Ojai City Council and Historic Preservation Commission Joint Meeting

Green light on.

Ready to

start?

public comment card, and that is from Jan Lambert. John Lambert, thank you. Sorry. No, my fault.

Yeah, thank you very much. John Lambert, I live in the Tehomina Historic District and I have had the pleasure, and I mean it so, of working with Brian on a number of different occasions. It's a delight to work with somebody who evidences such concern for our valley. I've also been reminded of how important historic preservation is I'm about one beat back from walking around Machu Picchu.

And that's an absolutely remarkable sense of preservation and historic significance. The first time I came in contact with Brian was when the Ojai Valley Friends and Foundation was in the process of wanting to rebuild the old Libby Land Office, and it was quite a long process But the HPC was very, very helpful and we did end up finishing the building. It is now used and the historic preservation of the front of it is very much part of the downtown of Ojai.

The second one which I want to mention is the creation of the Taormina Historic District which took some time and worked both with the council and especially with the Historic Preservation Commission. They were most helpful over the period of time that this had to be worked through, and the historic district has become somewhat meaningful if nothing else than the price of a house there now reflects how desirable it has become.

I also would like to just say to the city That some of the problems that have arisen within the historic district, not the least of which was a property owner on La Paz denuding a whole section of the old original road into the community now called Arredale Access. Thank you very much. So that when you enter through the old entrance into the Taormina community back from the early mid-60s, once again we will have that beautiful canopy. The Historic Preservation Commission has been most helpful as has the city and I just simply came to say thank you to both.

That's it. Thank you very much! My pleasure.

We almost never get somebody just coming to say thanks. So we're like, wait, what are we supposed to do with that? Yeah, I would stay but I've got a library board meeting coming up. Thank you very much, Mr. Lambert. Wonderful. Anything online, Mr Montgomery?

Mayor, we only have one Zoom participant online so let's tell our Zoom participant now is the time for public comment during our special meeting agenda and we'll move on mayor.

Thank you very much and let me turn it over to our HBC chair

Hello, I'm Gina McCattin. I am the chair of the HPC. We need to keep this moving quickly because there is a very important council meeting following in less than an hour so I will try to be brief and as efficient as I can. I understand that we are so far the only commission currently with a joint council meeting so thank you to everyone who helped get this to happen.

So the first item that we want to discuss is our role as a commission with the City of Ojai. We would like to be as useful to the city as we can. We all appreciate the updated Commissioner Handbook, but still feel that we need to have a more in-depth discussion to make sure that we are all on the same page with the interpretation of Ojai's current HPC ordinance.

We have worked hard on our education to be useful to the city, to develop our expertise and to assist the City of Ojai in achieving its goals. We want to make sure that we are not running parallel to what the city staff or council wants us to do. Sometimes it just seems that with better communication we could avoid frustrating ourselves and the city staff. We want a clear direction and council and city feedback of our functions and powers. We don't want to waste our time or yours. We know that it's a discussion that is longer than the short time we can allot here, so what we are asking is a brief committee or ad hoc that includes someone from city staff, a council member or two, and 2-3 members of the HPC to discuss direction—ultimately and ideally, a flowchart of how to conduct our business.

We don't see this being longer than a couple of meetings, but we feel the outcome will not only benefit the current Commission and Council, but set up future HPCs for success.

Would you say one more time what you are proposing is the makeup of the committee? Once

more. Well, at least one member of the staff and one or two members of council and two or three members of the HPC. And it would be a short period of time just to really have a clear understanding of our roles and rules.

Any discussion on that? I can't see any objection to that. That sounds like the kind of work that would take more time than we have here right now to do, so I like that idea. Ms. Lang?

I support that idea too and another thing too that Chair McAdam and I were talking about earlier Thank you all for being here. Thank you very much.

Mr. Harvey, yes? I just want to point out to the bodies that we do have an item on an upcoming City Council meeting. I believe it's the 22nd. It might be the 8th of April. April 8th. Sorry? April 8th! Okay, April 8th we would have an item on the agenda to discuss the schedule for joint City Council and Commission meetings. That's already in the works. And looking around the table, we'll take that as direction to form the subcommittee that was recommended so I'll work with CDD and the city attorney on that. So thank you.

