General Minutes February 2005

GENERAL MINUTES OF TURNAROUND TEAM MEETING

The TurnAround Team, Inc. General Meeting – 28 February 2005

The meeting was called to order at 7 PM by Deb Swank, Chair. In attendance were 22 people plus three speakers.

  1. Deb Swank started the meeting by briefly reporting on the status of the bid opening on the 23rd. There were plenty of bids and the numbers look good.
  2. The College Hill Business District spring clean up is set for April 23rd. (As you read this, the date has been moved up to April 16th.) We need to coordinate with both WU and HND and come up with ideas for what to do. Don, Delores, Deb, and Haley will work on coordination.
  3. Patrick Zollner, Architectural Historian at the Kansas State Historical Society, spoke about researching old structures and various kinds of historic designations. Structures can be placed on the National Register or the Kansas Register and the criteria for both are the same. Generally, a structure must be of local, state or national significance to qualify. (The Fred Harvey House in Leavenworth is on the National Register.) There are generally four criteria of association for significance: A – Historic events such as a battlefield; B – Historic person (birthplace, office…); C – Architectural significance such as the Territorial stone houses; and D – Archeological. Districts are a way to protect an area and must consider contributing and non-contributing structures. It requires a majority of the owners to support the designation. Kansas has a state preservation statute passed in the 1970s. Any work in an historic district requiring a building permit must go through a review first. To get historic designation for a structure, a Preliminary Site Information Questionnaire must be filled out. Alterations to structures are a big issue. It takes a couple of weeks to review the application, then the research must be done to verify. Section 7 of the PSIQ is architectural description and “Field Guide to American Houses” can aid in this. Section 8 is the nomination itself. National Parks Service Bulletin 16 is the actual instruction manual for filling the forms out. It can take some time to get through, but the review usually takes about 45 days. With a state historic designation, there is a 25 percent tax credit for restoration from the state and a Heritage Grant can be applied for based on a match of funds. Deeds or abstracts can identify property owners but are not good for determining date of construction. Sandborn Maps might help in that determination.
  4. Next, Susan and Jean from the Topeka Room of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library spoke about doing research. “Researching Old Buildings” on the Kansas State Historical Society website is a useful tool. Topeka was originally set up on the Eastern Philadelphia system. Sometimes streets were renamed for consistency of numbering. In 1938 there were major street changes… for example Euclid Street became 17th Street. Rage’s Directory of 1870 is often the starting point for a lot of looking for known very old houses. The Register of Deeds has a history of owners, but you can access it only at their offices. The Halls Directory of 1924 is usually a good resource as well to define (or eliminate) dates. The Topeka Room has a full set of Shawnee County Historical Society monographs about a number of the neighborhoods. They often have biographical data and maps. The Topeka Room hours are the same as the library’s. They are really eager to help people with any kind of researching needs, but nothing can be checked out from the Topeka Room.
  5. The meeting on March 28th will be Ann Palmer talking about Landscaping On An Urban Lot. The meeting will start at 7 PM at your Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 PM.

People who are interested in improving the quality and image of Central Topeka, particularly people who live in or own property in the Central Topeka area from Monroe to MacVicar and 21st to the Kansas River, are particularly encouraged to attend. For further information, call 234-2883.