City of Wimberley hires firm to create historic district

The City of Wimberley has hired a company to help define and potentially create a historic district in the downtown area.

The size and requirements for such a district are to be determined following a public process.

“I am very passionate about being able to preserve Wimberley’s history and culture and the feel and all that we love about Wimberley and the valley,” Councilmember Teresa Shell said. “… We really need to consider (this) in our community to preserve what we have for the generations to come — for our kids and our grandkids.”

Post Oak Preservation Solutions was hired for $55,000 to look at preservation solutions and potentially define the requirements and boundaries of a future historical district.

“Wimberley is a very different community than other towns nearby,” Izabella Nuckels, with Post Oak Preservation Solutions, said. “There are some opportunities to assist with guiding and managing architectural and site features through the future. There are a lot of preservation tools that can provide financial incentives to maintain, preserve and rehabilitate existing historic buildings as well as tools that can help identify ways to develop and build in a way that is compatible with the community.” The company will host public meetings to find the appropriate limits for the district.

“Do we want to be sticklers on these regulations or is it something we need to do with incentives,” City Administrator Mike Boese said. “That is where we need the input from the community. I think people care about what things look like down there, but the council wants to hear that.”

A historical designation could allow the city to set certain architectural guidelines that are currently available. The Texas Legislature recently passed a law that eliminated a city’s ability to control what materials had to be used on the exterior of a building; however, a historic district would allow the city to create some guidelines and offer incentives to follow those guidelines within the district.

“Our task one would be a historic survey and research,” Ann McGlone, with Post Oak Preservation Solutions, said. “We will come out here and work with citizens, staff and city council to develop survey boundaries, which is an area of town we think is worthy of a deeper dive, and we’ll send a team out and survey every single resource in those boundaries — taking a photo, taking notes and doing archival research… We develop a survey report that might recommend future historic districts.”

In other news, the city also started the process of figuring out what to do about the sign in the center of River Road at the intersection of Ranch Road 12. The sign has been in Wimberley for decades, but it violates city code in numerous manners.

“Essentially, the city was alerted to the poor condition of the sign structure at River Road and Ranch Road 12,” Boese said. “… This sign currently has 10 different businesses that have their own sign on it… There has not been an entity that has taken responsibility for maintaining this sign over the years. It has sort of been, if there is an open space a business will create a sign to put on it. There was really no process to determine which businesses gets to place signs or once they are placed who is going to conduct maintenance on the structure. The wood is rotten inside, and it is starting to become an issue.”

The sign is in the city’s right of way, which in this instance is against city code. The city council briefly discussed repairing, removing or replacing the sign with a new structure and what legal issues may be presented in doing so.

The council elected to reach out to business owners whose signs would be impacted and begin the process of figuring out a long term solution.

“We don’t want to rush into anything without working with them,” Mayor Gina Fulkerson said. “…I think we can work on a compromise or a solution… Let’s just try and figure out the Wimberley way to do this.”

The city also approved the use of a little more than $6,000 of Hotel Occupancy Tax funds to create visitor maps intent to help with the walkability of a city. The maps were compared to those that would be found at a mall to help shoppers navigate the facility. Three locations were discussed including the new visitor’s kiosk on Oak Drive, near the Cypress Creek Bridge and in the rest area recently renovated on the Square in front of the shop Ceremony.