 forget. Nate, we can see you. Got a haircut. I said I cleaned up, so now I'm going to kill myself. He still wasn't showing until I needled him. My wife's like, why don't you video yourself? I'm like, it's the message that our people are supposed to hear, not what I'm talking about. I hope so. We have everyone here. Jane, Sheffler just joined us. That's great. I don't think I have any emails from anyone. Yeah, it looks like everyone's here. Sorry, I just put my phone near the computer. Maybe we can go for a roll call for attendance and then yep, I don't see anyone else. There may be one or two others who are joining us, who will join us, but no one from the commission or anyone, so I think we're good. Okay, so we'll take a roll call attendance. Pat off. Present. Jen Markhart. Present. Robin Fordham. Present. Jane Sheffler. Unknew yourself there, Jane. She's working on it. She doesn't know how to do that. Bottom left. Jane is half present. Let's get Jane. We can see her. Signaled her presence by video. And a heady startup. Present. And Jane Wald is present. Does anyone mind if I turn off my video, you know, back and forth, it doesn't, it's just, you know, wanting to check on, on some things here at the house. I just, that's okay. That's fine. Thank you. And I'm Nate Malloy. I'm staff liaison to the commission and Ben Reggers here. He's also a planner and staff to the commission. And Chris Skelly from Massachusetts Historical Commission is here and he'll be presenting and discussing the demolition bylaw. The, this is also being recorded so that eventually it'll be on the town's YouTube channel for anyone who is really up for a good time. Can watch it again. With all of us appearing. I think it's a screenshot of what, of what, I don't know, what I see or the grid of panelists. I've seen it, I've seen it different ways on zoom. So I don't know how it manages that. So usually if we share a screen, it's whatever is being shared, but right now I'm in a grid view so I can see everyone. So it may be that the recording shows everyone. And we have a few members of the public here, not many, but I know some town counselors are interested in this and will be watching the recording. This is Jane Shuffler. I just wanted to let you guys know I have fixed my microphone settings. My toddler somehow turned off my microphone. Tech savvy. All right. Well, Chris, thanks very much for agreeing to do this workshop. We're just really happy to be able to meet with you and learn more about the current state of demolition delay bylaws around the state and expect that we'll, as you know, we've, we've been working on revising our bylaw. And so this is, this is perfectly timely so that we get, we'll get some great insights from you. I know. And then you've seen, you've already seen Nate's very long list of questions, which is full of great questions. So thank you, Nate. As two years into making those questions. So I, maybe we'll just go ahead and get started and turn it over to you for guiding us. According to the agenda, we're supposed to do announcements. Do we have any? I don't have any. Okay. Great. Moving right along. All right. You ready then? Ready. Okay. Sounds good. All right. Well, thanks for inviting me here. I've been doing a ton of Zoom meetings. Lots and lots of Zoom meetings, but this is actually the first one with just one local historical commission at a time. So this is kind of new for me and I'm not quite sure how best to work it. So I think I just want to see how it goes. Obviously, most of my, most of my assistance to commissions is more in person. So I'm doing workshops where I'm actually in a library, a town hall somewhere, and talking to all of you in person, which is, which should be much more what do I, what I would prefer. And for demolition delay, that means I'm usually doing a presentation with the ongoing question and answer throughout the whole discussion PowerPoint that's going to last at least 90 minutes. So that's how, that's what I usually do. I'm kind of not so sure if that's what we should try here. I mean, I feel like we should just stick more with discussion instead of, I'm going to, I'm going to show you, I think I'm going to, I think I could share screen, right? Nate, I can. Yeah, you're a panelist, you can just share screen when you're ready. So I think there's going to be some times when I might go to my PowerPoint and, and go to, as it relates to some of your questions. But knowing, knowing a full PowerPoint for 90 minutes and how that would work when I'm really, when I really want it to be discussion. So when it's like, when it's, sorry, Nate's distracting me with kids. I usually, since it's usually a PowerPoint presentation workshop, and it's an interactive 90 minute discussion, I don't know how we're going to do a 90 minute discussion with PowerPoint up the whole time on Zoom. So I think I'll stick a little closer to your questions. And, and we can get a little more strategic on what you're, on what you're, what you're, what you're asking about. Okay. I don't think I've ever read your demolition delay. Bylaw before. So this was my first. That might be a good thing. So, you know, I think adopted the demolition bylaw. It was an earlier, earlier adopter. So it's 20 years old. And for a while, when the commission wanted to update it, we're thinking about revising it, but then, you know, it turned into this wormhole where you're almost rewriting the whole thing. So I think the thought now is just to understand what's the best practice now and what's a good template to use, because I think the easiest would be just to say, okay, you know, section 13, just replace it in its entirety with this new section, because, you know, there's so many bits and pieces that are inconsistent or, you know, doesn't really follow the model now. So I think it, you know, I think we'd like just, you know, if you had your presentation discussed, what is the, like, pretend as if we don't have a demolition bylaw, and that way we can just understand kind of how the best practice is now, just because, you know, we're really basing our, our bylaw is really on a much earlier version and template. So, you know, we're familiar with it and how it works, but it'd be great to almost have a presentation as if we are thinking about it for the first time, just, you know, just to say, like, okay, what is a clear purpose of a bylaw? You know, what are the intake steps that we should have? We have ours, but I don't know if they're the best. Okay, yeah, I mean, I've had a demolition delay sample or model bylaw for a long, long time, and I can tell Amherst didn't use it. Amherst clearly wants to do things their own way. Because it was so much our own way that in a couple of places in that bylaw, the old one, you may notice it says demolition delay application. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's how messed up it was. So we don't want to do it our own way anymore. Okay. So one of my, one of my questions on your demolition delay bylaw is, does everything go, everything come to the commission that for review? So if a house was, if a house was built, building was built in 2005, would it still come to your commission? No, we have a 50 year thing in our bylaw. Does it say 15 years in here? It's not written into the bylaw. It's in, I think it's listed on the permit application itself. So it's sort of buried in rules and regulations. There's our first problem then. Yeah. I think that's a really good question. So one of the town counselors, you know, she's an attorney and she said, well, reading it, it says basically anything, you know, we define a structure as it could be an object, you know, it has to go to review. So if you read the letter of the law, it's basically any application has to go to a public hearing. And that's not the way it works in practice. And so in the rules and regs, and maybe just through practice, we've been doing it differently. But you know, that that inconsistency is problematic because then who's, who's, who's making that decision, right? How does it get to review? So yeah, I think that's a good question to start with. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I, when it says significant structure is a structure or site, but then there's no definition of what a site is. So confusing, confusing there, that the language for what actually for the definition of a structure, I read it and I read it over again, and I'm still not really clear what, what that language means. Amazingly, there isn't actually a definition for a building. It really, they really just use the word structure. So lots of problems there, I noticed. So, so most bylaws are going to use an age based approach. So I'm going to flip to this right here. So yeah, we can see that. I can see it. The downside is that I can't see all of you usually, right? I think you might have to, you might not, you might only see a banner with a few people. Yeah, that's why I really like to be able to see everybody. Let's see if you're falling asleep or not. Okay. So I'm just going to flip through a few things here. It just looks interesting. I can run through some of these, some of this introduction stuff as well. Okay. So this is, these are the kind of things that I would cover in my whole presentation, reviewing your bylaw ordinance, process administration of, so administering a Demolish Delay bylaw, how to use it effectively, and then thinking beyond demolition to really being proactive since demolition delay really is just a reactive tool. You're reacting to proposed demolitions coming before you. One of the things I want to mention was the three types of demolition delay bylaws in Massachusetts are age based, categorical and list. And if you use, if you incorporate your rules and regs, I can see where you would say, okay, it's an age based bylaw. But that's not in the bylaw. So that your, the age really has to be in the bylaw. So number one there. So an age, what's an age based bylaw basically meaning properties that are meeting a certain age criteria are going to be initially subject to that demolition, to that review by the local historical commission. And this is what we see working best for most, most communities in Massachusetts, some sort of an age based bylaw, whether it's 50 years, 75 years before 1930, something based on an age of the property that moves or something based on a specific date that doesn't move. That's going to work best for most because that's going to catch everything. That's going to catch things a lot of ways. Was there a question there? I just had a question. What could it be both like 50 years older or something else? For instance, like what if you, what if they're, you know, mid, mid, mid 20th century or, you know, some newer structures that would want to be preserved? Like is there a way to have an or category or like, you know, other, if it's, you know, if you say 50 years older, older or 75 years or older, what if there's an example that's less than that? Yeah. Yeah, that's a really, that's a really good question. And that's probably the, the downside there of having say, especially a 75 year demolition delay bylaw or something like that or something before 1930 that doesn't move forward. But yeah, even if you're talking something that's more mid century modern, that could be less than 50 years old, an age based bylaw is not going to include that. So that's, yeah, that's, that's, that's definitely a good point that is going to be the downside of this kind of a bylaw. The other options to consider, although I wouldn't, I would, there's, I would caution on the next one especially. So this is a categorical bylaw and you, you find these in lots of communities where it's based on some kind of category. So it might be whether there's an MHC inventory form. So something that's on the cultural resource inventory information system or something on the national register. This might seem like a good idea, but honestly, this is a terrible idea and I do everything I can to discourage this. So I'm going to put a big X mark across this one. They please don't do this kind of a bylaw, even though you'll find a lot of these around, around the state. And that's, that sort of makes it clear that they really have some, that's a major downsides to using this kind of a, of, of, of criteria. And this is actually one of the reasons why I came up with a sample bylaw years ago was because I saw this language just getting repeated over and over again, you know, people copying their neighbor's bylaw. Well, if the town next to me has any categorical kind of bylaw, it must be the right kind of bylaw and they would copy theirs and it would, you know, be started expanding across the state that way. So I tried to come up with a sample so that we could, we could get away from this idea. First thing, first problem with including form, anything that relates to, oh, if it's on a form B, an MHC, inventory form, then it's going to be subject to the bylaw. First problem with that is inclusion on one of those inventory forms is not a statement of significance at all. So it's just a way to document, describe, store properties, not, but not a statement of significance at all. Other problem with that is that we like to be able to say those, those inventory forms have no regulatory attachments to them at all. They are just simply a way to identify, describe, know what kind of resources you have in your community. When you, but when you tie a local bylaw to these forms, that messes up, that messes up that whole thing. And you can actually have some real pushback about identifying resources because now your bylaw is tied to these inventory forms. So that's just happened recently in one community that's was, was trying to do some additional inventory. And now there's some, some property owners saying, well, I don't want