 Historical Commission public meeting on Monday, no, on Wednesday, December 9, 2020. Based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law signed Thursday, March 12, 2020, this meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom platform. I'm Jane Walden as chair of the Amherst Historical Commission. I'm calling this meeting to order at 637 p.m. This meeting is being recorded, which will produce minutes for the meeting. We'll take a roll call of commissioners in attendance and as you hear your name called, just answer and we will complete our list. Patricia Ah. Present. Robin Fordham. I know is not able to attend. Janet Marquardt. Here. Jane Scheffler. Here. Here. Heady startup. Yeah. And Jane Walde. I'm here too. Let's see. I think we've discovered that there's not a raised hand function for members of the Commission in webinar format. So just raise your real hand and we'll call on you to comment. An opportunity for public comment is provided at the end of the agenda during the general public comment period. Please be aware for those attending the meeting members of the general public attending the meeting that commissioners need not respond to comments during the general public comment period. If guests wish to make a comment during that time, please, if possible, let's see. Can you see raise hands, Ben? Yes. Okay. Please raise your hand using the raise hand function and you will be called on. Identify yourself by stating your full name and address and then put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents are welcome to express their views up for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the commission chair. So with that, we can turn to the agenda, which begins with announcements. Yeah, I can put the agenda up here. Oh, great. Thank you. Whoops. Okay. Are you all seeing that? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, are there any announcements from any of the commission members? Any updates on anything? I have none. Okay. Not for me. I will say, I don't know if this is announcements or unanticipated items, but Nate has been in touch with the Mark Andrews from Amherst College regarding the 205 South Pleasant Street property that we enacted a delay on in May. There's been some movement there regarding having found someone to possibly move the house and they're interested in coming back before the commission. And so we're working out with the building commissioner right now about kind of what that process looks like in terms of what needs to happen for them to lift the delay. So that just happened this week and we're talking with Amherst College and with Rob about the next steps, but that might impact kind of how we schedule our next meeting. If it involves a public hearing, we would just need time to get the details about their project, possibly advertise a public hearing, and then prepare for that. So I just wanted to let you know. Okay. Why would a public hearing be necessary if they are taking the steps that we have asked them to take? Would they not just come back to the commission? I mean, do they need to file another demolition permit? I think that's still the conversation we need to have with Rob about what that process looks like. Because it's either lifting the delay or it's because it's a different kind of... I don't really know exactly how to interpret the bylaw sometimes, but it's almost like because they're moving the property or the building, it might trigger kind of a new demolition application. Because that was one of the things that we allowed for delay was that that would be a solution to demolition. I think it's improper to require another demolition request. Okay. I agree. Yeah. How they're going to move it with all the power lines will be fascinating. Yeah, exactly. We'll learn more about the project. Okay. Okay. I think it's important to communicate that it appears that they are fulfilling the request of the historical commission and that we not impede... Right, exactly. In any way. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't know of another precedent where there's been a second step of it. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Okay. And is that the... That's... Is that the only announcement from you, Ben? Or are there... Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. Robyn was here. I'd be curious about an update on the CPA process. I lost track of that a little bit. But I think the town council is reviewing the recommendations that they're next meeting on the 17th, I think. So... These are the sort of final list from this committee. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Interesting. And then do you know... So you just said you may not know this, so I'll ask. Yeah. You don't have to answer. But do you know when the town council then begins to take up the recommendations? I think it's on their meeting on the 17th, or... Or sorry, I guess that would be the... It's on Monday, the 14th. I'm sorry. When you first said town council, I was thinking B-O-U-N-S-E-L. And then... Oh, gotcha. My question was about CUU. Oh, gotcha. Yeah, yeah. So sorry about that. No, it's okay. I got confused about that often. Okay. Shall we move to the rider's walk? Right. Okay. Yeah. So basically, the contract was executed and fabrication is underway. Can I talk? Is it going to be echoey? Is that better? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. You're here twice, though. Yeah. I was trying to log in with my phone and I was having trouble, but I'm here now. Before we move on then, Nate, I don't know if you were here when Ben was telling us about the status of 205 West Street. South Pleasant. South Pleasant. Yeah. So the... You know, I think what happened was during the demolition hearing, we had mentioned Amherst College that if they had other ideas during the demolition, they could come back. And even if they... And at one point, I think they said they might move the structure. And so Mark Andrews reached back out to staff late last week, I think, and said that they might be able to move it pretty quickly in the near future. But when I asked Rob Moore, the building commissioner, he said that moving it would actually be an act of demolition too because you're taking it off the foundation. And he didn't think it met 13.5 of the by-law. So he recommended having them submit a new application and come with a new hearing. And I think Mark's questioning that. He hasn't said it outright, but he's asked to review the meeting. And I think maybe during the meeting, we had said, oh, if you think you're going to move it, just come back. But Rob has a different interpretation of the by-law. We had said if you're going to move it, come back, and we would lift the delay. But I think if you look at the minutes, we were in favor of moving it. And that was one of the possible ways of lifting the delay. So I don't see why they'd come and apply again for demolition. We didn't. We took that into account, I think. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think Ben and I can talk to Rob again. I think without that context, and I think the difficulty of the by-law as written is that it doesn't, you know, in section 13.5 it says if the owner has made a bona fide effort to try to seek alternatives, or if someone is willing to rehab, restore, preserve, but it doesn't, you could say that moving it is restoring it perhaps in a different location, but the by-law isn't very clear with those criteria or guidelines. And so I might comment, Nate, that the Historical Commission, I mean, even with the encouragement of staff with you, from you, has from time to time placed conditions on demolition delays. And it sounds to me like that was a condition. Yeah, I know I agree was a part of the discussion. So I think, you know, I had emailed Rob and Ben to clarify the idea of coming back for moving it. Because, you know, another demolition delays, we've offered the same to owners. Yes, we do. So, you know, I don't know if it's just moving a house is different than moving a garage or, you know, I, so yeah, Ben and I can go back and talk to Rob about it. Okay. This, I don't know, I guess my sense is that that's the business of the Historical Commission. Right. And we would like to fulfill our obligations. Sure. And then if Jane or Shetler, and if anyone had the current minutes, I was trying to find the minutes and I didn't find, you know, that we had a few meetings, but I was trying to find the actual minutes from that here. And in fact, you know, there's the video online in the Zoom recording, but I was actually also trying to find the minutes. And for some reason I had trouble finding them. Which meeting was that? Was that the October meeting? It was on May 28th, actually. Yeah, it was a long time ago. Okay, let me. Yeah. And the recording is on YouTube as well, but it's nice. It is not. It is. I found it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I thought I saw it there. Yeah. So, okay. Yeah. But yeah, I took hand notes throughout the meeting. And maybe that's all that we have for minutes. I'm not sure. I forget who was in attendance there. So, but I'm looking through my stuff because I can't remember if I was at the main meeting or not. But I can't remember if you were either. You know, I think that's fine, Jan and Jane, we can talk to Rob. You know, Rob wasn't aware of what was said at the hearing. And, you know, we have it through email, you know, it. Yeah. Moving it onto campus or if they sold it for the dollar and they're moving it elsewhere out of town or in town or whatever. Because if it's on campus, it's a whole different thing, right? They don't have all the power lines to worry about and everything. And then. Yeah. I mean, I think if they're coming forward with it from this, you know, into the street, South Pleasant Street, they do have power lines in one or two street trees. So unless they're. One set. But if you go north or south, you get into many dozen, you know, right? You know, they haven't, Mark and I emailed a few times, but he just said that someone may be willing to move it in January or February. But beyond that, I don't have any details, you know, where they're moving it or how they're moving it. If they're, you know, taking it apart or trying to. Taking it apart. Yeah. Okay. I mean, if they're only moving it in order to use the pieces for something else, that's a different kind of demolition than we had in mind. Right. Right. It'd be nice to have some clarification. All right. Yeah. We've been going back and forth a little bit. So maybe Ben and I can reach back out with some questions. Okay. Well, let me just ask, would it be like a public hearing for us to like review their moving plan and to decide to lift the delay or can that happen at a public meeting? It doesn't have to be. Yeah, that's the thing with, if it was a new application, it'd be a new public hearing. And so in the past, we haven't done it that way. Not if they're just updating us on what's going on during the delay we imposed. Right. It doesn't need to be a public hearing. Right. Okay. So this might take, well, I don't know, we're in kind of a funny time of year, but it might take a week or so, or do you think this might come back to us in January? Yeah. I think we still could have, whether or not it's a new application or if they're willing to come in in January just to give an update, we could maybe plan on that. And then in the next week, Ben and I can circle back with Mark at Amherst College and Rob and just see how to clarify the process. We still have a few months. