Historic Preservation Commission Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Historic Preservation Commission regular meeting, Thursday April 9th at 6pm in our council chambers. Public participation is encouraged. The meetings are conducted in a hybrid model providing both in-person attendance and virtual public comment via the Zoom link below. Virtual attendance is not required for public comment via zoom instead zoom participants will utilize the hand raise function to indicate their desire to speak The meeting is also live streamed on the city's website and on youtube and on spectrum channel 10 So I'm going to call to order. Can we have a roll call, please?

So the commission elects its chairperson and vice chair from among its membership You might want to do a tap, tap so you can have. So I'll start again the commission elects its chairperson and vice chair from among its membership here. The officers are chosen for a period of one year and the vote for the current chair and vice-chair positions are currently overdue.

The seats were voted in, in January of 2025. It's just a matter of fact it's not an issue but it is time to do that. The Chair is responsible for presiding at the HPC meetings and representing the HPC at the City Council's first meeting of every month to give an update Also, I guess they would be giving an update on activities as well as ceremonial and civic events like this evening that the other The other members are receiving awards were done at the City Council meeting. The vice chair assumes chairs duties in their absence and Shall succeed the chair if the chair vacates the position prior to their term being up And then a new vice chair would be elected immediately after so in your Packets, well actually previously you received The Commission's handbook and you should have the March 11th 2025 What it states in the staff report is the September 2024 but I don't think that's the one that you have.

I think you have the one from 2025 And if you don't you can contact me and I'll get I'll get one for you So in addition to that election this evening, I want to also just mention that two of the members' positions are coming up. They're expiring in May and that would be Commissioner Walker and Chair McCattin so I handed them both at the beginning of the meeting at their seats They have an application to submit and they can hand it to me at the end of the meeting or they can get it to Weston Montgomery on their own.

The members who have terms expiring will reapply for additional terms, and you'll do that by filling out that form. So now I'm going to turn it over to the commission, and you can vote for a chair and vice-chair.

Okay does anyone have any nominations? The chair position.

Yes, I would like to nominate our current chair Miss McCattin She has done a very excellent job this year and we have to keep going We've accomplished a lot in the year and to become chair It takes time to get into the role and one year really isn't enough So I would like to see her continue as our chair

So do we do a vote first or do we wait until we have more nominations? So you can

have more nominations, but then you take the vote of from the first down down the line. So if the first one doesn't doesn't get the vote, then it goes to the second.

Do we any more nominations?

So seeing none, they want to take a vote than on chair McCatton Can you take a vote please, Ida?

Sims.

Yes.

Asasha. Yes. Walker. Yes Aikens. Yes Neeson. Yes Moore.

Yes

So there you go and then we'll take a nomination then for vice chair

I'd like to nominate Loran Sims

I'll second that. Do we have any further nominations? Seeing none, Ida would you take a vote?

McCann?

Yes.

Passaccia? Yes. Walker?

Yes

Aikens? Yes Neeson? Yes Moore?

Yes Thank you very much Okay And Craig and I will be making sure that we turn in everything we need to turn in and get reappointed hopefully. Oh, right. That would be interesting. OK, so now we are on the minutes from our March 12th meeting. Do we have any corrections or any changes? And do we have a motion actually before

you get there? We have public communication and then museum rep. I thought it was the minutes first, no? I'm just looking at the agenda.

Okay

All right. So let's do public communications is a time set aside during the meeting for the members of the public to address the legislative body on items of city business other than that as scheduled items matters raised at this time may be briefly discussed by members of the legislative body and will generally be referred to staff and or placed on a subsequent agenda under state law, other than for emergency items no action will be taken. Do we have any public comment on items that are not on our agenda tonight?

Anything online?

We do have a hand raised by Larry Stengold.

Good evening to all, congratulations on being re-nominated as chairman and you do all very substantial work regarding history in the city because it's the only thing we have It would be nice to see a proposal to discuss the present fratata regarding the arcade so that this doesn't happen again. Maybe everything that occurs with the arcade should also be copied to the Historical Commission, so that all these things can be dealt with without creating major problems And setting precedents that shouldn't be set.