to, I'm not supportive of this, of this grant program to identify more things, because my building might be included on an inventory form. This is just, this is, this kind of goes against the whole idea of historic preservation planning of just identifying the kinds of resources that you have. Okay, same thing with National Register. National Register basically an honorary designation, and not something that you would want to include with a regular, with a local tied to a regulatory component as well. You had some even more problematic language on, on, when you're having, in terms of determining significance here. I'll mention that now or why don't I get to that a little, I'll get, I'll talk about that a little bit later. But I was concerned about the language that you had for determining significance as it references the National Register there. All right, the last one. And so Nate, this, this is a great, this kind of, Nate, this goes back to your question about, well, how can we include some things that are more recent? You could have actually a list based bylaw, something that's actually based on a street address list. And that could be maintained by the Historical Commission, or it could be actually included in the bylaw, some communities have done. It has a real advantage in that the building commissioner isn't going to have to make a call on, look at the assess the records and try to get it figure out is it, is it, is it subject to the demolished delay by law or not. It's going to be a quick list, quick looked on the list on, on whether it's on that street address list or not. And it can include a lot more recent properties by having it on a list based bylaw as well. That's the good side of doing this. The downside is that you might miss things, especially if your street address list is actually included within the bylaw. So all these properties that you see right here from the Ten of Concord, which has had a street, a street address list included in their bylaw, but they missed a lot of things. And so each one of these properties right here were demolished, didn't go through demolition delay, because they were not on that street address list. So you got to be really comprehensive if you're going to have a street address, a list based, a list based demolition delay bylaw. Okay. So I got length of demolition delay. Let's see. Stop share here for a minute. Okay. Any more questions on sort of the types of bylaws that are out there, age, categorical, or list from there? Yeah, I have a question, Chris. I think you already answered it, but you know, our current, our current bylaw says, on, on the national register or meets certain criteria. So in looking at, at these three types of bylaws, age based, categorical, and list based, do we, must we choose just one? Or can, is it possible to have, to start with list based, or 50 years or older? I think if you started with list, but preferably if your list was not included within the bylaw itself, I think if you had a list based bylaw, that following a public hearing you keep adding, you as the historical commission can keep adding more and more things to that list based that to that street address list, that might be the best way to go. I mean, especially for a town like Amherst that probably has, I think your, your, your inventory is actually in pretty good shape, I believe. So you have a good sense of the, the, the, the historic resources that are in the community. But you know that at some point, you might want to be adding more things. So yeah, I think if you do that after a public hearing, say we're thinking about adding these additional 20 properties onto the street address list, that will be subject to the demolition delay bylaw. I think that's, I think that can work really well. We'd have to be constantly updating it as each year changed and more and more mid-modern came under it, right? I mean, if the maintenance would be ongoing. Yeah, yep. But I think that could be a useful, that could be a useful process as well for you to honest, to be, to be each year kind of thinking about what, what kind of resources might be significant to our community. That's why math teacher used to say in high school, the trouble is, is that history gets longer every day. The, well with an age-based, I mean, you know, 50 years is a common figure, you know, referenced in like National Park Service and other standards. I mean, is, you know, doesn't have to be a justifiable age, you know, like, you don't want to do anything too young. But, you know, I mean, the list thing to me is a little daunting. We have a lot of outbuildings too, for instance, that may just have a parcel address and not a property address. And so, you know, if we did a list-based, is it just a primary structure? Is it any structure on the property? So like with agricultural outbuildings or anything? I just, I mean, it's interesting. I, you know, we have a pretty comprehensive assessor's database. It wouldn't be too hard. But then, you know, what we have to then systematically go through the whole, you know, 9,000 properties, 9,600 properties to see what we think should be on a list. I mean, that's a pretty big task. Yeah. And the outbuildings are definitely an issue because the house might be far more recent than the carriage house in the back. But the carriage house is the thing that's more significant and may very well be more vulnerable to demolition. With that, you've got to be able to include both of those somehow. If we had a list like that, would that help us avoid neglect? I saw that you have an option in there for avoiding neglect-based demolition. And I'm wondering if we had a list with, you know, specific addresses and like barn sites, if that would help us control some of, because we get a lot of neglect by demolition, by neglect here, especially with barns. So you could have a demolition by neglect bylaw or minimum maintenance bylaw, something like that. But it is so completely different than a, than demolition delay that I think it's a completely separate bylaw. I mean, we could talk in a different session about demolition by neglect. But when you think about demolition delay, the whole idea with demolition delay is that somebody is coming forward with an application to demolish a building. Demolition by neglect is something that's happening over years, potentially decades. There is no application. No one's, no one is actually filling out an application and saying, I'm going to let this building decay over the next two, two decades. So it's a completely different process to begin with. And, and you need to have a completely different take on how you're dealing with, with that specific issue. We almost have to have a list in order to be able to keep track, right? A list of, a list of what, I'm not sure what you mean. Of everything that we don't want to demolish. I mean, the same kind of list we're talking about for the demolition delay, we'd have to have a list of buildings we were keeping track of to know that they weren't being neglected. That's a large job, I would think. I mean, not that Nate couldn't do it. He has nothing else to do, but it's like a lot of work, even though I would like to see that happen. Yes, they're not a way, Chris, to combine, say, like a 50 year moving. I mean, I like the idea of a moving, you know, time bracket with a smaller listing of, you know, of the properties that, you know, let's say Frank Geary built a museum here tomorrow, right? You put something like that on a, on a different, you know, on a different type of list. So you'd have, you'd have, you'd have a smaller maintenance of properties that would fall out of the 50 year category, but the 50 years would allow for ease of administration because it is, I mean, does seem like a tremendous amount of work to have to manage an entire list with volunteers that, you know, come and go. You're still talking about, we're back on demolition delay, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, then as far as demolition by neglect, I think I had mentioned that before, and it would be good, it would be good if we could just maybe agree at this point that we'd like to come back to that in a separate session with you. I think that would be a great idea because it is such a different discussion to not get bogged down on it here. The 50 years is interesting. It's 1970. So the question would be, like Robin suggested and Jane asked, if we had 50 years, and then we said, okay, well, we realized that there is, you know, 37 structures younger than 50 years, could that become a list that's also in the reference in the bylaw, you know, or is that just not, is that not? You mean 37 structures that we already know we don't want to get hurt? They're younger than 50 years, right? So if we had 50 years, we're saying that anything, you know, younger than 50 years couldn't be reviewed, but what if there were a handful of structures that were, that we would, I mean, I don't, you know, that's the question. Like, say the Frank Lloyd Wright House had been built after 1970, for instance. Those would be buildings that we consider to have significance, but not meet the age criteria is what you're saying, Nate. Right. But how do you, how do you have threshold in the bylaw that can capture that without, you know, being, you know, you know, you can't be arbitrary, so. No, there'd have to be a strict criteria for it. Then we go back to what is, what's, what's significance. But Chris, is there a way to have those two thresholds in one bylaw, or is that just not? I think you come up with some language that does have that. I actually even have something a little bit that, I mean, I don't think everyone's actually done this, but I do have some language in the model bylaw that talks about, because well, the model bylaw is an age-based bylaw, but it does actually refer to also creating a list. I don't, I'd have to, it's probably, I mean, I could, it's better if I think if I email you the, the model at a later, later, so you can see that, see that language. But I think you have plenty of flexibility to come up with some language that, that could work for age-based and also coming up with some more recent properties that, that meet the significance criteria. Jan, I cut you off there. No, I was just going to say, I think we have it, because it's the appendix to the booklet, right? Oh, you got it. Yeah, you got it. Yeah, it's in there. It's in there already. Yep. Yep. Kind of like that. I guess the next thing Chris may be, you know, you said we don't really even define a structure or a building very well. So, you know, while we're discussing that, you know, for instance, we've held demolition hearings on fences and other things. So, I, you know, right now, for instance, the building commissioner is saying, well, if someone is renovating a porch and, you know, they're changing out the columns and the stairs, you know, that used to go to a hearing and now the building commissioner is saying, that's really not demolition. That's a, you know, repair, but the viola is not very clear on that. So, I guess, you know, I read through the book and the model, but I guess, what do you think is a good way, one to define a building and then how to define demolition? So, those are the two pieces, right? What's a building and what's demolition? One of my favorite things was that somebody was trying to expand the demolition delay bylaw to a tree. Making the case that a bird was living in the tree with their nest and so the nest was providing shelter and structure. Somehow that would need to go through demolition delay as well. We've been asked, I've been asked many times if the demolition bylaw would apply to trees. Oh, okay. All right. How many, how many times have you been asked that? I've probably been asked half dozen times. Does it apply to a tree? Okay. Again, you could create, you could have a town bylaw that protected heritage trees, but that would be a separate bylaw, not through demolition delay. I think that's the conservation commission too. Let's leave that to them. You know, it's like, you know, I get it. There's a really nice tree on our neighboring property and then, you know, the neighbors catch wind that the property owner wants to cut it down and they're all upset, but, you know, we'll say that's a private property dispute and if it's someone's property, it's not yours. It's really difficult to regulate a landscaping on private property. Landscaping is a lot more challenging to regulate through a town bylaw, but I mean, it can be done. I mean, there's certainly heritage bylaws and criteria that you're making as the trees of a certain caliper are going to be subject to some sort of a review process. It's done, but again. Can we go back to where you started with the porch? If we have an 18th century building, for instance, that is, you know, neoclassical and it has, I don't know, Doric columns or something and somebody's putting in square ones. I mean, I know that's not as much of a percentage of the building as we tend to put in these bylaws, but isn't there a way to make that problematic? All right. Let me go for a few more slides here. We need the whole presentation. Oh, no. I got 100 slides here in one presentation, so I won't be going through the whole thing. I think I know the answer to that one, though. It's a, it's a single building historic district because I took Chris's class. Yeah. Good. You remember that part. Good. All right. All right. Is that a demolition right there? Yes. Had a demolition? Not yet. Okay. All right. So, so far, so it might be, you know, bylaw, that would be a demolition. That's neglect. Oh, no. This is an active, this is actively being taken apart. So, was that a demolition? Oh, okay. Well, yes, then. Okay. All right. A window replacement. Is that a demolition? No, no. Although