 Okay. Welcome to the Amherst Historical Commission public hearing and public meeting on Wednesday, January 27, 2021. Based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law Sunday and Thursday, March 12 2020. The meeting held virtually using the zoom platform. The best way to find instructions on joining the meeting by zoom or by phone is to visit the town website at Amherst MA.gov. Navigate to the town calendar for this day, locate the historical commission entry and find the link or the telephone number there. My name is Jane Wald and as chair of the Amherst Historical Commission. I'm calling this meeting to order at 635pm. The meeting is being recorded and minutes will be taken as normal. First we'll take a roll call of commissioners in attendance and as you hear your name called, please answer affirmatively and then place yourselves back on mute. Patricia all present. Kevin Fordham. Present. Janet Marquardt. Present. Jane Scheffler. Present. Heady startup is not here at this time and Jane Wald. Yes, I'm present. Commission members, please indicate when you'd like to speak by raising your hand and at a previous meeting this was not possible. At this meeting, we do raise hand function. And if the chair doesn't recognize you just indicate vocally when you would like to speak. Then after speaking, please remember to remute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period later in the agenda. Please be aware that commissioners need not respond to comments during during this public comment period. If guests wish to make a comment during that time. When called on please identify yourself by stating your full name and address for the record and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the chair. For this evening, both of the items scheduled for the public hearing concern a project related to a unit or program at Amherst College on whose advisory board I serve. Therefore, I'm going to turn the public hearing over to Vice Chair Janet Marquardt. And I will refrain from participating and turn my video off. So as to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. So thank you, Jan. Thanks, Jane. Where are we. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're on mute. I was just going to text heady really fast. Okay. She didn't forget and I couldn't find her information on my computer, but it is. So I'm just sending her a really fast. Yeah, good idea. I will say there's a name in the attendees. I don't recognize. And if that's heady, then you can raise your hand and I can promote you to panelists, but. Okay, so we're meeting to talk about the lifting the delay. Do you want to. Yeah, I can. Or do we have people representing Amherst College who can. Yeah, Mark and Tom are here. I can add them in as. Panelists. Okay. Okay, good. So we'll start with 205 South Pleasant. And then if they want to stay on for 197 South after we make that. Yes, they can. Okay, great. So you're going to bring them in as. Oh, they are here. Okay. Great. And then do we also have the buyer. Or just Amherst College. That's Amherst College at this point. Okay. Great. Well, if everybody's okay with it, we'll start with their presentation of what they plan to do. And then we can discuss from there. So Tom Mark, whoever wants to talk first. Hi, Mark. Sorry. I think I. I think I disappeared for a moment and then came back. He came up panelists. Can you guys all see and hear me? Yep, we can. Can you guys. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, we have some really good news to share. About 205 South Pleasant street. We had been in discussions where they think at the time, an unmentioned third party, it's Barry Roberts. To convey the building to and Barry had expressed interest in moving the building to another property nearby. They, that all came true and it's happened. And we're entering into a contract with Barry now. And the reason for this intent is to take the move, the building and move it intact, drive it down the street quite literally. To 21 Baker street. That's sort of on the other side of the lights down by big Y. And I think Ben has a copy of the. The plan. Yeah. I think that's the route he's talking about. And he's already, he's already been to conservation. He's got a process going for that. I'm not terribly familiar with. And so that's the heart and soul of it. I then did ask for some clarification from Barry. I got an email from Barry about what his intention was regarding. The new site and the building. And I should say this comes from Barry's. It's, it's nothing I generated, but. I can read it to you. It's pretty short. Okay. I think that's our intention is to move the house from 205 south pleasant to 21 Baker street and locate it on the lot, according to the site plan. The house will end up in the same orientation that presently sits. Front door will face Baker street. Driveway and parking will be on the south side. We plan no changes to the exterior of the house at the present time. So. We'd like this to happen in March. Probably no earlier than March. I think we'd like to have this happen in the spring. But that's sort of, was sort of the highlights. Great. Thanks, Mark. I can add in a few additional details. And this is. Zooming into Baker street here. This is just to orient yourself. I guess big wise over here. And then, you know, you come down to university drive south. And this is the parcel. That the house would be placed on with the front door kind of facing Baker street. The, this is an aerial of the same. Same image. And as Mark mentioned, this has been reviewed and approved by the conservation commission. I think back in mid December. So, you know, there has been some movement on the permitting process. For the relocation of the house and just to zoom in here. This is, you know, the footprint of the house. The reason this had to go to the conservation commission is. They had to, you know, locate the house outside of the 100 foot buffer, I believe. And so this was the conservation commission reviewing that and giving their approval for. The location of the house. And yeah, that's about. All the information we have in town hall. I had the picture on my phone, but, you know, I did a drive by snail street down snail street and, you know, some of the houses you can see kind of are from a similar era. And have similar architectural qualities. To the house from 205 south pleasant street, which is. You know, important consideration. Mark, can I ask if Barry has made arrangements with the power companies in terms of lines that have to be. You know, I don't know if he's moved while he does the house. All that's on the radar screen. I can't tell you exactly what the status of the arrangements are, but it's a, it's a well-known. Obstacle. Okay. And he's working on it because I could see that as something. Manable if it hasn't been dealt with. Sure. I do know that he's been in consultation with a. House mover. I think they're from Maine. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's been a long time. And so, yeah. Moving the overhead wires. That's. Just one of the many things he has to worry about. And can I just ask. It's going to be placed on a new foundation. And his. Has that begun? I don't, I don't, I don't know any particulars about Barry's project. So I'd be speaking on a turn. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. What the owners will do is they will. Sort of slide large pieces of steel under the building. Like through the foundation wall. And then they'll jack it up. Jack the whole house up a few feet enough to drive a truck underneath. And then they'll lower that steel again, house back down on truck. And then drive it down the street at something like a walking pace. And then when they get there, I'm going to be there. And then find out what the owner could say. Right. Right. So we don't have any time being projected for this at this point. No date. Tentatively we're, we're looking at some time in March. I don't have an exact date. Oh, we're not trying to be terribly picky. It's just that I guess I'm asking these questions, but I want to make sure that he's truly committed and knows of moving a house, it doesn't tell you yes, and then we say, okay, and then it falls through, right? I understand. Every since I get, every read that the college has gotten is that this is very obviously as an experienced developer, and he's engaged a mover who does this quite regularly on much larger buildings from what I understand. I myself have gotten no indication that there's anything sort of a foul in the process at all. Yeah. For what it's worth, I'm, the, can you still see my screen? There's, Barry Roberts is the developer of U Drive South LLC, which is a new, I think, three or four-story mixed-use development, which is breaking ground, I believe any day now, really adjacent to this parcel. So, this is pure speculation, but there's going to be a lot of construction activity around this parcel in the spring and starting in a few weeks, if not days. