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CHC Minutes-2011-07-26MEMORANDUM TO: Karen P. Brust, City Manager Grant Taylor, Development Services Director FROM: Teri Delcamp, Historic Preservation Manager a Cultural Heritage Commission Secretary SUBJECT: Cultural Heritage. Commission Actions of July 26, 2011 July 27, 2011 This memorandum summarizes the actions taken by the Cultural Heritage Commission at their Tuesday, July 26 meeting. No action is required unless the City Council wishes to hold special review of an item. CALL TO ORDER Chair Porter called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. 1 7071WiTANN Present: Lorie Porter, Chair Don Tryon, Vice -Chair Rhonda deHaan Janet Siegel Absent: Nathan Banda (excused) Staff: Teri Delcamp, Historic Preservation Manager/Cultural Heritage Commission Secretary; Laura Stokes, Housing/Redevelopment Coordinator ORAL COMMUNICATIONS None. OLD BUSINESS None. NEW BUSINESS Consideration of Historic Los Rios Street Circulation Study Concept Plan; a request for review of the recommended concept plan for future improvements to Los Rios Street from Del Obispo Street to Mission Street. The project area is located within the Los Rios Street National Register Historic District and Los Rios Specific Plan area. Project Manager Teri Delcamp presented a brief overview on the project background, followed by an in-depth PowerPoint presentation by Steve Lang, MIG Inc. The recommended concept plan includes re -paving the Karen P. Brust, City Manager 2 July 27, 2011 street; improving and/or adding speed humps; replacing/adding appropriate lighting; improving street drainage and existing utility line issues; enhancing pedestrian amenities; and landscaping within OCTA rights-of-way located along Los Rios Street. Staff recommended that the Commission provide comments and input regarding the concept plan's consistency with historic standards and guidelines which staff will forward to the City Council when they consider the project. Bill Hardy, owner of properties within the Los Rios Specific Plan area, noted that recently since July 4, the parking lot and the streets have been bumper to bumper with parked cars. He suggested consideration be given to adding parking for possibly 40-50 cars in the vacant parcel at Ramos Street and Paseo Adelanto (Los Rios Park Phase II). Several CHC members noted they had attended the community workshops. The CHC commended the consultants for doing a good job, for listening and responding to the community's desires, and they are pleased with the resulting recommended concept plan. Specific input provided by the CHC to forward to the City Council was: • Keep the paving simple and consistent the entire length of Los Rios Street and carefully design a rustic edge. • Concurred with the tan asphalt color (and very strongly opposed putti ng pavers in the central area that had been suggested at earlier workshops). • Ensure we have the ability and funding to maintain landscape in the OCTA right-of-way area if we install it and ensure pedestrians can still step off the pavement to get out of a car's way. • Concurred with Design Review Committee that the oak leaf bike rack should be a different design, as simple and rustic as possible. • Encouraged a simpler, plain wood bench either with or without a back, like there used to be along Los Rios Street where the Park Plaza is now. • Keep the lighting levels ambient and low key. PUBLIC HEARINGS 1. Consideration of Site Plan Review (SPR) 11-001, Silvas Adobe Restoration, a request to allow the repair and seismic retrofit of the historic Silvas Adobe's unreinforced one -room adobe dating to 1794 with a circa 1868 wood -frame board and batten addition, and restoration of the Adobe to its circa 1871 appearance in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for Restoration, located at 31861 Los Rios Street within the Los Rios Specific Plan area and Los Rios Historic District, with a General Plan and zoning designation of Specific Plan/Precise Plan, Historic Residential. (Applicant: Tom Ostensen, San Juan Capistrano Historical Society) Due to time constraints, Chair Porter dispensed with a staff presentation and opened the public hearing. Karen P. Brust, City Manager 3 July 27, 2011 Jerry Nieblas, resident, said it is a great project and he appreciates the Historical Society taking the lead to restore the Adobe. He hopes the project will be done in a careful way and will set the example to the town for protecting our heritage and our historic adobes. Tom Ostensen, Historical Society President, thanked staff and responded to Commissioner questions. The Historical Society is honoring the town's history with this project and he acknowledges their leadership role with this effort. They are working with historic adobe expert Roy Tolles and conditions require them to benefit from a historic preservation architect peer review. The project is tiny but very significant. Due to the seismic repair proposed, they will retain the beadboard ceiling in the Adobe. Commissioner Siegel, after a query to staff, noted a correction to page 9 of the staff report that the public review period of 30 days for the Mitigated Negative Declaration ended on July 25, 2011. Commissioners commented that this will be a great project. Because of the board and batten addition that is being restored and the wood interior floor, it will be different than the Montan ez Adobe and other historic adobes in town. It will represent a different aspect of adobe history. Restoration of a wood front porch was encouraged. After due consideration, Commissioner Siegel moved, and Vice -Chair Tryon seconded, adoption of a resolution approving a Mitigated Negative Declaration and approving SPR 11-001, with conditions of approval and the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program as presented, subject to Resolution No. 11-7- 26-1. The motion was approved unanimously by a vote of 4-0. COMMISSION/STAFF COMMENT Teri Delcamp reported that staff and the City's environmental consultant on the Historic Town Center Master Plan environmental impact report agreed on a creative way to augment the scope of the cultural resources study and complete the much-needed survey of the downtown revitalization area's historic buildings. They survey began yesterday, thanks in no small part to Historical Society members Jan Siegel and Ilse Byrnes who volunteered to help and walked the downtown streets with staff and the consultants to photograph and write down physical descriptions of the resources. The information recorded about the buildings is being transferred by Ms. Delcamp and the consultants to the state historic survey forms. This approach is an alternative to the more costly procedure of hiring a consultant to do a historic survey by using community resources and volunteers with oversight by qualified preservation professionals. It is hoped that additional similar efforts in the future by staff with preservation volunteers will gradually provide more complete historic records. Karen P. Brust, City Manager 4 July 27, 2011 On that note, Commissioner Siegel reported she will be approaching the Historical Society Board about surveying the Los Rios Historic District as a next phase of this survey work. She also commended the weekend's program by the Playhouse at Zoomars presenting 200 years of San Juan Capistrano's history in 20 minutes. The program was very well done, and in typical San Juan style, one of the presentations was even viewed by a woman on horseback. A recording was made and copies will be available for purchase. The CHC commented it would be beneficial if the performance could be put on again for other occasions. Vice -Chair Tryon asked if either Costco or Marriott are required to install Historic Depiction Programs, to which staff responded that they are and the CHC should be seeing them in the near future. He also reported on the recent joint meeting between the City Manager; Mayor and Commission Chairs which he attended on Chair Porter's behalf while she was out of town. He shared a binder of information that each of the CHC members will take turns reviewing. ADJOURNMENT Chair Porter adjourned the meeting at 6:08 p.m. The next regularly scheduled Cultural Heritage Commission meeting will be Tuesday, August 23, 2011, at 5:00 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. cc: Teri Delcamp, Historic Preservation Manager Christina Gomez, Administrative Specialist CHC Members CHC Minutes File