Ann Arbor Historic District Meeting 7/8/21

001welcome to the thursday july 8 2021 electronic meeting of the ann arbor historic district commission this the meeting is being held electronically to pull it to excuse to protect the public health and safety due to the covet 19 virus and to comply with orders issued by the governor the michigan department of health and human services and or the washington county health department we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be by a telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877 978-6401-4515 this information is also available on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 at t channel 99 and

002online at www.a2.gov or a2gov dot org forward slash watch ctn and on item b roll call commissioners during roll call please remember to state your location when your name is called stature will you please call rome commissioner fortner hear from ann arbor thank you commissioner white here from ann arbor michigan commissioner rocklin dear ann arbor commissioner epperson here ann arbor michigan commissioner ross try again there you are can you hear me now sorry about that here in michigan i saw like cap the commissioner fortner saying no commissioner quijano uh here in ann arbor michigan commissioner beeson have a quorum thank you miss patrick adamc approval of agenda are there any additions deletions or changes to tonight's agenda you're not saying no objection the agenda is approved as presented item d public comment this is an

003opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about an issue that is not listed as a public hearing on this agenda to comment on such other preservation matters please call 877-853-5247-338-84778 this information is also displayed on the median agenda and video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one by using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments person do we have any callers for public comment you have one hand raised oh i think she's here for something else okay um no

004callers okay well close public comment portion and move on to add me unfinished business which there is none and on to item on to hearings item f1 at 617 west madison ms thatcher will you please give the staff report 617 west madison is a one and a half story craftsman that first appears in the 1927 city directory as the home of emile hoppe an employee of the telephone company and a student features a full with front porch with a large gable dormer above siding on the first floor and shingles on the second and three over one windows the applicant is seeking hcc approval to install a gas meter on a front elevation one foot north of the southwest corner of the house and my slides don't seem to be changing bear with me for a

005moment there it is um the commission has seen a lot of gas meters recently this one is this this house you can see is on a corner lot uh it's on the corner of madison and fifth street i believe and the meter's proposed to go back here behind this little bump out on this wall which does face the street so it's technically a front elevation you're standing in the driveway you can see that there's a little nook there that it would fit into quite easily back here is a is a slab so they're not able to put the meter on the backpack on the slab and i'm not sure why they can't move it around the corner to over here but i'm also not convinced that that would be a better place to put it

006there is a paved walkway here right now it seems like trash cans and things are kept there but there is several feet between these lilies and the wall that's paved there's a drawing of where the meter would go it's opposite the existing inside meter location a few more photos you can see the um the meter location side here that's where it would go in the house this is that back area that's on a slab and it would be post mounted therefore not harming any historic materials from the secretary of the interior standards number two says the historic character of a property will be retained and preserved the removal of distinctive materials or alteration of faces features spaces and spatial relationships that characterize a property will be avoided number nine says new additions exterior alterations or

007related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property the new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing size scale and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment number 10 says new editions that adjacent or related new construction will be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future the essential form and integrity of the historic property will be unimpaired from the secretary of the interior's guidelines for mechanical systems it's recommended to install a new mechanical assist system if required for the new use that it causes the least alteration possible to the building's floor plan exterior elevations and the least damage to the historic building material the ann arbor historic district design guidelines it's appropriate to attach mechanical

008equipment so if the historic fabric is not damaged or destroyed and to install mechanical equipment and wiring in locations on the roof rear elevations or in alleys they are not visible from the street it's also not appropriate to install new mechanical equipment systems or wiring in locations that change or destroy character defining features and materials this is a very straightforward application by the um applicants stated that the majority of the home sits on a slab limiting potential fuel line tie-in points um [Music] they've maximized the 10 feet of fuel line to reduce visibility the homeowner suggested potentially planting a bush to reduce uh visibility further but that's not really a part of the application that's just mentioned in here um staff requested more information on the extent of the slab and why the meter can't

009be moved around the corner but um i still haven't heard back from them on that so that's all staff does recommend approval of this application i do think that that's an appropriate place um to put it given that this is slab back here and um this meter is 20 the existing meter is 24 feet away from the opposite wall of the house thank you miss thatcher commissioner rufflin and ross were on the review committee will you please give us your reporting recommendation i could i can start um so i i do agree with staff's um characterization of the situation um the building is located at an intersection so the side elevation where the uh mirror is proposed for installation um it's highly visible however the location and miss after could you bring up the photo

010of the celebration um yeah yeah oh yeah this one's good this one's good um so the the the kind of location on the the rear elevation near the garbage cans um if you could if everybody can see to the right there's actually like a doorway there so because that elevation is so highly visible it's clear like your eye goes right to really that doorway um and so placing the meter kind of at that kind of rear elevation um in at least in my opinion um would actually be more conspicuous than kind of tucking it towards the back of that bay window um so yeah it it's pretty straightforward um yeah commissioner rocklin if you want to you had any additional insight or thought uh well i just yeah from being on the site i agree

011that of i suppose even saying broader like all the places that it could be on the front elevation facing madison or the front elevation facing fifth this seems like the best spot that you could put it um to kind of keep it tucked away and at least a little bit hidden um along those entire elevations and then i suppose you got to be 10 feet away from the interior um so if you did want to swing around the corner where that downspout is and and maybe go where that a recycle can is you know you you could but like has been said there's a there's usable space there for the homeowners you know that's a a concrete slab they obviously store things on it there's part part of it's a walkway so um you know

012this this seems to be um you know once again sort of the the right spot to uh to put it uh and while i have the floor i will just add that whoever took the photo of the meter location from the sidewalk like that i really appreciate it um if it is visible from the sidewalk it's nice to see that meter location photo because then you get like the full context of what's going on so that that photo for me is really helpful so thank you would the applicant please unmute your microphone turn on your video feed if possible and provide your name and address for the record uh devin keys corby energy services 6001 belleville michigan i'm sure you guys are familiar with it by now welcome devin hi devin what's going on looks

013like we have one other caller one other brian is that you could uh e61010 identify who they are we're not sure who you are i couldn't grab the button there one yes brian ballarance dt energy's gas renewal program um offices in 14270 shaffer highway detroit michigan welcome back do bryan or devin do either of you have anything to add to the staff report or the review committee report no it seems pretty straightforward um it looks like to me devon and in the committee looked at all options and i think that looks um you know like it's best spot for all all parties um looking at the photos and listening to the report commissioners do you have any questions for the applicant i will now open the public hearing for this item this is an opportunity

014for persons to speak for up to three minutes about this application at 617 west madison public comment may be made by calling 877-853-524-7 or told or two on three three three eight eight four seven seven and entering meeting id bound nine seven eight six four zero one four five one five this information is also displayed on the meaning agenda and video feed and as a reminder in order to electronically raise your hand after dialing into the meeting please press star 9 on your phone kristen do we have any colors no colors um i will now close the public hearing portion of the application is there a commissioner that would like to make a motion commissioner kian i move that the commission issue a certificate of appropriateness for the application at 617 west madison street a

015contributing property in the old west side historic district to install a gas meter on the front elevation one foot north of the southwest corner of the house as shown in the application as proposed the work is compatible in exterior design arrangement materials and relationship to the building and the surrounding area and meets the city of ann arbor historic district design guidelines for mechanical equipment and the secretary of interior's standards for rehabilitation and guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings in particular standards 2 9 and 10 and the guidelines for mechanical systems support removed by commissioner quijano seconded by commissioner white is there a discussion on the motion seeing anyone i think this is pretty straightforward you know it's it's a corner a lot but i think it's you know as far back as it possibly can be

016on the side and i appreciate the comments from the review committee and all everyone's ready for a vote all those in favor of the motion please say yes yes yes yes yes all those opposed please say no okay the motion carries your application has been approved please note that you must apply for any required permits from the city before beginning work on your project thanks guys we're gonna we will now move on to item f2 526th street dispatcher will you please give the staff report 526th street is in the oversight historic district you saw it last week last month rather with a meter application this week they're back to seek several modifications all to non-historic parts of the house uh this house was first listed in the 1894 polk city directory as number 863 the

017shuttle residence it's on 6th street south of west jefferson and north of west madison the application includes a 20 square foot second floor addition on the back on a modern edition to remove a 20 square foot bump out and add five windows on the north elevation of the modern edition remove a modern chimney and the rear alter many windows on the modern edition replace a non-original pair of casement windows on the historic house with a single one over one window add a new single light person door and add a one over one window in a new opening on the second floor of the modern south edition and on the south edition we place a casement window on the second floor of the modern south edition with a slightly larger double hung egress window so this

018house has a lot going on it's had a lot of additions to it this is the historic part of the house it used to go straight back uh and there was a one-story element to the side here so imagine if this shed roof just kept going across there and it was sort of a one-story bump on the side of the two-story house so this little bit here that's probably i don't know six or eight feet uh second floor gable was added at some point the chimney is also not original moving around the house this is that gable that was added that i just pointed out to you one of the things that's proposed is for this window to get a little bit larger right now it's a it's a casement egress window that's a fake

019mullion across the middle they just enlarged the window enough that they can have a real one over one double hung window with and still mean egress requirements then oops wrong way we keep going around the house this is that gable that i just showed you this is a one or one and a half story original part of the house and this dormer is from the period of significance this is a small addition another proposal is to add a window right here on this wall again this is the bit that's not original that was added on the second floor edition going around the back of the house you can see that we've got several additions here's the rear roof ridge of the historic house of the two-story historic house and then in front of that sorry

020my laptop is not cooperating in front of that this is an original wing as well or at least a period of significance wing this window is a pair of casements they want to take this out and put in a double hung the the opening has been enlarged at some point um so but they wouldn't be enlarging it or changing the size in any way this is also an addition modern edition that just stays right the way it is then when we get to the drawings in a minute you'll see that these windows are going to slide over all of these windows down here are going to change and a 20 square foot addition with a rear-facing gable will go right on top of this bump out here it will be set in six inches from

021this corner of the historic house to make sure that that corner is preserved and finally this is the bump that's going to be removed to give them the 20 feet to put on top for the second floor up here um i've been told that there are interior layout difficulties with all of these additions and the various parts of the second floor and that this this very small addition would uh drastically improve their lives and usefulness of the house this is the bump that would be removed the reason they're doing this is because they're already over their 50 um footprint and floor area calculations and so to not make it any worse they asked if it would be reasonable to remove some modern floor area and basically move it to the back of the house given

022that this is a much more visible place this is on the side elevation on the north side um moving it around to the back as long as it didn't harm any historic materials back there it seemed like a very reasonable proposition to me okay we've got some floor plans i'm not going to go over them forever but we can look back at them if we need to reference them here's where that fireplace that bump out is being removed would be replaced with a pair of windows these are the windows on the back that i said are all being changed putting in a person door instead of sliders then on the second floor a pair of windows would be added above the ones below this is in a bedroom and there aren't any windows currently on

023this elevation this is where the little bump out edition is you can see that it's gonna hold half of a bathroom and this is where a new double home would be added on the new edition and this is where the casement egress window would be slightly enlarged all right now we've got existing and proposed elevations existing on the top no windows and a bump remove the bump add windows above and below on the side here you can see that there's just a tallish window they want something more traditional a double hung there and this is the new square footage going onto the second floor on the back the rear elevation this window is being removed and replaced with a double hung a window is being added right here this is the new work it sits

024right on top of this rear bump out these windows slide over to make room for it let's see here and then this is a pair of sliders or maybe it's a french door it looks like i'm not sure i thought there were sliders but maybe they're not they're all proposed to be removed again this is all a 1990s edition over here so this is all work that doesn't affect historic materials at all and they just want different kinds of windows back there double home windows and a person door now we move around to the driveway side where we started and the only change on this elevation is that this is the window that gets a little bit larger to accommodate an egress window that's a one over one okay from the secretary of interior standards

025number one says a property will be used as it was historically or be given a new use that requires minimal change to its distinctive materials features spaces and spatial relationship i've already read number two to you number five says distinctive materials features finishes and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved and i've read nine to you and i've read 10 to you so from the secretary of interior's guidelines for auditions it's recommended to construct a new edition so there's the least possible loss of historic materials the character defining features are not obscured damaged or destroyed also recommended to locate the attached exterior addition at the rear or on an inconspicuous side of the historic building limiting its size and scale and relationship with the historic building designing new additions

026in a manner that make clear what's historic and what's new from the ann arbor historic district design guidelines for additions it's appropriate to place a new addition on a non-character defining or inconspicuous elevation and limit the size and scale in relationship to the it's not appropriate to design an addition that overpowers or dramatically alters the original building through size or height oops all right let me go back up here right now the additions are let's see in terms of floor area are 58 of the original um so this would again move that floor area and keep it at 58 percent staff believes that the work does not have a detrimental effect on historic materials features are spacious and the application should be approved thank you thank you miss thatcher commissioners rocklin and ross are on

027the review committee please give us your report and recommendation okay should i start oh okay i can start um so once again um the supporting staff's characterization of the proposal um so the work is proposed at um kind of masses of the building that are not historic age obviously the scope of the project is is pretty well somewhat extensive um but the work seems appropriate um much of it is located at the rear elevation of the building um and in in my opinion um the window the the fenestration um the new fenestration proposed for installation um is actually more compatible um to this sort of character of the building than the kind of slider um kind of sliding doors that are currently um there so generally speaking um it just seems to be you know

028work proposed at inca inconspicuous locations um within new construction and appears to be appropriate okay um well yeah i think that it's was explained what's going on here very well just now in the staff report those those photos really uh step through elevation by elevation exactly what's going on and i agree with what has been said so far about i guess just yeah the compatibility and and the meeting of the standards with what's being proposed i think that um you know one of the things that that jumps out of me with this house is like in terms of character defining features it's got um you know very deep freeze boards and uh overhangs and at the overhang the fascia board has a crown mold trim that is like this exaggerated quarter round crown mold it's

029really big and it's unique i don't know if it's original to the house or not but um one of the unfortunate things is that this detail is mimicked on the newer massings as well so it's a little tricky um you know without having uh jill thatcher there with you to tell you what's what to just do that cursory glance of what's old and what's new you can figure it out mostly through the windows and looking at materials and all that other stuff but um i will be curious to know what sort of detailing is going to be done on the new gable that's being built in the back um because i i would say if there's sort of one thing that we're sort of on the on the edge maybe here with the standards it

