City Council upholds HPC denial

The Woodstock City Council tonight denied a property owner's appeal regarding a window in the recently renovated property at 223 South Tryon Street.

The Council and the chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission acknowledged and complimented owner Tom Harding's renovation of the property, instead of demotion of the building which had fallen into serious disrepair. Back in June 2009 Harding, his architect and the HPC had agreed on retention of a window on the west side of the building, which faces on Tryon Street.

Somebody on the owner's project team made what Harding called an "innocent mistake" and removed the window that was to remain and replaced it with a a double-hung window. The "mistake" was noted, the property was inspected by a City staff member, and the issue was addressed at the November HPC meeting.

The HPC's position was that the window needed to be as all had agreed in June. The owner appealed to the City Council and tonight, after an in-depth discussion, the City Council voted 3-2 to deny his appeal.

HPC Chairman Stebbins offered the possibility that TIF funds might be available to help defray a portion of the cost to correct the error.

The Council was urged to stick to process and procedures of the HPC and not to set a precedent of letting small matters just slide by. It would have been easy to adopt a "So what?" position on this issue.

Tonight's vote was
J. Dillon - Y
R. Ahrens - N
R. Thompson - N
M. Larson - N
B. Sager - Y

M. Turner and R. Webster were absent this evening.

It was a tough call. To me it looked like the appeal would succeed, until Councilman Ahrens hesitated before voting. His "No" vote broke the momentum toward approval of the appeal.

Allen Stebbins did a good job in his effort to avoid a win/lose for Mr. Harding by suggesting the possible availability of TIF funds. These funds may be available, but only if the property is actually within the boundaries of the Historic District. It would seem to be, because the HPC was involved in other approvals for this property, but no one tonight was asked, or stated, whether the property is actually within the TIF District.