 Oh, and you know what I don't have in front of me. I got your agenda and I've got your five year goals. I don't have the preamble. Oh yeah. Let me see if I can find it. I don't have it really available either. Okay. Look, here it is from February 16. That's the first paragraph. I'm not having public caring today, right? So it's just that first paragraph, right? Yeah. Okay. And do we have any audience members at this point? Okay. Okay. Okay. So it's 634. I'm Robin Ford and chair of the head Amherst historical commission. And I'm opening this meeting of the historical commission. July 10th, I believe it is. And pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order spending certain provisions of the open meeting law. The general law, sexy 30 a section 18 and percent to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 2022 by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022 and extended again by the state legislature on July 14 2022 and signed into law on July 16 2022. The public care of this public meeting of the town of Amherst historical commission is being conducted by a remote participation members of the public who wish to access this meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by technological means hyperlink to the hearing is posted on a town's online calendar. So that takes care of that part right. It does. Okay. So first item on our agenda is announcements. I just sent to members of the commission. I just sent an announcement for and I believe it was a, I can't remember the date and August meeting of the Western mass historical commission coalition which is specifically directed towards issues of community preservation act. So that's a zoom meeting and I would encourage anybody on our commission to attend if they can to learn about how the CPA act works and how it relates to the work of our commission. Other than that, I don't have any announcements to you Nate. No. Okay. So moving on to item number two, we welcome our new members. Michaela Razznick and and Todia Brolinburg, who are joining our commission for the first time today we are so delighted to have them and I'm just going to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves. So Michaela, if you want to go first and just tell us a little bit about yourself and your interest in the commission. Yeah, of course. Hi, I'm Michaela. I moved to Amherst. Just one year ago I work at Amherst college as the ADC of the Russian department. And I have a bachelor's degree in history from public State University in California. Welcome. Thank you. Hi, I'm Antonia. I'm a rising junior at Amherst college and I'm became very interested in seeing what the serving in the Amherst commission specifically the historical committee. Due to our the rich history of the town would be like so I'm really honored to be here. Thank you. Thank you for joining. Okay. Agenda item number three is the designation of commission representatives to design review board. Oh quickly Robin sorry could we just go around and maybe just do we can do roll call and then have members and myself. You can introduce each other. Okay, right. So roll call. So I guess I'm just going to call your name and if you're here say I. So Robin Fordham I'm the chair of the commission. I pet off. I'm the president. Okay. Madeleine Helmer. You said present there. And I'm a Kayla Rosnick. Hi. Okay, and Antonia Brillenberg. Present. And a heady startup is not present for this meeting. And that's all of us right for getting anyone. Okay, and I'll start by introducing myself I'm Robin Fordham I've been chair of the commission since I believe January of this year. I started serving on the commission and I think the fall of spring or fall of 2018. I recently got my historic preservation degree from the University of Vermont Masters degree in December of 2022. I am I have worked recently with the partner Valley Planning Commission and right now I'm looking for another job in the preservation field. Pat. I have great interest in architecture and historical buildings and communities and have kind of studied that as I've traveled the world, but I love living in Amherst, and I want wanted to be on this commission because I really want the character of Amherst to be protected even as we move to the future. I'm a psychotherapist and an educational person. And I'm happy to, to join you tonight. Yeah, can you hear me now. I can hear you now. My name is Madeline I work as an architectural historian and urban planner at a local consulting firm here in Amherst. So I have more than 10 years of experience in historic preservation and historic preservation planning. So, I moved to Amherst, like, two years ago, and this is my way of really getting to know the town better and yeah, being able to, to participate in, in historic preservation where I live. Thank you. Nate, did you want to give us a little bit of your background. I'm Nate, I'm a planner with the town, a staff planner I help with the commission a number of boards and committees, you know, planning board housing and some others. The, for new members I guess we haven't reached out yet but we can do an in person orientation or over zoom if you'd like. In the next month with Robin and myself. I have some housekeeping, you should have received a packet in the mail from the town clerk with open meeting law guide you have to do an online test and then be sworn in in person. I think it has to be in person at least. So if you haven't you can email me afterward and we can. I know someone last week and another board or committee hadn't received their packet yet, and they're appointed at the same time so it could just be delay in mail. Yeah, I've been working with the town for over 10 years. I have two degrees in landscape architecture and urban planning from UMass, and I live in the area. And you can see I have a really old photograph of town hall of my background. And Michaela, did you want to add anything. Nope, how about you and Tonya. I think you forgot. I think that's good for now. Okay, so designation of commission representatives to design review board and Community Preservation Act Commission. I currently serve as the designate to the Community Preservation Act Commission, I'm willing to continue that service, unless, well, I mean I would say yeah I'm willing to continue, I don't feel the need for anybody to take over at this point. So we haven't really talked about a representative to design review board so I'm curious if either our new members or Pat or Madeline would be interested in taking that on and maybe Nate wants to speak a little bit to the responsibilities there. Sure yeah the design review board there's a designer view district encompasses most of downtown and areas within 100 feet of the town common and any town project. The design review board is made up of representatives from other boards, and I think it's could be up to five members, three, three representatives and two at large members. And you provide design advice for projects anywhere from, you know can be signs to you know restaurants opening, even to larger projects new buildings you can look at everything from their massing to their streetscape and so, the commission has a representative that would be voted on by the commission, and then you could