I'd just like to say that in 2019, the City wanted to revise its Historic Preservation Ordinance and we formed a similar committee. Brian Akins and myself and Elyse DuPuit represented the HPC and Bill Wyrick was on as a Council member And the City Manager and the Community Development Director came through and offered their input from time to time, and it really worked out very well. I think we came up with a great document, and then it went back to the HPC for approval, and the Planning Commission, and eventually the City Council and the city attorneys. So I think it worked really well then, and I would hope so this time. Thank you.

Any other discussion? Yes, Mr.

Whitman. I think as far as the goals that were expressed or understanding, I think it's important that we get a report from the city attorney in terms of the legal role that HPC is required and then what are we allowed to do above and beyond that.

Thank you.

So somewhat the genesis for this item and the discussion began in having a joint meeting going all the way back to just before the August 27, 2024 meeting. And in that meeting or prior to that meeting, the commission I was in the process of sending the structures of merit into the City Council for their review. I got a copy of that package and saw that, in fact it said that the direct staff to solicit an RFQ for qualified individuals first basically for vetting the Historic Preservation Commission's proposals. Prior to that meeting on August 27th at the last HPC meeting, the consensus of the HPC meeting was that we were looking for Getting council members and staff to come in to attend our meeting so they could understand what it was that we do as a part of our meeting.

And I will say that with the last council that we had in place, and the current council that we have in place having been on the commission for 10 years, I'm very happy with the attendance of the liaisons that are there. Wonderful people, they show up and if they're not they let us know. So the question came up and so when I saw this item it was something new to me, new to the HBC, so I ended up getting a few minutes of a very busy city manager to talk about this and what was Introduced and discussed in that was the fact that the city manager had another path going forward, and that involved basically going out looking for a third party that was gonna come in and review all of the information. Actually they were not only gonna review it They were going to take on the structures of merit and they would be the ones actually making the presentation at the council, not the HPC that had worked for a year-and-a-half on that.

So part of the reason for this meeting was to get guidance from the council and I'm happy to have the city manager here He's great in supporting us and working with us, and in fact he had made the decision I'll pull it from the council. You talk about it in the next meeting so just that's kind of where the impetus came for getting one of the items on this meeting.

Thank you. Seems to me that we will talk about in that ad hoc committee is what the direction will be if I'm hearing it, if I'm understanding that correctly. That would be the one thing that that committee would come back to this body with. Mr. Harvey do you have anything to add to that?

If I heard direction correctly, the Ad Hoc Committee is more discussing the role of the HPC with the City Council. Not specifically focusing on structures of merit. However we're happy to take that on if there's head nods around the table that you want both of those topics covered by the subcommittee. That's okay. I'm seeing kind of a mixed bag here so maybe you need to discuss that and I'll step away from that for

right now. I think our concern is Once we understand our rules and we have an agreement of how to go forward, we're on the same page with the ordinance. I think all of that will solve itself. That's, I think what we all decided at our meeting. Mr.

Walker? Right because I think one of the things that we do fundamentally is and it's in the general plan of the city is to identify the city's historic properties so this gets back to that issue as how do we identify which The reason why, and maybe mistakenly, I was conflating possibly some issues is that

If we were to say these are things that the Council is interested in working with the HPC in their work on, for example if it were something like that. That takes a little bit more conversation than I think we would have here and I was imagining that if we thought of those priorities they would occur at the Ad Hoc to then come forward to these bodies but I'm happy to not have that be the direction. Were you going to say something Ms. Lang? Oh no great.

I have a

comment on that topic. I think I was the liaison for HPC at one point in which And my perception was there was a lot of, you know, confusion and fear amongst the public about what a structures of merit designation would mean. And so I think that issue in particular we need a really good statement of what happens when A building is designated as a structure of merit so that people don't just kind of assume, speculate and cause panic about whether your building's going to be taken away from you or something.

So, I just feel that it is on us if we didn't do proper education and reach out to our property owners and to our public. And I think that all goes around to our duties during COVID. Yes, we were all shut down and everything but we were working on a project And that project got, we couldn't reach out to the public until we got permission from council to reach out to the public. But the public was already hearing it because our meetings are public. It was getting in the newspaper and things were getting away from us but we needed your permission to go forward so I think that all of this if we don't talk about specific issues and we just talk about a flow chart of how we do our business, I think a lot of those problems will naturally solve themselves It is on us to make sure that we understand it properly, and sometimes it takes a public forum to do that.