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Nate. I'm gonna go back to mute and then I'll be listening though. Okay. So we were just starting Ryder's Walk update. Yep. Yeah. So at the Ryder's Walk, their artifacts, the contract has been, you know, awarded and their fabrication is underway. You know, they've sent me, they're like, you know, specs and the kind of like construction document, if you will, and looked that over there. I'm working with DPW just to clarify that everything's okay with the, you know, footing and there's like a breakaway post on there. So because DPW will be doing the installation, I just wanted to make sure that it's up to their standards and something that they can work with. But otherwise, you know, I think it's like a, forget the exact timeline, but a couple of months to the end of fabrication. I won't be able to install until both. Yeah. And then I will say in the meantime, Nate set me up a meeting with John Olson, the professor at UMass. And what came out of that meeting was basically the town or, you know, specifically me, I guess, was given like a login information for the Amherst Historical website that he's put together. So that way, you know, if we need to make changes to the website to better correspond to the Ryder's Walk signs, then it's, you know, it's something that I can do from the back end. And we don't need to bother John every time we want to change, you know, a block of text or a picture. So yeah, I can, I don't know exactly. I haven't been involved in the conversations about what changes need to be made to the website, but I can start. I have maybe a meeting and go over because there was quite a few things as simple as the boltwood and name things like that. There's a lot out there that's old. Yeah, exactly for the two of us to meet them. Okay. Good. Yeah. And then yeah, and then as most of you probably know that we have like a URL redirect to the Amherst Historical website. So that was set up, I think a while ago. So it's amherstma.gov slash Ryder's Walk. And then that can be redirected really wherever we want if for whatever reason Amherst Historical website changes, then we can change the redirect. But you know, for the time being, it's worked working out well. Great. Good arrangement. Should I be working on getting together the information to print that card for the visitor's center? I mean, I guess it's not open right now, but that was going to be available simultaneous with the opening of the walk, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think that was the intention. And usually on those. Sorry. I'm just wondering, you know, Jane, you had said you had a name for them and you seem familiar with them. Yeah. So as a card, it would be like a just a two sided thing and not a not a folding brochure. Right. Yeah. And they don't hold all that much if they're too dense, you know, it's just hard to use. So it may be something that has a little like a little illustration of the route. And then the back, back could be the map. Yeah. And the front could say what it was and the list of authors with the addresses and just a little blurb that says, you know, take the tour, there's information and gives a website thing and then say each sign has a little bit and that's about all. Yeah. They're not bookmarks, right? They're actually the size of a folded brochure. That's correct. Okay. So that's what like three by four, three and a half by six or something like that. Yeah. Maybe even, maybe even taller, it might be. Oh, it'd be like a folded sheet of eight by 11. Yeah. So it'd be eight and a half. Okay. Okay. I'll work on some artwork. Would FX do that then? Or would we have, do we have a graphic designer in the town that would put it together? Or Seth, I guess. We'd still have to have it printed. Right. All the map and make it match. We have a little money left. We had some money. I mean, if the numbers are still the same as they were, I don't know, the last time we priced this was, there was enough money, there was like $90 left or something for this, I don't know. There might have been more than that. I can look at the CPA balance again. Okay. But yeah, if we have leftover money, I think that would be a great use of it to go. And I think the visitor center is closed now, but there is a little, I don't even know what you call it, like a little stand outside where they have some information. Well, I wouldn't put them out there until we had the walk ready to go. And that's going to be in spring when the ground thaws and they'll be open by then. So, how many do you usually print the first time for something like that? Now it could be 500 to see how... Just 500. Just to see how it goes. 500 to 1,000, I think probably at that quantity, it's not a huge difference in price. It's probably about the same, actually, one to the other. And then hold on to the artwork and have the same place, repeat. Okay. Okay, great. I'll work on that. Super. Thank you. So demolition delay bylaw and this agenda looks like it thinks we're going to make a lot of progress. Clear out the agenda. Discussing the process for approving it. Yeah. So, Ben, I wonder should we put it up as we discuss? Yeah. 13.4 to 13.9. Yeah, exactly. And I'm almost wondering if we should quickly just go over the process for kind of approving the bylaw first to just kind of get that out of the way. It might help us better understand what the timeline is. So, because I've been, I've been talking to Athena O'Keefe, who's the clerk of the town council about how this process works. So let's see here. So, you know, I'm assuming, you know, we maybe have this meeting and then maybe another meeting in January, if we can have time to work on the bylaw. I think we could have a solid draft together by at the end of our meeting in January. And then, you know, Nate and I were saying it would make, might make sense for them like staff in town hall to have time to review it. You know, whether that's Rob Mora and Chris Brestrup, the planning director and Nate and myself just kind of make sure it works with, you know, in terms of like the timing and the process works for town staff. It's something we can implement. And then at that point, once, you know, staff feels comfortable with it, we could, the first step and I have, I made a little flow chart for myself here. And this is a very basic overview, but basically, you know, starting on the left, historical commission and town staff work together. And then we present, you know, be a proposal sponsored by the historical commission. So we would make a presentation to town council to introduce the proposed bylaw. And then this is pretty automatic for them. They would then refer it. And what's interesting about our, this process is that we're, we're both rescinding something from the zoning bylaw and adding something to the general bylaw, because that, that was the plan. And did, did Jane Walde just disappear? Yes. There she is. Sorry, I got, well, may have solved everything in the interview. Not quite. Yeah, I was just saying that, you know, our plan was to add this to the general bylaw. I forget the exact reasons why I think Nate can speak to that, but if that's the case, then we're rescinding something from the zoning bylaw and adding something from the, to the general bylaw. And so those processes kind of play out in tandem. And so town council would apparently, yeah, they would refer the zoning bylaw change to CRC, which is the community resources, like subcommittee of town council and the planning board that they would jointly review, you know, the impact to the town of rescinding this from the zoning bylaw. And then the two other subcommittees of town council, CRC and GOL would review the general bylaw. And then GOL. Yeah, that's governance, organization and legislation committee or something. It's a subcommittee of town council members. And then, you know, say, you know, that usually town council puts like a deadline, like, you know, come back to us with a recommendation in 60 days or 90 days. And then with that recommendation in hand, town council would then review the proposals again. And then I think they need to have a first reading and then a second reading. So it's a pretty lengthy process that might ultimately take a few months from the time that we present to town council to the time that it's actually approved. And, you know, the there's this initial presentation in town council, but then the subcommittees might review it once or twice. And so that those would both involve, you know, either staff or and or historical commission members to attend and kind of partake in the meetings and be there as a resource, because it really is the, you know, historical commission who's sponsoring obviously this, this bylaw. And so, and, you know, you this is the body that has to work with it and understands it better than anyone. So it's important that, you know, members are there. And, you know, Nate and I can will be there certainly as well, but to kind of represent what the goals are. And then, you know, I then received this from Athena, who's the clerk of the town council, and this is like the much, much more involved flow chart of how zoning bylaw amendments pass through town council. And essentially, you know, there's this is that first meeting of town council that they hear the presentation from planning staff, and I think that can also mean various boards as well. And then maybe it's here, yeah, town council receives proposed zoning bylaw amendment, they refer the amendment and then CRC and the planning board review that review it in tandem. They each hold the public hearing. They send feedback to the town council and then they submit a report. And then there's a first reading from town council in a second reading. And it's my understanding, I think a change to the zoning bylaw is two thirds majority of town council and a general bylaw is a simple majority of town council. I don't have the this is just for the zoning bylaw this more complicated flow chart I don't know what the process is exactly for a general bylaw, but I imagine it's something similar. So yeah, I guess I just wanted to preview what the process looks like, you know, assuming if we can get a draft ready by February, it'll, you know, maybe be something that happens, you know, works through the various committees over the over the late winter and spring. Thank you, that's a really helpful overview. I have a couple of questions maybe missionaries have some. So I'd like everybody's input and advice on this. I know there are a couple of town counselors who who were interested in in the existing bylaw and the revisions that we wanted to make to it and I'm wondering if what you think about having that that sort of a preliminary conversation with those two council members possibly at the January meeting when we think we've got a draft together to preview preview the bylaw for them or in and preview for us reactions to it. What do you think? What is their perspective on this? Is it for a change or against a change or you're just open to what we have to say? I believe and perhaps Nate or Ben might have some more better sense of this, but I believe they were concerned about how the current bylaw functions. So, you know, I think we're interested in either modifications of the current bylaw or maybe tightening up the application or the execution of the current bylaw. So the people who think we have too much power and we're thinking of removing this, wasn't there some talk of that at one point? I don't recall whether it was like removing the bylaw altogether. Us? No, I think Hilda had said at one point she thought she'd heard rumblings that people may want to remove the commission. That wasn't the case. I think some of the counselors, I think they followed some of the more recent demolition applications and they also looked at the bylaw and they just felt that the bylaw kind of as we're seeing has some inconsistencies and maybe doesn't have clear enough guidelines to help with decision making. So I don't think that they wanted to remove it. I think they they're saying one counselor, for instance, thought that if you read the bylaw the way it is written and you took it literally, almost any removal of any part of a building or structure on a property, whether it was a shed or shutters or a screen door would actually need a demolition application. And so, you know, I think they just wanted it to be, they would want the process to be clarified and the criteria to be clarified. Okay, so they should actually be happy with what we're doing. Oh yeah, I think they, I think they would be, yeah. Okay. If we change then 50 years to 75 or vice versa, I think there's going to be a fight over that no matter what we do. Yeah, I mean to me 50 years is a standard age, you know, for in demolition applications and for other, you know, National Park Service documents. So I don't, you know, maybe when has been illustrated the process, you know, staff will look at it and then the various boards and committees might in there, you know, I have a feeling that, you know, a number of perspectives or opinions may