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From the City’s website

Master Plan Items Currently Under Review:

UPDATED 2/2/2007: The City is requesting feedback on the Historic Preservation Element from citizens and interested parties, with comments to be directed to the Planning and Code Office. Printed copies of the Element are also available for review at City Hall during regular business hours.

• Historic Preservation Element - Draft (2.5M)

Note that the City has posted the video of last night’s meeting.

The meeting was about as low-key as it appeared from the agenda. Everything that was up for a vote was approved, with only some abstentions on the approval of some of the minutes. Items of note:

• Stanley Alster was elected Council Vice President
• Public appearances brought several people who spoke about day laborers and illegal immigrants. There were some responses and reaction to the previous meeting’s public appearances, especially as regards to the anti-solicitation ordinance and David Rocha’s performance. One speaker encouraged the City to make English the official language in the City, while another speaker reiterated her opposition to Mr. Halici’s appication to tear down the Talbott House.
• In the From the Mayor and Council segment, Mr. Schlichting raised the topic of sponsoring a Charrette to consider design issues related to the Kentlands commerical district, preferably by Spring of next year. This brought a fair amount of discussion, which was not universally supportive of the idea. The Mayor and most of the Council generally agreed that the Corridor Cities Transitway alignment (which Mr. Schlichting mentioned as one of the issues facing Kentlands) was important to the City, but there was some disagreement as to how much of a window was left for influencing the final alignment, and how the arrival of a new administration in Annapolis will affect the process. Other concerns included the funding of the Charrette process, whether the planning process should even be a Charrette, and the level of interest in this activity from the business and property owners in Kentlands.
• The City Manager, clearly in response to the the sign incident at the previous Council meeting, circulated to the Mayor and the Council members a statement of a new policy that he planned to post at the entrance to the City Council chambers. This new policy would state that, during Council meetings, participants would not be allowed to hold signs in such a way as to disrupt the proceedings or block the view of the audience or cameras. The Mayor and Council agreed with the plan, and Mr. Humpton noted that the Mayor had agreed to enforce the policy in future meetings. Unofficially, I expect that this will become known as “the Rocha rule”.
• Mr. Roman gave his presentation on the overcrowding and illegal occupation problem in the City. In the discussion that followed, Mr. Roman was asked several questions about enforcement. Apparently the City inspectors can only enter a private home to inspect if the owner consents. However, if there is probable cause — and formal and detailed complaints from the public, which are allowed to be filed anonymously, are important factors in demonstrating probable cause — the inspectors are able to obtain administrative search warrants, allowing them to enter and inspect a home without the owners consent. In addition to fines that may be levied against a property owner, which can be one-time fines or even fines that are levied for every day the property is out of compliance, the City does have the ability to condemn a property, making it illegal to occupy until the problems are corrected. Several among the Council expressed concern that perhaps the fines — often in the hundreds of dollars — are not high enough to act as an effective deterrent. In Mr. Roman’s presentation, one suggestion was that fines for repeat offenders be raised; and the sympathies of the Council were clearly in this direction, if not also to raise the fines for first-time offenders.
• In the discussion of the proposed financial assistance for the Bozzuto project, the principal concern was that the assistance would only be made available to purchasers who would be living in the property — that it was exclusively directed at encouraging owner-occupied housing.
• Regarding the defibrillator ordinance, the only substantiative question that I recall was whether this ordinance would also apply to swimming facilities; it was unclear that it did, and Mr. Felton promised to look into this. As it was a public hearing, one member of the public rose to speak in favor of the ordinance, and also to recommend that the City consider placing these units in police cruisers.
• The HDC convened largely to elect officers — in a remarkable coincidence, Commissioner Katz was elected Chair, and Commissioner Alster the vice chair — to approve three sets of minutes, and to state that they would be holding a closed executive session after the Council meeting.

Following is the Outcomes posted by the City:
Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to the public hearing for a new Garage at 17 Walker Ave, HPAC will consider:

• A courtesy review for:
  

  Applicant: Cheryl and Edward Hoiler
  10 Highland Avenue
  Request for New Garage

• Historic Preservation Master Plan Element. Discussion with Greg Ossont, Director, Planning and Code Administration, and Long Range Planning Team Members Rob Robinson and Kirk Eby
• Updates on:
  1. Olde Towne Day
  2. MAHDC Training October 10, 2006
  3. Impact Review Area
  4. GHDC Projects
  5. HAWP-37E

HAWP-37E is the request to demolish the Hair Bar. I have no idea what the “Historic Preservation Master Plan Element” encompasses. I’ve sent email to Greg Ossont to ask if there are any background materails.

Update: Following is a reply from Greg Ossont:

Several month ago HPAC reviewed a draft of the Historic Preservation Element for incorporation into the city Master Plan. Although it received a favorable review, the element was more of and inventory of historic and potentially historic properties. For the purposes of master planning, staff has revised the draft and attempted to prioritize the inventory. The idea of prioritizing will help staff and decisions makers during reviews of future projects. Since this is a change from how we’ve done things in past master plans and from what HPAC saw earlier this year, I wanted to afford some time to discuss the strategy, answer questions and receive suggestions. Attached is a memo I sent to HPAC regarding this issue

Let me know if you have any questions.

Greg Ossont, Director

Planning and Code Administration