The first meeting that we talked about the structures of merit—we had so many people, and the questions they were asking were answers that we did not know. We're going to find this out and not do anything until we understand it better. And I think that the property owners really appreciated the fact that we weren't just trying to bulldoze it through, that we were trying to say what you're saying is valid, let us understand it first. But I'd like to catch those things before we upset anybody or the staff or council and everyone gets riled up about misinformation.

If we can just understand our flow through better and what our responsibilities are, I think that will solve a lot of the issues.

I agree 100%. Any more on the first item? Okay let's go to item number two.

I'm sure you all know or hopefully know that due to the findings during a 2018 Caltrans pedestrian project, the downtown Ojai State Historic District was placed on the California Register of Historic Resources. The HPC did not learn about the State District for several years after it happened, and strangely it has never been celebrated. It's really an honor and a gift to the city that was given to us with a nice little bow on it so we thought it was time to educate our community about it with a celebration tying into Ojai Day maybe a booth or a display in the museum courtyard With historical photos and information, we would also like to install an official plaque. The cost is about $3500 installed. It would be an official State of California bear with a star and most likely installed on a large rock on the entrance to Libbey Park.

My question that I asked of you already is, what does that mean? That designation. What does that mean to the property owners in the area? It doesn't mean anything differently than they are already living with.

Well, one thing I want to say is this is not the local district that the Commission has been working on. We wanted to let the Council know that we have for the time being shelved the local downtown historic district. This is celebrating something that has already happened—the State of California Downtown Ojai Historic District. It's a smaller geographical area and specific time of significance in the Libby era in the downtown.

And then simultaneously, the Commission plans on There's a second ad hoc that is working on benefits for property owners who are currently in this district, like working with planning on simplifying the overlays, working with planning in the city to reduce or eliminate fees for contributing properties. Making sure that property owners know of any tax benefits and that they can use the California Historic Building Code Successful preservation is a two-way street. We want to make sure that the stewards of the properties in the district are being supported in any way we can, so when we come to a consensus, we will bring it to the City and Council. But if Craig wants to explain what it means to property owners better than I can, do you want to take that?

Well, I think you explained it pretty well but there are some benefits that come with it if a property is on the State Historic District and the work that they want to do on their property is consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Historic Development. Then they can get a CEQA exemption right there. That's just flat out what they can get. They can also make use of the State Historic Building Code, which allows them to rehabilitate their property according to its historic features rather than having to conform Other local maybe requirements that aren't there necessarily for the safety of people, but are just part of the local building requirements that might interfere with being able to rehabilitate the building in a historic way.

So that can be a big advantage to a lot of the property owners. Also, there's state tax benefits and federal tax benefits that become available to them. They are within the CEQA system however so when they do want to if they did want to demolish the building or if they did want to Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the public. I'm going to start by saying that this is an important item for us to discuss today.

for the impacts that it might have on the historic value of the property before a decision is made. So, it's mostly an honor and it came about kind of fortuitously through this ATP project Nobody knew about it and it was Don Theding that uncovered the document, which is many pages long. It's a wonderful outline of all the properties and evaluates them and they came up with 28 properties that are contributing But we all knew that, you know. We all knew our downtown was historic but this really put it into a document that we can all look at and enjoy and we can really tout as something special for Ojai to have that designation. Most cities And most local organizations have to apply themselves. They have to nominate their historic district, and it's a long difficult process that costs a lot of money and you're not guaranteed of getting accepted by the state.

But because the ATP grant was funded by federal funds... It went through this consensus process at the state level, where it was placed on the California Register. And we got a—the city got a letter confirming that. So I would suggest

with the celebration that there's a public relations campaign that spells out what you just said, so the owners do understand here's possible benefits, here's... If I heard you right, you said They would come under some review, but possibly not even denied necessarily. If I heard you right they would come to the Planning Commission etc., but that laid out I think would shortcut any concerns.

