I don't even know if it's a question of the amount of the fines I don't I don't mean to be unduly punitive but we do need to deter certain Bad actors particularly when they're profit driven motives and they can safely disregard our ordinance and even if they get caught and even if we try to enforce the rules that you know they're laughing all the way to the bank essentially and um you know it seems like oftentimes those sort of mom and pop homeowners are are the most concerned about the penalties but these big developers kind of just shrug it off and and I don't like seeing that no it's it again it's a sore spot not just with preservation but with planning in general and it's something that um I think a lot of us would actively like to see changed are are we addressing it through the through this plan or is there anything we could propose through this plan no this plan is really a guiding document um for any changes at the local level um and I'm not I do not believe I mean again like we are not when I so when I say the HPC is not our own administrative officer that means that anytime um um one of the inspectors calls me and says hey this person is doing work at their property they don't have their approval posted in their window do they have an approval because we always obviously like to check before we issue any violations um if a violations to be issued it's not signed off on by me even though it's in a historic district and they're talking about a historic preservation issue it's goes to the zoning officer who consistently signs off on them but it's up to the municipal prosec to enforce them right so that's not something that we can really add to our the preservation ordinance or the element because it's not enforced by us all right it just feels like you know we're spending all this time and effort quibbling over these things but at the end of the day if there's no enforceability then it's all just words on paper right and we do so we do our best to enforce where we can um there are certain stops that we put on uh certain things we do with historic preservation applications that we can enforce to a degree um so for example on every single COA that you see for you know someone's addition or not the mural but you know someone's addition there's a condition on there that says the architect of record needs to submit a signed and sealed letter Andor signed and SE sealed as built plans um stating that the work has been done either according to their approval or listing any deviations on the project um and we do that before uh we issue a certificate of occupancy we'll go out to the site we confirm that they built everything as they were supposed to and if they didn't they fix it um within reason of course like for example someone uh like someone submitted a deviation request the other day because they had to change the color of the windows in the rear of the building that's that's not going to I'm not going to sit there and say you can't have a CO over that um but if you guys I don't there was a I believe it was 2022 there was a property on 8th Street that came in to the commission because at the time of their Co they had a series of deviations that were not uh they had like I think it was 25 deviations from the approved plans things like um the rear of the building was constructed they just like flipped it but ranging to the front stoop that they were supposed to restore they built out of completely different materials um and that they came back to the commission for it to be reviewed and you guys said um the will only approve these deviation these couple of deviations the other the stuff you have to go back and you have to fix and then once they're fixed you can apply again for your C so we do have that level of enforcement that we're able to do and honestly that does get a good amount like we it catches a good amount of changes um the stuff that it's harder to enforce the smaller things in between that don't require a certificate of occupancy or a continuing certificate of occupancy any other questions about the plan about anything in the plan that we can right because so the commission I just we didn't really mention this at the beginning the the commission um is recommended to take formal action on this item tonight um The Next Step as s and Siri mentioned is for review at the planning board for adoption at the May 7th meeting um staff recommends that the commission make a recommendation to adopt the plan um however I would like to make that recommendation to be to adopt it with conditions to amend some of the items that we've discussed tonight for example um amending the inventory specifically for those Glenwood properties um to address the map on page nine to uh work with h2m and Easton and staff to come up with some kind of metric for that staff increase as we've discussed um things like that just to uh so the recommendation would be to recommend to the planning board with conditions um with the condition of Staff making amendments as discussed at the meeting do we need to determine those conditions before making a motion um if you would like to you can if you would just like to do a broad condition that as discussed at the meeting that gives us a little bit of flexibility I mean I'm I will be honest with you I would not like to specify changes to the inventory um just cuz again I was pretty sure I put 130 in there and now I'm really second guessing myself so there is um the master plan the draft plan does have to be posted um