 the usual. This meeting is being recorded. Welcome to the Amherst Historical Commission public meeting on Wednesday, March 16, 2022. My name is Jane Wald and as Chair of the Amherst Historical Commission, I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.39 p.m. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting is being conducted by remote means. As no in-person attendance is permitted, every effort is being made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In addition, this meeting is being recorded and minutes are being taken. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so in the following manner. Go to the town's home page on an internet browser. Navigate to the town calendar at the bottom of that page. Click on the historical committee, historical commission meeting link. Zoom and telephone connections and the meeting agenda can be found there. Now for roll call attendance. So board members, as you hear your name called, please answer affirmatively or raise your raise your hand in the raise your zoom hand either either way. Catherine Davis. Present. Robin Fordham. Present. Becky Lockwood. Present. Jan Marquardt. We'll be joining us as soon as you can. Hetty Startup. Present. And Jane Wald. I'm present too. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the public comment period further down on the agenda and perhaps at other appropriate times throughout the meeting. Please be aware the commission will take note of comments but will not necessarily respond to them during public comment periods. If you wish to make a comment, please click the raise hand button when comment is solicited. If you've joined the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. When called upon, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the commission chair. So the first item on our agenda is to review and vote on the Jones Library historic preservation restriction. I think pending whether the trustees of the library have done so today. But let me ask Ben to explain where we are in this process and perhaps the changes that have been made since we last looked at that agreement. Yeah, sure thing. Thanks, Jane. So the I don't remember the background is probably a few months ago, maybe in the even going back to the fall that we saw the previous iteration of the preservation restriction and the at that time, the historical commission you all voted to kind of conditionally approve the restriction pending some changes, you know, even including like the spelling of chance name and but also the there was some concerns raised about a clause about the insurance and the indemnity section of the restriction. And subsequently, there's been a host of meetings between town staff, the library trustees, the town's legal counsel and the Massachusetts Historical Commission. And I think over the past few months, those issues have been ironed out. And ultimately the, you know, the final step was the Massachusetts Historical Commission approved of the final draft that you see here today of the restriction. And subsequently actually this morning that the Jones Library trustees just coincidentally happened to be meeting the same day. And they voted to approve the restriction and, you know, essentially accept the restriction. So the next step is for where we are now the historical commission you all to, you know, take a formal vote on the adoption of their preservation restriction. That's Act one. And then I guess over the next, you know, week or so we can have folks come into town hall and actually sign it in front of a notary is kind of the final step. And then I think the Massachusetts Historical Commission also needs to formally, you know, sign it with, you know, they agreed over emails in its final form. And then it needs to be filed with at the registry of deeds. So it's been a long process. And it's kind of at the one yard line, if you will, with kind of just a few more steps to go to actually adopt it. But what's before you today is kind of been voted on by the Jones Library trustees and accepted. It's been, you know, conditionally approved by Massachusetts Historical Commission. And it just needs a formal vote and signing by the commission members today. Do you want me to kind of go over the what the restriction does and doesn't do in general? Or do we, you know, I kind of went over that last time, but I'm happy to give a summary. No, I, if I can see heads either nodding or shaking, no. I mean, I think we went over it pretty thoroughly last time. So if perhaps if there are, you know, pages or items where you can point us to the significant changes that we really felt were not that needed to be resolved elsewhere just to just for our information in this last, this last iteration of the consideration. Yeah. And now also, I mean, I definitely want to make sure Jan is here for when we actually vote. So yeah, truth be told, the changes that were made about the insurance clause or the insurance clause and the indemnification clause, I wasn't super privy to those meetings. I have a version that shows the track changes, but I trusted that, you know, the library trust is there's more of an issue with the library trustees and if they felt comfortable adopting it and the language work for them, then I didn't think it was really the historical commissions, you know, under their purview necessarily. So but in terms of the kind of substantive parts of the restriction, here's the home page, the kind of title page. It really, you know, I think it's worth noting that the there's kind of this distinction between the property itself, which is literally like the boundaries of the site for the Young's library, the parcel itself, there's the building, which is defined here, you know, capital B building. And that really refers to the 1927, 1928, like original structure, which we saw, you know, we saw a pretty in-depth presentation about with the historic structures report. And then there's kind of the, you know, the historic resources on the site. And so the, where is that defined, kind of the preservation values here is a defined term that refers to the architectural and historical and cultural values of the building and the property. And so with those kind of few terms in mind, I'm just going to kind of scroll through here a little bit. So there's the purpose, you know, it's to assure that the features and characteristics that embody the architectural, historical, cultural significance of the exterior of the building will be forever retained and maintained substantially in their current condition. And to prevent any user change in the property that will significantly impair or interfere with the building's preservation value. So it kind of has two parts to it there, where it's talking about maintaining, in perpetuity, the retaining the exterior of the building, that's again the 1927, 2028 building, but then also making sure that nothing is done to the property that would impair or interfere with the building's preservation values. So there's a requirement to kind of maintain the property, you know, just doing routine maintenance to make sure it doesn't fall into disrepair. And then there's kind of this section where there's activities which are strictly prohibited. There's activities which are allowed but only with review by the Historical Commission. And then there's kind of more minor activities which can be undertaken kind of under the guy under routine maintenance. And so, you know, here's kind of, you know, one, one, two, three, four, five activities which are, you know, strictly prohibited, such as, you know, complete demolition or relocation of the 1927, 28 building, erecting any sort of barrier that might block the view towards the building. And that view is defined as the one from Amity Street is kind of the important view of the front facade of the 1927, 28 building, dumping ashes or rubbish or any offensive materials on the property, you know, transmission lines or subdividing the property. And so those are the ones that are like strictly prohibited. So those would not be allowed under really any circumstances except potentially like a tornado or fire, you know, would create some conditions which obviously that could destroy the building but they can't intentionally do that, obviously. So and then there's kind of these conditional rights which can be, which define activities which can be undertaken with review by the historical commission and with review and approval by the historical commission. So, kind of here. And which I'm sorry to interrupt but would you mind promoting Jan Marquardt? Oh, awesome. Yeah, Jan should be joining us. Hi, Jan. Hi, I've been promoted. Yes. Sorry I'm late everybody. We are on the first agenda item, just reviewing the Jones library historic preservation restriction before taking a vote. The trustees of the library approved it today. So this is the next step. Okay, thanks. I've been watching for a little while. Great. So yeah, essentially, I was just saying there's certain activities which would can be undertaken but would require permission from the historical commission. So that's your interest of the comic and changes to the exterior building. Additions to an alteration partial removal construction remodeling the facades activities by the grantor to maintain the exterior building. So it's essentially it's it's anything short of complete demolition or major overhaul of the facade needs to be reviewed and I'm going to scroll down quickly to this appendix F which kind of outlined major and minor activities. And so this is kind of the an important piece of this whole thing where it defines minor activities or can be kind of done on a routine basis without review by the historical commission. But it's the major activities which would require review and approval by the historical commission. So you know it's separated into caratagories here so painting you know windows and doors they can do regular maintenance you know talking and painting and re-glazing but if they're going to do wholesale replacement of windows and doors then that would require review by the historical commission. You know exterior changes so they want to do spot replacements of existing