[0:00] Good

[0:04] evening, everyone. I'm Peter Fossilman, the Chair of the Historic Discrimination for the City of Rockville. Thank you for joining us this evening. This is meeting number 8, 2020, six. It's Thursday, August 20, 2026.

[0:18] I'm joined by fellow commissioner Seth Dembo in the Indian

[0:22] O'Powell and Mercy Shengai.

[0:25] Commissioner Goalfinger should be joining us shortly.

[0:29] We're also joined this evening by our deputy or acting deputy

[0:32] city attorney Nick Demay.

[0:34] Thank you for joining us this evening.

[0:36] Ms. Walters tired of us.

[0:37] What's going on?

[0:39] I don't know, I can't.

[0:40] Another engagement.

[0:42] That's okay, you don't have to explain, but thank you.

[0:44] Thank you for being here and taking a time.

[0:46] We're also joined by Megan Flick, our principal planner and Katie Garbys, our comprehensive planning manager.

[0:55] The agenda times in the estimate only, that may take a little longer unusual, but we only have one at him on the

[1:00] seatnings, so this should be a quick meeting. Tonight is virtual only, there is no in-person option,

[1:07] and also you may view the meeting on Brockville, channel 11, which is Brockville, md.gov, forward,

[1:15] Rockville 11, and you may also watch the recordings on the same link, which is Rockville

[1:21] MV.gov, forward video on demand.

[1:25] Our first item on the agenda is a request for reconsideration, this is 2026330 EOS, the request

[1:33] is Mr. Bishop, use the honor and the address to 200 more industry staff to report.

[1:41] Yeah, so we just have a verbal report for you guys this evening, so just to remind everyone,

[1:48] I guess on the context of the background of this case,

[1:51] they initially submitted an evaluation to significant in April of this year,

[1:56] and anticipation of filing a demolition permit for the shelters on the property.

[2:00] Again, it's 200 A&B and grocery.

[2:03] So the case was on the May agenda.

[2:05] the applicant requested to postpone the case at that meeting. We presumed it would be on the

[2:10] June agenda, but they requested an additional postponement to the July meeting, so the HEC

[2:15] officially reviewed this case in July, and found that 208 did not meet designation criteria,

[2:22] but that the original 1906 building at 200B did meet designation criteria, so the HEC approved

[2:30] emotions 3-0 to designate just a portion of 200 B Monroe. So since then the applicant has

[2:39] submitted a request for reconsideration on the grounds that won the applicant wishes to better

[2:46] detail and explain the original exterior material that remains from the original 1906 structure

[2:51] to the applicant wishes to present their position to the full historic district commission as

[2:56] commissioners were absent on July 16th and three the applicant would like clarity on what portions

[3:01] of the building at 200 beam and row are considered a sort. So, upon the staff's review of the

[3:08] reconsideration, our recommendation is that we do believe it should be reconsidered just based on inadvertence.

[3:17] It's really not a great policy outcome to designated portion. We don't believe it achieves the intent

[3:23] the designation policy, so this meeting will be solely to decide if you all wish to reconsider

[3:31] this case at the September meeting. So it's a yes we'll reconsider or I know we will not.

[3:37] There won't be testimony at this meeting. And then, I guess the grounds are that the

[3:43] ACC could consider the reconsideration if it finds a mistake of factor law in a certain surprise

[3:50] fraud or other good costs. So if the HEC wishes to

[3:55] reconsider, the motion must state the reasons for doing so.

[3:59] And we will have some example motions later on.

[4:03] We also have acting deputy attorney Nick Dume here.

[4:06] If he wants to offer an additional legal perspective.

[4:11] So that's it for me for now.

[4:17] Thank you very much.

[4:19] Sure, Mr. Chair, if he's like I can kind of provide a little bit more information.

[4:24] Thank you.

[4:25] So, Ms. Fleck did a great job in the staff report as, you know, short but comprehensive,

[4:30] but I just wanted to give the commission a little bit more information about the scope

[4:35] of tonight's meeting, what the consequences of reconsideration would ultimately be.