And I don't know if you have the ability to put items on your agenda unless they're controlled by city council or the administration, but you should have the ability to talk about it and discuss it and to see how and why it happened so that it doesn't happen again. That's all that it's about because you can't unring the bell Mr. Walker was very eloquent at the past two city council meetings And he pretty much laid it out.

Now they have to unwind it, but please put it on the agenda so that you can least discuss what happened, why it happened, so that it doesn't happen again. So that you get copied on everything that pertains to any piece of property or activity within your purview because that's what your job is and that's where you've taken on. So please continue the good work and just Stick your nose under the tent and make it happen, because once the history is gone, it's never coming back. So keep it up and try to do better this time for that purpose.

Thank you.

Sorry, but

OK, we have anyone else? Anyone outside of

not online.

All right, I'm going to close public communications now should be good to the museum report

Yes. Thank you, Chair. We just had an exhibit that closed. I hope everyone was able to get it. It was women through the early 100 years of the Ojai Valley. It was magnificent. We are bringing back another popular exhibit that we had before called Ojai Mystique, and this is where we invite artists. I think 47 well-known artists if I remember correctly with a theme for it, and you can see that it talks about What Wendy sent me is it's a new landscape exhibition, Ojai Mystique. It opens next Friday with the reception that evening from 5 to 7 p.m., April 17th. So again you may have gone to our first one. This is just as beautiful I've been watching them hang the show throughout the week. Roger was just here for the presentation so Coming up, beautiful wonderful landscapes.

It's always fun to me to look at how the interpretation is presented in the artwork and then go back and look at what it is in real life and how they've captured the essence of that landscape so a beautiful exhibit again opening on 17th reception 5-7 p.m. Thank you

Ryan, all the pictures are of Ojai, right? The landscapes of Ojai. Of the Ojai Valley. And they're all new paintings? Paintings that people have done for this exhibit? Exactly.

Yes. Thank you. Great.

All right. Thank you so much. Now we're back to our consent calendar on the minutes of the March 12th meeting. Does anyone have anything that they would like to discuss on those minutes or make a motion?

Chair

yes,

just one one thing under item number seven which is City Beautiful Ward discussion I know we're I think we're still doing minutes. Just a bit different if we look at the Last two lines it says after that the time was turned over to Commissioner Higgins to report but the important one Commissioner Walker reported to the Commission his thoughts on the item one of the things he Asked was for us to come back and review the what we plan to talk to the City Council about so You may see that in Commissioner comments, I didn't know if it you know, I just wanted to point that out as an important thing

Okay Anything else Would you like to make a motion?

I'll move approval

Second

all second

McKinnon

yes,

Sims.

Yes,

Miss Sasha. Yes Walker. Yes Aikens. Yes Neeson. Yes more

Now we are jumping and We're going to Yeah, number seven the pedestrian barriers Okay.

Thank you so this project is an information item to the HPC and it's regarding pedestrian barriers on the corners of East Ohio Avenue and North and South Signal Street The item is is informational as it falls within the Caltrans jurisdiction. The pedestrian barriers on these corners are being installed to address a safety concern for the city while also meeting Caltrans' safety requirements.

As provided in the attachments that are in your packet, planter pots are proposed with native plantings that would be maintained by the city. We do have the Public Works Director here attending this evening if there are any questions About this item that aren't provided to you in the packet or that you need clarification of Just briefly. The planters are rounded they're heavy stable concrete Design similar to the planters that are in the arcade Plaza currently, they're approximately 17 inches tall with a diameter of approximately 24 inches They are an alternative solution to the handrails per the Caltrans standards that are provided in the photos and your packet and with that if you have any questions, let me know and otherwise we can direct the questions to our Public Works director Miss Moore Yes, of

course love it comment first we have Bill Miley

Hello I know you're being asked how these flower barrels fit into the Arcadia Highlines. My comments are, how do they fit? How did the barrels fit into the city of Ojai? The post office corner is especially iffy in my opinion, problem prone and difficult with the several different elevations for Signal Street Post Office sidewalk surface. It is a curb-like section within its flat surface, illogical and nonintuitive.