come out, you know, what are the thresholds for making something submit an application? Is it, you know, age or is it another one? And I think the commission has discussed though, so I've often thought that there may need to be an accompanying memo describing some of the process the commission went through and the topics discussed, you know, there could be one about what's the length of the delay, how can a delay be lifted or what are the reasons for determining significance? So, you know, there's all these key pieces, I think that everyone considers when they hear the demolition by a lot. You know, in terms of the mechanics of how someone gets to a hearing, I don't know if the council is as concerned about the number of days between a notification and the hearing necessarily, I think it's some of those bigger picture items. I like the process we've started with. You know, I think the bylaw, even just reading it now, the draft we have is much clearer in terms of how an application even proceeds through the permitting process. So I mean, I think all that is clear. Yeah, I think too, like as we present the bylaw, like being really clear about the various thresholds, because I think that trips me up sometimes is it's like, just because the structure is 50 years old, that doesn't mean the bylaw, the it's going to a delay will be put on it. Like that's just the first threshold that's triggered and then is it significant? Okay, it's significant. Is it preferably preserved? So there's being clear that there's this multi step process. And the 50 year threshold is just the first threshold that we that's crossed. So maybe maybe I can make another flow chart for that. But ahead of your unmute, sorry. Ben, I was just going to say I love the simplicity of this. And I can imagine it would be really helpful for us visual learners to have another one that just put the flow chart for the multi step process, I think, because Jan sent us something in relation to this as well. And that was, you know, anything that's visual is a good way to reinforce what may be very inelegant in terms of pros. Maybe we can have an animated memo that goes cartoon time. Yeah, they work. They're really good for getting ideas across. All right. And yeah, I can certainly sell all send this around as well. I just made it the other day. So I didn't have time to send it out, but it's a helpful tool. Ben, could you send us that other flow chart that you that one? Yeah, that you you live you lived the thoughts from it and made made a clear graphic, right? It might be might be interesting for us to have both. So yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Thank you. Okay, well, if we're going to finish this thing tonight, one question about the previous flow chart, Ben is that you've got kind of a two way arrow between town staff and historical commission. So that is a multi step interchange. I was I was kind of interested in where you know, once we have a draft to review and then town staff have the review, it may be useful for the members of the commission to have the outcome of the review before goes to town council. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of in my mind. I was thinking at our meeting in January, hopefully we can have a draft that the commission feels good about and then, you know, we can then review it in town hall and then at a meeting in February kind of present, you know, what if any changes if town staff had any recommendations and then kind of at that meeting in February feel ready and complete. And I had preliminary tentatively sorry tentatively told Athena O'Keefe who you know, she manages the town council schedule that you know, we might be ready in mid to late February for a presentation and they're already like putting their schedules together for then already so I felt it was good to get at least a placeholder in the agenda. Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, shall we wrap this up or try and wrap it up? Yep. That's what we're here for. Yeah, sorry. Did someone have their hand raised? Where did that go? Oh, Jane Schaeffler. Where did she go? She's turned herself into an attendee rather than a panelist. Okay. There she is. Sorry. I was trying to take a screenshot of your thing and then I realized that my iPad was dying and so I had to call in for my phone. I got you. Okay. I'm all settled now. Today at work I was for once not working remotely and ran out the power on two different laptops. Wow. Impressive. How many meetings was that, Jane? Oh, I don't know. Five at least. Yeah. Okay. So shall we look at the bylaw? Yeah, that sounds good. So let me, oh yeah. So I did, I took the liberty yesterday of putting our bylaw draft into the general bylaw format if that's how we're planning to present it. So I kept like all the track changes but I just put it into the new format. So the zoning bylaw has like those long number chains like whatever 13.2057 or whatever where this is a little bit simpler. They would assign it an article number and then it's from there it's just A, B and C for the first subheadings and then it goes into, you know, one numbers in parentheses and then lowercase letters. And I think that's pretty much as far down the heading list it gets. And then there's no like bolds or anything in bold letters. It's pretty clean in that sense but thanks for doing that. It helps. It saves us some time and makes it work from. So as a reminder, let's see. We did the procedure two meetings ago and then we worked on the exemptions last meeting. We're getting to the hard part. Yeah. And now we're getting to the standards for designation as a significant structure. And then as a reminder kind of going back to our overall process, this criteria would be for town staff and, you know, the historical commission designee to work on. It wouldn't come before the full commission. I can go back up to that. Sorry. It's yep. So the building commissioners show within five business days forward a copy of the complete application to the commission designee. The application meets the definition of demolition. And then the historical commission designee and town staff take five business days to determine if the application concerns a significant building as defined in the bylaw. So that's, so I guess we should probably put a reference to whatever section we're working on now reference criteria section. So then that that's the criteria we're working on right now is how do town staff and the designee determine significance. Then would you mind zooming in a little? I have to sit back because I have my knee up and I can't get that close. Yeah. That really helps. Yeah. So originally, you know, and I only sat in on a few public hearings. So I'm not as well acquainted with the process. But, you know, there was kind of a there was the, you know, if it's on national register or pending for national register designation, there's kind of general historical significance. There's architectural importance, and then geographic importance. And I think in, as it's written, if any of these criteria are triggered, it's automatically determined to be significant. And so, yeah, I guess maybe stepping back, like what works well in your, in like what works well about this and what what doesn't work well, what would we look to change? Can we compare the list that the Massachusetts historical site gave us on that? I should have pulled that up to booklet. Got it somewhere. Oh, right. So that's like the. What is on their sample? What are their criteria? So that's the MHC like model? Yeah, I don't have it digitally. I don't think. Well, I'm sure I do somewhere actually. I might be able to pull it up. Yeah. I could hop over and get the hard copy, but it wouldn't do us any good. I think I got it pulled up. Yeah, I do. Hold on. Let's see here. Does anyone remember what page it's on? It's an 88 page document. Yeah. Over the halfway. Yeah, I'm like, I know it's towards the end. I would go to like page 50 and go from there. Okay. I'm almost to page 40. So that worked. So by then it's into the appendices. Oh, really? Well, and I think the sample demo delay bylaw that they have is, is, I thought it was one of the appendices where it was like right before it. Yeah. There is a model demolition delay bylaw. It begins page 44. Procedure administration emergency demolition. It does not have criteria. Ben, I just sported that to you. Oh, nice. Okay, thanks. It's model. Yeah. So I think, so one thing, this is Nate for anyone who's listening. I don't know if I'm a panelist. The, you know, this is a big change in the bylaw. So, you know, we're doing this two step process where now this is an administrative step, right? So before the commission spent a fair amount of time at the hearings determining whether or not a building was significant. And now this becomes something done by staff or, you know, designate of the commission. And I know that some of the, there's always been a few of these criteria that have been somewhat complicated to define. I'm not sure that we have to use this whole list, but I like the idea of, you know, still keeping, you know, having, say, that there's historical piece architectural and maybe geographic and we could have, you know, criteria from each of these that is then still part of the bylaw. And I think, you know, that some of these were taken when this was drafted from what the National Park Service has in terms of their standards, the Department of Interior. So, and at the time I may have been used from an older state template. So the language wasn't, and I think it was a combination of sources and also, you know, Amherst town staff. But I mean, unless we want to change it all together, I do, I think we could just take a few of these if we think the ones that are make sense and maybe rework them a bit. But I don't know if that's a good way to start Ben. I'm just looking at my from the Skelly's Chris Skelly when he talked to us and he had suggested taking out categorical designations for significance. Well, so yeah, only if he had said that if it if it then became something that, for instance, like the National Register thing all of a sudden it becomes regulatory when really it's honorary. So, you know, he was saying sometimes the categorical piece is difficult because. Oh, because the category isn't stationary. It's sort of a little low-feece. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, the question is, if we're looking through the standards that are up on the screen, you know, is it within a National Register District or is pending? I mean, is that enough? Is that should that even be part of the the review? And Chris Skelly had said that, you know, just because it's in a National Register District doesn't necessarily mean that it would trigger a demolition review. But it does mean that it's significant. Well, what if we said it's a contributing structure within a National Register District? I mean, even you have to make a distinction to between significant and preferably preserved. And so, which does that apply to? Right. Is this not or was within? So, you're saying that a contributing structure is tighter than simply being within an area. Right. So, if this were one of the criteria that staff in the Historical Commission does and it was using to determine if a structure is significant, I would want, if we're using National Register as a, as one still, I would want to say that it's a contributing structure within a National Register District or individually listed as a. I think that's reasonable. Me too. It makes sense because there's National, isn't the South Common Area on the National Registry and there's towns, there's houses from like the 1970s there. Right. Right. Or even, you know, the Lincoln Sunset National Register District, you know, when they, you know, those were adopted districts in the 80s and some were even more recent. So, if homes were built in the 1970s or 80s, they would still be listed. Yeah. And you list every part. But they're not contributing to it. Yeah, I like that term. It's a good shape. That's a good. So, that would be A would be, oh, no, wait, that would be, where is it? Number one. Yeah, number one. Up here. Okay. Yeah. It is listed on or is a contributing structure within, you know. All right. But listed on, why do you need that? Wouldn't it be? Well, if we said it is individually listed, so in Amherst there's nine. Oh, that's a good point. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. This is a really funny question, but it's a long time since I've done a National Register nomination. But last I did one, it covered, you know, architectural historical significance. I don't remember there being a geographic category. So, is that, is that something that has maybe some of you have done one since I've done one, which is quite a long time now? Is that something that, are we, basically my question is, are we, are we reviewing something that exists in another format in terms of sort of evaluating historic significance of a structural building and sort of trying to kind of echo that in terms of the way this is written? Is that, is that sort of our goal? So, it's kind of consistent across a number of different platforms for want of a better word. Our primary goal, Heddy, is for it to be clear because the current bylaw that we have, there's a, there's a fair amount of like ambiguity. And so I know one of the things we wanted is we wanted to make sure that the process was outlined in a way that was clear and easy to understand. And I think if it happens to match other guidelines, then great, but I don't feel like that's the, that's the main driver. Specifically for the geographic criterion, not all bylaws include that. And that actually is the most difficult of the ones in our bylaw. Yeah. The others of them make sense. They make sense or they look like other bylaws. I sort of feel like all of these subheads, you know, like A through E, that's an awful lot of them to have to go through. The very short time that I've been on the commission, it's not so much that these aren't useful considerations. It's that often the kinds of buildings that we're discussing somehow need to be lifted into a sort of significant category. And I take very seriously our job to kind of have that be revealed in the way that we think about all of this. But I now see what Jane is saying about it feeling very cumbersome. You know, and if I was a layperson in all this, it would be really overwhelming because there isn't a kind of general statement at the beginning that says, you know, the way that we're understanding the term significant in terms of a structure is as follows. And if there was some kind of general statement, maybe that would help people then be able to pick their way through all of these qualifying factors. Is that the word I want? Yeah. Because the other thing is it can be any one of these things that trips the designation of significant, correct? It doesn't have to be all of them. It could be. That's correct. Right. But to have to have one statement, what we're doing is the statement is the categories here. I don't think you can have a statement saying it's significant if this and this and this because there are subtexts to all of that. I think the thing that that I felt tripped up at some of our meetings was the ambiguity inherent in some of these criteria. Not so much that we didn't state it at the beginning, but just to make sure that there's not ambiguity in any of these subcategories. In a sense, we do actually have a statement about what this is, and that's the section 13.0 intent and purpose. We're using that to lay out that we're using these criteria in this process to determine if something is preferably preserved or historically significant. We wouldn't want to put that any... I mean, I think we've outlined that the best way that we can, and now we just want to show what criteria we're using in order to make that determination. Right. The purpose is really what Hedy was just talking about, but we don't need to restate it, in my opinion, under the standards. I agree. Yeah. And I think I'm looking at the draft that Ben sent out, and I'm seeing the, in his comment section, he's got the Northamptons significance criteria. And I kind of want us to just steal all of that, because it seems very clear, and it has a lot less A, B, Cs, Ds, and E's than we do. Yeah. So this is the sum total of Northamptons, right? Yeah. Yeah. C, for example, combines a whole lot of stuff. Yeah. Associated with historic persons or events, broad architectural, cultural, political, economic, or social history of the city or the Commonwealth. I think having fewer is better, as long as it's clear to applicants that, you know, that we can have an opinion about any portion of one of these. It seems like it would be easier for us to parse, because when we go through them one by one, they're so broken into tiny bits that we often say, well, it might be this one, but maybe it's more the next one. And yeah, all Tyler and us, whereas this would say, yes, it fits somewhere within C. I agree with that, Ben. Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. Ben, I forget, can you just change structure to building on all those, because we're using this term building instead of structure. So standards for designation is a significant building, isn't it? Isn't that what we've changed everything to? That's right. Oh, yeah. I'm like, I don't remember. Yeah, I don't remember anymore. We're in structure all the way through. I know we've been trying to be really clear with our language to make sure that we don't lose it, that we don't have anything that falls out of the neck, which I think is why I like the definition. Yeah, like a significant building, not structure. Yeah. Okay. I'm just seeing it. Do we have a definition for building? Yeah. Do we say structure? We made that decision a couple of meetings ago. Yeah. Okay. So we are using building. Capitalized. Yeah. Yeah. So as we're working on this, it would just help to have that. Yeah. Okay. So one thing just, before we even get on this, above this section, Ben, all of a sudden we're defining significant alterations, which we don't have in the definitions. So the building commissioner may issue a building permit for significant alterations as defined in this bylaw, but we don't define them. We left them out. So I thought we had alterations and we had significant building. Don't we have alterations? Go back up to the top. I think we had tried to submit. We have one, we have a definition for demolition that includes alterations. But we don't say it was a capital A. Right. Oh crap. You know, I think because we felt that during the discussion we had this, you know, why have, why introduce a new term, right? All of a sudden instead of a demolition, it's a significant alteration. So. Well, we, under demolition, we have any act of pulling down, destroying or moving or raising 25% or more of a building. And so I think that would cover it, wouldn't it? So let's go down to that section. Yeah. Can we say demolition instead of significant alteration? Will it make sense there? We could say something like demolition per the definition in section 13.1, if we were worried about it, right? Yes, that would be a solution. We're not going to have those numbers anymore. As defined above? Yeah. So for demolition as defined above, as defined in this bylaw, it says right there, just change significant alterations to demolition. Yeah, as defined in this bylaw, perfect. Yeah. Oops, sorry, my mouse. Being weird, yeah. Modition as defined in this bylaw, if proposed demolition. Or activities. Yeah, or changes or whatever. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, good catch. So this, yeah, replicates significant detail. Yeah, we did that just last meeting. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's keep one and then under two, should we lump them more the way Noho has them? Yes. So can one and two A be lumped together? Yeah, I think two, I think two A should just be removed. Yeah, I think, I think we got that message from Chris Skelly that that should be removed. Right. But B, from Northampton, that seems kind of relevant to number one. So should there be a one A and a one B? Yeah, because we're considering if it's listed or contributing as part of being historical importance, right? It's no longer right. True. Yes, that's right. Yeah. I guess what does it mean to be found eligible by National Park Service or MHC or the National Register? So that's probably a separate list of criteria to make something eligible. Well, we say pending. To me, that's kind of a similar thing. It's maybe they've completed the forms, but it hasn't been officially approved or adopted yet. I don't... What about this Massachusetts State Register of Historic Places? Is that different from National Register? Should we list it too? It is different. Yes, we should list it also. I think that's the only change you need, because otherwise what we say is essentially the same thing. Yeah, I don't know the technical steps for a building to be found eligible by the Park Service. I don't know what's involved in that. So I don't know if it really has meaning. Well, if it's listed on or subject of an app pending application, I think that would cover it. Yeah, I agree, Jane. I think so too. I think that's actually clearer. It is, yeah. So otherwise... Massachusetts State Register of Historic Places after the National Register, and I think we've got B taken care of. And the sentence is subject of a pending application period, so otherwise it's redundant. Yeah. Okay. Well, I was just noticing in Northampton section B, they at the end here, they do have or has an application pending. Yeah, well, we're saying that all we need to do is we don't want to use their exact wording. It'll look like we lifted their exact wording. All we want to do is add Massachusetts State Register of Historic Places. Yeah, you can just cut and paste. Okay. Massachusetts State Register of Historic Places. Or is the subject of a pending application for listing on the National or State Register? For such listing or for... Yeah. Make it simple. On said listing, said registers. Pending application for such listing, period. Okay. For such listing. Oh my God. I'm sorry, you guys are all watching me struggle. I keep wanting to do it. Of a pending application for such listing. Yeah. Yeah, period. That's clear, isn't it? Yeah. Maybe we could just wipe out all the rest of it. Copy and paste C and D. And play with them. Likely change the wording. Yeah, I agree because why have the three categories historical geographic and whatever the other one cultural, when you can make it much simpler. Agreed. I especially like, I feel like the thing about borrowing and tweaking some of the Northampton bylaw is I feel like it captures everything we're trying to capture under those three categories without us having to define each of them individually. We could walk through, we could just walk through the ones we have below and keep them and combine them or just see what we think of them. For instance, the A, we thought we were going to delete the... Right. Yeah, that's gone. I think B actually is worthwhile and is similar to... Yeah, that comes in. Can you scroll slightly up so we can see there, too? Yeah. Well, but we cover... Yeah, I was going to say that would be covered under C for the Northampton one. And I feel like that actually C under the Northampton guidelines, I think, gives us better flexibility because I think there are some buildings that we've talked about that like they're kind of on the border with some things, whereas this would kind of clarify it and it talks about it being related to a person, event, or a broad architectural, cultural, political, like I feel like it really covers all of the things that we want to make sure we capture. It takes care of historical and cultural and the other one takes care of architectural. Yeah. Interesting city to town of Amherst. We could throw in the word heritage if... I like that. I think that may be the only thing that's missing is heritage. What about single historic event? Oh, that is there. Okay, they got it all. Why don't you move it, copy and move it over and let's tweak it and see if we can make it sound a little different. Okay, so that'll be two. A lot of change. It said one again. I don't know why. I know. Let's remove the word structure to begin with. Yeah. Take the building. No, lead building. Building. Oh, I see you're capitalizing. Okay. I like the one or more. Mm-hmm. I do too. Social history of the town of Amherst. Capitalized commonwealth. I don't see why the city capitalized in commonwealth not. So, Jane, is