roofing they can do that as long as it's in kind replacement within larger scale. You know changing or removal materials building elements that kind of stuff would require commission review and approval and then you go down to landscaping so you know altering or removing significant landscape features such as gardens you know walks planting that would require commission review. And again I think it's important to note that the this is all all this review is all done kind of with the perspective of how does it impact the kind of historic integrity of the original you know 1928 library. So that's kind of the focus of the restriction is to for the commission to make that determination of how certain activities would impact the yeah integrity of the 1928 building though the restriction itself is on the entire property so just wanted to make that distinction. Ben could you please go to the last paragraph in exhibit F. Yes. Which is sometimes not well understood by just whenever you know when people generally talk about preservation restrictions they think it's a it's a complete and total prohibition but it last paragraph I think explains really what the role of the commission is the grantee in this case and and the purpose of the of the review process. Yeah right so it's not necessarily different probably preclude future changes you know have an opportunity for the commission to assess the alteration and the impact on the integrity of the building. So thanks Ben for walking us through that are there questions or comments from members of the commission then may someone make a motion to approve and accept the restriction or whatever motion you think is appropriate in this case. I move to accept the preservation restriction. The second okay I think so that was Robin and then Pat was the the second okay thank you any other discussion then let's go ahead with a roll call vote and just cast your vote when your name is called Patricia off. I accept and approve Catherine Davis I also accept and approve Robin Fordham in favor Becky Lockwood I accept and approve Jan Marquardt yes any startup you're muted sorry I'm muted I'm in favor and Jane Wong I approve and accept so we can then arrange for signatures before a notary at town hall. Yes I will do that yeah we have I think there's two different town staff members in town hall who are notaries I think we'll set up some sort of system to have folks come in on maybe offer a few days and times. Very good okay all right then our next item is review and discuss the policy on historic preservation restrictions which is a framework for us to discuss further. More more systematic and reasonable ways to deal with historic preservation restrictions in Amherst and so I just happened to see that there was a hand raised from the attendees and I know it's not the time but I didn't know if you had seen that it was there. I think it's gone now okay we can take well let's see okay Hilda would you like to make a comment? I did because you have excuse me a second you have three minutes. Well I don't need three minutes I just was disappointed that you took the vote before I had a chance to talk because I think there are other people that have also read that restriction and have the same kind of a question. We all listened to Mr. Gridoya and we were blown away by his report and and this it says in in I can give you the exact citations on the other page but basically it's preserved the exterior of the building but at the same time they say that they will follow all the state local and and federal laws with regard to preservation and included in another sentence the National Department of the Atterious Standards and from Mr. Gridoya's report I understood that that included they could not touch the inside of the building that the the rooms in the building had to be used the way they were used originally which of course that's gone by the wayside years ago when the started changing the use of the rooms making the main reading room the children from etc etc but many of us are very concerned that that interior is going to be totally decimated with no intention whatsoever to to try to prove the beautiful wood carving and the extensive efforts that were made to make that interior beautiful and and at an expense that could never be replicated today the skills are gone and and so they're saying that's only for the exterior but they're going to abide by all of these rules and and to me that's a contradiction and I was hoping that somebody on the committee since she got so excited about the 1970s sorority house and whether there's a reason to save it to me and to a lot of other of us this good reason to save the interior of that building and and and there's a lot of angry people out here that that's going to be going and I was rather counting on your rise to help us save it so it's too late now you voted yes you can't reject the vote but I'm just expressing my anger thank you okay thank you for your comment and for your expression for expressing your concern and and on the behalf on behalf of others too so we will take note of that um let's see Sarah McKee is uh has a hand up yes thank you very much Jane Sarah McKee nine Chadwick court Amherst um I too am sorry that you took the vote before public comment um and these are points I've raised previously but I think they still are valid there actually were two grant agreements not a single grant agreement I'm looking at page two um the third whereas from the bottom there were two separate grants for two separate projects and they um the project to restore the slate roof was the first project on which I worked when I became a library trustee in 2009 the slates were falling off um and the potential liability was terrible um so it seems to me that it would be more appropriate to mention two projects two grant agreements and two separate grants one for eighty thousand and then the sixty thousand dollar grant for the chimneys it was only when the guys got up on the roof to fix the roof that they found that the chimneys were ready to totter and my second concern is on the indemnification and Ben um I realized you said you can't speak to this but the the grantor here is the Jones Library Incorporated which is as you know a separate non-profit and unless the its liability policy has been raised since I hiked it personally when I was trustee president from one million to two million in 2011 it's only two million dollars I doubt that anybody's made any attention to that since um and the the liability indemnification still makes no sense to me um I'm I'm sorry that um I did not follow this as closely as it needed to be followed but thank you very much for for mentioning these things. Thank you for your comment Sarah um I think I'm not necessarily going to make any other comment except that um the historical commission um is taking on the responsibility of reviewing plans and proposals for work at the Jones Library and I think we'll be doing that um with gravity and seriousness so but it's helpful to hear hear the concerns of patrons of the library and very interested parties so thank you um let's see um so let's let's take up um let's take up the policy on historic preservation restrictions um sure yeah I think uh we had a good productive conversation about this last time um and it's kind of obviously good time to talk about it kind of as we just accepted a preservation restriction for the first time in a while so um I guess for the benefit of members of the public who are in attendance um we had a conversation last meeting last month about kind of refining uh the historical commission and the I guess overall the town's policy on how and when preservation restrictions are required um or I would say permanent preservation restrictions are required when uh attached to CPA funding understanding that uh you know it can sometimes take a decade to prepare a preservation restriction and all the negotiations that are involved and it really kind of does a disservice to the whole point which is to protect the town's investment in of public funds into a uh into a into a preservation so you know it's important to that the preservation restrictions are streamlined or easy to implement um are obviously effective once they are implemented um so last time we were talking about you know it doesn't make sense to maybe set a threshold but you know a monetary threshold for when a permanent restriction is required which necessitates you know the Massachusetts Historical Commission's involvement which adds a lot of time and complexity versus maybe just for some minor projects we can focus on a local restriction which has a term limit of 30 years but doesn't necessarily require the involvement of the Massachusetts Historical Commission so hopefully the process could just go a lot quicker and would just be a negotiation between the Historical Commission and the grant the grantee um so yeah it was interesting last time we talked about you know you know 30 years is still a pretty long time for like a local restriction and I think Katherine raised the point like for some of these entities it's it's more likely than not that they would probably apply for more CPA funding within that 30 year window and so in effect the 30 year window would just continuously kind of shift forward um and almost you know act as a permanent restriction in some ways um because that 30 year restriction just continues to be extended um so that was kind of where we left it last time um there was some kind of talk about maybe raising the threshold by which a permanent restriction is required to you know something like 500,000 or something quite large so that it really only captures the most complex and the largest investments but that for some of the smaller you know or I mean still quite substantial projects but you know it it could just be a more streamlined process um so uh since last meeting what I've done is kind of just get some I've reached out to maybe you know five or seven towns across the state kind of varying and you know I talked to East Hampton, North Hampton folks and Concord and Lexington and Newton and down in Barnstable and yeah kind of just uh I knew I knew a few people personally