Good evening and welcome to the City of Rockville Historic Commission meeting number 7-2024. Today is Thursday, September 19, 2024. I am H.D.C. Chair. I need it in the up howl. I am joined by my fellow commissioners. So, of Dembo, Peter Falserman, Mercy Shingay, and Michael Goldfringer will not be joining us tonight. We also join by CityStaire, Chila, Pajiri, Preservation Planner, Katie Gerbis, comprehensive planning manager, and Cynthia Waters, Walter, Deputy City Attorney. Meetings of the Historic Commission are being conducted online via WebEx until further notice. The virtual meetings can be viewed on Rockfield 11, Channel 11 on County Cable, and live stream at www.rockfieldmd.gov forward slash Rockfield 11. Each meeting is also available for viewing soon after the meeting is held at www.rockfieldmd.gov forward slash video on demand. The first item on the agenda is committee organization report. Peerless Rockfield is there anyone here from Peerless Rockfield staff to give a report? Yes, hi. Thank you. Thank you Chair Neopal for allowing me this chance to speak. My name is Nancy Picard, I'm the executive director for Perilis Rockville and we have had a, I guess I want to say a slew but that's not a very good word. We just have had several programs throughout the year, this year celebrating our 50th anniversary, Pyrrila's Rockville was founded in 1974 by concerned citizens after a period of tremendous growth and change in Rockville, specifically after Urban Renewal and some other things were threatened. But over the past 50 years, we've grown and we've done a lot. We've helped to save some places but we've very much grown our educational mission, our archive and our research library and we are continuing to do those things. Just last Thursday we had another meeting of the Glenview partner series that we do, Pairless Rockville does with Glenview Mansion in the city of Rockville. The talk was what makes Gatsby great and it was all about, F Scott Fitzgerald's and the work he put into the Great Gatsby and it was a really in-depth look at the Great Gatsby which is done in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Great Gatsby, which was written and actually published in the spring of 1925. So seeing as he, if it's Cheryl, is one of our, we like to call residents, even though it's just his final resting place, that talk was by Jackson Breyer, who has associated with the F's got Fitzgerald literary conference that's coming up this weekend, wait a minute at the end of the month, and if anyone is interested in attending that you should check out their website for more information. Upcoming for peerless Rockville, we are having a places saved kind of celebration weekend on October 4th and 5th. That's Friday, October 4th and Saturday, October 5th, where we just want to celebrate with the community some of the wins we've had and some of the things places that we've helped to rescue and see put to adaptive reuse. And I wanted to make sure that all of you were invited. We have a happy hour, special activity Friday, October 4th at the B&O Railroad Station, where we will have a band and we will have the distillery, the Rothville distillery twin, I'm sorry, I'm not remembering everything. I should have swine, you might have twin valid distilleries. The DC achievers is a band, it is hosted by the law firm and the people, the architect that is a tenant, current tenant in the railroad. So if you've not been there, both the building and the depot will be open and we will have as I said, the distillery, food, tours, talks, and all kinds of fun going on. And I hope you all will join us. And then on Saturday we are having open to the public. Um, a, an opportunity to visit, seek and explore history all around the city. And it's a one of a kind tour, kind of like our explorer Rockville tours have been in the past. Only this time we will have places open. It will be family friendly, bring the kids. You everyone can read more about it on our website. So October 4th and 5th, we hope to meet a lot of people and see a lot of you at our events. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there a cost for either one of our events? There are costs for their both. There are the price for both of them. It's $36 a ticket for the happy hour, which includes the entertainment, all of that. And then there is a per household fee for the Saturday event. You can actually sign up, get a booklet, share it with your whole family and go around. There's all the information on our website, www.pearlisrockville.org. Thank you. Commissioner Falseman, you have your hand up. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to thank you for sharing those of the kind of things that are exciting to share with the community and I appreciate you telling us about them and my plan to share those with other folks. That's great. Come on out. We'd love to see you guys. Okay. Thank you very much. And thank you so much for all you do. Okay. The next organization report on the agenda is the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation. I am the president of the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation. I am the president of the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation. We recently hosted the 133rd anniversary of the Lincoln Park community, which was founded in June of 1891. The anniversary started with the historical parade and ended with a cultural celebration of the history of the community. The community celebration will be shown on Channel 11 sometime soon. And this concludes my report. We will now move on to public comments and open forum. This time set aside for members of the public who want to comment on any not agenda item. Is there anyone from the public waiting to comment on any issues not on the agenda? I will close the public comment open form portion of this meeting. Thank you. We will now move on to item D, HDC and staff comments. Are there any announcement or comments from the commissioners? So I had an opportunity to attend the state of the city. It was very interesting and with a lot of forward thinking, especially with opportunities to move the city forward. So they will be showing it, I guess, on Channel 11 at some time. And I'm not sure. But if you get a chance, you should really check it out. A lot of things were happening and a lot of comments. And it was really, really good. Thank you. So are there any announcements or comments from the staff? Yes. I just wanted to announce that on September 30th at the Mayor and Council meeting, we will be presenting the HTC Annual Report and we'll have further discussion on that tonight just so you can see it before it goes to the mayor and council and also we will be having I hope the final discussion as far as the mayor and council those and hopefully the ordinance for for courthouse square for the bank, for M&T Bank. Well, that'd be on the same night. Yes. Okay. That's good. Yeah. And while they have us there, we will. You won't be able to make any comment or make any have discussion, but you'll be there to be, you know, to watch it. Exactly. Yeah. So it's a good tie-in. Yes. Are there any other comments I'm Katie? Yes. So I wanted to take a minute to make sure that this body was aware. As you all know, we're a certain kind of local government, which opens us up to funding, professional development, other, you know, experiences through the Maryland Historical Trust. And we recently learned that our very own Miss Bichiri was awarded a grant through the CLG funds to attend the National Trust for Historic Reservation Conference taking place in New Orleans next month. So because Sheila applied for that grant, certainly demonstrates her commitment to this profession, but she's also now getting all of her travel and registration expenses taken care of. So as stewards of Rockville's tax dollars, we certainly appreciate that as well. So I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge Sheila for the work that she's done for our program generally and how other folks are seeing the value of that work and funding her to continue her professional development. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And we know you will represent us where? Yes, I will. I'll do my best. Are there any other comments? Okay. The next item on the agenda is number two. It's a consent agenda. The city agenda, the city agenda items may be approved per the staff report without discussion. However, any person may request that the chair remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion and public comment before the vote. So we have several items on the consent agenda. We have on which is plus a is approval of minutes July 18th, 2024. Have all the commissioners had a chance to review the minutes of July 18th, 2024? Yes. Yes. Is there a motion to approve the minutes for July 18th, 2024? I'll move. Okay. I'll second. Second. Okay. Are any comments or questions of a motion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion to approve the minutes for July 18, 2024, say yay. A raise your hand. All opposed, say nay. The motion carries four to zero. Thank you. The next item be his review and action my gummy count to historical Story preservation tax credit application Have all the commissioners had a chance to review and to take action on Montgomery County historic preservation tax vacation Have you all had a opportunity to review the Yes. Okay. Is that motion to approve the Montgomery County historic reservation tax credit application? How much of the reading service? Is there a second? second. What else? I didn't call me so question of emotion. Seeing that all in the same work. Quite so expensive. I knew it was getting pricey, but that's a crazy amount of money to have a tree taken. Every time I see it, I'm always shocked every time I know I have to start to get out we've got some old trees in our in our yard So you do have to apply for a permit to take the tree down correct? Yes You don't Do one comment sure I don't have to be in his story. I do want to comment, Chair. So I haven't seen them, but I've been told there are grants at the state level, and I really want to look into it to, you know, because I've heard the second hand, but there are small grants at the state level for treaver removal because it can cost, I mean, as Seth said, I mean, it's ridiculous to have a tree removed. And there are grants to help in historic districts to have trees removed. And then there are hardship grants also for trees that are moved, especially if they are hazard to a residential community to have trees removed. And I want to look into that and I've been needing to do that they are hazard to a residential community