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HPB 06-02-1993 AGENDA HISTORIC PRESERVATION BOARD MEETING CITY OF DELRAY BEACH Meeting Date : Wednesday, June 2 , 1993 Type of Meeting: Regular Meeting Location: 1st Floor Conference Room Time: 5 : 30 P.M. If a person decides to appeal any decision made by the Historic Preservation Board with respect to any matter considered at this meeting or hearing, such persons will need a record of these proceedings, and for this purpose such persons may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made. Such record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. The City does not provide or prepare such record. Pursuant to F. S .286 . 0105 . I . CALL TO ORDER II . APPROVAL OF MINUTES May 19 , 1993 III . PUBLIC HEARING ITEMS None IV. CERTIFICATES OF APPROPRIATENESS None V. DISCUSSION AND ACTIONS ITEMS Consideration of Swinton Avenue Beautification Plans . Presented by Nancy Davila, City Horticulturist and Grant Thornbrough, Landscape Architect. VI . REPORTS AND COMMENTS A. Reports from Historic District Representatives B. Board Members C. Staff VII . ADJOURN POSTED ON: May 27 , 199 (4Zer Pat Cayce, Historic Preservation Planner 41011 MINUTES OF THE HISTORIC PRESERVATION BOARD PUBLIC HEARING WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1993 Location: 1st Floor Conference Room 100 N.W. 1st Avenue Delray Beach, FL 33444 I . ROLL CALL: The Chairperson called the meeting to order at 5 :30 P.M. Board Members: Christine Bull Present Margie Miller Present Daniel Carter (Vice Chair) Present Sandy Jamison - -- Present Pat Healy-Golembe Present (6 :00 P.M. ) Buck Miller (2nd Vice Chair) Present Rose Sloan (Chair) Present Staff Members Present: Jeff Costello, Planning & Zoning Department Pat Cayce, Planning & Zoning Department Diana Mund, Planning & Zoning Department II . APPROVAL OF MINUTES: May 19, 1993 Meeting Buck Miller moved for approval of the minutes for the May 19, 1993 meeting, seconded by Margie Miller. The vote was as follows : Christine Bull - Yes; Daniel Carter - Yes; Sandy Jamison - Yes; Buck Miller - Yes; Margie Miller - Yes; Rose Sloan - Yes. Said motion passed 6-0 . III . PUBLIC HEARING ITEMS: None. IV. CERTIFICATES OF APPROPRIATENESS: None. Pat Healy-Golembe arrived at this time (6 : 00 P.M. ) 1010 V. DISCUSSION AND ACTION ITEMS: After some discussion with Nancy Davila, City Horticulturist and Grant Thornbrough, Landscape Architect on the Swinton Avenue Beautification Plans the Board moved to recommend the plans to the City Commission after agreeing that the following previous concerns had been satisfied: 1 . The street sign bollards; 2 . light fixtures; 3 . paver blocks; and, 4 . irrigation. Some of the Board Members felt that there were not enough canopy trees and the consensus was that this would be discussed at the next meeting and the consensus of the Board would be forwarded to Nancy Davila. Sandy Jamison moved for approval to recommend to the City Commission that they move forward with the Swinton Avenue Beautification Plans, seconded by Pat Healy-Golembe. The vote was as follows : Christine Bull - Yes; Daniel Carter - Yes; Sandy Jamison - Yes; Pat Healy-Golembe - Yes; Buck Miller - Yes; Margie Miller - Yes; Rose Sloan - Yes. Said motion passed 7-0. The Board also felt that the street lights and pavers at intersections should not stop at N.E. 4th Street, but should be carried to the end of the Historic District at N.E. 8th Street, to do so more money would have to be allocated by the City Commission. The Board's comments will be stated at the City Commission Worksession scheduled for July 6, 1993 . Nancy Davila encouraged a representative of the Board to attend the worksession. The Board will discuss this matter further at their June 16, 1993 meeting. VI . REPORTS AND COMMENTS: A. Reports from Historic District Representatives: None. B. Board Members: None. - 2 - 6/2/93 II L C. Staff : None. VII . ADJOURNMENT: Sandy Jamison moved for adjournment at 7 : 15 P.M. , seconded by Buck Miller. The vote was as follows : Christine Bull - Yes ; Daniel Carter - Yes; Sandy Jamison - Yes; Pat Healy-Golembe - Yes; Buck Miller - Yes; Margie Miller - Yes; Rose Sloan - Yes . Said motion passed 7-0 . The next meeting is scheduled for June 16 , 1993 . The undersigned is the Secretary of the Historic Preservation Board and the information provided herein is the Minutes of the meeting of said body for June 2, 1993, which were formally adopted andd 4.