When considering an application for a certificate of appropriateness for new construction, alteration, repair, or restoration, the Commission shall use the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation together with the city design guidelines described in § 158.105 hereof, as guidelines in making its decisions. These guidelines are to serve as the basis for determining the approval, approval with modifications, or denial for a certificate of appropriateness for new construction, alterations or repair/restoration. These guidelines include:
(A) When replacing severely damaged or deteriorated historic materials and features, the preferred treatment is always replacement in kind. A substitute material should only be considered, however, if the form, detailing, and overall appearance of the substitute material conveys the visual appearance of the historic material, and the application of the substitute material does not damage, destroy or obscure historic features.
(B) Every reasonable effort shall be made to provide a compatible use for a property which requires minimal alteration of the building, structure, or site and its environment, or to use a property for its original intended purpose.
(C) Distinctive stylistic features or examples of skilled craftsmanship which characterizes a building, structure or site shall be treated with sensitivity.
(D) The distinguishing original qualities or character of a building, structure, site and its environment shall not be destroyed. The removal or alteration of any historical material or distinctive architectural features should be avoided when possible.
(E) All buildings, structures, and sites shall be recognized as products of their own time. Alterations that have no historical basis and which seek to create an earlier appearance shall be discouraged.
(F) Changes which have taken place in the course of time are evidence of the history development of a building, structure, or site and its environment. These changes may have acquired significance in their own right, and this significance shall be recognized and respected.
(G) Deteriorated architectural features shall be repaired rather than replaced wherever possible. In the event replacement is necessary, the new material should match, whenever possible, the material being replaced in composition, design, color, texture, and other visible qualities. Repair or replacement of missing architectural features should be based on accurate duplications of features, substantiated by history, physical or pictorial evidence rather than on conjectural designs or the availability of different architectural elements from other buildings.
(H) The surface cleaning of structures shall be undertaken with the gentlest means possible. Sandblasting and other cleaning methods that will damage the historic building materials shall not be allowed, unless substantial hardship is shown pursuant to § 158.102
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(I) Every reasonable effort should be made to protect and preserve archeological resources affected by, or adjacent to the property as deemed by the guidelines of the South Carolina Institute of Archeology and Anthropology.
(J) Contemporary design for alterations and additions to existing properties shall not be discouraged when such alterations and additions do not destroy significant historical, architectural or cultural materials, and such design is compatible with the size, scale, color, material and character of the property, neighborhood, or environment.
(K) Wherever possible, new additions or alterations to structures shall be done in such a manner that if such additions or alterations were to be removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the structure would be unimpaired.
(Ord., passed 6-8-93; Am. Ord. 03-008, passed 4-8-03; Am. Ord. 14-016, passed 11-11-14)