sit for a year and then it could change or you could remain. And it's been vacant for a little bit and so we don't have to decide tonight I just wanted to, you know Rob and I want to put on the agenda just to talk about it and then we could consider it. The next meeting the DRB meets as needed so sometimes they might not meet for a few months, you know it could be busy depending on how many projects are under their review but I'd say in the last few months they've only met twice. And their meetings are pretty quick. They've been pretty straightforward. Nate do they meet on zoom. They do. Yeah. I mean I think that's something all boards and committees might be talking about later, you know in the fall what what happens in terms of meeting but the other packets are online if you go to the boards and committees webpage for the town and then look under designer view board. The packet should be uploaded. I could double check in a little bit but um, yeah, until they provide recommendations to either other boards or to the town staff to the building commissioner. So planning boards were doing something for a land use permit. It might also go to the designer view board and then they provide recommendations or a summary memo to the planning board in terms of advice for that project. We've been trying to tell people especially restaurants downtown are typically subject to it and we tell them, consider this free design advice right you can go spend a half an hour people will comment on your, your science your graphics and you know, and you can have some, you know a good question. And so we've been trying to frame it that way. And for anybody on the commission who might be interested but feels like they don't quite know enough I mean I started on the CPA committee, not really knowing anything about CPA it's you know nothing wrong with starting and just listening your first few meetings and getting your, getting your experience that way so you should feel intimidated in that regard. Is there anybody who has any interest. I could Robin, as long as it's on zoom because in the wintertime I'll be out of the area and I would, I wouldn't want to commit if, if I require me being in person when I'm away. I thought I won't play he said she might be interested to but I don't she's not here right now. Okay, that's true I can, I can send her an email. Okay, well, what whichever of us works out is, I, I, we, you know, somebody has to do it. They can choose. Well, I think we need to exercise their prerogative. If she's already said she wanted to do it but otherwise I could consider it. Great. And do you know, we don't have a sense made of what in person versus zoom is going to be like in the fall. Excuse me. Yeah, so I think question for Nate. I mean, I think zooms allowed to continue to continue through things like June of 2025 so I think it's, I think it might be at the discretion of the border committee. And so I, you know, I do know that like a hybrid style where you're in town hall but it's also zoom is not an option so it's kind of like either going back to all in person or staying all remote and I, you know, I think something we could discuss I mean I, I throw my two cents in for remote meetings for a number of reasons but yeah, in a design review board has been meeting remotely, like I said, and they, you know, and they were typically used to me if they had a set schedules like the third Tuesday of the month at like three o'clock in the afternoon or something I mean that they try to have a, you know, something like that. Sure, that's doable. Okay, does the CPA Commission or committee. Do we want to vote on that now. I make a motion that we accept runs offer offer to represent us on the CPA Commission. Okay. I second that. Okay. Okay, so we'll do a roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Madeline. Yes. And Antonia. Yes. And I will also vote yes, so the vote is five zero and favor of confirming Robin Fordham as the historical commission representative to the Community Preservation Act for this year. Okay. And we will hold off on design review board for right now. I will email Eddie and find out where she stands on that. Yeah, you can, you can let us know Robin. Thank you. Sure. Thanks. Thanks for your offer, Pat. Thank you. And agenda item number four documentation of 140 Southeast Street. Did you want to talk to that night? Yeah, I think, you know, the, and I think it was the end of March, the, an owner of three properties on Southeast Street. You know, file demolition applications. And there was one structure 140, which appeared to be older, but was found not to be significant. And they asked that they invite us to document it more before it's demolished and I think they are trying to move forward with that product a bit. So, you know, I just think we could get out there and try to take pictures. I'm going to do measurements or something the contractor seemed willing to even do it himself and maybe assist with something I haven't reached. I, you know, I get emailed a while a few weeks ago and I had said well we still like to document and they seem amenable so. Okay. Madeline you probably have the most experience in this regard you have any interest in doing a site visit with me and Nate, I'm assuming Nate you would come. Yeah. Okay, I could come by. Okay. Just be an interesting, interesting and perhaps valuable experience. Yeah, let's set it up. You know, I can just I'll send an email tomorrow and we can just try to get a time maybe next week later this week. Does that, does that work. Yeah, I'm actually wide open so that's fine with me. Okay. Yeah, yeah, because I know that they, you know, you never know how fast they're really gonna have but they talked about moving forward. Okay. So agenda item number five we're going to have a discussion of commission goals. Nate, I hopefully sent you a list just moments ago. This is what I've come up with so far. Madeleine and I met and went over a few things. My idea for having one year and five year goals was to keep the commission, sort of on to keep in mind what our primary focuses. As we move from meeting to meeting, because oftentimes we would discuss things and then I'm as guilty as anyone to come to the next meeting without having made progress moving forward so I was trying to keep it simple and I had three ideas I had for our one year goals were to have our barn program launch so that is also the barn and outbuilding program and for our new members. We made a proposal to the Community Preservation Act Committee for funding to fund assessments of barns and outbuilding structures in Amherst. So the idea of being that these structures are at high risk for demolition because they've outgrown their usefulness if they're a barn or a carriage house, or even attached garage there's often necessarily being used for their original purpose they might be a good structural condition but owners don't really have a sense of how they could modify them or make a use of them and so we wanted to provide the owners in Amherst the opportunity to have a match if I'm remembering how I developed our program. A match of funding so that they could have a professional come and assess the structure, and that would include historical documentation and also just kind of a