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The effort to amend the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance has been on the table for nearly two years now, and it had been hoped that a special meeting Monday might bring the long process one step closer to fruition. 

Those hopes were dashed, however, when the Landmarks Preservation Commission decided to postpone the matter until next month, to allow more time to study the city attorney’s draft changes.  

The changes to the ordinance may end up giving the LPC additional powers – including the right to deny demolition of landmarked buildings, which is currently a power held by the Zoning Adjustments Board. They may also take some of the LPC’s powers away, by relegating some tasks to the city’s planning staff. 

In addition, the changes will help streamline certain aspects of the city’s process for new building developments, hopefully preventing confusing situations like those that arose in the debate about the Temple Beth El expansion. 

Commissioners will likely hold another special meeting sometime before the LPC’s next scheduled meeting in early December to discuss the issue. 

Staff members in the planning department and the city attorney’s office have been working on the proposed changes – which are designed to help the city conform with the state Permit Streamlining Act – since early 2000. 

The Permit Streamlining Act, which was passed in 1977 and modified several times since, mandates local agencies to either approve or deny proposed building projects within 90 days after an application is filed.  

In an early report to the LPC on the subject, some staffers wrote that the process for developers set up by the LPO often conflicts with the PSA, leaving city staff and commissions to scramble to make sure they adhere to both. 

In addition to amending the LPO, several complementary changes are being proposed for the city’s zoning ordinance. 

The LPC is taking a two-phase approach to changes. According to LPC member Jeffrey Eichenfield, the first phase, which the commission is studying now, involve “ordinance clean-up” – changes that are not controversial. 

Some commissioners expressed dismay that the LPC was not able to reach agreement on these changes Monday. 

“We made another stab at getting a ‘Phase One’ set of changes approved, and we hope to do that soon,” said Commissioner Becky O’Malley. 

Eichenfield said the part of the reason for the delay was the complexity of the legal language in which the amendments are written, and the fact that commissioners want to make certain that the changes did not dramatically change the city’s landmarking procedure. 

“Rewriting any ordinance is a difficult process,” he said. “We know our ordinance, we’ve been operating under it for 20 years, and we’re comfortable with it. 

“We’re getting a lot closer, but we’re just taking it section by section. It takes time.” 

One amendment proposed under “Phase One” would change the LPC’s procedures for dealing with proposed demolitions of designated city landmarks. 

“Currently, the LPC can suspend the demolition of a landmarked building for a year,” said O’Malley. “Under the new rule, it will simply have to deny the demolition, so that the developer can appeal the decision to the City Council right away.” 

Another provision would clarify the procedures the city takes when the LPC and the Zoning Adjustments Board take differing stands on an development, as happened in the debate over Temple Beth El’s expansion earlier this year. 

In that case, the LPC had denied the project while ZAB had approved it. Both decisions prompted separate appeals to the City Council – a complex situation that was resolved only when the temple and neighborhood groups reached a compromise. 

Once the “Phase One” recommendations are approved, they will be sent to the city council for a final vote. The commission will begin work on “Phase Two” comprised of more controversial items that will be resolved with the help of an outside consultant. 

Among the items proposed for “Phase Two” are a provision that would allow the LPC secretary, a member of the city planning staff, to approve certain minor changes or upkeep to landmarked buildings. 

The city has acquired a $25,000 grant from the state Office of Historic Preservation to study other cities’ landmark ordinances and prepare recommendations for changes to the LPO.