-- approved by the Board on June 16, 1993 . a Mund 410 If the Minutes that you have received are not completed as indicated above, then this means that these are not the Official Minutes . They will become so after review and approval, which may involve some changes . - 3 - 6/2/93 MEMORANDUM DATE: MAY 27, 1993 TO: HISTORIC PRESERVATION BOARD MEMBERS FROM: PAT CAYCE, 4ISTORIC PRESERVATION PLANNER SUBJECT: HPB MEETING JUNE 2, 1993, AGENDA ITEM V. SWINTON AVENUE BEAUTIFICATION Nancy Davila has requested this meeting as a follow up to the workshop meeting of May 19, 1993. The purpose is to address some of the concerns expressed by the HPB during the • discussion which occurred at the end of the HPB' s Regular Meeting. A narrative, prepared by Grant Thornborough, is attached which will explain some of the decisions and . recommendations that were made by the Swinton Avenue Task Team. The Swinton Avenue plans are available in Nancy Davila ' s office if you wish to consult them for reference. The Swinton Avenue Task Team members have been invited to the meeting. The City Commission Swinton Avenue Workshop meeting has been postponed until July 6, 1993. SWINTON AVENUE BEAUTIFICATION PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The beautification of Swinton Avenue is a unique challenge because all of the landscape must occur in swale areas in front of hundreds of individual properties. Most beautification projects and streetscapes which have been successful have either occurred in median areas or in swales under common ownership or the collective control of master property associations. A. Grant Thornbrough and Associates feels the following items must be done to accomplish the beautification of Swinton: increase greenspace, reduce pavement, reduce parking in the swale, eliminate unsightly utilities, repair walkways and driveways, landscape the swales with trees, palms, shrubbery and sod, irrigate the swales, add decorative elements such as lights, pavers, and signage, encourage community and property owner organizations to heighten beautification awareness, long term maintenance, revise garbage pick up, and revise delivery and postal service practices. Some of these items are not feasible due to budgetary constraints . Others represent policy changes and educational changes that need to occur. Most items can be implemented to some degree which is what we have accomplished with our preliminary plans. The objective of the Swinton Avenue beautification project is to emphasize street trees and swale improvements, accent gateway focal points, and provide hardscape elements such as signage, street lights, pavers and selective curb and gutter while adhering to maintenance, safety and budget considerations ($ 450,000). The scope of the project is divided into three priority areas: Priority area 1- From S. 2nd to N. 8th which is the concentration of the historic districts Priority Area 2- From S. 10th Street to S. 2nd Street Priority Area 3- From N. 8th Street to N. 22nd Street 1 In priority area one, the main objectives are to accent and identify the historic district, and to improve the swales and landscape profile while keeping a residential character. As there is an increase of commercial properties in this area, we are proposing several elements that would compliment the Atlantic Avenue and Old School Square Improvement projects and tie into the existing character. These elements include lighting, pavers, and coconut palms as well as groundcover where the project is suffiently irrigated. Identity of these areas would be accomplished with signage depicting the different historic districts. In priority area two the main objectives are to create a gateway and anchor at the South end of the project, identify parking and drainage problems occurring in the Right-of -way, and enhance the landscape. The anchor at the south end is developed through Pioneer Park. We propose that this area be irrigated and landscaped to screen the railroad tracks and provide a passive greenspace. In this priority area we have been cautious to locate landscape nodes where irrigation is existing or will occur either by the city or multi-family commercial properties through code enforcement. We also have located nodes where parking problems can be minimized in identified problem areas. In priority area three, we have designed the landscape to enhance the existing profile and kept it congruent with the proposed improvements in the previous areas. The Swinton beautification plans use specific elements to link all three priority areas.. One of the hardscape elements is a street signage program that would be unique to Swinton Avenue. This street signage would consist of a decorative colored concrete bollard that would bear the name of the street using a reflective material. The task team has discussed painting the numbers or letters on the sign, but felt this would create a maintenance headache for the city. We have recommended using the standard metal sign with a blue background that would be fixed to the concrete bollard. This sign would be clear, reflective and not require painting. Through landscaping , we have also repeated plant material throughout the project, 2 clustered Saba! Palms in curbed landscape knuckles, various shade trees and groupings of accent and flowering trees. The sabal palm was chosen for several reasons as the street tree in the landscape knuckles: its hardiness, its vertical nature to add interest