I just echo what the mayor said. I like all of your proposals, but I think that the city can promote this as you know for PR through our website, through our newsletter. I would love it if the Commission put together the materials that we

If I may just jump in, I think what would probably be great is if the HPC would maybe flesh this out in a recommendation at a near-term meeting. We could then bring it back quickly to the council for approval and then we would want to build it into the fiscal year 25-26 budget. Oh, a public relations firm if you will. They produce our newsletter and our social media and I would want to avail the outreach effort with them. They're very good at that type of thing. If the head nods are there, that would probably be how I'd want to do it. And I could work with Maura on that recommendation coming from the next HBC. That's okay.

Yes, thank you.

That sounds good. Yes, Mr. Eakins?

Okay so getting back to the Ojai Civic Center Historic District otherwise known as a local historic district that as the chair said we went to the council before we went out contacted anybody because and I spent nine months contacting all the different individuals that went through So my question has been, and I've raised this question from January 9th when this was first introduced to the HPC.

I raised it, the question with the mayor a few weeks ago. I mentioned in the last HPC I had raised the question to you. So, I was wondering if a legal answer to my question about whether the State Historic District can be recognized by the HPC without going through the code processes in place in order to recognize the local downtown historic district and how a state historic district differs or doesn't from a council-approved local district as regards local matters. I have a copy of this document if you want it, Matt? I don't know if you have it, Mayor sent me to it last night. He had gotten the information. I will qualify it. It was questions that were put from AI source. It's also again from that needs further clarification and definition.

I did find out following from searching, the city cannot directly reject a historic district designation by the state of California. However there are some important points to consider. For a historic district to be formally listed in the California Register it cannot be done over the objection of a majority property owners. If a majority property owners document their opposition, the nomination would be submitted as a determination of eligibility rather than a formal listing.

Even if a district is determined eligible but not formally listed due to property owner objection, it would still be treated the same as listed districts or state-level projects reviews Environmental Review and CEQA Quality Act which was also discussed. The process for designating California historical landmarks, which are automatically listed in the California Register of Historic Resources requires the approval of the property owners. This suggests that local consent is generally sought in the state designation process. While cities may have their own processes for local historic district designation, these are separate from state level designations and do not override the state determinations. It is important to note that while city cannot unilaterally reject a state historic district, the state processes does take into account local input particularly from property owners.

So again I ask that question because I wanted to and as the mayor knows the question was initially going Mr. Summers, please.

Can I just speak one second? Of course. I would like to say that we have gone over this many times, and we have taken a lot of education classes based on state historic districts that have explained this process over and over again. And I think more than making our mayor have to go AI on us to try and find information when we do have the education behind us... I'm really sorry about that but... No it's okay. So thank you.

A couple comments. One, I'll always caution folks using AI. Of course! AI is a powerful tool but it is as smart as the internet. AI at heart is amalgamating what is all on the internet and we all know the internet is both incredibly smart and incredibly not-smart So please, always double-check whatever you pull off AI because it's just pulling from whatever is on the Internet without any direct vetting. So that's a comment on anything to do with AI and we've seen this in lawsuits in Texas where a law firm—not my firm—a firm in Texas filed a brief citing a case that doesn't exist and the judge read the riot act to them so always be cautious with AI. It's a powerful tool but it must be verified. Now on this question The State Historic District, as designated by the state has never been fought by the city.

We would need majority council direction to do that we have never had majority council direction to do that what that means is Commissioner Aikens noted I'm sorry Commissioner Walker noted is that the State Historic District designation it means that it exists for CEQA purposes so if we have a discretionary permit for any of those 28 property owners discretionary is not every city permit it's a permit that requires discretionary review and approval most commonly a design review permit Then we must analyze it through the CEQA process, which requires assessing for applicable exemptions. Which include if the project they're doing, the modifications are consistent with the Secretary of Interior's standards for historic preservation then there is an exemption.

If they're not say it's a complete demolition and replacement with an entirely new building that's not consistent with historic preservation. That's not going to be exempt from CEQAs. We're gonna have to do an EIR, do a full scope review. Outcome will be determined based on the process. And that's going to be typically your Planning Commission, and then anything under our code that requires a Historic Resource Report which would be a CEQA subject decision is going to be referred to the HPC for review and comment. Then back to Planning Commission potentially up to Council. All of that's happening under our existing codes in CEQAs under the State Designated Historic District designation for those 28 properties.