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that that company could be involved in pouring the foundation, or like there's going to be a lot of activity there already. This is going to remain a single-family home. It may be incorporated into this multi-unit It's going to be a separate parcel, I believe. Okay. I mean, I guess we have no control over what it looks like. If he completely changes it, I don't, does he have to come back to us for another demolition permit? If he substantially changes the exterior? Yeah. I mean, that substantial demolition, even if partial would be covered under the bylaw, as it's written now. Amherst College is finished, and then it switches to him. He'll have to apply again. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because we'll, you know, the lifting the delay would just allow for the relocation of the house, and I think any additional changes to the exterior would be considered separately. Okay. Tom, did you have anything to say, or were you here for the other issue? Nope. I'm just, I'm here for everything, but I don't have much more to add than what Mark has already said. We have, you know, obviously we can't guarantee anything, but we have a pretty strong feeling that this is going to go forward. He's pretty much said that he's going to pick it up and then drop it down in the new location, and, you know, that's the extent of it. So I wouldn't imagine significant changes to it. Okay. Great. Well, if that's all you have to present then, the commission can discuss lifting the delay at this point. Does anybody on the commission have anything to question or bad or considerations? I just wanted to note that Hedy did arrive maybe three or four minutes ago. So, welcome, Hedy. Having trouble. I don't, I don't have any questions. It seems pretty straightforward the way it's described. And it will save, it will save the building. Right. And we have to lift the delay in order for it to be moved. So we can't wait and see what happens. And then lift it. Robin, Hedy, Jane Shuffler, any comments? I have no questions. Thank you. Okay. Seems like a good outcome. Would somebody like to make a motion to lift the delay? I, Jane Shuffler, would like to make a motion to lift the delay. And I second that motion. I guess if, just to, just to make sure the wording is correct. You know, lifting the one year demolition delay placed on the 205 South Pleasant Street, May 28th, 2020. And, you know, I guess that's, that's pretty much the gist of it is. I mean, you could ask, as conditions were met, that the commission imposed were met by Amherst College. Yeah, I mean, to, to our earlier discussion, you know, it might be worth putting a condition on there that it's for the relocation of the structure as described, you know, in this meeting, as opposed to any exterior architectural changes that might happen subsequently. Right. We ought to actually put that either in the motion or a separate motion, that there is a condition that this is for, this resolves Amherst College's application for demolition, but that if any changes are made to the structure after they let go of it, Jacobs should reapply. Mm-hmm. Very Roberts, you mean? Yeah. Is that necessary for the motion or is just that just, we just convey that? Maybe it could be a second one. I'm just wondering if it's necessary. It's not really necessary, but it's just sort of a reminder that we're on this. Mm-hmm. You know, I think it's a good clarification too for the building commissioner, just for when the demolition permit is issued. It's, it's for the relocation of the house, not for, you know, if, if the next, if the buyer chooses to, you know, take down a wall or add, you know, take down a wall and add a porch or something, then there, there might be subsequent work, but this, this only results the relocation. Yeah. Just before we go on, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. Heady is sending email saying she's having, I guess, audio issues. Yeah. If somebody sent her the link again, I'm trying to do everything at once here. I texted it to her. She wants it by email because she doesn't want to do it from her phone. So could somebody just email it to her? Yes, I can. Okay. Thank you. Well, let's, let's vote on the first motion and then we can finalize the second one, if that's okay with everyone. So all in favor of lifting the demolition delay on 205 South Pleasant since Amherst College has met the conditions that we placed May 28th, 2020. Did we have a second on the motion? Yes, Pat did. I'm sorry, I missed that. So I'll do a roll call. Pat, Paul? In favor? Uh, Robin Fordham? Aye. Jane Scheffler? Aye. I don't know if Heady's on yet. Heady, are you there? Can you say aye or not? She probably hasn't heard the discussion. So, um, and I, Jen Marquardt say yes. So that's a quorum. Good. Okay. So that passed. And then the second motion would simply be to state, well, somebody else needs to do this, not me, but, um, Robin, did you understand what I was talking about? Right. So you need, uh, so, um, I move that the historical commission, uh, do we affirm or communicate to the buyer that this lifting of the demolition delay is only for the removal of the house from its existing location to the approved location and all further alterations are subject to existing demolition delay bylaw? Yeah. Yeah. That sounded great. For the new owner, right? I want to make it clear that it's, it's for the new owner. Okay. There. Yes. I said move. Great. Anybody want to second that? Second. You have a version of that down then? Yep. I'm scribbling it now. Yep. Okay. I'm trying to get it in the minutes too. Okay. We'll see how differently the two versions you both come up with are. And I was just going to say Robin moved that the demolition delay that, oh, I don't know. I'm, we'll see. Jan, you're probably going to have to reword it for me after I send these out. Okay. That's fine. I'll look at it. Okay. It's recorded too. So, roll call vote. Pat off. In favor. Robin Fordham. Aye. Jane Scheffler. Aye. Patty, have you been here long enough to know what we're talking about? Yes. I've been able to hear all the way along. Okay. I haven't been able to do anything else. I've never experienced this problem before. So, aye. Okay. She voted aye and aye. Jan Markwood vote aye. And so that motion passes as well. Okay. So, now we can move on to the second property for Amherst College. Everyone who went on the site visit, was it only last year? Yeah, we were wearing masks. It was in 2020. We met Nate there. You remember we looked at the garage behind, but we also stood for a while and looked at the bigger house to the north of this one that's being moved and talked about its conditions. So, hopefully you'll remember that. Yes, so. Okay. So, who's going to present on this? Mark? Tom? Sure. I can present. Just for clarity, Ben, are we talking about the deck or the small addition? I have the deck up right now, but do you want to start with the addition or? No, it doesn't matter. I can talk about both. They kind of run into each other. Are they two separate requests? I'm sorry. Hold on. Let me turn my volume up a little bit. Sorry. Are they two separate requests? They are actually two separate requests. Yeah. I don't know why. I guess we're led to believe we were supposed to do that. If it's confusing, my apologies. So, just to give you an update on the design, we've entered into schematic design with Brunner-Cott, our architect. Things are progressing very well. In a meeting with Chris Brestrup in the town, and Ben was there, we were talking about some things, and it came up that we really should put in a demolition permit separately for the deck and the white addition to the west. We had sort of mistakenly assumed that that would just be part of the building permit, but it was a request to go through this process