030would be just uh differentiating old from new um but that's the only thing i'm seeing here good point okay with the applicant please unmute your microphone turn on your video if possible and provide your name and address for the record looks like you're actually muted all right can you hear me now yes all right awesome yeah this is luke wrote a horse from 5206 history hi luke do you have anything you'd like to add to the staff report or review committee report no that was that was awesome jill um i think that captured captured everything and it sounds like um commissioner rocklin some more detail about what we do with the gable on the new edition would be would be helpful and making sure that that is different than what would be historic um just

031so we know that that's new versus what would be historical yeah i mean we can get into that i think we get into that uh later or do we want to get into that uh airperson epperson that's fine yeah the next step is questions for the advocate so if you i think you know i would like to know a little bit more detail what what is actually planned um you can provide that now yeah sure with the with that gable in particular i don't honestly i don't think we've given um a huge huge amount of thought to what exactly it would um it would be i think we could show you um does it is it captured in the drawings jill from that um elevation um i'm not sure if that's that's there or not

032that westward-facing elevation this isn't a detail we've discussed specifically but we would be open to whatever the yeah there there we have it in the in that drawing there we would be open to whatever the commission recommends we we do to make sure that we're following your your your guidance there just zooming in on it a little bit it looks like it's slightly smaller than the remain the other the freeze boards are slightly smaller and possibly the fascia um if everything is drawn to scale and matching commissioners do you have any other questions for them i'm not seeing any we'd like now like to open the public hearing for this item this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to for up to three minutes about the application at 526th street you can raise

033your hand by pressing star 9 on your phone christian do we have any callers no callers i'll close the public hearing portion of the application is there a commissioner that would like to make a motion i move that the commission issue a certificate of appropriateness for the application at 526th street a contributing property in the old west side historic district 2. construct a 20 square foot rear second floor addition on a modern edition remove a 20 square foot bump out on the north elevation alter and add windows on the modern editions remove a modern chimney and replace a non-original pair of casement windows on the historic portion of the house with a single one over one window in the same opening as proposed the work is compatible in exterior design arrangement materials relationship to the

034buildings and the surrounding area and meets the city of ann arbor historic district design guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings in particular oops sorry for additions and the secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation and guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings in particular standards one two five nine and ten and the guidelines for additions and building site support moved by commissioner fortner second-hand vet commissioner white is there a discussion on the motion commissioner rockford i think i had a question actually that i didn't ask um and maybe it's maybe it's on the drawings what what are the materials that are being uh the exterior materials specifically trim and um and siding for the uh for that gable or i guess there's two areas at least i think we're gonna go with um wood siding um and then

035for the windows i think we listed like marvin um i think we listed those details there is that am i answering your question yes thank you okay yeah and i guess i would pose to commissioner rocklin and i guess the rest of the commission um but is this enough the the trim kind of being thinner is that enough kind of detailing to to distinguish this wing as an addition or this piece is an addition let me show this this should should the siding be a composite versus wood i mean is there not that designing on the fly is a good idea but yeah i've been wondering the same thing i mean you know a substantial portion of this rear elevation is addition right i mean um and as i'm assuming the existing siding that's remaining

036it's just looking at the photos it looks very similar in profile and sizing as the little bit of historic sighting that that is visible on the side as well like how how much blurring of life lines are there it was a really good addition it was just it was kind of like we did a lot of without i mean the form of the house you know obviously there were a lot of additions and you can kind of tell but um without having this backer there kind of walk us through it's kind of like oh okay so yeah and then not having to you know reside everything right you want to be able to focus on the areas of work that are being proposed and would it be an issue if if we did say hey

037you know side the the new gable piece with hardy instead of wood would that be in it i mean would that pose an issue with the fitness of you know like bumping it up with wood siding i i don't know that's just a general question i i mean i'm fine with the proposal as is but just bringing up that question around the fact that it does read as like really similar to the original portion of the house do we have us i know we wouldn't see much because it's only 20 square feet that's being added but does this i'm looking for the new elevation that might show the side of that compound so like it doesn't look like there's like a corner board on the inside corner but would that be weird to then kind

038of separate it from the main wall siding that might look weird because it looks like there's a vertical trim you know on the rear elevation right i was just trying to look i i do think that you know i'm i'm okay with a wood siding or in addition a lot of times though we'll we'll look for like a differentiation in size of the lap or the the actual you know for it if it's a four-inch original maybe it's a six-inch on the new or something that that's a little bit of a variation so it's trying to you know just look back through the drawings to see what it and you know especially in the proposed little new edition would it be feasible to make that siding a different size um where it's being replaced and

039would that you know help commissioner rocklin oh were you done yeah go ahead okay um i guess to answer your question directly keeping on the same little spot there um i think that there is um i think that this is differentiated uh enough even if it is wood even if it is the same lap and i i think i'm coming to that conclusion for me uh maybe for two reasons one is that it's it's almost all of it is touching an existing edition so it's like an addition on an existing edition though um and then the other thing is just there are so many little editions already there like if this was the first addition to this house it would be critical that this be differentiated obviously right we look for that first in the

040standards but when you're standing back there it really is a bit of a hodgepodge of different volumes and um it just doesn't it would seem maybe even silly to have one of those volumes now sticking out more than the others for the sake of over differentiation maybe when it's sort of like that ship has sailed and you've kind of got mimicking happening already and um you know i don't know i don't know if differentiating this one volume on a new on and a you know an already new edition is is something that's so important to me i guess after thinking it through so that's that's where i'm standing right and it's not detracting from or damaging the existing historic fabric i think like you said it's an addition on a non-historic edition yeah and compatible

041maybe more compatible than we'd like but for this case it it works i i agree with those comments and i do think it having the freeze board and the fascia be thinner profiles is actually helping maybe more than you know it's differentiating another on the roof edge roof profile so that that helps distinguish it from the original that it's immediately adjacent to more so then as you stated mr uh commissioner rocklin that it would be just one portion of an of and addition that's sticking out from the rest of the edition at least there is some differentiation involved let's vote are there any other comments from commissioners communities so if we're ready to move to a vote um all those in favor of the motion please say yes yes yes all of those opposed please

042say no the motion carries your application has been approved please note that you must apply for any required permits from the city before beginning work on your project thank you good all night we'll now move on to item f3 110 east washington dispatcher actually this application is incomplete and will be included on next month's agenda if requested information is received in time by staff there's no staff report since the item was advertised as part of the agenda we need to hold the public hearing i'd now like to open the public hearing for this item this is an opportunity to speak up for up to three minutes about this application at 110 east washington a comment may be made by calling 877-853-5247 reminder to callers to please press star 9 on your phone to raise your

043hand do we have any callers no callers i will now close the public hearing and we can move on to item f4 324 south state street this thatcher will you please give the staff okay 322 and 324 south state street are in the state street historic district 322 is the white one on the right this little guy um it's the southernmost of four storefronts that make up the university block which was built in 1886 its second story retains the decorative press tin facade elaborate cornice coins and narrow windows 324 south state was the first brick commercial building on the block it was built in the 1870s as mrs west's dining hall which also contained a skating rink it's a three-story brick italianate with pilasters the cornice and elaborate stone window hoods are unfortunately gone you

044can see those here in the picture the most recent tenant of these buildings was for many years espresso royale this is a photo from the 1870s this building was replaced at some point but this building is still there in in the same form the same mass lots of details are no longer there but it looks like you went up to go into the dining hall and if you went down here a couple steps down you got to go into the skating rink which is very cool here's what the building looked when it had been modernized a little bit in 1928 or 30. this is from the bentley you can see that this guy still has its elaborate elaborate um second floor press tin and the first floor um i've got one other photo also that

045is not in the slideshow but it shows this really neat storefront with a cool spanish tile roof and these extended all the way across the four buildings in the university block on this building you can see where they've ripped off the stone molds squared off the windows made these larger actually maybe they didn't make them larger but they've replaced the the windows the two over two windows with um casements metal casements and then put in a new storefront so even by 18 1928 they were replacing storefronts on state street here's a picture of the same building in 1951 it was still the calkins fletcher drug company but again this is a yet another store front and you can see this one over here had uh one of those enameled steel storefronts that was fallit's bookstore

046but by let's see oops hang on this is the 1980s but the 80s fallout had taken over both and replaced it with one long storefront the way it is now it's one space on the interior of the two buildings here's what we're left with today there's a pretty simple metal storefront system there are double doors here there's a single door here that's proposed to be made into a double door this section of the building is for the shops downtown and it's not really a part of the application though i have a few concerns about that that i'll tell you about in a few minutes the um the application i should mention is to replace this awning with a new awning as a little sign on it replace this storefront unit up to here with a

047with a new one and keep this brick kick plate and these brick columns on the sides those showed up i think in the 1950s photo so they are nothing on this first floor is uh contributes to the historic character of the building because it's all post 1944. part of the application um that the applicant is not part of the application but he asked if he could add it at the review committee meeting on tuesday night would be to paint this first floor brick the the yellow brick that's on the kick plate and the side columns that's that's something that the htc has to approve because everyone knows that brick and paint aren't always compatible obviously the upstairs has been painted and the upstairs the upper floors are red brick not this blonde or yellow brick

048so if uh you are so inclined you should discuss it and add it into the motion if you think it's appropriate to paint this modern brick on the first floor this is looking at the left side of the building right here under the it's right here under the the awning on the south column here there's there's a there's there's a thing it was in the much earlier photos also you can see this thing bolted onto the wall they've just worked around it they've there's just there's just osb plywood over the entire facade where that giant fallen sign used to be we have no idea if there's anything behind it if there's any historic materials left or what era they might be from and then underneath that we have a soffit that's also just painted white

049here's what it looks like when you're standing underneath it the storefront used to come out level um or flush with the other storefronts along the block but at some point it was recessed a few feet nothing historic about it we certainly wouldn't let someone do that now most likely um but since it's here and it makes a very convenient place for a coffee shop to put some tables and it's not part of the proposal to pull it back out that would remain as is you can see the soffit up here there are there are six light cans that you can see here those are proposed to be replaced with new light cans with led fixtures inside um this little l it bumps out further and we don't know what it is i'm going to talk

050more about that in a second okay here's that bump so this is the the the edge of the the historic front of the building which is right here and then you've got this this box coming out um part of the proposal is to is to basically install over the top of this soffit area with a grooved cementitious board product just to make it look a little bit less cheap and make it make it nicer looking but there's not really anything in the proposal about any of the rest of this box up top except refacing the awning with new fabric so and there are also a couple of light tubes here that really shouldn't stay up there that used to shine through the espresso royale logo here but that's that's really not um that's that's that's

051actually considered inappropriate in the design guidelines so i'd also like to know from the applicants if those big tubes are going away permanently um lots of photos were provided by the applicant it doesn't make much sense until you really either study the photos or stand underneath it but then it sort of is clearer i do have a problem with the work ending right here where this other storefront to get down into the basement has its awning and its doors if the storefront unit is replaced it really needs to go all the way across i'm not so concerned about the awning but it's going to look pretty silly to have a nice you know fancy new storefront here and then these older doors that that don't match um kind of stuck on here so i would

052prefer that um that the entire storefront be replaced sorry okay and that this bump that we don't know why it's there and it extends over the right-of-way if that could just go away and just and the awning could be installed um in a more normal manner more traditional floor plan is in there shows the this drawing shows the double doors here that would be added these are double doors it's a little bit wider so i'm not sure which side the brick would have to be taken off of but one of the other and we've got a white awning with ann arbor coffee roasting i think is the name of the business it's a little too small for me to read storefront elevations uh it's just too light the tina green is the color which looks

053sort of like an aged copper but that's the color of this the metal storefront i think i've talked about the other work that's proposed um from the secretary of interior standards i already read number nine to you from the design guidelines the secretary of interiors guidelines for storefronts it's recommended to design and construct a new storefront when the historic storefront is completely missing maybe an accurate restoration using historic pictorial and physical documentation or a new design that's compatible with the size scale and material of the stark building new designs should be flush with the facade and be kept as simple as possible it's not recommended to introduce a new design that's incompatible in size scale material and color and from the ann arbor historic district design guidelines for storefronts it's not appropriate to install a

054new storefront that's incompatible in size and material with historic building and the district all right let me back up here a second there's also a window decal sign proposed but that's right here that's small and appropriate size easily reversible i really am a fan of window decals and window painting and uh staff believes that the proposed work is appropriate since both historic storefronts are completely missing thank you thank you thatcher commissioners raffles from the review committee will you please give your reports and recommendations okay i'll start um so once again um staff as has i in my opinion is um characterized the situation um very thoroughly and accurately um so the the um awning um clearly so essentially the the first story storefront starting with the yawning kind of weird wood kind of cladding and

055the soffit and the storefront not historically it's not contributing from uh to the historic character of the building and it almost makes sense to remove them um and i do i do um certainly um sport staff's opinion around just kind of coming in with a new storefront and frankly even like a new awning well but a new storefront and then kind of leaving the one old kind of worn out door there um so that that's just a question to post it to the other commissioners one thing we did discuss on the field so just noting that the applicant is talking about adding a the um once again that kind of cement just kind of party siding to the soffit just to cover up kind of add oh uh kind of freshen up the appearance of

056the soffit um however we did have a question around the wood the wood panel that's underneath the awning frame um and miss saturn if you can bring up a photo because it's in pretty bad condition you can see that it's there's water damage it's kind of pain is peeling off of it the uh layers are kind of peeling off so it's not really in the best of condition um so we did talk about hey what's going to happen there and in particular you know if if it's actually removed and there's historic material underneath what would the expectation be would it be to keep you to leave the historic material exposed or um if it's removed and there's like i said historic material and the applicant wants to add a composite sighting is that something that

057the commission would approve um but he did talk about the possibility of just keeping that wood siding there and just similar to the treatment proposed for the soffit just adding the new um party siding at the at that location you know obviously reinstalling the awning frame and then adding the new canvas awning so generally speaking the the proposal seemed appropriate um as proposed it's not taking away or removing any historic material and in fact it's going to refresh what's kind of tired but there i i did have a question around um if like i said if that kind of wood cladding um is removed from the wall surface and there's historic material that's exposed in my opinion it wouldn't be appropriate to necessarily go ahead and put some put the hardy siding over that yeah

058well there's there's some good historic photos that can be uh scrutinized and analyzed to see what might be under there uh if they do go that route but i agree with you that um the well i guess they they weren't um it wasn't really proposed in the in the application um and that's probably why because it's just uh kind of you don't know what's going to be back there um i'm i'm very curious to know what's back there but um it's i guess would be in my opinion that uh up to the owner yeah if they want to take that off or not it i i agree with you it's the wood that vertical wood that's um behind the awning is is not in great shape um but i i believe yeah the the word