to the horizontal plane, low maintenance, and, as a point of interest , it is the state tree. Another positive note on the sabal palm is that we can plant the palm so as to not interfere with the overhead power lines which are typically on one side of the street and in some blocks on both sides. An original objective established by the task force was to design a landscape that would be diverse in species. This informal approach reflects the essence of Swinton Avenue which makes it unique. We have surveyed existing trees and have filled in voids along the swale with either shade trees or smaller accent trees. It is our position that a regimented rhythm of treescape must be avoided. Irrigating the proposed planting is one of the biggest issues that needs to be faced. To irrigate the entire swale would take approximately 1/2 of the construction budget, as well as require the city to come up with funds for the cost of water and perpetual maintenance of irrigation system. Our recommendation for the irrigation constraints are as follows: Priority Area 1- The city to install a system and irrigate from S. 2nd to N. 4th. This would enable more intense planting in this area that would help unify Swinton Avenue to Atlantic Avenue and Old School Square. Priority Area 2- The city to install a system and irrigate the Pioneer Park greenspace. Large multi-family projects on the east side of Swinton are required to supply an irrigation system to the swale adjacent to their properties. There is also existing irrigation in a large pocket S. of S. 4th Street, at the Water Treatment Plant / Seimans Evert and across the street at Griffin Gate Housing. However, on the west side of the street we would need to rely upon the single family homeowners to take pride and leadership in the project and irrigate the swale. 3 Priority Area 3- We are not planning on irrigating in this area and again are relying on the homeowners support to irrigate the swale. Several property owners from the north end have stated they will cooperate with the irrigation because of the aesthetic and economic improvements they will receive from the improvements If the entire swale is not irrigated, then a program of regular watering for 6 months will be necessary to ensure the survivability of the plant material. Although the water truck is a large expense, other solutions of watering have not been economically feasible. Whereas drainage is a problem along some parts of Swinton Avenue, it was in the project objectives to identify these areas and to not create any other problems as a result of our design. It is not in the scope of services nor in the budget to curb and gutter the entire length of Swinton as this would require millions of dollars in a new drainage system. We have taken into account these drainage problems and for this reason have come up with the following solutions: 1.) Regrade the right of way to create a swale. Remove the old curb that could interfere with drainage flow, and improve soil conditions for increased percolation where soil has been compacted. 2.) Remove excess asphalt in areas that do not belong in the right of way and replace with sod to improve percolation and in turn beautify the profile of the Avenue. Reduction of the asphalt in areas where it is not part of the traffic flow will improve the scale of the street and give it a more of a residential flavor. 3.) Create a depressed area behind the curbed landscape knuckles to collect runoff around the planted areas. These curbed knuckles will also protect the plant materials behind them, prevent parking in areas where this is a problem, and will enable us to get the plant material closer to the road and away from overhead utility lines. The majority of site features are occurring between S. 2nd and N. 4th. Pavers on all 4 four corners and Period street lights are used as a way of tying back this historic district to the Atlantic Avenue Improvements and the Old School Square Project. Preliminary plans did show lights and pavers from S. 2nd to N. 8th as well as pavers in the crosswalks at the downtown bypasses, but due to budget constraints the task team decided that this area between S. 2nd and N. 4th would be the best place to concentrate these elements in order to make a difference. Several street lights were proposed including concrete, aluminum, and fiberglass, all with a decorative acorn lamp. After a task force discussion, it was determined that the project would use an aluminum pole to coordinate efforts with other lighting programs already established by the CRA and to match the existing lights at Old School Square and along Atlantic Avenue. The use of a concrete pole would be more historically correct for the city. The task team also wanted to address and improve the downtown bypasses. The bypass N. of Atlantic is paved from right of way to right of way which leaves us no room for planting. The paving in this area is all travel lanes making it impossible at this time