we tried to put it in the first round of our review. You know, so, I think more recently, like I've said, the building commissioner has, with the change in the rules and regulations not considered this demolition, but a few years ago, we would have. All right. Removal of architectural trim. Is that a demolition? No, no. Covering the house with vinyl siding. Is that the demolition? No, it's a desecration. Not unless it's in a local historic district. That's fine. No, we're just talking about. Vinyl siding is bad no matter what. But the removal of trim, I mean, we do, in our bylaw, we call that out as demolition. Removal of architectural features. So, it depends on the trim. Yeah. So, so it's, it's, it's going to depend a little bit here on how it really depends on how your bylaw is written. In terms of what, what, how you define what a demolition is. I know for me, I like to have something that, you know, we can, we can all sort of collectively agree on, oh, yeah, that's a demolition. Removal of a roof. Removal of one or more exterior walls. Removal of more than 25% of the square footage of the building. But that, that's sort of collectively understood, yeah, that's a demolition. Now, again, it's going to depend on what, how you've written your, your, your, your bylaw on this. In the town of Arlington, the language is if more, if more than 25% of the building is covered with synthetic siding, meaning vinyl siding, that's considered a demolition. So Arlington, if you cover your house with vinyl siding, they consider that a demolition. It has to go through demolition delay. That one, that one, I, again, it's, it's their choice. It's a local bylaw. So they've, they've written that for what works for them. For me, I don't think that's what demolition delay is, is best suited for. I mean, I think it's best if it really is something that you can all, we can all agree on that. Yes, that, that is a demolition. So, yeah, removing things like trim, these, these much smaller activities can be certainly very, very harmful. Really destroy the character defining features of a building. But they're much better suited through a different kind of bylaw. Like Robin said, some sort of local historic district, something that actually is going to review all kinds of, all kinds of changes to exterior architectural features. But everything is in a local historic district. And if, if the changes affect the stylistic character of the building, and stylistic character is one of the criteria for the significance that we consider, it just seems like if it's, if it's a considerable amount on the side facing the street, it's, it could be considered demolition, right? It's going to be a local decision on what you, what you, what you call demolition. This really gets hard to define, I guess. Well, I mean, I think, I think the thing is you want to just make it very clearly defined in your bylaw and not have something that's fuzzy. Well, I mean, so yeah, so if we're reworking our bylaw to me right now, this, what your slide, Chris is showing is that, you know, we want to have a consistent purpose definition and criteria. And so if, if we think the purpose is to do something that may be a more intricate review of demolition, like defining architectural characteristics, then that's going to carry through. If we think the purpose is to prevent, you know, a larger type of demolition, then that, that's how we go about it. I do think the architectural features and things are really difficult to, to have a clear threshold, because, you know, the building commissioner would, would not want, unless there's conditions or ways to write that into the bylaw, then basically anytime now that we go to, you know, a porch renovation, that should really go to a hearing because we wouldn't be leaving it to the building commissioner to make that decision, whether or not that, right, is a significant structure. So I, I'm, yeah, I think that's a really difficult, difficult thing to, to write in there. But I've read, I can't remember whether it was an earlier draft of our bylaw rewrite or somebody else's bylaw, but it included in demolition, it's a, it's a demolition or alteration and alteration applied to specific architectural features. But that sounds, I mean, is, is something as sort of detailed and specific as alteration of original architectural trim? Is that something that is, do, do towns write that into their bylaw or is that not best practice or what would you say about that, Chris? Again, I think it's, it's, it's local choice and how broadly you want to define demolition. But I think the main thing is to just make sure it is defined in your bylaw and that you're not referring to some very, very general language in your bylaw and then using it on sort of shaky, shaky sense of, of how that's actually implemented. So if it just says portion thereof and you're saying, well, that, that downspout that you're removing, that's demolition now, I mean, you're going to just get questioned on that a lot. So I think, I think for everyone's sake, the public's sake, property owner's sake, and your sake is the historical commission to keep your sanity, you want all want to have this clearly defined ahead of time in the bylaw so that everyone knows what's going to get reviewed. So, so Chris, as we build our, our bylaw, can we, you know, can you review it again as we, we try to narrow this stuff down so that we get a sense of if we're heading in the right or the wrong direction. I mean, I think part of what the challenge has been is just sort of, you know, operating in a vacuum of, of expertise and guidance. Yeah, I can, I can review it again. I mean, I can't necessarily do the writing, but I can offer suggestions so I can tell you where if you're, if you're heading in the right area. I'm going to mention one. I'm going to talk about one of the things here. Okay. I just want to mention this one right here, that I noticed your bylaw does not have this two step process. And I was kind of surprised to see that. So it looks like so everything's going pretty much to the public hearing stage to determine significance. And I, I mean, I'm imagining in practice, that's pretty challenging for you as a commission, but also for property owners that any, anything potentially that's 50 years old, even though it's kind of understood it's not, it may not be significant. It was like that for the first few years. I've been on this five years. It was at first like that, but we've changed it now that the, a whole lot more goes to the building commissioner and he only sends things that are based upon a list we gave my camera. What that was, is that in rules and regulations change that we change? Yeah. But I think Chris, I'd like to hear your thought on that. Yeah. So I think I'd like to have right. I think the way the bylaws written, you know, the rules and regulations, like I say, will add some inconsistency there. So someone may not know to, you know, how what are the rules and regulations saying, does it contradict the bylaw? So really, we don't have a clear two step process. No, it's not. It doesn't really work that way. All right. So yeah, the way I think this works best is in the process is so the application to demolish the building inspector and that's forwarded to the historical commission and the historical commission does a really quick termination of significance. And this might even be delegated to the chairperson of the commission. It might be delegated to a staff person. But it's, it's the idea is that it's turned around really quickly so that really for the benefit of the property owner. So for things that really are clearly not significant and everyone sort of understands that they're not held up for a month to do the demolition. So it's only after it's determined significant that it goes to the public hearing stage. So your public hearing really comes before the significance, the termination of significance. So after the public hearing, after that, then the historical commission makes a determination of whether it's preferably preserved. And that is very standard language across the state, preferably preserved. And I really like that idea of being able to determine that something is significant, but not necessarily preferably preserved. And so if it is, if it is preferably preserved, then you go through the delay. But you may find in some cases that something is significant, but it's not in the public interest somehow that it be preferably preserved. I mean, something, in some cases, something could be in such poor condition. We've got to be careful on who's decided that it's in such poor condition. But something could be in such, such poor condition that it might actually have significance. But it's not preferably preserved based on that reason. In Northampton, the way I understand it in downtown Northampton, there's some smaller wood-framed properties in the central business district. And in those cases, even though the building is maybe, is found significant as a property that's early 20th century, there is a sense that in the central business district of Northampton, you're trying to have much higher density. And in some cases, those buildings have been found not preferably preserved for that reason. So again, significance, but it's been found not in the public interest to actually make the determination that it's preferably preserved. I kind of think this is the best process to go through. Yeah, was that an it? Sorry, yeah. So then what are their conditions or criteria for the determination of significance? So, you know, right. So, you know, my thought would be it'd be nice to have, you know, to delegate, you know, maybe a staff and a chair. So maybe there's two people looking at it, two bodies, and then there's, you know, in the bylaw, there's an actual definition of what significant significance is, or, you know, which is different than our review criteria, right? So I guess that's where we are bylaw doesn't, you know, we'd have to include that. Yeah, so we try to just encourage the national register criteria for whether something significant. So we use the national register criteria in our office for determining significance. And there's no reason why local commissions can't use the national register criteria as well. Wait, I thought you said categorization criteria weren't good. That's a little different. That's for what's subject to the demolition delay. The threshold, but in terms of, let's see, if you're making a blanket statement, this, all of these, this is going to be, these are going to be subject because they're on the national register. That's a problem. But if you're using the criteria of the national register to say, well, what's significant, that's the best criteria to be using. That's the nationwide criteria for determining significance. I don't think I'm explaining that as well as I would like. I'm going to think about it. That takes us back to Jane's question. Jane asked if we can have, like, on the national register or the following, you know, questions for significance, like we do now. I don't think it's good to have anything that's automatic, that it's an automatic delay because it's on the national register. No, it was only that it was automatically significant, not automatically delayed, that we have now. So there, wait, are there three points that we're talking about here? We're talking about buildings that make it to the historical commission and then once they're there, whether they're determined significant. So it's at that, so it's at that second stage that you're talking about, right Chris? Not something that is it going to come before us at all? Well, it has to come before us if it's on the national register because the building commissioner's going to send it to us if it's on the national register. But I don't think that's what we said. I think that the national, isn't the national register whether we determine once it comes before us whether it's significant? Yes. Right? So if it's 50 years or older comes before us, if it's on the register then it becomes significant. Am I getting that right? Yes, that's right. So once it gets to us, so once it gets to the historical commission then the national register criteria help define significance. Yeah. The main thing that I want to see was with determining significance is that determination is done locally. That you, it's your bylaw, you should be the ones making that decision on whether something is significant. It shouldn't be, it shouldn't be the national park service that's actually listed in the national register. It's your bylaw. You're the ones that need to make that call on whether it's significant. And so Chris, you're fine with having that be an administrative step so it doesn't have to be out of public hearing. So you recommend it. That's very common. It's very, very common to have it administratively done so that in your rules and regulations or in the bylaw somehow it's referenced that the termination of significance is going to, is can be done administratively or by the chairperson in some capacity like that. A long time ago, that's how it did operate in Amherst. And then I think about 10 years ago, I think we sort of got away from that and everything came to the commission. But that two-step process is, I mean for us it's all jammed into one meeting. You know, in a way we do have a two-step process but the first step happens and immediately after that, like within 30 seconds, the second step happens. So we tried to kind of pull them apart but it's not nearly as clear as what you've described as something that can happen administratively as step one and then step two coming to the full commission. That just makes that makes much more sense. I haven't heard many complaints about that two-step process and doing the significance administratively. I