059encapsulation came up uh at the review committee we're just well just put something on there um so so there's that and then backing up a sec i would just say like on the one hand this application seems very straightforward because it's just the modern replacement of an already modern storefront and from that respect i do think it is very straightforward where it gets tricky is the fact that you've got two historic buildings and one storefront that's that's divided in a very awkward way that when you're standing there on the site i it you can really feel it if you kind of stand where the two buildings meet and you kind of stand under there you can they've completely removed the the support that would be holding up that um the meeting of those two like

060the that the coins on the on the um on that one building as they come down you can see they almost meet like the jam of the door and then inside you can even see it in a photo is there's there's like a pillar inside that's obviously holding up a lot of structure there but it's it's a little awkward and so we've had i know that we've had applications even recently that have been two store fronts proposed at once but i believe they've always been very much respectful of two different store you know making it still look like two different storefronts this sort of looks like one and a half storefronts combined together into one storefront and then another little leftover bit and um so it is like without the awning there it would look

061very awkward with the awning there it really does tie it all together and you don't notice it from the street um but i think that uh you know moving forward and and uh it would be nice i don't i just don't think it's in the standards right that this sort of situation where um if there are multiple storefronts uh with a replacement then the replacement should somehow respect the symmetry or whatever of the fact that there's there's multiple historic structures above to be kind of in language with like this there's literally no conversation you know between the historic uh buildings in the modern storefront but that i think in this case that ship is sailed right because the um the the layout of the building i suppose or or the existing storefront that's there but

062i think what could be saved is just fixing the rest of the storefront that's there both the soffit and the um the actual storefront doors and windows thank you commissioner and commissioner ross with the applicant please donate your microphone turn on your video if possible and provide your name and address for the record david murphy ann arbor hi mr murphy um do you have anything you'd like to well how are you good yeah i actually have a few things to add here so since our meeting the landlord and the owner actually came to an agreement to replace the whole storefront from end to end so that we were able to accomplish [Music] secondly uh to kind of cure commissioner rocklin's curiosity about what's in that soffit i looked up there and because that storefront used

063to come out to the street it's actually just exposed wood from the old interior and there's actually electrical run through there it's insulated mostly modern materials other than the structure of the second floor [Music] so no historic brick work or anything like that remains up or is up there in the beginning so there was that um the third thing the tube lights uh those will be removed completely those will be gone and fourth the fiber cement actually in the application it was meant it may not have been clear but that same fiber cement material will run on the soffit and then up the wall behind the awning so i believe those were all the questions that i can answer at this time christopher thanks for that um i'm sorry did you mention the that little

064bump out part that's like okay yeah so i apologize i forgot that one um that we're willing to remove however where the access panel is to that socket area i wasn't able to see what was in there so if there are some gas lines that run through there and i imagine if the the gas lines or any other significant piece of the building is run through there we won't be able to but we will explore getting rid of that looks like we have just one additional color uh jason would you please on your microphone and state your name and address for the record sure hannah uh this is jason cooper i am the construction manager for the project in ann arbor michigan thank you do we have any other questions for the applicant mr fortner

065jill had mentioned something about painting the brick on the ground floor at the ends is that ours are you going to do that we would like to underneath the um this current storefront there are some um there's that newer modern brick that we would like to paint a white color um similar to the color above so the building matches and consists is consistent all the way down any other questions i had one you stated that you were you have since the application has been submitted agreed to replace that remaining portion of storefront and awning do you have any updated drawings or design information for the storefront and the awning itself uh no that was done today so we can get you something pretty soon though pretty quickly there's another commissioner kiana sorry about that um

066i don't have a very clear close-up photo of it but i just zoomed into one of the overall storefront street views and it looks like the historic brickwork just above the existing awning looks like there's a lot of paint peeling and i don't know the condition of that brick if you've looked at that at all and if any of that potential restoration work is included in the scope of this storefront replacement um uh not to my knowledge it won't be included uh at least within this application okay is it something that has been talked i'm just curious like is that going to be an issue with installation um so i'm looking at the photos i see what you're saying on the site it didn't quite look as bad as this photo depicts i didn't notice

067it as much we are working with the tenant and i think anything above that awning would be an owner issue that we'd have to address but um jason have you had any conversations with the tenant or owner about the brickwork above galloning uh no not at this time okay thank you uh commissioner ross did you have a question nice just to follow up on that on the last question and this is um towards miss thatcher um so if the the owner decided to paint the the brick area above the awning because it's peeling is that something that staff can approve or would that have to come back to the commission i would not have to come back because it's already painted okay if it was unpainted masonry it would have to go to the commission

068if it's already been painted it may be painted again without any sort of staff approval gotcha and then um just one additional questions minor to the applicant so the the um the hearty um siding that's proposed to kind of encapsulate the soffit and the wall surface is that going to be white as well or what just curiosity that'll be painted uh the similar color to that patina green oh so the the color of the storefront finish right yep okay any additional questions i'll move on to the public hearing portion for 324 south state street christian do we have any callers no callers i'll close the public hearing is there a commissioner that would like to make a motion on the application commissioner rockler let me find it i move that the commission issue a certificate

069of appropriateness for the application at 322 and 324 south state street a contributing property in the main street historic district to replace the storefront system with a new metal storefront system replace the canvas awning with same and include a new sign on the awning add a window decal sign replace the soffit behind the awning with cement board and replace the lighting with new 4-inch led recessed lighting the work as proposed is compatible in exterior design arrangement texture material and relationship to the rest of the building and the surrounding area and meets the ann arbor historic district design guidelines for storefronts and the secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation and guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings in particular standard nine and the guidelines for storefronts support move by commissioner rocklin seconded by commissioner white is there

070a discussion on the motion commissioner commissioner ross um just cut recommending a perhaps a friendly amendment to add the painting of the unpainted brick the buffer get the first story surface right i was my comment was going to be also about the motion because i guess it says the work as proposed but we've added a few things to the application here so i guess we could say um yeah but i guess what we've done in the motion is list all the things that we're doing so we can add at the end of the list here after four inch led recessed lighting we can say um painting the exposed brick on the first on the storefront level support now there's nothing in here about extending the storefront to include the entire width of the building um

071do we need to add that into the motion i think it would be a good idea okay so when we say it just says replace the storefront system after that to replace the storefront system including the entire width of the existing storefront support and also we should say we can put this in maybe at the end of after four inch led recessed lighting um oh well i don't know what do we do about removing that part that's over the public right away they actually there's not full agreement in removing that there's agreement to investigate it and remove if there's no essential systems do i need to put that in the motion i think it's fair if you guys leave that off because that's something i can just staff approve follow up on that anyway okay

072yeah so then the motion does everyone agree the motion is good as amended do we want to say something about removing the fluorescent lights yeah yes move existing fluorescent tube lights yes [Music] thatcher did you get all the i did thank you okay thanks for that and commissioner white well that's a good second promotion support thank you madam chair all right are we ready for discussion yeah i think we captured everything yes it sounds like all right discussion items i just want to if nobody has anything i want to kind of go back to commissioner rocklin's um kind of report in the beginning and kind of point maybe directly to our guidelines from secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation and this is i'd say directly relating to the storefront replacement itself and the design of

073the storefront replacement so if i read this new additions exterior alterations or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property there are no existing historic materials um the new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing size scale and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property in its environment we look at this one and i look at um not appropriate for store prints installing a new storefront that is incompatible in size and material with historic building and district i think this is compatible mostly in size and material but i would say i think the thing that i'm struggling with a little bit is that distinction that there are two separate buildings and we are not seeing any distinction in the storefront itself

074so i look at that guideline number nine in particular and see that there's um size scale and relationship that is a little bit off with the overall sort of difference between the two buildings and there's not really any any way that this new storefront design has addressed that um i think that it looks a lot nicer i appreciate that there's you know a change to to dress it up a little bit but it seems to be you know a replacement of maybe existing with pretty much the same existing design i do appreciate that the there's been you know a change to include the remainder of the storefront itself um that the one person that's being left off but i think that a little bit more could be done to make the the storefront replacement a

075little bit more compatible with it to design it in such a way that would maybe you know at least try to indicate that these are two separate buildings into separate storefronts um so so that's kind of i guess where i'm standing a little bit and i'd like to hear from other commissioners and see if they have any other thoughts or comments well one of the things that that's that was decided a while back and this is just a replacement and um was in the historic district and when they did do that it's done i don't think it's fair to the owner to have him change that now he's just replacing what's there commissioner rocklin um mr murphy question for you uh is is there a is there like a um a standard sort of window

076storefront size there that i know it's on the plans it looks very regular but is are you able to put that door where those two sets of doors let's say wherever you want them or do they have to follow some sort of grid layout on the storefront that you're using well they're um being replaced they're just being replaced in place uh the the two doors that are there are just remaining in the same locations and same widths okay i thought for i guess i just said assume that everything was getting taken down and then a new window frame and window and everything was getting put in so it is that's true that's correct uh but there is a um a short wall that's underneath this um storefront system it doesn't go all the way to

077the ground so that's the the three or five courses of brick there that we're going to paint i think that you're questioning the plan layout commissioner you just look at it and plan i i forgot about the the brick um you know the existing brick knee wall or kick plate or whatever you can call it there and so i mean it's easy to move things around and you know in plan but obviously in elevation there's existing pieces so that's that's complicating things but i just think that um chairperson epperson brings up a really good point and she read the standards and and you know it's i don't know i think it's we should talk about it because um you know and then uh commissioner white brings up another good point you know that they're just

078dealing with existing conditions a little bit now the existing conditions where you know maybe this is the time to fix it or maybe not but yeah i think that's it's worse than discussion yeah it's for me it's a gray area i was looking at those you know the not recommended or the not appropriate language you know normally we don't if something's been removed you're not you're not required to replace it um and but it is a potential opportunity to correct a wrong perhaps but it's not a responsibility necessarily but i think it at least a very appreciated compromise is to to extend that the full width of the two store two properties to at least make that a um you know kind of unified appearance and system um i did forget about that low brick

079wall as well because it thought oh maybe there's an opportunity to shift those doors somewhat just to imply a separate storefront but you're right um intrigued by this kind of thought process but i think it really comes down to reading the end of uh the standard for number nine which really talks about you know that new work has to be differentiated it needs to be compatible and the features need to protect the historic integrity of the property in its environment so i think that's what it comes down to for me is that the placement of the smallian or the placement of the doors moving it or not moving it will it really protect the historic integrity of the property that's what it comes down to for me the will it i don't think it does

080i don't think it does i think a door the door a storefront system that's been replaced and changed and moved with especially with the knee wall in there it's not going to do much for the building yeah i think what's what's above it is much more important at this point and i just uh jump in um so i mean just my opinion um and um my understanding of the standards well um so clearly the the storefront is um if if this building was kind of in its pristine condition if this applicant came or so if the owner came to us today with the proposal to install the storefront it would be looked upon as incompatible but there is kind of the question around okay if you have an incompatible element and you're proposing to remove

081it um kind of the thinking around with the standards um you can certainly put back something that's new and that differentiates it as new but it still has to be compatible with historic character of the building um so is this removing something that's incompatible and replacing it with something else that's incompatible versus something that's new and compatible but you know still is differentiated as new um so i i guess i feel a little ambivalent um about it i i i mean i i just uh kind of supporting earlier comments perhaps a good compromise is the fact that the owner is willing to extend the replacement um to include the little piece on the end um so at least there's some consistency but i guess that is just kind of a general question i guess i

082would have around like if if there's vinyl windows in a historic building and an applicant wants to remove the vinyl windows and come back with something that's equally incompatible i think i feel like i would say like oh no if like the whole point of this is is not to support incompatibility um but i don't know it's touching two quick points one commissioner ross is that unfortunately if somebody comes in and wants to replace a final window with a vinyl window they can do that with a staff approval right now it that it is allowed um the other thing is that i've already added just now as you were talking to my list of retreat topics in the future um helping assisting our design guidelines for uh storefronts that span multiple buildings i think we

083need to talk about it regardless of what happens today to give people better advanced notice and clear-cut guidance on what we're looking for mr brooklyn i think that if this application was asking to completely remove everything that you saw there in the storefront including the knee wall and replacing it then we would be in our right to ask them to replace it in a more compatible way but i think that since they that knee wall is there and they don't want to remove the knee wall so they're doing the best they can by removing you know by putting in something new and nice and encapsulating wood that's looking kind of shady so i guess that's where i'm i'm landing on this one measure camera this was probably a follow-up question for um the architect just

084for clarification the the other set of doors um to the let me get my directions right just to the south um immediately under the the named awning is is that opening does that brick knee wall is it getting modified to fit that new door double door or does that existing masonry size work with those two doors correct does that make sense it does not get modified so yeah here you go okay the elevation you can see where the ball stops yeah okay so that opening at the of the ground plane that works with those new doors it's not like you're cutting off of four inches or eight inches or whatever correct and actually i think um jill had stated that in her um explanation but that's yeah not true it's um that brick opening is

085the opening that we're going to use for the doors okay yeah so yeah so that knee wall is pure it's being retained completely yes thank you any other comments okay are we getting ready for a vote actually i just have one more note i just want to make sure that commissioners are okay with um just a statement that the new storefront would be replaced or do we want to see any additional drawings that would indicate what that storefront additional storefront replacement piece would look like maybe david or jason you could state whether or not it would be replacing kind much like the rest of it is that correct yeah that's absolutely correct yeah is the awning part of that as well it is not no just a storefront yep also the soffit the soffit will

086continue all the way correct and yeah the vertical wall okay storefront soffit and vertical so the portion of the awning that's indicated in the yellow color is that existing awning to remain or is that just is it going to be part of the new awning system but just differentiated from the coffee roasting business that's existing to remain existing to remain and that'll maybe it doesn't even align right now i can't remember or they're not attached right things so if that's another incompatibility that we uh no it's two separate awnings i think i believe even the the aluminum framing underneath is separated um i'd have to double check that but i'm pretty sure it looks like it is from the photos yeah at least there's three separate pieces on the um main proportion portion that you're

087proposing and then the other piece is also separate the uh the yellow piece is that also an aluminum frame or a metal frame it is yeah yeah there's one photo you can see a little bit and there's yeah you can see sky between i don't know is that maybe a question for the commissioners you know we talked about the storefront system being continuous but how do you feel about that being a separate just the reading of one and a half storefronts i don't know just a question let's vote up or down i think it's a good question jess i think that um it's the quirk of and how the next door store is and and i think we can talk about it at the retreat something that would be nice to figure out i guess

