Kane County Reporter

City of Aurora Historic Preservation Commission met Oct. 28.

Here are the minutes provided by the commission:

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Miller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.

ROLL CALL

www.aurora-il.org

The following Preservation Commission members were present: Justyn Arnold, Fernando Castrejon, Matt Hanson, Seth Hoffman, Kristin Ludwig, Dan Miller, Simon Munoz, Al Signorelli and Mike Walker. Jen Del Debbio and Amber Foster called in and excused themselves from the meeting.

OTHERS PRESENT

The following staff members were present: Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Jackson.

Others Present:

None.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

21-0769 Approval of the Minutes of the Historic Preservation Commission meeting on September 16, 2021.

A motion was made by Mr. Signorelli, seconded by Mr. Munoz, that the minutes be approved and filed. The motion carried by voice vote.

COA REPORT

21-0886 September 2021 Historic Certificate of Appropriateness Report

Mr. Hoffman said what’s the use of the bottom of the first page? Adding additional meter. Replace meters and install new meter. What meter is that referring to?

Mrs. Morgan said the outside electric meter.

Mr. Hoffman said the electric or gas?

Mrs. Morgan yes. I can’t remember which one. I think it was electric.

Chairman Miller said now that I’m looking at these, I think I might want to, out of curiosity, stop by 305 S. 4th and see the solid mahagony columns.

Mr. Hoffman said they’ll be painted. They are just a wood species for durability.

Mahagony is usually, or can be, rot resistent.

There were no other questions on the COA report.

This COA Report was discussed and filed.

PUBLIC COMMENT

None.

AGENDA

21-0884 Certificate of Appropriateness to allow three years to correct the violation of one vinyl window in the gable end at 465 Pennsylvania Avenue (Daniel & Raquel Vargas - 21-0884 / AU21/2-21.313-COA/HP - JM - Ward 6)

Mrs. Morgan said the homeowner’s daughter had been in contact with me and I had suggested she bring this before the Commission. I had an email for her and I believe it was correct, but I didn’t keep her phone number, so I wasn’t able to touch base to make sure she could be here. When I talked to her, I talked about scheduling a meeting, but I never spoke to her with a verification. So just letting you know that I don’t think it might not be like she just didn’t come. My email may not have reached them. So just to let you know some background, in 2020 staff was informed that the 2 encasement windows on the front façade and the gable end were replaced with 1 large sash vinyl window and that they were issued a violation, stop work order. Staff informed them that in order to meet the guidelines that they would need to remove the vinyl window, here is a picture of it currently with the vinyl window, and restore the opening to 2 smaller windows like it was historically. They wanted to come before the Commission with a timeframe. I was suggesting possibly 3 years because it could be possibly extensive to go back to the 2. The 1 large window in the second story does not appear to be consistent with the period of the house or other surrounding homes.

However, I had suggested to them to come before the Commission if anyone else could give them some other possible alternatives, if there’s something that I’m not thinking of, besides just restoring to what it was before that could be less costly.

That’s really my presentation without them here. Maybe we can discuss it. If we can come to a determination, I can take that back, hopefully get a hold of the applicant and see if that works for them. If not, then have them come back to another meeting.

Sorry to bring you guys out for a special meeting and then the applicant not show up.

Mrs. Ludwig said are we asking them to put back the gable piece as well as the window?

Mrs. Morgan said what do you mean the gable piece?

Mrs. Ludwig said that little cross piece.

Mrs. Morgan said no, it’s there.

Mrs. Ludwig said was it way up high?

Mrs. Morgan said yes. The picture is cutting it off.

Mrs. Ludwig said and it’s not just the window, it’s the trim work, it’s everything the way it was?

Mrs. Morgan said yes.

Mr. Hoffman said it looks like the head casing and the side casing is still original.

They just took out the center, so it shouldn’t be that expensive to restore the 2 openings. I’m trying to think, it is not an uncommon style of house here, to see if there are some examples of other houses. It seems unlikely the originals would have been casements. These might have been 70’s or 80’s. The framing here in the before picture there, that definitely looks more appropriate and the casing matches the width and it’s flush with the sides. Before the 1920’s, encasement windows weren’t very common. I would say the teens.

Chairman Miller said do we have a date for the construction of the house?

Mrs. Morgan said I don’t have an exact date, no.

Mr. Hoffman said you’ve got the decorative barge boards, which kind of puts that in the 1900’s to 1915. That’s almost sort of a Queen Anne. I would expect that the originals were double hung.

Mrs. Morgan said do you think they would have been 2, but small?

Mr. Hoffman said the original openings, but yes.

Chairman Miller said I kind of had the same guess. I didn’t know if the sashes or encasements were original.