and also just kind of did some cold call even emails and just to get a sense of how other towns in Massachusetts handle this knowing that obviously word Amherst is just one of 350 towns and you know we're probably not the only ones facing this dilemma and I think what I heard was pretty helpful I got a lot of validation that um reservation restrictions are incredibly onerous and cumbersome and require a great deal of staff time and to implement and to actually prepare so that was kind of validation number one was like all right this is actually a really difficult thing and it's not just Amherst that makes it difficult um and so yeah I mean different the I will say this is all coming stemming from a statute in the Massachusetts General Laws that governs the Community Preservation Act and the Community Preservation Act statute has this vague um language that says a preservation restriction is required when a town is um acquiring a property acquiring a real interest in the property and so it's that clause like every town kind of interprets what a real interest is and so for some towns they really only get into they only really require a restriction when a when a property is acquired by the town like actually the town is buying the property and making it a public facility for example they would require restriction but if it's just for a rehabilitation um even you know either so then a restriction would be required understanding that it's you know just a lot of work to prepare and you know for some smaller Amherst is kind of in the middle of we have a professional planning department but it's um we're kind of somewhere in the middle of a small town in some of the larger cities where we have the staff to do some of this work but not to do you know we only have so much time in in town hall and a lot of things to do so um you know for some towns they just don't really have a planning staff or they have one planner and they don't really it's too much for them to require a restriction for every time CPA money is allocated um so that was interesting is just understanding that not all towns require a restriction um for even for rehabilitation projects and then two um second takeaway was that some towns actually require the applicant to do the work of preparing the restriction so that was interesting so essentially it would be at the applicant's cost and I assume when I hear that that probably means that the applicant's hiring a lawyer to prepare the restriction um or you know or maybe there's CPA funds that are used to hire um some legal help to prepare the restriction so that was interesting too because um you know we had we could have the capacity to make it for each of these projects like there's five to ten thousand dollars allocated to help with the restriction um and just get some external help to work on it I think that could help streamline the process um and yeah I think also um I'm not necessarily recommending this but it was interesting um in some towns instead of a preservation restriction they actually made like a local historic district just right around the property like the one property local historic district um which in effect you know kind of has a is in the same way as you know could be considered as having a restriction on the property um those also as I think some of us probably know though it's not easy to set up a local historic district either so um I was kind of curious I mean I like they feel like the same amount of work probably but um but I just thought it was interesting that there's kind of other approaches out there so um yeah that was kind of my home I have some of that written up just I've notes that I've taken I'm happy to share that out if I know that was probably a lot to digest but um it was just interesting to get some input from other cities and towns across the state and um I don't know if it provided any clarity necessarily but it just kind of gave me some reassurance that uh kind of every town there's something a little bit different and there's no clarity on how it should be done so here it is um yeah I just found that surprising um which you may have said this been I might have missed it but were other any other towns trying to do what we're doing bring um so yeah so no no town used like a financial threshold necessarily like in Northampton they evaluated kind of more on a case by case basis um and don't necessarily have like a set in stone threshold and I heard that from some other towns as well but yeah no I specifically asked that like do you have a monetary threshold no one indicated they did so it was interesting um Shannon I'm I really like this phrase but I forget what it was something about real vested interest what was the term um yeah I was like acquire a real interest in the property acquiring a real interest I mean to me that's much more significant than just helping with some renovation or something it sounds a real interest I mean almost sounds like it has to be more than 50 of the value I don't know but if we go back to my example that I used last time you know say we have this barn that needs stabilization and it's going to cost well to put it over your threshold say it's going to cost 125,000 right which puts it over that automatic threshold you were considering that it would need a restriction but if the whole property say it's a decent size piece of land and there's a historic house say it's worth I don't know 800,000 this is this is not 50 percent of the value you know it's not it it's it seems to me it's a drop in the bucket when it comes to the kinds of things we have to do to places now and I think that phrase is really crucial to our understanding of whether or not we have to do these restrictions on every CPA grant particularly smaller ones but the town is not acquiring a real interest if they're giving 50,000 to have um you know a bell tower reinforced doesn't seem to me they're not acquiring any interest on the property they're just helping maintain it you know so that's that phrase just struck me yeah um agreed um Becky um yeah we're we're not quite there yet with this issue but we did talk a little bit about implementing and mostly monitoring and enforcing did any were you able to ask others what they did I don't know if that came up other talents yeah no that's a good question um no it didn't really come up um but I guess I maybe I didn't explicitly ask that necessarily um as more focused on kind of the nuts and bolts of how the restriction is implemented but um you know I would definitely actually I will in barns barnstable is they have um like they have an entire legal team within their town they have you know a dozen people in their planning department they have a lot pretty large municipal government there and they they have a pretty robust system of um uh inventorying their properties with the restrictions and visiting them and keeping tabs on them um but uh yeah they they offered that information whereas others didn't necessarily comment on that but no I think that's a really important point and something that should be adopted in Amherst or look that carefully um Ronan um okay so I'm just trying to get this clear in my head so we're talking about CPA grants and restrictions and we are required to have a restriction when there's a real interest but not when there's not can you clarify that just take me from the top down so you've got a CPA project what what is the what what is the town obligated to do in terms of restriction um so I think that that that sense of obligation is unclear it's because the the state statute um doesn't really offer much more information other than a restriction is required when the town acquires a real property interest okay so that's the definition that we're working off of and we don't really know how clear it is okay all right and so we we it sounds like every town is deciding um on their own what that means and how to implement their own restriction program okay yeah thank you um oh I just wanted to say uh I fully uh advocate using CPA funds to fund the lawyers for this if we need to outsource the you know that's going to speed things up by you know in a one or two year process instead of ten that seems like really good and obvious use of CPA funds so are there any other questions or comments and then uh if not um Ben if you go uh I'll finish my sentence and then Robin I'll ask you to talk um uh Ben I would like it if you would um tell us what you see the next steps but um but I'll let Robin you you can wrap up with that but um I'll let Robin okay yeah just a very quick comment that occurred to me that um a 30-year restriction and a local historic district don't have to be exclusive so that if I you know if we had a 30-year restriction on a property I mean this would be I guess beyond most of our certainly beyond our 10 years but that you know that a local uh one property historic district could always be imposed if there was concern for the end of the restriction about uh a desire for continued monitoring um you know if there was a real valuable had become a real valuable property in some sense so that's that's another way to think of the 30 years is that the the possibilities don't end at the end of the 30 years absolutely yeah that's a good point um so I think in terms of next steps um um I I guess I want to clarify and confirm I guess this would be a question for the town attorney is about the actual process of what do it look like to extend the 30 year restriction like a few times and is it like a new restriction each time or is it you know an amendment to the original restriction and um how that process works and just making sure it's actually uh like legal I guess to do that um would be a good question there's some limits on you know I don't know what I guess a town can only hold an easement or a restriction like this for 30 years um so I just want to make sure that it's okay to like extend it if it's like a new restriction each time um so that that's one piece of homework I have to do and then secondly I think um uh when we this is in two two more items on the agenda until we talk about the current CPA projects under review the Konke house and the women's club I think the result