And it has a no turn sign on red Not at the driver's vision elevation, but about eight to nine feet high on the pole. And then across the street where the pharmacy used to be is a sign. I have personally been behind people who make right turns on red signals because they don't see the sign. It's up here. Sign needs to be out here. There is no analytical write-up describing the problems pedestrians are having with the Four Corners.

How many, what ages, what parts of the intersection? How far into the street do they walk, wander? What about cars, obstacles, electric bikes? Where's the report from Caltrans? Where's the report from the city? Since this is a responsibility to Caltrans we need their report And the city's proposed solution, rather than steel railings which I find really ugly, is concrete decorative barrels to propose safety features which I don't know about.

There are on my account 16 barrels, I think. I have discussed this with my friend Nick Oatway, local architect. And he's concerned about adding more objects to the walkways of each of the four corners. Likely more confusion for some folks. A visual congestion also. He said what's most important is having clear statements on the security issues and challenges that Caltrans is wanting to address.

We don't know what they are. This section has existed for probably over 100 years, older than I am. And why now? The potential solution needs to be matched up with other guidance areas, ideas which will be intuitive and guidance-oriented rather than some form of autocratic direction and control. Do that, do that, figure it out, be safe, okay. I have a couple of more things. May I have another minute, please?

It's fine with me.

Nobody else?

Okay.

An engineering study needs to be done. We need to look at the aesthetics as it is proposed and how it fit into the guidelines. The Caltrans steel railings are really ugly. They work but they're really ugly. The city manager planner flower pot idea are pretty They need regular watering at a busy corner. My wife and I years ago used to have the city truck, and we watered the trees years ago including on Signal.

We don't have a water truck anymore, understand? In summary, please get Caltrans to do an energy engineering study or at least report it. Think of the freeway barriers in Ventura at 101. They have blue waves on the carved concrete barriers. They have brick in the front, makes it look really pretty. And what did they do to the old ivory way? Okay. So we need to look at the issue of pedestrian safeway and a comment about the flowerpots.

Maybe we should put artificial flowers there so they don't dry up and die. Probably not gonna be watered very well.

Thank you Thank you so much Anybody have any questions for the public works director Do you mind coming up, thank you

Good evening all OK, so I'm Lindy Palmer, the public works director at the city. I'm sorry I called you more. I know you did, but that's OK. We've known each other for a long time, like 30 years ago. Really? I was sorry. I had a new different name about 30 years ago

when

you were 12. Yeah. So Lindy Palmer City of Ojai Public Works Director and I know some of you, some of you I don't. But nice to meet you all tonight. I can answer any questions you may have. Commissioner Walker.

Yeah, I had a couple of questions. Is this a city project or is it that you're getting an encroachment permit from Caltrans? Or is it a Caltrans project because it says it falls under the jurisdiction of Caltrans so we don't have anything to say about it. So I'm assuming that Caltrans is doing all the historic reviews and everything about how it might impact.

And what struck me was the enormous amount of work they went into when they were just putting some crosswalks in, they did a whole review of the downtown. They came up with the Downtown Ojai Historic District, A lot of work they did just to show that putting in those crosswalks wasn't going to impact a possible historic downtown. And they found out it was a historic downtown, they did find that those crosswalks didn't impact it.

So I'm just wondering, we're not able to review it historically but I don't see anything in here where Caltrans reviewed it historically and that seems kind of unusual to me.

So let me just go back a bit. So Caltrans recently paved the downtown area, as we know. We were all here. Beads were out there with the sparkle at night. And so they did a lot of work and we've gone through a couple of public works is what I'm talking about. We have gone through a couple of iterations with them on those three of the four corners, not the corner, not the southwest corner in front of the movie theater, but the other three.