Mrs. Morgan said it seemed like I felt it was a thin tall double hung.

Mr. Hoffman said yes. You need the 2 double hung in the original, those 2 original openings.

Chairman Miller said my house is a different style, but I do have 2 narrow double hung windows and they are 19 inch.

Mrs. Morgan said so that would be, I’m assuming, a custom size.

Mr. Hoffman said it would be, but you should be able to still get standard type.

Chairman Miller said and I would think these are probably 1 over 1 double hung.

Mr. Hoffman said yes, they probably were.

Mrs. Morgan said I think the rest of the house…

Chairman Miller said I think is 1 over 1 double hung. Then the lovely picture window there in the living room.

Mr. Hoffman said that would have been the fanciest window in the house because that’s the showy front parlor.

Mr. Arnold said what about the door?

Mrs. Morgan said the door is grandfathered. It’s been there since like 2007.

Mr. Hoffman said it is painted. It looks a little bit better now. That’s entirely inappropriate.

Mr. Signorelli said well I don’t know if we want to make it a big issue, but it seems like there’s a whole middle missing, that there should be a decoration in that peak and there should be something else there, just not a plain board going across the top of the gable.

Mrs. Ludwig said maybe it routed out or something.

Mr. Signorelli said yes, possibly.

Chairman Miller said I don’t think that would be a violation at this point. Any changes there would likely be grandfathered. As far as this COA, there’s a request for a 3 year time period to correct the violation.

Mrs. Morgan said that was my suggestion.

Mr. Hoffman said was that typical with some of the previous window violations?

Mrs. Morgan said well I feel like for the vinyl ones, we’ve been doing, it seems like, 5 years. For the windows, most of them were recently more than a year. I think the gentleman who came in most recently we gave a year and a half, but he also thought he could get it done quicker.

Mrs. Ludwig said and they had permission to do siding?

Mrs. Morgan said that all pre-dates the district. We could do less. It’s not that extensive of a project as some of the other ones where we’ve given timeframes on.

Mr. Hoffman said it is only 1, well it should be 2 openings, but it is a lot less scale then some of those others where they’ve had 6 or 8 or more windows.

Mrs. Ludwig said 3 years seems like a long time.

Chairman Miller said can you clarify? When we say 3 years, or 2 years, are we saying from the date of the violation or from today’s date?

Mrs. Morgan said usually from today’s date. They did express concern about not being able to afford it.

Mrs. Ludwig said have they gotten any quotes?

Mrs. Morgan said no. The email, I was hoping they would bring. Would being able to restore even that center portion, is that like a window company or are they going to contract with like a general contractor?

Mr. Hoffman said that’s trim carpenter work. That’s all just site build, wood trim and framing. It’s possible you could get a custom window that would include that mullion as part of it. Some of them you might be able to get custom assembly, but that would be expensive and be a less appropriate way to do it anyway. They should just rebuild it like what was there.

Mr. Hanson said is the applicant also the occupant of the house?

Mrs. Morgan said yes.

Mr. Hanson said so they have a commitment to the property. Did they express why they couldn’t be here tonight? Is there a possibility of getting the in here next month?

Mrs. Morgan said I think so. I think there may have been a miscommunication. I talked to her on the phone and got an email address. The owner’s daughter was speaking to me because the owner needed the Spanish interpretation, so I was going through the daughter. I emailed her, but I never heard back, so I could have the wrong email address and I didn’t write down her phone number.

Mrs. Ludwig said do the notifications that we send out, reminders that they do need to ask permission in advance, are those translated into Spanish?

Mrs. Morgan said yes.

Chairman Miller said yes. All that I’ve seen have been bilingual.

Mr. Hanson said are there any other pending, you mentioned siding, any other pending applications for property improvements for 465?

Mrs. Morgan said no, I don’t believe I’ve seen anything like other projects they were planning on doing.

Mr. Hanson said it would be nice to hear from the occupant owner before making a decision, but that’s my opinion.

Mrs. Morgan said we don’t need to make a determination today, but at least be able to go back with that feedback of the double hung, the encasement might be a little easier as well, and then have them try to come back in for another meeting to discuss the timeframe.

Mr. Hanson said that may also buy them time, so to speak, to get quotes if there is a recommendation from your department from our group, like here’s what we would like to see. If cost is going to be prohibitive for them, then they’ll have, whatever, 2 or 3 or 4 weeks to maybe get a quote or 2.

Mrs. Morgan said so do we just want to put it on hold? I’ll go back with the double hung, we do want the 2 double hung. They probably would need to try to contact a carpenter and then have them come back for the timeframe.

Chairman Miller said does that seem fair to everyone?