this where you wanted to add heritage? This is where I was thinking about it, but does heritage mean any more than architectural, cultural, political, economic or social? I think it does for some people who may have encountered buildings of architectural significance or historical significance in the context of something like the Blackstone Valley Heritage Corridor. So, the word has come to be a sort of take on things that were used to be just history or cultural resources or architectural history, right? That's sort of what I'm thinking, that heritage studies, I mean, I think it's just a way of sort of pulling in another term for what it is we're trying to define. So then would it have a modifier or would it then follow this series of modifiers and end up at economic or social history or heritage? Good question, Jane. Actually, I don't think it really adds that much once you say that. If you wanted to have it as a general term to reinforce the idea of historic, you could put it up at the very beginning. That's a lot more of the following heritage criteria. We could make it really problematic if we put it right after one or more historic persons or events, comma, heritage, comma or with the no, that would be very troubling, I think. I would leave it out for now. Let's do the next one and then see. We still need to tweak this so it doesn't sound like it's Northampton. Okay, so on that note, the importantly associated with, I mean, I do like the way the bylaw says has character, interest or value. I mean, is there a way to qualify importantly associated with a little more? I mean, I just, you know, or another way to say that, I just, you know, my thought would be, you know, once staff starts using this, what does that mean, really? What does what mean? Importantly associated with? Well, that's so, Nate, I think maybe you've put your finger on how we can use heritage. That it is, if you've, let's see, how was I thinking of this? The building has character, interest, or value as part of the heritage of the town of Amherst or Commonwealth. And then we can go into importantly associated with persons or events and then follow that with architectural, cultural, etc. Three parts combined into one sentence, which basically space saves us paragraph headings. What about if the building has character, interest, or value associated with one or more historic persons or events? Well, that that's a way of defining what importantly associated means. Yeah, I think the other was getting no offense, a bit wordy. I'm just trying to parse out kind of what each of those mean character associated with one or more interest associated with one or more. Character really heads up, heads towards the architectural style. Yeah. Interest is what people's personal value about it or personal investment in it, and then value would be literally how it contributes to those. So I don't know whether character fits there or whether it should be under D or what would be our three. How about just value? The building has value in association with one of the one or more historic. Yeah. I think again, we're looking to simplify and the more we add, you know, we think that we're being helpful by adding stuff, but I think this is what the problem was in the in the reception of the of the document in whatever it was, town council, that it just feels like it adds the kind of complexity that doesn't help establish what we want it to establish. But I do agree with Nate that importantly is a very vague word, which I think value might be better. It has value. The building has value in association with and then what we were, we can still look back at the word heritage at some point. Yeah. Okay. Is I mean, is it as simple as just getting rid of importantly? No, it has value. Okay. Instead, it is associated in association. Yeah. What does that look like to y'all? Maybe you could place the word heritage in brackets somewhere so that we don't completely lose track of it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe after economic or heritage in social history of the town of Amherst. You know, it's so hard because the word heritage means something so different here than it means, say, in Britain. I mean, there it's actually a separate subject that's taught in school. We don't have one here. I'm just wondering how loaded it term it is. So let's leave it there for now. We'll do the next one and then rethink it. Okay. So I just have a question about the number one we ended with a period, but should it should it actually be like semi colon and because there's a colon above. Yeah. Sorry. That was my fault. It should be a semi colon. Right. Okay. Great. Three. This is more the architectural one. Right. Pick out structure. And then we can simply reorder those characteristics. Right. To make it look like you've done this before when you lifted from the encyclopedia in fourth grade for your paper. I was going to say I don't know that it makes a difference. Could you scroll up again for a second? Up. Yep. It doesn't mean it's significant. I wonder if instead of using the word important, we should use significant with a capital S. The building is historically or architecturally significant because that's what we're defining. I guess that's defined using the word to define itself though, isn't it? Yes. How could we say again the building has historical or architectural value and just like we did before. Yeah. I was just going to scroll down to what we previously listed for architectural importance. So the environment built environment and the group of people. I think it's all indie. Yeah. I would just make the wording kind of match number two. Yeah. So we're using significant there. Oh, down below. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's actually, I started to say that, but I think that's a mistake to define significance with the word significant. Yeah. You know, we're going to have to change that if we leave that in. Right. This is replacing it. Number three replaces everything below. Right. All right. So could you try has value? Yeah. And then has value in terms of period. Has historic. Back to the beginning. Historical or architectural value. Yeah. Has historic or architectural value. Is it historic or historical? I never know. Okay. Yeah. I never know for the historic. Historical value or architectural. Well, it would be more consistent if it were historical and architectural. Yeah. Yeah. One's an adjective and one's a noun. Right. No, maybe not. I don't know. Historic is so differently. Anyways. Okay. I would remove terms of. Yes, I agree. Just in period style method. Yeah. Or as to either one, but in terms of, I think is on this. Yeah. Yeah. And then method of building construction. What did we say below instead of that innovative something or other building construction elements of architectural design, significant in craftsmanship, which represents a significant innovation. Or the one above it. Yeah. And the body is those distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type period or method method. That's better. That's the word I'm looking for. We used method instead of, oh no, it is method of building construction. Is it how that feels awkward? I just looked up historic versus historical on Grammarly. And historic describes something momentous or important in history, where historical simply describes something that belonged to an earlier period of history. So they are those adjectives that have very similar meanings and often are confused. Still, they are not simply two spellings for the same word. Oh, very helpful. I think what fits here. Yeah, historic fits here better. Yeah. Oh, I was seeing historical. Oh, did you? Okay. Yeah, it's not momentous. It's just the age in terms of period style or method. That's fine. It pertains. Yeah, pertains. Recognize architecture. Okay. I think this is fine, actually. I did like the word craftsmanship down here. I don't know what you all thought of that. Innovative craftsmanship. I mean, I guess that gets into a building method. It doesn't have to be innovative to be, again, it can just be very typical of an era. Yeah. So, you know. Okay. Period. The method of building is not the same as the architectural or craftsmanship construction. You know, it speaks to the architect or the builder having a reputation in his or her own right. And I think we lose that a little bit by method of building. Although recognized architect or builder, I guess that's okay. Yeah, it's in there. I mean, method of building construction means something like clabbered versus reconstruction or something. Right? It's not really about innovation there. So, would it be useful to put craftsmanship after building construction? Because craftsmanship is not quite the same as recognized builder. Craftsmanship is about the product and the recognized builder is about the individual. But method of building construction should immediately be followed by the association with the recognized architect. How about after style, comma, craftsmanship, comma, method of building construction? How about there? That's good. Sure. I think style and craftsmanship kind of go together too. Yeah, they do. And that, I think that covers, I think down below there was something about artistic value. But I feel like style and craftsmanship covers that. Yeah, it does. Architectural design detail materials are craftsmanship. I think that's all covered under that. Yeah, detail is pointless, really. Yeah. Okay, now how can we make it, can we move it around a little so it doesn't look like Northampton? Switch style and period. How about the building alone or within the context of a group, comma, has historical or architectural value, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I'm trying to just think about what this implies, the group of buildings, the context. Well, you know, if it's like some sort of 1930s apartment buildings, and there's just one of them that's falling apart, you want to say, well, this is a representative or there's only one left, you say it represents a larger context, I don't know. I guess, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It could be that in the context of a group of buildings, so it seems to me that right now we're aiming toward eliminating the geographic criterion. I don't know if we are. Yeah, it's up to you. But in the context of a group of buildings could. Yeah, that's true. Like the colonial buildings of a certain era in this town or something. But we can't lose the either by itself or in the context of a group of buildings. So the building alone or or in the context of a group of buildings. I would just say or in the context of a group, you don't need buildings again. Take out the end there of that whole thing. I think it might be smoother to keep a group of buildings. You think? Yeah, I like that. Okay. It gives a visual. But are these capital detail things? No, not here. Yeah, I don't think so. No, because it's yeah, it's plural. Right. So I like this. I feel like our next question is about whether we want to keep like one piece of that geographical context that we have in the current bylaw and then jettison the thing that's so vague and troubling. Okay, we have Square Park rather to seem to vary and then we have the familiar visual feature. Let's look at two again, see if those are implied. I think yeah, as we look up at two, I believe that there's been objection to number one under geographic because it can be interpreted as any place at all. Right. Yeah. Yeah, or other distinctive area. What about unique location? Let's see if we can fit that into number two. What are more historic persons or events? Could it be persons, places or events? Or after events, unique location comma or with the broad blah, blah, blah, because that's narrower. If you just say places, that's pretty vague again. Right. Yeah. Well, I was going to say especially when you're talking about a town that was founded in the 1700s, like, okay, so everything here is historic because of what it because what our town was founded. Well, that's why something like unique location, we could say, you know, it's specifically because it's always been right in front of town hall or something like that, you know. Yeah. That's specific and unique. I feel like it and it takes away the ambiguity and thinking about the the vet's office. Yeah, the