Historic Preservation Commission Regular Meeting

public comment? How about online? No. Okay, so I'm going to close public comment and we're going to go to the museum report.

Okay. Museum report expired at multiple times. So there we go. So coming up on June 24th is the museum's annual meeting. That is generally for membership, but everybody's welcome to attend at that time. It's usually when we do some changes on board members and shortly after that takes place we elect the officers on that pretty standard fare This time is going to be very interesting from a historic standpoint. Boy, five or six years ago somebody contacted the museum because they had a box with some old stuff And they said, well we'll have Brian call you. And so I called her. Turned out it was an older lady. I tell people I can say older lady because I'm older and so I ended up contacting her. So she had this box that had been in a back closet For who knows how long.

Occasionally, it was brought out by the children when they were in Texas where they are supposed to do a report on their grandparents like we do. And so I said sounds interesting and I said send it to me. So that box has... It's going to be reported in this meeting. That box has Hundreds of family letters from the Robinson and Montgomery family. going back a hundred years.

Some of them in English, many of them in Spanish. Many of them had like for example there was an invitation to the fabulous theater that's there in Santa Barbara you know kind of a ticket for that so there were things that you might send to a loved one just to let them know what show you went and saw. And so we've had Gentleman who used to be with the Museum of Ventura County, you know I'm talking about it. Yeah

Charles Johnson

Charles Johnson So Charles Johnson has been working on that for several years with the support of Tony Thatcher and we're at the point where he's putting a book together and so Wendy and others are going out looking for support on that but he is going to talk about this process that he's gone through And these love letters between them, the individuals just fascinating to be able to hear that. So that's coming up on the 27th or that's coming upon the 24th at 7pm at the museum and for all those that have been to the back side of the museum before On a hot June afternoon, I'm proud to let you know that we have a nice gazebo up there with the levers that will turn and make it cool underneath. So we're looking forward to that and everyone again is invited to come.

Also, Lenny Kaufer who many of us know. Well known. He is celebrating his 50th anniversary of his Herb Walks garden. So he'll have a garden party coming up on Saturday June 27 at 10 o'clock and he'll be talking about the Chumash Garden that both Lenny and Julie have been involved in that so thank you.

Thank you. We missed that last month. So we missed your museum report last month. So the consent calendar, we have the minutes from the April 9th meeting. Do you have any comments or changes on them? All looks good. Okay, we need to get a roll call on that. So the agenda now for some reason I just spaced on that so the agenda you don't need to get a verse in a second but

So I was just taking Sherry's word for it,

okay Anybody wants to approve the minutes I'll approve the minutes. Anybody want a second? I'll second. Okay,

roll

call please.

Aikens.

Abstaining.

Walker.

Abstain.

McCattin. Yes. Sims. Yes. Moore. Yes Neeson.

Yes

All right Now

Chair, question. So we have a couple locations that are called out in this at this point do we need to make a declaration? Is this the time we do that?

You don't have any public hearing items this evening so you don't need to have ex parte comments or visits. Okay because they're just informational items Correct. These are, later on in the packet you have directors approvals and this is your opportunity to discuss them and to see them during the appeal period. And I'll describe that before all three of them. OK,

I just don't want to jump ahead. Thank you. OK.

And Maura can you give us a staff report for the Ventura and Ojai Railroad Heritage

Trail? Actually what I'm going to do is open it to Commissioner Walker so we're going to receive this ad hoc committee report. This is the opportunity for him to give us a monthly update.

Thank you. Just for information, the name of the railroad going back to 1893 was the Ventura and Ojai Valley Railroad Heritage Trail so just it needs that little word valley up in there. And it's really an exciting project we've started working on the signs. We've got a team together myself Wendy Barker from the museum Colleen McDougall artist extraordinaire Mark Lewis, a great writer. Roger Conrad and Rick Bisaccia.

And we've been meeting at the museum to try to work out the details of the signs and how they'll be designed. So the first few signs I'm glad that we decided to start with just four signs because I think we're going to need all of our energy to get those first four signs done by Ojai Day And then we'll be able to take it from there afterwards. So, we'll just probably look for sponsors for future sites after that time and just stay with the money that was allocated by the city.

