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Chair Allen commented, for clarification, that what staff is looking for the Commission to <br />do tonight is not to define the criteria for this subsequent item that was not noticed, but <br />just to say whether the Commission cares about it and thinks it warrants further <br />discussion; then staff would do the staff report that would lay out the options, how many <br />homes are in each bucket, and what the costs could be to undertake that. <br />Mr. Beaudin stated that staff would evaluate the process and the criteria, and staff <br />would encourage the Commission not to do that tonight because that was not what staff <br />was recommending and in fairness to the people who live in this area, got the notice, <br />and thought that it did not involve them. He asked the Commission, if it desired, to take <br />the staff recommendation or some version of it and move it to Council. He noted that <br />some among the Commission mentioned the idea of delaying it to evaluate this more <br />comprehensively; however, he indicated that staff is comfortable doing this in two steps, <br />and the reason for that, as Mr. Otto pointed out earlier, is that there is an existing survey <br />for people who want to do things to their homes, and staff wants to protect that resource <br />as soon as possible. <br />Commissioner Ritter inquired if staff is already currently doing this kind of evaluation for <br />the non -88 homes that are in here to see if they fit the area should their application <br />come through. <br />Mr. Beaudin replied that there are certain changes that happen to the exterior of homes <br />that the City does not have a planning review for; they could just be a building permit <br />review. <br />Chair Allen clarified for those is the audience that the City has Downtown Design <br />Guidelines that talks about some of the things and principles that Commissioner Ritter <br />was referring to earlier that talk about what the City wants the historic Downtown <br />residences to look like. She indicated that as Commissioner Ritter just confirmed with <br />staff, for changes that are below ten feet on single -story homes, the owner does not <br />always have to check to see if some of these principles are followed; and potentially if <br />these amendments are approved and the Commission says it is interested in exploring <br />this additional part, it would allow the Commission to further define what that design <br />review process might look like for the houses that do not otherwise make the list. <br />Mr. Otto clarified that if the improvement the owners want to make is not triggering <br />design review, those guidelines do not get picked up by staff because the applicants do <br />not even come in to see Planning because the City has no authority over those. He <br />added that, as Mr. Beaudin mentioned earlier, there may be some things that require a <br />building permit but are not subject to Planning discretionary review. <br />Chair Allen noted that this is why the Task Force wanted this to be looked at. <br />Commissioner Balch inquired if the scope of what is being discussed now is the <br />106 homes that did not make the criteria that it is not historic prior to 1942. <br />Mr. Otto confirmed that was correct. <br />PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, October 14, 2015 Page 11 of 35 <br />