okay uh i'll now call to order this regular meeting of the jersey city historic preservation commission it is april 14th 2025 the time is 6:33 please be advised that in accordance with the open public meetings act the
notice of the time date and place of this regularly scheduled meeting of the jersey city historic preservation commission has been sent to the bergen record and ellis basalito on friday april 11th 2025 the same notice has been sent to the city clerk for posting on
the bulletin board outside the clerk's office in city hall and on the jersey city website i have proof of this notice and evidence if we can mark this as b1 awesome we will now move on to a roll call attendance commissioner gera
present commissioner sankamp here commissioner sukong here commissioner cronin present um commissioners gunther blazak and vice chair gucciardo all absent and lastly chair gordon present
staff notes there are five commissioners present this evening five affirmative votes are required for a certificate of appropriateness and next up on the agenda is the approval of minutes from the march 10th 2025 regular hpc meeting are there any questions or corrections
to the minutes okay since there are no corrections or changes staff recommends making a motion to approve the minutes as submitted motion second all in favor i oh whoops sorry i'm all out of all out
of sorts um we have to do a roll call vote for minutes sorry guys um so that was tony that made the motion and then daniel that i i actually cannot vote on that i wasn't at that meeting and i didn't i
didn't review them and i because i wasn't at the meeting i i can't vote on it okay uh do we have a a new you had made the motion right or did yes okay so can we have i think i can make the motion i just can't vote on it yeah okay
what do you what do you think jonathan you want do you want me to withdraw my mot i'll withdraw my motion i could sub my motion in for him okay cy so we're going to do a roll call vote uh commissioner gria i commissioner sam
kemp you're going to i'm going to abstain abstain okay commissioner sakong also abstain for the same reason commissioner cronin i uh chair gordon i so we have uh three votes in favor no against two
abstensions uh the minutes for march 10th 2025 hpc meeting are approved uh for correspondence all copies of correspondence and all application materials are linked on the agenda through their application numbers moving on to announcements staff
has two announcements tonight uh item 9a case h24-024824 bright street has elected to carry to the may 19th 2025 regular hpc meeting and then item 11b demolition review case b25
uh-270 216 first street has withdrawn their application if there are any members of the public uh who would like to speak regarding matters of historic preservation that are not listed on tonight's agenda uh please approach the public comment mic again this is for matters that are not on tonight's agenda
okay and uh just one moment um if we could have a motion to open public comment motion second all in favor i okay and just so i can quickly go through the uh rules for this
um so procedure first our court reporter will swear you in after you state and spell your first your full name and provide your address for the record all members of the public will have 5 minutes to address the commission uh staff will in indicate when the timer begins and ends and staff reminds any
members of the public that any questions should be addressed to the hpc chair who will then relay it to the appropriate person uh following the completion of public comment first up i oh sorry if you just there's a little switch just switch it up oh okay raise
your right hand if you do swear or the testimony you're about to give in this proceeding will be the truth the whole truth is that the truth yes chelsea castro c h e l s a c a s t r o
at 146 kensington avenue 146 what kensington avenue sorry yes i will actually just hold this hi uh historic preservation commission my name is chelsea castro i'm the vice president of the jersey city
landmarks conservancy i come just to note a few things this is firstly a reminder that the jersey city landmarks conservancy in partnership with the embankment coalition will be holding a mayoral forum on may 4th this is a sunday doors open at 3 comment starts uh
the program starts promptly at 3:30 five of the six candidates that have announced will be in attendance additionally the g the jclc appreciates our growing relationship with the historic preservation office if bandwidth allows we would love if the office did public outreach to further implement the historic preservation
master plan and as a partner or listed on the plan the jclc would love to collaborate in such preservation matters and grants maybe a public zoom workshop on how to designate your home we also want to see the powerhouse saved can you share the status what can be done at this time additionally number four are
you aware of any updates regarding sacred heart church with the smashing of the stained glass window in august 20 oh yeah please oh yes sorry up with number four great number four are you aware of any updates regarding sacred heart church with the smashing of the stained glass window in august 2024 the
additional damage a few months ago and the fact that the building is not landmarked this gothic beauty is extremely vulnerable we would like to see it preserved and protected and that is all thank you thank you i personally don't have any updates for