of that delift deliver the town council is kind of deliberating and wavering a little bit on those two projects um and the restriction for each one is like a major kind of point of concern and questioning and I don't I don't really want to come out with a historical commissions policy until we kind of have some clarity on where the town council stands on those projects is kind of my sense um because it'll be interesting to see kind of what that I think there are members certain members of the town council are going to want to get into the nuts and bolts of what the language in the restriction says and um and that might impact kind of the policy moving forward I guess but yeah we'd probably learn a lot yeah exactly yeah from that process um Jan it's looked up um real property interests online and you might when you talk to the lawyers you might ask them if there is a very specific definition because what I'm finding is it has to do with ownership yeah yeah now I know it might be good if we knew I think I think made has asked uh Sharon our attorney that and um I think that's how we started this whole process of being like oh we don't necessarily need a permanent restriction because we're not necessarily acquiring a real property interest I think it's more about um the town needs to feel comfortable that their public investment is being protected in some way so even if it's not a full you know acquiring of ownership and a property even by giving you know whether it's ten thousand or hundred thousand dollars to a property you just feel uncomfortable that the applicant's not going to turn around and you know demolish the property tomorrow or something or you know just at that investment is you know um serving you know generations to come and there's a a benefit to the preserving those structures we put some language in with the grant rather than working from a definition that implies ownership when we don't have it I mean could we just not say that if we give you this money if you sign on this dotted line for this money you have to agree not to change things for x number of years or something I mean it would be simpler with the CPA yeah right yeah we already do have a grant agreement that applicants need to sign and the grant agreement that they sign says that they will accept a preservation restriction I just feel like the restriction itself is provides a greater sense of protection because it's you know filed with the registry of deeds and it has this whole enforcement mechanism and um it's just so much our work it doesn't happen so if we could just wording into the contract and then when both parties sign it's locked in we could we could that follow up with that as well yeah but the the preservation restriction also allows for I might tell me if I'm correct then that it allows for review so that uh to the property owners feel more comfortable with that but they have uh that it's not a 30-year lock on doing nothing they have the opportunity to come before the commission if something needs to change it's to give us control but not to keep to not to lock the building in in place for 30 years what seems to me it would only be to lock the changes that we're paying for in place not the entire building so if we're paying for a roof it's only that they aren't going to do something to change that roof for a while and that could be in the contract it wouldn't have to be on the entire property to have a restriction if we're only giving them money oh I mean I always assumed that the restriction was to the purpose of the restriction was to give the the money to to repair or restore or preserve but that the intention was to maintain the building as it was like we wouldn't want the conky house stripping off their porch because we gave the money to repair their roof but I'm going to default with the sense that the town and the state and the lawyers know but if they wanted to take up their porch Robin they don't have to come back to us and ask us separately if they were going to take well I mean maybe that's an extreme example but I mean you know if we if we didn't have three institutions in town that didn't pay taxes we could afford more of these you know lawyers and planners and everything and we have to work within what we have right but we don't know that the most painless solution that allows for us to maintain control would be a better way to go than to put something in place we're never going to realize so I think let's wrap up discussion on this point for now Ben has identified a couple of things he's he's going to want to to do and research and bring back to us and certainly the direction of what happens with the conky house and the woman's club is going to be very informative to us so you know okay okay uh let's see at this point the next agenda item is concerns the Emily Dickinson Museum so I am going to ask Jan to be to chair this portion of the meeting and I'm just going to mute and turn off my camera and my colleague Shanti Underhagen is going to make the statement and the request to the historical commission okay and Ben you're going to bring this person in um yes Shanti are you with us I am just yay hi um so you're going to present for Emily Dickinson us great to see all of you heady lovely to see you it's been a long long time and um Ben and others and I'll talk to Jane about this too um as uh as a a long time easement administrator both at historic new england and the national trust for historic preservation I'm happy for you guys to pick pick my brain about any of these questions it's probably a good thing I wasn't led in earlier because I was so if you want to call at some point to talk through some of the stuff that you're facing and including the CPA stuff I'm happy that sounds great yeah thank you super okay um I'm going to turn uh powerpoint on and uh let's see I'm going to do a full slide so can you all see my screen nope no did you share it I have to share it yeah that would be that would be a really good thing to do uh let's see all right are you now seeing it nope no okay I could do this I can okay here we go okay okay got it go from the beginning all right um so um I started working with the Emily Dickinson museum about a year ago on a number of projects that are in the pipeline I'm sure you all know about some of the stuff going on at the museum currently we are at the sort of tail end of a pretty ambitious significantly ambitious project at the homestead an interior restoration with some exterior work as well and so with that starting to come near completion in the next couple of months we're gearing up for another project the evergreens energy conservation and HVAC systems project so I don't actually need to tell tell you all about the history of of the evergreens you know that it was Emily Dickinson's brother Austin's house it's to the west of the homestead it's one of the you know two museum properties that the museum owns those of you who haven't been through the evergreens may not know that the interior is substantially intact from the 19th century with Dickinson collections in abundance and original finishes and just an incredibly intact assemblage of architecture and collections but the building suffers and therefore the collections suffer from some you know environmental instabilities and so this project which is being supported by the national endowment for the humanities pretty significantly is to work to stabilize the internal environment at the evergreens and to make sure that the collections that are housed this is primarily a collections driven grant and project the collections that are housed within the evergreens last into the future in in good condition so as I said I'm sure you all know about the history the evergreens is a national historic landmark it's individually listed on the national register it's also in a national register district it's in your local historic district and there's also a preservation restriction held by the Massachusetts historical commission so I'll tell you details of the project in a second but I'm showing you this picture to just indicate that at the exterior of the building it's the west elevation to the left where there will be a bit of work and that is where the HVAC units excuse me the AC condensers there's one there now there'll be two there they're tucked behind shrubs not really visible at all the right arrow is the east elevation the elevation that faces the homestead and the area where the arrow is is near the bulkhead and the area away at the north elevation of the main block of the house and that's where there'll be a fair amount of activity to address water intrusion at the bulkhead area away and at the foundation and there'll be a couple of other exterior projects that will be going on so the project is separated into two phases two parts one is architectural non-mechanical and these are things that will be happening to the building some at the exterior and some at the interior to work to stabilize the environment in sort of passive ways so addressing where there's water intrusion in the bulk of that is at the foundation wall that I just talked about at the east elevation in the area away at the bulkhead so that the bulkhead will be it's a bilco you know metal bulkhead will be replaced with something more appropriate and more historically compatible there'll be some more below grade at the foundation to ensure that water stops leaking in that area a number of basement windows in the foundation will be fitted with interior storms to prevent air intrusion at windows we're looking at a number of different systems for how to keep UV and other light out to keep wallpaper and fabrics and art better preserved against UV intrusion at the attic there will be augmentation of existing insulation and a catwalk construction to access the attic and that is likely to result in some necessary ceiling replacement the ceilings have fallen plaster is definitely failing in a number of locations the additional weight of the insulation may require some plaster work also at the exterior there's more water intrusion at the roof at the north elevation to as you enter those of you know the building there's a ramp between the main block in