And so we're working on these four signs, which will be installed hopefully by Ojai Day. The area that was the depot off of Fox Street is one. Libbey Park is another. The Ojai Jail and out at Rotary Park, which used to be the Matillaha Station where people would get off to go up to the Matillaha Canyon Resorts. The first four will kind of be our model of color and design and shape. So we've had a lot of great conversations, a lot of differences of opinion but we're coming together with some great designs. I received today a quote for the first four signs from from Gopher Signs and it's for $3,764 which was actually less than I thought it would be for the four signs. And that includes shipping as well so I can give this to you. The quote is only good till July 7th or 8th so we'll probably have to get another quote but it will be about the same as this I think So that's good news.

But they need like a seven-week turnaround, so our goal is to get the signs all designed and mocked up and ready to be printed by the beginning of August, and then we'll send those files off. I'm hoping to bring mockups for you next month to the July meeting so you can kind of see what they're going to look like. Anyway it's very exciting to see it come together.

Commissioner Walker, would you mind naming those four sites again? So I want to get them.

Yes. One will be at the site of the Ojai Depot which is just down Fox Street about 100 yards. If you walk down there's a big open field. All that open field was once the Southern Pacific Railroad's yard and you'll see some tall eucalyptus trees in a row. Those kind of mark the spot where the depot was And so it'll have a picture of the old depot with what the turntable looked like and people loading up on board and various facts about it.

And then the next one will be down behind Libbey Park or at the trail, every sign is along the trail. One will be to the left of the walkway that goes down to lower Libby and it'll have a sign that'll talk about the jail. And then to the left of the pathway that goes up into Libbey Park will be a sign that talks about Libbey Park and Mr. Libby's donation, and it'll talk a little bit about the music festival and the tennis courts that are there so as to give people good idea about that. And then down at Rotary Park That was the Matilloha Station, which was a station that I don't know if it ever had a depot but it at least had a platform and crops that were grown on the ranches. The Miner's Ranch and the Grant Ranch now we know as the Y they were loaded up onto the train And also passengers would get off to go up to the—they'd get on a stage or a motor car to go up to the Matilla Hot Springs and Wheeler's Hot Springs.

Those were very popular back in the day, so those are the four. Thanks.

Can I ask a question?

Yeah.

Can we have your team possibly make a one-sheet that tells what it is to be a sponsor, how much, how you go about it so the people who may be at each of the four places on Ojai Day they could take one if they're interested in becoming a sponsor.

Well that's a good idea and I think we'll know better by then exactly how much to figure for each sign. It might be less than we Actually had anticipated so I think doing these first four will be a good idea because then we can come up with a more exact form

Great Anyone else have any comments? Set it you move along Okay, we're on item number three which is the historic resource inventory survey update to be the staff report.

Yes Before I hand this off to Commissioner Walker Before I do for an ad hoc report. I want to note that staff has received several Inquiries and comments from members of the public regarding the survey update and What the current process is for the survey update and the inquiries have all been forwarded To the Commission they came in after the packet went out. And so for that reason, they're not included Like under the packet on the website However, they can be at your request after the meeting but but they were All sent to you And so You know if when you're talking you have those some of those questions in your mind and you would like to address them but That's not that's not obligated. But anyway, I'd like to turn it over to you Commissioner Walker

yes, and I'll be happy to you know try to explain as best as I can what's been happening over the last month and then A little bit more general conversation that may answer some of the questions that have been asked. And then I'll be open to questions if anybody had any for us. Explaining CEQA is a little complicated, and the role of the survey within CEQAs is a little complicated and nuanced. So it's hard to give a whole lesson in CEQA in just a short amount of time, but I'll do the best I can. Anyway what the routine is that the Tuesday before our Thursday meeting I get on a conversation with the historic resource consultants from HRG who has been hired to do it and we chat about what they've been doing for the last month And then they very nicely write it up and send me an email summary of what happens, so that's very helpful.

So this is based on what they told me and what was written in their little summary. HRG has been accessing archaeological archives at Cal State Fullerton using their database to identify and better understand the period of the Chumash here in Ojai because they felt it was important to put that in as a foundation. What they're working on now is what's called the context statement, historical context statement which is to come up with themes and basic historical things that will be used with this survey to help identify which houses may be potentially historic, what buildings maybe potentially historic So they try to set it up in a way that you can go back to the context study and see maybe how that property fits into the history of Ojai, and they have that laid out first.