mean, because the benefits are huge in that there isn't going to be any kind of a delay of having to wait to the public hearing for the property owner. They can, if it's not significant, it can move forward with the building commissioner right after that. But you haven't had public complaint that they weren't able to monitor the process of determining something significant. I haven't heard that be an issue. I mean, you can picture some, I haven't heard this either, but I can picture where if it was delegated to the chairperson, the chairperson might say it's not significant and this commission at the next meeting has a few words to say to the chairperson about it. And in that case, again, it's done through rules and regs. So if you're delegating it to the chairperson, then the historical commission always has that ability to pull it back and say, no, we're going to do this a little differently and not delegate it to the chairperson. The commission as a whole would never determine significance? Again, it's just a way to try to do it quickly. I mean, sure, I think the historical commission could have that two-step process where they hold a meeting and discuss it, vote on whether it's significant, and then schedule the public hearing and a few more weeks after that and make a decision after that on whether it's preferably preserved. So sure, you could do it that way. It's all in the interest of trying to streamline things. Can I just, I was going to ask Nate, could we quickly walk through a couple of the properties? I keep thinking about the one on Kendrick Park, what it would look like if we had followed this process. It sounds like it would have been referred to, let's say, Jane and Nate. Jane and Nate would have said obviously not significant. That wouldn't have been part of the historical commission meeting, although it would be reported to the historical commission. And then we wouldn't have had to spend any time on it at the historical commission meeting. Is that right? Is that the way I'm understanding how this would look? Yeah, so if Chris, if a structure is found not administratively, right, whoever is delegated, whoever does that says it's not significant, it just doesn't even go to a hearing. So it just moves forward with demolition. I think to Jan's point, I feel like in Amherst, the public really wants to hear the discussion of why something is or isn't significant. And, you know, I think the building commissioner would want to have clear criteria, whether it's in the bylaw or the rules and regs that are outlined to make that decision. So, you know, the building commissioner is of the opinion that it's not his decision to make that determination if it's, if there's no criteria to do it. Because even if it's subjective, you might want to, you might say, well, then this, the commission needs to really determine it if something's questionable. So, you know, I wonder if, like if we as the commission come up with the criteria for what is determined significant, and then say it goes to Nate and Jane, and they go through the list like we would in a meeting. And then when you guys summarize it for us, you say we found that this building was not significant based on these four criteria. If that, if that would help us around some of that, because then the criteria is something that the public has access to. And we have the accountability of explaining why the determination was made. And the commission is still involved in the determination of what the criteria is, but we don't have to go through the criteria on every application that comes through. I don't know if that makes sense. I seem to agree, both with what you just said, Jane, there needs to be a transparent process in Amherst, because if it were purely an administrative decision without reporting back on the criteria of why that recommendation is being made at a public meeting, there would be questions. And the commission could either agree or disagree. And if they disagree, then go through the process of determination again. But I think that just having bringing in administrative decision without the criteria being outlined would be problematic. We will say that Christine Brestrup, the planning director, is listening in as you had her hand raised. I'll allow Chris to talk if that's all right. You can unmute yourself. Hello, I'm Chris Brestrup. I just wanted to ask Nate about there was a project on Lincoln Ave or in the vicinity of Lincoln Ave a number of years ago that caused a lot of stress and discussion in town. I think it was an old barn or garage that was going to be demolished. And it had some purported connection with Robert Frost. And either the commission or the administrator, building commissioner, or whomever, made a determination that that building wasn't significant. And then there was a lot of public through. I just remember that example. And I wondered if Nate could remind us of whether that was the commission that made that determination or whether it was an administrative determination. Yes, I think Chris right now, our zoning, our demolition is in our zoning bylaw. So the only appeal is to the ZBA when the building permit is issued. So for that example, Chris is mentioning, I think it was determined, the commission determined that it wasn't significant. And then the building commissioner issued a building, you know, the neighbors are really upset over that. So it didn't, you know, it wasn't found significant. So there was no delay. The, and the, you know, the neighbors are told, I think that decision really by the commission isn't appealable because there isn't, it's not really, there's nothing assigned to it. So when the building commissioner would issue the building permit, then they can appeal that to the ZBA through, you know, a 40 a process. So that's what the neighbors did. They appealed to the ZBA to review the building commissioner's issuance of a building permit. And but what it highlighted was, you know, there's a lot of, and there's a lot of concern about whether or not something is found significant. So I think, you know, that was the commission. So I think one question is, you know, it seems like now the trend is to keep the demolition bylaw in the general bylaws and not in the zoning. Is that, I mean, is there a preference for one or the other location of a bylaw, a demolition bylaw? I don't have, I don't have the numbers on that, but I think most of them are general bylaws. And is that because they, you can write an appeals process into that more clearly or there's a, you know, because it's not zoning, why, you know, why, I guess, why is it just because you don't need a two thirds vote? Is there a reason why it's in the general? I mean, to me, it's community, it's community-wide. It's not based on any particular zones. So there's a logic to having a general bylaw for that reason. And I think some probably have passed because it's a, it's general and requires majority vote at 10 meeting. It's probably true in some cases. So, you know, Chris's point is though, I mean, so everyone's been saying, you know, having this transparent process, I mean, I guess that's a, you know, question for the commission. I mean, does a memo, you know, if the bylaw says that the chair and staff or whatever at the next meeting would present the findings on demolition applications, is that transparent enough or is it really, does it really need to be that even if we do this two-step process and it's clearly written into the bylaw that the commission does it at a public hearing. So, it's almost puts us in the same place we're in now where, you know, if a structure is over 50 years of age and it's on a list, it goes to a hearing. And, you know, we haven't, you know, we're almost practicing that now whether or not it's written in the bylaw. So we haven't really gained any clarity on administration so far. I mean, especially if we haven't done a better job defining a building or structure or what's an act of demolition, you know, at some point we're going to have to realize that demolition bylaw is not going to catch everything, right? So if we really want it to really do architectural features, we can write that. But then I know the building commissioner is going to say, well, he doesn't want to rule on if someone's renovating a porch, is that significant enough to make it, you know, be delayed or be, you know, make that determination? So, you know, he's going to ask that the commission review a lot of these. So it's going to put us back, it's going to put the commission in the same place it's in now. Yeah, if the commission has to ratify the administrative decision, then, then, you know, releasing owners to, so they don't have to wait around, that won't happen. Yeah, we will be back in the same place we are now. And even if you publish a memo, or you present a memo to the commission during the public hearing that says this is why we determined it was significant, Chris, you haven't spent a lot of time in Amherst, but I can see a huge outcry from someone who doesn't agree and wants to demolish something, right? I mean, this town doesn't take anything sitting down. Yeah, I agree. I just, I find if we're going to do go through that process, then I would rather have everything be done by the commission and have no administrative review because that's just, you know, if the commission is going to review it all over again, it's just, it's really redundant. So, you know, if we're not going to have faith in that administrative step, I think, you know, maybe we move on for tonight, but that's just something we discuss at a future meeting. How do we want that determination of significance to happen? I agree that our bylaw doesn't clearly have that process. I think it's a good process to have. So, you know, I think we could articulate it better in the bylaw itself. I'm not sure I want to say who's going to administer it yet, but I think we could have a better way of having that too. And better definitions. I think we're, you know, we need more clarity to our definitions of architectural detail, of building significance, of historical importance, you know, the whole list, and maybe going back to Chris's model would give us some guidance to do that. Chris, one thing I'd like to really look at is the review criteria of how to determine whether or not something's preferably preserved. So, could you touch on that? How does a commission determine something's preferably preserved? This would come during the public hearing, right? Right, yeah. So, we're going to be separated. We had, in our, in our meeting, we determined what was, whether it was significant, then it wouldn't be until the public hearing that we would determine the preferably preserved. I like the separation. But that length is a process. If the commission is doing that on a meeting, we can't intake, we can't take in any information at the determination of significant stage. So, we hold a meeting a few weeks after an application, then we want to hold a hearing. I mean, all of a sudden that's like seven weeks. That's to the way we used to do it four or five years ago, and it was endless. We had meetings all the time. Yeah. But I like to know how, how, what's the criteria the commission uses to determine if something's preferably preserved? So, right now, the criteria we use is kind of like the criteria to determine significance, and it's pretty muddy. And then we're not really, we don't really have this, how to do, determine preferably preserved. So, I think, I mean, I'd like to just see, you know, if you have a slide or two or a discussion on that. Sure, I could show what I have on that. Jane, I pulled up, Rob Mora had sent a, you know, a draft a while ago of the building commission. I can send it around again, but he had defined a significant alteration as alteration or removal without replacement of more than 25% of the total incorporated area of the building's exterior envelope, including walls, roof, doors, windows, stoops, porches, and similar elements. And then, you know, so I think it may have been a local version where we're trying to get to kind of that, those architectural characteristics, but Yeah, I think we should work with that. The idea that alteration of more than 25% of the features that make up the stylistic character, I think we could work with that with those kinds of specifics that he lists. Right. I think this piece is really interesting that Determinative is probably preserved. Yeah, I like this concept. I wish we'd had it all along. Well, especially, especially is so many of the things that we've been looking at in the last year, which is the only year I can really comment on, because it's as long as I've been on the commission, is that we're often looking at a building that is part of a larger group of buildings. You know, whether it's a barn or an outbuilding or a garage or, or something that's attached or partly attached, or that might have had some significance in the past when it was more cohesive architecturally, or in terms of the site. So I find myself really, I really feel like I'm sort of stretched almost beyond my level of competence. Because I'm being asked to evaluate a structure which may not have all of the elements that the main building in the group has. And yet, there's something about architectural character or townscape or street view or whatever it is you want to sort of draw upon that always makes me nervous, because I, you know, what's really fantastic about Ammust is that it has so much of that. And that's what we want to preserve. And I, I also wonder with the, even though the process is a bit tortured and exposing, you know, because it's all under public view, it is also hugely educational, you know, it's, it's, it's helping the people who tune in or who come to the meeting or the property owners