to manipulate. We will encourage future development in this block to add lighting and landscaping on their own property congruent to the Swinton Avenue Beautification Project. However, the bypass S. of Atlantic has potential to be reconfigured in order to accomodate landscape islands on both sides of the street. Preliminary cost estimates showed that pursuing a reconfiguring of the bypass lanes S. of Atlantic would be approximately 1/4 of the budget. The task team felt it would be a considerable amount of money for such a limited area although it would be a much needed improvement. After this discussion of the cost factor in this area, the city encouraged us to investigate our options and it was determined that we could improve the southern bypass for approximately $85,000.00. This would entail reducing the expanse of asphalt, and providing 6' landscape strips on both sides of the street for approximately 1 1/2 blocks. This option does not change any traffic patterns, only the lane locations. We have kept this improvement option as a separate line item in the cost estimate. Another item we have kept separate from our cost estimate is the landscaping and irrigation of Pioneer Park, the anchor for the project at the South end. This area is not within the right of way of Swinton Avenue, but as a project goal we were asked to investigate options for this greenspace. We have designed a passive greenspace that 5 would screen the railroad tracts and provide a natural gateway into the project. The plans do not address sidewalk improvements other than the addition of pavers at historic district intersections. The condition of the driveway aprons along the street varies from nonexistent to brand new. We conducted a visual assessment of the aprons and determined that 55 new ones are required for a greatly enhanced aesthetic appearance. Sidewalks? 6 SWINTON AVENUE BEAUTIFICATION COST ESTIMATE TASK FORCE REVISED WISH LIST 5-19-93 Excavation of existing curb - allowance $10,000.00 Excess asphalt removal Saw cut, remove and haul 2,166 s.y. @ $7.50 $ 16,245.00 Proposed curbing for landscape knuckles 3,450 U. @ $10.00 I.f. $34,500.00 Regrade. amend soil and sod swale 210,980 s.f. @ $.44 s.f. $92,830.00 Concrete pavers @ historic district street corners 3,600 s.f.@ $7.26 s.f. $26,150.00 Along bypass sidewalks 12,388 s.f. @ $7.26 s.f. $89,937.00 $116,087.00 Street Sign Bollards 57 @ $300.00 ea. $17,10 0.00 Signage @ both gateways and at entrances to the historic district $6,0 0 0.00 Period Street Lights-36 Aluminum pole with acorn fixture @ $1,800.00 ea. $64,800.00 Irrigation Pioneer Park area R.O.W. and 5'west side of Swinton across from park $10,000.00 Pioneer Park Greenspace $4,648.00 From Pioneer Park to S. 4th $22,000.00 From S.4th to S. 3rd $12,418.00 From S.3rd to mid block north of S. 2nd $5,518.00 mid block to mid block N. of S.2nd $10,345.00 From N. 1st to N 4th $39,740.00 From N.4th to N.8th $25,533.00 From N.8th to N. 22nd $76.618.00 $206,820.00 Water Truck 124 days @ 450.00 a day (city to provide water on site) $5 9,10 0.0 0 Landscaping Palms,trees, shrubs, and groundcovers along right of way $120,000.00 Pioneer Park Greenspace $30,000.00 Del Ida Greenspace $2.000.00 $152,000.00 Reconfiguring Traffic Lanes S. of Atlantic inc. engineering, irrigation and landscape as per plans dated 5-12-93 $84,000.00 SHEET 1 OF 3 Driveway Apron Repair Approx. 55 new driveways $2 6.9 5 0.0 0 Grand TotaL $886,432.00 Amount over budget $436,432.00 Sidewalk Repair - not included SEE SHEET 3 FOR RECOMMENDATIONS SHEET 2 OF 3 A. GRANT THORNBROUGH AND ASSOCIATE'S RECOMMENDATIONS BUDGET $450,000.00 Landscaping 48% Regrade, amend soil and sod entire swale $92,830.00 Palms,trees, shrubs, and groundcovers along right of way $120,000.00 Del Ida Greenspace $2,000.00 Irrigation 28% Pioneer Park greenspace R.O.W. and 5'on west side of swinton across from park $10,000.00 Historic District from S.3rd to N.4th $55,603.00 Water Truck $59,100.00 Site Improvements 32% Excess asphalt removal $16,245.00 Excavation of ex.curb $10,000.00 Proposed curbing $34,500.00 Reconfiguring lanes and landscape islands @ S. Bypass $84,000.00 Site Features 25% Pavers only on historic district corners $26,150.00 Street sign bollards $17,100.00 Period Street lights-36 only $64,800.00 Signage $6,000.00 Grand Total $598,328.00 Amount over budget $148,328.00 Note: Although over budget, preliminarily, these are the items A. Grant Thornbrough and Associates would like to see done. Future Development Responsibility In by-pass area-installing paver block sidewalks along Swinton In by-pass area-installing period lighting across Swinton at Old School Square as part of the proposed parking lot linkage to City Hall. Property Owners Responsibility Property owners not in Historic District-irrigating swale Every property owner - repairing driveways that are in bad condition City of Delray Beach Responsibility Pioneer Park Greenspace Landscaping Sidewalk repair SHEET 3 OF3