It also has the benefits that taps into the grants and some state tax exemptions and federal tax exemptions and grants as noted, and the historic building code. If we were—if the Council were to designate a local historic district on top which could be the same 28 properties or a different map has been discussed at various times, that designation would maintain all of those existing requirements and benefits and add the ability for the Mills Act The Mills Act allows qualifying historic properties, which means landmarks, locally designated landmarks or contributing properties to locally designated historic districts to benefit from certain property tax reductions in return for a contract requiring certain aspects of historic preservation.

That's what's controlled at heart by a local district. So with no local district in place, as ordered by the council, there is no Mills Act benefits because only the council can give away its own property tax. Only the council can give away or in this case exchange money for preservation under a Mills Act designation. So, now we do not have a locally designated historic district in the downtown area. We do in Termina. We do not in the downtown. Therefore there is no Mills Act benefits in the downtown area. But the district does exist for state sequel purposes and for other state purposes. And last, no local historic district can be designated only by the HBC. It must be done by the council under our code and state law. Happy to answer any more questions.

Thank you Matt.

Thank You Mr. Summers

Mayor,

could I do a point of

clarification real quick? Yes. Okay so as the mayor knows the reason I came to you is the fact that commissioners cannot go to legal counsel They have to go through city staff, or in this case the council. And so and this is a relationship that I've talked with the mayor for quite some time. I appreciate him. As I said originally it was that he asked him to go to our City Attorney rather than go to AI.

I didn't have a chance to go through and prove that, but an application for the state for historic districts lists many of the items that were covered in that information provided by the mayor.

Craig do you have anything you want to add?

I guess I have a comment. And I think when commission is presented with something that requires legal analysis, it's always been my understanding It goes to the city manager for an assessment of, you know, how do we get from the point of request to the point of the attorney putting together the memo. And so I don't know if that's something that we need to kind of work on and smooth out the details. And I guess my other question would be is that I had a kind of a general understanding I'm happy to take full responsibility and say, I misinterpreted it as a casual request but I will not do that going forward.

And I wasn't trying to offer legal advice from AI.

And I would also like to add that I'm comfortable going to our liaison first before, and then our liaison would then decide if it needs to be up to the chain of commands or city manager.

Thank you. So what I'm hearing on this issue, correct me if i'm wrong is we it would be part of next year's budget there'll be a proposal coming from the HPC to the council on a PR campaign that would include also the plaque in the 2025-2026 budget yes okay

Is the plaque, would it be for this year's Ojai Day or for the following year?

This year's Ojai day is in the budget. Oh okay. Because our budget is June-July and I can loan the city a few bucks in the meantime if necessary just kidding.

So we could do it for this Ojai day? I'll let

Mr. Harvey answer

that

Yes, I think just if we get this on the next HPC meeting and it then gets to the council then we can certainly put it into the budget. And if the council approves that, I don't see why we could not because that's not until October for Ojai Day and we can work with Christy, Ms. Revere excuse me, to make that all part of the celebration. Thank you. Thank You Mr. Harvey

okay? Okay number three

Alright, so the City Council commissioned a Historic Resources Survey in 2009 and revised in 2011. The survey listed possible historic resources in the city limits. Basically the property was either listed as a 1 for potentially historic 2 for not historic or 3 unclear like it could have been obstructed view from the road This was done as a windshield survey. The State of California strongly suggests an update to the survey every five years. It was last completed 14 years ago, and we are now out of compliance.

When the City of Ojai was discussing the windfall budget, Leslie Rule, who was our liaison at the time, explained our request to Council for funds to do an update. It was an $8,000 request to do a rather simple update to our current survey to get us back to the basic compliance. A few months later, the City Manager when discussing a different item suggested in the staff report that we do a more comprehensive survey from an outside company.

After much research and after conversations with the City Manager and the Commission it is agreed that would be the best way forward. There hasn't been an investment in the HPC since before COVID. Previously we would ask for a budget that would cover two to three historic resource reports on potential historic properties I know budgets don't roll over, but if you think of it in that respect, it's been a long time since the HPC has asked for any money except for this update and the small amount of money to keep us up on our education.

