PART I (of III): Historic Context Statement Agenda Item Symbolic of City Council Members Misunderstanding & Mental Confusion

Carmel-by-the-Sea
City Council
Regular Meeting
Tuesday, April 3, 2007

XI. Orders of Council

A. Review an outline for the updated Historic Context Statement as presented by Architectural Resources Group (ARG) for the period of 1940 through 1965 and provide direction.

During City Council deliberations, the following verbal comments and exchanges occurred between Architectural Resources Group (ARG) consultants Bruce Judd and Catherine Petrin and Carmel-by-the-Sea Council Members. Although lengthy, this one agenda item is symbolic of the typical misunderstanding and confusion of present city council members.

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER GERARD ROSE:

“From my perspective the reason why you’re tasked to perform this job was that there were two things that needed to be done.”

“First of all, as you know, there was a period that our current Historic Context Statement did not cover, but there’s a much more important aspect of this, much more, and that is our current Historic Context Statement was not working. And it wasn’t working for a variety of reasons. Some of which were perfectly innocent, but it created disastrous results for our commissions and boards that were trying to deal with some aspects of the Historic Context Statement. For example, the way this council has traditionally seen the Historic Context Statement, is, it was seen as a context statement, in the sense of background, it’s background, it’s important background, it’s background you have to understand in order to make decisions, but it’s background only. But there are some statements in the Historic Context Statement itself that made it sound like it set standards that had to be followed by our boards and commissions. And I think it’s absolutely important as you do your rewrite that it has to be clear that the Context Statement is background only, and to the extent there is a specific ordinance, whether it be in the zoning ordinances or in the historic resources ordinance that deals with this issue, it’s the latter that controls, not the Context Statement. And I can’t tell you how many times that created confusion for our committees…”

“Secondly, because the current Historic context Statement is tied to surveys, we had many examples of the survey takers saying things like will this building is historic because it’s a good example of x and they would identify something in the Context Statement. This resulted in an absurd number of houses finding their way to our list of allegedly historic houses that didn’t belong there. I mean, you go to the east coast and you see major cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore, that truly are historic, with just a handful of homes on it, and Carmel comes up with hundreds of homes. Now, there’s something wrong with that. Not every building associated with the story of Carmel is an historic landmark. Quite clearly. And yet, there are people who apparently thought that might be the case. And unfortunately many of these people filled out DPR Forms that found there way into out surveys, which found there way to the county recorder’s office and improperly so.”

“It has been the sense of this council, repeatedly, that we’re looking for the best of the best, when it comes to architecture, the truly outstanding architects. We don’t want out historic survey and our list of historic homes to reflect every Tom, Dick and Harry that passed through Carmel. We want these buildings that are on our historic list to be truly historic, and we don’t want out historic list to be a joke. And that’s what it is right now.”

“Finally, because the current Context Statement suffers from the infirmities I just spoke about; it seems ridiculous to ground a new Historic Statement on a document that is fundamentally flawed. And that’s why when we heard, or at least when I heard that you wanted to simply do a redo on the other statement, particularly on a statement that your associate, Catherine says, draws on these surveys, that’s a non-starter.”

ARG BRUCE JUDD:

“I think we’re working backwards. I hear you on all three of your statements. The Context Statement is really a roadmap, it is the background information, as you said, that should inform decisions when you do surveys. That doesn’t mean you are supposed to literally take what’s in the Context Statement and then survey every bungalow and say because it says bungalows are important to the development of Carmel, every bungalow should be listed. That, the problem here is not with the Context Statement, it’s with the then taking that information and then translating it into terms of how you do your surveys. So that’s the first connection that’s not being done right.”

“The second part is once you’ve done the survey, you have to then decide what is important about what you’ve surveyed and when someone wants to change it, is that an appropriate change or not. So that’s a third layer which really gets to the heart of what you’re trying to do as decision-makers. When people come to you and want something to be done or not done to their property. So you have to take the foundation work, and then take that and have that inform what you’re doing with the survey work, and then you use that to inform what are the character-defining features which are pretty straight forward, what makes something important and then from that make your decisions about whether somebody is proposing something that is appropriate or not. That’s sort of how you would make those leaps.”

“Secondly, in terms of the original Context Statement, that as a beginning framework, it’s pretty good, it’s organized will, the research is done well, what we were proposing is to have an outline that matches the outline organizational way that was done with the first context Statement. That’s not a flaw in the Context Statement. So we can do it differently, if you want, but we thought the themes that they had arrived at were actually fairly good in that most of them flowed into what would happen from 1940 to 1965. so using that as a organizational element is not a bad way to go, we didn’t think…now we can do it a different way if you prefer, but I thing the big problem is not how the Context Statement is done or what we’re doing and ultimately, they will come together so you have one Context Statement. Its how you then take and make a decision about doing a survey and using that as the basis of the information for the decisions that you’re making...”