themselves and us learn from each other. And I, maybe that sounds terribly polyamorous to say. But, you know, yes, I feel we're taking a hammer to crack a nut sometimes. But I also feel like we have a process that is trying to evaluate fairly something that may or may not be important to hang on to. I do like this double step thing, though. I think it would, it would fine, it would streamline things a little bit more for us, and perhaps not take up quite as much time when there is other things that we're supposed to be addressing as a commission. Sorry, that was very long. Yeah, I keep thinking about how you could have a very quick turnaround for significance, but also have a more robust public process in that, which means it's going to the commission on some level. Chris, I keep going back to sort of some sort of list, some sort of list-based by-law, maybe, maybe being the best so that you're at least getting some of those significant, doing that significance earlier on somehow, maybe before it's actively, maybe before it's actively coming before the commission as a demolition. I don't know, I got to think about it more, but it seems like there's got to be some language there that would work. It might be to determine if something's preferably preserved that has to be done at a public hearing. Right, so isn't that usually, when that would be done at a public hearing, not just a meeting, but a public hearing? That's typically done after the public hearing. And then how, what is the commission, I mean, is there criteria that they would use to determine this preferably preserved? I mean, the public interest is one, but is there like actually typically like a list of criteria that is used? I can't think of a list of criteria that's used for preferably preserved. I mean, what I usually talk about here is wanting some sort of, what's your information that you're getting? So this is one example where this building was demolished in Franklin, where they did not have independent advice on the status of this building. The consultant, the owner hired the consultant, and the consultant found that the smells, because there have been so many cats in the house, that the smells of urine in the floor were so bad that the only option, the only option to solve that was to demolish the building. Geez. And the commission believed it. The commission approved that demolition. That's not exactly seeking independent, independent advice there. So yeah, that was demolished. I mean, when there's, when it's available, when you have preferably a preservation planner available to that, they may actually be able to put together some sort of a staff report. So in Brookline, they have two professional preservation planners that work within the planning department. And those preservation planners actually put together a staff report that's going to talk about the significance of the property, but also the current conditions of the property, the overall planning aspects of what's going on in that neighborhood. And the staff may actually be able to come forward with a, with a recommendation that they would provide to the commission on that, at that point on whether the building should be found preferably preserved. It is just a staff recommendation to the commission. But these are really helpful to have for the commission, some good, some really good background in terms of significance, but also condition of the property, and so on. That's, that's one of the examples there they come up with. I think they still have these up on their website. So you can look at what these staff reports look like. We have that. We have the benefit of that. We've been getting those. Who does them for you? Nate and other people. Okay. Great. It depends on how much information is available, but we've gotten some really thorough ones. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to, Christine, the planning director has her hand up. Chris, you're allowed to talk if you just unmute yourself again. Hey, I think I'm still unmuted. So I just wanted to mention that the commission has received some feedback that at least one member of the town council is concerned about the commission knowing about what is going to happen in the future on a property as, and they get that information during the public hearing and and that may influence their decision about whether something should be preserved or not. So my question or statement or whatever is when you, when Chris Skelly introduces the idea of something being preferably preserved or not preferably preserved and that the interest of the public and the community is taken into consideration, wouldn't that necessarily involve some idea of what is going to happen on the property moving forward in order to know whether something's in the interest of the community? You'd sort of have to know what comes next in order to decide whether something should be preferably preserved or not. So that's my question. Yeah. I know there's certainly commissions that do bring that up at the public hearing that want to know even in the application process what's going to be constructed there. I agree there's some issues there that it is better to think about just in terms of the existing property there at the time. Now what I have seen in some cases is that the commission will actually think about design review over what comes next. So this is one of the ways and this again this has worked in a number of places especially Newton I think it's done this quite a bit where the bigger concern for the neighborhood isn't necessarily the significance of the structure. It's the new construction going to fit in with the character of the neighborhood. So maybe that's what you mean by Amherst as well coming up in Amherst I would imagine. In those cases I can even forward way up here. Yeah there it is. So in this case in Newton the two-car garage was going to be demolished and the neighborhood was really concerned about what that new addition was going to look like instead it was going to be it was going to be pretty overpowering. One minute here. All right so they were concerned what was going to be what was going to take the place of this two-car garage that the initial plans were going to overwhelm the house and what the commission in the end agreed with with the property owner was we won't delay we won't put a delay on the demolition of the garage but we want design review over the new construction and so they ended up with this and its place which was which was far more acceptable to the neighborhood. Still had the two-car garage but it had the much the it had the additional living space up above that the property owner was looking for. So that was that was a compromise in terms of granting waiver the delay the concern wasn't necessarily so much the the existing two-car garage it was going to be the character of the neighborhood. Amherst has a design review board can the historical commission sort of enter that territory? So is that is that legitimate Chris? So commission can waive delay if design review of new construction I mean so that's only if there's new construction right I mean what if it's just they're going to tear it down I mean an owner would an owner quickly catch on just say I'm not replacing it with anything I mean what I just you know. Well then then the waiver then the delay wouldn't be lifted so in this case the benefit to the owner was there wasn't going to be an 18 month delay they're going to be able to demolish right now as long as they agreed to to design review. Right and and that's and that's like and that's legally defensible to do that as a to have that as like a step in your bylaw or yeah I think it's best if it actually mentioned if it's actually included in the bylaw I think it's I think it's best if it's that wording is in there that I mean in terms of community character I think local historic districts on that we're in that regard or architectural preservation districts community character is certainly is certainly recognized as as as part of the public welfare and that's going to go way back to like 1920s I mean in terms of supreme court decisions over time. You know we have design review principles in the bylaw that you know we're taking from the design review board and now the zoning board even uses as part of their review sometimes so you know I can see where you know we already have this as part of our regulatory framework design review principles are referenced they're in the bylaw. But things come to the design review board after the historical commission. Well this is I don't know Janna if you missed it this is saying a new and they waived demolition with the condition that the commission you know have design review of the new structure so yeah I know but I'm saying that we would have to switch the process the order we have to have design review first. Well not every project goes to design review it's no I know it's only things in the downtown little area right so there's just you know design review district there's a pretty limited area actually that designer view buys through. I guess Chris I guess it's interesting I guess my thought is our bylaw you know we list like 13 criteria but that's really then all about trying to determine if something significant not whether or not it's preferably preserved. So I mean I could share my screen in a minute and we could all see those so I guess I guess I'm a little I'm still kind of grappling with how we would do this two-step process. My thought would be to me a big discussion is whether or not something significant and without having a list or criteria for how or why it should be preferably preserved that becomes a difficult decision to make for you know for for whoever is delegated right so to determine significance I mean most of our bylaws that is dedicated to determining whether or not it's significant and I feel like you know if we if we can't have criteria for what is or how to determine preferably preserved I think that's like a hole in the bylaw right I mean what so why are you why are you doing it I mean then I think that's would be puts the position the commissioner a really difficult position if there's nothing to base it on I mean then you know I think it's preferably preserved because it's it looks you know it carries the streetscape and it's like okay well that you know we can use that every time or you know it defines the community character in that neighborhood I mean there's not I feel like we need a little bit more a little bit more there does the commission feel that way or I mean I like the two-step process I'm just I guess I'm struggling with what how what criteria or what would use to define how to help the commission determine if you wanted if you wanted to work with me I'm developing some criteria or guidelines for the kinds of for where we where you would how you would decide on something preferably preserved to be happy to work with you on developing those and maybe that would be in the bylaw or maybe that would be a separate policy that you say these are your these are your party as part of your rules and regs these are the things that we use for making a determination and whether it's preferably preserved like it sounds like a good idea I don't think it I I'm not sure if anyone else has has it we can certainly ask around even determining significance is so subjective you know we argue over some of the the vaguer ones anyway if we could tighten those up and just have preferably preserved be where we have our discussions would help a little bit I think you know because these whole things about that you know I don't know what's what's the one Jane that we always have trouble with it's like oh it's a what is it a defining feature of a or a feature of a neighborhood or something like that yeah I mean it's like anything could anything could qualify established and familiar visual feature yeah that sounds like a hard one yeah yeah I'd work on I work on some revisions there yeah but I you know I do agree with Nate that that they're half to yeah we'll need to find some parameters for preferably preserve because you know I think I that way it would give each successive commission some consistency um and I think that's kind of important and also um you know I think at least one town counselor was um concerned about the subjectivity of significance just as Jan was saying and if there are and and there are criteria there but if there are no criteria for prefer preferably preserved then um that you know that could become a pretty sticky situation in in a place like Amherst so Chris one thing you know I'm just I'm going to jump to it you know in the questions I asked one was you know what's the benefit of a demolition so you know one you know the commission's asked that too you know it's almost like an end game right and owner really wants to take down their structure they apply to the commission and then we do have CPA funds but it can be very costly to you know to fix a structure so you know can the commission require during delay if they if they issue delay that the owner completes a form B or provide some documentation of the building because you know right now once the structure is under delay we'll work you know we'll work with the owner we'll try to do something but we don't have anything written in the bylaw or rules and regs that you know gets at you know say documenting the public benefit or documenting the building so I don't know if communities have if there's something that's the best practice there you know what you know what works okay so if we're just talking about documenting some sort of some sort of mitigation somehow that the building's going to be demolished and but we want to see it documented really just as mitigation because the building's going to be gone right there are some communities