City eyeing design rules
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on October 12, 2015 1:46 PM
Changes to the city's design guidelines for commercial businesses in downtown's historic district are being developed by urban designer and Historic District Commission chairman Allison Platt.
Ms. Platt has been working with an informally named Design Guidelines Steering Committee to finalize the new guidelines, and will try to ready them to present to the City Council for adoption later this month.
The new amendments to the existing guidelines, while not yet finalized, pertain to signs, awnings and canopies, as well as outdoor dining areas and outdoor displays.
Ms. Platt was contracted by the city to develop the new guidelines in April. She has also developed downtown's master plan, the conceptual design for the city's Streetscape project and designed the new fountain, "Cityscape," which was placed in the roundabout at the intersection of Center and Walnut streets.
Existing businesses that were designed according to the most recent set of historic district guidelines adopted by the city in 2009 will be grandfathered in and allowed to stay as they are.
"We always knew that, in effect, we even had some notes in the original guidelines that said this section is reserved for sidewalk dining and signs," Ms. Platt said. "With the completion of Center Street, it became more and more important because, when we finished the southbound side, already people were anxious to get sidewalk dining."
The Design Guidelines Steering Committee is comprised of residents, merchants, city staff, members of the Historic District Commission, members of the Design Review Committee and members of the Downtown Merchants Association, all of whom are considered stakeholders in downtown's historic district.
"They've been very active," Ms. Platt said. "We met first and I presented some pictures of sidewalk dining without any particular goal or agenda, and then people would express their opinions and from that I went back and wrote the guidelines. When they were in draft form, I brought them back again, they all got copies, we went through it, people made their comments, and then we developed the final draft."
Ms. Platt said when she presents the final draft to the city council, the council members will have a chance to express their own opinions on the guidelines, and the public is invited to attend the meeting and provide its input as well.
"I tend to do what I do best by listening to other people, and don't try to impose my own viewpoints on people because people don't really like that, and I don't really like it either," Ms. Platt said.
She also said that she has not excluded a single modification to the guidelines suggested by the Design Guidelines Steering Committee from the final draft, and that the outcome of each guideline is the result of back and forth talks between the committee members.
"Most of them are pretty much common sense," Ms. Platt said of the guidelines. "I think that the intent of them, in a way, of design guidelines in general in my opinion, because I've written many for other cities as well, is that you present people with -- as much as saying this is allowed and this isn't -- you try to present images that express a certain quality of environment, because that's obviously what you're aiming for. For instance, we don't encourage fluorescent colors, we don't encourage plastic furniture, we don't encourage picnic tables on the sidewalk, you know, we basically want to have a level of quality that makes us comparable to other examples that we might see."
Any new businesses opening downtown will need to follow the new guidelines. Where any questions arise about the new guidelines or when any deviation from the new guidelines occur, the final answer to any question or final decision on any deviation from the guidelines will be given by the Historic District Commission.
"We had a sidewalk cafe application process, or guidelines, prior to these guidelines being written," said Assistant Planning Director Jennifer Collins, who also serves on the Historic District Commission. "They weren't as detailed. It was strictly just information that needed to be given so that alcohol could be served on the sidewalk. We followed the guidelines from a state level, so now we've branched over to a little more detailed guidelines regarding furniture and methods of attachment and things like that for the beer gates."
Both Ms. Collins and Ms. Platt said before the design guidelines can be brought before the council in October, guidelines pertaining to balconies must be developed.
"One part of it that's not quite resolved yet is that some people have suggested that they might want a balcony," Ms. Platt said. "We've been kind of struggling with that. We talked about it with the committee and it's a tough one, because we do have some examples like the Waynesborough House, but that's a building that was built to have that kind of canopy. I don't know if on a lot of those little buildings if you tried to suspend a balcony off of it the facade might fall down."
Due to this, Ms. Collins said the guidelines for signs and outdoor dining areas, which have already been developed, might be brought to the council for approval before balcony guidelines are added and approved.
The Design Guidelines Steering Committee has met three times since Ms. Platt was contracted out by the city to develop these guidelines.
"We're kind of done meeting now unless there's some other issue to bring us together," Ms. Platt said.