a full 10 days before planning board to meet the state law requirements um so it wouldn't it's not like we'd get cart blanch until May 7th but I would like to really sit with the inventory over the next couple of days and make sure I got everything physically possible um but if you want to specifically say any of these the other ones I would feel comfortable with that or we could just say with amendments as discussed at the meeting well I I mean I spent a while going off about um updating our ordinance to account for M climate mitigation measures or maybe even safety measures I don't know how the other Commissioners feel if they think that's appropriate to propose or M would you like to so that's from a recommendation within the plan would you like to amend that recommendation or expand upon the recom like because the recommendation is to further study to incorporate those amend or expand I'm not catching the distinction so like do you want to that recommendation hold on let me I'm going to go to the plan that page in the plan I'm on page real deep in this inventory I'm page like thank you all right still we're GNA in there all right so the phrasing of that recommendation in the inventory is consider incorporating the department of the interior's guidelines on flood adaptation for rehabilitation to of historic buildings to incorporate standards for historic properties located in identified flood Hazard areas and there is also a uh recommendation above that to to investigate the potential to allow for an increase in permitted height to account for base flood elevation for in a historic district located in a FEMA or njde designated flood plane um and then there's one more that says update existing guidelines to provide specific standards to regulate the incorporation of Sustainable Building designes communicate available funding sources are there any of those that there's something you want to strike from there or expand upon them I don't think there's anything I would strike I think I'm looking to incorporate that as a specific consideration in addition to what's here oh you guys have to talk into the mic yeah just to clarify so the the specific verbage you're talking about as the climate mitigation measures and safety considerations that's what we're talking about for number 22 the last one that Magie read so number 22 when if you have the plan in front of you we talk about update existing guidelines to provide specific standards to Reg regulate the incorporation of Sustainable Building designs and to communicate available sources do you want me to add more language to it what would you like me to say so I I'm not sure exactly what verbiage I I don't have precise verbiage for you but what I have in mind is to allow our design standards to take into account these considerations broadly as as a factor for the historic preservation commission to consider in evaluating um applications for certificates of appropriateness um so that we can um appropriately consider these factors right now I think it's not something we are considering so so that again goes back to when you actually adopt exactly guidelines we this so um number 22 number 23 number 24 give give the staff enough of meat to actually put that language in the actual ordinance or design guidelines so um going back to what you want um I think these three have enough uh where it would be consistent with the historic preservation plan element so I I misunderstood I thought you wanted specific language in the recommendation for climate change or um which I think the land use plan already talks about we were just to put that to be consistent this is very Broad and I know that's by Design so I I in order to increase the likelihood that this makes it into it I was suggesting putting some a specific item there I mean if it doesn't need to be placed there and we all kind of if staff is aware of this and can communicate it later but there's just there's a lot in here there's a lot of recommendations and this is a lot report so my concern was if we didn't make this specific recommendation it would get lost in the shuffle um the idea of any kind of master plan is to have very general broad recommendation that's the purpose of it so that gives you and the planning board and uh Maggie the levy to cater it to what your exact needs would be so if this is by Design in any master plan it gives you again it's like a policy framework it it steers you in that direction but it doesn't tell you what exactly you should add because what happens if if I were to write any specific language forget what you said a specific thing increase by $10,000 of your budget I'm just putting it out there and the need is for 5,000 or the need is for 25 it just restricts you so that's one of the reasons why I mean this is just an analogy but that's the reason why any kind of master plan is supposed to be written in such a way that it steers the governing body or whoever is the responsible party in that direction um to then adopt what would be ideal for them at that juncture because this document once adopted holds good for the next 10 years yeah I I understand I I don't think that there's anything in here though that that specifically say says to amend our historic preservation ordinance to account for um mitigating floods or climate events or anything to that effect so I'm not proposing specific language to go into the ordinance but I'm saying broadly speaking that should be a consideration that we can utilize in our