Then they're also beginning to work on the Rancho period accessing English and Spanish language primary sources from the Huntington Library and other archives So, that will provide another little foundation that was missing actually from the 2011 survey that we have now. They're also researching for the period from 1960 to 1985 which is their update from when the survey reached back in the 2011 version They're using the census, architectural periodicals, newspaper databases and so forth. There was a lot happening in Ojai between 1960 and 1985 I can tell you from first of all having lived here and second of all from going back and doing quite a bit of research myself it was a real period of change led to the development of the Arcade Plaza, it was what led to many of these environmental groups starting to spring up to push back against things like a freeway through Ojai and through overdevelopment.

So there was quite a bit of stuff going on in Ojai and I think it'll be really important to get Thank you very much. After 45 to 50 years, because you don't really have a historical perspective. Like right now it's year one for a lot of things that have been built in Ojai and it's hard for us to tell at the moment what will with the perspective of history have significance? What buildings are there?

what events happened, what people really made a difference. You really need a period of time to begin to get a picture so they have started researching and they will come to the City Hall too to see if you have things there were several master plans that were made during that time by the city which was struggling with What do we do with the downtown because the Y was springing up and businesses were moving out there, and there was a lot of worry about the downtown declining and going into blight.

And so they hired a lot of consultants to come in and How to better promote development in a way that would not leave the downtown behind. So they would probably look for things like that if you have them, I don't know if you still have those kind of things. They also are going to make a research field trip to Ojai on June 25th and that's the date they'll be coming.

to go through the museum and go here at City Hall, and also other sources may be stopping in at the Museum of Ventura County. One of the things that they've been looking at for the period that's already covered in the statement, the context statement is multifamily housing because that's not mentioned at all. And it's interesting that back in the 20s and 30s, multifamily housing meant little cottages, a little collection of cottages. Cottages Among the Flowers, there was the Troy cottages. There was the May's cottages up around North Signal so then slowly there was the evolution of apartment buildings and they're not a lot of apartment buildings from history and the reason for that is that people wanted Ojai to have larger properties to be more family more neighborhood type of oriented and didn't really want to get into a lot of apartment But those have grown over time.

So anyway, a little bit about when... When Council Member Whitman was speaking, he talked about getting the facts. The facts to be able to make good decisions and for the public to have those facts because when a project comes in you know well does it meet the requirements for the height? For setbacks? For all those things having to do with the property but then there's the whole issue of how does it impact the environment And that law was passed, the California Environmental Quality Act was passed. I believe it was 1965 which was to provide a process.

The CEQA law does not tell the local agency what to do. It doesn't tell them how to make decisions or what decisions they should make. It just ensures that there's a process in place that gets the facts out before the public, so the public knows when somebody builds a business and there's a river nearby. Is it going to pollute that river? And so there has to be a study done to see if it's going to pollute that river. The city may still decide to build that business because they need it and they feel it's worth it, but they may try to mitigate it in some way. So there is nothing about CEQA that really tells you what you have to do as a community or city, what decisions to make, but they want the decision makers to have all of the facts So they have a very involved process for making sure that those facts get out.

And that's the CEQA process, I'm sure that the community development director has tons of informational items to help him because when every project goes through, Almost 100, maybe 93 different check boxes. And it's for everything from biological impacts to visual scenic impacts to a lot of different things and they have to check will it have potentially a significant impact? Will it be less than significant if there are some modifications? Will there be less than a significant impact or no impact at all?

And then if there's check marks that say it could have, not that it does but it even could and the standard of review for that is very low. If it has any possibility then they want you to study it. And so the Community Development Director, I'm sure has a lot of maps and things that show like heritage trees where they're all located. You know? And there's a map that shows or schedule it shows where all these heritage trees are or the level of service for various roads. So if somebody wants to build a business here they can look and see well it's a Level F you know level of service, so you might need to provide some alternatives. So there's a lot of different things that they can use to help check those boxes on here and then to advise the person as to how to proceed.