the shed the roofing in one of those areas needs some work some gutter work it's constantly causing water leaks there and then there'll be some chimney repairs to the east chimney and I'll show you photos of all of that I won't go into too much technical detail with mechanical and electrical what suffice it to say the systems need to be upgraded to provide a much more stable environment so that includes importantly you know the introduction of new mechanicals electrical work including removing the overhead electrical from main street which will obviously contribute to the ambiance of the property as it existed historically and some of the work related to the mechanical has already been accomplished as part of the homestead project as well as those of you who've seen the property lately the path between the evergreens and the homestead which was completed late last fall this is just an image of the area way on the east elevation that I've described you see that the bilco bulkhead so that will be replaced with something would certainly more compatible the ramp will be taken away and foundation work will be completed in this area of the building then the ramp will be reinstalled just as it appears now the little photo on the right shows you the problem of water intrusion right at the bulkhead it's an ongoing issue which doesn't help the environment on the first and second stories obviously this is just an image of the chimney work at the east side you can see on the left the existing east chimney and on the right the existing west chimney the proposal includes repointing at this chimney and also just restoring the east chimney on the left to its original configuration meaning it will match the west chimney on the right this is just a view google street view to show you generally with the white arrow on the left the location behind many shrubs rhododendrons of the ac condensers they really are not visible or the one that exists there will be one added to that and on the right you can see where that ac condenser is we are looking along south toward main street along the west side of the building west elevation of the building so that is a really minimally to know visibility location at the interior of the few of the things that I mentioned roller shades will be fitted on on windows attic insulation will be augmented to ensure that a cold attic is maintained at all times and there's no heat transfer from rooms below and you can see in the bottom we will fit the basement window openings with proper interior clear interior storm panels these are just two photographs illustrating the condition at many of the ceilings in the evergreens it over time I think a combination of both water damage on the right that's a chimney on the second story the ceiling right near the chimney clearly that was a leak related to something related to the chimney and on the left is just another example of the cracked plaster where the plaster has left loosened and is leaving the laugh this condition is pervasive throughout the homestead so part of the project part of the goal of the project is to address these really deteriorated ceilings and that's really the scope of the work so I think what the only Dickinson museum is looking for from the historical commission is we begin our journey of numerous applications for for approval for this project including before your local historic district commission has been those but also a section 106 review because one of because this is federally funded grant money we have to go through an approval process for the easement that is on the property that's interior and exterior of course we will come to the access board locally as well as the state access board so we have a bit of a bit of a journey ahead in terms of approvals and I think what we would really like is to get letter of support from the historical commission for this really significant project and I'm happy to answer questions and I know Jane will also be I think she'll probably pop back in um because she can answer things too if I can't thank you that was very clear presentation I think we have a good sense of what you plan to do are there any questions from commission members I'm gonna be a good one you didn't we didn't even have any questions well that's fine and looks like heady heady did you want to yeah I just had a question about whether there is any um it's closed right now I this is a very selfish question I still haven't seen the inside of the evergreens um and I wonder if as part of the timeline whether there's any um desire on the part of the owners to sort of show the work as it unfolds or as it gets done so that we in the community can can see that be how it's being taken care of and um for for you know for posterity so I think that's that's definitely a Jane question but um you know I certainly know that my experience with the Emily Dickinson Museum over the past year and the work at the homestead um you know we are in an unusual circumstance in time with COVID I think were we not in a period of COVID I um I can imagine that there might have been some programming not excessive but some programming that might have been um uh along that vein heady of sharing the conservation inaction kind of which um you may remember from our years together at SPNA was close to my heart I people love to see this work going on it's really meaningful so I think it certainly depends on where we are in terms of the circumstance of COVID and and that sort of thing um but you know uh I could imagine that if not in real life maybe virtually um there could be snippets of of information but yeah it's definitely a Jane question what I will say is um you know very soon very very soon certainly this spring and summer um everyone should please try to make a trip to the homestead because you'll all be just blown away at the at the restoration that the museum has undertaken it you will you will be astonished at the transformation so that will be one nice opportunity but yeah I certainly will if Jane's not listening mentioned to her that that's a thought that you care about I'm just curious um when you replace the plaster ceilings do you still do lath and plaster or did they use wellboard and just make it look like yeah so um well let me first say we're still exploring uh whether that is a critically important thing to do I mean this is not all there's there's one gypsum ceiling um that is sort of a no-brainer to replace the plaster um but other ceilings are original plaster so we're we're making sure we go through some due diligence uh that we've explored all the options for retaining the plaster but it is it is looking uh you know troubling in terms of condition um and so it won't be with wood laugh it'll be with wire laugh but it'll be a three-part plaster and it will and it will be it will be undertaken in a very very careful approach the hope being always that when you walk in post project you don't actually know their new ceilings but uh but the but the but the work of wood laugh and three-part plasters enormously uh excessive and so um if we were doing repair sections definitely would be but uh if it's a full replacement it's likely wire laugh with the three-part which is what has happened to the homestead too thanks sure anybody else have any comments or questions does anybody want to move that we write a letter of support for the project you have to put your mic on i mean you're unmute yourself okay um i will move that we write a letter of support to the analytic in some museum regarding this project that the evergreens and i second it oh sorry we both second it okay then you're keeping track of this even though we see only the local correct okay great um any further discussion i'll work with jane on exactly what it should say i guess i'll end up doing it so either or both of you can advise on best wording yeah well ben knows how to find me i'm happy to help thank you so much so if there's no further discussion shall we vote on that or do we need to vote on something like a letter like this i mean we have a motion we might as well vote right but we don't really need a roll call i don't think so is there anyone is everyone in favor let's just say that yes yes okay it's unanimous so we will write a supportive letter i think it's a great project seems to be a time to come meet with oh absolutely thank you so much for the health and support and um you know we will keep you posted great all right i'm gonna hop off and have a great night thank you thank you thank you and jane is back thank you yeah wait there's uh there's a great deal of activity at the Emily Dickinson museum these days and uh and there will be for the next 30 years hey i have visitors coming this summer you have to finish so i can get people in there but yeah thank you for thank you for your help in as we try to move through a a really extensive approval process which will take as much time as it will to do the actual building um so let's see it's uh 747 we've got just under 30 minutes and so i think if we need to drop off anything it would be the February minutes um let's see uh so why don't we go to let's try to discuss the conky house and hills house uh take 10 or 12 minutes to do that so that we can also get enough data on the preservation by-law which is also kind of turning along so um um so um okay i'm going to jump right in here because we have this time council forum coming up and i just wanted to give a recap of my experience of the movement of the conky house in the hills house through cpa and i know that i'm i'm jumping in a little bit of petty here but i've made a bunch of public comments and she's shaking her head giving me that so i would say at the cpa meeting i made a point of making public comment about the fact that um and i think eddie made this point too that um um members there were not aware that public that private entities could receive cpa funds a further understanding of uh the public benefit being the visual view of the building it's not necessary to be able to enter the building in order to provide a public benefit for a historic preservation project and um once that information was given to the cpa committee i think there was a lot more