either of those i i'm not aware of anything um at the moment but mr reeden what was that marissa reeden do you have any updates powerhouse maybe [Music]
no i do not have any updates we're in stanford okay sounds good we t we typically don't swear in staff because we don't have licenses so i swear in affirm that i do not have any further knowledge at this time
should we what like should we have knowledge of that like is there some reason okay no no i don't if if there is staff is not aware of any reason sure yeah
again we will most likely when we receive the uh court reporter's record we'll go through it and if there is anything that we can respond with we will report to the next commission meeting
okay any other members of the public wishing to speak okay i don't see any uh staff recommends a motion to close public comment motion second all in favor i i okay robert if you would like to call the first case
yep so moving to new business i'll call case h-24-0412 the applicant is patrick conlin esquire applicant on behalf of chris warren owner the address is 277 york street unit 501 this is in the
vanvor park historic district the application is for a certificate of appropriateness for a proposed roof deck at an altered key contributing neorrect tenement built circa 1860 in the vanforce park historic district
good evening um my name is patrick conlin i'm with the firm scrinian hollandbeck i'm representing chris and janette warren who are the owners of uh as you say 277 york street it's right on the corner of york and barrow um it's in the historic district um we are
proposing or we're seeking a certificate of appropriateness for a roof deck um so this this building is a it's a condo building that was converted to condominiums in 2010 um we we were not involved with the development don't know the developer um but it they it seems
they got site plan approval and as part of that approval there were roof decks shown on the plan um i in speaking with staff it seems they never went and got historic approval so we're hoping to obtain you know a certificate of appropriateness so that we can go forward with building that deck um and
and hopefully enjoying nice weather like there is today so i've got one one witness here it's frederick cook of frederick cook architecture llc um who can kind of walk you through the project and hopefully answer any questions that
you have um fred do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give in this proceeding will be the truth absolutely state your full name please my name is frederick cook f r e d e r i c k c o o k e mr cook if you wouldn't
mind just giving the board the benefit of your qualifications tonight uh yes i'm a licensed architect in new jersey and new york i graduated with a degree master's degree in architecture from yale university uh i taught at ngit for many years i think and i've spoken before this board a couple of times
great uh stack recommends the chair accept mr cook's qualifications as an expert in the field of architecture accepted so fred if you could just kind of give them a little bit of an overview of where the the deck the proposed deck
will be situated and the plans i think you guys have seen most of these do i have to stand near this as well can't wait and i think you guys have seen these we uh have showed an existing roof plan here with a small deck shown in the middle of the new roof adjacent to the existing stair tower uh what was
approved back in 2010 was two smaller decks we're basically merging those two square footages and pushing them closer together and further from the edge of the of the roof uh what this does is allows us to put a 42-in railing around the whole thing with a full 12-in
clearance underneath so that uh sorry to cut you off mr cook um would it be possible to get that up on the screen if the applicant can't maybe staff could sorry i'm a little late i i simply can't see it from here i thought i thought you guys had them you
know i just gave you that one i was told you had i was told you had all of this if if you wanted to you could pull it up on your ipad um the plans are uploaded on the data portal um but i can also try to pull them up yeah i i'll do that as well but it it's very slow yes
do you have enough i only brought i was going to say i brought three small sets but i'm not sure that's enough just not all together i guess we don't need to mark this as an exhibit because i'll take i'll take one
and and actually i can't i cannot pull up the plans on the uh the laptop i'm getting a notification that i have to create an account now of a systems upgrade i'm not sure on that one would it be helpful if we move the easel
a little closer no the physical copy is good thank you yeah he's got i'm working on it this is why i bring back anyway uh i apologize for going so quickly uh the goal was to make a a deck that could have the full 42-in parapit height wall also not being visible from
the street at any location um so it's very centered in the middle here uh it gives the owner enough space to do something nice on his deck uh without imposing on the community itself in any way uh case in point is the renderings on
the other side which we also handed out uh you'll see the existing photographs in the small picture the larger picture shows a rendering of how you would not see the deck as opposed to how you would see the deck and it really is not visible from anywhere that's reasonable to see it from i think if you walked all
