2026-08-03 - Historic Preservation Board
Summary
Built from the official minutes (Legistar status Final).
- Present: 4 (Beerbaum, MacEnulty, Alternate Baumgartner, Fitzsimmons). Absent: 3 (Chair Lowenberg, Musick, Board Member Potter).
- Minutes of the May 5, 2026 meeting: approval postponed 4-0-3 (motion Beerbaum, second Fitzsimmons).
- Minutes of the June 1, 2026 meeting approved 4-0-3 (motion Fitzsimmons, second Baumgartner).
- Report of Acceptability for a 60 square foot front portico at a house in the Old North End approved 4-0-3 (motion Baumgartner, second Fitzsimmons): Griego Residence Portico Addition.
- Staff reported that the Historic Neighborhood Partnership wants a local landmark designation process in City Code; staff meets the Partnership on August 7: Local Landmark Designation Process.
- Staff asked the board to consider moving its 4:30 PM start time to between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM; no vote taken.
- Chair Lowenberg intends to step down as chair, possibly as early as September, and stay on the board; a new chair and vice chair would be appointed at the September meeting.
- Training presentation on local preservation by a History Colorado preservation planner.
Communications
- Bill Gray, Senior Planner and the board's Preservation Planner liaison (nearly six years with the City, in the Urban Planning Division), introduced himself and a new planning technician, Sam Fahnestock, who worked two years in the Historic Preservation Office in Austin, Texas and may help the board. His supervisor, Ryan Tefertiller (Planning Manager), attended.
- Council staff are working on appointments to elevate at least two, possibly three, alternates to voting members; members should watch for an email from Council staff.
- Gray flagged possible federal changes to Section 106 rules and encouraged members to join the public rulemaking (he believed a 30-day comment period had begun).
- Meeting time: the 4:30 PM start is the latest of any city board or commission and keeps staff past business hours; other bodies meet as early as 7:30 AM (Parks Board) or 8:00 to 9:00 AM (City Council). Beerbaum asked staff to send a notice soon to finalize any change, saying it would help recruitment.
- Website: the Planning Department is forming a web team to revise the historic preservation pages; Gray asked members to email individual suggestions within a week and pointed to Denver's page as a model. Tefertiller reminded members not to reply all, to avoid group email discussion.
- Beerbaum reported that History Colorado denied the request to put Historic Mesa Road on the State or National Register; the group will seek local landmark status once a process exists.
Griego Residence Portico Addition
- HIST-26-0006, 10 West Buena Ventura Street, Council District 5. Gray presented; Avery Thompson of Compass Architecture spoke for the owners. Staff found the criteria met and the design consistent with the Old North End guidelines. Fitzsimmons asked about the house's age (1985) and why a non-contributing structure is reviewed (it is in the overlay and the work is visible from the public right of way). Approved under City Code 7.5.528, 4-0-3.
Local Landmark Designation Process
- The current historic preservation overlay works like a rezoning and is the only local designation tool; a landmark process would be faster for single properties and open state and federal incentives. Fitzsimmons asked why it would live in the zoning code; Gray said it could be a standalone ordinance and that updating the preservation ordinance is overdue.
Training: Purpose, Procedures and Best Practices
- Lindsey Flewelling, Preservation Planner at History Colorado, with Gray, covered the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, State Historic Preservation Offices, Section 106 review, and the Certified Local Government program (Colorado Springs has been one since 1994, one of 70 in the state). Colorado Springs, like other local governments, can receive annual non-match grants.
- Procedure: avoid ex parte contact, declare conflicts, decide only on testimony and evidence, tie decisions to adopted standards.
- Incentives: state residential credit of 20 percent up to 100,000 dollars (refundable beginning next year), commercial credit of 20 to 25 percent up to 1 million dollars, and State Historical Fund grants with deadlines of April 1 and October 1. Only local designation gives regulatory protection.
Sources
Data notes: the minutes spell the chair's surname Lowenberg and once Loewenberg. Absent members Musick and Potter appear in the minutes by surname (Musick is named in the agenda as acting chair); Potter has no People page.