And they had proposed a rock blanket on each of those three corners. And I don't know if you know what that means, but you've got your radius, your corner radius and you've got the ramps so they wanted all four corners to be ADA compliant as do we. So hence the new ramps that they installed. And then on the wings of those, the radius of the curb ramp, they had proposed rock blankets.

big boulders that sit right in front of, on either side of the ramp. So people are walking hand-in-hand down the sidewalk and the lady's in heels or something and she's walking along this rock blanket. You can only imagine what that would be. The Public Works Department requested that they pour a solid sidewalk so there's no tripping. We're trying to mitigate the risk of trip and falls as much as we can and also make it aesthetically appealing So they scrapped the, this is all to say this has been in collaboration with Caltrans.

So they scrapped the rock blanket project and laid sidewalk just a solid concrete. Well, they continued on on the project and then now we have these curbs and if you walk downtown You will see them. And to your point, to Bill's point on the study there is no study necessary. We have all anecdotally seen people trip and fall. It's you're walking two wide or three wide down the sidewalk so you're coming from South Signal and you're crossing over here in front of the post office and then there's a curb right there at the sidewalk. So we brought this up to Caltrans attention and have worked with them for about oh Six months on this, on a solution that we could live with and that they could live with. So they came back to us with the solution and you see that in your packet those lovely rails.

I'm like that can't happen. And me and the mayor met down there and I showed him the side-by-side pictures and were like okay so it was our proposal to put something there besides these industrial institution rails at our downtown area. I've worked with community development, looked at the design standards for the arcade. I actually walked from Jim and Rob's all the way down to Pearl back on both sides and there is a wide variety of pots down there. I'm saying there's more than a dozen. There's more than one type in front of given businesses so there's not a lot of uniformity.

So I think it's important. I've lived here for many many years and I want the downtown to look nice. And so we have proposed... The theme from the design standard was let's go terracotta. Well, I have to also hit the design standards of Caltrans and they said no terracotta. We want concrete concretes more durable. It lasts longer. We can get we can get concrete in a terracotta color. And that's what we're doing.

So we have worked very closely with Caltrans work community development, talk to city mayor And this is the best design we have come up with and more. I need to correct what's in your agenda report to the design standards for Caltrans needed to be 24 to 36 inches tall. So when we settled on is 33 inches tall, so it's thirty three tall by twenty four wide. So the pictures you have in your agenda are generated. I wanted you to have something visual to see It may look slightly different, and we're also going to be pulling them back from the curb face because we don't want people turning the corner and getting a tire over the top and crunching a planter.

So that is what we came up with. And again, Caltrans is completely on board. I've worked with the safety team and the design team.

Well, that was one of my questions because one of the drawings showed 17 inches and the other showed 33. Correct?

So that the order that you see I think it's the last sheet which looks like an actual order. That's the dimension of the actual pot we're getting in the staff reported that so. So I had initially proposed that dimension and Caltrans like nope not big enough because they don't want it 17 inches tall because it might become a bigger tripping hazard So now it's almost three feet high, which is a lot different. It's harder to trip over—nobody's got a three-foot gate. I mean my horse does but you know... so it's 33 inches not 17.

I have a question. So we were meeting with our ad hoc that we have the mayor and Councilman Meng, Craig Walker and myself And as we were walking in the mayor asked me if you had contacted me yet about the cross on the planters and we were talking I had an email from you and and We were the three of us were going to go down and talk about it and and The mayor asked is this a good example of the ad hoc what we're trying to do is Get in the HPC early so we can have a public forum, so we can discuss something before it comes as informational. So when like the trash cans were chosen, when the crosswalks were discussed, these are all things that came to us because it's a landmark arcade.

Was the intention originally to come to us before it was just an informational item and then it got what happened I'm so confused about that because now we're just seeing it where we can't really do anything about it Just kind of notification of it,

right? I had subsequent conversations with the city manager and the decision Unfortunately, it's a long Caltrans right-of-way. So we have very little say in what they do along their state highway. I mean, it was a hard push to get them to stop and not put the rails in. I'm like we can't do that! That is not going to work. So it's a very kid glove kind of situation when we're working with them and we work with Caltrans all the time along the state highway, the 33 on the 150.

