Title searches reveal a property’s historic designation, Benicia employees told members of the Historic Preservation Review Commission last week.

A three-letter designation means the city has passed a resolution governing the property, Associate Planner Suzanne Thorsen told the panel Thursday night.

From there, it’s up to those preparing the title report, not city employees, to make sure a prospective purchaser knows the land is in a historical district, she said.

“The title officer has the responsibility to pull it,” she told the commission. But the title officer also should be pulling any other document a city or other agency files on the property, such as liens, she said.

“The issue is to make sure the title officers provide information to the purchasers,” she said. Assured that Solano County is providing the information correctly, she said, “The issue is resolved as far as staff is concerned.”

The matter has been a long-time concern for the commission, which worried that Benicia’s Downtown Historic District Survey, adopted in 2009, had not been recorded properly and that properties in that district weren’t being noted as being within a historic district.

Members of the HPRC have sought ways to inform prospective purchasers of historic buildings of both the benefits and the restoration, preservation and caretaking responsibilities of buying such structures.

However, Thorsen’s report wasn’t enough for Commissioner Toni Haughey, a real estate agent, who said the three-letter designation “RSL” that shows up on title searches may not be clear enough.

“I think we need a current title report from someone’s property,” Haughey said, explaining that in her years of selling properties she doesn’t remember seeing a title report note Benicia’s resolution.

Reports on Vallejo historical district properties is clearer, she contended. “This is not accomplishing what we want.”

Thorsen replied that city staff had explored whether the resolution had been recorded correctly so that the designation is in the county’s database and showed up in title searches, not whether Solano County’s method was an effective method. “That is a separate discussion,” she said.

Principal Planner Amy Million concurred, saying that city employees believe “We’ve done all we can do,” and that it is the job of a title officer to make sure the historic district designation is reported to a prospective buyer.

“It’s a conversation with the title company. It’s why you get title insurance,” Million said. “There’s nothing else the city can do, and nothing more the recorder can do.”

Still determined, Haughey said she would ask a title officer what he or she would do upon seeing the “RSL” designation in a title search. “We want to be totally transparent, and this doesn’t accomplish it.”

In other matters, the panel approved, with Jon Van Landschoot excepting, a request by Larry and Cathy Bienati to replace some aluminum, single-pane windows with vinyl-clad, energy-efficient multi-pane ones.

The window openings wouldn’t be changed in their 1880s-rea home at 159 West F St.

Normally, the commission opposes either aluminum or vinyl-clad windows in older houses, insisting on retaining or restoring wood-frame windows instead. But based on historic photographs, the Solano County Assessor’s Office and other references, the house has been modified to the extent that its historic integrity has been lost, and it was not included in Benicia’s 2004-09 historic survey update.

It has had additions built and removed, and its front façade has been altered as well. The home has not been listed as a historic structure.

The Bienatis told the panel they had chosen efficient windows that would be compatible with their house’s Queen Anne look.

“I think we need to discuss how to handle nonhistoric buildings in the historic district,” Van Landschoot, the panel’s vice chairperson, said. “I would like some guidelines.”

But the balance of the panel had no problem with the request, and Haughey, Gilbert von Studnitz and Chairperson Luis Delgado agreed to the request.