general sense of what might be possible for rehabilitation or reuse of the resource and that program was approved by the CPA committee, and on July 1, some 10 days ago, those funds became available. So we wanted to the historical commission has been talking in particular about barns for several years now, but we wanted to try to have an event that would both promote this program, and also just promote the barns in our area. So, looking toward October. Madeleine I talked a little bit we thought three barn tour would be perfectly sufficient maybe having an agricultural barn, a carriage barn and maybe something like a detached garage as part of. I didn't identify those but the who landed on the number three is being kind of a reasonable amount in a two hour time frame to go from one location to another. I did connect with John Porter who I worked with last fall, I did a barn survey up in Lebanon New Hampshire is a UNH professor emeritus who does talks about barns in New Hampshire all the time and has a wealth of knowledge. He does travel as long as the weather is good and he's reimburse for his expenses so he would be happy to join us which I think would be great. And then we would like to maybe focus on getting a mailing out to. So, I need I'm not sure when the outbuilding survey started, but we have a survey that was conducted of outbuildings around the town and so we have addresses for property owners who have outbuildings that we've worked on to define some of the programs that we would love to get a specific mailing to them to say, you know, consider having your barn or outbuilding assessed, and then maybe a town social media push to promote the program as well. So this is a program that I learned about from Madeline, which I guess takes place in May of every year. I'm going to screw up chains last weekend, I was going to say Jane Adams, Jane Jacobs. Thank you. And these are just small neighborhood walks that can be organized by anyone and they seem like a really great town event. If the historical commission wanted to work on them within this next year to have one or two to see how having some architectural tours would go. And then finally, a focus on our modernist housing, starting to develop support for a survey of modernist buildings, but then Amherst, which has such a strong history before the modernist period, but we do have a good number of these resources around town. And we'd like to develop a list of those properties and maybe begin preliminary research on them. And then five year goals, Nate, you can help me a little bit on this one because I can't quite remember what the status is with East Village Historic District of Hooker in the middle of an update that resource. I think we still have to contract with PVPC to update the inventory forms and document. And the idea is we have a East Village National Register District from, actually I forget when it was actually done. And then the idea was to expand it, we had Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, look at possible expansion areas. And then, at the same time, the Local Historic District Commission is looking at East Amherst for a local historic district. And so they're looking at kind of doing a similar thing, updating inventory forms on 40 to 50 properties, and then defining a boundary which may or may not be coterminous with the National Register District. So there's some synergy there. And some of it is just to East Amherst is the oldest village center in town. And it sells at a store common and a number of buildings from the late 1700s that are still, you know, still in pretty good condition and so some of it was just, you know, documenting that and then celebrating that, making it a little bit more aware. The town is planning some projects there with affordable housing and it's, you know, as one of the older village centers there's really not a lot of protections for the homes. I think that was some of it. Okay, okay. So that's on the five year goal and then the idea with the five year goals is that they move from the five year goals to the one year goal. Sort of as things kind of pick up speed. The other a second area that I was thinking about was just identifying our non traditional historic resources. I went to the bridges exhibit at the Amherst College Library and took a look at the National Register District and that part of town and was thinking about how we can continue to focus on unearthing and promoting aspects of Amherst history that are not a traditional kind of white narrative. So the general inventory update in terms of looking at our macros inventory and for our new members and also maybe our existing members. This is the, the inventory system for cultural resources and existing records within the macro system that were that were completed before I can't quite remember what the cut update is, is it like 94 or is it in that nature remember that there's a point where MHC really changed the standards for what an inventory form looks like so we may have a number of inventory forms, they were completed in the 70s on the 80s that need much more significant research and expansion of their historic narratives and their architectural descriptions. So that's kind of a big ongoing project but through that on there so that's the beginning of our one year and five goals and people are free to anybody when it adds wants to add to the discussion or think suggest things that should be added to either listed be happy to hear commentary on that. It seems to me rather than that the Jane walks are are interesting, but that we would, we would partner with the local historic districts, because they're very familiar with the properties within the district and would have historical information that would be pertinent to leading a walk. That's a good point but the local historic district and it's certainly the historical society. I know and just in my neighborhood here which isn't in a local historic district. Looking at map maps from the sandborn fire maps about all the factories that used to exist along along the train tracks and the relationship of certain buildings that were used to work or housing and that sort of thing like you don't even need it's it's what's kind of cool about the Jane walks is you can just pick like a, you know, three block area as the as an amateur just right again and see what you can find attractive up a little bit more. Yeah, I just sort of, you know, in honor of Jane Jacobs to just encourage anyone to dig into the history of an area and then what, and then just give a given a pretty informal walking tour to just show that history on foot and I think what we would do is really sort of set up the structure for it and then kind of encourage anyone to to lead their own James Jane walk maybe some of us would be interested in doing that you sort of hold it on one weekend in May is when they all just sort of spring up and and members of the public can can tap in and, you know, meet at the site and and see the walk when it happens. And then it's just the one year. Yeah. And what I think one of the reasons why it feels to me is because it can include places that are not as obviously as obvious as the historic district but of course those places can be too but yes you're right those. You're