rationale and I think that's broad enough for these purposes to to suggest that it goes that there's something in there that allows us to consider these factors beyond what we currently are able to consider I I I think what's going to happen Robert is because of the recommendation that flooding and and safety issues need to be addressed I think what's going to happen is if new guidelines are going to be written the commission's going to review those guidelines every commission is going to have an an opportunity to weigh in um I the the issues already been raised in general um by this uh overview and I think then it just has to come before us and we're going to have to sort it out so like I think that's kind of how it works and I will just say recommendation 22 does very specifically say update the guidelines to incorporate these things so I I agree with you that they in terms of a priority for us I know I I mean I've talked about for years now we've predating this master plan how desperately our guidelines need to be updated um they've been without an like at least the master plan we did a couple reexaminations since 2001 we have not touched the guidelines since 20 agree more and I really think that that's what his Robert's comment is about is we're suffering from not having that update right and so it is it's very much a priority for us from a staff level um and I also think that the uh a guideline revision also helps us accomplish another goal which is to help educate the public right with a guideline revision that also comes um better written guidelines and guidelines that are easier for the public to understand um and I think the accessibility and understanding of the guidelines is going to be very important specifically for all of those sustainability climate change flood adaptation guidelines because unfortunately they're becoming more and more important right thing what I would suggest then to go back to uh your point uh Robert was we put the go implementation schedule to medium I could just do it a shortterm goal so that's one to two years sure so that that's the edit so that takes care of your um concern as well that it should be high on the priority list yes and and I think also you we kind of led by talking specifically about Building height as as a specific sort of mitigating measure and to my mind um what I'm proposing is is broader than that because it doesn't propose any specific mitigation measure it just allows us to contemplate mitigation measures in evaluating applications okay but all right we can move on okay any other uh recommendation two um do we have the ability to expand on that or make a suggestion on it so recommendation to in here is just so everyone uh establish program to provide incentives such as Rehabilitation tax abatements through the designation of quote areas in need of Rehabilitation and a low interest noest Loan program to promote the preservation and Rehabilitation of existing buildings so that's something that the city council would specifically have to do um um that is something that I would imagine is going to take quite a while to implement however something that we could do in the meantime that does not necessarily need to be a recommendation in this plan just you're looking for an expansion on it um there are programs in the Division of Community Development that do specific things like this right no interest in low interest interest loans um I'm not going to bury the lead here the weit list for them is Monumental but we could do a better job of promoting them and incorporate the use of those loans into guidelines I guess my question more so Falls along the line of tax abatements is it a if this tax abatement were to happen let's say a house that's referred to us now does that do we know if that tax abatement affects what go what's supposed to go to the public schools from the property taxes I have no idea no it's a short-term tax abatement you're talking about those are pilots where it is U so you know 5% goes to the county 95% goes to the governing body but even with those these days um a percentage can go it's between the governing body and the developer there are but these are shortterm fiveyear tax abatements sometimes I you know each town is different but what what we are seeing here we're getting into the weeds of it um but uh what this is saying there's a lot of description uh in the body of the um uh master plan uh about explaining this process all we are saying is um we have horned in on this recommendation who's uh the implementing party and you know what goals it would achieve of the master plan and what's the completion time frame okay thanks and I'll also add to that part of the idea is also to kind lean into again the broad recommendation to be able to provide more carrots rather than sticks that analogy was brought up earlier of you know establishing incentive programs broadly speaking trying to emphasize the positive on that and kind of enabling that through the master plan process can we amend uh recommendation number five which pertains to the hiring of additional staff right now it's designated as the medium goal can we change that to short-term goal sure we could do that or we could do it ongoing because ongoing would be on a rolling basis would that make sense or you want it short or I don't know I I think ongoing is probably more appropriate mhm because again just when you said earlier that you don't want to provide a specific number because then if something goes