October 28, 2008:
At their meeting that starts at 2:00 PM on the afternoon of Tuesday October 28th the City Council, in its capacity as the Redevelopment Agency, is tentatively expected to decide whether to amend the covenant on the El Cortez block that currently prevents any additional building on that block. The Council will also be asked to adopt a new covenant for the northern third of the block to allow the proposed 12-13 story 777 Beech project to be built on the terrace of the historic El Cortez.
The project has 88 parking spaces for 78 residential units - with 64 of those units having 2 or 3 bedrooms. There are an additional 3 parking spaces that are required by zoning to be reserved for guests of the building plus 53 spaces that must be allocated to replace those currently used by residents of the historic El Cortez - for a total of 144 spaces proposed.
The project also proposes a significant amount of additional event space (“Don Room Extension”) along with other commercial space, possibly including a restaurant or catering kitchen. No parking spaces are required by zoning for these commercial uses and none are provided.
The Council’s action will be their final decision on the project and the last opportunity for the public to influence their decision.
July 24, 2008:
Because the public was not given adequate notice of the Planning Commission’s June 5 hearing of the 777 Beech proposal, the commission had a “re-hearing” on July 24 to correct that flaw in the process. They spent more than an hour hearing and discussing the project but again voted 5-0 to recommend the project to the City Council.
June 5, 2008:
After a 4 month delay - at the request of City Attorney’s office which caused CCDC to withdraw the 777 Beech proposal from the Planning Commission’s January 17 agenda – it was rescheduled for the May 15 Planning Commission agenda.
However, the entire May 15 meeting was subsequently cancelled so the 777 Beech proposal was heard by the Planning Commission on June 5, 2008.
The 5 members present on June 5 spent 2.5 hours hearing and discussing the project. Despite their concerns about the many legal issues that they felt powerless to resolve, the commission voted 5-0 to recommend approval of the project by the City Council. Several commissioners urged the public to continue to express its concerns to the City Council.
On October 17, 2007:
In spite of the many still unresolved legal issues, four members of the CCDC Board present (Brown, Kilkenny, LeSar, Maas) unanimously recommended that the City Council give final approval of the design of 777 Beech and the overall project.
Video of that interesting discussion is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=BB1C2C1A3CEFA4C9
On October 3, 2007:
The CCDC Real Estate Committee received presentations on the revised proposal from staff, the applicant, and the opposition, and made personal comments on the project. However, since they lacked a quorum of members (only 3 of 7 CCDC Board members were present) no formal recommendation was made (to themselves).
The revised 12-13 story design has 88 parking spaces for 78 residential units - with 64 of those units having 2 or 3 bedrooms. There are an additional 3 parking spaces that are required by zoning to be reserved for guests of the building plus 53 spaces that must be allocated to replace those currently used by residents of the historic El Cortez - for a total of 144 spaces proposed.
777 Beech also proposes a significant amount of additional event space (“Don Room Extension”) along with other commercial space, possibly including a restaurant or catering kitchen. No parking spaces are required by zoning for these commercial uses and none are provided.
On September 27, 2007:
The Historical Resources Board (HRB) with a minimum quorum of 6 members participating, voted 5-1 to find that the revised proposal was consistent with Secretary of Interior Standards for building on a National Register of Historic Places Site. Therefore, no further environmental review is now required before the proposal moves forward through the CCDC directed process, and ultimately to the City Council.
Here’s the 12-13 story revised proposal:
At their May 24, 2007 meeting the HRB determined that an 18-story similar looking proposal then presented was not consistent with the Standards. That determination triggered the need for additional environmental review and the potential of an expensive Supplemental Environmental Impact Report as well as review by the Planning Commission for a Site Development Permit.
To avoid this developer Peter Janopaul asked his architects to redesign the project to try to gain a favorable HRB decision of consistency with Secretary of Interior Standards.
Here’s the 18-19 story proposal that HRB found to be inconsistent with Secretary of Interior Standards:
Here’s where Janopaul wants to build:
NPS-28: CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT GUIDELINE
CHAPTER 8: MANAGEMENT OF HISTORIC AND PREHISTORIC STRUCTURES |
A. Introduction
1. Resource Definition
A historic structure is "a constructed work . . . consciously created to serve some human activity." Historic structures are usually immovable, although some have been relocated and others are mobile by design. They include buildings and monuments, dams, millraces and canals, nautical vessels, bridges, tunnels and roads, railroad locomotives, rolling stock and track, stockades and fences, defensive works, temple mounds and kivas, ruins of all structural types, and outdoor sculpture.
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4. Codes, Regulations, and Contemporary Development
Although historic structures that functionally serve park staff or visitors are generally expected to meet modern safety, access, and energy efficiency standards, their character may impose limitations on functional modifications and adjacent development.
a. Design Compatibility
Contemporary additions or development adjacent to historic structures should be designed to complement the structures' visual and physical characteristics. Concern for the compatibility of additions extends to both the exteriors and interiors of historic structures. Special attention should be given to new construction within historic districts.
A new structure or addition will be compatible if it maintains the overall pattern of development in the area and is visually unobtrusive in terms of scale, texture, and continuity of architectural style or tradition. Scale is defined in terms of similar or harmonious proportions, especially height and width. Texture refers to the surface quality of materials, especially reflection of light. Continuity encompasses such characteristics as use of color, internal organization of space, massing, roof forms, architectural details, site relationships, palette of materials, and placement of windows and doors. Unless a new structure is a reconstruction, it should not duplicate or mimic a historic structure.
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The Secretary of the Interior's Standards
ROOTED IN OVER 120 YEARS OF PRESERVATION ETHICS in both Europe and America, The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties are common sense principles in non-technical language. They were developed to help protect our nation's irreplaceable cultural resources by promoting consistent preservation practices.
The Standards may be applied to all properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places: buildings, sites, structures, objects, and districts.
The Standards are a series of concepts about maintaining, repairing and replacing historic materials, as well as designing new additions or making alterations; as such, they cannot, in and of themselves, be used to make essential decisions about which features of a historic property should be saved and which might be changed. But once an appropriate treatment is selected, the Standards provide philosophical consistency to the work.
There are Standards for four distinct, but interrelated, approaches to the treatment of historic properties--preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, and reconstruction.
Preservation focuses on the maintenance and repair of existing historic materials and retention of a property's form as it has evolved over time. (Protection and Stabilization have now been consolidated under this treatment.)
Rehabilitation acknowledges the need to alter or add to a historic property to meet continuing or changing uses while retaining the property's historic character.
Restoration depicts a property at a particular period of time in its history, while removing evidence of other periods.
Reconstruction re-creates vanished or non-surviving portions of a property for interpretive purposes.
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The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation are ten basic principles created to help preserve the distinctive character of a historic building and its site, while allowing for reasonable change to meet new needs. The Standards are applied to projects in a reasonable manner, taking into consideration economic and technical feasibility.
- A property shall be used for its historic purpose or be placed in a new use that requires minimal change to the defining characteristics of the building and its site and environment.
- The historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided.
- Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements from other buildings, shall not be undertaken.
- Most properties change over time; those changes that have acquired historic significance in their own right shall be retained and preserved.
- Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a historic property shall be preserved.
- Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture, and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.
- Chemical or physical treatments, such as sandblasting, that cause damage to historic materials shall not be used. The surface cleaning of structures, if appropriate, shall be undertaken using the gentlest means possible.
- Significant archeological resources affected by a project shall be protected and preserved. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures shall be undertaken.
- New additions, exterior alterations, or related 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.
- New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.
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