that that that make that part of their requirement that it's that it's docket photo documented in some way I mean filling out a form B I don't see how that would ever work because I mean form B is really need to be filled out by a like someone with some background and right in doing in doing some architectural history so some of them basically just tell you these you need to take photos of the interiors and exteriors that's it I this is my personal opinion so I don't I mean it's just more like kind of the why bother it's gone and and and and I'm saying that understanding that a hundred years from now there's going to be a benefit of having something photo documented in some way my my other concern is that and this is why I don't really I never include this as one of my success stories that the building was photo documented is because I think it gets used as we can't do anything else we we shouldn't we've at least done we've at least photo documented it and we did all we could when when there's really other things that could if you really want to save a building there's there's other possibilities and there's plenty of successes out there where the building really was saved I mean so as Robin mentioned you want to save a building it's up to the town to do it during the delay you can that local legislative process of town meeting or or town council you can you can permanently prevent the building from being demolished during the delay if the local legislative body chooses to do that maybe we should have a set of guidelines for how we would actually take something to that level you know how we would take it to the town council what we would present because I was reading in your handbook about places that have affected that and I can't imagine that happening in Amherst just because of you know questions of budget and everybody agreeing and the example that comes to mind is recently we had two houses on Pleasant Street that were in the way of Amherst college putting in a big new humanity center we they they were agreeing to save one and and fix it because it's in pretty bad shape but the other is really in the way so a garage that had been made to look like a barn and one house we agreed to let them demolish but again we were looking at the later what was going to happen in the future there but if for instance that house that there they said they have somebody interested in moving which I looked into moving in with the electrical lines that we have the power lines across all the streets I don't know how they're going to do that the town would have had to make a significant commitment to work with power companies and help defray cost to have that building moved and I just that just seems like an enormously long process to get support for that is there is there something that we could you know set out that would make it look like well this just the step by step and council it's coming to you because here's what's in the bylaw or something so I'm just going to I'm just going to give you a few examples and I understand this isn't necessarily easy through the legislative process of of of a town meeting or a town council because it requires a two-thirds majority vote but I just want to say it is an option so establishing a local historic district during that delay period it's happened a number of times now so this is one of the first times it happened right here all these all these industrial buildings of the Ames shovel shops in in eastern were all going to be leveled all demolished but it went through demolition delay and the town established a local historic district during that delay period meaning meaning everything could not be could not be demolished of course it didn't it didn't mean they were going to be rehabilitated but it it gave it gave that option of another developer coming in the cpa funds and this whole complex is just amazing right now so even though the local historic district was established after the public hearing it could be retroactively applied to create a level of significance I'm not sure I'm not sure if I understood that question but let me let me run through this example right here and then we can we can go back to that okay so um eastern had I think either a 12 or 18 month delay which makes it a little bit easier to establish a local historic district during that delay period Reading only has a six month demolition delay but that building in the upper left was proposed for demolition and the neighborhood really went nuts that that building was going to be demolished on their street and really galvanized everyone to move forward with establishing a local historic district you started seeing signs like this everywhere now so usually I would somebody were to say how long does it take to establish a local historic district I would say I don't have a crystal ball I have no idea sometimes it's it's it's a year or two sometimes it's 10 years sometimes it's 20 years sometimes it never happens sometimes it goes to 10 town meeting in the 70s 80s and 90s and 2000s and still isn't passed at a two-thirds majority vote is as as I've experienced but here's what happened in Reading all right so on July 24th that building went under a six month demolition delay January 24th 2015 that six month demolition delay was going to expire August 25th they submitted a study report to mass historical commission as part of the process to establish a local historic district oh did right um so the so this is it um so you have two local historic districts in Amherst right now I think right you have the when you say um the local sort of district was it for the neighborhood or just for the property neighborhood the whole street you have two in Amherst right now and you have three what are they you have two you have the Dickinson and the Lincoln um Lincoln Sunset yeah Lincoln Sunset are we all following Lincoln there's another one before the Lincoln Sunset yeah I'm talking about local historic just I think Dickinson's a national register district it's also local it is local as well yeah let's go terminus so the the local so it's interesting so some but so it's probably staff and maybe working with residents really quickly turned around the study report I mean so they must have done inventory forms held a public meeting notified the owners I mean they I mean they really um I mean to submit a study report is a pretty big task not not not really I mean you don't have to do inventory forms for you don't have to do inventory forms as part of the study report you're not really doing um you're not you're not doing a formal public hearing um to have the study report submitted the public hearing comes later so um how do you document every structure then without doing a form B I mean we found that's a really good tool to use so you just have a simple narrative about each property is that I mean is that yeah sure yeah I mean we have proper we have local historic districts that have 300 400 600 properties I mean you're not you're not filling out a form B for every one of those properties ahead of time I think I think province town is 1000 properties they established it one you know one that one district at that one time and you can't have a one building historic district correct can you have a one building local historic district yeah we'll go onto that in a minute yeah this isn't ready so I'm curious I'll see that so okay so you want to see what happens yeah I gotta go through the whole thing here all right so they did that study report um and again I think in a lot of cases um you can put it together study report very very quickly um so that when it comes to our office our office we took a vote on it um then they hold their public hearing so then they then there's a formal public hearing at that point you've got to notify all the property owners um holding your public hearing but the public for that street the property owners was you know overwhelming support right um so on November 10th it passed at a special town meeting um because of their town they had to go to the approved attorney general's office to get their new bylaw approved that happened on January 5th 2015 January 9th 2015 the map was recorded at the registry of D's the final staff when establishing a local historic district for the local historic district was official no demolition was going to be allowed wow that all happened within a six month demolition delay gosh impressive they had to get it to the attorney general for a meeting just at the right moment amazing so is it is possible to do this if it really is up to the local community on whether they want to permanently protect a building under demolition delay or not um that that power is there now robin's question about can you do a single building local historic district yes absolutely um so this is one from springfield um this building here came up under demolition delay springfield has a six a nine month demolition delay this building was actually damage and the gas explosion you may remember that columbia gas explosion from in springfield a few years ago this building had some structural damage it was sort of underutilized somewhat vacant before that and then vacant after after the damage occurred um was proposed demolition for parking lot um building went under demolition delay and an advocacy an advocacy campaign went forward um and went to the went to the city council eventually and city council approved a single building local historic district for this building right here and so that ended it the building could not be demolished at that point of course that doesn't necessarily mean the building was going to be well protected because it was vacant and and uh there's uh there's loft departments in there right now decaying yeah but with some other tools available this is where you take the whole toolbox of historic preservation um including tax credits um this building yeah is uh i don't know is it is it occupied at this point or at least under construction it's on its way yeah yeah i took a tour of it last fall and it is good it's going to be loft departments great this is one of the newest ones right here in hopkington established as a single building local historic district in 2019 again the whole thing during a six month demolition delay hopkington did it sure amherst could do this if hopkington can do this i'm sure amherst could could establish a single building local historic districts right why is why is it that it's a local historic district what what what does that contribute that some other kind of listing wouldn't you know i mean are we talking about a piece of land that goes with the building um what does what does a local historic district mean well why is it i don't understand the single building local historic district yeah why can't you just put it on the massachusetts national register right thank you well there's there's no such um i guess by by massachusetts national register you mean the state register i mean yeah massachusetts or national register sorry okay so if it was a national it was on the national register it would not be protected at all oh here's primarily an honorary designation okay what you were saying at the beginning yeah there's there's plenty of buildings that are demolished in in uh in massachusetts that are on the national register and i can show you let's see um oh yeah i'll go back to that one in the i'll go back to that so we're kind of go since we're going out of order in this presentation i'm kind of just skipping around this is good i mean i guess my thought would be if you know it's interesting you know this would be used in a case where you know a delay is issued and there's really the commission finds a structure to be so significant is there a way to save it and so i think it's it's good to have this as an idea but to me this isn't something you know for instance those properties in amherst college i wouldn't bring that forward as a single property local historic district i mean there's already a national register district there so if we thought we wanted to preserve a building i would say well why wouldn't the you know the neighborhood why wouldn't we work with the national register district to make it a local historic district you know that's more than one property i feel like it's a big effort to go through um you know and if we think that all these buildings need to be preserved then you know we should be working on local historic districts now not trying to exercise it during a delay so you know if if we don't think our delay is strong enough then i think you know we'd want to turn our attention to having more local historic districts because you know i i'd agree with i would agree with you there and i'm going to go i'm going to jump up forward to here to go proactive tools my last section was on proactive tools and yeah i'm going to i'm going to mention here um proactive tools local historic districts the idea of actually establishing multiple property districts or single property districts um not when it's under delay actually is part of a longer term thought out process um yeah much much much better idea to establish your local historic districts um when there isn't that imminent threat taking place um but you know i think i just wanted to make the case to demonstrate that yes if you want to you can establish single building local historic districts or multi building local historic districts while something is under demolition delay and a number of examples of that take in place have taken place at this at this point so yeah hockington east and springfield brook lime and i think a couple others as as well so i think did i did i answer that question about the local historic district national register district difference because i wonder if i should just go back here and yeah i mean i'm yeah i'm familiar with a local