above or below it restricts you um if we don't complete that in 1 to two years I don't want city council to turn around and be like well wasn't a priority at the beginning like you said it was it's not one now so I think ongoing saying it's on a rolling basis makes sense right and then as the need arises and um need increases you can hire more people precisely and in addition to staff what about budget can can there be a recommendation made on budget no can't do that right give it a try it's on the record that you asked okay any other questions amendments again the recommendation from staff on this is to recommend to the planning board with um amendments uh with the condition to address the Amendments as discussed at the meeting and I think that's the best way to rather than highlighting individual things I'll make that motion second okay move to a roll call the motion is to recommend to the planning board to adopt adopt the master plan with the element with conditions as discussed in this evening's meeting beautiful all right we'll move to a i of Tony with the motion Daniel second we'll move to a roll call vote commissioner GGA uh I commissioner San Camp hi commissioner Cronin hi commissioner amuza I uh commissioner Gunther is absent commissioner Lewis is absent commissioner sakong is absent commissioner blazak is absent commissioner gucciardo I and chairman Gordon I right there are six votes in favor none against no extensions the recommendation to planning board is approved thank you for your time thank you very much appreciate your time appreciate your inut thank you thanks guys thank you for all your work and absolute special Commendation to Maggie and Tanya and the whole team they worked very very hard with us for a long period of time if we didn't thank them enough sure they did all right all right with that I will now call case h24 D7 the applicant is Cecilia Deon architect on behalf of Emily and William looker owner the address is 575a Jersey Avenue a non-contributing twostory residential building built circus 1975 in the haramis Cove historic district this application is for a certificate of appropriateness for interior renovation and a full height rear addition visible from the public right away all right I was going to ask if you needed a dongle but I don't think you do pretty um staff notes that cesi has been previously qualified as an architect in front of this board many times I do Cecilia c e c i l i a uh Delon d e l e o n Tony did youde cool cool all right okay I'm Cecilia Delan I'm architect for 575a Jersey Avenue and I'll be making a presentation for a rear addition to an existing two and a half story non-contributing building in the hamus Cove historic district just to orient yourselves um these are excerpts of the construction documents I just it's easier to see so I reformat it on a different page um I'll start with a little background on the project um oh no I was orienting you so here oh good my Mouse shows up uh this is Jersey Avenue it's Jersey Avenue between second and third street uh we're talking about this one building way to the right over here it would be 575a um the clients have owned this property since about 2017 uh there are a couple with three young children they love JC they want to remain in the area but they need to expand their house in order to better suit their family historically this property was um part of a larger parcel which included the three neighboring buildings um to the South here uh the tax records I should go should go here tax Rec the photos uh for this property is 1974 uh is the picture for 575a so it looks pretty much the same uh there's except there's now a vestibule that was built here and it's all masonry facade however if you look at the tax records for the building down the street uh at 571 it shows this old nice old building which is the original building that took up the four Lots um the church so that was a 1938 that's the 1938 photo photo the record states that it was owned by St Mary's Church and it was rented by the State Department of Labor uh who then sulet part of the building to the state probation office and the department of hygiene and sanitation part of the building was also used in an industrial museum for safety devices and a rehabilitation clinic for workman's comp cases as far as I can tell um this it existed like this up until around 1948 or so then I believe there was a fire um and the building was demolished uh and then the Lots were then subdivided into the four um as they exist today so here you could tell it's a the two and a half stories with a gable roof um and these are built around I think 1961 or so and then an addition the additions happened later after that so uh the buildings are set back from the property line which is here to allow for parking uh right right in the front Key Food I'm standing at the Key Food looking across Jersey Avenue um so all of these these four lots have parking drive up uh curve right in the front uh and they all pretty much look the same uh if we go to the plans so the top ones here are the existing clients uh they're a little bit small so there's a living room in the front on the ground level the middle section has the utility and a powder room rear section has the kitchen uh there's also a single story rear uh addition that was done later uh with a dining room second floor has three bedrooms and two two bath two full baths and then there's a gable roof here that you could see here um uh that's access through just