Mrs. Ludwig said at least it moves it forward.

Mr. Hoffman said if it is something that they could build themselves, I don’t think we need to imply that they have to hire a carpenter to do it.

Mrs. Morgan said I don’t think it is something that…

Mr. Hoffman said I wasn’t sure if the one that they replaced they had done themselves.

If they were capable of doing that then they should be able to reverse it.

Mrs. Morgan said I think they had to hire a company.

Mrs. Ludwig said it sounds like it is agreed upon, at least, that they are going to have to put it back. It is just debating the timeframe by which they need to do that.

Chairman Miller said as Seth mentioned, 3 years seems like a long time.

Mr. Hoffman said I think that’s a long time for a window.

Mrs. Ludwig said but depending on their personal circumstances, I guess.

Chairman Miller said thank you for presenting that Jill.

This COA was continued.

PENDING

COMMITTEE REPORTS

A) Grants

No Report.

B) Near Eastside Historic District

No Report.

C) Riddle Highlands Historic District

No Report.

D) Public Awareness

No Report.

E) Landmarks

No Report.

F) FoxWalk Design Review

No Report.

City of Aurora Page 6

Historic Preservation Commission Meeting Minutes October 28, 2021

G) Tanner/Palace Historic District Committee

No Report.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

I did a little update for violations. We don’t have to discuss this in detail. You can take it home. I’m hoping to kind of continue giving updates on like when we close cases or once they are in process. This I just did the past year, all the ones we have closed, so you can see the addresses, the violation, the correction, what they corrected or why we closed it. The last page are ones that in process. They did the work, close to it and we are just kind of finalizing some of the final details.

Chairman Miller said thanks for providing this. I will pour over it.

Mrs. Ludwig said you know Jill it is interesting here thinking about the last one we just talked about, like here these folks had to do the front door and it looks all their front windows and they were given a year.

Mrs. Morgan said which address?

Mrs. Ludwig said that’s at 431 Pennsylvania.

Mrs. Morgan said yes. That was one of the earlier ones we did. It wasn’t a very long timeframe. I feel like the timeframes have gotten longer. I can’t recall if the gentleman, I feel like he seemed to sound like he thought he could do the work, change it, and didn’t push for a longer timeframe. That’s still not done. That’s closed because it’s went on to our Administrative Hearings because it has not been completed.

Mr. Arnold said is it 515 Oak?

Mrs. Morgan said yes.

Mr. Arnold said it said previous owner replacement. Wasn’t he in a hurry to close on the house and we allowed him to put money aside for her to do that?

Mrs. Morgan said no. He was making the correction. It was part of their actual agreement between the owner. He did replace them. One of the windows we wanted him to replace he didn’t replace, but then he replaced a different one and then he didn’t do any of the painting. We were pretty lenient as it was. I know the Commission felt pretty strongly that we didn’t want to see the green in the bright white vinyl. So we are still working with the new owner. It was part of her agreement as well. Her lawyer is trying to contact the lawyer of the seller.

Mr. Arnold said I remember it was very awkward with him, but at the same time it kind of shows we should have just been a lot more harder with him because now this older lady has got to deal with this hassle. It was his fault to begin with and he just passed it on to the next person. So just for us for next time, I think we need to remember like you can’t go forward until it’s corrected, right?

Mrs. Ludwig said I agree.

Mr. Arnold said because that’s kind of awful for her. I see her out all the time. She’s just an older lady. She just wanted a house. It is just bad that he did that.

Mrs. Ludwig said especially when it’s clear that they knew. The whole pattern of let’s just do it and ask permission later or just ask for forgiveness instead of permission.

It’s not okay, especially when it goes to somebody else.

Mr. Arnold said it was his investment property too. I think for next time we should be a little harder on that now that we’ve lived through that. Now we have a property that’s not finished.

Chairman Miller said it could have been some misplaced leniency there.

Mrs. Morgan said I would also throw it back on the buyer, at least her lawyer, for not making sure that violation was closed before they finalized.

Chairman Miller said they really should have.

Mrs. Morgan said because they were aware of it. That was part of agreement.

Chairman Miller said there is one across the street from me on N. View Street where the transaction happened with the violation still in place with buyer and owner both aware of it. The new buyers did restore the windows.

Mrs. Morgan said yes.

Chairman Miller said I guess they were aware of that when they purchased the property and I would assume that was priced into the purchase somehow.

Mrs. Morgan said which is, I guess, why we do allow it for homeowners who don’t have the capital to make the change and can just put it into the purchase price of it.

Chairman Miller said I don’t know that we really have authority to prevent someone from selling their property. We would put the violation on.

Mrs. Morgan said correct. We can’t. The most we can do is just flag it. We could have been a little more stringent like following up with us.