[4:42] Just for your background, I've been the attorney for the planning commission in Board

[4:46] of Appeals for about seven and a half years, but I know I've only met with you all.

[4:49] I think once or twice in that time.

[4:52] And so I didn't want to start by saying,

[4:54] reconsideration is rare, not only with the HDC,

[4:57] but also with the other land use for...

[5:00] Or some commissions. But your rules of procedure do allow it as Ms. Fleck noted. And the scope of tonight's meeting is really, it's not to re-evaluate at this point whether the property should be designated as historic, or place in the historic district overlays own, or if you wanted to provide more specificity about the portion of the property that you wanted designated.

[5:25] you know, that's for another meeting. Tonight is really just a determine whether the commission

[5:30] feels that there are adequate grounds to reconsider the decision it made at its last meeting

[5:36] to file the sectional map and then to designate the property. So as Ms. Flick noted, there are

[5:42] several grounds that are provided in your rules of procedure for reconsidering a decision.

[5:47] Those are common throughout Maryland. Those are just normal grounds for reconsidering an administrative

[5:53] of decision. But because you have other good cause as a rationale that would allow for reconsideration,

[6:02] you do have fairly wide latitude in what grounds you ultimately determine are sufficient for

[6:08] reconsideration. And so just to kind of point out a few of them, you know, you have the applicants

[6:14] suggesting they have additional information that they think would be relevant to this decision.

[6:18] You also have the applicant noting some lack of clarity, at least on their part as to what portion

[6:23] of the property would be designated, and then of course you have staff

[6:26] recommendation as well regarding the kind of the policy outcomes of ultimately

[6:33] designating only a portion of the property. And we can get into more information

[6:37] or more detail on that point because that ultimately does go to the

[6:41] the appropriateness of reconsidering the decision. So if you do reconsider as

[6:45] Ms. Flick noted, you know, we would need a motion a second and a vote just like all

[6:49] your decisions. And the motion would need to establish the grounds for reconsideration.

[6:55] And it doesn't need to be a super long motion, but you do need to provide staff,

[7:01] ultimately the detail it needs to understand why the reconsideration is moving forward.

[7:06] If you choose not to reconsider under your rules of procedure, you do need to make a motion and

[7:11] take a vote on denying the reconsideration, which is kind of somewhat unique to your rules.

[7:17] And then the last point sort of what happens if you do reconsider.

[7:21] So at that point, as your rules note, it would void your original decision.

[7:26] At your next meeting, I believe you would pull the new hearing

[7:29] and deliberate again on really the entire application

[7:34] or the entire evaluation of significance.

[7:38] And in particular under your rules, you have to focus on the grounds

[7:41] that lead to your reconsideration.

[7:43] But in this case, that would really involve re-evaluating the entire complication.

[7:51] And, you know, with that, I just wanted to note, of course, as Ms. Flick said, I'll be on for the whole meeting.

[7:55] I'm happy to answer any questions that you have, but I think that's the broad overview of what you're here for tonight.

[8:02] Thank you, Mr. Dominic. Just to note that Commissioner Goldfinger has joined us, so thank you for getting on Michael.

[8:08] Yeah, it took me a while.

[8:11] Okay.

[8:12] That doesn't like me for some reason.

[8:16] It's okay.

[8:18] It's true.

[8:20] I'm going to start with commissioners.

[8:22] We're not taking any testimony this evening unless the commissioners have a question,

[8:28] a staff or an applicant or some need to talk to someone outside of us.

[8:33] So I'm going to start in the order of my screen.

[8:35] permission to download, did you have anything to add?

[8:41] No, I'm not really.

[8:42] I think this is pretty, it's from my point of view.

[8:46] I don't see any reason not to reconsider this.

[8:49] You know, the reason for we can use, for reconsidering it.

[8:56] You know, other good calls seems to give us a lot of the ways.

[9:01] Mr. Dimae said,

[9:04] I don't really have a huge amount to add, I don't think this is, from my point of view, a difficult decision.