demo building hearing for and that one was that one tick that because it's right off of Kendrick Parker or whatever. And like there's there's no cultural value in saving that building, but we had to still think about, I mean, we still had additional considerations because of because it was it also a whole question of streetscape without saying it. Unique location is the streetscape. Oh, yeah. I would add that. Okay, so the building has value and association with one or more historic persons or events. Unique location, put it there. Yeah, comma. Okay. We still have heritage hanging out there to dry. Historic persons or events, would it have to be plural or no? No, if we, so it's only in the patient building. Right, yeah. If we if we change it to say the historic persons or events, unique locations or with broad architectural yada, yada, yada, does that encapsulate what we're hoping to capture with heritage? I think it does. So then we don't have to hell even hanging out there anymore, but we're still covering that because I don't know about you, Jane, but when I write about heritage, I always qualify it cultural heritage, you know, architectural heritage, whatever I collective heritage, I never use it just generally by itself. I agree. It could be it could be it at the end of social history. If we want to keep it economic, architecture, cultural, political, economic, or social history. What about heritage? What about taking history out and putting heritage? I think we need to end up with we need to change the order, I believe, so that we end up with cultural heritage and not an Oxford comma and and move social earlier, because social heritage is not a meaningful phrase. Social comma, political, economic, and cultural, or cultural heritage. Yeah. And then they could anybody who reads it could take heritage to apply to any of them or just cultural, if they want to, it's a nice actual it's it's catches everything. The social socialist history, she's still have history as part of it. No, I think so. The heritage as catches is a catch off the edge. That's the idea, but it fits better with cultural, but architectural heritage, there is social heritage, there is political heritage is just that those aren't typically used as phrases. Right. Okay. Yeah, that it kind of implies, I think it using it this way heritage has more to do with value than than history and history. I like the idea of like the economic heritage of Emerson, you know, when you think about the Kurok area or something that fits, you know, I like it. See, we got your word in and it was all the better for it. Yeah. Just one, you have a question, or just throwing this out for consideration is when we say unique location, that implies context. And down in three, we've got context in a group of buildings. But as to period style craftsmanship method, building construction. It more relates to the, the style, the architecture, the other relates to the historical value of the unique location. Is that what we're after that, that the location itself or the building in it's in that particular location? I think two refers to its general placement within the town as a value. And the other refers to whether the building by itself or as part of a group has architectural value. I think they're two different things. Oh, I was thinking the, okay, I see, because of the end of the sentence. I was just I think after location, you need a comma. Yeah. I think Jane, your question was a good one because, you know, going back to 205, Puzzle Street, for instance, you know, is, when we talked about it, you know, we had mentioned how, for instance, that building is part of a streetscape. So Hedy had said, you know, I brought up it's part of a streetscape. And so it's set back, it's architectural style, you know, the size, scale, all those things. And so, you know, if, you know, staff were, if now this becomes an administrative step, you know, how would someone look at that? You know, what, you know, what, you know, is that, you know, what, how they, if they read these, would they be able to make that determination based on these criteria here? Well, what you're talking about would certainly come under three. Yeah, my immediate reaction to that, Nate, is thinking that it would be easy just to skip over the unique location piece of number two. Yeah, because that's not what it means. That's not what we're talking about with the unique location here, because that building could have had the same kind of significance placed any number of sites of the town, right? That little house would have still been considered the same if it were all anywhere in town, right? It's not, it's, it's not a unique location, but it's the issue with that building. Right. I just want to make sure that's clear because, you know, kind of like the terminology, you know, a, like a visual feature or a familiar visual feature, you know, five years from now, what are people going to say when they say unique location? Are they going to say every location is unique or is it this specific, you know, it's really a specific as it relates to certain structures or buildings, not, you know, the truth, I don't think it would hurt to have another, to have a number four. I mean, we've consolidated a whole lot of stuff here. And if it, if there is something we want to say about location, like, I think that could, as long as we're clear about it, that could be a fourth. And that would get us out of copying Northampton. A most important point. I think the context of a group of buildings is really clear. So I think that, that helps a lot. I mean, that says, you know, how it relates to its surroundings. It does say alone. Well, if you wanted to move unique location into a number four, we could go back down to the geographic context section and pull back out the familiar feature thing, but use the term streetscape, which I think people understand better the right way. And we could just have one sentence that says something like the building by its unique location is, is essential to an established streetscape or something like that. I don't know, would would destroy an established, something like that. And that's it. I mean, just have the one point. Something wrong with the word represents an established and familiar streetscape. Right. That would be good. Yeah. The building as to its unique location or its physical characteristics represents an established and familiar streetscape. Yeah. In the town of Amherst. Right. And so feature of the streetscape or just no, the streetscape. I think it's if it's too wordy, people are scared to read it all and think they understand it. Yeah. Yeah. Do we want village center or the community as a whole? No. We're just talking about, we're just talking about where it sits. Yeah. Because unique location would imply if it's in a village center or whatever. Right. In the town of Amherst. I mean, I guess that's implied. Yeah. I almost, I almost read it as its unique location on the street, like whether it's set back, like the same, like nicely set back from like the road with like street trees and forms, as opposed to it being in a significant location, for lack of a better word, like on the town commons or on the South Amherst. I think all of that can be true. But maybe just a familiar streetscape in the town. Otherwise it's hanging, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. Period. That's the last one then, and the one above would have to have semicolon with an or. But, you know, I think people have been upset with a common visual feature though, because that means anything. If it's there long enough becomes a familiar visual feature. So I wasn't necessarily advocating for that. I just was trying to get at, you know, what are we trying to say about location? So I have two, you know, thanks, Nate, to, to follow up questions to that. And one is, do we need physical characteristics in here? Because that's covered by all the architectural criteria above. And then I feel like represents is a word that is too broad in this case. Let's move it up to number four and play with it. I'm having trouble seeing it. Yeah. What about if, if the physical characteristics here are referring to the familiarity, not the style, right? Is so is it the, it either where it is or the way it is the, is the familiar streetscape. I don't think that is referring to like historical style, right? So physical characteristics within its unique location and bodies instead of represents. Yeah, unique location or physical characteristics. How about just its unique location or appearance and bodies of established and familiar streetscape? I, I, yeah, simplify it. You know, I know that's probably still vague, but it's, it sounds different from the architectural things appearance a little bit more. I still feel like embodies, somehow the construction of the sentence dissociates embodies from a specific place. In other words, you know, I could have a, I could have a house on the north end of town that is in a unique location that embodies, no, this is the point. I could have a house on the north end of town with certain physical characteristics that could embody a familiar streetscape, but it might not necessarily be the streetscape it's on. Would it be simpler to just say the building is, is situated in a unique location or is that's what we're getting at, right? The building is located? Yes, that is what we're, yeah, or the building has value because it is situated in a unique location and embodies a familiar, or instead of an established and familiar, how about establishes a familiar streetscape? There you go. Nice, nice. You could do serves to establish. That's not, let's keep it from being wordy as much as we can. Contributes to a familiar streetscape? Well, but it's the thing itself makes that familiar streetscape, right? It's an active, not a passive thing. And then an established sounds like the right word. Yeah, I was gonna say especially because establishes would also cover that example you just gave Jane where it's like there might be something in North Amherst that's like really indicative of a style of architecture that you typically see in South Amherst, but it's unique because it's in North Amherst and then it's covered. Right, which is that's what I was responding to and also can we try appearance instead of physical characteristic? I like this. Clean. Short, sweet and to the point. Much better. Take that Northampton. Yeah, we have to say we've done some editing, would you like to update your we've improved upon yours? Down the, so what are we calling this now draft December night? Oh, I've been doing that. The other thing I wanted to bring up is the, so you know, this is now an administrative step we have for you know, criteria that staff or the commission doesn't need would read. We don't give this step a lot of time in the timeline in the process and so you know, sometimes an applicant doesn't provide any information on the property or the building or any of its history. Staff can do a little research. So you know, sometimes that you know, we might reach out to special collections or you know, it might just take a few days to try to wouldn't that be in the next step preferably preserved? Well, no. So for instance, I guess the question would be, for instance, for number two, the building has value. Oh, I think persons or events like how do we know if, you know, yeah, that's a good point. So are you saying the timeline doesn't give enough time to establish that? Oh, I just, I just, I don't, you know, I guess I think that some, I think that some members of the community will be upset that this is no longer a role of the commission and I just want to make sure that we're providing ample time to not give this piece, you know, the short end of the stick, right? So we're not trying to rush the determining significance. So we're giving staff or, you know, even, I mean, you know. Staff can find representative always from us. Yeah, yeah. And it could be that what if someone else on the commission wants to, you know, if there's enough time for the step and someone else on the commission wanted to join in on the research, they could. I mean, I just want to make sure we have the ability to make sure, you know, to know we've done this thoroughly. Well, I guess if there's any question, it needs to come to a meeting. It