Chairman Miller said but then the point you’re making, we were somewhat lenient with that property. I think there’s been another investor. The one who thought he was going to have it done in like a year. He didn’t want the longer timeframe. I think we were fairly lenient with him also. We’ve done it before. Do we want to continue with the investors when they come in to replace 20 vinyl, put in 20 vinyl windows? I don’t know the answer. I think with that one on Oak, we were trying to see what it really, kind of an experiment to see if we allowed a few of the vinyl windows to remain upstairs maybe toward the back if they were painted, then would it really have no impact from the street.

Mrs. Ludwig said I think we made a lot of exceptions to try to help them. We tried hard to give them a fair deal and it sounds like they didn’t accept the gift that we gave them.

Mr. Arnold said we can’t keep him from selling it, but we should have been a little bit, because he just replaced all of them. Those were nice windows in that house too.

Chairman Miller said and he had been cited before., but city had kind of dropped the ball and the violation kind of went away during a period when things weren’t being tracked real well. So he knew because he had been cited before. He just hadn’t responded.

Mr. Arnold said 402 N. View, inappropriate light fixture. Do people have to get light fixtures okayed?

Mrs. Morgan said they do. It’s per the guidelines.

Mr. Arnold said but usually you just look at them and say yes that appropriate. Is that kind of what you do?

Mrs. Morgan said I don’t really get a lot. Most of them are okay. This one looked like a very just inappropriate look.

Mr. Arnold said is it the one on Google Maps?

Mrs. Morgan said no, the Google image, I think, shows what it originally had.

Chairman Miller said I know that house. The flipper got away with throwing away the original light fixtures. The original ones were on it and the flipper got it removed. It was around the time of the property collapse. It had like 2 cutouts and the flipper took them down and threw them in the dumpster, so then it wasn’t cited. The new owners have actually done really good with it.

Mrs. Morgan said they even got an award. It was just a very kind of out of context look.

Chairman Miller said they knew they should have asked. We’re friends. I’m friends with them. I’ve been over to their house many times. Any other comments on this? I intend to kind of read through this and maybe walk by some of the properties. Thank you for providing this.

Mr. Hanson said how often is that report assimilated? This is the first time I’ve seen it, but I’m also pretty new here.

Mrs. Morgan said this is the first time I’ve had it.

Mr. Hanson said it’s useful, so thank you.

Mrs. Morgan said I’m hoping to continue. It won’t be as long, so it would just be maybe not monthly, because things don’t change that quickly, so maybe just like quarterly or something.

Chairman Miller said has anything changed in the systems the city uses to make it easier for you to pull this information?

Mrs. Morgan said yes. I was able to quickly pull it. I added some of the notes myself, so I could quickly summarize stuff for everyone. If I do it more often, that shouldn’t take me as long either.

Chairman Miller said that’s great. Thank you.

Mrs. Morgan said the grants, I try to kind of keep an update on them as well. Not much has changed. The wood shingle roof is done. The rest of them are all, several of them are starting soon. They’ve all had a lot of issues with contractors and being able to find people who can do the work. Everyone is behind and understaffed. The one in the West Side Historic District that’s redoing the porch, they started it. They are waiting for the material to come in, so I think in 3 weeks. The gentleman doing the soffit restoration on the east side, his contractor said he’d start in November and should be done this year. Then the gentleman redoing the porch with the limestone, Indian limestone, also should be starting soon. I think I will be extending a few of them just to make sure we have some timeframe. I need to get it through soon. The one gentleman doing the windows, we are going to extend, hopefully Council approves it, until into next year to allow us to work with the Neighbor Project, so they’re going to come in with another project in this historic district to restore windows. Their timeframe for their deadline grant is sooner and not flexible, so the contractor is going do them and then get to our project.

Mr. Signorelli said I know for a fact that windows are a problem. I talked to one of my neighbors and she contacted 3 or 4 people who do window restoration and they all said too busy. It is definitely an issue.

Mrs. Morgan said I’m down to one contractor who was able to fit them in within the next 6 months to 1 year. That’s why we are trying to wiggle in to try and do both of those projects.

Chairman Miller said thanks for the update. I know people are having a lot of trouble with contractors and waiting on materials. I walked by the house with the new roof. It looks good. It was a really nice project.

Mr. Signorelli said it is a premier house in the Highlands too. There’s not another one quite like it.

Chairman Miller said it has a very unique roofline. I’m glad they went ahead and stayed with wood.

ADJOURNMENT

A motion was made by Mr. Castrejon, seconded by Mr. Signorelli, that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried by voice vote. Chairman Miller adjourned the meeting at 7:40 p.m.

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