Northgate Christian Fellowship received approval Thursday from the Historic Preservation Review Commission for modifications of its campus design.

The church, at 2201 Lake Herman Road, won’t have to put in the faux windows it had proposed after a workshop with the commission Oct. 23, when the panel urged designers to add features to break up some large exterior walls of the proposed assembly room that also will be the church’s sanctuary.

“You can take the faux windows away,” Commissioner Steve McKee said.

Nor will the church have to build real windows that might interfere with interior uses, members decided.

Instead, the commission was satisfied with enlargement of a horizontal band of color that church officials had included in the design modifications.

However, the commission remained troubled with proposed landscaping it said would look like a long line of identical trees.

Commissioner Trevor Macenski suggested the church plant several “keystone” — older and larger — trees in front for aesthetic purposes.

“The last thing we want is a wall of trees,” he said.

But the panel didn’t want church representatives to be required to appear before the commission again, if that could be avoided.

Instead, Macenski drew on a page of the campus plans where he thought those trees should go, in hopes that the church’s designers simply could get revision approval at staff level.

“If you’re comfortable, you can delegate to staff,” Principal Planner Amy Million told the commission.

She assured members that if a situation arose that made city employees uncomfortable, “staff can bring it up to you.”

Macenski suggested five keystone trees should go on the parking lot’s south side, and six more trees “or appropriate landscaping” should be planted in the parking lot’s center.

Commissioner Maggie Trumbly suggested moving some of the trees that had been drawn near the city’s water line that runs under the church’s property and putting them, instead, where Macenski wanted to see trees planted.

Senior Pastor Ken Jensen concurred with the changes, which received unanimous support from the commission.

Another request before the panel was continued until January because Vice Chairperson Jon Van Landschoot’s home is so close to the subject property that he would have had to recuse himself and reduce the number of available commissioners to less than a quorum.

Only he, Trumbly, McKee and Macenski attended Thursday’s meeting. Chairperson Luis Delgado and Commissioners Toni Haughey and Gilbert von Studnitz were absent.

Originally, the request by applicants Marianne Jamison and Janette Perasso had been on the commission’s consent calendar, which meant it could have been approved along with other matters without comment and by single vote.

Million has recommended approval for their request to replace an aluminum-clad single-pane window with vinyl-clad dual-pane windows at an apartment building at 155 West I St. The commission may schedule a special meeting next month to hear the matter.

In other business, the panel set its 2015 meeting calendar and accepted Benicia’s annual Certified Local Government Report on its historic preservation activities. That document will be sent to the California Office of Historic Preservation.