Oftentimes they go in. I mean, we've seen the tree trimming they do along there You know We we try to do the best we can for the city all the time And so it was just like we just got to stop this what they're doing and so it was kind of lots of wheels in motion at that point

Okay, yeah Just um, that is something that if it could come here So the public has a place to voice their opinion Not that you know It's gonna change anyone's mind but it does let people feel heard and and you know your explanations You've gone down the road, you understand why. But it's nice to still have that public forum before it's inked so that's something that we're working on.

And I would never do anything down there without coming here if it weren't along the state highway. That's the distinction that I need to make here. We don't really get a say 100%.

I was wondering if the colors would match the colors of the arcade, if that makes a difference.

The colors of what

arcade? Of the building? To have the color of the pots be—

The pots are a terracotta color. That's what our design standards say. They call out terra cotta in our design standards.

Oh, okay. I didn't look up terracotta.

Yes, I know and those we haven't received the pots yet so let me just take a step back too so I said okay Caltrans if you're willing to place these rails in are you willing to buy these pots for us? And they're like absolutely not keep pushing keep pushing they're buying the pots for us. They're dropping almost $30,000 on those pots for us I don't know what that terracotta concrete is going to look like when we get them.

But the beautiful thing about concrete is we can stain it. So if we want it more of an orange, like true terracotta is, we can do that.

Well, I just thought maybe if they were a similar color to the arcade, they would blend in more.

Well, I followed the design standards and it calls out terracotta. And like I said, there's a wide variety of what's out there too right now. And to your point too it sounds like what you're sort of alluding to is if they blended in so we are also required per Caltrans standards and it's all about safety for Caltrans not aesthetics. I'm all about both. I try to balance both but where the plan is to and I really liked Bill's idea of artificial plants if we could find something that looks realistic gets really hot at that corner but our plan is to not Not have tall plants. We can't have tall plants and trailing plants so The hope is that it'll be green or you know plant material versus concrete to look at ultimately

Thank you so much

does anybody else have anything? Yes, I have two comments first the trip hazard there is the fact that it goes from even to like this. That is a very bad thing down there. It's not just flat, because you catch your toe even if it's just this much. You do.

That's

the point of these pots, yes. So are these pots going to take up the entire area?

No.

So are you going to put them back far enough so that they—the beginning Transgression to the street is the most dangerous because people don't see that. Especially going into the post office where people are looking at their mail and there's this tiny thing, and all of a sudden you trip and down you go. So I'm very, very concerned about that. Elderly people have a very hard time with this. They do.

And that's the primary reason we are doing this. So... I can try to explain this. We've got the radius The corner all four corners and then we've got the ramp, right? Right the ramp. And then at the outside edge of the of the yellow dots, right that's ADA required there's curbs on either side so what is happening is people are are either are either on the ramp and want to get on the sidewalk, so they're stepping up on a curb and they're unaware of it. Or they're on the sidewalk and they're stepping down for the ramp unaware of it. So these are going to be barriers on either side of the ramp on three of the four corners.

The other concern is I can just see it now, people dumping their sodas in there and their trash and everything else. How are you going to prevent that? It's going to be a mess.

Well we're going to do the best we can. We have trash cans on all four corners

too. But people don't use them.

How do you regulate that? How do you tell people to throw their trash in a trash

can? Don't get defensive about it. I'm just saying that is what's going to happen. Then we will clean

it.

And how often are you going to do that?

However often we need to.

OK, and what kind of plants are you going to put in and what color are the plants going to be?

We haven't decided on the plant material.

So will that come to us so that we have an opinion about the aesthetic look of the plants in these pots because that is a big deal if you put bright purple plants in there maybe that isn't aesthetically pleasing

right where we're going to make every effort to blend it into the aesthetics. Again, I walked from Jim and Rob's all the way to the East End and back. And there are a variety of plant material, a variety of planters along that stretch. So I can work with community development and get some design standards on what plant material you guys would like to see. We're going with native, we're going with drought tolerant Those are two of the criteria and I would love to see something flowering.