088because can i cause a retreat i agree with you it doesn't add to the compatibility at all but you can come to the retreat oh and i feel different welcome at the retreat so we love you right that that is a true statement commissioner foreigner yeah yeah i just say i feel different about the awning being an easily replaced attachment to the building than i do about the storefront you know being a part of the thing so i'm not you know the awning is going to change over time i'm not that concerned about the awning over that end piece as i am about the storefront being consistent right there's a different level of commitment so true yeah all right not just one another touch upon that good point any other comments or questions ready for

089a vote all of those in favor of the motion please say yes yes yes all of those opposed please say no motion carries your application has been approved please note that you must apply for required permits from the city before beginning work on your project thank you both thanks everyone thank you we'll now move on to item f5 711 west jefferson 7-eleven west jefferson is in the old west side historic district it's a two-story queen anne built in 1895 first occupied by john steinke a laborer house remained in the steinke family until 2010 when it was sold to the current uh actually not the current owner but one owner previous to this features a full with front porch would turn posts a two-story cross gable on the east side and textured block foundation there's a

090one and a half story barn on the property that is a contributing structure and it's the barn that we'll be talking about today in 2013 an application for a two-story rear edition was approved by the commission and constructed um so here's our barn the exact uh date of construction is unknown um the african seeking htc approval to alter the existing barn by adding a rear shed dormer altering the rear inside elevations by adding windows sliding doors and a person door replace four original windows infilling a hatch opening on the front with glass and fixing the hatch open replacing the rafters and re-roofing and installing insulation and re-cladding the structure this is the hatch door that i mentioned um up that's probably a hay loft door and then down below there are two double leaf doors

091leading into the barn you can see that it's got some pretty severe deterioration on the roof it's very wavy there are lots of gaps you can see light clear through the building when you're looking between the cracks this is the east side elevation you can see it has a single sash on the side here and then three windows up above there is no casing around them they're they're just sort of set into the wall that's the window on the lower level and those are the windows up above the this these vertical strips are unique to this elevation not sure why they're there at one point this whole building had asphalt shingles over as cladding over these boards i'll show you some traces of that in a second this is the rear or the south elevation

092it has two single windows with two over two windows there's one of those windows and there's the other and this is the west elevation you can see it has two windows that are about equal in size both with six lights and there's a person door here on the side very simple um the there are exposed rafter tails let's go up here in the gable first these boards are really wide they range from you know maybe 10 inches to maybe 18 inches this is serious old-growth wood and very unique to this structure there's a close-up of that gable window that's the lower one there you can see the the shingles the asphalt shingles that used to be on here they just peel them off around the door hinges but there's no sign of it anywhere else

093in the building except for lots of little tiny nail holes and there again this is the front double leaf door you can see the asphalt in there a couple of interior photos these are the stairs going up to the loft and here's a photo of the loft that was provided by the applicant the review committee didn't go inside it's it's it's presumably not safe on the upper floors this ceiling is severely deteriorated at these rafters on the roof um but you can see how wide some of those boards are there they're they're kind of incredible all right here's the site plan it does meet the setbacks for zoning there are the stairs uh where they are existing now these are the existing floor plans we don't have any proposed floor plans because um they've still

094got to figure out where to move the stairs to to meet headroom requirements and things like that this is the upper floor all right top is existing and bottom is proposed so um for the existing the i'll get to a profile in a second but the proposal is to basically sheath the exterior of the building with insulative panels and then use new old wood siding in wider widths and install it in a similar way in order to preserve the interior and basically the barn the way it is now but encapsulate it in new insulation and siding the proposal is for all of the windows to be replaced that is so that the building can meet energy code i did have a conversation with a one of the building inspectors about that this morning on a

095similar project and the applicant was explaining that at the review committee site visit um by insulating the building and re-cladding it and replacing the rafters and putting on a new roof it ends up about seven and a quarter inches taller at the ridge um the after it's redone and it's about 10 inches wider because of the width of the insulation and siding presumably i'm not sure the this window size is the same for both um but maybe this is uh i'm not i'm not sure where this extra panel came from down here but maybe the applicant can speak to that i'm not sure if these doors are getting lower or or if that bit of wall isn't it yeah i think you're right that is a beam that's showing on the profile thank you dave

096here is the uh west elevation we're going from the two windows on the person door to two pairs of sliding doors and five windows one of which matches the size almost but not quite of the existing window up above and you can see the dormer on the back here it's it's pretty shallow alright here's the dormer on the back here are the two two over two windows you can see the rafter tails they're exposed those windows would be completely removed and a person door and a new this shows a nine over nine window would be installed and then up above we've got a new picture window and side lights in the dormer finally the east elevation goes from three and one windows to three similar slightly different dimensions but similar windows and another one added

097near it okay here's the profile uh these the the the checkered areas are the new sips panels the new insulation panels um on top of the new wood rafters and new asphalt roof and and rafter tails then here we've got the existing wall this is this is where the wall is right now and then you've got these panels on the outside of it and the the new wood cladding on the outside of that this is the the cross of the window um here is a new header uh i think it's a new yeah it is a new header because it's set in from the old wall and then these are this is the front elevation so these are the double leaf doors on the left and on the right we have a new roll up

098overhead door this will be inside so you won't see it unless the doors are open so i don't really consider this to be a big part of the application but i appreciate that it was shown because they're proposing to reuse these doors and just re-hang them so that they're flush with the new wall this is a little bit better way to see it here's the existing wall with wood framing and siding and here's the new sips panels and then we've got the new siding on the outside there are window profiles in the packet there are a couple pages of them all right and from the secondary interior standards i have already read to you one two five i haven't read six six says deteriorated historic features will be repaired rather than replaced or the severity

099of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature the new feature will match the old in design color texture and where possible materials replacement of missing features will be substantiated by documentary and physical evidence and i've read nine and ten to you from the secretary interior's guidelines for roofs it's recommended to design additions to roofs such as residential office or storage spaces dormers or skylights when required by the new use that they're inconspicuous from the public right of way and do not damage or obscure character defining features it's not recommended to change the configuration of a roof by adding new features such as dormers that historic character is diminished i don't believe that this dormer diminishes the historic character of this building at all from the guidelines for windows it's recommended to identify retain and preserve

100windows and their functional decorative features that are important in defining the overall historic character of the building such features can include frames sash muttons glazing sills heads hood molds paneled or decorative molding of interior and exterior shutters and blinds also recommended to design and install additional windows on rear or non-character defining elevations is required by the new use but that's a question for you commissioners to figure out are those side elevations non-character defining such designs should be compatible with the overall design of the building but not duplicate the administration pattern and detail of character defining innovation also not recommended is removing or radically changing windows which are important in defining the historic character of the buildings that as a result the character is diminished and including a new design that's incompatible with the historic character

101of the building from the guidelines for district or neighborhood setting it's not recommended to introduce new construction into historic districts that's visually incompatible or that destroys historic relationships from the ann arbor historic district design guidelines for residential accessory structures it's appropriate to maintain and restore historic barns and other accessory structures to match the historic materials and configuration to maintain and repair historic doors and windows on historic barns and garages to match the existing materials and configuration it's also appropriate where elements of historic outbuildings are deteriorated beyond repair to replace the elements in kind it's not appropriate to replace repairable original historic doors garage doors and windows and it's not appropriate to alter historic barns and sheds by using materials configurations and designs that do not match the existing or historic appearance for roofs it's not

102appropriate to add chimneys coupons or dormers where not appropriate and for windows it's appropriate to repair windows in somewhat good condition by installing new wood pieces or laying epoxy into sills jams and sash deteriorated parts should be replaced and it's also appropriate for windows to replace seriously deteriorated components that cannot be repaired with like material identical layout mutton size glass area and style size to the original insulated glass is permitted when sash replacement is permitted using interior and exterior muttons with a spacer bar that replicates the original window all right let me check my notes here and make sure i didn't miss something um so the wide board siding is a character defining feature of the barn and staff definitely has concerns that the siding um is going to be all new on the exterior

103of this building um it's it is encapsulating the historic materials and keeping them but visually it it can look almost the same but it it does not match in the way that the the standards and guidelines describe them as needing to match um uh the building also has has been neglected for many years which we certainly acknowledge and appreciate and can observe just from looking at it um it's definitely preferable to keeping the building standing now and refurbishing it in an appropriate way then letting it fall down and having the app the homeowner have to put up a replica of it but the extent of the alterations is substantial by keeping the front elevation as true as possible to the original i think that that work is appropriate though again the original siding would not

104be on the outside anymore um it's this is a tough one there there are there are a lot of there are a lot of individual items that i may be able to i might be able to overlook if there were one or two but um the extent of the changes and the loss of the historic cladding i think are are two very substantial obstacles to meeting the standards and guidelines that concludes staff's report thank you yes thank you commissioner rocklin and ross from the review committee please give your report and recommendation i'll let commissioner rocklin start okay um okay so i guess first of all just describing the location of the of the um the barn it's i think you can kind of tell but it's set pretty far back from the sidewalk i mean

105it's it's set about as far back as you can uh on this property but it's also you know right at the end of the driveway and it is it's very visible so it's it's both set back on and also very visible um particularly the front elevation you know like for sure the rear elevation is not visible from jefferson street maybe you could see it from fifth or something like through through another property or something but um and you know since it's wide in the front and narrow on the sides you can see the side elevations also but um but they're not um they're the the front elevation is certainly the one that you're gonna see more um i guess you know i was um i was very confused by this application um when i was

106reviewing it um just because i was kind of coming in with my own assumptions as to how i thought this building was going to be um uh rehabilitated and it was like inside out from what i was expecting so it took me a little while to um to actually realize what was going on here um and so um so yeah i mean the um i think that'll just be a real i mean we could go through standard by standard on this one i think and have a really long discussion as to um you know what what we should do and and how we can you know talk about this um this uh this design because it's really clear that the application you know there's a lot of thought um behind the application and it's it's

107not like random thought you know it's thought based in uh concepts and theory and and um you know and rigor um but it's it's hard to um to then uh say that i i feel like a lot of it as you heard in the staff report and i'm agreeing that it's a lot of it is actually clashing with the ann arbor guy you know historic guidelines so um i think it'll be uh an interesting uh discussion i i also i think that the um it's important to note that um and just one more confounding factor is that the the quote-unquote new cladding that you're that you will in fact see from the exterior will be salvaged from uh you know historic barns so that just even confuses things even more where it's um you know

108uh well is that new cladding it's salvage cladding so anyway to me that that that um it should be part of the discussion um i guess i'll just agree with miss thatcher's last point too where it's like it's it's um it's really great that the homeowners are you know moving forward on on a project here and so you know i'm i'm really hoping that we can we can you know support them in getting uh something done um you know whether or not it's this i don't know but i just want to throw that out there before the discussion that it it is great to see um you know some someone moving forward on this much needed uh property on the old west side historic district okay and and i'm i'm going to be really brief

109just to allow for time for discussion because that you know obviously that's going to be necessary expected um but just just a second um essentially commissioner rocklin and staff's um statements and and assessment of the situation um i mean it's a building that's clearly kind of catches your eye from the public right-of-way um it's definitely unique and and it's kind of sitting there with this really great sighting that's clearly character defining um kind of has it all and um i i yeah i have several issues with with um the work is proposed i think in a general sense i think the design intent is great um especially speaking with the architect and and understanding what he wants to do um so i'm not i i don't have i'm i'm not questioning design intent um what

110i am questioning is i i just don't think it meets the standards so i just i just think within and so our district there are some issues um as we are literally required um to apply the to apply the standards when we're looking at at applications so it's not necessarily saying oh no this is a bad idea this is a bad proposal the design intent is terrible it's just in my opinion a lot of the elements individually and as a whole are not necessarily in keeping with the standards so i i will be quiet so we can further discuss thank you commissioners with the applicant please unmute your microphone turn on your video if possible and provide your name and address for the record so um my name is chuck bolton i am the architect

111for the project and craig holland is also here you can see him he can say hello and sarah robbins might be there as well and um no doubt what we put before you is a bit of a challenge um but i'd like to also to add to some of the things that were stated that um puts it into a little bit of um a different perspective um first of all um just because i just sat through you know four other discussions of of buildings where you used words that occurred to these buildings in the past like maintenance upkeep freshen up modernize uh refresh what is tired um these are all of the things this building was never afforded this building was built for animals probably horses and wagons i don't know that i would call

112it a barn but that's okay um and and its maintenance was as minimal as possible as um you heard from jill they nailed asphalt siding onto it asphalt shingles onto it just to keep the weather out of it a little bit they really didn't care and i know that we all fall in love with these wood boards because i do too and i can't buy an 18-inch board today very easily is only really i think only one on the building um but the people who built it really did not look at it that way this was a straight-up utilitarian building inside and out but what's interesting is and then of course because of that and it hadn't had any maintenance um it doesn't it isn't afforded that current life of being close to being usable

113um so in order for us to use it for habitation we have no choice but to insulate and i'm basically left as an architect with two choices i can insulate it on the inside and in doing so i will destroy 80 to 90 percent of the structure i will have no choice i will encapsulate it nail into it cut through it shim it all those things the inside's not flat the boards are just picked from different places um and that doesn't seem like a very preservationist thing to do alternatively i can insulate it on the outside and when i do that i can salvage 100 of the building that isn't rod 100 now on top of that i can even salvage some of the stuff that is rotten because i take it out of the

114elements where it will decay even further and that is the siding i don't care if my interior siding has some rotten wood in there it's not doing anything and it will not continue to rot but if i leave it on the outside of the building it will continue to rot so i have to tear it off and replace it with something that's going to withstand the test of some time in doing that i meet the secretary of the interior standards for destroying nothing and in doing that i also meet the secretary of the interior standard for having the entire thing be reversible in the future you can take the panels off that is absolutely 100 true and i've done it numerous times to other structures that don't have to go through htc standards so i

115don't have to necessarily explain that to a group so i do contend that the um that the people who envisioned how these buildings could and would be salvaged over time never conceived of what i'm talking about because it wasn't on their radar and i've seen buildings that have been insulated on the interior timber frames and the like as a matter of fact some of you may know of one that just recently was removed from our world on scio church road between zeb and parker it sat there for the last 20 years and the interior was a timber frame and it was all insulated on the inside and i was asked on numerous occasions how can you save the timber frame and i couldn't come up with a way to do it because they goobered it

