The Urbana City Council should be making its final decision on the historic designation of the Zeta Tau Alpha women’s fraternity house on Monday, after pushing back the decision from its July 15 meeting. 

The house, located at 1404 S. Lincoln Ave., was originally nominated for historic designation on April 8  and was approved by the Urbana Historic Preservation Commission to be designated a historic landmark. 

But because the owner, the Zeta Tau Alpha Housing Fraternity Association, objected to it being designated a landmark, the city council has to approve its designation with a two-third majority vote. 

When the topic of deferring the ordinance until the next city council meeting came up, city attorney James Simon said that the ordinance of the preservation says that city council must make a decision on the landmark status soon. 

“There is a time frame in which the council must act from the date that the historic preservation committee has made its recommendation, and that time-frame runs out August 5,” Simon said. “If no action is taken, then it dies and no action can be taken on this particular property for 12 months.”

Although no meeting was scheduled for Aug. 5, Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing said that if two council members request it, then it can be done. Eric Jakobsson, Ward 2, and Dennis Roberts, Ward 5, requested for the meeting. 

Deferring the ordinance was suggested when Roberts said that Brianna Kraft, the student who nominated the house for historic preservation, would be available for telecommunication so that the owners could question the nominator.

“My suggestion is that we arrange for it at our next meeting and let the nominator present the case and satisfy any questions we have,” Roberts said. 

Colleen Ramais, the attorney representing the owners, had said in her initial statement that the nominator had not been present so that the owners could ask questions. Although Roberts gave Ramais his suggestion via telecommunication, Ramais said she and the owners would prefer a vote that evening.

“Yes, we would like an opportunity to interact with the petitioner, but it really should have happened back at the public hearing,” she said. “This has taken a lot of time and money.”

Whether it should be marked as a historic landmark has been debated by city council since it first showed up at city council on June 17. It was originally pushed back in June when Charlie Smyth, Ward 1, wanted to amend the ordinance, so the owners could replace the windows with safer, more efficient ones. 

However, although being able to replace the windows and fixing the roof is still under debate, the council members’ main debate is whether the nominator’s presence at meetings should affect the historic landmark decision. This was still under discussion on July 15 with Michael Madigan, Ward 6, and Carol Ammons, Ward 3, who both believed that council should vote on the matter that evening. 

Ammons and Madigan had shown disagreement with the property’s historic designation at previous meetings because they both believed that if the owner objects to the preservation, then the nominator should be present to answer any questions that the owner might have. Madigan showed a great dislike in deferring the ordinance if the only purpose was for Kraft to present her case.

“They (the owners) should have been able to question her (Kraft) at the historic preservation committee meeting, and we’re basically saying that we’re going to let you fix this now,” Madigan said. “I think that is totally inappropriate.”

Because city council rules say that when an ordinance is deferred, it does not require a vote, the ordinance was successfully deferred despite the objections of Ammons and Madigan. 

Kat can be reached at [email protected].