historic district can prevent demolition and that you know has you know the regulatory framework to do that so yeah i mean this this building right here in wedem circa 1710 listed on the national register of historic places in 1990 but it was demolished in an afternoon because the national register is just simply an honorary designation they didn't have them they don't have demolition delay and in wedem so this building came down in just a few hours we wind up doesn't have demolition delay huh no no there you go right there even after that even after that the building came down town meaning rejects demolition delay so i guess you know as you're talking chris i made me think that you know we asked about the future use of a property chris christine did and to me it's like if we have criteria that determine significance and then parameters or guidelines for preferably preserved you know that could take into the future use of a property because if they're placing it with something that looks similar then you know the question of you know is it worth delaying it because you know what's the public value or interest in the public good if something is going to be retained in a similar character i just you know to me that it is i think separating those two is important because you know right now like you know i think the difficulty is while the commission is trying to determine significance the future plans of the property will be discussed or shown by an applicant and then it it can get into the discussion of whether or not it's significant but really i'm just bringing us some way back in our conversation that the idea of determining significance should not be weighed against what's a proposed future use it's really what is there now and then what i like about this two step process is is the preferably preserved may take into a future use because what if they're replicating it with a new building or doing something that is in character with the street or the community so to me that separation works with you know having different guidelines in each section yeah it's a much cleaner process yeah because you know you know when you're talking about a local historic district i you know i mean we think well that's what they do right i mean a local historic district looks at what's the future use and so if you know something is being torn down but they're replicating it they just did that for there's a you know 1920s cottage style kind of vernacular cottage style house in amherst and they're you know demolishing the garage the attached garage but they're replicating it in a way that it's so similar you know you might not be able to tell that it's a brand new garage and so you know the commission looked at that too you know on amity street so it's an interesting you know you don't want to say it's not it's significant or it's not because the owners are doing such a good job with the renovation that's not really you know the criteria we want to use for that and then one question i have um we you know we don't our pilot doesn't really our reference is 40a but then it has other timelines but we you normally have the demolition hearing just follow 40a like a two-week notification you know notification process notify butters following 40a as a standard process or do we do communities write in their own you know like a 10-day notification as opposed to you know 14 day or is that is there a standard process there i i don't know if anyone i don't i don't even know if anyone else references 40a in their demolition delay bylaw so they just write out there they just write out the process okay chris is there um do you have a recommendation about the duration of the demolition delay period for how long yeah oh i love that question yeah thanks for asking that one all right um we'll go back over here i have not figured out zoom on this one even when i'm on powerpoint and i click on current slide it doesn't go to my current slide it's one of the last one that i was on all right from current slide and it goes back to that one again i don't know all right all right there we go all right um so the length of the delay period what is it in ever since 12 12 i think i saw it in your yes yeah 12 okay yeah so um quite a few of them were at 12 um still a lot of them are at six months and the reason they're still at six months is because demolition delay has been around since the 1980s and initially all the demolition delay bylaws in the state were six months um and a lot of them haven't been changed since then um but the trend the trend is certainly this way so even though the numbers look that way the trend is this way trend for new bylaws and the trend for changing existing bylaws is to change from 6 to 12 or to change from 12 to 18 because over time um commissions have just found over and over again six months just not enough time not very effective at really trying to trying to find up find some other alternatives to to a demolition or 12 or 18 months really gives you a lot more a lot more possibilities there um no i don't know if you've ever heard this after your vote delay especially if you have a six month sometimes even hear this after if with a 12 month yeah yeah so an 18 month would not only give us time to do something but wouldn't it also work as a deterrent for people to even propose demolition it it that's anecdotally i do hear that it is a deterrent as well um that uh yeah i mean i hear it right to the point where they say oh they have an 18 month demolition delay in in this town i guess i'll go next door to the the other to the town uh adjacent to this town because they only mean deterrents that way i meant a good deterrent it would keep people from planning to demolish rather than working with or using the building you know or finding a solution before they come to us yep yeah yeah that kind of deterrent yeah yep yeah yep yep and so the question is um why not 24 months immersed how about 24 months huh you're rewriting your bylaw i love the idea of it yeah i think there'd be some discussions about there's 24 months too long i think there's a crowd i would say it's great and others would say it's uh an impediment to development or the wrong type of deterrent Melton Melton did it yeah i mean i will say that you know we for instance we had an owner that had a barn you know early to mid 20th century barn and that was um i don't know looks like it was a modified kit you know timber frame that um they wanted to take it down and you know the owner said if financial resources weren't an issue they would have clearly restored it but no he didn't he wanted to he did say that i wanted to say visits yeah but he didn't mean it because they wanted the view but now he's rebuilding something there uh um but you know i just it's i think you know that we had a timber frame uh from frame around said yeah i mean oftentimes it's really costly to fix a barn and so you know there has to be more than just you know sometimes it's more you know sentimental value or family value something that would you know incentivize that a homeowner or property owner would fix you know spend the money on it and so i guess i guess my question is like the longer the delay you know i mean Milton Milton's now a few years old i mean would they have success stories or how they've used that delay to their benefit like what you know what have they what have they done in 24 months do we know do we know if that's i haven't followed up with Milton to find out to find out but i would also say that i think we were talking about a little bit with the deterrence there um having a longer delay gives you successes that you don't even know about because they're never coming through the application process because they realize oh this town has an 18 month delay i'm not going to purchase that property for um for my for my proposed for my proposed development i'm going to go somewhere else instead or i'm going to find something else in the same town but that's not historically significant and consider developing on that on that location instead i think there's i think there's lots of successes that come up because i get to ask that question a lot how many how many successes are there when you go for the longer delay um and it's it i mean i don't i don't have a i don't have those numbers uh anyway but i think there's lots of times where we we just don't we just there's too many times where we don't even we don't even know what the successes are right yeah it's interesting nate chris's hand is up all right chris i'll uh chris i think you're just gonna um yeah i think you can just um start talking you're allowed to talk hey i wanted to bring up two topics one is um nate and i had talked to um talked to each other maybe talked to some other people in town hall about setting up a fund um perhaps funded by cpaq we're not really sure to set aside some money to um help us with um helping applicants because sometimes they don't have enough money to figure out you know what can they do to their building that they would perhaps like to preserve but they don't know how to or perhaps they would like to document it or you know just to sort of help the process so i wondered if the historical commission would consider um requesting some money from cpaq for what do they call it due diligence i guess which would be um you know sitting aside a little bit of money to help people who are in a situation where you know they wanted to demolish it they don't know what they can do with it they don't know if they can move it moving it would be really expensive etc etc so that's one idea and the other thing that i wanted to bring up is that there is a lot of um talk nowadays about the economy and um you know really concern about the economy in amherst and you know we were we rely on the university and the colleges to a large degree for our economy and um the university and the colleges may not be doing that well in the near future but in any event um demolition delay does have a tendency to slow economic development so i think that you know in considering what is good for the town we really need to consider that aspect of things and putting a 24-month demolition delay um in the bylaw may be overly enthusiastic overly optimistic overly you know um focused on historical issues which of course you're the historical commission so you should focus on the historical issues but i'm just trying to bring you back to the idea of you know the community welfare as a whole and the community is going to need to be thinking about economic development thinking about raising tax revenue etc in the next in the near future and um you know trying to put a longer demolition delay on that would potentially depress economic development may not be a good idea at this time so that's all i think i would respectfully disagree on the economic development aspect with historic preservation being particularly well suited for job creation um higher higher property values um the the lists go on and on in terms of why historic preservation would be a really useful economic development tool to consider here and demolition delay is part of that part of that picture well the other thing to remember if i'm right is that um you know with 12 or 18th or i don't know if we go to 24 months it's not a hard and fast um delay i mean the commission is often puts a delay on something but agrees to lift it under certain circumstances so it's not necessarily a you know a lock on 24 months of anything being demolished it's just it's it's a it's a it's a more flexible tool in there yeah i mean and there's very short-term it can look like a good economic development strategy to have fewer regulations but in a long-term economic development strategy that's that seems like um not not doesn't make the most financial sense um a strategy that really considers your historic resources as one of your prime economic drivers is is is where i would where i would encourage things to go um christine what was your first what was your first question about i was funds to help an applicant you know setting up for systematic due diligence or yeah that that that sounded like a great idea and i did want to i did want to mention that a little bit just in terms of whether it's that building in springfield or um or the barn the carriage house that's suffering from demolition may neglect because it doesn't have a use available to it um yeah i mean yes you can have demolition delay um and that's going to protect something but it's not necessarily mean that suddenly you're going to get a new use there and and so um or the christine's idea of some funds some funds that could be used in that regard um could be very useful um i don't know what amherst has for accessory dwelling units um but certainly there's the possibility of barns and carriage houses that work great for for tiny houses or accessory dwelling units um and and also has the affordable housing advantage as well um and so suddenly you've got a carriage house that now has use and now a property owner is very willing to be able to put more money into into something that's providing um um income as well so i think there's creative creative ways to create you're going to be creative that you got to be creative on the next steps of how how um some of these historic resources that don't lend themselves to contemporary uses like that building in springfield or carriage houses how they can how they can have um a real economic um an economic viable and economically viable use so chris the idea is that cpaq money could what pay for like an engineer to evaluate a building or something like that is what is that what you mean do diligence yeah we've we've used cpa funds when um you know to have to do with some you know we've had two or three you know um timber frame analysis done on structure so you know