on those two exterior components of the building. So, the deck sort of points to the south. That's the south and the west. The addition points to the west. It's easier to talk to them both at the same time. So, the addition wraps around the existing building, and so obviously these things get in the way. I think we sort of alluded to that even back at the walkthrough. I guess it was the pandemic because we're all wearing masks. It was kind of funny that like we go through time trying to figure out whether it was during the pandemic or not though what we were wearing. But yeah, so that's our suggestion. I can't tell you a lot about either one. The deck is pressure-treated lumber. If you go back into the property card, you can see two dates. One that says the creation of a deck in the 80s. One that says the repair of a deck in the 90s. I don't know if a tree had it or something. I have no idea why it would have been repaired just 10 years later. And then Ben said he found reference to some sort of deck earlier than that. There's not a whole lot of data on the house itself. So, there's even less on these particular parts. But that's sort of the long and short of why we're here for these two. I'm just going to pull up the pictures of the addition. Here you go. Yeah, it's a little less significant and stable than the Masonry building. And there's some pictures of the interior here. And I believe like a little floor floor plan. Yeah, showing kind of the floor plan for the addition. And it goes up three stories. Right. It's a small floor plate, but it's the height of the building. Yeah. And what's the current use of the building? Well, right now it's unoccupied. It's been resident. Yeah. Right. Gotcha. So, yeah. I mean, in my research and with Mark and Tom's research as well, we didn't pull up any kind of significant historical tidbits about the house. No famous people or events necessarily occurred at the house that we came up with. So, in that regard, that's just something we found. And I'm trying to think what else. I think I just wanted to show that these are the form B's from the Mass Historical Commission about both houses. This is for 197. It doesn't really show much in the way of, yeah, literally nothing. When was the addition added to that original structure? I'm sorry. We honestly have no idea. Yeah, I will say I was looking at some historical imagery and aerials for the properties. And you see, this is from 1897, digital Amherst collection. This is 205 here and 197's here. It's pretty hard to say what this poking through might be the barn or garage from before. That looks like it's almost like a fence or something. I'm not totally sure. But I will say when you look at the sandborn maps, the fire insurance maps, this is 197 and 205. 197 has changed quite a bit over the years. It used to extend quite far back. Here, the first one was 1896. This is 1916. And it's already changed quite a bit. And then I noted in a 1956 aerial imagery, there is a deck here. But as you go through the various years of imagery, the deck seems to change configuration and size quite a bit. So I think it's clear that it's been rebuilt at least a few times. And that's probably what's being seen in the property card record is the various iterations of the deck. So here it is in 2015. And the addition is in a shadow here, but it is there. So for these kind of things, it's hard to tell exactly when something was built, especially when there's been so many renovations and rebuilds for it. But it looks like going back to at least 1956, there was a deck of some sort there. Or a garden that's been fenced in. That could be around a garden there. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, do we need to go through and determine that this is a historically significant building? Because neither of these pieces are part of the original architecture. And in fact, they, in my view, they interfere with the original architecture. The one is early 20th century. The other is later 20th century. I don't think the deck is an issue at all. If we think that that addition, for some reason, because it's older, needs to be treated as significant, we can go through the whole thing. But I don't know. I don't think we should do that. Yeah. It just, to me, it looks like, I mean, we talked about this when we were there. It looks like the building would be better off without the decorations. They don't match the style. They're cheap and poorly made. And I think we'd be doing the building a favor to take them off. But if we feel that the bylaw requires us to determine whether or not they're significant, then it's not an enhancement to the building, the original structure, that's for certain. Yeah. And I think, I don't know. I think the original structure is what we're talking about, if we're talking about significance, because it's the, it's the historic build. Yeah. I think the bylaw spells out a process where you consider the entire structure, because that it's really, it's a partial demolition of this larger structure. And so you could go through the significance criteria for the structure overall, but then decide whether the pieces are, you know, preferably preserved or not. But we already did that at one point, right? When they came to us, we've determined that for this building, that it's significant. That might have been for the barn. Oh, okay. So we would determine the entire building significant or not. And then we would vote on whether the demolition, whether it was preferably preserved and if it's not, then that gets tricky, right? Like we wouldn't want the whole building. And I mean, do we say, we don't have the new bylaws in place yet. So we can't say, well, it's 25% or more, you know, under the old bylaw. Yep. Yeah. So you would be by not, but you could find the house significant, but then find it, the demolition, you know, not the, the deck in the re-ordition, not preferably preserved. And then that would allow the Rob, the building commissioner to process the demolition permit for the, just the deck in the re-ordition, because that, you know, that's what's pending right now, because Amherst College submitted those. Okay. And they're just waiting on historical commission review. Well, we don't have the term preferably preserved yet, but if we should go by the book in order to make sure that this is, you know, co-share so that later they really have, you know, I don't know, a mandate from us, then maybe we should go through the process. Okay. So we had a similar, this came up when we were talking about that little house. Yeah, it was like, it was, it was at our meeting in June. I just pulled up the minutes from it. And what we did was we, we discussed whether or not the building was a significant structure, made a motion on that, and then determining that the building was a significant structure did say that because like we, we like, so in this case, the addition would be considered part of the structure, but we would, we still made a move to affirm the demolition request after we established that the building was preserved, preferably preserved. We said that the addition that had been added on was okay to demolish. Right. So I guess we should do that here since we've never talked about this, this house. So, and we're in a public hearing, right? So, okay. And it's been published as a public hearing on this building. So we're okay. Correct. So, so I have my standards for designation as significant. You're good, you have them right there. Aren't you brilliant? Okay. I have mine out too. Okay, so let's go through this process. Everybody okay with this? Sure. Okay. So we'll follow our current bylaws section 13.4 standards for designation as a significant structure. This historical commission shall determine that a structure be designated as a significant structure if it meets one or more of the following criteria. 