right pat, I'm partnering with the local historic districts would be an obvious way to get some really great walks going to so hopefully that's something that we can move forward with in the next year. And just to say quickly for new members and I guess as a reminder, you know pvpc is still working on updating the preservation plan. And so I think we could invite them to a meeting soon. And I can send this to Robin, I can send this to Shannon to copy you, just so that we could have a discussion to if she, you know, a little delayed in terms of their progress but they have done outreach survey we did a community survey they've been doing. We're going to do some stakeholder meetings but they researched the current preservation plan and bylaws. And the idea is we're hoping as part of the preservation plan update they would focus on kind of action items and so this, you know, would marry well with what I know value planning commission is doing and so it gets a little bit more specific so the preservation plan is gosh it's like 20 years old already, almost but you know it has some, some concrete steps but some of it was you know short, medium and long term goals. And some of them were pretty specific and others are more just general and so I think this can be a supplement or can really, you know, add to what pvpc has been doing so really hoping we can get some actual items for the you know one to three year goals. You know, whether or not, you know, as Robin mentioned we can get caught up with, say in the CPA process sometimes reviewing proposals might take you know to meet you know, time out of two or three meetings and then there's big demolition projects and so it's nice to have a structure that can guide the commission, especially year to year. And I do like the, the modernist housing I feel like there's, you know, maybe only a few that I've been actually inventory but there's probably a lot more that could be. Hi, I'm Nate, what does it so my understanding is that. If you have a, it's not called a subcommittee, what is it called like a task force, like a Madeleine and heady and I would like to work together on that. And this would be a good meeting to maybe establish that as a structure I think that we did that for all of the task force we were doing also the demolition delay by a lot of rewrite. So we would be the three members who would be working on that we were going to develop start with just developing a list of, of addresses and maybe bring that to the next meeting or in two months and go from there. Yeah, I guess a little tricky between, you know, an ad hoc group in a subcommittee so as long as we don't necessarily vote on it and you're really just kind of doing information gathering. Okay, at some point we start getting more into, you know, substantive discussion about whether or not something significant or should be reserved but if it's really just kind of pulling up addresses and doing information gathering that's fine. Okay, great. Okay, any other, any other comments on one and five year goals. The modernist housing surveys. It's just important to realize that so much of Amherst was surveyed in the 1980s and everything had to be 50 years old then. So that means there's so many properties that were built after 1935 that we just don't know about. So, you know, they're not a macros represented them through the MHC website. So, I think it would be really interesting to look at all those. Great. Any other comments on that agenda item. I think, oh, I guess this isn't on that agenda item but this all looks really interesting and I think one thing, even though it's in the five year goals, the identifying non traditional historic resources. I'm really interested in doing research for that I know that like the Amherst library Frost library has a lot like a huge archive I think, and it's been doing a lot of work of uncovering different narratives of history of the town so I could reach out to them and see what they've been working on. I think that would be great. That would be great and yeah anybody who wants to just raise their hand and join any of these initiatives feel free. Thank you. That's, that's exciting. Any other comments. Okay, so in the case I would say that we will go into agenda item six discussion of CPI funding for historic preservation soft costs. Do you want to speak to that me. Actually, I will just say one other somewhat related but you know tangential is that the a few years ago there's a core case of state ruled that there's if the fall some strict test to award CPA funding to religious institutions. Oftentimes, you know churches are also very historic in a community, especially Massachusetts but the town has awarded CPA funding to you know a number of churches and we're, we just need the town voted some for South church and we have some others that are, we've been working with and so it's not going to get into this but I think, you know, moving forward Robin as the CPA rep I was just going to say that if a church is interested in using CPA funding we should just have them contact the town right away and I think the town attorneys at KP loss that we should just kind of vet it right right up front even if they're before they even submit a CPA application we can try to frame it so that we can know that it's eligible. And so, okay. My understanding is that the eligibility is related to public access and public view right but it can't promote you can't promote the mission of the church like it can't promote the religious mission. And it has to be accessible to public. That's a little more nuanced, unfortunately, but you know we kind of do that to make sure it is but I think we should just I think we have to be. You know, just do it I guess it's a we've been doing along the process but I think we should just jump on that. Right extra extra scrutiny send them straight to you. But for the soft costs I mean it's the same thing though so we've been working with one or two churches to help them apply for CPA funding and so to me it's related in that, you know a lot of organizations don't have the funding David. I do an assessment of their building or nowhere to start and so oftentimes they might need to hire an engineer or an architect or historian to look into the structure and then come up with a proposal. But the CPA committee often wants the proposal already in hand right they want the cost estimates they want the scope of work, and a lot of organizations and applicants just don't have that ability to put one together to put that that information together. And so we've been somewhat hamstrung by the by that lack of funding right to start kind of do this, please pre development assessments. And so some of it would be working with the CPA committee to apply for funding to get that either through the start preservation aspect of CPA or from the administrative funds but I think a lot of people don't understand historic preservation and that I think studying about it and even making that public is part of preservation and so I think sometimes you will think like just bricks and mortar is preservation right you, you fix the, the, you know, you fix something you fix the chimneys that's preservation you fix the roof, and they don't necessarily understand that studying something