116up so badly there was nothing i could do and saving timber frames is something i do so um as commissioner rocklin said there's a lot that we could talk about here i i consider it to be a very interesting subject i i lament that some of the um the people who envisioned how we should go about saving certain old things didn't think about everything that we can think about today but um i just find it um troubling to throw all of this um fine material that would make for great finishes and be really beautiful on the inside um and to encapsulate all of that um in the name of standards that were written that really didn't foresee this kind of building so with that i'm happy to take any questions oh there was one very

117fine detail that keeps coming up that hay door on the front elevation it got raised up because it splits the floor system meaning it's half on the first floor half on the second floor that's kind of a dangerous thing for me to leave i'll have a hole in the floor and so we moved it up so that it um it can stay but i can't have a window that goes between two floors that's why it got moved but that's a detail craig is there anything you want to add thanks chuck i appreciate it and thanks to the commission for considering this structure i know this is a tricky one we purchased this house about three years ago in 2018 and just in the three years that we've lived there we've seen just innumerable damage to

118the structure just from the elements from we've evicted raccoons from this structure we've evicted uh stray cats from this is this structure we've had water damage we have shingles that fly off the roof in every single windstorm uh there is water pouring in whenever there's snow on the roof we've had roofers come to the building just to see if we could shore it up so that we could prevent the roof from caving in and no roofing company would take the job because they felt it was too dangerous without completely reinforcing the structure um and we really want to save this structure it's really important to us we we agree that it adds a lot of character to the neighborhood and we want it to be functional um and not just as a place where we

119store things that we don't care about because they'll inevitably get damaged um and we also think that the way it currently is i mean it sits you know there's a dirt floor and there's a there's basically no foundation it's just sitting on um cement blocks uh it's a it's a hazard it's a hazard to our family it's a hazard to our children uh we don't want them playing in it we won't let them in the structure um i wouldn't let anyone up in the loft space there's been so much water damage in the last few years i'm afraid that the floors are gonna rot through and and yet at the same time as we said in the you know in the application this is an incredibly charming building that we think deserves to be saved

120and repurposed for something that um will stand for for another hundred years hopefully uh or more uh so we i look forward to the discussion and happy to answer any questions so thank you for considering it and if i may add one quick thing just to make sure this point is really clear what is clearly demolition by neglect is not the current owner's fault things have not happened to this building for decades and these guys have only owned the house for a couple years um so i just want to make sure that's clear thanks chuck and there's one other thing that i also want to add is it there the wood is clearly rotting and i i know this because the wooden peckers love it the carpenter bees love it um they come and peck

121on this thing you know all summer i'll fall uh so this this will slowly erode um over time you know these these panels i don't think it was really actually accurately captured in the um in some of the photos i mean in the last rainstorm that we had a couple of weeks ago we had water on the interior of the building you can see along the lower panels i know [Music] david jennifer you were able to visit the building i don't know if you saw in the lower panels there as you walk around the perimeter there's clearly water damage all around the perimeter of the building and i suspect that that will just continue to seep upwards over over time in addition to the water that's coming in from the from the roof so yeah

122we we think that this is a safety issue but we also want to do as much as we can to preserve preserve the structure and ensure it's used thank you both commissioners do you have any questions for that mr rocklin there's no um there's no floor plans uh new floor plans as was noted but it can either of you just describe uh what the program like thinking floor plan wise like what's the program of each level that you're proposing um the first floor will be there'll be one sort of um gathering space and a storage space so it'll get split down the middle um the stair will most likely run north to south um where right now it runs east to west um and upstairs will be a little work area i mean nothing's very

123big in there and a small bathroom um will also be added so it'll be a workspace for a couple of people and a bathroom and call it a conference room sitting area downstairs a place to sit around a table it's an office for sarah that's correct it will be both both my wife and i work from home and even before the pandemic hit and uh we um we only have one proper office in the house so this will be a second office for her business and i talked about earlier by the way for using your first names uh david and i are friends but uh commissioner rock commissioner russ so apologies uh i have a question on the section detail so i don't know if you can bring that up jill so how will the

124sip stand alone from the rest of the structure will it be its own structure separated from the existing barn quote barn i'm not sure i completely understand the question it sits on top of the existing or replacement rafters i don't know that will salvage any of the rafters some of them are clearly not salvageable um but so there's no there is no substructure holding you're relying on the structure of the existing building to hold this sips in place no they'll be the sips roof panels will sit on the sips wall panels which will sit on the foundation the section the right the section you're looking at is to the overhead door so it doesn't show the sit panel the sip wall panel coming all the way down to the foundation because this is through the

125openings but if this section were just through a common wall section there would be a sip coming all the way down to the ground does that make sense yep and then the foundation you would mention hitting the energy code so i don't see insulation around the foundation the footings the force lab or the footings um i'm also getting guessing you're gonna add some water infiltration and drainage around the footings yeah so this this this is meant to be this isn't meant to be a construction drawing i just put it together to communicate to this group um it's very much putting the cart before the course to have construction drawings this early in the process so yeah all the details are not in here all right so i guess what i'm making sure that we're checking

126is that the existing structure would stand alone in quote inside of the sip perimeter yes so there'd likely be a ridge beam up at the top of the gable as well along the ridge of the no well if the raft we would there's a couple of ways of doing it structurally speaking in all cases you would not see a thing we can put a ridge beam inside the sips panels i'd be more likely to put um rafters in between the slips panels from eve to ridge and have them oppose one another just like the rafters do but more times than not when i do this i can the math is there that the sips panel will span from eve to ridge by itself without any additional structural support um and basically it's not a common

127thing that architects see in the 21st century but most buildings in the 19th century didn't have ridges at all meaning structural ridges yep so the the sip would have some internal bucking to it but it would still need a ridge beam running the length of the sip where they meet at the ridge correct possibly if i have too much thrust at the walls yes but i there again there are methods by which i can knit that together um but you would never see it okay yeah so i'm getting this is certainly the profile at the ridge making sure that it looks the same so to speak i mean it's not going to have the nice dip well we could we can build that but yeah that's really hard this is hard to do but be

128fun um okay that's all my questions any other questions from commissioners see anyone so again move on to the public hearing portion for the application so this is a opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the application at 711 west jefferson street do you there is a caller no callers have indicated just a quick reminder if you would like to make any public comment on this application at 711 west jefferson and press star 9 on your phone looks like we have anyone so i will close the public hearing portion um would any commissioner like to make a motion on the application commissioner beason i move that the commission issue a certificate of appropriations for the application at west jefferson street a contributing property in the old west side historic district to alter

129the existing barn by adding a rear shed dormer altering the side and rear elevations by adding windows sliding doors and a person door replacing four original windows and filling a hatch opening at the front with glass and fixing the hatch open replacing the rafters and re-roofing and installing insulation and re-cutting the structure on the following condition that the exterior cladding matches the materials and dimensions of the existing woodward cladding as conditioned the work is compatible with exterior design arrangement materials in relationship to the house or to the structure and the surrounding area and meets the city of ann arbor historic district design guidelines in particular for residential accessory structures and roofs and the secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation and guidelines for real but rehabilitating historic buildings in particular standards one two five six nine

130and ten and the guidelines for roofs district or neighborhood settings and windows support move back mr beason seconded by commissioner white is there a discussion on the motion yeah so i guess right off the bat i'm wondering if the description of the motion of the work describes it differently um only because to me this is not it's not doing a this is adding a skin to an existing structure right it's adding a new build new structure in front of an existing structure um and while it's still replacing windows and adding sliding doors and windows too i'm wondering if that needs to be differently phrased because it i guess those openings are still being added to the existing structure so maybe it fits i'm thinking aloud too just on the motion just the phrasing of the

131motion i have certainly lots of other thoughts on how it fits in with the standards but should it be phrased differently which part of the motion right at the beginning um where it says uh to alter the existing barn by adding a new structure outside of the existing structure because it doesn't really mention that at all and i feel like that's a pretty significant component of this application yeah it says installing insulation and re-cladding the structure you could just describe it as install installing insulation exterior to the existing yeah we could even say in adding exterior panels structurally insulated panels encapsulating the historic structure existing here encircling closing the historic structure and that can well so jill that's kind of the thought process on the motion itself if bob would accept the yes amendment of

132it um jill do you think you have that then in terms of basic discussion we weren't too clear about it but yeah you weren't too clear about it i'm not going to be clear about it but i mean i've got i've got the the part about striking insulation and changing it to tips you know not um an acronym um reclining the structure uh you you wanted that we're putting in in an envelope putting the structure in an envelope that's exactly what we're doing yeah i was i was thinking about saying at the top where it says um a contributing property in the old west side historic district to alter the existing barn by adding a new structure to enclose the existing structure which includes a rear short rear shed dormer altering the side and rear

133elevations by adding windows etc etc and then when it gets down and then when it gets down to uh the phrase that says uninstalling insulation and reclaiming the structure maybe it says replacing the rafters and re-roofing well is it really replacing the rafters or is it is it sistering them and adding additional structure chuck can you answer that if i could unmute um to be honest most of the rafters are rotten through so we would be replacing them but we would be replacing them with timbers in kind um yeah okay so that's fine and then i would scratch the re-roofing because you're actually you're putting a new structure over it that's actually has new roofing on it yeah not re-roofing anything right replacing the rafters and installing a new roof yes okay with new roof

134no installing a new roof structure and new roofing how's that okay and then i think i think you would just scratch the and installing insulation because we tried to capture it at the beginning where we said to alter the existing barn by adding a new structural enclosure okay got it all right do you want to read it back um so after we struck installing installation we're also striking recladding the structure correct well it is actually part of adding a new structure to enclose the existing structure yeah and i think it's well the new structure will be clad on the following conditional material yeah yeah okay okay wait on the phone okay so we've got um contributing property to alter the existing barn by adding a new structure to enclose the existing structure by adding a

135rear shed dormer altering the site in your elevations by adding windows sliding doors and a person door replacing four original windows installing a hatch opening on the front infilling a head jumping on the front with glass and fixing the hatch open replacing the rafters and replacing the rafters on the following condition that the exterior cladding matches the materials and dimensions of the existing wide board cladding that's actually this was before the application was revised it now indicates on the application what the board width could be and chuck i'm not going to find that quickly so if you know it off the top of your head i'd love to hear it it's on the section drawing i think that's uh drawing six asics um the siding is i mean the sighting at that point obviously can

136be what we want it to be um i have sources for old materials i can pretty comfortably promise to get wood boards up to 12 inches and it it's the way it is written is that the boards would be unpainted as they are today um which i can source um the if we were to be able to source wider boards um that would be great but i don't know that we can um that that's just you know a shot in the dark um right no that's good um so that the exterior cladding matches the materials and dimensions of the existing wide board cladding no no less than 8 inch and 8 inches in width or no less than eight inches wide okay you good john i think so good are you good with that now

137discussion are you want me to dive into that now i can dive into that um so this is funny to me in a way in a weird way and funny in a non-comical sense but it's like all the standards i'm reading through each of the standards and right off the bat i was like well this is this does not meet the definitions of any of them but at the same time it meets all of them and it meets all of them mostly because the key words that it uses is about to re to be retained and preserved it doesn't say it has to be visible which is weird to me like if we have an historic building that has historic character and historic features it's just as that that those features have to be preserved

138and retained and oddly enough it doesn't say that they have to remain visible but it is what characterly defines this this structure is these these existing boards so if we're replicating those boards on the outside of it does it still look the same as it says still the same color and texture size scale relationship you know all that fun stuff so that that's where i'm resting on each of these standards um is that it all talks about the architectural features of the of the structure and how that has to be retained and preserved i'm throwing that out there right off the bat that's the first thing i was thinking too was looking that that whole list and i think thinking it was funny also because uh you know the one thing that i was stuck

139on was number 10 about being able to remove it in the future but we heard uh early on in the discussion that that actually uh i thought that was gonna be my roadblock uh for whatever reason and um it sounds like we've got assurances that in fact this type of thing can be removed um i think that it's can we try a little trick it's hard to it's hard to imagine but let's just say that we can imagine that that um that you could remove this in the future but i i just wonder about those standards like when they say all those things about preservation do they do they intend that as preserving it just for the occupants of the building or when it's in a when it's an exterior element does it mean that

140it's being preserved for the ex people experiencing that building on the exterior i mean we just are seeing the standards here in my head i've always thought well you're preserving it so that people on the sidewalk can see yeah that has always been kind of the the test and now that's being challenged um which is that's why this project's so interesting i think i think that there's if you look so if you just look at like the the the 10 there i think this is an interesting discussion i think if you if you drill down into some of the other you know more detailed recommended versus not recommended then we've maybe got some more uh direct conflicts in terms of window openings and that kind of thing but i'll let someone else chime in before

141we get to all that but it does save the building it's by doing what they're asking this saves the building if you if you want to take the wood off that you just put on there the building's going to collapse eventually yes it will i look at i think one of the big ones that stands out to me is number six uh the deteriorated historic features will be repaired rather than replaced where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of distinctive features the new features will match old and design color texture where possible materials i mean i think we're clearly at a point where most every single feature on this structure has deteriorated beyond a point of repair but there's still an attempt to repair and replace i think to a large extent um i think

142my my main question is to what extent do we feel like it is actually meeting the replacement of those features and i would say on some elevations i think it does a much better job than than maybe others particularly you know the the i think it's the north elevation where the entire facade becomes changed but i think there are still a lot of character defining features that are i think attempted to be maintained and rebuilt or repaired in a very similar fashion as much as possible commissioner yeah so right in the number six as well it you know it talks about um require when something is deteriorated it requires replacement of a distinctive feature the new feature our new feature is like this entirely new building around it and the new feature does match the

143old in design color texture and whatever possible materials that's what makes me laugh because it does so yeah i look at this and i'm like okay it kind of meets it and you know to me i had roadblocks right at the start same with the commissioner rocklin like ready to start going well no this this is by and large obscuring character to find new features um yeah that's threw me off we're trying to look through this thing that through the standards of course you can tell um so i guess just jump in you know frankly i'm not convinced that the building is or the i mean the elements in terms of the windows historic windows and the siding are deteriorated beyond repair like literally to the extent that all of it needs to go i'm