13.40 it is listed on or within an area listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There is a subject of pending application for listing on said national registered. Ben, do you know whether it is? I don't believe so. I don't think so either. Okay. 13.41 the commission determines that the structure meets one or more of the following criteria. One, historical importance. The structure meets the criteria of historical importance if it has character interest or value as part of the development heritage or cultural characteristics of the town of Amherst, the common wealth of Massachusetts of the nation. Last time we did this, we, I read, one of us read all of them and then we talked about it and I think that's easier, right? Or is the site of a historic event or is identified with a person or group of persons who had some influence on society or exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social or historical historic heritage of the community. Okay. So, anybody want to vote for historical importance on any of the based on any of those criteria? Yes. Yes. Yes. One and four. Okay. How? Did we take a roll call vote at this point on 13.401? 410, sorry. I'm just asking for clarification on how you see these two applying. Oh, okay. Sorry. So that we can expand this a little. Well, doesn't it have, I seem to remember, it has an association with the president of Amherst College. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's listed in the, in Macris, the mass cultural resources system as the president's mother's house. Great. And then four, it is, it is part of the most historic part of the town in terms of its evolution and development. So once we get to that, that part of Amherst, it's my understanding that we're looking at the beginning of the college, the growth of the college, the growth of the town, but that this, this building is one of a grouping of buildings that form part of a collegiate community. And as such, it is of historic importance to the, to the town, to, to the area. Great. Okay. Anybody else want to add to this section? Those were well stated. Let's vote on historical importance then. Do we need to do a roll call vote on this then? So yeah, we need to meet one or more of the following three criteria. So yeah, I think going through each one and just... Well, we're voting on history and then we'll do architecture and geographic, right? Yep. So we have, so we're voting right now on historical importance. So roll call vote or is that not... I think all votes, don't all votes have to be roll call votes for meeting? Yeah. Okay. So this is a vote to agree or disagree whether we feel that these criteria hold for historical importance. So Pat. Agree. Robin. Agree. Jane Scheffler. Agree. Patty. Agree. Me. Okay. Yes. Sorry. Was Robin on mute or I didn't hear her? No, she said yes, but it got cut off a little bit. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. Number two, architectural importance. The structure meets the criteria of architectural importance if it portrays the environment of a group or people in an era of history characterized by a distinctive architectural style or embodies those distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type or is the work of an architect, master builder, or craftsman whose individual work has influenced the development of the town or contains elements of architectural design, detail, materials, or craftsmanship, which represents a significant innovation. Discussion of these four? I think certainly 11. Distinguishing characteristics. Yes. So it's Greek revival? Yes. Yes. I don't know if there's a particular architect associated with it, but I might be the case that it is associated with a builder for the town at that time, but I don't know. We haven't had that information. I'm just going to go with 11, like Jan. Like Pat. Sorry, Pat. No problem. It won't be a very busy day. Anybody else have anything to add? Okay, let's vote on this group then. We're voting on architectural importance. Pat. Yes. Robin. Yes, agreed. Jane Schaeffler. Agreed. We're losing you. Heddy. Agreed. And me. Agree. Okay. Geographic importance. The structure meets the criteria of geographic importance if the site is part of related to or related to sorry, a square park or other distinctive area or the structure as to its unique location or its physical characteristics represents an established and familiar visual feature of the neighborhood, village center, or the community as a whole. That's the really vague one. Okay. Anybody want to weigh in on this? I think that's a yes. It goes back to what Heddy outlined of it, historic importance. And I think both, both 20 and 21 speak to that. I would say that 21 is it's pretty clearly a visual landmark in my opinion. Yes, especially since we're losing 205. Okay. Any other comments on this one? So we're now voting on geographic importance. Sorry, everybody. Pat. Yes. Robin. Yes. Jane Schaeffler. Yes. Heddy. Yes. Me. Yes. Okay. So the 197 south pleasant house meets all three standards for designation as a significant structure. Historical you roll down. Let me pull mine up. Historical, architectural and geographic importance. So the house itself is now considered a significant structure under our terms. From here, we can move on to whether we feel that the deck from the 80s and the addition from the early 20th century are essential to that structure or if they can be removed. Discussion. I think there were distraction to the structure. So I don't, I don't see any, well, I mean, the deck, I don't see a significant as all the addition. I can't see an argument for it. I think in a theoretical sense, there could be a possibility where you'd have a situation like this where you could argue that the addition was significant, but I'm not arguing for that. In this case, right? Yep. Okay. Anybody want to argue for it? In that case, then we need a motion. I would like to make a motion to approve the demolition permit for the deck. Yeah, that's sorry. I would like to make a motion to approve the demolition. Are we, is that for the deck and rear addition, Jane? Yes, for the deck and rear addition. At 197 South Pleasant Street. At 197 South Pleasant Street. Great. I would like to second that motion. Okay, Robin seconded. Okay, roll call. Pat. Agree. Robin. Agree. Jane Schaeffler. Agree. Patty. Agree. Me. Agree. Okay. After all that, we can go back to what we originally figured. So Mark and Tom, you have to go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad we did that because I think it also sets a precedent. And if, you know, for whatever reason in many, many, many years, Amherst College comes back with another application for 197, then we kind of have something already said in 2021, the Historical Commission found it significant. So yeah, and if you get some temptation while you're doing all this building to start tweaking with that, you know, we're on you. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, Mark. Thank you, Tom. Okay. And I should know, so we'll all transmit this decision to Rob Moore, the building commissioner. I think to move ahead with the demolition permit, I think there's possibly like the utility staff and the workers, compensation, Napa David, maybe those were here. I'm not sure, but I can check on that. So, but yeah, we'll be in touch. So. Okay. Great. Thank you, Commission. Thanks a lot. Thanks for presenting. Okay. Before we, before we move on, I'm just curious about this is such a, such an interesting case in terms of a building which is significant and perhaps in our new ball would be new bylaw would be preferably preserved. And yet we can, we would approve the removal of the deck, let's say, I mean, do we want to, I don't know, maybe we should have a discussion about that. It's more theoretical, but I find it an interesting concept that you could have a property, a building that is preferably preserved, but also with a part of it that you might approve a demolition permit for. I was sort of intrigued when Ben showed some of the history of the, of the site to see that at one point, the brick house at the front had three different attached dwellings that, that really immediately caught my attention, big house, little house, back house, barn, you know, it just is very, you know, it was like, if that's what was going on, and that was still there, then, then there would be, I think a very good case for saying, this is part of a continuum of development of a property. And it's good to have that respected and, and into the future. As that's not the case, I think it's, it's a different kind of discussion we perhaps need to have, and it may be a case of making sure that that documentation is available in some shape or form as the site develops going forward, so that there is a very clear statement somewhere along the line in public view that this was a part of this building, you know, and it did have that quality to it, which is hugely New England, more, not