support for these projects um and they were voted forward and then i also attended and i think jane also attended and spoke at the finance committee meeting um where they and ben you can help me along here they they recommended everything else and then held these two projects back is that correct essentially um they have not yeah yeah exactly and so i uh made a public statement trying to explain the concept of public benefit uh and um because i was at that point i was less concerned about uh the understanding that a private entity can receive cpa funds that's just a fact it's not really a um anything that we need to to debate and um once i made public comment and jane did my impression from the committee at that point and i'm forgetting the counselor's name i should know it at this point um there were there were at least two people who said oh i'm not worried about the public benefit there seemed to be concern about it was it was concerned that was framed in the sense of like we have other we may have other projects coming down the pike that need cpa funding and uh i don't i think the counselor's statement was uh the sense that like that maybe these projects weren't important enough to fund and i'm i'm i'm i'm interpreting but but they both said they both basically said that they weren't concerned about the public benefit aspect that it was more of a fiscal responsibility question and so um my intention was to be to write to the counselors to try to figure i'm trying to figure out what exactly it is they're objecting to because it seems like the goalpost keeps moving so that i could provide further public comment to um address those objections and i would say that my my main concern is that there is unease about these projects because they're not so obviously public town projects that that that unease is is fueling um the resistance to recommending them and i feel like that falls into the camp of both i'm sort of learning in my studies as an arbitrary ruling it's not really based on the rules around cpa the projects are eligible for cpa they've been vetted by two committees they both have urgency and i feel strongly that that's not a grounds for not recommending them if the finance committee doesn't want to recommend them i would still appeal to the town council to approve them anyway because it's up to them and in the final measure right they take everyone's recommendations in hand and then they decide going forward there but that would be that would be the grounds that i would assume might be making an argument the basis of but i'm just really not clear on what people are really um feeling uh um some concern about but i i do sense that it's this large uh large ticket items for projects that aren't owned by the town and um that's what makes sister preservation under cpa unusual and i think um i would want to provide some clarity around that that that these are exactly the kind of projects that we would expect and that they have both have urgency and that should not be a grounds for for not approving them thank you that seems to be what is happening so um then will the will the town legal council have any uh response before before this meeting coming up um well i don't i don't think there's any question of the eligibility of these projects um town council members understand that the projects are eligible i think it's and i mean i guess we have clarified that with a town attorney and provided that information to the finance committee last meeting um but yeah no i think robin you kind of got at the heart of the issue is um it's a in my mind it's a combination of uh i think there is still some misunderstanding of the public benefit a little bit maybe that needs to be reinforced a bit more that it's yes these buildings aren't necessarily open to the public all the time but it's the it's the you know historic atmosphere it's the ambiance that they create on the street you know they're both on main street as people are coming up towards the center of town these aren't you know buildings way back in the woods that are out of view you know they are prominent historic structures on the i was uh i was driving on on shumway today and um of the conky stevens house is yeah front and center as you're coming down the street so yeah and so i think um reinforcing that and then i think it's um again a kind of a lot of the focus was on the restriction because they were questioning like how you know what is the again you know and you can look at the restriction as a benefit for town as well because it's um it's an opportunity to you know permanently preserve uh those two buildings um and the applicant gets something in terms of you know a hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and rehabilitate money for rehab the town gets something for in terms of a permanent preservation restriction and you know the the the you know the fact that the buildings will be rehabilitated and preserved so um yeah i think for the conky house it's kind of it's interesting that they're lumping them together because the conky house has unique has unique circumstances because it's like a condo condo-wise office building and so they were kind of questioning like well what does that mean for the individual office owners and do they you know what happens if they sell does the you know and all these kind of situational questions and at the end of the day you know we made it very clear the restriction runs with the land it's on the property um it it's the building is owned by the you know the trustees of the you know condo association so it's um yeah i think there wasn't really any concern in our mind about it being a condo building um i don't really know i think i think there there's a lot of questions being asked and at the end of the day maybe they just don't like the project and um they're maybe just trying to find a lot of ways to see if the project could be determined not be eligible and you know at the end of the day they they do you know control the purse strings or whatever so if they don't want to recommend the project then they don't have to but i think they need to be mindful of the precedent that it sets and understand the impacts and the implications for that and you know both for future applicants but then also for the cpa commission the historical commission and town staff you know because based off of what i've heard from the historical commission and from the cpa commission i was like actively recruiting these private entities like the conky house and the women's club because i knew folks were sick of you know town buildings um seeking funds so you know we all made a concerted effort to reach out to these entities and now we're hearing from town council that oh no we you know we really want to fund projects that are you know more accessible to the public so just kind of whatever they decided i just hope that you know sets them then so the finance committee makes a recommendation but then the town council vote is what actually passes through the town council so if i'm making public comment to the town council i mean i've already made my public comment to the finance committee so um that should be they can they can essentially not recommended and it can still pass that we convince the town council exactly yeah yeah i think i think you want to make your state same statement to the town council i was gonna um i was gonna submit the statement that i that i made to the finance committee and writing to the town council but also um um i wanted to prepare a secondary statement on the basis of the decision can't be arbitrary like it can't be based on the fact that there's you know we anticipate another project coming looking for cpa funds and it can't be made on the basis of an individual uh redefining what historic preservation or rehabilitation yes right if they have a concern that they need to leave two hundred three hundred thousand dollars aside for cpa then you know why are they choosing these two particular projects you know when you could there are other projects there that could wait another year you know that that aren't as pressing i mean that that's that's the argument but i would intend to make but yeah okay um okay and that's on monday monday yep it's on monday okay oh boy okay um becky i think ben just brought up a really good point about actively seeking out privately owned properties um it is it is in the you know it's within our right to to um work with privately owned properties for the preservation and it and i really think it's pretty clear cut that you either include these properties as you do everyone else because that's what it's in the in the plans and and you know and the work or you don't and if you don't you need to change the preservation plan and i don't know whatever else you need to change to be very clear because you can't have people applying again getting to the end and then right you know not understanding why they can't so i think it's real important we get it straightened out in some fashion for all of us oh jan i can't remember if i've told you this before but you know last year members of the cpa committee reached out to every district in town asking homeowners encouraging homeowners to apply so there would be more private funding yeah yeah so i mean this is going contrary to what they're hoping to do and finance committee clearly doesn't know that right so something needs to change um i mean just just to be clear and i'll be quick um they did they did not come to a point where they they were objecting on the basis of funding a private project i think that that might be the feeling behind it but the statements were were different than that they were a concern they were a fiscal concern about the overall amount uh you know i mean it shifted but but but in the end they they accepted all those arguments so um it's about eight o'clock so we may need to um summarize what our next steps here are um just one one comment our one thought is um you know i think some of this is getting i guess from my perspective some of it's getting tangled up with you know why is it that we wanted to encourage private homeowners to come forward um and i think one of the answers is uh that we were