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21 March 2005 | Approved: 18 April 2006

HPC members present: Bob Booher, Chair, Chris Kirtz, Ed Mroczka, Mimi Styles and David Neumann. David Stopak attended as Town Council liaison.

The March 21st meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission began at 7:30 p.m. with the approval of the agenda. Chris Kirtz volunteered to take minutes. The Commission approved the minutes of the July 2005 and February 2006 meetings with minor revisions.

Review Session

The Commission elected “not” to review a proposed shed for 118 Ridge Road which had already been approved by the Planning Commission.

Open Items from Previous Meeting

Rules of Procedure. The Commission discussed a list of possible new "accessory building" definitions prepared by David Stopak. When looking at the language of already finalized Sections 3 and 4, members wrestled with the issue of how to integrate the language of these provisions into the package Town Building Permit applicants receive. In discussing this topic as well as draft language for Section 5, the Commission discussed how to meet its statutory obligation to provide recommendations on Ordinance changes to the Town Council based — two years after its formation — based upon a "comprehensive" review of the existing Ordinances. Chris Kirtz agreed to review all existing Town Ordinances and note places where he felt the Commission might want to consider recommending changes.

Heritage Committee Volunteers. The Commission noted the success of the earlier Working Session collating contributing structure photographs into notebooks using tabs prepared by Sandy Styles. The Commissioners felt another working session should be scheduled but, due to Spring Break and other member’s plans, deferred setting a specific date to continue work on the notebooks. Chris Kirtz reported the Woman’s Club would not be hosting a Washington Grove Walking Tour as part of this June’s Montgomery Heritage weekend but intends to do so in the future.

Master Plan Goals: The Commission felt it was important to capitalize on the interest in working on additional ways to maintain the Town’s Historical architectural ambiance as revealed in the responses to the Questionnaire. The Commission felt it would be better to enroll volunteers for an "ad hoc" Committee and use their time more efficiently were it to define discussion parameters before attempting to assemble a group to define specific goals. Bob Booher, David Stopak, David Neumann and Mimi Styles volunteered to and work on outlining a set of discussion parameters.

Archives: David Neumann reported on the status of the Computer hard and software. The Commission discussed the degree to which and how folks should be allowed to ongoingly provide additional information on house histories. For the next HPC meeting, members were charged with looking at current web house postings and how the information was entered. David Neumann volunteered to discuss this with Bill Saar.

Expanded list of Contributing Structures. Bob Booher agreed to examine this issue and, possibly, provide some language for consideration.

Facades and Decks. After discussion, the Commission elected to continue to review them on a case by case basis.

New Business

The Commission felt that Bob Booher should have a key to the Town Clerk’s office so we could enter it — if needs be — during HPC meetings to retrieve Archival material, access our Contributing Structure Photos which are stored there, or for other relevant Commission purposes.

The next meeting was scheduled for April 18, 2006.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:37 p.m.

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