the way to the kill you might be able to see it like just a little bit okay so um basically for for an average height person anywhere that the deck will not be visible the wall is going to be in the way that's correct correct
yeah okay um it could be actually no for a six foot tall person which is not average height but that's what they require okay got it got it that's right 6 foot one you're not average yeah we're gonna find a shorter stick um
and then can you also just walk the board through the the materials you're proposing i i know they're yeah the m the materials we're proposing and as i said we don't actually you can't see them but uh it's a hardwood deck and then we're going to use a fiber reinforced concrete
hardwood deck and a fiber reinforced concrete railing that's going to be built as a planter the idea behind using the concrete was so that this the color of it would disappear into the sky if you could see it so the color of the concrete in the sky will be somewhat similar because it'll absorb those colors i don't think you'll see it
anyway but um and that concludes our presentation we're happy to take any questions you have um i do apologize i'm trying to pull it up tyler is not working at the moment which is the online permitting portal that we
use um i can't can't say does the commission have any questions in the meantime i know i know this is a little i was also having trouble with my hot spot and it's working so it's the internet speed of the building
i would also believe that see where is there visibility with the hypothetical 6'1 individual i i didn't catch it uh so if you walk a half a block past bran three and a half blocks away you might see the top four
inches that's the hypothetical if you were 6' one but but within two or three blocks no um and and was there a a bulkhead with a a door or there's an existing bulkhead
which is actually seven feet taller than the deck and you can't see the bulkhead either and there's no changes to the bulkhead proposed no no changes to bula it is what it is okay thank you and just one would you say this is similar to decks in in the area that
you've seen any other worked on any other project i i actually haven't done a deck in the historic district before i've done oh i have not done a deck in the historic district before but the ones i've seen yes this is similar okay anyone else have any questions
uh you said earlier that there were originally two decks was this did they that go before us so the drawings that were approved for construction and were approved by zoning in 2009 or 2010 show two decks that i'm not sure if they ever
built they weren't there when we got there i worked with staff and it we we did look into it because i thought there was a possibility that it it had been approved by this board but it was not they were never constructed okay um they're shown on the master deed documents but no deck has ever existed
at least since 2010 i don't know they're also shown in the construction permit drawing so at some point somebody said "okay." okay but they didn't get built so that was you you answered the question thank you any additional questions okay there are no additional questions
um yeah we could move on to public comment if we have a motion to open public comment motion second all in favor i i any me members of the public that would wish to speak regarding this application staff sees no members of the
public and makes a recommendation to uh a motion to close public comment motion second all in favor i thank you uh with that we'll move on to staff comments um i'm still trying to pull up these plans
uh it is loading but very slowly um for staff as um patrick had mentioned uh this is a pretty straightforward uh roof deck application um the property is
in the vanforce historic park district um and it is very similar to uh very consistent with with most uh roof decks we see throughout the historic districts um the existing bulkhead is not visible
um we do generally state from a 6 or 6'1 person and uh from across the street it will not be visible um due to that uh this really matches the block paradigm the development patterns of the area uh so in hpc staff's opinion the project as
proposed will not cause an adverse effect on the character and/or integrity of the historic resources or the vanforest park historic district um as such hbc staff recommends approval of a certificate of appropriateness with the following conditions uh and these are
pretty much our standard conditions um the one that or the two unusual ones are the ones that we always put on roof deck applications uh all proposed light fixtures shall be downcast in nature and um no portion of the roof deck and or accessories um shall be visible from the
public right of way if any portion of the roof deck and/or accessories is visible this approval shall be considered null and void um patrick does your applicant accept those yes awesome
um so again um staff's recommendation is uh for this evening is a motion to approve the coa with conditions as read into the record and in the staff report i'll make a motion to approve with conditions and i will say just so that the record reflects that there's like a lot of confusion about being able to
look at the materials or not but the applicant provided the materials to the commission and the commission reviewed them awesome i'll second it motion tony and corey i'll do a roll call vote commissioner griga i commissioner
sankamp i commissioner sakong i commissioner cronin i and chair gordon i there are five in favor no against no abstensions the certificate of appropriateness uh with conditions is approved