ARG CATHERINE PETRIN: “...one thing to add to that…but one thing that I was concerned was your statement that your ordinance sets standards that have to be followed and that is a bit of a red flag to me. A context is meant to do…the Context Statement lays out the different areas of historic development, where things might be , significance, and this is probably overly technical point, but one of the tools professionals use when they actually carry out a survey is the DPR Form, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, and on the second page, Building Structure and Object Record page, it asks for and this is a standard State form, that is a very good tool to use for consistency throughout the state, it asks for what is the historic context and what is the period of development and for consistency, if you can refer back to your Historic Context Statement, use the themes and dates set out in your Context Statement, it’s kind of a short cut so that you don’t have to explain on your significance form all of the information about historic development.”

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER GERARD ROSE:

“O.K. Here’s the problem with that. We live in a village that’s only 100 years old. O.K. It’s not 200 or 300 or 400 years old. I’ve lived in buildings that old, but not Carmel. Carmel is very young…so because we’re such a young city, it’s very easy to come up with criteria that become so broad that virtually every building in town qualifies. You see what I’m saying. And that’s what’s happened.”

ARG BRUCE JUDD:

“When you say criteria that is not the criteria in the Context Statement, that’s the criteria somebody is using when they are doing a survey.”

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER GERARD ROSE:

“Well, I am telling you what happened in reality. What happened in reality was, we have ordinances that weren’t being followed because the people who filled our DPR Forms were saying well here’s a home-style that was identified in our Historic Context Statement and therefore it must be historic. And bang, all of a sudden, the house is on the list. That’s what happened in reality. And you could understand with a young city how that could happen. But we don’t want it to happen. We want to save the best, we want to save the most significant, we want to save buildings that are truly historic and we need you to help us turn that around.”

ARG BRUCE JUDD:

“I think we can help you do that and I think again, that doesn’t come down to the Context Statement as being at fault, it’s how you make decisions when you’re doing surveys. And then I would say there is another element that we haven’t talked about very much and that’s community character. There’s one of these period revival cottages, like the Tuck Box, and you decide that that is the most important one so you list the Tuck Box and you don’t list any of the others. At some point, through time, if those are discarded as not being important, they will all be demolished and you’ll have larger houses going in their stead and you will end up with a community character which is not what anybody wanted because it happened gradually over 30 or 40 years. So part of this in the Context Statement is letting you know what is important about how the city developed and what you should be looking for beyond listing anything, it’s not a regulation. It tries to make everybody aware of community character, what contributes to that character and what you can do to preserve it, if you want to preserve it, and that’s your decision to preserve or not.”

“We’re doing the foundation work which I thing everybody was very unhappy with because I thin you were using it in the wrong way over time, that’s my guess.”

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER GERARD ROSE:

“I can tell you that when our Historic Resources Board made decisions about DPR Forms, well from what I read in the Historic Context Statement this qualifies.”

ARG CATHERINE PETRIN:

“Well, it might qualify, but that’s the first step and then you have to look at other, integrity and period of significance…”

ARG BRUCE JUDD:

“Qualify in that you look at it in detail, not that it is on the list.”

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER KEN TALMAGE:

“I think it’s widely recognized that we have a process that is flawed and I say that because of the number of appeals and the number of those appeals that were sustained. And we’re wrestling with the flaw in that process whether and whether it’s an over reliance on the Context Statement or the element the decision-making criteria in that Context Statement…we want to save the best…”

ARG BRUCE JUDD:

“Without the context Statement, you don’t know whether something is actually important as a theme to go look at. My sense is the real failing in the process is you have a Context Statement that is O.K., but people have then been trying to turn it into something and use it as a tool in a way it should not be uses. In terms of trying to correctly say something is mentioned in the Context Statement, therefore that if anything meets that, it’s a landmark or it’s listed. And I’m not sure that, for example bungalows. If it’s a green bungalow on the Context Statement, any green bungalow in the city ought to be listed, and that’s not the case, that’s not how you should be using it. So I think what’s missing is the decision-making before you go out and do the survey in terms of translating what’s in the context to a decision-making tool...”

“You don’t want to try to use it to make your decisions about whether it’s listed or not listed on a register.”

MAYOR SUE McCLOUD:

“The concern is… historic preservation has gotten a bad name because of the process...”

CITY COUNICL MEMBER MIKE CUNNINGHAM:

“We need the criteria to drive the survey process. That’s the thing that‘s broken. We need your help...”

CITY COUNCIL MEMBER GERARD ROSE:

“...make it clear in the Historic Context Statement that a survey that’s done poorly is recognized as having been done poorly and one that’s done correctly is recognized as one that’s been done correctly and if we have a good Historic Context Statement for the entire period, it well make it easier to make that distinction.”

ARG BRUCE JUDD:

“The next step is trying to come up with the criteria of how you are going to make those decisions.”

For information about Architectural Resources Group: Architects, Planners & Conservators, Inc. (ARG), click on post title above or copy, paste and click http://www.argsf.com/home.shtml.