[9:11] I don't, I mean,

[9:15] the applicant's argument that they only presented it to three commissioners, doesn't really sway, persuade me much, because three commissioners is a quorum.

[9:25] It's better when we're all here and we usually are just circumstances that they'll work.

[9:30] But the complexity of trying to figure out

[9:34] at whether or not we can designate a portion

[9:37] of the property and how we go about doing that seems

[9:41] to give us good calls for reconsidering.

[9:49] Yeah, and one other thing that comes to mind

[9:50] as I'm talking is that despite the excellent work

[9:55] that Megan and her other colleagues did,

[9:58] when this was first.

[10:00] Submit it to us, we didn't have the kind of staff support that we normally have. She had just left. I think Katie was on maternity leave. So there really just wasn't, you know, there wasn't the opportunity to raise again a full picture of this. So I'm more than happy to reconsider. Stop talking there.

[10:21] I know those are good comments. Thank you very much.

[10:24] Again, go on in no order. My screen commissioner sang ahead. Do you have anything to add?

[10:28] Yes. So, Mr. Dumas mentioned that the applicant has additional information.

[10:35] So, is it possible for us to know what this information is?

[10:43] I think unless Mr. Dumas says otherwise. If you would like to hear from the applicant, that's up to the

[10:56] I'm happy to I'm happy to hear from the that's up to the commissioners.

[11:05] Okay, the request that was submitted to staff was included in your briefbook in the entirety.

[11:12] So it was simply that letter that mentioned additional information staff have not been provided with any additional information today.

[11:18] Okay. Okay, so we are considering in September, you know, and look at this additional details

[11:25] during the meeting.

[11:29] Okay, so you're okay with waiting until September?

[11:34] Yeah, I'm okay. Okay.

[11:38] Okay, thank you, Commissioner Neil Powell.

[11:44] Hey, Beth, if I say information provided by Stalkenia

[11:47] Charlie, I'm okay with the reconsideration of this application and also to hear from others

[11:54] who have an interest in hearing and providing testimony.

[12:00] Thank you very much.

[12:01] Do you want to, yes, I know when we provide you with our comments, as to whether

[12:07] we would reconsider or just comments, and then you take a vote.

[12:13] I think comments is what I'm looking for.

[12:16] And then we could call for a motion.

[12:18] If something like we normally would do, unless you have another idea.

[12:23] I don't have another idea.

[12:24] I want to make sure that we were giving you our opinion at this point in addition to our comments.

[12:30] That's all.

[12:30] Thank you.

[12:31] Thank you.

[12:33] And Commissioner Goldfinger.

[12:37] Yeah, you can hear me.

[12:38] I know you can't see me because my camera is busted on the computer.

[12:43] But yeah, I'm, I will go along with a reconsideration.

[12:49] It seems from some of the material that went out in the brief book that

[12:55] And I think we just didn't get the full picture that the motion just included the footprint

[13:02] of the building with no regard to surrounding which leaves a question of apparently street

[13:11] frontage, which I guess we need to clarify.

[13:15] So that would be assuming that would be one of the major talking points at our September

[13:21] meeting when we reconsidered this.

[13:23] It's, I think it's the motion that we passed last month in that regard as incomplete and so I think we need to

[13:33] To just add whatever needs to be added to to complete the the the picture so

[13:40] That's and I missed it for I apologize. Well, it's not mindful where that's just doesn't like me and and it took me while to get in. Thank you Katie for your help

[13:53] Anyway, that's my take on this.

[13:57] Thank you, Commissioner.

[13:58] Well, I too agree with my fellow commissioners.

[14:02] To be honest, when I first heard this request was being put forward, my initial response to myself was absolutely not.

[14:09] But then after talking to staff and learning or facts, I think it's something that we owe the applicant at least to hear and give them a second chance.

[14:17] that doesn't mean we're going to change our minds,

[14:20] but if there's more things added,

[14:22] I'm certainly open to hearing them.