Well, one of the CEQA does consider historic resources as an environmental resource just like water and air and scenic views and Chumash burial grounds and everything. It includes historic resources among the environment Doesn't say what you have to do with those, but just says that you need to have a process that will make sure the public knows what the impacts are.

That the decision makers know what they are and then if they decide to go ahead and allow it to be demolished or to be altered for some overriding concern, then that's fine. They can go ahead and do that, it doesn't prevent them. So, on this front there needs to be some way to identify what your historic resources are. And a lot of times you don't know what your historic resources are they're just out there and I can tell you as a local historian That you discover the history and you discover historical things that you weren't really aware of. And some of those, probably most people wouldn't even consider historical so they might not have enough impact to cause any change in plans but then some might be really critical and we're all aware of the obvious ones, the post office, the arcade, Libbey Park and stuff like that But there's also a lot of others.

So the CEQA actually encourages you to do these surveys, to go through and identify. All you're doing is identifying potentially historic. You're not saying it is historic and our survey will not say. This is historic, it should be a landmark. It'll just say there's enough evidence there that it's potentially historic and so that's just to let you know and so that's what the purpose of it is. So if a project comes through and there's an older building we can go and look at the survey and we can see yes, it's potentially historic. And then the second question you have to answer is work that's going to be done on it potentially harmful to that historic character. I mean if all they're doing is changing the back door doorknob, you know maybe that's not significant enough to actually be a problem but But if it's something that could affect its identifying and contributing features, then it's something we want to study further in order to get the facts out.

Not to tell the person they can't do it but just to get the facts out there so we all know what we're talking about when we identify it.

And it also releases 90, 95% of the property.

Well that's another thing too is that you the city is actually legally not required but it's expected that it will take on the job. The state says the city has the responsibility of trying to identify these properties so if it means that every property literally when you go to Ventura County's It tells them that when a thing comes out, when a project comes in they should actually go to the property and look. If they see an old building then they should check this database, they should check that database.

It just expects them to do their due diligence to make sure. So if you don't have a survey, then you're kind of expected to do that for every old building that's out there. If there's no old buildings then you don't have to worry but if there's a building over 50 years old and then it's kind of incumbent upon the city to at least go out there and try to make some effort to see if there is an argument that could be made that it could be historic But with a survey, 95% of the buildings in Ojai are probably going to be at two which means not historic because they've been pre-looked at by the consultants and we've had a chance to go through.

Look at them too. So it really I think makes it easier in a way because you're only down to just a couple of hundred or 300 properties that could possibly be Something that needed to be studied further, but that's all it is It's just does it need to be studied further to get more facts? so the city has actually been doing these

and it would only need to be studied further if they wanted to do something to it otherwise

Yeah, if they want to do. They don't have to do anything if they don't want to do it because we've had these surveys going back to 1985 that I can find and probably most of the people in there as a one don't even know they're on that list because they just love their little house and they paint it every year and they fix it And so they don't know. The only time it would come to anybody's attention would be if they wanted to seriously alter it or demolish it and then we might say, well wait a minute let's take a look at it and see if that's something that we want to save or not just to protect the environment.

The last survey that was done of this type was in 2011. The city commissioned it from San Buenaventura Research Associates. It's posted online, and people can go look and see if their house is on it. It really doesn't make any difference because even if they weren't on it, it doesn't It doesn' mean that the city doesn't have to look at it. If you know what I mean? I mean if at their address it said it didn't have anything in that box You know a one or two or three The city would still be obligated to do its due diligence and at least check it out and see if it's historic. But this just makes it easier, I think for people to refer it. And usually what happens like in the county of Ventura is if it's a potentially historic, If it's like for like, if they're taking something and replacing it like the roof material or something then it doesn't have to be reviewed.

But if it's something that's going to change the house in some way then it at least just goes before their HPC which is the County Cultural Resources Board and they evaluate it and they can say nah don't worry about it Or they can order up a historic report, but that isn't automatic.

And it's also real value not just to the city but like to a homebuyer, a realtor if your client wants a historic home they could go and look at... Well that's

the thing I was going to say is that I think over half of our landmarks are actually private homes that the land marking was initiated by the owner. I think they're all So, I'm going to go ahead and get started. Gives us a starting place for evaluating whether that's a place that we would want to give some benefits to, if we would want to maybe even take on some. Like the city even bought the old Catholic church right and made it into their museum because they wanted to preserve it so I'm not saying we should buy every historic building but they have in the past done that.