a pull down ladder you could see in the section here and this is the existing uh dining room single story Edition the neighboring building here is a big four-story uh building uh and has a little bit of an alley and then a shorter rear facade uh a rear back building and it's a dry cleaner on the ground level so there's this big um exhaust vent that that runs within that alley as well I'll skip over to the proposed plans at the moment uh so to expand the house what the client wanted to do is um make it a little bit more usable for their family so they were building a second story Edition above the existing single story within there we're going to push the bedrooms to the back um move the laundry area to have a a laundry area on the second floor a larger um study space for the kids and then a stair that goes up to a third floor addition this third floor Edition is going to be just the back half of the property so go from the ridge line up into the back uh to be level with the four story addition um from 57 the corner building next door there's also a little balcony at the rear so if you look at the sight line photo we have the existing building here so and the back of the addition will end at the back of this property with the single story Edition um here um so this Ridge line does end up about 5 fo4 5'5 uh above the existing um Ridge that's there uh we we're keeping the roof pitch relatively low uh just to get that where where we needed to be um let's see so on the construction uh as we were initially talking with the hpo um we started with well what's shown on the construction documents at the moment is simple uh to tone it down it just a fiber cement siding really on the front uh with a coping parit on the top um however to simplify it a little bit more uh and to minimize the visual impact of the addition we're proposing fiber cement panels in lie of the lap siding we think that the panelized system is less busy it's a little bit more contemporary and it's better suited for this project uh so this would be our preferred approach in terms terms of color we're not touching really the the masonry portion is going to remain the black the existing black asphalt um roof oops is going to remain and the windows are going to remain in terms of the panels uh we're going to have uh toward the warm Grays uh here it's going to be uh the James Hardy Pearl gray keep it to toward the warm tones and then the trim and the coping will be a little bit darker you know an age petor um within there this is a little rendering of what it might look like you know so here you have the black roof and then the little addition popping up within there the rear facade um you can't see from the public right away but we'll show it here is also a panelize system uh probably an an arctic white is what we're thinking um with black windows and and uh black doors with a canopy across the back and black and black vertical regling this uh addition is also the Second Story and the roof is also so this is the third the facade on Third Street so here you could see the this little alley this is the front building where the dry cleaner is and then there there's an existing I don't know if it's two or three families at the rear building on that property this little alley before you can see the vent exhaust vent F kind of uh doing a weird thing and comes up this building and then across and then there's this little single story addition for the entry to this to the back building so our little um addition will be slightly visible this the this little thing you're seeing in the in the way back there is actually the building that's way down the street the top of that one but ends up pretty much kind of where our addition our addition and the balcony will end up so this facade will be similar to whatever we do in the front uh so it would be panelized not not the is our preferred approach rather than the lab siding so that's basically the extent of it you know I'll I'll end here and if you have any questions any Commissioners have any questions I have one question the uh the visible extension that we're viewing there with the panels did you consider possibly making it the same color as as the existing roof so it doesn't stand out as a separate separate addition structure um I think the roof being black it's really dark I I think we were trying to avoid like the dark going up I mean we are doing an aged Peter and keeping it toward the warmer gray darker gray tones I think black would be a little bit too Stark yeah uh within here if anything I would like to lighten the roof but that's not part of our Pur what what is that roof material it's just uh asphalt yeah okay so it's nothing you know it's not very nice or ready not not a great thing to mimic yeah yeah mhm I was just going to agree with Stephen I think it would be make more sense for it to all be one color and draw less attention it's less distracting that way in my in my eye I think that's why I mean we were going toward like a darker trim oops but the trim calls it out too you know what I mean the trim and the division between the panels you wind up seeing this large rectangle divided because the trim is darker and the body is lighter so even if it was all darker even if it wasn't black at least it would be feel unified and disappear a little bit more so what that's if the commission agrees that it should be visible what is the what are the neighboring roofs covered with they look distinct different it's just different colors