So just to jump in a little bit, as an informational item the HPC certainly has an opportunity to make comments and suggestions. I don't know and it's not up to CDD staff as to whether or not that the plant material will be coming back to the HPC And I would have to review the guidelines to see if the guidelines talk about plant material. I think that just in general, the city supports exactly what you just said that it would be drought tolerant

and

native absolutely.

And then again we're also trying to hit the mark that Caltrans requires so we can't have anything that goes tall. It's got to be low and we're hoping it'll be trailing to soften up the look of the concrete out there.

Commissioner Neeson.

Oh, I was just gonna bring up the plants actually and Recommend my opinion that we don't use fake plants in there if possible because although it's a nice idea They can often appear quite artificial

So

this is being required by Caltrans right now It's not being required by Caltrans. I mean, you have it there requiring something there like a handrail or something there either handrails that was their solution. OK? And then you guys came back with the pots because you think that'll be prettier. It'll be more aesthetically appealing. But the handrails will go in if they if the pots don't go in. Correct.

Caltrans is going to do that as a

safety solution My personal opinion, which I think is different than everybody else's, is that I would rather see handrails than unmaintained dirty pots. That is 100% going to happen because I know what it's like just looking at the back of this building here of the unmaintained area for decades long before you even came here. This is not a city maintenance thing. It's not going to happen. Plants are not going to get watered. And it's going to be full of trash. So if they're going to force you to do something, us to do that, I would rather see something that at least is clean because this is going to be just dead plants and trash.

Are there other comments suggestions to provide to staff?

Oh, I just wanted to point out in the Arcade Design Guidelines under planters it does say planners may be considered as an exterior element. They must contain live foliage and be regularly maintained. A planning plan must be submitted for review by the Historic Preservation Commission so that's in the design guidelines for the arcade.

So we'll discuss this and again because it's a Caltrans and Project and it came before staff to be put on the agenda as an informational item We will see how that how it returns back here. Thank you

Yes

So I'm maybe going to stray a little bit, but not too much. But since we have the Public Works Director here and having done numerous walks with Kathy Nolan on the back part, I've been watching what's out there The trimming job that they did over here on the corner for all that bamboo is a giant improvement So kudos to them. Thank you for getting that done

yeah, and and when Loran gave me a ride tonight And when we pulled up I was noticing how we both were how lovely it's looking out there Are there other comments regarding the Caltrans project? I just would like to say that I can't imagine Caltrans In 2018, when we got our downtown state historic district it was based on Caltrans looking at crosswalks that are not touching the sidewalks and going wait a minute this might be historic. Let's get an HRR let's get a report find out and we ended up with a California State Historic District because of it so unless Caltrans is being run by very different people than they were you know eight years ago or so I can't imagine them ever wanting to do that and wanting to work with you to try to find something because if having the sensitivity to know that they might be dealing with something historic, you would also think that they would want to keep that sort of feeling too.

So I'm hopeful that is... I mean who knows? We'll just keep involving Caltrans and we get all this stuff. We got a California State Historic District for free And now we're getting $30,000 in cement pots for free. I mean, we're doing pretty good. We're

actually very pleased with our progress with Caltrans. I don't know if any of you have ever worked with them in the past but it is a challenge. It's a huge challenge. I mean, we get 15-18 people out every time we have a question. I mean there were a team of 18-24 people on this issue alone. So I'm pretty pleased with the progress we've made with them honestly. Well thank you very much.

Also six months seemed like a record to me when working with Caltrans.

Well, and the reason it was a shortened period of time is because we and Caltrans have recognized that it's a problem. It's a safety concern. We want to make that change as soon as possible. So that's the hope. Does anybody else have any questions?

Okay, thank you so

much. Just a little historic thing about Caltrans, the wall that goes between the post office and the pergola, that long wall it used to be right next to the road and the cars all parked diagonally and Caltrans decided that all parking on the state highway had to be parallel So they had to move that wall across the sidewalk just because of this little rule that Caltrans made.