Northern New England, but anyway. Well, lucky for Amherst College, it doesn't have those pieces because they're what they want to do. It makes me think of the Black Walnut Inn, which has like an addition on the back, and then an addition on the back, and then an addition on the back, and it is, and that is, you know, and you can see all of those, they really are part of the public viewscape, and, but my question is more when we get into the territory of, let's say we were talking about a building like the Black Walnut Inn, and it was preferably preserved, how do you allow for a demolition of, of a, you know, a historical anomaly on a building that doesn't have any significance? The building is significant, the addition isn't. We want the building to have a preferably preserved distinction. Can we then say, okay, now we've said it's preferably preserved and it's okay to take care of that deck that you put them in the 80s? You know, I'm just curious how that looks going forward. I would say to that Robin, I would say to that Robin, you kind of treat it with, you know, one demolition application at a time. So, like, what that's what we were responding to in this case was the. And that's why we have these hearings, if we had it all set out in the bylaw, we would have to have meetings, but the point is once it reaches the 25%, then it needs to come to us when we make a determination. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I understand that part of it. I mean, I just found it interesting to have a build. So right now we have significant, we're going to significant and then preferably preserved and we could still have a situation with this house where the building is preferably preserved and then we are allowing a demolition permit for a portion of it. That's maybe not so preferably preserved. Right, right, okay. Yeah, preserving it sometimes to get rid of those creations, right? If they're, you know, impeding the building. Oh yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just finding it interesting in terms of definition, but I guess it will be something that we just come upon as we go along. Okay, well at this point I want to turn the meeting back over to Jane. She's back. Anne, for taking care of that public hearing, so many interesting questions about, yeah, extremely relevant to historic preservation. I look forward to working with you all to clarify some of those things. Yeah, I know. I hope they, maybe Jane, now that we've done our business with Amherst College, maybe could you keep us in the loop if you hear anything about the move? It would be nice to like, I would love to like see it happen or something or like kind of just maybe they can record it or something, I don't know. I watched the, oh go ahead. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'd be glad to do that. I am aware of what's going to happen with that property. I'll just put it that way. Okay. Just saying it'd be fun to be on the street and watch them drag it. Yeah, that's all I was saying. And see the house moving. I was just reading, I was telling Ben this, I was just reading, I think it was in Thomas Hupke on big house, little house, back house barn, where they often moved a barn. And in this one particular case, it took 12 teams of oxen, so 24 oxen to pull the barn over a little ways on the property. And I'm thinking of going down Pleasant Street and turning on snow with 24 oxen pulling this house on a wagon. It's so hard to see. You know, it's so, there's a whole lot more house moving in the 19th century than these days. And I remember when, you know, when those houses were on Gray Street moved from their various locations, there were three or four of them. I was there on the street watching all of that. And it was really, really interesting. Yeah, I watched the house move from Kendrick to, well, just off of Kendrick. I mean, just the time it took. And I remember watching the guy driving the tractor trailer, getting in and out of his truck like 20 times to get the tractor trailer over this piece of curb. And I thought like that man has nerves. And a lot of people are out. It was a really exciting community event. Yeah. Is there somebody there with a long pole who pushes tree branches to the side or something as they move? How do they deal with these? Yeah, that when they moved those houses to Gray Street, they had to plan a route that wasn't the most expected route because they had to take into account electrical lines and width of streets and so forth. But at least a couple of those houses came down Main Street. That's the evergreens in the homestead. And that was before the hemlock trees had been taken down and replanted. So they literally had a crew going ahead of the house or a crew accompanying the house would have to take down limbs from the hemlock trees as they went past the houses. Wow. Well, snow is pretty treasy. So it'll be interesting to see how they fit through there. Yeah. There's the bridge on snow though. Yeah. And it's really low. Yeah, it's really low. Up to nine and over and then turn left at the same time. Yeah. It looked like they were going down University Drive on that map. Oh, that's right. They did. Yeah. They have more power. They have to. But you know, right there at that intersection there with the end of University Drive in the beginning of Snel Street, that's a really interesting location for an old man. There's so many cars that turn there. It's a nice visual. Yeah. It's going to be a really busy spot unless they do something just kind of discourage traffic from cutting through there. I mean, I go through there four or five times a day. So what else does it to a lot of people? Yeah. So let's go back to the public meeting. Are there any announcements? Oh, I didn't do the announcements. I'm sorry. No, no, that's that comes now on the agenda. That's fine. Oh, okay. Oh, I see it's after. Right, right. Yeah. Okay. With no announcements, let's go to the demolition delay bylaw. Thanks, Ben for sending us the concerns and suggestions from the town staff review. And it's, and I especially appreciate that they are concise and in a form that'll let us let us allow us to deal with them tonight. So perhaps we could just go through the concerns, suggestions and questions in this order. And perhaps you could, if there are things you'd like to add or fill us in on as we go through them, that that would be terrific. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So happy to just give a little background. I, I think met with Rob Mora, building commissioner Chris, restrepped the planning, planning the director and Nate, we're, and I met, I think we met, we met twice, so two, like, two and a half hour meetings almost, maybe two hours. So we reviewed the bylaw pretty, pretty thoroughly and discussed it quite a bit. And the idea, I mean, town staff, they were looking at two things. Kind of one was just how workable the draft is in terms of process, because, you know, Rob is the one who's kind of like in charge of administering and implementing demolition permits. And so he was concerned with like, is this, is this defensible? And is this a good process? So that was one part of it. The second part of it was a little bit more, I guess, how would you say like political, I guess, thinking about what actually, you know, thinking about the town council review process and all the committees. And so, you know, kind of projecting a little bit and like, what is town council going to look for? And what are they going to key in on in terms of various parts of the bylaw? And frankly, what are they going to be confused by and like not in what's not clear, at least spelled out right now. And then so yeah, I guess those were kind of the main components. That was like the lens they were looking through when when we discussed the bylaw. And so I sent you, yeah, I, I kind of do this for myself too, just to organize all of the thoughts and ideas and concerns that came out of those discussions. I also had a version of the bylaw and track changes that, you know, connect corresponds with this list as well. But yeah, I think that's a good idea is to kind of go through this and discuss it. And we also have the February 10th meeting coming up to in just like two weeks, I guess. So anything we don't get to now, we can get to soon. And yeah, I just want to pull up the Word document version as well. How do I do that? But we can begin