to have trees removed. And I wanna look into that and I've been needing to do that and this application reminded me to do that. So that's my homework assignment. To yourself, correct? Yes. And we will be the beneficiaries of your research. So thank you. All in favor, the motion to approve, say, yay, or raise your hand. All opposed, the motion passes for the Z-Left. I have a question about tree removal. The same would apply for trees to be removed in non-historic areas, right? They would have to apply for a trees to be removed in non-historic areas right they would have to apply for a permit or not. Yes they do have to apply for a tree removal permit with us with the historic district they have to apply for administrative certificate of approval and then usually their contractor will get the tree removal permit. And our forest or prior to us letting them remove the tree, our forest has the inspector tree to see if it should be removed or there's limbs that can be removed down, it has to. And you have a real straight up. You said in a historic community. Uh-huh. And historic. What? Not in historic. They just have to go get a tree removal permit. Okay. Apply for one. And the contractor would do that or. Yeah, usually the contractor flies for it. Sometimes the homeowner does, but a lot of times it's the aware is taking down the tree. Okay, thank you. So is this information on our website? Yes, it is actually. Yes, it is. Okay. Okay. So number three, we have a discussion. We have two items. I have one. What is all business historic preservation work plan update? Yes. So happy to give an update on that. As this body knows, we have three working groups that have been actively meeting our easements and our below grade resources group are starting to kind of come to the end of their active stage at this point in time. Staff are drafting up summary statements for both of those groups to explain what are the things that we've researched, what are the conclusions this group has come to? Are there any recommendations of the group? Are there next steps, things of that nature? So actually earlier today I was working on one of those. So at the next meeting, both of those bodies will share that document. We'll get feedback from members of the working group and we'll kind of determine where we go from there. It's looking like it's likely that both of those groups will sort of pause for now. We've done a lot of work and then we'll come back and we'll re-evaluate when the time might be a little bit better or in the future if things might have changed. We also have our incentives working group that has continued to work and they are pulling together a kind of outline of what an incentive program for historic work on historic properties could look like here in Rockville. Even though we are in September, we are already in budget season for FY 26. So that is one thing that staff will be bringing to the city manager as a part of this FY 26 budget cycle is asking for funding to fund some sort of incentive program for work on historic properties. Of course Montgomery County has the tax credit, as you all know, that's not going to be replaced by this. But we've developed kind of an outline of a program that could complement and couple with that Montgomery County program. So once that body has kind of that outline a little bit more refined it may make sense for us to bring that to this group for any questions discussion things of that nature but we will be submitting what's called a budget enhancement in our operating funds for dollars to fund an incentive program in FY26 which would start on July 1st, 2025. So we'll keep you in the loop as we go through that budget process, and we have some sense as to if that's a request that's going to get funded or if it will not. The other item that staff have been working on relative to the historic preservation work plan is the series of items, they're coupled under work item A that have to deal with codification. So where can our code get cleaned up are there elements of the code that we might want to shift in some way? And we're starting to look at that right now because the city is also in the middle of its zoning ordinance rewrite project. I'll put a link to that project page in the chat here in a few minutes. But the zoning ordinance rewrite, it's a long process, it started about a year ago now. It's not anticipated to be complete until probably December of 2025. So we have a ways to go. But in that process, staff and the consultant that we're using are looking at all elements of chapter 25 of the City Code, which is our zoning ordinance. So this is a great time for us to be making some of those administrative changes that aren't necessarily policy decisions, but more of let's put all the historic preservation sections of types of cleanup items right now. We may investigate starting some of those other codification items that are more policy based. We're kind of awaiting direction from staff on that. If we do open up any of those policy based code related questions, there will of course be a public process by which we will gather feedback from the community, share drafts, allow folks to comment on drafts, etc, etc. So, main point of this update as I want to make sure this body knows that the zoning ordinance rewrite is, in fact, a thing that's happening. Staff