And first of all, I doubt that the survey is going to make any difference for City Hall because it's a landmark. And that is above and beyond what the survey would come up with. It's a landmark. And second of all, it doesn't affect things like fire hardening because we're always asked to make decisions about how do we let this old building live in the modern world? We're always asked that and we always have to look for ways to work with the owners to make sure that we can preserve it as much as possible but also allow them have their new air conditioning units or to do fire hardening. We want the house to be protected too, you know? We don't want it to burn down in a fire so like even with when the museum came with their roofing I went online and said how can you fire harden an old church With that's a historic and it came up with all these suggestions.

So I think there's always a way that you can try to work and if worse came to worse than the only way to Make that building go on would be to change something about it then the council or the HPC would be perfectly allowable to To go ahead with it Anyway, I hope that helped Thank you so

much for going through that. Any other

questions? Just an addition to that, one of the most interesting parts at the museum that I've discovered in all the years I've been there and Craig is very familiar with this are Sanborn maps. You know, the house that used to be here and back then they used to move. Oh I'll buy your house and then they would move. Some of us have seen going down so that's one of the things that the museum has focused on trying to collect and they have it in a drawer there in collections but those are just kind of to me the fun things to look at that and go oh

Yeah, these houses. If you had a time-lapse photograph you'd see houses moving all

over. So if I remember right was CEQA started by a local Ojai woman?

Yes the woman that was the most responsible for passing CEQA was Helen Baker Reynolds who grew up in What's now, what was the porch gallery? That was the John Montgomery house. John Montgomery lived there and she grew up there at the turn of the century. She was born in the house in 1896 and then later in life she joined the California Roadside Council which had the job of trying to get all the billboards out that were polluting up beautiful highways and vistas So she did that and then she became the head of the conservancy.

She was the first environmental lobbyist in the state of California, and she actually came down to Ojai and spoke out on behalf of Ojai when they tried to put the freeway in. She really got a lot of this, she got the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act passed, she got CEQA passed, she got the Coastal Act done so was very much, and she always attributed that to being raised in Ojai. She said I just grew up in Ojai and it was a beautiful place and we were close to nature and I just wanted to keep that beauty for California so we have a little connection there with

This is, I think why we all live here and we want to stay here and we want to keep its integrity and its authenticity are these stories. I mean we have ARP and CEQA, these major things that have happened here it's just amazing.

I think it would be good for us to put out a brief written, as much as we can. I know CEQA is very, as you said Craig, very vague but we have a lot of questions from people who are very nervous about the survey And they're worried about their properties and what is their obligation and what could happen. And it's not unfounded, really. I have my own personal story one that started with my house 1001 Foothill which is the Libby Gatehouse. I no longer own it but I had remodeled the interior enormously and the grounds.

And then when I went to replace the old shake roof, all of a sudden out of nowhere somebody from the city shows up and has a stop work thing. And they tape my house up with yellow tape and throw people away. And then the Historic Commission comes over. This was 2010. Then I'm able to go forward with it but it was like out of the blue for me I owned, at the time for over 20 years, Bill Baker's Bakery. I did extensive work on that exterior and interior.

Excuse me. Landmark, neither house was landmarked. I paid to have Foothill Mills acted after all of that because I figured why not just be getting the tax break since I've already got the city here and telling me stop because you have to be inspected? And they went through my whole property there but no one ever came to Bills Baker Then now in 2026 we have Freezergate, you know, which is a whole different thing.

So we need some consistency with what we're telling the public's I mean as much as we can

Well, I think that's true. And I think the problem is that oftentimes the CEQA questions get asked later in the process and so I really think it's important that the CEQAs be answered right up front so you knew before the workmen even came what the roof was and what had to be done with it To spell that out, but but you're right it is it is often a nuanced type of thing.