researching it documenting it is also can also be preservation in terms of education and outreach and so you know we've in the past we had some money from CPA for this and it had it in a little bit and Robin and I have talked about trying to regain some of that funding because, for instance, someone came to the commission or this year to demolish a house in North Amherst it was found to be significant and there's a delay issued and staffs been working with the owner to determine what could happen with the house and they had asked like Oh, is there any more is there funding for me to study it a little bit more like, I'm like no. Is there funding if you want to do something I'm like sorry. No. And it would be great if we had some some some small amount of money that we could match the owner, so that then they could do a little bit more work. The owner is has been doing things on his own, but it's just you know it's, it's hard when we find something significant or we think it has value but then we don't have the ability to to research it or document it. Right and that can be overwhelming for the owner. Nate, do you and I mean I know that I think I'm sure you're swamped with everything. I think I sent you again, the language from the CPA committee which you know there is this language in there that basically says, you know you can't fund it. I mean my my translation of of the language of the, this is the guidance from the Department of revenue is that unless it's necessary for the town to have that assessment in order to basically steward that historic resource. It's, you know, it's pretty clear that there's this kind of wiggle room in there and I don't know if you and I want to make a presentation to the CPA committee. I don't know if the town council wants to be there so that we could, we could settle it once and for all, that would be great. I think it might be take, you know, some research by the Commission and, you know, right, the two of us or that could be three of us making a present presentation of the CPA committee. So I just, yeah, I don't we don't have so I need to involve town council. At this point unless we want to become some kind of policy but I think I think we should start the conversation. I look at my, yeah it's already mid July but maybe the next month or two right we'd meet with the CPA committee. Yeah, that would be great we're good to start off the, it would be good to start off the CPA. And you'll process what the discussion of that and then to with the intent of making it I mean I would like to see it be a policy because it's a firing to kind of you know, to have to reinvent the real every year and argue for it so. Yeah, that's essentially the intention of the historic commission is to support the funding of soft costs for applicants for CPA funds, right. General justice things. Anybody have any questions around that. Yeah, I do some research. And you know if you if you see an article that you know sometimes there's great articles, just floating around out there that talk about you know the importance of documentation or research for a store preservation you can just send Robert or myself a link it's okay to send information between commission members. You know, the previous chair of the CPA committee this is an over years ago used to say that, you know with affordable housing for instance you just roll in soft costs into the total development costs you just kind of bury it in the cost of construction and so it's not called out as a line item but with preservation oftentimes it is because they'd like to see, you know the scope of work or this kind of preservation plan or something ahead of time and so becomes this discreet phase that then is difficult to fund as part of this total project right and ran into this last year someone came to the CPA committee and said oh I think I need $600,000 to fix the roof siding and whatever and then the committee is like well, can you really work with someone to refine that number and it's like well. That's where we want. They don't have they don't have the funding. Right yeah it's kind of like the cart before the horse. Okay. Okay, so moving on next agenda item is update and programming for our historic barns of buildings assessment pilot program has been an update from you. I think we're in the funding portion. Yeah, I think we're in it I just I haven't. I think the idea of reaching out to the property owners that were identified by the plenty of value planning commission is by the next first next step right. I think that's the step and I have to revisit my notes, because I had spoken with an assessment specialist who's I think is based on Pennsylvania. I wanted to develop a roster of at least you know three or four entities who could provide services because it's, it's definitely a challenging thing to track down and if we could provide, you know, a list of three or four people that people could call there are our existing members and our new members down the street from me. There is people I know who own a rental property that a bus their primary residence which has an attached barn at the back that they're looking to adapt into housing and it has. I think they're called King boards. I don't remember a lot about history but but they're like a perfect example of. I need to get back in touch with them but a great project where there's a property owner who wants to adapt the existing structure wants to treat it with historical sensitivity and could use funds to help drive their project so we have any other update from the town Nate just on. I mean the funds are available at this point right. No I had someone I had someone else talking to me. Coming up to you on the on the historic comment to talk to you. I mean, there's there's nothing more from the town in terms of that program just that the funds are available at this point right. Yeah, yeah, yeah they were just ruled over, you know, last week so I think we can get. Okay, great. Old business policy for historic preservation restrictions. We had talked about this so with CPA funding oftentimes we had required a permanent preservation restriction which needs to be approved and reviewed by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, it adds a lot of time and actually costs. As well, and it may not be necessary and so the commission's met talked about it for a number of months on and off about allowing you know having. CPA funding but having a local restriction, you know, term limited restriction whether that's 30 years or 50 or 99, which may or may not be in perpetuity for some people but you know I've asked the attorney or the town's attorney is to develop a draft restriction. I think that would make the projects a lot more amenable to some. So, oftentimes when we apply with some if an outside agency is looking for funding. You know it is public funding so I do you want to have some in some some way to make that investment, have a public benefit, but you know a permit restriction or encumbrance on the property is usually deterrent. And so, it's surprising but it does will keep a lot of projects from coming forward or receiving this kind of funding. Yeah, just for our, our new members and a reminder to the same numbers, the preservation restriction. One point is that