you know seeing a lot of town projects which were maybe partly restoration but you know partly not and um the historical commission can make a judgment about what is properly historic restoration uh but i think that we found um that that judgment was not not necessarily accepted uh so i i think what we're trying to do is create a mixture of recipients not to block one or the other but just to have a a healthier mix of how our cpa historic preservation funds are being spent um so let's see robin you're you're writing and are you going to show up yeah i will show up okay um i'll plan to be there and i i hope i can write something too um and we can maybe coordinate um so uh are there any thoughts or suggestions for what we what we present to uh on monday you'd like to you'd like to make sure get in there or strategies um anything like that seems to me that the larger the property and therefore the more expensive these kinds of repairs are the more important it is that we support owners owners or cpa supports owners because if not the town will the bigger more obvious historic properties will start to look rundown and that's going to be the worst thing for the um you know the the streetscape that we're trying to to maintain um so you know the town is not going to let main town buildings go to rack and ruin there may be times when they need help with things fine but it must have been that cpa was reaching out to private owners because they're the ones who really need the help since the town can't step in if somebody's letting their historic properties start to get shabby but we can offer funds towards it right and that's going to be the best way to keep a historic um center right thank you so um jane i i just i just wanted to add that i think your your explanation of the background of why we were seeking out the mix of funding is really important i you know there's new people there are new people here and there or maybe people on the finance committee that don't understand you know the the detailed workings of of our work and and i think explaining it might might help too thank you um let's see pat then robin i'm i'm um finding it's difficult to appreciate where the finance committee is coming from when as we sit here in amherst historical commission our role is to preserve the significant properties in town and and those are privately owned we've we've supported town renovations to libraries and and other things but i think that that the fact that there's being this this um i want to use the word disingenuine um differentiation between private ownership or not um every property aside from a town property owned by the town is private ownership and if it's a significant property it it has a right um to request cpa funds to to restore and and maintain so how do we as a commission or can we or do we state state this the idea of of the the the requests come from properties that are deemed significant to the town and ought to be treated equally robin um so in uh just addressing that that point has been made thoroughly over and over again um again you know we've kind of gone through with with all with with all the with both the cpa and the finance committee that the project is allowable uh private properties are eligible um there are essentially no issues there um in terms of of the legality we can certainly reinforce that and jane i think that i was going to take sort of a procedural approach but if you wanted to take this great approach about balancing our our recipients um and the importance of of stressing the fact that private owners in fact have no other sources of funding for historic reserve preservation um i was going to try to ascertain from town counselors where their concerns are so that i might address them but also to just reinforce the idea that if you're going to take two hundred and fifty three hundred thousand dollars out of the entire cpa budget this year there is money for these projects it's there right we're not if they feel that they need that kind of reserve it appears that they're sing singling out historic preservation and that's an arbitrary decision and they have to have better reasoning for um finding that three hundred thousand dollars than these projects are not uh in in public ownership so that will that will be my approach and i will also like i said i'll just re resubmit my statement about understanding what a public visual public benefit is that might be useful is there a role for the amherst historic commission to make a statement to that effect or or no well i think jane and i will both thank public comments so that will as members of the historic commission okay okay okay um headie and then we'll move on i i can attend the meeting as well and and jane and robin i'm happy to read things edit things as i listen to all of this i just think you know if you if the if the um women's club and the conky sievens house weren't there we would have a very different perception of our arrival in amherst um someone mentioned streetscape and i think that's really important for property values alone anything else um and uh it's it's an incredibly historic street partly because of the emily dickinson house at the top of it um and that house in and the evergreens relates to these two other buildings very fairly closely in terms of building type so i think i i think the case could be made that these two buildings are very much in the public interest in terms of their preservation um you know and as i said i'll come to the meeting you know on zoom and um a little tired tonight but i will try and help you both um with anything you just want to run by me okay thank you thanks a lot hey you know um it ben do we let's see will so we can take public comment after if you need to leave um but um uh do do we need to address preservation by law proposal um yeah only just that the uh sorry i mean it's yeah i mean it's a big a kind of a big moment for the preservation bylaw for all these years it's finally being presented to the full town council on monday so uh on monday there's going to be the you know public forum about the cpa projects i think at six thirty and then at some point between seven p.m. and i don't know like nine p.m. uh on the agenda is the presentation of the preservation bylaw and so that presentation on monday will kind of kick off like a maybe two month process where they will the town council will will refer the bylaw to the planning board and the their subcommittees of the town council for a review and public hearing process and then you know they will get after those public hearings there will there will be a recommendation um essentially the recommendation is to appeal article 13 and then to adopt this new general bylaw um and so yeah i mean it's it's finally finally has come the moment of kind of getting referred and going through those motions so um i've asked uh jan and jane to come to monday's meeting um and you know our hope is you know we're presenting this as like a joint proposal between town staff and the historical commission we've all we've both worked on it so much over the past what like seven years maybe going back quite a while so um yeah i think uh i'm it kind of came up quickly i i thought we would have like another few weeks to present the town council but they are they're gonna get into like their budget season in the next few months so they wanted to get the zoning bylaw or the bylaws out of the way so i'm frantically writing a memo which kind of will accompany the uh the bylaw and it'll be presented together and the memo kind of just gives an overview of the three the major changes that are being made and the kind of process moving forward um and i think um yeah i don't know the only kind of discussion point i wanted to ask about was i mentioned this to jane last week was still we're still a little hung up on this definition of demolition and how it how the part c works um so as you know like the current definition of demolition is really big it's like any act any act of demolishing or you know or removing a building or a portion there of and we've developed this kind of three-part definition so the three the definition is you know total destruction or demolition you know 25 percent or more of elevation and then this part c which was you know removing or modifying important architectural elements and i think i mentioned this last time but we had some concerns about you know kind of opening the floodgates to every property in town who want that that's 50 years or older and having to review you know minor architectural changes you know for for all i think like 6000 homes and amherst and so we kind of settled on filtering it out a little bit so that we're really just looking at for this section of the definition um it's really just looking at the the you know hopefully the most historically significant buildings and amherst and so we weren't we've kind of been wavering about how do we actually um filter that out and so at first we settled on oh we'll have like a town you know inventory of historic buildings and we can you know loosely base that on macros um and then you know i think there was some concern about like oh that might be a lot of work to like maintain that database and update periodically and um and and also and whereas you know at macros the state does a good job of maintaining that for us and it has basically the whole extent of the town's inventory up there so i made this change a few weeks ago saying like oh we'll just say this only applies to buildings on macros however um you know i think there's some concern about um it might it might just make sense to keep this language like flexible and not necessarily you know just just say you know we can call it like the like for buildings uh you know on the town's inventory voted on by the historical commission you know blah blah the active modifying or removing and if we kind of adopt some more flexible language it might allow you know that you on the commission could just call that you know we're going to say the town's inventory is basically what's on macros and just keep it simple and call it that but it might be the case that in a few years it's actually you know maybe macros has grown