At the Planning Commission on January 16, a motion to initiate text amendments to Article 14, which governs the Historic District and Board of Architectural Review have been proposed. You may wish to check out the proposed amendments online. While this is not a public meeting, you may still wish to offer your thoughts on the text amendments to the Planning Commission.
PHW is generally in favor of attempting to procure alternate members for the Board of Architectural Review. Some of the other minor text adjustments are not concerning. We are, however, concerned that the proposal currently for 14-10-.3 has struck the need for City Council and BAR members to consult prior to an appeal.
The reasoning for the removal of this sentence was stated that during the last several appeals, the consultation has been different each time. PHW would urge that instead of removing this consultation process, a procedure can be codified to make the process consistent. Matters that come before the BAR are often specialized knowledge, so we feel it is helpful to have this process in place so City Council members can understand how decisions were reached from the BAR side. There is certainly other language that could be nitpicked, but this was of immediate concern.
If you have comments on this amendment, you may share them with the Planning Department ahead of the meeting on Tuesday, or keep an eye out for future developments.