when we fund something with Community Preservation Act funds, we create something called a restriction which keeps historically insensitive activities from happening to a building that we just invested a lot of money and preserving historic, it's historic integrity. So, I mean an easy example would be if we were to fund a roof repair for a historic church which had existing windows that were historic, and they wanted to replace them with final replacement windows that would be in violation of the restriction restriction would be there so that whatever further activity that they wanted to do the building would be guided by appropriate limitations that have to do with preserving the historic integrity of the building. But our restrictions in the past have been, I guess, in perpetuity, and that has caused entities to decide that they don't want to go for the funding because it's too restrictive. So, we talked about a 30 year limit, particularly for smaller projects where probably within those 30 years somebody's going to come for Community Preservation Funding, again, and that will start the 30 year clock and and hopefully it helps create a situation where people are interested in the funding and not dissuaded by kind of an overly restrictive programmatic dealing with the building but that ultimately in the long term will still serve to benefit the historic integrity of the resource. Yeah, I mean that in the Jones library I just finally reported we have a restriction on the Jones library. And so, you know that that is through mass historic it's a, it took a long time to get approved. So that actually will be coming back to the Commission, probably in the next two months as you know and there'll be a hearing, both the demolition hearings don't tear down part of the back but also to review the project, following the restriction guidelines and so there's minor alterations and major alterations and if, you know, something's a major alteration that needs review by the Commission so it's not, you know, the Commission could allow, you know, a Robin said vinyl windows. They could allow it but you'd have to justify it and so once you know we get into that, I can provide information and guidance but you know mass historic for instance requires that the restriction be on the entire property. And so there's a number of properties that change boundaries over time or grow and so, for instance, the Jewish community of Amherst has CPA funding, and now they have three buildings on their property. And when we went to mass historic they said we went around the entire property you have to do a lot more work to document all the buildings we said well the funding is only on one building. At a time that was its own property and yada yada yada so now you know it just became it's still we're still working through it it's just, it's a really difficult thing. Mass historic can just say no, and then we have to comply and so the CPA does say that you need a restriction when you acquire an interest in property most communities mean that's when you purchase a property not when you fund projects and so, you know there's some kind of legal, you know kind of terminology there so I think we're safe to not have permanent restrictions North Hampton for instance when they award CPA funding for many projects don't require a restriction at all. And so I agree with Robin that smaller projects whatever that means in terms of dollar amount or, or a proportion to assess value, you know shouldn't necessarily have a permanent restriction. I think that could help with a lot more projects coming forward. Just a question to the lister for other communities as to what their preservation restriction policy is just to get an idea of how other communities handle it throughout the state. That'd be great. So anybody have any questions about policy for historical duration restrictions. Okay. So national register nominations. Yeah, I, you know I've been working with PVP see a little bit. You know we had submitted a few before COVID right as code was was hitting and it's taken mass historical long time to get caught up and so, you know they preliminary, preliminarily approved to district expansions and nominations and it's just, it does require some extensive follow up so as as Madeline and Robin mentioned Amherst has probably over 2000 properties inventory but you know 1000 of those inventory forms are completed. In the 80s early 90s and they're an old format and they don't have a lot of research done on the properties and so mass historic has asked that we essentially just complete a whole new inventory form for every property in the district and that's a, you know, a project. This is East Village District. East Village even the district, they asked some questions about how or why that would be a different district and I'm sorry I missed that. I looked at doing like an expansion to the Depot district, you know it was like right near the difference with the railroad tracks and so it has some questions about why that would be different than either the Dickinson or the East East Amherst and so I'm not working through that but yeah there is some extra CPA money that Commission has and I, we talked about this I think two months ago and we're having pvpc hoping that pvc pvpc update inventory forms. It's just it's a it is a slow process but I just, you know I think it's something we don't want to forget about. Okay. So it's the what are the National Registering Domination so it's not individual properties that are being. Districts. Okay, so it's the East Village and the Depot district. Yeah. And so there's just some back and forth between pvpc and mhc on that. I think we might have to give pvpc an extra some extra funding just so they can complete the inventory forms. Okay, and is that something that will go forward as a CPA proposal. There was, we still have left over funding from two years ago. Okay. Okay, and do we have any, any individual National Register nominations that we're interested in putting forward. No, so you know we can, you can, you can list individual properties. And, you know, a number of years ago we had looked at one down on West Street and then one on East, East Pleasant but I don't think there's any right now that have been discussed. Okay. Yeah, that was, I'm just thinking about whether there's anything within the, the snow street. I can't remember what the name of that district is the, you know, I didn't really, I hadn't really even known about it to until I went to the The Bridges exhibit but you know, really interesting to whether something within this traditional African American community was, you know, whether it was the, is it the Goodwin church is that the, or, you know, whether there's something there that that would warrant heading to the National Register level. I don't know, I mean there's Baker Street over there and, yeah, I mean, it could just be a drive by a kind of survey windshield survey and see if there's anything that could be worth looking into. Okay. Yeah, the map. Yeah, the, you know, when you do when you listen to individual property that individual property owners need to agree to it and they, you know, they're somewhat not they're not they're not necessarily involved but you know you may need to get into