I believe the these are lighter gray I think 571 if I go back to this picture just redid their in a black as well right so this one was recent was this is an older photo but this was recently done in Black these two are lighter one spot um so they're all different right and you did you say the building went up in 1962 I from what I could tell from the taex records it looked like 61 61 the original portion although I'm not sure the I think the vestibules were done later um yeah the vestibule on the not this we're looking at the building all the way all the way to the right the brick building towards the center that vestibule was completed in 2008 as part of a COA okay um and Robert these buildings are act are listed as non-contributing they're non-contributing yeah I I rais this because I'm not necessarily suggesting it just thinking out loud as I'm off to do um whether rather than making the addition match the current roof conditions if the roof could be updated to match the addition so it's more palatable um because if it's from the 60s I don't know how much historic value the roof material Choice has not exactly sure if this was re roofed I'm sure it has been reroofed since the 60s um if it's a second layer on top of there maybe uh we it wasn't part of the budget or the scope original scope but if I remember correct corly before the house sold in 2017 it underwent a major renovation and every aspect of it was done the facade was made brick the roof the whole interior was gutted and it was done over that's it so Is it feasible to then change the roofing material to bring it into Conformity with the addition to help it blend better without having that black assphalt uh again it's going to be a budget issue and it's going to be up to my clients we can ask okay but um they're not here tonight to ask that question but we could certainly make the suggestion any other questions okay hearing none does that conclude your testimony anything else you want to wrap up with uh no okay all right um then we can move into public comment staff sees no members of the public present tom you don't count um that all the time motion to open and close second all in favor I all right so we can move into staff comments on this so earlier tonight when we were talking about how the guidelines need an update you are looking at a prime example of why the guidelines need an update and that we have no guidelines for non-contributing building going to say what do we it is something that is a huge gap in our guidelines right now we treat non-contributing buildings essentially as let's just make sure that they don't call attention away from the other historic resources um and that is just about the only guidance that I have to offer you here um we we have so just as a past history on this row so you can see two of the buildings in that photo towards the bottom are brick my understanding is the one to the left is also brick now we have as these applicants have come in we have asked them to at least change their front facade material to the predominant Building Material in the district so that they blend a little bit more they don't call attention to themselves and your eye just kind of grazes right past them um in this case um that is what I mean my understanding of the application here is is while they are putting an addition on and is visible from the public right of way the intention is for your eye to just graze past it the visibility here is truly less of a concern because these buildings are non-contributing um so it's just more of a do we think that the proposal here successfully accomplishes this idea that we want the non-contributing buildings to blend into the background um in in this case I why I restricted my comment to just calling attention to the addition that's on top if if it could be less visible that would be the goal yeah and I I do agree with you that's a I agree with the suggestion to match it um I don't know if I mean honestly I I really don't think making it darker is going to make it more visible than it already is um I would I don't necessarily think we need to make it black um the roof is like a more of a charcoal color I think that we could work at the staff level to find kind of a middle ground between the dark colored asphalt roof and the lighter gray that they've proposed here um we were happy to see the inclusion of panels rather than the lap um cuz the I I do think that that will help it blend a little bit more and if nothing else will look at least like a some type of utilitarian feature of the roof line um so in the staff report we do have so we have both in the staff report we have recommendations for approval if you guys um agree that it does not have an adverse impact to the district because again that's what we're assessing here is if it has an adverse impact to the district our normal design guidelines really don't serve us particularly well here um well and and Maggie we've moved past the the plan but maybe these non-contributing should be treated like the transition areas we were talking about about it has a similar objective right yeah where you you're focusing on like a contextual nature and like building form and building shapes rather than like specific materials and um things like that uh so in the staff report there are recommended conditions they are our standard conditions we have no additional things to add here um because at this point I am just considering um any lighting being downcast as a standard condition at