144not convinced of that so i i won't be supporting this project i i think it's a slippery slope um yeah so i won't be supporting this project i don't want to take up a bunch of time but i i yeah i think standard number two standard number six um some of the some of the uh guidelines i you know i think the i definitely do um appreciate the location of the dormer at the rear elevation um i i feel like we're just really trying to back bend into this um so i i won't be supporting it commissioner rocklin you were also inside could you speak to your to the deteriorating fabric you do you agree with commissioner ross were you able to observe i think that what was said before about um anything that's like

145i don't know 12 inches to grade has a lot of rot as you'd expect you know it's just like bare wood getting splash you know splashed on by rain for a century and a half or something it's that that part is certainly deteriorated which is sort of ironic because that's the the doors are the one thing that's talked about being uh you know preserved as is and move forward into the new structure but you know to me the the doors are probably the the most rotted out pieces i mean we weren't able to go inside so it's hard to say but i mean it it just i i can't picture how this wood that's existing is going to be any different than the salvaged wood that's going to be replacing it i mean how i

146that's why i'm sort of confused about sort of the the plan here and and why you know if if we're just cladding it with basically the same wood then why don't we just use the wood that's there as the cladding uh yeah i mean that that was confusing to me i i guess i it looked um i would be more worried about the structure i guess than the cladding um again we we couldn't go in so um it you know it varies and and it's on it's unfinished wood you know it's it's unfinished wood sitting out there in the weather it's old wood so it's actually held up you know way better than anything else you know today would would hold up but um yeah i mean i guess those are the two questions is

147like well why are we you know saving the doors if the wood's not good enough and we have to re-clad it it's a little talking out of both sides um with that can i address that yeah please the doors can be saved because i can take the doors off that they're they're just three quarters of an inch thick wood boards with a bat across the back i can take them off and mount them to a substrate that will be substantial enough for them to be used and not fall apart um it may be possible for some of the windows to be salvaged and put back in um i've had a difficult time getting the attention of the few people in the area who do that kind of thing to tell me if these are worked

148too far or if they can be made to be um if they can be salvaged but they are some of them the double hungs that are in there for example are wedged and nailed on an angle and the sills are rotten and you can see them and the the sash bottoms are rotten and things like that so it may be possible for some of them to be saved i then have to then fight through the energy issues and um those sorts of things with the building department um but the goal was to salvage as much as possible we're not trying to throw anything away without consideration um try to keep this as organized as i can a couple thoughts going through so um kind of big picture this discussion of you know preserving the experience

149from the inside versus the outside um you know i don't have the exact language in front of me but my understanding is that for the secretary of interior's standards and as the city of ann arbor's commission historic district commission our purview is the exterior not necessarily the interior um so how that plays into that whole discussion you know if that's a true statement maybe i just was assuming but um how that factors in uh check the way you describe the the salvaging and reuse of the doors is that is that possible as a method for salvaging the existing exterior siding i mean i i also had a question about you know what what is different about our existing siding versus someone else's old siding in terms of it's probably got some holes in it from

150woodpeckers and carpenter bees and it didn't look like it was going to be treated in any special way you know unless i missed it in the documents but is that something that was explored for the siding and then it looked like yeah all of the windows were going to be replaced maybe not custom sizes to match the existing um but was is that truly necessary [Music] from the photos i wasn't on site so some of them didn't look in so far gone but maybe maybe they are do they all really need to be replaced and if so do we need those to be documented for requirements for replacing existing fenestration or windows oh chuck i think you're muted sorry if i can remember everything that you said and if i don't please tell me um

151to take the siding off and to insulate outside the framing and then to put the siding back on unfortunately the siding is about a foot too short now because the building just got fatter um because the insulation is going to be roundly you know i put four and a half inch sips panels on it so i think jill originally said it was like 10 and a half inches whatever the overall thickness is i don't have i can't make those boards any longer than they are so i would have to now every board would need an extra 10 inches added to it or one board on every level would need an extra 10 inches somewhere um or you could use those boards to re-clad it not in the exact same pattern that it's already in yeah

152do you split they're going with additional salvage boards right and as i said before so when we so so that's the other aspect of this when we salvage material from an old barn those pieces that are rotten get thrown away and those pieces that were in places that are um that didn't get rotten uh can be reused in this case i also have a building that has i don't know i'll guess 20 percent all the bottom boards are pretty punky um i can't clad with those either on the outside because they will fall off they will they will fall off the nails um so i need sound material so that it can be clad for the next 50 years and i'm not sure if you were headed to this one jess but the i new

153material i think you might have been trying to say you know why can't we just like use new material or something and if you were saying that it's because the new the new wood we get of this size is farm raised and it's not going to last no i wasn't implying new material sorry if i stated in a confusing way connected to the wrong dots um no i want that old material yeah so but that is yeah i just trying to understand yeah right when it's salvaged from the old these old barns you know depending on the barn you might get 50 or 70 percent of the siding is good and sound just you know luck of the draw was on the right side of the building um they didn't have trees growing along it

154they kept their gutters on i mean a thousand reasons why wood does not rot plus if it's a tall barn barns are usually 16 feet tall this building is much smaller barns around here are 16 feet tall mostly i get 16 foot boards out well i don't need 16 total feet so i can cut the rotten end off so i can get to pretty sound material by sourcing it through these means that we have but i can't magically make the material on this building sound again that i can't do did i miss anything so i don't know if anyone else wants to continue the conversation about the siding but the window the condition of the windows that in the locations that either are being more or less maintained [Music] but they're getting replaced is that

155truly necessary as i said these windows were very much um for their day they were nobody was worried about making beautiful windows it was a building for hay and horses um they're okay sashes that have not been maintained at all um and and the entire window is all is within a three-quarter inch you know it's set within the studs and the three-quarter inches so it's not they're not deep they're not for the most part the jams are probably gone the sashes might be able to be salvaged and put into new gems and we can certainly look into doing that um and we'd probably then have to come back and talk to you about storm windows because i won't make i won't meet um my energy requirements more than likely and yeah i mean we talked

156about storm windows often i know and it's it's a judgment call as to um you know how compassionate the building department will be with the building like this because as we are challenging you you can rest assured we'll be challenging the building department too well i appreciate the your response i'm still trying to reconcile all these different pieces um that make up this project bill is it is it possible for me to share my screen for a second it's not right now we have two hosts already okay um see that the the downside of having these meetings electronically is i can't walk in and show you something um but i also can't put it in an application without a lengthy explanation that just gets complicated because it's not the same project but i can show

157you examples of where we've done exactly this um taken old frames old buildings um and clad them um and truly the only thing you do to the existing frame is put a screw in the backside of the framing that isn't seen and there's a whole lot of fasteners in the backside of every piece of framing in this building now that's the only contact that we have with it we literally wrap the building in black paper and then put the sips panels on so you could there's no adhesives there's no sticky insulation glomming onto the old building you can reverse it pressure rocklin um can you describe uh some of the like uh one one thing that's particular to the standards is if you have an existing window um then try and save the window if

158the window is rotted or beyond repair or missing or something like that then uh the historic opening is still sort of a character defining feature of the structure and we try and you know just preserve that opening uh as a way to you know keep keep just uh some some aspect of the historic property so um it it seems like you're sort of we're close to doing that but then in in a lot of um in a lot of the elevations like the even the existing openings are being slightly changed or drastically changed so can can you maybe can we look at the elevations and and talk about uh just the thinking there and and um you know what what the reasoning is so we can we can you know reference that to the standards

159and see see where it sits sure so this is the north elevation the intention was to keep it as similar as possible as i say the um the swinging doors do not change in size the um hay door just got moved up so it's not in conflict with the floor framing and then on the so the west side which i believe is the next one um if you could go back one well that is the west side the west side is into um craig and sarah's backyard and they wanted a relationship between um the yard and the interior uh so yes this one is changed more than the others um but you really cannot see this from anywhere um except the neighbor's yard to the east of this um you can't get a glimpse of

160this from the street the two public checks and check try to interrupt them it seems like that this would therefore require a lot more framing on the existing structure to make that big opening it would require some more it would require disassembling the existing framing oh no giant header across the top but the header the header that'll all be in the sips panel i don't need the interior framing for to do anything yeah so but if we let's say we open those bottom doors right those bottom doors would be open and the framing of the existing structure would still be there or it would be removed ah um where it would conflict with the doors the framing of the existing structure would be removed and therefore you would have to put in a new header

161and box it out on the existing structure uh no because there'll be no weight on the existing structure it just has to hold itself up so you'd still have to cut it and put a top plate in with jack studs right uh i'm not 100 sure that we have to do that well we can't just hang well it can't just hang there i mean no but i think so along with the rafters being rotten the suspicion is that some of the loft framing is also rotten um we can replace whatever is rotten with loft framing that's long enough to bear in the sips panel but that's all interior stuff but in the end i wouldn't i'd be altering that as little as possible it would be as quiet as it could be yeah so jill

162can you put your mouse your put it down at the bottom of the door so we've got yeah so right there and moving straight up uh what 16 inches on center for 20 inches on center we've got balloon framing for the existing structure that's running the full length all the way up to the top of the existing roof and all of those would have to be cut out in order to make this opening clear and wide regardless of where the sip is in front of it right right and where those are all cut we would have to put a a plate a header plate and jack studs to hold up the weight of the existing old structure from falling down completely so that is pretty intensive to me and changing this opening okay so that

163i think has some issues with the secretary of interior standards for oh what part is this basically it's in openings but it's um jill you didn't have the openings part in here but there's another segment that we have about openings door openings but john is it isn't this like if you build an addition in the back well you got to get to the addition so you cut a big hole in the back of your house so that you can get to the rooms in your addition i mean yeah but isn't that sort of like this here or yeah but except that we've got historic structure that we're trying to maintain and in my mind a large part of being okay with this because we're trying to encapsulate the existing structure is that we're trying to

164maintain as much of the existing structure as possible we're kind of like putting it in a shell to encapsulate it and take care of it but here on this elevation we're cutting out most of it yeah the overarching argument or case literally has holes punched through literally as holes fans yes yeah so and that's just a big opening so that's one of the elevations let's go to the other ones too before before we go to the other elevation i i think that i don't really have any issue i think with the big opening i mean it's big but um i get it because there's program that's calling for it i mean there's this you know program of like this indoor outdoor uh you know you're gonna be doing something inside and outside there and so

165you need a big opening um but i i'm a little confused as to why it it looks like we've got a a window up in the gable there and then we've got a new window in the same gable but it um it's like slightly moved maybe and slightly different size which means that i don't see a good reason for you know there's no program that i know of that makes that window be slightly moving and slightly different size yet you'll have to manipulate the that existing cladding that we're trying to save it's going to have to grow on one end and be cut on the other end um so i i don't get why that window isn't you know exactly the same rough opening as the existing it's am i muted nope you're good oh

166um and you're talking about the window i can't read the numbers the highest window on this elevation the highest winner in this elevation um the windows the new windows were selected from the list of standard sizes from the manufacturer um it is in the same place um maybe it's due to the trim underneath it in the siding that it appears to be different um the intention is that it is i mean it's a the window's centered and it's intended to be in the exact same place sounds good um it has a different size it is a slightly different size again because the manufacturer makes them certain sizes um and you pay for a window and a half when you change a custom size um and the windows currently um i keep trying to use my

167cursor to point to things it doesn't work does it uh though up the window um the high window currently doesn't have casing on it um when we case it i can cheat and hide a little bit of the boards that might not be there um so we can we can deal with the little bit of dimensional change is is the lower existing window it doesn't look like they're exactly the same size but comparable and that looks like it's got some casing on the outside is that in decent enough or salvageable condition that it could that could be used on the top floor you know like it's that's the up yeah the lower one might be able to move up like if we're gonna have to modify the window opening the frame opening somewhat anyway in

168the proposed design um i don't know it just seems like the loss of some of this material is if there's a way to keep some of it consideration but it also seems that the window casing around the existing structure is relatively inconsistent and makes me wonder about how much of it has fallen off um even though it looks it looks personally intentional it's kind of like cool little design features it's also it some of it just fell off i think it i think it fell off when they yank the uh asphalt shingles off because i think they nailed through it and split it all up because if you look at the rear elevation photographs there's no there's no apron underneath those sills but they're nail holes for that apron it was there um and corner

169boards are missing for the same reasons they got torn off because they got nailed onto and they split um they're they're the siding or the trim is three and a half inches and um well you know what happens when you put a 10 penny now through an old three and a half inch piece of wood i appreciate those more close-up photos of the windows actually that was helpful to see the a bit more of the condition of them thank you i just want to say i'm not a window expert in any way i leave that to the experts but from my perspective these windows are quite damaged i mean i could literally walk into this building and just gently push against them and they would literally fall out of their frames and and the the

170the the glass itself is quite thin um i i i don't know anything about the historical nature of glass you know manufacturing at that time to compare it to something else of a similar era but there is there's literally no insulative properties for these for the glass yeah i believe that most of the eighth inch pane of glass and a quarter inch pane of glass have the same insulated value and in this case in this case the it's putty glazed the muntins are definitely all pretty much rotten because they were very fine and most of the putty glazing is dried out indicate as i said in the beginning nobody's maintained this building for decades maybe ever the only other thing that i'll say is i i don't know if this is a consideration of the

171board as we go through these things but you know budget is a consideration for us and um you know there's only so much that you know we can spend to restore this building uh and it gets to a point where if it's simply too expensive we just we just don't have the capacity to do it so part of the considerations around this design were to stay within a budget that we felt would again restore the building to something that was both habitable and beautiful and also allow us to to do the work and ensure we could do the work in such a timely fashion so that you know more deterioration didn't didn't occur and again i don't know i know that that may not be part of the discussion here but i just want to

172just provide it as just for for context can we see the rest of the elevations that was i think fruitful discussions so the rear elevation was also where we were looking to you know people weren't going to see it the everyday door the swinging door would allow for that to occur it was the opportunity to be able to bring um windows that you can actually look out of the the four windows on the east the west side below the gable window are actually near the floor so they really do not afford a view the only place you can get a view is to the rear or the south um and that is why the dormer exists it's also for headroom and it's the only you know it's it's a respite to be able to see

173out um but this is the elevation that nobody can see you you yeah and then this elevation with the exception of offering the additional window to balance the first floor out which i guess officially we don't have to do the intention was to put it back as much as possible check the windows that you're the four windows you're describing on the west elevation um what are what's the so you said they're close to the floor yeah so if you could see my pointer it would be going underneath the sills of the four windows it's pretty much sitting at the floor pretty close like we assume that so if someone were standing next to them [Music] where like inside the building yeah on that top floor you'd see their knee so the benefit of having those

