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City hears staff and volunteers on two-track plan to preserve historic rice dryers

City of Katy City Council · April 27, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

City staff and a volunteer Historic Preservation Advisory Group outlined two options for saving Katy’s rice dryers: use the already-adopted International Existing Building Code (IEBC) now to allow reuse after a point-based safety review, and pursue a zoning or local landmark approach later to require demolition review and stronger protections.

City staff and a volunteer advisory group presented the council with two paths to preserve the city’s historic rice-dryer structures and encourage compatible redevelopment.

Community development staff explained the immediate option is to apply the International Existing Building Code (IEBC), a point‑based compliance method the city adopted in its 2023 code update. The IEBC lets property owners hire licensed design professionals to evaluate existing conditions against safety, egress and fire-safety criteria and submit a score-based package to the city. As a staff member summarized, the IEBC “is a point-based method” that can…

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