discussing. Let's get started with the definition of demolition. And I can understand these concerns. I think in a prior conversation, more than a year ago, the question about how do you calculate a percentage? Is it, you know, is it facade area? Is it square footage? Is it, you know, what's the measurement? I remember that we touched on that but didn't resolve that there are a couple other questions here. So to the second question, do we just want to consider total demolition? My feeling is no. But I think this issue of how do you calculate the percentage on what's the basis of it? That is something that I'm sure the building commissioner would be, if we could give a more precise, that would be helpful. So thoughts? Talked about for years. Go ahead, Robin. Oh, I was looking at just the last comment there that it treats the whole town like a historic district. I don't know if it's important to remind the council that a historic district has very different implications than a demolition delay bylaw and that demolition delay is just a pause. It doesn't prevent anything from eventually being demolished if the time of the clock runs out. I mean, just so that they understand the difference between those and the teeth, you know, that go along with a historic district versus a demolition delay. Well, the whole point of having a demolition delay for the, like the whole point of all this is because we want to preserve anything that's historic within the town. So to me, if they're saying that it's, we're treating the whole town like a historic district, then cool. That's kind of what we're trying to do. We're trying to get people to pause before they tear things down in the town. It is. Historic district has much more power than a delay. Historic district can keep you from tearing something down in perpetuity. Yeah. So I mean, I just want to make sure that that distinction is clear because we want people to pause. We want opportunities for alternatives to come up. But I don't want the councilers thinking that the entire town is becoming a historic district because that's not what's happening. No, and just for clarification, a certain age are subject to this. And if the whole town were, then every building would be. And we're only talking about historic buildings. So I don't think that's a clear comment. I think that comment came from a few things. One is, you know, with the 50 year threshold, you know, at this point, a lot of the buildings in Amherst are at that threshold, you know, Echo Hill, Orchard Valley, you know, most subdivisions are were built in the 60s or early 70s. And certainly a lot, a lot of homes built in Amherst were pre 1970s. So, you know, at that point, you know, say it's 80% of homes are that's, I just made that up, but a decent amount of homes in Amherst would be covered by this bylaw. And then if we're counting demolition as, you know, 25% of the facade, 25% of the square footage, then it's like, for most homes in Amherst, if someone wants to demolish a porch, if they want to, you know, tear down a wall, you know, replace windows, replace trim, stuff like that. Then it becomes a process for them to come to the Historical Commission for review. And I think town staff, they were just worried that, you know, that becomes a little bit too burdensome. And I think the idea of it being, obviously, we know the distinction between a historic district, but the mechanics of a historic district are do require, you know, every home in the historic district, any exterior change to be reviewed by the Historic District Commission. So in this case, it's not quite the same. It's not every exterior change, but it's major alterations to most homes in Amherst would would need to come to review. So I guess just something that's pretty much it. I was just saying, it's, you know, it's just something they're pointing out and something to consider. But yeah, I think in my experience, both of my work up in Greenfield and just, you know, from what I'm learning that there, people really carry with them a tremendous fear of the Historical Commission. And I just want, you know, I want people to understand that this is a pause for advocacy. You know, people feel like we're on the march to prevent anything and all things from being demolished. And that that's all I'm trying to express is that, you know, we talk about the fact that this is, you know, this is that's essentially what it is. It doesn't have teeth. We can't stop anything. We can't, we can't have that clock go on and perpetuity people can wait it out. It is, you know, I just want to make sure that that's clear. Because I feel like in my conversations with the public, people don't understand that that is the case. Robin, I, I, I agree with you. I think you're right on your spot on there. And, you know, thinking about the, the objection that, you know, Echo Hill or Orchard Valley would, you know, any structure within those neighborhoods might be subject to a review or a, or a delay. I think the Historical Commission probably needs to provide a sort of a brief or a white paper about its rationale for things that where, you know, it doesn't really belong in the bylaw itself. Why we would be interested in preserving or attending to demolition delays in Echo Hill, but our rationale for wanting to include those neighborhoods as expressions of a particular time movement and expression of community values and architecture. It could be that developing that alongside the bylaw could be helpful. And then publish it in the paper. Yeah, right. Yeah. Along with a call for people to attend to their outbuildings before they fall down or come and get money from CPAC. I mean, I've been wanting to do that for a long time. We could just sort of a general, you know, explanation of what we're about and why we need them to buy into this process, you know. So Ben, in your conversations with town staff, do you think that a kind of parallel document that sort of explains the Historical Commission's rationale for a 50-year window, do you think that would be useful? Yeah, I think the providing rationale for that would be very useful and give everyone kind of something to respond to, I guess, whether it be staff or town council or planning board or whoever is reviewing this. I mean, I always thought that whenever we presented anything, whether it's our initial presentation at town council or to the planning board or various committee, other committees that we would have like, you know, a presentation with bullet points kind of explaining each change and new component of the bylaw. But I think, yeah, having something in writing could be a good way to kind of focus the conversation as well. I mean, the other thing is that we could still, we haven't ever finished talking about whether we want to move it to 75 years, which would take take care of that for a while. But it's not unusual in towns in Massachusetts to have the 50-year. No, but a lot of changing. Well, I think what scares people away is they think, like, oh, my house is 50 years old, therefore I can do nothing with it. And that's the impression I'm trying to correct. There's nothing wrong with 50 years. It's a review process. It's not every house that's 50 years old. It's only ones that are significant. It's only ones that are preferably preserved. And in the case that we just looked at, it doesn't mean that you can't take it down a deck. And I see that Hedy's hand is up. I may be confusing the issue by going on to the second bullet point. But the second bullet point suggests to me that the town staff review is thinking quite a lot more inclusively than we have done today, at least in terms of these deliberations. And it's almost like they're asking us to be more generous in terms of the way we're defining things. How is it 25%? Why isn't it 50 or 75? And yet then they're backing up and saying, oh, but we don't want you to think that the whole of Amherst is this set in stone, set in aspic phenomena. That would be awful. We want it to be living and vibrant and growing and all of that. So it's interesting to me that this may represent different perspectives and points of view of individuals. And poor Ben, he's had to bring everything together. Because with two, it's like, yes, of course, let's discuss fences and garden furniture. I can think of buildings we've seen like that. I can add that I had a specific conversation with Chris Scali about that when I went to the intro