HRAB 07-28-15 Meeting MinutesFrederick County Historic Resources Advisory Board (HRAB)
July 28, 2015
Board of Supervisors Executive Session Room of the County
Administrative Building
107 North Kent Street Winchester, VA
Members Present: Lauren Murphy, Elizabeth Fravel, Stacey Yost, Chris Oldham, Gary Crawford,
Maral Kalbian
Members Absent: Denny Perry
Staff Present: Candice Perkins, Mike Ruddy
Agenda Items: Kernstown Area Plan
Call to order at 6:00 PM.
Item 1: Review of the Draft Kernstown Area Plan
The HRAB decided to go through the sections page by page that pertained to historic resources. It
was stated that the 2030 Plan did not provide enough guidance with the DSA text; new wording
would be helpful because there isn’t’ enough detail to fully understand what DSA means. For
example, with the Northeast Land Use Plan, the DSA description was lacking, the new idea for
separating heritage resource areas out from DSA is a positive change. The HRAB recommended
that natural resources be separated from heritage resources, and look at compressing the name of
rural historic resource area.
The HRAB questioned whether the boundaries shown on the maps accurately depict the historic district
currently in place and whether all historic structures were shown. It was noted that specific buildings
on route 11 appear to be missing, need to add ones that didn’t qualify with the original survey.
Including historic access corridors was discussed, looking at stricter design guidelines and state enabled
historic corridors should be considered. On the maps, historic structures are located in separate pockets
and far from the developed areas. If we really care about preserving these historic areas we cannot look
at them as isolated spots. The Bartonsville area is where the first settlers were in Frederick County, the
HRAB inquired as to whether something can be done, such as design control along Route 11.
The HRAB felt that from Bartonsville to Kernstown, walkability, screening, and setbacks could be further
described. Cohesive guidelines for the corridor should be considered. If you look at the Route 1 area
and how it’s been cleaned up over the past years, utilities, sidewalks, brought back some of the
attraction to that area. They had many hurdles, but still made it come together.
The HRAB included as to whether individual properties within the historic district were evaluated,
however most were only evaluated as contributing structures to the overall district.
On sheet 7, the local historic district for the Grim Farm was discussed; should it be a local/state historic
district or a national district. The County should be pursuing a state register district as well as
easements. It’s important to do preemptive identification of historic areas; it’s difficult to only look at a
little area. It’s better to take a comprehensive look at the entire county for possible historic districts.
The County should also look at changing the DSA title to something geared more towards historic
preservation and identification. This DSA text change should be looked at comp plan wide. Consider
setting up a hierarchy for preservation, adaptive reduce, continuation of the existing property (preferred
use 1, secondary use 2, etc.).
On page 20 where the Mill is discussed, it was recommended that the text be simplified.
Archeology should be discussed in the introduction part (earlier than page 19). Prehistory or Native
American terminology should be used.
On page 20 the second sentence discusses converting historic elements into recreational elements,
however does this conflict adaptive reuse? It is better for the heritage element to be in constant use
instead of recreational type use, where they can become an unused burden to the property owner.
Concern was expressed that the text stated it could only be a museum other recreational use.
The Map should state “historic resource” instead of “historic rural landmarks”.
The HRAB also discussed the Pritchard House being given a historic plaque – this will be discussed at a
future meeting.
Meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.