A plan to bulldoze a city-designated historic building in Old Town Newhall to make way for a five-story mixed-use apartment and commercial structure has earned Planning Commission approval in exchange for a $750,000 fee based on “really rough guesses” on what it might cost to relocate the bu ilding rather than raze it.   There have been no detailed analyses on the potential cost of relocating the former courthouse building, or whether the $750,000 fee is an appropriate amount to offset its destruction – other than the developer and Santa Clarita Mayor Pro Tem Laurene Weste privately agreed that it is.  Further clouding the issue is the question of whether the building continues to have historical significance, and if so, how much. The building was included on a list of historic structures the city created in November 2012, after consulting with the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, according to records of the nonprofit organization’s meetings from 2010 to 2012.  Now thanks to the $750,00 deal struck by Weste and Jason Tolleson, of Serrano Development Group, the list of buildings might contract by one — “Ye Olde Courthouse,” with help from a new Historical Society recommendation that now discounts the building’s historic value.  Weste, who sat on the Historical Society’s board then and now, acknowledged that she spoke to the Main Street developer who told the Planning Commission March 18 he had negotiated an agreement with a City Council member to let him bulldoze the historic structure and replace it with condos and storefronts.  The courthouse was built in 1931, its second floor made of lumber from the nearby Hap-A-Lan Dance Hall, which was the community hot spot in the 1920s later repurposed as a morgue after the San Francisquito Dam disaster.  The inside of the building was completely remodeled in the 1960s when the local court operations moved to Valencia, said Leon Worden, secretary for the SCV Historical Society. Additional structures have been added to the lot that don’t match the original courthouse.   Yet the building has still landed on several lists of historic structures since, including one of about 300 locations the Historical Society made “as a starting point” in 2009, a revised list of about 40 or so in 2010 and then the 2012 list, which received final city approval in 2013. The building was included on the lists without much challenge, due to its age.  Since the condo proposal arose, there’s been a concerted push to change that.  City Planning Commissioner Tim Burkart, who’s on the Historical Society’s advisory committee, referenced the society’s letter in the March 18 discussion as a weigh-in from “the authority.”  “The applicant has provided a letter from the Santa Clarita (Valley) Historical Society, finding that the historical integrity of the building was severely compromised by a remodel in 1968, that no interior features remain from its use as a county courthouse, and that it would be infeasible to relocate the building to another location,” according to the city staff’s agenda report for the meeting.  When asked about the change in designation, Worden spoke on behalf of society president Alan Pollack.  Worden declined this week to make the meeting minutes available from the February vote, saying he would need the board’s permission first. The vote was 14-0, with three members absent, he said.  “The City Council created the list, not the Historical Society. Why the City Council specifically put the courthouse building on the list in 2013, I couldn’t say,” Worden said. “The council excluded some of the most historic buildings in Santa Clarita, at the property owners’ request, such as the old jailhouse next to the Newhall Library,” he said, referring to an opt-in, opt-out policy.  “At the same time, the council, I think rightly, considered and excluded other old buildings that had been remodeled into oblivion, such as the Trocadero building. There was a seeming randomness to it and a hope that certain property owners would see the light and add their properties to the list in the future.”  The SCV Historical Society’s minutes from that time indicate the organization was consulted a number of times about the list of historic structures. The conversations began in 2010, about two years before the ordinance was approved, with a presentation from city planners.  The president of the Historical Society in 2012, Ed Marg, is quoted as saying in The Signal at the time that “anything is better than nothing” — but he didn’t believe at the time the ordinance went far enough to incentivize property owners to opt in.   The city has the right in its ordinance to permit any relocation or demolition of a historic resource, which is a structure that represents: “a significant contribution,” “distinctive characteristics,” “a unique location” or “characteristic(s),” or is a landscape, view or vista representing an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood; “has yielded, or has the potential to yield, information important to the history … of the city,” according to the ordinance.   Worden said the Historical Society’s goal is to create a penalty or impact fee “equal to the amount it would have cost to move the building and restore it to its original historical condition,” which he said was “just good public policy.”  But that does not appear to have been the developer’s impression of the Newhall deal based on his comments to the Planning Commission.  Weste told The Signal last week in a phone interview in which she acknowledged her conversations with Tolleson regarding the $750,000 fee, that he had to look at moving the building.   “I told him he had to evaluate moving that building, and it’s a very old building. It’s also had multiple additions,” Weste said. That was something she called for back in 2012, also, according to the minutes of that meeting.  Weste is quoted as asking for “an analysis by a historic preservation expert be consulted to determine feasibility and costs if a structure is requested to be relocated; and requested that the city help finance the cost of relocation if needed.”   However, Tolleson said during the March 18 Planning Commission meeting that was never part of his plan once the courthouse came into the discussion. He said “everyone agreed” the $750,000 fee was reasonable.  As previously reported, Tolleson’s initial project, which was submitted in May and approved through the city’s planning process in August, according to city documents, called for a four-story, 51-apartment complex on top of 3,361 square feet of retail space on three addresses in the 24300 block of Main Street. It didn’t touch the historic courthouse.  At some point, the project expanded to include a five-story mixed-use building approximately 52 feet in height, for 78 apartment units and 5,300 square feet of commercial floor area, which would require the demolition of the courthouse, for a fee.  Tolleson said moving the edifice was never considered feasible. He has not responded to multiple requests for comment since a March 13 story on the project.   “It wasn’t from staff, it was from a council member. And we did analyze that, and it’s significant because the house is so large it would need to be cut in half, and then it’s tall enough where power lines — there’s no place to get it out … so we’d be relocating power lines,”  Tolleson said, referring to his conversations with Weste regarding the $750,000 fee.   “These are like some really rough guesses, but we do have some estimates of what that would cost, and it’s prohibitive,” he said.  “There’s no scope to price yet,” Tolleson said, answering Planning Commissioner Denise Lite’s questions about how the $750,000 was derived.  “We would have to get in to exactly how we would have to do it, what the route would be and where it’s going,” Tolleson said, referencing the logistics.  “The only way that it works is to demolish it,” Tolleson said. “And … had we been required to relocate it, we probably would have just left it out of the project.”  The commission voted 5-0 to adopt the staff’s recommendation – including the $750,000 fee to offset the demolition of the old courthouse – and the project is expected to go before the City Council in late-April.  The post ‘Ye Olde Courthouse’ vs. ‘Ye New $750K Deal’  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal. ...read more read less