the interior of the property and the house to take pictures and so it's more, you know, it's a little bit more involved than a district nomination. Okay. And just for our new members so National Register nominations are. They're like an honorary title there. They don't come with any funding, but they do elevate a building's importance when it comes to, like, for example, if something comes before the CPA committee for funding, and it's either what we would call a contributing resource in a, in a National Register historic district, so you have an entire area that has a bunch of properties in it or if it's an individual building listed on the National Register. It just gives the property more weight and so one of the, one of the responsibilities of a historical commission is to make sure that the inventory of the town is up to date and that's, that's one of the things that we can do so particularly looking for these nontraditional narratives and and seeing that there's a balance in our inventory to elevate the different stories of the universe should be something that I'm thinking about. Yeah, just quickly it is important. I mean, you know, for instance, South Church was awarded CPA funding and then the questions came up whether or not it was eligible being a religious institution. You know, I was able to pull from the district nomination and from the inventory form so it was inventory actually in the 70s was by one of the earliest properties but because the church was identified as a really important architectural feature on the South Amherst Common, you know, and it was documented 60 years ago 70 years ago, however long ago right that there's always been something written about it that it's architecturally it's an important feature and then it was, you know, this was all solidified in the nominations. It really helped it be eligible for CPA funding and so nonprofit organization, even a private individual depending on what happens. You know, I think like Robin said that elevating it to that status can really help it apply for grants or receive funding or, you know, certain recommendations. Yeah, yeah and it's not just CPA funding it's other funding as well so definitely. Okay. Any other questions about national register nominations for comments. Okay. So barn tours we talked a little bit about work in progress. I will not be at the next meeting but I will commit at this point to having an update on that by the next meeting. Anybody have any questions or comments on bar tours. Okay. So then we would move to public comment. There is anyone in the public who would like to comment on the proceedings of this meeting of the historical commission. I guess feel free to raise your hand. We're still, you know, help us here she's one member I don't see anyone else. Okay. So interested in making a comment. Any hands being raised. Okay. All right. So then we move to unanticipated items. And the only one that I would come up with for this meeting is that I just wanted to report that. I attended the doko Momo, maybe now one kind of can remind me what all that it's documenting. You can do it. What's the mo what's the other mo. Modernist. I'm not sure. The doko Momo is a presentation group that focuses on the documenting and conservation of modernist buildings, all around. I think it's international. Is it internationally. Was it just nationally. I don't know if it's a North American or just us. Okay, just us. Okay. So I'm heading and I decided to head down and go to a couple of paper sessions on Friday. And I went to a couple of tours on Friday and Saturday. I attended the paper session on reexamining reexamining the model city and the model campus. And one was specifically about Yale, which was not quite pertinent to the Amherst experience, but one was a general history of how universities expanded during the brutalist period, and that was a really interesting paper session just understanding and I have a bunch of notes that I need to write up understanding how government funding came in at this time when she said the GI or the baby boomers, but it was the I think the GI generation coming in, maybe they were famous to creating this really huge expansion and need for campuses all over the country to expand to accommodate this huge influx of students and that coincided with the modernist movement, which is why you get a lot of buildings, like we have in Massachusetts, and the Amherst campus and the Dartmouth campus, and I think that you mess Boston campus. And so that was really interesting to understand the context for why those buildings came in and how they got funded at the time that they did. Then one of the other presenters was from the Dartmouth campus and they had developed a 45 minute campus tour, they're really trying to promote brutalism as an architectural style which is not beloved by all Muslims and Amherst, they appreciate that some people love brutalism and some people don't, and I have come to love it over time, but I was surprised as I was, as I was sitting in the session, realizing I didn't really know who built our buildings to learn that the both the campus center which was built by what was signed by Marcel Brewer, and then the Fine Arts Center which was coven Roche are really substantial architects in their field, and that there was this, you know, big design, and there's a whole story behind the whole UMass campus and while they're well I don't quite know what I know that we weigh in on some Amherst, UMass Amherst projects I don't know that we have, we don't have demolition delay control over there right now but we do connect with them they come to us to talk about the projects. One of the things that I learned when I was in my first class at UMass Amherst and the history of historic preservation was the adaptation of the UMass Fine Arts Center to create that lobby which had been an open space, which had been designed by the original architect Kevin Roche to be sort of a new scape on to the campus pond. And my understanding of the class at that time was that the adaptation that was made to it was not really in line with the architect's vision. And one of the tours that we got to go on was actually for the Kevin Roche architectural offices which had descended from those of Eros Saranen so we actually we went to the Yale ice rink which had been designed by Saranen and then was adapted by Roche and so you were able to see this example of an architecture built by one architect and that was adapted to try to keep in line with the original idea so that the vision was not disturbed. So those really interesting and informative. And then Hedy also attended a session called Live, Laugh, Preserve, Stories and Strategies for Saving Modern Homes. And that was interesting it was, she explained it to me we were in separate sessions. It just showcased preservation efforts for single family modernist, modernist dwellings and a bunch of different locations facing various challenges. One in particular was like in the Hamptons where a lot of smaller modernist buildings are facing knockdown because people want to build larger, more expansive structures. So that was a really interesting and valuable experience and I hope that it helps us kind of weigh in a little bit when we have more as we approach