does say that in the bylaw that if it, this is, and if this is kind of can't be determined that it just goes to a hearing, but yeah, then it's considered significant and goes to the question of whether it should be preserved, right? So does the bylaw, if we look at that language, does the bylaw suggest that if, you know, in the case of like insufficient time? Because right now it's only five days to determine if it's a significant building. Now, so if there is disagreement or insufficient information, that's a good idea. But what if it's, what if a building is just not, I don't know, if it's, if it's just hard, it was just hard to find the information, but it does, it's not a significant structure or like, I almost feel like it would be better, be better just to add a little bit more time to that timeline. Yeah, but I mean, if you're looking, there's a chance it's significant, you wouldn't be doing any research if it were clearly be considered significant, right? Right, but I do think five business days, no, I mean, I agree with Ben. So if an application comes in, we'll see what, you know, typically what has been provided. If not, then, you know, I go to the GIS to see, you know, a list if it's an inventory or not, you know, we can look through our files fairly quickly. But sometimes, you know, there may not be a lot of information, there may, you know, you may go through the deeds and you see a name and then you, you know, just, you know, if staff's busy for a few days, it may just be that five business days is not a lot of time to do. Let's make it 10, give it two weeks instead of one. There's no problem with that, right? I think that's a good idea. Yeah, I guess the clock starts ticking on the public hearing after that. It starts at 20 days, right? It's not going to impact the notification for a public hearing. Right, within another 20 days, right? So 35 days from the time that they get it. That's where we are now. Yeah, seems fine. Then we don't have to deal with insufficient information. Right, I mean, you know, I think the staff is always, could always ask an applicant for more time. And if they get it in writing for any of these steps, then that's, you know, that then, you know, the applicant allows that. But right, I hate to think that every application we get, we would need to be asking. So I think 10 business days to me seems, you know, that's the maximum. I mean, if something's less time. That seems very reasonable. Yeah, I felt better about that just so we're not. So then did we get to the end and now we need to add preferably preserved? We need to take all this other stuff out, of course. Yeah, goodbye. Oh, now we have demolition, but we still, but before we get to demolition, we have to do preferably preserved. Yeah, that's right. Do we have a model for that? I was just going to ask that. So yeah, in my, um, I think last meeting, you guys asked me to reach out to Chris Kelly with some questions and one of the questions was what other, what do other towns use as their criteria for preferably preserved? And he, he was like not aware of any other towns that really had a criteria laid out for, for that, how to make that decision, which was pretty surprising. And he went as far to says, you know, keep me in the loop about what you guys come up with, because we can share that with people in the other historical commissions to help them think about this. So I just came bridge and it says to determine that a termination that a significant building is preferably preserved relative to the proposed replacement structure is made if the commission finds it's in the public interest that the building should be preserved. Yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot of that. It's like the public interest. That gives us a lot of power. Yeah. And so then, um, one of the other questions that, uh, yeah, I guess Nate had me ask Chris was about, you know, what information can the commission consider in their decision, you know, such as the future plans for the, for the property. I forget what the other stuff was, you know, like how, how does it fit in with the master plan? Because I think previously we weren't supposed to consider that in our determination of significance. But I think Chris Skelly and Platt said that we could use that information for the preferably preserved. And it could be a leverage tool. Right, right. So that right now, do we have a section for preferably preserved or would there be a new? No, this is no. Okay, I'm just looking at all these other towns and they all have, or a lot of them have criteria for determining significance. But when it comes to preferably preserved, it's what the commission determines to be in the public interest. Well, I think that should be one of the, I mean, we could just, for the moment, start a list of the possibilities within the document, um, within the public interest is one. And I notice there's something here about the impact of, this says the impact of the scale and massing of a new addition on the streetscape and neighborhood as a whole. But it could be the, the, the impact of the, of the existing building, or it could be the impact of rehabilitation of the existing building. I'm just looking at town after town. It's so interesting. There are a couple of things in here about the condition of the building that it can be preferably, preferably preserved because the building is in good condition. But a building, a similar building that's in poor condition would not necessarily be preferably preserved. So I pulled up, I was going to say, I just pulled up the Concord, Massachusetts demo delay bylaw. And they have preserved, preferably preserved defined as an historically significant building or structure, which the CHC, which is the Concord Historical Commission, determines would be better preserved than demolished in a quarter with the standard set forth and section yada-yada below. Which are the significant ones, significance. And then that is, um, yeah, the section basically just refers to the four points we just made. I do like the idea. I think that if we don't have standards here, then it's the Achilles heel of the bylaw. So I like the idea of actually saying, Ben, if we went back up to the purpose of the bylaw, I mean, it's kind of reiterating the purpose. But right at the beginning, we have a purpose of the demolition bylaw. So institute or reflect distinctive features of the architectural, cultural, economic, or social sustainability. Preferably preserved should be capitalized. Oh, so then I'm looking at the Cambridge demo, demo delay bylaw too. And so they, they have determining a building significance and then determining if it's preserved, preferably preserved. So they say a determination that a significant building is preferably preserved relative to the proposed replacement structure is made if the commission finds that is in the public's interest that the building should be preserved. Yeah, that's the first one I read to you. Oh, right. That's the only thing. It's just public interest. Yeah, I thought the replacement. I was thinking the purpose here, the purpose here says it a little bit too. I mean, we say the public welfare, the purpose is protecting, you know, streetscape neighborhoods distinctive features. I mean, I think, you know, I think having, I like the idea of public, whether it's the public good or public interest or public welfare, the idea of preserving the massing or streetscape and that would allow the commission to ask what's being in, you know, if they're going to demolish it, what's the replacement going to be? I mean, what if someone's replacing it with another architecturally appropriate building? Or inappropriate building. Or inappropriate, right. Yeah. Um, so did we, did we pull this purpose from the intent and purpose on, there's an intent and purpose on page 44 of that demolition delay guidebook? And it, um, yeah, it looks like we did. Yeah. Okay. Because that's a pretty good statement. Yeah. Yeah, I took the intent and purpose from the, uh, from that one and I sort of, I, I tried to mash in the other ones that we had, but I think most of it is just what Chris had in the sample because it seemed like the clearest way to do it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I almost feel like a few statements in the purpose could be restated as guidelines for determining preferably preserved. And also we could talk about, you like that section about how it's a value to the town up in the statement of purpose. Yeah. We could explain what those are. We could say that it, you know, it's economic, educational, environmental advantages, buildings as historic landmarks, buildings as architectural icons of the town, you know, I don't know, the cultural significance the town has spoken through. I mean, we could, we could just build that out a little bit. Justify it. Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think it has to say a little bit more than just the public good, but I like that as a starting point. But explain what the public good is, I guess. We need a, we need an opening statement and Concord seemed to seem to be strong, but leave it open for us to list all these other things. Thank you. Sorry, can you just go back up the definition? I just want to see what, yeah, what we just say for Prepolis preserved. I don't have to change that. Would we, would we just expand this definition to list concepts that? Oh, yeah. And then we could just at the bottom say that we could go back to what the other ones I'll say. If we had it defined here, we could just say what the commission determined, if the commission determines it. That's an idea. And I still like maybe expanding it as, you know, a new section in the by-law. I like Jan and I liked what you were saying. I liked having a little bit of an intro that Pat suggested, you know, a statement or two. So I don't think, I think if it's just part of the definition, I think people will miss it. I think, I don't know if they would understand. Yeah, I just hear people that read those. You know, it needs to be another section. And it needs to have a strong beginning, but then it needs to go back to our definition and then to pull some things from the purpose. Ben, I can see you're about ready to go with that. Well, I'm just curious what the Conquer, Conquer, Conquered's intro statement was. Hold on. Let me get it pulled up. I had it a second ago to see. I'm still killing my laughing that Plimpton is exactly our old criteria. I don't know if we got it. They got him from us, but it was Conquered. Where did it go now? It went in purpose. Oh, here we go. Preferably preserved and historically significant building or structure, which is deemed better, which has determined by the historical society would be better preserved than demolished in accordance with the standards set forth in the section. And that section just says that actually just goes to why they're doing a public hearing. Yeah, I don't think there's anything there. I'm looking at it too. I think we'll go back to the title of our bylaw. And take that as our first sentence. Say that the historic commission in order to preserve historically significant buildings or something like that in the interest of the town, and then somehow say for the reasons of economic value, educational value, environmental value, or something like that. Would prefer to rehabilitate or conserve historic buildings, you know, something like that without giving specific criteria, just saying why we want to do this because we've already given the criteria about why they're significant. Now we're establishing why we want to keep them rather than knock them down. So we would be recommending that they be preserved. And so that that work is going there. But then we can pull actually, Jan, I love when you an icon, architectural icon. I was saying buildings as historic landmarks. This was from some notes I'd made when I was thinking that we're going to do a presentation to the landmarks, icons, whatever. But yeah, buildings as architectural icons and buildings as culturally significant. I mean, somehow there's so many values to the town. I mean, there is an economic value. If people tend to think of money being put into these things as black holes, but in fact, they return value to the town. And part of that is not just tourists, but it's also