Our 1958 Santa Clara ranch is not on any historic list. Does that mean it is not historic?
Not on its own. The city considers a home 50 years old or older a potential historic resource and then weighs its architecture, neighborhood and local significance; the inventory itself leaves out many structures that were never surveyed. If the parcel record in Accela flags the house as potentially historic, a window replacement there goes to over-the-counter architectural review.
Can new windows go through a Building Simple Permit?
No. Simple Permits cover like-for-like HVAC equipment, solar through SolarAPP+, re-roofs, water and sewer lines, clean-outs and water heaters at single-family homes, duplexes and ADUs, and windows are not on the list. Townhomes, condos and properties in historic areas are excluded altogether. The city's advice when the record type is unclear is to apply for a Building Regular Permit through the online portal.
Our Old Quad house has a Mills Act contract. Does that change the window work?
It gives the house its own column in the city's historic permit table. For a Mills Act property, a single window replacement takes a Minor SPA permit over the counter or a Major SPA, and replacing street-side windows or more than half of them takes a Major SPA. The table applies the Secretary of the Interior's Standards to Mills Act properties, as it does to houses on the inventory.
We are adding a window on the side of our second floor. What will Santa Clara look at?
Privacy, under the design guidelines. Where a new second-floor window faces a side property line less than 15 feet away, the city encourages a sill at least five feet above the floor, or clerestory or frosted glass, and asks that upstairs side windows be kept to the minimum size the building code allows for light, ventilation and emergency egress. Second-floor bathroom windows should use obscure glass where possible.
Does lead-safe work apply to window replacement in a Santa Clara house?
In any house built before 1978, yes. EPA's rule exempts small jobs that disturb only a few square feet of paint, but not work that involves window replacement, so the firm needs EPA or state certification. That reaches most of the city's post-war tracts and the Old Quad, and leaves out newer neighborhoods such as Rivermark.
Our inventory house needs new street-side windows. When does the Historical and Landmarks Commission see it?
At one of its regular meetings: the seven-member commission, appointed by the City Council, typically meets once a month on the first Thursday at 6 p.m. Replacing the street-side windows of an inventory house, or more than half of its windows, is a Major SPA, so the commission makes a recommendation and the Director of Community Development decides. On such a house the window order is worth placing after that decision rather than before it.