to a substantial number of properties and it's you know becoming too hard to implement this project to this uh definition here and maybe they want to kind of shrink the what this applies to and it's a smaller list of properties so i was going to propose maybe and maybe we don't necessarily need to do this for monday there's always some room to change after the referral by town council but i i'm just still kind of hung up on this section here and wanting to add some flexibility i guess is my main concern so i'm curious if anyone has any thoughts i do have to go in like five or seven minutes but happy to discuss a little bit here um pat did i see your hand oh you mean i'm sorry pat you were muted the entire time okay got it got it the other that that that flag interfered but but when i was working with the sunset south whitney you know the the uh lincoln um group um i did did a whole macro search all on the north pleasant street and then um because that was historic commissions that we should um take the lead or participate in as it turns out that they as a local district are already authorized to take the lead but what we discovered in the process is that a lot of the side streets that have significant properties um that those properties are not listed on macros and the local historic district was going to set about trying to do that so i i see where you're coming from ben but i'm wondering if there can be and and and or that that it be on macros and or identified by local um historic districts and that might give the flexibility uh until the properties can be listed or maybe they won't ever be yeah no i think adding yeah whether we add a you know and or kind of section here or just you know refer to you know maybe it's something we do in the rules and regulations of the historical commission where you know there's a procedure for adding and modifying a list i think it's important to have that level of flexibility um right because there there there may be properties in the process of being identified by local historic districts or identified by local historical six aren't listed on macros and that's what we found in this this um sunset Lincoln um south whitney is is just that there were a lot of side street properties that weren't listed that were eligible to be listed so yeah anyway i just add that to the to the mix of the conversation yeah i i thought also that one reason for identifying a specific inventory was um so that would be easier for homeowners to find information about their own house yeah yeah yeah no i agree i mean right now with macros um you're not notified if your house is added to the list um so you wouldn't really know um so yeah that's another concern about using this that it's kind of a trade-off you know the state maintains macros so we town staff wouldn't have to but it also creates maybe some extra work for us to notify homeowners and uh but whereas you know if if we were to maintain the list and you know updated periodically and and all that that's a little bit more work for town staff but maybe you know homeowners are kept in the loop better because it's handled locally so um yeah it's kind of about finding that balance and i think actually hat raised an interesting point and maybe this is a whole other kind of worms but uh do we want this definition to apply to buildings in the local historic district i mean just as a reminder the local historic district um permission they review very carefully and heavily scrutinize all changes removal or addition to any house in the district so um in my mind they kind of have that covered this this section here and i would feel it be a little bit redundant um to have the historical commission also look at you know the removal of architectural elements um because i mean the local historic district and flat out did not reject the idea of someone removing elements i mean and the commission would more so put a delay on that if you so choose so chose but i'd just be curious i have a feeling that would come up at a council meeting so i'm going to make a little suggestion and then pat i'm going to call on you um i think this is going to be a little bit unresolved yeah by the time it gets reviewed on monday so i think what we're working with right now is the principle that we want some kind of filter and exactly what that mechanism is you know we'll need a little more time to work that out now i would highly agree and we share that sentiment as well okay yeah pat you're muted jane i agree with you and i i think ben is right i think what we're looking for is some filter but but are the preservation um a bylaw that we're looking at now also has to do with our recommendations for cpa funds and other things and so it needs to be it needs to be um surpass surpass the local districts in that we we weigh in on different aspects of the historic significance of properties and so how we balance that um and and and account for it is is just you know i raise the question i wonder if maybe the there could be some language in here that acknowledges that there are local historic districts um and commission commission that um regulates changes in those areas just so it's just so it's there and and we're not sort of misled by duplicative procedures right but it doesn't mean that we wouldn't be the body that approves and recommends cpa funding for restoration so there's an overlap but but we don't want it to be duplicative um okay so i'm aware of the time and don't want to keep those who need to need to go so um if that includes you ben i'm happy to finish up the meeting if you need to okay um yeah i do need to run um but uh yeah thanks all i think um let me just i'm gonna i made jane co-host so i should be able to read um but yeah thanks everyone i think that basically did it for the agenda if there's but there's any other discussion i think so i wanted to hit on um i guess the next meeting date do we have that scheduled before i go i want to make sure i have that in my calendar hi we've kind of been doing what the third april 20th we had that whole discussion last time about it okay i do have that in my calendar okay good like we've all got it okay all right okay thanks um so let's see we could um we could take on the february 16th meeting minutes to finish and then public comment um jane i won't be able to come to the next meeting i just want to do a heads up because to make sure that's a quorum okay thank you i'll make a note of that um all right um have you had a chance to look at the meeting minutes i have not i'm sorry i have sorry oh i have yeah okay i guess but i don't know and i have this loud all right just obscene that's great okay um do you want to anybody want to make a motion about the meeting minutes from february 16th i make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from february 16th okay i second thank you um uh any discussion so i've read them like they seem fine to me so um let's have a show of hands for those who approve the meeting minutes so that is six um and any uh against any abstentions thank you okay then um so now we can um take public comment if there are any participants in the audience who wish to make a comment um ilda the question because i'm confused now that you went back to that section c does that mean only houses that are on mattress or hiring local historic districts are prevented from demolition because most of north america is not on mattress just since i happen to know because i looked that up but but i mean we've got all platinum houses up here that are worthy of preservation and so and so it wasn't clear to me that that you were only preserving houses that were on mattress or in a local historic um does someone on the commission want to explain is it still everything over 50 years old gets looked at um jan would you would you like to explain thank you the age um as well as whether it's uh on a historic register and a district brings it before the commission the the only thing we were looking at in that paragraph was how to define the word demolition it's not it it's not our process in that section c it's just how demolition is defined for us and it's either the entire thing 25 percent of the facing facade or those elements and we just have to figure out what triggers those elements being considered for the definition of demolition not for coming before us for a consideration in general for any changes does that make more sense is that quickly that this public needs a lot of education on the importance of preservation and i think that's part of robin's discussion of public benefit for tourism if nothing else you know the economic life of the town depends on i mean you need to you need to make a big deal of that because most people a lot of people listen to the town council meetings but they don't have a clue about historic resolution well we keep saying that as soon as this bylaw passes because we've been working on this for so long we just need it to pass then we want to do more outreach through our newspaper and things like that but we can't really do anything until we get but in terms of the cpa they don't get it so if you're going to talk about that issue then you have to talk about in terms of public benefit tourism if nothing else i've been making a come down to the Dickinson house of the house that door has gone to the pot or across the street anyway yeah i made it to the Dickinson you got to help the house next door but anyway sorry for the big single portion so i just want to make that point thank you for that comment hilda is there anyone else who wishes to make a public comment then uh i don't know of any unanticipated items um so can we can just move past that item and we've already settled the next meeting date so can i move to adjourn yes you may i move to adjourn anybody want to second it some most popular motion at every meeting all right well thank you it's so nicely jam and and the little dance between you and jane is just adorable to watch we got each other's back don't we yeah it's great all right well thank you all um so we'll uh see you again either monday most agree monday yeah half of us will be there on monday yeah all right thank you bye everybody good night everybody