A. When Required.
(1) A Certificate of Appropriateness shall be required before the commencement of work upon any historic property or on any building or structure located within the HP Overlay District.
(2) A Certificate of Appropriateness for such work includes the erection, reconstruction, restoration or alteration of the exterior of any structure or site, except when such work satisfies all the requirements of ordinary maintenance and repair as defined in this Article.
(3) Neither a Certificate of Zoning Compliance nor a Building Permit shall be issued within the HP Overlay District until the Design Review Board has approved a Certificate of Appropriateness.
B. Procedures.
(1) An application shall be completed for a Certificate of Appropriateness in accordance with the Design Review Board’s submittal requirements. An application shall not be considered complete until all the required data have been submitted. The application for a Certificate of Appropriateness shall be filed with the Zoning Administrator. The Zoning Administrator shall forward to the Design Review Board the complete application for a Certificate of Appropriateness, accompanied by an application for a Certificate of Zoning Compliance.
(2) The applicant shall be informed of the hearing date at which the applications for a Certificate of Appropriateness shall be considered. The applicant shall have the right to be heard and may be accompanied or represented by counsel and/or one or more construction or design professionals at the hearing.
(3) After hearing the applicant, and any others wishing to speak, the Board shall take one of the following actions:
(a) Approve the application for a Certificate of Appropriateness;
(b) Place conditions on the application and approve a Conditional Certificate of Appropriateness; or
(c) Deny the application for Certificate of Appropriateness.
(4) In the case of the disapproval of plans by the Design Review Board, the Board shall state in writing the reasons for such disapproval and may include suggestions in regard to actions the applicant might take to secure the approval of the Board concerning future issuance of a Certificate of Appropriateness.
(5) Work performed pursuant to the issuance of a Certificate of Appropriateness shall conform to the requirements of such Certificate, if any. It shall be the duty of the Building Official to inspect from time to time any work performed pursuant to a Certificate of Appropriateness to assure such compliance.
(6) It shall be the responsibility of the Zoning Administrator to issue the actual Certificate of Appropriateness, with any designated conditions, and to maintain a copy of the Certificate of Appropriateness, together with the proposed plans. These shall be public documents for all purposes.
C. Criteria for certificate of appropriateness. The Board shall determine whether to grant a Certificate of Appropriateness based on the following:
(1) Consistency of the proposed work with the applicable HP Overlay District regulations;
(2) Consistency of the proposed work with the regulations of the underlying zoning district;
(3) Consistency of the proposed work with the findings adopted by the Town Council in designating HP Overlay District;
(4) For an historic property, consistency of the proposed work with the findings in designating it a historic structure, or comparable record of findings from a state or federal listing; and
(5) For an historic property, consistency with the following ten preservation standards, and the most recent version of the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties: Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating, Restoring, and Reconstructing Historic Buildings:
(a) Using a property as it was used historically or giving a new use that requires minimal change to its distinctive materials, features, spaces, and spatial relationships;
(b) Retaining and preserving the historic character of a property; avoidance of the removal of distinctive materials or alteration of features, spaces, and spatial relationships that characterize a property;
(c) Avoiding changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or elements from other buildings;
(d) Retaining and preserving changes to a property that have acquired historic significance in their own right;
(e) Preserving distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property;
(f) Repairing rather than replacing deteriorated historic features; or where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature will match the old in design, color, texture, and, where possible, materials;
(g) Utilizing the gentlest means of chemical or physical treatments;
(h) Protecting and preserving the archeological resources in place, and if disturbing, mitigation measures will be undertaken;
(i) Not destroying historic materials, features, and spatial relationships that characterize the property; differentiating the new work from the old and making it compatible with the historic materials, features, size, scale, and proportion, and massing to protect the integrity of the property and its environment; and,
(j) Undertaking new construction in such a manner that, if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.
(Ord. 2017-1, passed 6-20-2017)
D. Notification of affected property owners. Prior to the issuance of an approval or denial of a Certificate of Appropriateness, the Board shall inform the owners of any property likely to be materially affected by the application, and shall give the applicant and such owners an opportunity to be heard.
E. Staff Approval of Minor Refinements. (7/21/09) Notwithstanding provisions to the contrary in this chapter, the Zoning Administrator or his/her designee may modify Certificates of Appropriateness previously approved by the Design Review Board for minor refinements as allowed in Section 21-109(F)(9 and 10). (7/21/09)