174four windows for light and air so i'm going to turn this around a little bit and i'm uh i'm going to go through the interior standards really quickly so number one through 10 in my mind are still being met even even though this is in a weird way a reverse phasodectomy which we've heard that term before this is like a reverse of that right so just cutting like keeping the building keeping the facade cutting down everything else we're like encapsulating everything and building around it um so one through ten in my mind are relatively they're being met it's a weird phrasing um so that's one part and then when we go to roofs uh we look at the roof part i think the part that um makes it a little strange is uh where it

175says in recommended at the end of it it says do not damage or obscure character defining teachers so we are obscuring a character defining feature but we're generally on the outside of it for whatever it's worth um it's not obscured from the inside no it's not and it's that's the proof part yeah but you know as commissioner keanu said it's like much of what we always have talked about here is that we're always looking at the exterior of our building i wish we had that that's kind of like in writing yeah is that in writing i don't know no you know it's a base assumption it is at the the state statute okay oh yeah so consideration of the exterior okay jennifer um and then it also talks about changing the configuration of a roof

176by adding new features such as dormer's vent skylight so that the stored character is diminished so in my mind that we're adding this dormer on the back of it it's it's not really going to change much of the historic character from the viewing parts of the building it does change it as dormers but we add dormers a lot and and those don't really reduce the historic character all that much all right then moving on to windows you know this is the one that that i saw the most which was uh designing and installing additional windows on rear or other non-character defining elevations um so the design certainly called for the the elevation that had very little or the most view has very little impact and very little change um but then on either side we've

177got a lot of change particularly on one of them with a large opening um which to me does affect kind of the character defining elevation of that view because we don't we don't see buildings flat right we we definitely see them in 3d and we know that there's edges and sides and so we as human beings walk around them and observe them not just as a flat elevation so that's a part of me where i'm not so sure that it it works so well on the i forgot which one has the big one the big opening the west or east or maybe it's not east or west at all right um district and neighborhood setting um you know i think the the proposed does not destroy the historic relationship within the setting it's just recreating

178something else on the outside of it that is just slightly bigger but it's in the same location it's not being moved so i don't think it does mat much in terms of district or neighborhood setting um going through the residential accessory structure component this is from the ann arbor historic district guidelines um yeah it you know that i think the appropriate part is maintaining it uh and then to match historical materials and configurations is the main takeaway that i see on that one and i've got just and i'm going to be quiet after this just you can't be quiet jennifer you have to talk so i'm looking at the technical it's technical brief preserve preservation brief number eight and you know so this is a little bit you know i have a couple of quotes

179here of course it's taken out of context because they're quotes from a larger free um and it it so it's entitled aluminum and vinyl siding on historically so of course it's not wood because it's not i guess i mean i guess these preservation briefs aren't able to kind of expect every kind of strange situation can that can pop up but in looking at this brief although like i said it's it's talking about adding new siding but like aluminum or vinyl something that's inappropriate in character it does talk about you know so it so the this brief does talk about um having issues with vinyl or aluminum siding because of the potential of damaging or destroying historic material and features so i i don't think we're saying that here but it does speak to the potential

180of obscuring historic material features and most important the potential diminishing historic character of buildings number one so it's speaking to obscuring historic material quote number two while this discussion focuses primarily on the historic character of individual wood frame buildings of equal importance is the context of the building buildings that comprise a historic district or neighborhood changes to the character defining features of a building such as distinctive clapboard and other wall surfaces and decorative trim always have an impact on more than just that building they also alter the historic visual relationship between the buildings and district oh number three almost done structures are historic because of the materials and craftsmanships reflected in their construction intangible and irreplaceable evidence of our cultural heritage to the degree that substitute materials destroy and or conceal historic fabric they will

181always subtract from the basic integrity of historically and architecturally significant buildings so once again it's speaking to concealing um character defining elements although rustic in character it speaks to the the siding speaks to the building speaks to the craftsmanship and speaks to the original use um final quote um once again is talking about aluminum file siding but it's talking about once again destroying or concealing historic building material and features and in consequent results of the loss of a building's historic character they are not recommended by the national park service such destruction or concealment of historic materials and features confuses public perception of that which is truly historic and that which is imminent imminent imitative sorry so um in closing i won't be sporting this project is it some elements um in particular the the dormer

182i think is is sensitively located but i i think it's a slippery slope and i think it it lies it does it doesn't meet the standards i comment on that good um that section of the briefs and actually many of the briefs are written about buildings that were built for people and almost all of the buildings you ever go in that were built for people have defining features that the brief did not discuss it has an inside surface and it has an outside surface this building does not this building has one surface i either need to cover the inside or the outside because in in the case of the the buildings that uh commissioner ross was referring to um you'd be covering the only exterior you'd be covering the exterior finish with these vinyl and

183or aluminum siding and the building was built purposefully with an exterior finish and an interior finish but these and that is where these secondary buildings accessory structures were never built that way in the first place so understood they don't compare very well in that regard and that's where since these briefs are written and most of them i i just quickly looked i couldn't find a date um many of these griefs are written in the 80s and they were really trying to save the houses and the main buildings that people have been tearing down for the last 20 years and they really didn't focus on all of the details and they have not been updated i feel like not to argue i feel like this one has been updated because it's talking about like energy i

184don't know that but in um yeah so just in any case the the inside and the outside part of it kind of matters because the all of the buildings even houses from 100 years ago they had interstitial spaces this building has none jump in with the thought um i think there's sort of two things that i'm dealing with one is the cladding and one is the the window plan if we just talk about cladding for a second um i think it's fair to argue that the cladding is a character defining feature i think it's also fair to probably argue that the cladding is deteriorated beyond repair um there's it certainly is more than obvious in in several places and then in other places you know without careful inspection it's hard to say but it could

185certainly be an argument if you were going to say i'm going to remove all of the cladding on this building and replace it with um wood that's going to match it as well as as possible that i think would match the standards because it says you know replace like with like whenever possible and so it is cladding wise it's kind of what we're going to end up with is like we didn't want to say re-cladding in the in the motion because that's not technically what's going on we're not re-cladding it's new cladding but in essence what we're gonna get at least looking from the sidewalk i think it's going to look like it's been re-clad um it's hard to say because we don't have any other examples of this and i've never really seen this

186done in my tenure here but if it's if it's salvaged wood from a barn that's at least eight inches wide then it'll probably look really similar uh so maybe i'm i'm okay with uh the cladding um to me i'm having a hard time understanding like what the plan was with the windows like historic windows are character finding features of this of this property and it just seems like new windows i i get adding windows for program but uh also just maintaining you know what is there out of just respect for what is there and and um if there's an existing opening let's you know i i'm just sort of it's hard for me to um to support all of the the new window openings um that that seem to be on the sides uh because

187you're gonna see the sides like commissioner beeson said um i i don't think it's a problem when it's driven by program and it and if if it's kind of restrained but um maybe we can well okay so i think the the project would be stronger if there were some less windows um can i add to that david nerd yeah yeah because my third point i can get back to some other time so let's talk about that i just want to i guess you know john started going through some of the guidelines there's a couple that i just wanted to add to that are specifically about the openings and the character defining features um so under windows not recommended removing a radically changing windows which are important to finding the overall historic character of the building

188so that as a result the character is diminished and then residential accessory structure is not appropriate altering historic barns garages and sheds by using materials configurations and designs that do not match the existing or historic appearance so to me those two things are very similar that this is an accessory structure and while two of the facades are being maintained very similar to what the existing facades look like the which facade is the west one that's adding the two new doors almost across the entire you know the whole facade is being changed that facade in itself was very minimal it is you know as commissioner beeson said you we are going to view this from multiple sides it's not just a flat on change that adding those doors and all those windows changes the reading i

189think to me of this as an accessory structure and makes it look more like a habitable space which you know it also is changing you know the historic parent appearance that the historic appearance is more um a little bit more subdued it does have some additional design details with you know the the vertical boards some of the the garage doors but there's an entire facade two facades that are being i think radically changed and that's you know beyond the encapsulating the existing structure which is another point that i can get to it you know after after you share your third point david but i think the opening configurations is the big one for me for a large part of this is that it is i think drastically changing the historic the character-defining features and historic

190appearance of this particular structure and it doesn't meet our guidelines in those end there is if i could add one quick thing there is the building code is becoming more and more demanding of egress windows from any space that the building department interprets as a place someone not a bedroom but a place someone might fall asleep and um the windows i have i'm no doubt i need to have egress windows from the spaces on the second floor um which means if they're if they're operable they have to operate smoothly open to 90 degrees there can't be anything sort of uh out of the ordinary about those the fire department will demand them um and to illustrate that i built a house brand new house a couple years ago and the basement had three rooms a

191garage a swimming pool room and a mechanical room and the building department said put an egress window in it to which i said why you're not going to fall asleep in any of those rooms they said put an egress window in so it is a occupiable building and so it has to have certain things occupiable buildings need to have in the 21st century for safety and it seems like there are plenty of windows provided yeah multiple facades for that that are existing or that are being added in a modified way that all right very similar to the casting opening and and and there are and again you know we can it's possible that we can look at that more closely um those windows the egress windows cannot be on the other side of an interior

192door they cannot every time you put a door in there has to be an aggressive window that might be true but we don't need like an 88 by 39 inch window right no of course so yeah so there's some play in terms of like the size and number of windows right and you know the building was built for for horses and and wagons they didn't really care about too much light yeah we get that you know and that's why i think of the of the all the facades picking the dormer on the side that is on the back side that meets our standards that's easy to go with the ones on the other sides though you know there are a lot of windows going on there that weren't there originally the west elevation particularly you

193know and i i can certainly accept the east elevation and just balancing them out although again still not potentially necessary but still it'll help balance it out and make it look good but it's really that west elevation that um yeah that's a big one yeah and that and that's the program for the client i mean that's how the building relates to their own yard yeah and i think uh commissioner emerson did bring up a really good point on that guideline and that to me is the guideline that i'm looking at the most now like not that i was trying to find roadblocks but it's like how do each of these guidelines fit and does it comply with each of the guidelines so um i think that's the one that um is still the big standout

194as she mentioned the residential accessory structure is the not appropriate component so i'm still a hang up for me too trying to think through it again but can you read it again yeah i'll read it again so not appropriate replacing repairable oh wait wrong one nope yep right one uh not appropriate altering historic barns garages and sheds by using materials configurations and designs that did not match the existing or historic appearance so it's got most of the same materials it's got some of them definitely the same configuration minus the rear roof um and it matches some of the historic and existing appearance except for the large significant amount of windows so i think it's the windows that really affects the overall um historic appearance you know if it didn't this is a subdued building right

195with not a lot of windows right so by adding lots of windows we're changing that appearance pretty quickly perhaps i can speak to the rationale as to why the windows were chosen in the first place i don't know if that would be helpful in context i understand that you know we're talking about something more technical than that but in terms of program i can speak to it if that would be helpful okay so what what you probably don't see in the um in the existing photos is that on the east elevation and on the south elevation um the structure is completely ringed by uh by trees from the neighbor's properties so when you have full foliage in those trees you literally will get no light into the building anywhere other than the west elevation and

196the north elevation though obviously there's a lot less sunlight coming from the north elevation and we only have that one opening where the um door is so you the only the only way you're going to get any direct light into that space um would be from those those windows on the on the west elevation it is totally shaded uh on both the east and the south by those trees which we have no control over obviously we're they're they're on our neighbor's properties it's likely you'll get shading on east and west as well based on the photos that we have um commissioner rocklin you were out there same with commissioner ross do you haven't noticed that i mean winter all the foliage goes down there are some evergreens around there but yeah i mean there's going

197to be reflected ambient light i understand the need to introduce as many windows as possible in order to open the four plate make it visible so you don't have to turn on lights during the day um you know i that all makes sense to me in a normal programmatic mindset of an architect right it does it completely does uh as you know our purview is really trying to identify how this meets the guidelines um these guidelines are what were put in place for us to make sure that we follow and adhere to and make sure that that's what we make our judgment calls on um so to me it's it's it's really does come down to the fact that the historic appearance changes you know it we have to kind of filter through to figure

198out what is it that uh as commissioner rocklin mentioned like what are the roadblocks uh what are the things that cause hang-ups uh and how those hang-ups actually allow us to say yes or no to it um and then is it a hang-up that is something that could be changed or adjusted so that we can get this through because our goal is to make sure that that that for the most part we're following the guidelines that we have historic uh integrity on what these houses and buildings and structures stick to and at the same time that homeowners still have the flexibility to make changes and keep them as livable structures um you know i think ultimately that's always been my goal on this commission is to make these structures so that we can continue using

199them as you know as chuck had mentioned right you know we want to make sure that this is live can last um so i'm looking at the guideline for the residential accessory structures i'm still hung up on the fact that it it does not match its existing historic appearance and to me the filtering has come down to the fact that it's got just a lot of windows and stripping it down would certainly uh make it look much more subdued uh but i still look at the whole rest of the guidelines in terms of standards one through ten roughly and i'm like okay well this it generally fits um but that's that's the one area that i'm still stuck on i'll leave it up to other commissioners to talk about too jill it was a long

200time ago since you gave our staff report but at the end of the report you i think summarized two um two items or general items that you were just feeling uh like um you you had questions on i wonder if that'll kind of help focus the discussion i think one of them was whether or not the east and west were character defining yes odds right okay yes that that was one um and the other was using new material as cladding on the exterior i would i would add and i didn't say this earlier that you really can't see the sides of this building the west side is behind the house when you're standing by the road and the east side is near some trees i'm going to very quickly share my screen here and there's

201a building relatively close on the east side yes there's the neighbor's garage correct you can you can see this this this is probably the best view that you would get of the west elevation and i don't have a better one of the east but i doubt that you would really be aware of the changes to the east elevation since they're pretty minimal i am concerned about just the drastic changes whether you can see them or not if they're character defining features the windows and doors but if you don't think that they are character defining features because they're nearly invisible to the public viewer um [Music] then i then i have fewer concerns about it because again you really can't see it from right away yeah good points um especially that last photo it really did

202show the adjacency with the house and how close it was at that corner if you go to the site plan you will see that the west face of the garage or the carriage house is almost coplanar with the east face of the house which means you have to be invited into the backyard to see that elevation well it's a little stylized but you can see it better i guess from the photograph and actually i'm not sure this has the addition but the um doesn't it doesn't um we didn't have a survey of the site but the neighbor's garage is really very close and of course it's natural to crop it out of your photographs without thinking um but i guess the best photograph was the one that jill showed at looking up the driveway um