[14:25] So if there's no other comments from the staff,

[14:28] we're commissioners, senior hands, okay.

[14:33] I'll call for a motion if someone would like to move.

[14:35] And staff, if you have an example for,

[14:37] oh, thank you, look at you all.

[14:38] Thank you very much, even online, you got the quick.

[14:44] We try our best.

[14:46] That was all Katie.

[14:47] So there are several possible motions here.

[14:52] The first motion is not to grant the request.

[14:55] It seems like that is not the desire of this body.

[14:57] So we'll skip by that.

[14:59] But we have the...

[15:00] Community potential motions to approve the request. As Mr. Jimay mentioned, it's very important in a case like this, we're doing a reconsideration to be specific and why we are reconsidering.

[15:12] So I will go through the three kind of sample motions and then you as a body can discuss what you may be interested in.

[15:20] So this first sample motion is granting the applicants requests, so citing what the applicant has cited in their reconsideration letter.

[15:27] which is being made aware of additional information that the property owner will leave should be considered by the commission.

[15:35] The next potential motion that we have is staffs or questions, staffs recommendations.

[15:42] So this would be citing inadvertence and good cause talking about how we're not sure how the past motion, the previous motion,

[15:49] is really consistent with the intent that we had here with this designation.

[15:54] And then the final possible motion is kind of a choose your own adventure style, so if the commission did not want either of the two motions that were previously put forward and you wanted to

[16:06] pre your own, this is how you could do it.

[16:08] The one thing that I will note here is we have the five permissible rationale for reconsideration, so in this motion you would need to state which of those reasons it would be and then give any specifics and details there.

[16:21] So with that, I will turn it over to you all, and I'm happy to flip through slides as you

[16:26] direct me to.

[16:28] Thank you, Kate, it's very helpful.

[16:31] One question, could we, is it possible to combine the first two that you shared into one

[16:37] vision if we could have more than one reason?

[16:40] All the deferred to Mr. Dumei on that.

[16:45] Absolutely, that's totally possible, and actually I did want to also mention, it doesn't

[16:49] need to be part of the motion, it could happen after the voter curves, but your rules also

[16:53] do require that you actually set the date of the new hearing of the reconsidered hearing.

[17:00] And that that can simply be by kind of a voice vote or just a concurrence of the body,

[17:05] but I wanted to make sure you all knew that after the vote you should do that if you decide

[17:09] to reconsider.

[17:11] And just thank you, is that need to be separate from our normal September meeting or could it be at the September meeting?

[17:19] It could be at the September meeting.

[17:22] And that would be staff recommendations.

[17:23] I was there.

[17:24] That's okay.

[17:26] Okay.

[17:26] Thank you.

[17:28] Commissioner has given me further comments before we call for a motion.

[17:35] I don't see any themes.

[17:38] for any discussion, you know. Okay. Then I'm just going to call for motion if one of the commissioners would like to move.

[17:50] Excuse me, may I ask the question first before we.

[17:53] Of course.

[17:54] Um, staff, can you come back to.

[17:59] The sink is.

[18:01] You have five reasons.

[18:07] Okay, I just want to make sure that other good cars.

[18:10] Okay, thank you so much.

[18:15] Good.

[18:16] I'm pulling for motion still on the floor.

[18:24] Yeah, and you can you flip back to the first one.

[18:27] I'm just going to look over the first two and because I feel like Peter,

[18:30] I was thinking before Peter made that comment about combining the two.

[18:35] I was thinking that makes makes a lot of sense too.

[18:38] Although I do like, I do prefer to make this about this, you know, what this staff has said in terms of I just think that's that's a tidy away of doing it, but I'm fine with with combining them as well.

[18:56] Um,

[19:01] and now the second one, sorry,

[19:06] um,

[19:13] I'm actually I'm fine with the second one.

[19:15] I think that that does what it needs to do, in terms of giving good reason why we are going

[19:21] to review this.

[19:21] If others are okay with that, I'm happy to move the second one.

[19:25] Having read it.

[19:26] Can't have more carefully.

