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Everywhere else in Plano, the paperwork for a roof is a building permit. In the Downtown Heritage Resource District there is a step before that: the city has to agree that the exterior work is appropriate to the building.
“All new construction and exterior repair and/or renovations to existing buildings within the area requires a Certificate of Appropriateness to be issued by the Heritage Commission and/or staff.”
“Vinyl siding, aluminum siding and new stucco are generally inappropriate on historic buildings.”
“Do not use synthetic materials as replacements for primary building materials.”
Source: City of Plano, Downtown Heritage Resource District Design Standards, 2016.
| Work | Decided by |
|---|---|
| Repair or replacement of a non-historic roof or roof materials | City staff (the Heritage Preservation Officer) |
| Repair or replacement of historic roof materials | The Heritage Commission |
| Gutters, soffits, roof brackets, exposed rafters and rafter ends, repaired or replaced to match existing | City staff |
| New gutters, soffits, brackets or rafter ends on the front or primary facade | The Heritage Commission |
Source: City of Plano, Heritage Preservation Officer delegation of duties, updated June 23, 2020.
Two things, mostly. First, time: a staff approval is quicker than a commission hearing, so it pays to know which one a job needs before a contractor is booked. A like-for-like replacement of ordinary roofing that is not itself historic sits on the faster path under the delegation list above.
Second, material. The standards are skeptical of synthetic siding on historic buildings, which narrows the choices on a siding replacement and makes repair in matching material the usual route. For the eaves, “to match existing” is the test; see fascia and soffit repair.
Whether a particular address is inside the district, and whether a building counts as historic, is for the city to say. This page does not draw the boundary. Ask the city's planning staff, or have the contractor ask, before anything is ordered.
Say that the address may be in the heritage district. It changes the order of the job.
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