203how little of that west elevation that you really can even see yeah i looked on google maps satellite view and and it shows very clearly how the house lines up with that side of the garage and the um and the neighbors garage is literally at our property line on the um on the west side you can't see it in this photo it would be to your right okay guys where you going are you going to vote are you going to ask for revisions are you going to do something else no one wants to say anything i guess um i'm still looking go ahead go ahead i think that i think the thing and you know i don't want to beat a dead horse so to speak about this barn but this the thing that i

204think i'm struggling with you know aside from the windows is we're talking about it's a rebuild basically you know it's in a demolition by neglect we would normally like to see you know as much salvage as possible or rebuilt in kind and in some sense that's happening but it's also obscuring and i keep i think coming back to the question that if if so much of the material is not salvageable such as the structure um all the rafters are being replaced the studs are basically they're going to be there but they'll be not doing anything the the siding itself we are trying to match you stated a couple times maybe we can use some of them the existing but you know likely maybe we can't is it important to encapsulate or is it you know

205if we're rebuilding why couldn't the zips be are the studs important to remain in place if those are all going away why can't it just be built within the same footprint we have the same um most of the same openings are pretty much there intact and or intact as much as it can be for your design if you're going to re use some of the siding you could still incorporate that within on the on the new plane yes i understand that would change the interior perception of the the barn being there and it's you know you know i guess preserved in this shell is is that the important feature that this barn is preserved in its shell even though we cannot see it and we don't know it's there except for on the inside and

206most of the original features are gone or is it important that this be rebuilt to be as you know similar in kind as possible with some of these modifications to openings being changed on the exterior and that we're okay we're comfortable with some of those those modifications so i think those are that's that's one of the big ques uh issues i'm having with reading these guidelines because i think there is a lot of obscuring of the existing material and that that's one reading but then we come back and we say oh no it's actually you know it's going to be there we're going to preserve it but we're going to put all this new stuff up over it and we have to do that because we have to rebuild the structure so it's getting in

207this loop that i'm i'm finding really difficult and i i understand the whole process and why and i think that you know i appreciate that the design itself is actually trying to stay as true to most of those things as possible um and i understand the need to make the adjustments and you know improve this this structure i think no i think we're all drawn to the fact that it's a really nice structure we want to it wants to be reused you don't want to get rid of it it has great character itself so i'm just trying to you know maybe nail down what are the really important aspects that we're reviewing this from is it really actually a rebuild and where's the news or does that matter i don't know well there's a new

208use the new use they're not using it now at all and the key thing is they would like to enclose it so they'd be able to use it and they want the windows there so they would have light i mean the thing about it is they can rebuild it as it's the same way but they're not going to use it because there's no insulation but i think it could still be if it's all being rebuilt if the studs don't have to remain you could still use the sips panels if we're saying that for our purposes it's the it's the size it's the footprint it's the cladding yeah those are the important features all the other structural elements have to be replaced is it important in our sense that those structural studs existing studs remain the

209rafters remain or is it that the the structure be rebuilt and the exterior be salvaged as much as possible exterior cladding trim casing windows etc yeah so this reminds me of the uh you know we had an application that was a complete rebuild of a of a garage right next to a giant uh apartment building children remember this it was like they just wanted to rebuild the thing in kind and when it was right next to it i was on the site committee we went looked at him we're like yeah this this this garage thing is just oh yeah what's what i think of the state state yeah state nation kingslayer children yeah and that was definitely one that was like okay well we're going to rebuild it they're going to rebuild it it's going

210to be the exact same footprint it's going to be all the same we're going to reuse as much of the wood as we can um and and and to bob's point too it's like well it's about the change in use so then we go really quickly about the change in use for secretary material standards number one we're given a new use that requires minimal change to its distinctive materials features spaces and spatial relationships so minimal change to its distinctive features and materials and spaces and spatial relationships might be new structure that sip with reuse of as much cladding as possible like how important is it that we keep this interior thing it's almost like how the japanese view these rebuilding of temples every you know 100 years well they're rebuilding the temple every hundred years

211and they say oh it's the same temperature temple whereas most you know european cultures would say oh no it's a totally different structure it's a totally different everything like no it's it's still built as uh you know it's the space that matters more than the actual structure that's a wonderful point john i know those temples they're rebuilt every 30 years 25 years um and um there's a whole lot of ceremony and ritual about them um and there's a moment where we all have to realize that particularly those of us who are architects who are somehow it's drilled into our head that we're building something that is permanent which is all hui um it's not permanent um and in even the the great structures of europe um who have had second and third generations of their

212life we as american people most of our buildings don't have multiple generations they've never had them um most of the buildings in europe have they don't call it preservation there they call it conservation how do you keep the entity in use because if it doesn't have a use no one will invest in it and we as a people are too young to get over that first generation use in a way and this is a second generation use so it's a challenge and it comes with compromises but then again f1 through f4 came with compromises too by the way well not one of them whichever one you didn't discuss um all valid points um when when commissioner epperson was speaking it um i've been sitting here thinking yeah are we over complicating things here you know

213it's like we're encapsulating the siding the structure some of the structure is going to get removed anyway and replace um if if this encapsulation idea was not even on the table and we were talking about recladding reciting we would be looking for in-kind material which is what's being proposed it would just be directly applied to the kind of the existing form and framework of the structure [Music] is that is that even necessary you know do we need that secondary envelope at this point um is that complicating things for the project for our review of it what's the difference i guess at this point and would we ever even see that saved material ever again you know like we're as the commission i see our role as preserving for the public good right is the public

214ever going to see that if we cover it up versus just uh replacing and kind that that siding and simplifying the process here and kind of going down the story line of how the public sees it what is it that the public sees now that draws their attention you know there's there's certainly the historic preservation people or people that just like old structures in the near the back of houses going oh cool look at this old building right and so how do we ensure that that is what we're keeping intact you know that's that to me is the size scale relationship character defining features part that we're trying to preserve so if we're discussing the difference between the encapsulation with the siding and kind or the current siding with some siding and kind replacements and

215the sips inside how much which how much impact would how much difference and impact is there from the public right-of-way does it matter i get well to me i guess like at this stage we're picking a date right now and to me it would also be like that sag in the roof it's like but no we're not going to replicate that because that's just not safe i mean we could but yeah anyway sorry but stick to your point commissioner ford yes i think you're right it's like what is the overall impact that we're trying to ensure that we're holding protecting but we have emotion right and we have to vote on it yeah i think i think we have to vote if anyone has any last comments suggestions that they would people need to reread

216the motion does anyone need additional time to think or is it just go oh let's go right all of those in favor of the motion please say yes yes yes all those opposed please say no no no no can you do it again and put your hands up when you vote then i can see how you absolutely all of those in favor of the motion please say yes yes i see three yes yes and bob and bob okay oh bob's a yes okay four yes boxiness and all of those opposed please say no [Music] there are three yes your application has been approved please note that you must apply for any required permits from the city before beginning work on your project thank you very much thank you if i could um i absolutely understand

217how challenging this was and i appreciate it i really do and um if there's i'd be more than happy to spend more time with you all if you have any interest in talking more about this and some of the nuances and you know maybe even affecting the city's guidelines a little bit and i apologize to absolutely every other group that's after us so i i appreciate the creative thinking of you know surrounding this project and for this project of course i want the structure to be reused i don't want to collapse on anyone and i want the homeowner to be able to use their property i just personally was not able to reconcile the uh the criteria with what was being proposed exactly so another retreat discussion i think yes can i join public public

218yes yes [Laughter] fairness to everyone else thank you both all right thank you thank you item f6 630 south ashley street miss thatcher will you please give the sex report all right this one-story concrete masonry unit building is a non-contributing structure in the old west side historic district there's more history in the staff report so the proposal is to completely remove this building and excavate the soil out of the entire lot and then backfill it with clean soil there is contamination under the building that's been identified since the 80s the first if you if you want to do an uh old news search of articles about this building it's a fascinating history we're not going to get into that tonight previous work that's been done here this is the front of the building here this

219is the the the front corner you can see a drive-through has been added the building was originally much smaller than this if you look back here on the side the original building is this this sculpted rock face brick right back here that's the original building and then this front part was added on and then the drive through was added on that's the original part and then a wing off to the side that goes to uh mosley was added on so all of this that you're seeing is is modern structure and because of that the building has lost its integrity and is considered to be a non-contributing structure regardless of the fact that there's parts of an old building buried in there somewhere uh this is just walking around the building now we're on mosley this

220is the neighbor's house to the west their parking area this is the back of the building that original bit with the sculpted block here we're looking at it from across mosley street this view is north east and that's the the large residential building that was built maybe five years ago across south ashley and these are the other neighbors on arm cleaners side of north ashley the dry cleaner has been there for since i think the 1940s um yeah armand opened in 1946 and has operated as a cleaners continually since then in the packet there was submitted a project summary from the michigan department of environment great lakes and energy about corrective actions that need to be taken at this site they go through a project description activities to date the extent of the contamination that

221you can see on this slide it has seeped off of the building and is underneath the building to the north and i'm hoping someone can talk a little bit about that i know that some remediation has been done there previously and it's also to the rear on these properties but has not yet reached those buildings there's um i threw this in here because there's some injection remediation work that's proposed as part of this project and i'd also like someone to speak about that a little bit but back to the preservation from the secretary of the interior standards um standard two is really the only one that applies it's about uh historic character will be retained and preserved um there is no remaining historic character in this building in in my opinion and in the opinion

222of the study committee that said that it was a non-contributing structure from the district or neighborhood settings uh of the guidelines it's recommended to remove non-significant buildings editions or landscape features which detract from the historic character of the setting i wouldn't say that the building detracts from the historic character of the setting but i think that the below-ground contamination severely detracts from the neighborhood setting because it's definitely having an impact on contributing historic structures that are nearby and that is something to be concerned about so if the building's demolished any new construction has to be approved by the hdc we don't know if there are plans or when that would happen at this time so really this application is to take the building away and eventually return it to a grassy corner lot the current

223property owners will still own the property it's not changing ownership at all and so again that would be a future htc application so i am going to leave my staff report there um and i do recommend approval of this application this this work really needs to be done and if you got into the staff report um i tried to make a pitch for why i'm not an environmentalist but this site scares me and um fortunately this is a non-contributing building so i don't think that it would harm the historic district to do this so thank you that's staff's report commissioner rocklin and ross are on the review committee you please give your report and recommendation i'll start um so yeah once again just agreeing with staff um the staff report on on the property and

224the project um i mean clearly uh clearly as as ms thatcher's noted the the building has been identified is not contributing i think it was initially contributing but then some some of the kind of funky additions towards the front kind of obscure encapsulate yeah original building all you can see is that kind of weathered concrete block or not weathered but that rusticated kind of concrete block piece that's kind of weirdly sitting in the middle of the current structure and of course um the issue with the environmental contamination um certainly the keeping it as is constitutes a hazard to to the adjacent residents um so yeah i i support staff's recommendation on this project i agree and i have nothing more to add uh commissioners do you have any questions for the review committee or staff

225apparently it looks like we have a couple additional support staff could you guys just please state your name for the record dan you need me sorry about that uh my name is derek delacorte i'm the community services administrator do either of you have any additional information to add to stash report um the the only thing i would add is we we appreciate the opportunity to be doing jill's job in the past for a different community uh it's been a long time since i've been in an htc meeting and i appreciate the work you guys do now the the staff report is it we have an enormous opportunity with eagle coming in uh million dollars of state funds to potentially finally resolve the source material issue at this site which i think is not only a

226benefit for the for the district and the adjacent contributing structures but huge benefit for the city and something we've been pursuing for a long time so we appreciate the opportunity to be here and dan can answer any technical questions out of the project thank you i will open the public hearing portion for this item at 630 south ashley street kristen do we have any callers you have a couple callers um as a reminder star nine to raise your hand no callers have indicated was the public hearing portion is there any commissioner that would like to make a motion should i have the right one over here um i move that the commission issue a certificate of appropriateness for the application at 630 south ashley to demolish the non-contributing dry cleaner building and remove the soil

227to remediate environmental contamination the work is proposed as appropriate for the surrounding area and meets the secretary of the interior standards for rehabilitation and guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings in particular standard 2 and the guidelines for district or neighborhood setting alterations or additions support news by commissioner quijano second index commissioner white is their discussion on the motion i think this one's pretty straightforward and especially if you've read through the entire report it's pretty clear-cut already devoted all of those in favor of the motion please say yes yes yes yes all of those opposed please say no the motion carries your application has been approved please note that you must apply for any required permits from the city before beginning work on your project absolutely thanks dan for being here i appreciate it thanks derek long

228line night everybody thanks for hanging in there thank you sorry again find my script here okay item g new business there is no new business on tonight's agenda um meeting item h minutes uh we receive minutes from may 13 2021 htc minutes are there any corrections to these everyone i just reviewed english okay um so see no objection and approve the minutes from the may thirteenth meeting um on to item i reports from commissioners wouldn't any commissioner like to share something with the commission saying anything on to item j assignments review committee will be monday august 9th at 5 pm is that correct yes 5 uh for the august 12th meeting are there any volunteers commissioner fortner i can't do it out of town you've done the last two so i just yeah now once

229once um winter comes i won't be able to so that's okay i'm getting it all in all right thank you i think each person's supposed to do three a year now so you'll have them all right awesome thank you both we have a bank on those too k1 reports from staff the 20 june 2021 staff activities report was attached does anyone have any questions i don't have anything additional to report if you guys don't have any staff activities questions okay thank you concerns of commissioners are there any concerns commissioners would like to raise not not a concern but i just wanted to welcome commissioner ross back to ann arbor and have the opportunity to do that last month so welcome back good i haven't seen you a few years so it's good good to good

230to work with you again yeah i'm excited to be back my buddy john who i think we started on the same day didn't we i think we did [Laughter] thank you i have a question i guess it's a concern are we are we going back in person at all and is there a time to find i guess that's based on the city timeline and you maybe brought it up last month that wasn't here i was catching up on my minutes here and could you repeat that please is there a time frame that the city has uh expected back in person again oh yeah we're looking at um a january first hard start for all meetings in person yeah good to know but until then we will be virtual is the plan okay it saves me

231some showing up really late so and you'll miss my cat oh okay that's all right m1 communications there are no communications to htc this month and then i'm in adjournment and now adjourn the july 8 2021 hdc meeting commissioners please stay logged in we'll take a five-minute break before beginning a working session five minutes you