to historic preservation planning. And I asked him that question specifically because the historic commission does not recommend those items in a demolition delay bylaw specifically. And when Ted was still on the committee, he said, they refer to other tools and then they don't say what they are. And I asked Chris, like, what are those other tools? And he said they are actually historic districts that they don't act. So there's a direct answer to that from the historical commission, the mass historical commission that we actually have another tool for that. So we can at least answer that question. But if we feel like we have a specific fence, I don't know about garden furniture, but a specific fence in particular, that is the tool that the mass historical commission recommends that we use and that we have at our disposal already. Great. Thanks, Robin. That's really interesting about the local historic districts for those features. Well, I mean, he did say that, you know, that we forget that we can make a single building a local historic district. So sometimes, you know, in the case of the Salem place, I can't, I can't remember the name of that building. Yes, right, right. That could have been a single building historic district if we wanted to protect the fence. And so a lot of things have to be kind of proactive thinking, but Robin, does that mean that if there were a public hearing on like we did have a public hearing on that brick and iron fence, right? And at the, at that point, right then we could turn it into its own historic district. Isn't that kind of unfair? Because they didn't, they didn't know that when they applied, say, for demolition or something. I don't, I don't think they did apply it for the offense demolition. Yeah, it disappeared one day. But again, all of these things, I mean, it's challenging because any historic district, the property owners are not, it's not subject to their approval, right? That's, that's the whole idea. But the point, the larger point is just that that is a tool that if we think proactively, if the town is concerned about protecting landmarks like that, that's the tool that the historical commission of the state recommends that we use. They don't recommend that we use demolition delays. So sort of the purpose of this conversation, that would be, you know, the answer is that that's, that's what they suggest. Yeah, I think that that bullet point really stemmed from the discussion of the conky house fence and kind of how to avoid that happening again. Even earlier than that, there was a, there was a big to do about the Clark house fence, the Clark house was an Amherst college building and had a had a very intricate kind of fence around it. And the college wanted to remove the fence and the historical commission and applied for a demolition permit. The historical commission put a delay on it, I believe. And the day the demolition delay expired, that fence was taken down. I remember that pretty clearly because my husband was the one that kind of did you try himself to the fence? But, but still, I do think that everything I've heard is that these features like fences, etc, belong somewhere else. But but yes, Robin, I agree that it's never been clear exactly where they belong. Yeah. And actually, I mean, to just to make the point further, the demolition delay and the local historic district, I mean, the I'm sorry, the demolition delay, yes, and the local historic district sort of hold hands in the sense that had that had people put the pieces together in that case that would have been an opportunity where someone comes before the commission the fences at risk. And then the movement is towards creating that single building or maybe two building historic district for the purposes of preventing the demolition. So that's also a point to make to the staff that the demolition delay allows for time to use the tools to prevent the demolition of those other resources through through a different tool. So yeah. And who becomes the I don't know what you call it the board or something of that local historic district. I mean, if you have one with lots of houses, you have homeowners who we have an existing local historic district commission. Right. But if you made one say you made just the Clark House, a local historic district, and who are the people who determine whether things can happen or can't. It would be the same same commission local historic district commission because I mean, right now there's two districts and Amherst, the Dickinson and Lincoln Sunset and the same commission, you know, and the South Common. Local, that's a local. Yeah. Yeah. So for this, I'm wondering, so I want to get back to the 25%. But I'm wondering if there's another mechanism for protecting public art. I mean, garden furniture, I just don't. Yeah, we were trying to get at like nice like pergolas and like historic features of like gardens. I don't know how many of those there are in Amherst, but we were just kind of brainstorming in addition to fences like other landscape features of a house. I think you'd have to call them structures rather than. But that would also go under local historic district, right? That would be the tool that you would use to prevent. Possibly. Yeah. I mean, the other thing too is I would say most people in Amherst probably don't know they need a demolition permit to take any of this stuff down. And it's questionable whether you even would need one for it to take a pergola down or something. I don't really know. So that would be the point of the article going into the newspaper, not for people to be scared of us like Robin is saying, but for people to want to have a house that's so nice, it becomes preferably preserved. I mean, you know, turn it around like, say you have a house from the 60s and you're like, Oh my God, you know, they could keep me from, I don't know changing the, you know, the molding around the windows and putting in new windows and things. But I mean, the corollary to that is it's not going to come under our consideration if you already screwed it up and it's not a nice example anymore. We only care about it if it stands as a classic example of 60s architecture, right? So we want to encourage people to have such nice houses or barns or whatever that we do prep want to preferably preserve them. It should be an honor, not a, you know, not a, yeah. Right, right. That's a PR. That is definitely a PR thing for us. Well, I think that that leads nicely into the pot of money concept, because as the previous homeowner of 4547 Halleck Street, I can tell you, I wouldn't, I didn't have a lot of money to make my house worthy of preferential preservation. So I think that's a lot of, you know, a lot of what I'm sure a lot of homeowners feel they're up against is a concern about, well, that's all well and good. But you know, who's going to pay for it? It's particularly true with barns. If we're trying to get people not to let them Right. Right. It's really expensive to fix a building that you're not using. Most people don't have any use to them. So it's different from a house. Yeah. So yeah, it's worth looking into like maybe, um, maybe CPA money could be involved. If like the historical commission could like manage a pot of money that, you know, right now the CPA commission, as Robin knows, is trying to not let commissions like sit on pots of money too long, but maybe if it could be like two or three years at a time or something. My understanding from something I read, and I have to sit down with all my papers and pull things together. But at one point I noted something that suggested one of the appropriate purposes of CPA funds, first door preservation was exactly to create a fund that the history. So that's different than the commission sitting on money for projects that aren't moving forward. But to have actually that's something that we haven't talked about. And again, a sort of more of a proactive advocacy idea to, you know, maybe make a request annually to build a fund so that when people do come to us for issues of demolition and we have something to offer them in terms of, you know, grant funding. So that's that's something that we could let the staff know that we're thinking about and that we recognize as an issue for homeowners. And it's interesting also that they're interested in an 18 month delay, which we talked about and we talked about a sort of, uh, yeah, right. That an 18 