the environmental impact of reusing materials and maintaining older, higher quality materials and that kind of thing. Well, it's a character to maintaining the character through the historical representation of buildings. All right. And that has an economic value. It also has an educational value because sometimes experiential history is easier for people to get and reading history or being told history. Like going through Emily Dickinson house can be more educational than reading one of her poems of some people, right? So I don't know how to get that all. So, okay. What if we say the historical commission in order to preserve historically significant buildings will determine, will recommend that or will determine, will designate a building as preferably preserved if it is determined to have, you know, educational, social, historical. Well, but value. No longer determining. It's already been determined under significance. I think it would be something like in order to provide the town with, you know, the historic landmarks, the architectural icons, the educational sites that enrich its blah, blah, blah, blah, something like that. It would need to include something like character or other characteristics that apply to sort of, you know, ordinary buildings so that we, you know, we reach further than landmarks. Right. Well, if we go back to my economic educational environmental emotional, those were the four E's from Skelly. All right. That he gave us. But he, does he mean sentimental or sort of aesthetic? He meant emotional attachment was the kind of concern for character that drives tourism. Yeah. It's about this community and pride, neighborhood pride. Which is character, character of the community. Right. The idea of. Well, maybe that word community is probably important in here also. Not just town, but it's. It's also a kind of, you know, collective memory that our built environment can hold that and express that in way, you know, like Jan was saying about the Emily Dickinson house, as opposed to her poetry, that it can stand in for our sense of having a past, having, you know, a sense of memory, really. Historic identity. Historic, yep. That would be also another phrase to use, I think. What if we said something about wanting to contribute to the town's robust culture or robust history or whatever? The phrase you just used, Teddy, that I now have lost because I still have pregnancy brain. Collective memory. Yeah. So I was going to say robust collective memory. Yeah. Because then it kind of captures everything and I don't know. The problem with collective memory is that academically it's a very fraught term. Oh, sure. It's been, yeah, it's been parsed a lot. Cultural memory allows for it to change and adjust with each generation. Collective memory now has kind of been seen as something monolithic and unchanging. What about robust cultural identity? I like that. Yeah. What about the U.S. culture identity or the character of the town? Well, that's what that is, I think. You could say identities. It doesn't have to be a monolithic thing. It can be, you know, pluralistic scope. Say robust cultural identities. Robust historic character and cultural identities. Yeah. Because we are the... I'm getting, I'm getting tired, so I'm not, I mean, I, I'm at the point where I need to kind of read this over and have something to react to, you know, like tomorrow. Yeah. I don't have a pregnancy brain. I've got, you know, COVID brain and Zoom brain. So I just, I just feel I need to say that because I'm just getting to be not, not very effective. Eddie, I was feeling the same way just now. Yeah. We need to, we need to kind of digest this, this last year. You know, the English are known for their being, for them being, being repressed, but every now and again, you just doesn't work. You've got to see what's in your mind. I'm happy to play with this paragraph with some of the stuff I had come up with for the preservation support and send it to Ben and, and then send it out as a, as a idea to play with. Yeah, that would be great. Yes, that sounds amazing. Thank you, Jan. That's, that's wonderful. And I can send it to you too, Jane, then, and we can maybe play with it, the three of us, and then get it back out. And then, and then it's that, then we go into the process, right? Is that the next part? And that you've already laid out, we just need to put it in pros. Process, sorry. Oh, no, not that process. Okay, this one. Oh, yeah. Well, there's a pretty straightforward process. I mean, if we don't already have it in this document, it, the. We know what it is. The model is, the model is very straightforward. Ben, you can fill that in, because that's just town procedure at this point, right? Hey, sorry, I'm confused what procedure we're talking about. I have the demolition, the part you have on the screen demolition, right here. Yeah, you just take out the section numbers and say what we actually have. We have to decide about how many months delay at this point, but other than that. Yeah, well, I will say this is the section that talks about like whether a property owner can come back and how the delays lifted. So I think that is important discussion to have. In the definitions, we define the length of the demolition. I think, so if we're considering, you know, Jan, thanks for working on the idea of preferably preserved. I think the next two sections of the bylaw, we could have, you know, whether we, maybe we combine this with emergency demolition, but we, I think having the idea of an emergency demolition is important. You know, then helping, I think the expiration and change of ownership are really important, and then enforcement and penalties are good. And as a part of the general bylaws, you know, I said that right now is part of the zoning bylaw. So there's actually an appeal process defined by zoning law in the state. But as a general bylaw, we could actually write in enforcement or remedies. You know, for instance, we could, the local historic district has that it can go to arbitration or mediation before court or, you know, a third party could help resolve the issue. So I don't have any answers, but, you know, we could have a few different, a few different provisions in here. But right now the bylaw, for instance, doesn't clearly define when this expires. So, you know, someone may come before the commission, have a 12 month delay issue, and they never actually demolish the building. And then five years pass, and they apply to the town to take the building down. They said, oh, I went before the commission five years ago. And I did have a one year expiration. You know, that's right there. Yeah, it does. It's not commenced within one year from expiration of the delay. That's added. So that's not in the current bylaw. Oh, oh, we already did that. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, if it's in there, I mean, it's just something to consider. Do we like that? You know, is there, Well, can we meet again next week? I mean, and just get this thing out of the way before the holidays. Not me. I can't, I can't meet on Wednesday. I could maybe meet on a Monday, but I can't meet on a Wednesday or Tuesday. Jane Walde, you can't meet at all next week. I'm sorry. I can't. That's okay. You have a lot going on. So could we maybe, maybe to get a little further ahead. Thank you very much, Jane, for working on preferably preserved. I wonder if maybe, maybe Ben, you could work on the draft the process. And then maybe some of those other things, Nate, that you've raised are the things that we need to spend our time on. But I, but I think we, you know, maybe we could just look at your recommendation, Ben, about the process. And then, yeah. And if Ben, you could, at the same time as you're doing that, go through and just clean up all the old stuff that refers to the format that would really help if we weren't looking at section numbers and that kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. Anything that simplifies it would help. So my thought is this whole section demolition, I think should be deleted. And I think we should have a section for, you know, we could call it even like, you know, not, not necessarily, we could call it like demolition or what are the, after this, we just have emergency demolition. Yeah. And expiration and then, and breathability. Yeah. I mean, maybe we have something, you know, like, I don't know, maybe we, we actually could define a section allowing demolition during delay or something like how to, you know, how to lift a delay. I don't know. Come up with something that's actually clear because otherwise they can, if we allow the demolition, they can allow, they can proceed. If they wait the 12 months, they can proceed. So I don't really know why we have to define it unless they're trying to return during the delay period to have the commission reverse course. So well, I should let this section should be called to something like subsequent process. You know, after the delay is right. Yeah. That's really what it is. But we're trying to do this. Yeah. And it could be as simple as like, you know, the historical commission may, you know, impose conditions on a demolition delay, like such as, you know, restoring the property, moving the property that will, that can enable the property to be demolished before the delay ends, you know, via a public meeting or something. Yeah. Can we, can we just sort of wrap this up? Yes. And just do those, do those several things with Jan working on finishing up the preferably preserved. And Ben, any time you can pull towards this, maybe you can just kind of work on it with some suggestions. Yeah, absolutely. And then Ben working on the demolition process. And then we'll, we'll finish it in January. And then we'll come back. That's great. Do we have a date for that meeting? No, not, not right now. Nate, what do you, in terms of time? Let's just go through the rest of the agenda and call for public comment. If there is any seeing, I don't. No hands. Any hands, then any unanticipated items? Hearing none. Then let's get the meeting date. Can you send me a clean copy of what we did tonight so I can work with it? Yeah. The meeting date, I could meet between Christmas and New Year's or I could meet in January. That would be good. Like, is everybody around on the 28th or 29th? I won't be. Oh, well, you're taking vacation? I am much needed. Nate, say you could. Nate's probably gonna be gone too. Yeah, I'm actually out. I think the 28th and 29th as well. Of course you are. You guys actually take vacations. Well, how about right after the first so that if we need a second kind of thing to finish up, we have time. Okay. So you're thinking the fifth or six? Have you said you can't meet on Wednesdays? I can't, can't meet next Wednesday. I can never meet on Tuesday, but I can't meet on next Wednesday. So the fourth or the sixth? There's a possibility that we would be starting our drive back to Massachusetts on the sixth. But not the fourth. Yeah, but not the fourth. Because I think we were planning to leave on maybe the fifth or sixth. That's gonna be an interesting trip. Right? Maybe I'll write a book about it someday. Does this, does the sixth look good? I could meet on the fourth or the sixth. Okay, so, but the fourth is on Monday and the sixth is the Wednesday. Teddy, are you still there? I am. I can meet on either day. Why don't we say the fourth? Is 6.30 all right? Yep. Okay. The days will be getting longer by then. Well, that's a nice thought. Jane, your day finally got shorter. It's turned dark during the week. Finally. It got very dark. But she's still outside without a co-op, so. I did make my husband bring me a splatter, though, because it's a little calder. So it's a motion to adjourn. Yes. All in favor. Bye. Bye, everybody. Bye. Take care. Yeah, wait, did we, wait, did we second it and roll call and all that stuff? I don't need to roll call for adjournment. I don't think you need to. Okay, cool. I'm just gonna, we're just gonna call it adjourned. Yeah. All righty. Okay. Jane said she wants to go. We're out of here. That's fine. I just wanted to make sure. Wonderful holidays to everybody. Yes. Please enjoy. Everyone. Happy holidays. We'll see you on the 4th. Watch your sugar and alcohol in Facebook. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Good vacations, boys.