We would like whatever company does this update to start as soon as possible, that Craig Walker is available for any questions, and when it's done, it's presented to Council for adoption. Having an inventory survey is of great value to the city, to the residents, as well as to local businesses. Properties on this list are not landmarked or really protected, and out of the City of Ojai it will only result in a limited number of properties that are truly historic or have historic value to the people of Ojai. And that doesn't mean it still can't be demolished or altered—it's knowledge, and knowledge is power. It's more of a just hold up, let's make sure the property owner in the city knows why this property is listed as a 1.

What the City and Council does with that information is up to the city and to this council. So we are asking, this evening, that the Council accepts the City Manager's suggestion to do a proper survey.

No

objections here?

Mr.

Whitman? I'm totally supportive. Ms. Mang?

I am, too. I think that it's nice to have an initiative that was started that we can build upon and I think it's going to do a lot of good for the community just in like you said having the awareness knowledge is power I agree with that and also one other The other point that you had mentioned in our conversation that I thought was a positive for this was that if someone's buying a home and they don't have any awareness that it has historic relevance, then They might not be like, there's like a level of appreciation when you know that something is rooted in history. So I think it's very much in support of this.

And it works in the other way too if you have somebody who clearly wants to do something to their property maybe that realtor who would have access to this document because it would be online would only show them twos, wouldn't show them ones. And then in reverse if they really wanted to be in a historic property then the realtor can look and see. So it is a valuable tool for a lot of different reasons.

And if I can make one more point, because I think that there was to the point that we made earlier or what someone made earlier. There has been a lot of miscommunication about what you all have tried to do and I just wanted to validate that what I understand about this is that we're not talking about restricting anyone's freedom Thank you. Mr. Harvey?

Thank you. I just would respectfully request that we consider maybe doing a reset on this item and having it start at the HBC because there are a number of ways that you can do this, and I'm recommending an RFQ process but that's going to take some discussion first at the HPC so that we can get this recommendation as to what is it we're looking to do in this process?

You could end up with something that's just purely advisory as being discussed, or you could end up with different levels of restriction. Before I was here, I was in the City of Pacific Grove and we went through a very similar exercise and I think it's still ongoing because the inventory was very large there. And I would see the HPC having a very integral role in the review from the subject matter expert when they return. But this is a bigger discussion, and so I would kind of want to do a reset here, go back to the HPC, see how this should look and then if there's agreement, the recommendation would then come to the City Council Ultimately, we would need to build funds into next year's budget. We were going to do this exercise. It is more than an $8,000 effort.

It's probably more to the tune of $50,000 if you're going to be doing it properly with the amount of education and outreach and research that's required. So I just wanted to jump in saying thank you.

Well, I just wanted to say that I often go on other cities' websites and look up their Historic Preservation Ordinance and how their program works. And I found that so many of them including Pacific Grove and almost every other city in the state or county, the foundation for their historic preservation program is their survey. And they have a comprehensive survey. First of all, it eliminates like 80 or 90 percent of your buildings so that when the planners get an application they don't have to think is this a historic building? They can go and see that it's not. It's in two and it's not an issue anymore.

If you don't have a good survey then you get one of these situations where Thank you very much.

And another thing, it also takes out the HPC in a way that it is done by an outside organization. So it's less of political document when it comes from an outside agency even though we would be involved in participating and helping with it in whatever way they allowed us to but having it come from somewhere else and from a respected company is always going Protect the city and us in a much better way.

That's worth a lot. So am I hearing from you what Mr. Harvey was proposing, which is the HPC will come up with some ideas about the scope make the proposal then to the council that's amenable to you? Okay Any more discussion about that? Think we have a plan And we have 15 minutes. Good job! Yeah, all right. Anything else before we adjourn this special session? Yes,

mister.

I just

wanted to make a quick comment and thank the Historic Preservation Commission. I often promote that we're the last small town in Southern California, and I believe that our historic preservation efforts that have taken place are really important. They drive our tourist economy, it's our lifeblood. People come here because it's a unique place and I really appreciate what you guys

have done. I want to echo that, that we have a downtown that is recognizable. You know when you're there and not every town has that and it's real blessing and it takes a lot of work and I loved growing up here for that.

For generations.

For generations.

People who are in that downtown arcade, it could be 100 years from now and you just have to look at the cars. Yeah right!

Correct. Okay? All right special meeting adjourned thank you so much