Lee and Susan North will be able to expand the patio at their Treasury Commons Building, the structure that houses The Chill bar and Luxe Hair Design, a salon, the Historic Preservation Review Commission decided last week.
However, the couple will need to modify their designs somewhat, the panel decided at its Thursday meeting. One change would be to build an entryway that is 2 feet larger than their initial proposal of 4 feet.
“I’d like a wider entrance,” Commissioner Jon Van Landschoot said. “People are two feet wide.” Other commissioners chuckled, but nodded their assent. “They have things in their arms,” he added.
“Our idea is, if people are walking north on First Street, to provide some sort of entrance,” Lee North told the panel. He wanted to discourage rail-hopping, he said.
Commissioner Steve McKee’s motion included the requirement for the enlarged opening at the patio’s southwest corner, a notation that a single step rather than multiple steps would be preferred, and that the Norths should try to make any new concrete resemble the color of the older concrete.
Lee North said he expected the addition of some “lamp black” color would give the new concrete an aged look to resemble older pieces.
He said the construction project could take about three months.
North asked to expand the patio area at his building tenant spaces at 360 and 362 First St., in particular to expand the outdoor seating for The Chill, a wine bar, though other tenants would have use of the patio.
The building has two smaller patios in front of 372 and 366 First St. that are higher than the sidewalk and have decorative wrought-iron railing.
The expansion calls for removal of some plantings, but others would remain. In fact, those at the hair salon have suggested they would expand some planting and perhaps add a bench, North told the commission. “We like it when folks fix up their places,” Van Landschoot told the property owners.
Commissioners said they want to find a way to make that process easier for others, especially if a property owner wants to make minor improvements or substitute more accurate materials for some modern ones that may have been used during past repairs of a historical building.
Of the cost of a public hearing in front of the commission, Principal Planner Amy Million said fees begin at $300 plus a share of the cost of sending notifications, not to mention delaying the project until a request can be put on the panel’s agenda. This, she said, discourages and frustrates some applicants, and some decide to pursue less-desirable alternatives that could be granted by staff over the counter.
Associate Planner Suzanne Thorsen said some smaller projects that require a commission public hearing can take as much staff time to prepare as larger projects.
“The time and money is off-putting,” she said, and some applicants have told her they’d do the project in an exempt way, “or forget it.”
Sisters Paula and Carla Chiotti could face the more lengthy process as they seek to replace the metal roof of a garage that is an accessory building to a 1913 house they own in Benicia. The two would prefer asphalt tile as roofing material. The garage was built more recently than the house, some time before 1942. “We would like to make it look like the original,” Carla said.
Commissioner Maggie Trumbly said city employees could make many of the routine decisions currently sent to the panel.
“Staff is smart,” and familiar with the Secretary of Interior Standards and the California Environmental Quality Act, Trumbly said. “I see a lot of folks downtown. Small things go undone or done ‘underground.’ These are discretionary permits to some degree,” she said, adding that they should be handled over the counter.
Chairperson Luis Delgado agreed. “It seems the smaller projects could be done at staff level.”
Van Landschoot said some people go ahead with a project without getting permit approval, hoping they aren’t reported.
Thorsen and Million said Community Development Department staff would make an over-the-counter decision similar to the way it’s handled by the commission — a report analyzes the project and findings are determined before a decision of record, the staff equivalent of a resolution, is made.
Van Landschoot worried that staff turnover has reduced “institutional memory” about past decisions, and expressed his disappointment when staff decisions appeared to countermand the commission.
“I like the rules to be typed up so discretion is minimal,” he said.
He said he would like better-defined triggers for a design review in front of the commission, such as if a plan calls for a significant increase in a building or change in building-to-lot ratio, or if any character-defining details are to be removed.
If a proposal involved none of these, if the applicant wants to change material types to those that are more historical for a landmark or contributor building, or if the building can’t be viewed from the street or isn’t a contributor in the downtown historical district, staff could handle the decision, he said.
What he said he didn’t want was for someone to tear down a non-historical building “and build a monster.” That approach should require commission review, he said.
He and McKee suggested another method in addition to staff decisions or commission review. A panel of fewer than a majority of the commission also could look at some of the proposed projects and offer recommendations or make a decision.
Meanwhile, the commission will form a subcommittee to develop a proposal for asking the City Council to authorize the panel to overhaul the city’s design review procedures. Members of that subcommittee may be chosen next month, the panel decided.