thank you all for your time okay i'm not able to pull that up you wanted my book moving on to tabled cases um this is dan's application i don't know if dan has any updates for us regarding uh 172
belmont a nav i am still awaiting the uh submission of further documents from the applicant uh the contractor uh has been asked to provide us at least with
photographs that have been marked up to show which materials he plans to use and where i think that that is the most basic minimum of what we can require and we still do not have u any
updates for that and then we can move on to demos okay so that i will with that i'll be calling uh 892 summit avenue this is b-24-2478 previously carried from the
march 10th 2025 regular hpc meeting okay so i'm just going to pull up can you guys see on your deases what's on my screen yes yes okay cool great i don't know why these the
tvs are not working for some reason [Music] um i'm not sure why that is only fans okay well i'm not sure why they're not it's not pulling up on the two tvs but um
interesting so for this uh demo case this is 892 summit a um i've pulled up the memo um as well as uh just to kind of get our bearings on where we are uh this is summit a between sherman place and
manhattan a um and i have also pulled up a photo for the commission to see bless you so looking at the building um and as stated in our uh memo to the commission
um this building is a contributing element uh to the eligible sherman place residential historic district um it really maintains uh quite a bit of integrity of location setting and design um as well as feeling and association um
there's been somewhat diminished integrity of materials and workmanship uh however it retains the characteristic asymmetrical massing as well as roof lines uh window patterns and tower um so in staff's opinion um the property does
retain does possess historical significance and integrity uh that prevents its demolition um and if you'd like to see as well just for comparison uh this is the 1938 tax card
photo just to pull up the photo again does the commission have any questions or comments regarding this is that vinyl on there or is that aluminum uh it's like i think it's aluminum um i'm trying to see if we call it out in the staff report as well as
alum specifically aluminum yeah i don't see anything that specifically calls that as oh yeah aluminum siding yeah there it is um yeah so it's a unoriginal aluminum siding um that was added later um again a lot of the exterior materials
have been replaced um as you can see in the historic photo the 1938 tax guard photo used to have kind of a pediment as well as a little porched entry um a cornis line a lot of those have been removed but again you have the
historical massing um and unfortunately we don't have a good photograph of the properties next door um pull it up on google street view but this block does retain a lot of historic integrity um turn it
around so you have this row of very similar properties um that's not loading super well um but you can see it kind of fits into the row and uh staff's opinion is if this one is
demolished uh you lose a lot of that integrity being mid row uh between these other properties so staff recommends a motion to prepare a resolution recommending denial of the demolition application to the zoning officer i'll make that motion second so
we have tony and corey and i'm going to do a roll call vote uh commissioner gera i'm voting i to
not okay i so the again the motion would be to prepare a resolution recommending denial of the demolition application to the zoning officer so i i great uh tony uh commissioner senamp i commissioner sakong
i commissioner cronin i and chair gordon i there are five votes in favor zero against zero abstensions uh the recommend the motion
passes okay and if we continue on down the agenda uh we then have uh the election of um the commission's executive officers um last meeting uh the committee put
forward commissioners commissioner gera as chair uh commissioner cronin as vice chair and me as secretary i think it's switched switched yeah oh i'm fine with that yeah yeah okay they don't want to throw me the lines first so that's good
so chair vice chair so okay so commissioner cro commissioner cronin as chair commissioner gerria as vice chair and me as secretary for a one-year term uh does anyone have any questions regarding officers if so we can discuss
if not then staff recommends a motion to elect commissioners g commissioner griga as vice chair commissioner cronin as chair and michael akamov as secretary for a one-year term i'll make the motion okay so we got a motion from tony cronin
as chair commissioner gerria as vice chair and michael's last name is achimoff close enough as secretary great i'll sec i'll second the motion okay
all in favor i i the motion passes uh gladly i just want to say as my first official act that it's not really batman and rob it's more like uh simon and garfuncle maybe i like that
there you go sounds perfect i like that don't they break up well many years guys many they had a lot of coming you know small meets okay well we have no uh updates on any uh we have no resolutions
to review and approve uh we do not need an executive session and all that is left this evening is adjournment uh does anyone want to make a motion motion second okay and as your last official act as chairman it is 7:02 p.m all in
favor i i time of death