are going to begin outreach on that project probably in the next couple of weeks with a couple of broad meetings for anyone in the community. They'll also be doing some curated outreach to specific properties that may be impacted by it. I don't know off the top of the head if any of your properties are. I don't think so. But really the purpose of the zoning ordinance rewrite is to bring our city code in alignment with the comprehensive plan. We're not reopening items for discussion. We've already adopted the policy that is our comprehensive plan. And so this ordinance update is simply the tool that we're using to implement the policy that have already been agreed upon in the community when the comp plan was approved and adopted in 2021. So from time to time, I'll probably be providing you all with updates on that zoning ordinance process. I'm a member of the project team and one of the things that we're trying to do is make sure all of our boards and commissions are aware of this and know when is an appropriate time for them to get involved should they choose to. Okay thank you very much for that detail report We really appreciate that. Are there any questions or comments? Commissioner Falson. You're on mute. Thank you for the reminder there. Thank you Madam Chair. Katie, thank you as well. This is my language. I love zoning. That's what I studied on. I'm going to add. What's the best way that the HEC can be helpful to the process? I think at this point, the best thing to do is simply follow along. They're still trying to set up public meetings. They're still setting up ways to get feedback and things about nature. So I think right now, it's a hurry up and wait. In the future we'll make sure when there are opportunities for feedback that we talk about them either at these meetings or we send out emails to everyone letting you know. Certainly there are items that deal with preservation that are coming up. We will make sure that this body is aware of them and knows how to comment, when to comment, all of that. I just put in the chat, a link to the Engage Rockville page, which is the project page. It's similar for any of you, but on the town center Engage Rockville page. Similar setup, it has some information about the project, including timelines, you know, other documents that are related to it. You can see past documents. I would highly encourage folks anytime you are looking at anything on a gay drug bill, whether it's the zoning, whether it's something else. In the upper right-hand corner, there's a little button that you can subscribe to get project updates. Highly recommend you do that about once a month or so, staff will send out an update, and that's the best way for you to passively be in the loop of when something is going on. Thank you. Thank you very much. So then any other questions or comments on the update? Let's move on to May 30th Preservation Month event after thought. I just added that to the agenda in case you want to add any more information to what we had discussed at the last meeting and so that we can start planning for the next one in May. In discussions, we had determined that you know we usually have the October attached credit at that's credit workshop and we thought about perhaps incorporating that into the May event so that we're not trying to plan two events at one time so that way we can put more time into the into our preservation month event and it can be just a little more solid, a little fuller. Thoughts on that, is that okay? That was great. This whole point is you know, try to educate the public so it's good. And they can start thinking about it earlier. Yeah. Yeah. They can do thinking about it earlier. Yeah, you did later. Yeah Or any other comments or questions Madam sure we had talked I'm not talking too much tonight No, you're talking great. You're doing good. So we had mentioned it alive well, so we had mentioned at one of the meetings before about maybe partnering with other organizations to kind of get it further out there and make it a broader, get a broader audience. And then I was thinking the other day is, you know, it's about preservation. And we're doing it in the city hall and the city hall is not exactly the most attractive nor is it historic. No offense, but we should be doing it somewhere maybe in like the gray courthouse or another historic structure that's in the city, and maybe we could look into doing that. Maybe like the M&T building. I know that the owners aren't real happy with us right now, but just somewhere that's historic, and maybe even during the day and not at night, like switch it up a little bit to get more people involved. I'm just thinking out loud, but make it more into an event and not a lecture. Make it more into an event to kind of get people motivated about historic preservation and historic preservation month and not so much about about I don't know I just found it I don't know make it like that people energized yeah I know I understand it's like it's another city meeting one it's in the city and the uh man yeah yeah it's yeah yeah but you're thinking about more having it interactive? Yes. So that the the public can be more engaged? Yes. The whole meeting rather than just setting this name and asking questions. Yeah, yeah, sitting in that ugly man, council chambers and start and there are no windows and