[19:27] I agree with Seth, if that makes a difference.

[19:32] Thank you.

[19:33] I'm going to jump up if you want to read it and for the record.

[19:38] I'm going to reconsider the HTC's July 16 decision to file the sectional map amendment to

[19:44] this portion of the property at 200 and revs street in the historic district overlays

[19:48] own for inadvertence and good cause.

[19:51] Specifically, the commission has been made aware of the lack of clarity and how much of

[19:55] property to designate and concern related to the effect of

[20:00] Only listing a portion of the property. May have a second.

[20:05] How second?

[20:07] Thank you, Commissioner. All in favor if you could raise your hands. And if you could just say,

[20:12] aye, aye, aye, aye, aye.

[20:18] Any opposed?

[20:21] Looks like it's unanimous.

[20:23] We need to confirm the September meeting that is healing, is everyone okay for the September meeting.

[20:33] It's all my calendar staff, but I can't remember that exact date.

[20:38] 17.

[20:39] Thank you.

[20:40] Oh, the day after my birthday.

[20:43] So September 17th is the scheduled commission meeting.

[20:47] Is that okay with the commissioners?

[20:49] Yes.

[20:50] Any opposition about the perfect. All right. Well, if there's nothing else, then I appreciate the commission and also the staff

[20:59] For coming out for we were not supposed to meet and I'll just and so I appreciate your time

[21:04] I'm taking a few minutes in your evening and we will talk to everyone soon. I have a nice evening. Can I can I can I just add one

[21:10] question?

[21:12] Sure, of course. Yeah, um for the subcender meeting. I know the motion we just passed

[21:18] against it, unspecified surrounding land area will that be, will there be, or something from

[21:28] staff or somehow to specifically delineate the area of ground around the original structure for

[21:37] the motion or, you know, for our discussion in September?

[21:44] Can you say that once more, Michael, I want

[21:45] make sure I'm following the question. Yeah, I kind of muddled up in my mind. But the

[21:51] most we just passed talked about, you know, specifically about the land area around the

[21:59] original footprint that we approved in July, right? But it didn't specify exactly what it is and it

[22:06] seems to me. And this is probably maybe more legal question, but it seems to me that when if we

[22:13] head will review it and if we're going to vote on something it should have, it should specify,

[22:19] you know, from the original house to the sidewalk and from either side, I don't know, pick

[22:27] another 10 feet on either side and 10 feet behind the building will be incorporated into the overlaid zone.

[22:36] Something very specific like that is that will, will that be part of the information that we

[22:41] we see prior to the September meeting.

[22:45] Well, that's a wrap.

[22:47] Sure.

[22:47] Staff will pull together in your staff report kind of your menu of options there of what you can choose to do.

[22:54] Now, we haven't drafted.

[22:57] That's a report yet certainly since we're here tonight.

[23:00] It might consist of some like fill in the blanks.

[23:04] So it's kind of some sample language where we can get to specifics, but ultimately you as a body would be who's responsible for determining

[23:11] what those specifics are. And so I anticipate your menu of options is going to be, we

[23:17] designate the whole property, we designate none of the property, or we designate a portion.

[23:21] And if we do that portion, that's where we're going to have to be awful, Lisa.

[23:25] Okay, yeah, I was just, I just want to get clarity in my mind for that. So yeah, that's perfect. Thank you.

[23:34] Those are nothing else. Everyone have the nice evening.

[23:36] Thank you.

[23:38] One moment to share, we need a motion to adjourn.

[23:42] You're so excited to leave here early, but for you to add.

[23:47] I'm also on the meeting.

[23:49] May I have a motion to adjourn, please?

[23:53] I'm also on the meeting.

[23:55] It's not the second.

[23:56] Okay, all in favour?

[23:59] Aye.

[24:01] Okay.

[24:02] Thank you, everyone.

[24:03] We're going to see you next month.

[24:05] See you next month.

[24:07] Do you want to say a word with a renovation to be done?

Historic District Commission

Agenda

Transcript