kind of documenting our modernist resources and thinking about them and the context of Amherst history. And with that, our next meeting date. I believe it's August 10th, is that right? So we decided. I think it's either the 10th. I think I think we decided the 10th and that Madeline would take the helm. And so either day, either of the days we will have a demolition application. We're moving part of an older barn in South Amherst. They're actually not. It meets our definition of demolition where you take down 25% of a facade. It's a it's a it's an attached shed onto an older barn. And so they're really not necessarily demolishing the older barn but they are new, you know then cover one whole facade with a new addition and so, you know it. It's too complicated. They're not, you know, they're actually going to for a separate foundation and not disturb the older barn, which is a probably could be from the late 19th century but anyways that'll be on the August agenda, and then anything else, you know I'm not. The Jones library project, you know the Jones library has been working on an expansion project for a while. And then they are getting ready to submit a demolition application, as well as a review of the restriction. And so, Robin with you, with you not being here in August and then I'm on vacation that week before the 10th. You know, I would probably want that meeting to be in September. And that way, we can try to make sure we get everyone here. And now that could be you know that I think for the new members, you know the library edition. You know there's definitely some proponents and then opponents of it and so at that meeting would be two separate public hearings. That would happen at one meeting at a concurrent meeting but one would be reviewing the demolition request and then also reviewing the projects in terms of the preservation restriction I think it makes sense to have them together because they, you know, it's kind of one of the same. But you know as a public hearing would allow public comment, and it could be a long meeting so you know I might suggest that in September that could be that'll likely be one agenda topic and maybe we have either a second meeting that month because it could be that we spend two hours just talking about the library. Maybe it's its own meeting. Okay. So can I just clarify the meeting is on the 10th. So that's fine with Madeline to chair because I won't be there. Yes, it's fine. Okay, so yeah, it would be the 10th I leave the night the night, which is why it would be good for me to go out for comments, but that works with everybody I mean I've got everybody but me available on the tense. Thank you. Yeah, for September, I will have limited availability, because I'm I'm expecting. I'll have a newborn. Perfect. I don't know if I can make hours long meetings but we'll see. I'll be back in September. No, I just yeah I'm anticipating that the library discussion will be could be like the. Okay. Yeah, I'll try. Okay. So, yeah, I was gonna say we can always shift meeting times, you know we can pull members but we have our August meeting set but you know in September if we need to, you know, we can if we need to be flexible on around them just saying you know especially with a zoom meeting we could we need to shift the start time or something. If it works for members that's fine. Yeah. And then I guess going back to unanticipated items. We are still one member down. I sent you an email and this is just to throw out to the commission. I would like to invite Onika Lopes, who's been behind the Civil War tablets and bridges project to either join our committee or to recommend someone to join our commission. I was also curious about the possibility of aligning a member of the local historic district commission to be an alternate member so if we get into a bind where we have demolition hearing and we're having trouble making whether that could be explored as a possibility. And then I think we've never reached out to or if we have I don't know to the historical society to have somebody from their organization or someone that they could recommend to join the commission to all the great assets so looking for non traditional voices looking for strong rich history voices looking for somebody from the historic district commission to be an overlay between the two would be awesome. I don't know about that in terms of an alternate but I do think we could ask, you know, it's, it's okay to ask people to recruit members, you know that this minute, you know, a citizen activity form so I don't think counselors could serve on this commission. You know they might be a liaison but they might not. I don't think counselors can also then serve on other boards and committees. Okay, but but I think we could ask you know that they at least they can you know they could refer someone or they might have an I was on because the counselor right. Right. Or I need to I don't see it right. Okay, okay yeah but I would love to have for recommendation. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Robin, I could reach out to her if you want to reach out to her I think that's a great idea. Okay, great. Yep. And if anybody has any suggestions for anyone, they know that they take the big good addition. Send me an email. And then for Antonio and Michaela just maybe I said this in an email to everybody but public meeting. Open meeting law requires no deliberation between members with the with the quorum, which means that whenever some an email is sent out to all of us. If you reply all with a comment on something. It can potentially be a violation of open meeting so we always ask that if you're ever replying to an email from me or me with all the members just reply to the one person. One of the one person that you're whether it's Nate who's sending it or me who's sending it or if you want to have a conversation with another commission member that's perfectly fine but you can't do it with a group of four or more or so. You can't reply all. And I would say oftentimes it's unintentional. And that's exactly right. Yes, right. Got it. Yep. Got it. Thank you for that. Okay. You know, it's, it's, it's something that happens. It happens with every board and committee someone might send an article, which is fine. Hey, here's a great article and someone writes back and says, Oh, this is really interesting. I really like this part and maybe we can look into it and then another committee member writes all and says, Yeah, that's great. I've been thinking about doing this too and then all of a sudden you have four people. It really should be a conversation in an open meeting happening over email. And as long as you have that conversation in an open meeting it doesn't, you know, mean that it's okay to have it over email but sometimes just, you know, it's just it happens so quickly online. Yeah. Basically, so just never play off the basic shorthand. Okay, so our next meeting date is I was 10th at 630. I will be chairing the meeting. And that was our last agenda item. So, if there is no objection from anyone here or public. I will call the close of this meeting of the historical commission at 746 p.m. And my understanding is we don't need a vote to close right. Okay. Well, thanks everyone. Good night everyone. Bye.