yeah. Okay, perhaps the car can make, find a way to make the red courthouse available to us in the courtroom. There might be a possibility. We also have a couple city on facilities that are historic as well. So that's start with something. Nice. Investigate. Any other comments? Yeah, I do have a comment. So the preservation month is in me, which means we have like some few months left. So we can decide to have meetings and begin to brainstorm to see what we can do. But remember the last time we spoke about the things that we could do that's what we didn't do. So that was helps because our main is actually like close to like several months away. So I have some kind of meetings where we have brainstorming and then talking about what we need to do. You know, and you know the things that are worked, are things that didn't work well. But if I remember well, the last bit we spoke about the things that we needed to do. So we can begin to have meetings as soon as possible as we can to begin to like brainstorm to just bring up concepts and ideas towards the events. Yeah. It's me actually towards the events. Yeah. It's me actually around the corner. Yeah. If I know what time it's flying. You know, around the corner. So like what's a conditioner. Peter is talking about it. I think there's a good idea as well. So I just write down those things that we need to do. Okay. Like the venue and things that will begin to work towards that. All right. I'm taking notes here. Yeah. So we're talking about brainstorming, um, let it be more interactive and I think we also need to think about topics in addition to partnership. Yeah. Because I think those that were invited, they could become partners. Yeah. You know they're in the preservation and they presented and that would be a good opportunity as well. We have a budget. To be a partner rather than sponsor. We can probably make some funds available but right now we don't have like an existing budget line for events. Are we permitted to get to solicit for sponsors? I don't know. That's an interesting question. I don't know that we often don't know. I don't think we have, but maybe you could ask. I said you're turning first, first of all. Sure. I put a question. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Another idea might be to maybe pick a building in the city that needs attention. I'm just thinking out loud again, the high school over on Stan Street. I think only problem with that is one thing belongs to your your employer. I don't know how accessible it is for the public, you know, as far as, um, Oh yeah, that's true. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, insurance issues, whatever with the public accessing it. That's true. But that's something you could probably check on. insurance issues, whatever with the public accessing it. That's true. But that's something you could probably check on. Well, now, and that's, you have that idea of conflict. I didn't know. I was just thinking out loud. Yeah, no, no, no. You know, we could do this. Hold it somewhere, and I'm sorry, go ahead, Madam Chair. I think, and well, you say like this, one thing we could think about is having a, as part of preservation month, whether you do it on the same day or a different day, is to have a tour to some of our historic sites. And you know, downtown Rockville, I've known that I've attended a lot of preservation conferences and they always have like an off site visit or tour somewhere out of the site itself. And then maybe just if you say I'm not necessarily saying news linked in high school. But find a facility or find a site that we could talk about something that's had a top outcome to it. We could get a bus or something. We could do that that we could talk about something that's that it's out come to it. We could get a bus or something. We could do that because we do have city transportation. Yes. We could put on the agenda, we could think about how we can pull it in and make it more interactive as you said earlier, but also have hands on it, so that those pretending as well as, it can be like a, well, again, like a tour of some of our sites. Okay. And then we can also think of including students. The last time we spoke about multiple college, but I can't remember if we ever included the students in the in the function. So it can include students if it's possible, maybe from the rest of Maryland, That's one thing we can do. Look at all this energy. This is good. So at least we have several ideas on the table. Yeah, and that is revisited at our next meeting. And then we may have more than we can offer up. Okay. Okay. Okay. We'll take it with everybody. I'll keep that on the agenda. If that's okay, I'll keep that on the agenda. It's an ongoing discussion that we'll have from meeting to meeting until we get to that point. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, thanks. You're welcome. Any other comments or questions or suggestions or anything? No, okay, thanks. We're now going to move on to new business, which is FY 2024, HDC annual report September 3rd of May and Council meeting. Yeah, that has already been submitted to the May and Council because it needs to go out to the to their members, but I just wanted you to see it. And also, I need it since she will be presenting it. I will be I have a PowerPoint that I'm going to be sending to you with notes. But I just wanted you to see what it says and we really can't add to it. But just to give you an idea of what a year we've had. Looks great. We've been busy. Yeah. We've had a few less applications for work than we usually have. You know, I don't know what's going on, but I was, you know, I've been thinking this what, you know, we're not getting as many applications as I would, especially during the summer, where it's the best time to work on properties during the spring and also during the fall before the ground gets hurt. Interstrates for loans. Yeah. But um. Fed lower the interest rates. I don't have a logist today, but yeah. Because I'm actually reading information from other people in preservation field, other, you know, colleagues and they're saying the same thing. Yeah. So that could be it. Any other comments or. So, Sheila, we should have that. We put some time soon. Yeah, I'll be getting that to you. Actually, I can make a note to give it to you this week. For that particular meeting, we have 15 minutes to present. And so, I'll be operating the PowerPoint while you're presenting. And there won't be like any back and forth that there's questions in the Mayor and Council may ask you questions, but it's not going to be like a back and forth, but there's questions in the mayor and council may ask you questions, but it's not going to be like a back and forth session or anything like that unless it's up to them and back this. I don't think it's just because they want to keep their meeting moving. But they do need to see this information and see what a great group we have and the great work that we do. We're here. Okay. Let's walk you. Yeah, we do work very hard. So, especially the staff. I agree with you. I agree with myself as well. Okay. I know you said it's already been submitted, Sheila, but I did find one small. What I think is a small time. I don't know if you want me to send it to you if there's any point at this point you know it's not okay yeah send it to me send it to me just so I make sure that we don't you know do it on screen okay please yes okay Okay. So any other comments or for new business? A new business, correct? That's what we're on. Okay. I have two quick things. One is back up back to when we hadn't started the meeting, I had mentioned, I think it was when we hadn't started the meeting about doing something socially. If Sheila and Katie could ask the county attorney, if it's okay for us to meet socially, as long as we don't talk about business and scout's on our own that. Second, if the commission is interested in maybe every once in a while, we could invite a different city council member to come and maybe meet with us for like three minutes at the beginning of each meeting or something to kind of just touch base and be our guest and say, hey, we're here because I think that might increase our profile and we'll be able to meet with them and let them know This is what we're working on and and then hear from them and say what what do you want us to be doing for you? And what do you want us to be doing for the city? I think that's a great idea Of course it is to your comment Each commission and as they have changed it Our council member should be the liaison person. Oh, okay. At one point, we may have had, I want to say council member Mark, but you know, we need to, I mean, you can check into it, but I think. I don't really think that they do it anymore. They used to be, but I don't, they do. I think. I don't really think that they do it anymore. They used to be, but I don't they do. I agree they don't. Yeah. They like split up assignments or whatever. Yeah, and the last boards and commissions document, I know you worked on that Anita, but the last time we received that it wasn't in there anywhere about taking, you know, council member. But this was many, this was years ago. So I was just, I mean, you know, commission of false and just, you know, I just had a thought. That's the way to mean we did that before. So, but we're not doing it now, but it's a great idea. Well, just, yeah, like a man over two. I mean, I think they might like it. I mean, I mean, they don't, I mean, then we don't vote for them the next time they're running. So that's good. We got it. Wow. So we can have them as a guest or you can check to see if any of the other boys in commission have A laser person they may or may not it may have been something because we were working with a new council very council that you know It's not on their agenda at this point. So that could be it as well Okay on their agenda at this point. So that could be it as well. Okay. Okay. We're kind of serious now. I think the council would like to be supportive and I know we would like to support them. Yes. Yeah. I think it's a good way for them to have a better and learn what we do and how we think about our role and what that. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks to everyone for joining us this evening and the next item is their motion to adjourn the meeting. I move to our meeting. Is there a second to adjourn the meeting? No seconder. All in favor of adjourn the meeting. Raise your hand and say aye. I'll oppose the motion passes for the syrup. Thanks everyone. Thank you Sheila. Thank you Sheila. Thank you Katie. Thank you staff. You shared it. All right. Good evening. Good night.