determine like you know okay what how is it framed and is it you know is it a true timber frame let's see you know what's the say structural load on it things like that to determine how it could be preserved but that was us trying to decide whether or not we were going to make a delay on demolition it wasn't the owner i'm trying to see what the how the owner would use it right so for cpa for historic preservation you know it has to be to preserve right so we'd have to either right you know chris was saying you can preserve it by putting in a new use or you know you just you know you preserve the exterior i'm uh i i'm sorry i'm gonna have to bow out to get on another zoom meeting i was always talking zoom meetings in the evening huh i yeah it uh yes yeah you see zoom meetings are spilling over from the entire work day now into the entire evening but uh chris i want to i'm gonna have to say goodbye but thank you very much this has been really really helpful and um i i think uh we're going to be able to use every bit of this information i really appreciate it great i'm glad it worked it feels it's got an awkward an awkward feel to it for me this is the first time i've i've i've done it this way but i'm glad you found it for us yeah okay our meetings are going to be discussing this for a long time so i don't know if it's we should thank you or not we're going to be arguing over all these points but they're great points great ideas yeah i think in your template provides you know answers to some of my questions i think yeah i mean it this is this can help the commission determine you know how we want to structure the bylaw i think that's really important because i think right now reading our demolition bylaw it's really unclear how it works in practice and so you know one of the counselors you know opinion is that well if it works in practice different than the bylaw why is that why is it that here you know you can't follow the way the bylaw is written and so you know to me that just speaks to having to update it and this has given a lot of you know ideas for how to do that and it's something we've been working on so the commission you know members have started this a while ago and then members change now there's new members so this is a really nice time to have this hopefully we have a solid group here that can get this work done in this calendar year right can we put it can we say we're going to have a draft in the next few months and just really make it a top agenda item i mean i think i am absolutely committed to that i'd like to keep the momentum going great i took a ton of notes i really appreciate all your points and suggestions so jane i think you're kind of chair now since jane oh that's right oh gosh she's gone okay so i don't know chris i don't know i don't know if you have any other any other if you have anything else i mean i feel like we i same thing i took you know a few pages of notes and i have enough information to are there any other questions that anybody brought to the meeting i had one question and i don't want this to take too long but um just because since i'm new to this job i'm still trying to figure out like the different um how all the different commissions work and i'm wondering since we do have the two historic districts and immersed and historic district commission kind of like where the different responsibilities lie for when a application is put forth for say a demolition for a structure in the historic district like does it need to go for review or what how is it typically done when it's there's a historical commission and a historic district okay yeah i think that was one one of it's uh it that on one of your one of your questions i think number two okay yeah so typically um demolition delay is not going to be included within the local historic district it's going to be there's going to be no review it's in the local historic district because it would be meaningless and and actually problematic so because in a local historic district you can permanently prevent the demolition from taking place you don't want to have a demolition delay there process as well um because it would be it would be meaningless right um and uh i mean potentially even problematic if confused confusing i guess is probably the the best way to put it it's be confusing if uh if you had both processes there so yeah i i think um i think might even have that sample i think i see i think that language is even in the sample bylaw sample demolition delay bylaw that uh if it's in a local historic district it's not it's not uh subject to demolition delay and um just a while ago i put together and Nate i wanted to actually try to work on this a little better flow chart for our purposes right right because then the flow chart then you can see that you know if the building comes up and it's in a historic district a local historic it goes in a different direction and being able to see i find you know having a flow chart really helps me understand the process a lot better and i'd like to be able to prepare one so that when people apply for a demolition permit they see that as well so they can kind of see where they're they're probably we have we have them go through both now because demolitions and zoning and the local historic districts in general so okay we haven't what we have been putting people through that you know dual track in a you know i think sometimes they sometimes i think the applicant doesn't realize that they need they're even applying to two different boards you know they they're just like well you know we've got i just recently one of the local you know something that came before the commission then the owners i i have to go to the local historic district too and so it is just an odd it's an odd thing to have happened and i agree that's probably confusing there's a there's also a hand raised in the attendees you want to recognize uh jan some follow-up comment oh yeah that's the next thing on the agenda are we at that point all commission members have asked all their questions hold on you if you unmute yourself you're allowed yeah yeah i'm sitting here and getting more depressed by the minute because having been through town meeting for many years and and the local historic districts were were brought to town meeting especially the last one link and some said the whole be angel on the west side of of north pleasant street was left out because they thought that it would never pass town meeting if that strip on the west side of kinder park were were in the in the district anyways i a lot of us find that that district is very vulnerable and knowing what we went through with town meeting and things with the council are i think more problematic that's the polite way to say it than they were with town meeting how are you going to convince the people on the council that preservation is important because i don't think they get it i'm hearing too many comments out there that design review board and historical commission need to be eliminated because they get in the way of of economic development what do we get for economic development ugly apartment buildings of marijuana bought shops um it's very depressing to me because i think our town is going down the tubes so so how do you how do you change public attitude on this that's that's the issue i'm posing i know you can't answer it but but public attitude seems to be a big one with with this change of government it's anti-preservation should we do a presentation to the council about towns that have been more successful economically because they have maintained their historic look like you know something like dan i think that sounds wonderful but i think it's got to be in context of trying to fix up to buy one probably yeah that's a good point do you have any experience with that do i chris i've been saving old houses for 50 years but you know the next person come along because after we pulled everything no out of this old house to find the 1737 stuff somebody else is going to cover it all up again to pull it out on that that's my concern i guess my my big concern here is you have people have plenty of money to save a very nice old barn in north amherst and the impetus to save that barn even though they can afford to it and they have relatives who have all of the the materials to repair a roof with when it needed just a roof and it happened to be a grandfather's favorite bond you know this we're not having any luck up here convincing that person and that's only one person who can afford to fix her bond you know who i'm talking about so anyway um it's it's very depressing to me because everything's going to get torn down and we're going to get these ugly buildings downtown and in this dead and i don't know how you change public opinions chris skelly what do you think first first we need to to build up some positive some positive feel feelings and hill die i think get to get hilda out of this prison i've been in prison too long i need parole i've been sitting in the 1737 house for six months without getting out it gets to you and if i don't do it i have covered i'm going to die alone like this i just i just wrote an article it hasn't been published yet but for the national alliance of preservation commissions for the newsletter and uh it's an article called self-help for preservationists so you know i think it we all feel like we need that sometimes so send it along all right i i will i will send it along send it to me i need it so nate send it to me yeah no i will i think no i i think that was a good point i do think that you know with the new council i do think there is you know chris mentioned the two christine breastrift there is a discussion that people think historic preservation is antagonistic to economic development or you know future progress and so it's just jan i mean i do think maybe we do need to get in front of the council and do some more outreach in terms of the value of preservation and so i i think and we can introduce the riderswalk that's about to be launched to them and talk about tourism and recognition of structures that make the towns history come alive i mean it should be pretty easy christ do you know of any towns that have done something like this i have a presentation called the benefits of preservation and i do talk a lot about i mean i talk about the emotional benefits of preservation the environmental benefits of preservation and the economic development economic benefits of preservation as well i presented that at the statewide preservation conference a couple years ago and then in wister in wister last year or so at some point i would like to have a regional workshop where i where i can present that whole workshop again yeah emotional economic yep what's up you said emotional economic and what was your third one uh it's the it's it's let's see um environmental economic emotional that's it okay the three ease yep yep yep i try to make the case that um the preservationists in the world we we come at it from the emotional side and we just sort of expect everyone else to fall in line because you know we we it's it's so it's so it's so ingrained that we're we how could you not how could you not support historic preservation because um we find this this deep emotional connection with these historic resources um but i know the environmental issues are huge the idea of saving buildings i mean there's whole movements to reuse rather than rebuild and yeah so my my my hope my point in the presentation is that um what works for us in terms of what we see as a benefit we have to be able to speak different languages and to make those cases in terms of the environment environmental benefits which are huge and the economic benefits which are also huge oh and i i was i couldn't remember my fourth my fourth e was education the educational benefits of preservation as well whether that's school kids or adults um but there's certainly lots of educational benefits to preservation yeah i'm actually not trying to not not not having to go focus on a textbook or or that's material something like that you actually really have your historic resources and your ability to learn your ability to learn is all around you instead lots lots of educational benefits there too yeah i mean i think those that right there can be a part of the purpose of a demolition bylaw so you're you know you're you're stating why it's important to have buildings preserved and you know we just listed those um yeah no i i don't have any other questions i think you know he'll be your hands still raised i guess i'll just lower it yeah well i can always talk but i'll take it down does anyone have any other questions i think i feel this is our public comment period so is there any other member of the public um attending that you can see night there are you know um if anyone else has any if anyone wants to speak you can raise your hand i don't know if they will it doesn't look like it at all well then i guess we're left to thank chris yeah for his effort here thank you all right we will be in touch you haven't heard the loss from us this is just the start you're on our radar now oops you can write a newsletter next year on like your zoom series with amherst the three e's about what to not not to do in a zoom meeting with him okay well thanks everyone anyone i want to make a motion to adjourn i saw a second nate you're taking minutes right or jane are you i took no i i'm taking minutes and i emailed nate and asked him to send me the video up length because my notes from the presentation are so all over the place i wanted to put them in a more sensical way great okay well thanks everyone thanks chris all right my pleasure we didn't vote on the motion yeah like wait okay so robin moved and then heady seconded right yeah and then she left so i guess she voted yes