But Anyway, it may just be that it wasn't done properly or it wasn't done in the right order so that you started work and then they discovered

No, I hired a roofing company. I think it was Ventura Roofing. They had pulled the permit and started the work and then it was stopped so it wasn't like we had just hired people off the street to change the roof there was a permit that was stopped and there had been so many permits pulled to remodel the house. And nothing was ever said, so I'm just using my own personal experience having had two historic buildings in this town and the differences of the way the city behaved towards me about the two different places it all ended up working out fine but i think that causes panic

Well, I think that's why this survey once again and so is so important. I know it's we are a public body and We tried to invite the public as much as we could as we were going making this decision To update the survey and so This 11th hour kind of panic is it's just it's like I really want to be as Upfront and transparent as we can be too to calm everyone's fears because this is the document that helps every all that that because on the other side if you were going to buy a house and Your realtor knew you wanted to do extensive work on it or you wanted you were buying it for the property that she wanted To build something else They would be able to only show you twos because why would they ever?

Show you a one if you they knew, you know It'd be historic and you might have problems in dealing with the city. And so 90% 95 percent of those homes on that list Would be beat Would be easier To do what you wanted to do to it and get your permits rather than the ones on that list

So my suggestion is that's what we have on a website or whatever, you know about, you know, what does this mean? What does the survey mean? What's a one was it to.

Right. No, I think we're actually working with Lucas and the planning department in our ad hoc to try to come up with a process that will make that all go smoother so that it's done in a way that people can understand and gets all the questions answered as much upfront As possible, you know so they don't spend a lot of money. What's really sad is when There's no when for some reason there's not really an adequate look at the historic part of the house and then people have designed their house and then they have to go back and and change and that all

costs money, you know having

So anyway, I just think one of the things we're working on is and part of this survey process is how can we incorporate that into the process for when people come to make it smoother and easier.

And using a landmark as an example was kind of confusing, too. Because it's already landmarked and so it doesn't even matter if it's on the survey because it's a landmark property. So it follows the city of Ojai's landmark rules not whether it's one or two on the survey.

So if your house had been identified when you first went to get the first building permit that you wanted, you were told by the city and they didn't have the survey because this was before 2011. If it was identified that you had a historic property, you would've known right up front, I knew I

had an historic property. I knew I had the Libby Gatehouse and I was doing everything as best as I could to fix it, and it was just the roofing was simply replacing old shake with asphalt and they were concerned that I would change the shape of the roof which I wasn't going to do but when they saw that You know, relieved and everything went forward.

I just think that if it can be identified as soon as an owner goes to the city to pull permits that then they're sort of aware what could be coming or I mean nothing bad ever really happens. I don't understand all this turmoil about this. I think that this is a good process and most cities have surveys that are done, it's a very important thing and they're supposed to be updated every five years, is

that not correct? Yeah, I forgot to mention that, but it's not just Ojai. Every town and county has a survey. Ventura is working on a new one, an update for themselves And you go to County of Ventura, they all have surveys that they use. The whole east end of Ojai is on the county survey that they went through and identified the historic properties and wrote up the forms on each one so it's really a regular part of CEQA and most communities do it and we've had it for quite awhile.

And I think that's the main objective here, is we as a commission want to help preserve the integrity and the authenticity of Ojai. But by doing that, we want to work with property owners to help them like what we're doing right now with the treasures of Ojai and trying to help get them landmarked or get them a Mills Act because It is expensive and it's important when you discover it's a resource, you want to do what you can. We don't want to just hold up red flags and say no, you can't do this. You know? It's like we don't want it to burn down.

We want it to stay safe. We wanted to be maintained in one of those ways is through Mills Act because you can set up your Mills Act where you are replacing and fixing things each year to help the fire hardening process too, because that has a lot to do with preservation. There's been so many classes recently that have tied in since the Altadena and the Palisades Fire to tie in preservation with fire hardening. And so we want to do right by our landmarks, by our resources, by our potential resources I think we just want to do really good work and not upset anybody. So hopefully, we can do that. Yes?

After Kate, just make a comment. Yeah

I just wanted to say you know I think I agree with everything that's been said. I do think that most members of the public do not understand the environmental review and the CEQA review process so I do like the idea that you had mentioned if we could potentially have some sort of web page that people could be directed to that would answer these comments and concerns. I'm not sure how exactly that works, but just very straightforward to address some of the concerns that people are having and to show them that this is actually beneficial and it's not going to make their life more difficult could be really helpful for the public.