Cathy Drzyzgula attended the hearing this morning in Hazma Halici & Halici Inc.’s appeal of the Historic District Commission’s rejection of the request of a permit to demolish the historic Talbott House, now being used as a place of business (The Hair Bar) by Mr. Halici. Ms. Drzyzgula sent out a report on the hearing to a neighborhood mailing list; I’ve pasted in a shorter version of that report with her permission.
I attended the hearing today on the Hair Bar case appeal. The arguments today were limited to whether the Historic District Commission as it is constituted in Gaithersburg meets the requirements of the state law which authorizes localities to have Preservation Ordinances and regulation.
The state law (Article 66b, section 8.03) says in part:
§ 8.03. Historic district commissions generally; recommendation by Maryland Historical Trust.
(a) Historic district commissions generally.- (1) A local jurisdiction may create a “historic district commission” or “historic preservation commission”. (2) (i) A historic district commission or historic preservation commission shall have at least five members. (iii) Each member of a historic district commission or historic preservation commission shall possess a demonstrated special interest, specific knowledge, or professional or academic training in such fields as history, architecture, architectural history, planning, archeology, anthropology, curation, conservation, landscape architecture, historic preservation, urban design, or related disciplines. The Gaithersburg ordinance has a longer list of qualifications:
Historic district commission, commission. The mayor and city council shall appoint a commission of six (6) members, all of whom are qualified consistent with the provisions of Article 66B, § 8.03, MD. CODE ANN., as established by the following criteria:
(a) Persons who have previously served on a local legislative body exercising planning and zoning powers; or (b) Persons who have previously served on a planning commission, board of appeals or historic preservation commission or advisory body; or (c) Persons who have demonstrated special interest, participation, specific knowledge or professional or academic training in such fields as history, architecture, architectural history, planning, archaeology, anthropology, curation, conservation, landscape architecture, historic preservation, urban design or related disciplines; and agree to serve on this commission and a majority of whom are residents of the city. Mr. Orens represented Mr. Halici and Halici Inc, and Ms. Borten represented the HDC. The arguments made can be summarized in no particular order as follows
Mr. Orens: The City ordinance allows members who meet paragraphs a) or b) of the City Ordinance, but do not meet the criteria of the State Ordinance, so the City Ordinance is invalid.
State law requires members to have a “DEMONSTRATED SPECIAL INTEREST” in one of the areas listed in the state ordinance. A definition of special was read aloud. Being elected to the City council does not demonstrate a special interest in this area. One HDC member has special training in architecture and is clearly qualified, the others have no special training. In particular, Council Member Mike Sesma did not have any qualifying experience or training when he was appointed to the HDC. Applications are not accepted for these positions from anyone but the Mayor and Council. Serving on the City Council does not demonstrate a special interest in the appropriate areas because the City Council has many functions, and preservation plays just a small part in their activities. The state law doesn’t accept “on the job training” , since the past tense “demonstrated” means the qualification should be met at the time of appointment. According to the Maryland Historic Trust website, Gaithersburg is the only Maryland jurisdiction to have the Mayor and Council be the HDC.
Ms. Borten: Candidates for office know that they will serve on the HDC as well as the Council and they wouldn’t run if they weren’t interested in planning and other preservation related disciplines. They get experience in planning and preservation in office, by the time this case was decided, they all had demonstrated experience. All the members except Member Sesma had prior experience on the Planning Commission, Council or Board of Appeals. State law only requires 5 members on the HDC, so even if Member Sesma is not qualified the HDC still has enough qualified members. The courts have earlier ruled that the state law does not prevent Mayor and Council members from being on the HDC, in fact other cities have HDC members who are also Mayor and/or Council members. Other jurisdictions also have HDC rules that are not in accordance with the state law, for example by not requiring residency, so the other jurisdictions’ practices should not be used as the standard of judgment. The state legislature added a provision to the law to make it clear that elected officials can serve on HDC’s. The requirements in the state law are a list, to be understood so that HDC members must demonstrate “special interest OR specific knowledge, OR professional or academic training…”, not all of those things. The list of fields which serve for qualification is broad, and not intended to be a complete list. Anthropology (which is the study of tribal cultures) isn’t much more closely related to historic preservation than psychology is.
Other issues that the Judge asked about or discussed were:
Whether Mr. Sesma vote to approve the HAWP or not (he opposed it).
What the remedy should be if he found a problem with the HDC–he indicated he didn’t have authority to make anyone take specific action. He did indicate that if he ruled the HDC was an invalid body there was no precedent or rules for how to deal with the situation.
The judge has taken this matter under advisement, and will issue a ruling on a date that has not yet been specified.
I have tried to summarize the gist of what happened, but this is just my observation, and not an official record of course, so take it is as worth what you paid for it :)
Cathy D.