this point um there is no lighting proposed at that rear deck but if the applicant wants to put some there just has to be downcast um alternatively if there is a belief that this creates a distracting element and would have an adverse effect on the historic resources there are citations in the staff report if the commission is inclined to deny the application but again this the staff recommendation here is that this is not going to have an adverse impact this is not going to make this non-contributing row any more or less non-contributing I I am sure they love their house and I'm so happy they want to stay in Jersey City this is not going to make it any more or less what it is rather get rid of the parking yeah well they're proposing to change the they all they all used to have one parking space like the house on the far left and I believe the third the the the house to over when we approved that they were supposed to add landscaping and they did not right it's still two parking spaces well have a good memory Paul for some things yeah they're we're not proposing any front changes so couldn't get in there with that but again staff recommendation is to approve with conditions and I'm happy to answer any questions I'll make a motion to approve with conditions second okay Paul and then Corey all right we'll do a roll call vote commissioner San Camp hi commissioner Cronin I commissioner amuza I commissioner griga I commissioner Gunther is absent commissioner Lewis is absent commissioner sakong is absent commissioner blazak is absent Vice chair Gua I and chairman Gordon I okay there are six votes in favor none against no extensions the COA with conditions is granted thank you thank you guys it is freezing so cold all right I am sorry to keep everyone the cold a little bit longer we do have some last agenda items to take care of thanks for your patience by the way interesting all right moving on on the agenda for tabled cases I have an update on the French American Academy and the update is that I reached out to them on March 7th asking for an update um and heard no response in that email where I reached out to them I did give them a date of April 15th to either respond and say the application was still active or um submit additional materials for the commission to review um I had sent them a copy of the transcript I sent or I'm sorry I copy of the video um stating what the commission was looking for no response I emailed them again on April 10th following up asking for a response no response so that being said it is staff's opinion that this application is no longer active and recommends a motion to dismiss without prejudice I make a motion to dismiss without prejudice second okay all in favor I video off the agenda we guys there might be a point in this calendar year we have no tabled cases and we're ready for a motion well no we still have for uh nomination oh well yes we're going to get there hold on let me finish wen't we talking about amending also so so that we could more easily move things off of our agenda that are stale we were and there's we didn't really pursue it knowing that we probably weren't going to have anything left on the agenda but um that is something that I think would be an ordinance update and it's something that when we do our list of ordinance updates we will we can look at because I think there's a lot of things that legally we have to look at to see if we can can do or not fly all right um I have no update from the temple we have no demolitions to review and that leads us to um our so this is technically also our reorganization meeting um as is every April and because we are in an off year where um we elected new officers last year we did not need to have a committee to source new officers um so I have reached out to both Robert Steven and myself to confirm that everyone is interested in being elected back to their seat for the next year um so if anyone has any questions on officers we can discuss if not we can make a motion to elect Robert as chair Steven as Vice chair and me as secretary for uh another one-year term I make that motion to nominate Robert Gordon Gordon Commissioner Gordon Steve gucciardo and Maggie O'Neal um Robert to uh chair Stephen to Vice chair and Maggie O'Neal to secretary second sloppy moment okay all in favor I hi great um I will remind you all now we need new officers next year just think about it Robert and Steve I I can still be secretary next year Robert and step cannot be chair and vice chair next year always good to start thinking about that now so we're not scrambling in March speaking of reminders did everyone do their um Financial disclosure that's always fun that is an excellent I what believe I don't ever get copied on those emails so I have no idea when you guys have to do your Financial disclosure but Jonathan is saying it is the 30th that is an excellent reminder because I have seen them find people for not doing it so takes like five minutes it does especially if you've already done it yeah all the information's and if repopulated so it takes a minute I did it the first day yeah you're so good you're so good Robert I thought you were about to say that it's tax day and you have about an hour 2 hours and 15 minutes to get that in yeah file your extension all right um we have no resolutions to introduce discuss or memorialize we do not need an executive session and that just leaves us with adjournment I make a motion to adjourn second right it is 9:47 p.m. all in favor I I