month delay might be more appropriate, which I would say yes. Again, with the understanding that for the public and for the staff that 18 months is not set in stone. It's just the outside figure and that we can always walk back from that conditions or matter. You know, it's I want people to understand these things are flexible. So that might be, I mean, within the within the bylaw, that might be a just a language issue of, you know, up to 18 months or between 12 and 18 months. But I think it's really, really important to pair that with some kind of resources that will support the homeowner. The the pot of money is is a little bit, it's a little bit like a revolving administrative fund. I mean, if there's a way to help the CPA commission understand that this small annual investment in historic preservation will pay off in the goals of historic preservation. Maybe that's something that could become an annual, just a piece of an annual fund. Yeah, I think that's the the housing trust already does that. They ask for CPA funds once a year that they don't have a specific purpose for to be held for the purposes of of using for affordable housing. So it's certainly something that's within our rights to ask for and to institute. Well, there's precedent already. So I'm wondering, may we go back to the first bullet? The 25 percent and how how we might approach resolving that concern, as well as important architectural elements, because I think at one point, I mean on the latter point, at some time we had produced kind of a list of important architectural elements. And what I'm sensing from this is that the building commissioner would would like more direction from the historical commission. Yeah, exactly, because it adds his, you know, a lot, a lot of, I guess, the building commissioner's judgment in terms of, you know, what is is that, you know, what exactly is important architectural element and yeah, how the 25 percent's calculated. So it's firmness, commodity and delight, isn't it? It's or it's foundation framework and roof or it's, you know, I think they're right to have questioned us about this. I think it does feel a little random. And, you know, it's it's like, let's let's have more percentage than 25, you know, maybe, you know, we've been back and forth on this so many times. And we had, you're right, Jane, we had come up with a very specific list. And then we question that whether it made sense to list every single little thing in case we missed something, or whether the building commissioner really wanted to deal with some of that stuff, whether it was all valid. And so then we went to this, which is more popular among other towns, this percentage, and it seemed to work. And now they're questioning it. And I don't really know what the answer is. Is the list still available? It's on one of our drafts way back, because you can always say, to include but not limited to, and name, name some of those architectural features. And that way, you don't have to cover the world. You just need to say some obvious things that it, you know, but not limited to. And so each case would then be reviewed individually as we do. But there would be some highlights of what we're talking about. Yeah, I don't know if that gives the building commissioner any more sense of exactly what we mean. Yeah, you know, is there a way to go back. So I know that we had our demolition delay workshop with Chris again to kind of go up the chain to best practices from the historic commission to ask their guidance, you know, that our town is giving us this question. And, you know, and, you know, what's the experience statewide that's the best standard to apply so that we don't have to try to reinvent the wheel ourselves. No, it's a good, it's a good point, Robin. I mean, my recollection from the workshop from Chris Skelly was that, and maybe, Jen, maybe you said otherwise, but I, my recollection was that no other town considered anything but total demolition. That's what Chris Skelly was surprised that other towns. We got, we got our percentage. We had looked at number of percentages and they came off of other people's guides. Yeah, that's right. They were, they came from other examples. But the thing I want to contribute is that is the administrative review. So we could build into this Pat's suggestion of including but not limited to, but that the administrative review will take care of, of questionable, questionable features. So the building commissioner has a recourse that doesn't need to come to the, into the timeline of the full commission. So that would be like town staff and the commission designee kind of concept. Yeah. Which is built in there somewhere into our bylaw. Yep, that's part of it. So yeah, that's the two-step process where the town staff and designee considers significance. And we, yeah, we could maybe, I don't know, maybe we could make that language more explicit the historic commission designee is there to advise the building commissioner on more specifically on important architectural elements. I don't know if that would work, but that's one possibility. I'm just looking at a whole bunch of examples that we had pulled when we first started writing this. And this, I mean, and all of our language comes from working from these. So for instance, Dartmouth, New Hampshire had the 25% although they say of the facade, which might be helpful. That would, that would limit it in a way that it would be very clear what part of the building we're talking about. And then the one for Wellesley says 50% of the existing exterior structure provided that any non-structural changes don't constitute a demolition. So there's 50%, there's 25%, 50% is of the entire exterior, 25% is of the facade. And we have used the term visible from the street before because sometimes it goes around the corner of the building. But if you go through all of these, you find multiple ones. So, you know, it's simply not true that others don't say this, but I think that we could. Jan, could you, can you articulate the difference between facades and exterior structure? Well, to me, what they mean when they say 50% of the exterior is all four sides, right? And facade is just the front. And that's a problem to me, if you have a building like a lot of the Amherst College buildings say that are on College Street, where it faces College Street, but as you're coming up, you see a long side with a porch or whatever, you know, so that it becomes two or even three sides that are facades in a way. So we'd have to, we'd have to specify that. But we have talked before that if you can't see it from the street, it doesn't matter. So that's why I don't think 50% of the exterior really, really is important because it was the back. We don't really care. But if you're only counting the front, then again, going back to the black one in the architectural, you know, importance of all those additions that go out from the back and they are visual from the side. I mean, I think the public view is a really big part of it. I would say we'd have to just say that we didn't mean the front for facade. We meant anything visible from the street. Well, the public view. Yeah. Or could we say without going on to private property or trespassing, could that be the criteria? With, you know, public, public right of way. It's a big deal in England, public rights away, but 25% of facades visible from the public right of way. And it facades plural. Yeah. Well, I guess let me just ask this. If you can only see the front facade of the house and they're removing 25% of just the front facade, is that demolition or is it 25% of the total house? Whatever constitutes the facade. So only see the front 25% of that. If you can see the front and one side, I guess 25% of that. Okay. So like the re-ordition that we just heard about that wouldn't be demolition. The one that we just had before us, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's also, I was just, when I was looking at the other ones, somebody else, one of the other towns had said something about if it's not on the original footprint, it doesn't come under consideration. So, you know, in the past, we have reviewed demolition requests for, like, rear additions. Yeah. And we may still want to. I'm just saying that's something that somebody else mentioned that would have helped us tonight. I wonder if it's 25% or whatever percent any facade. I mean, it could be 25% of the front facade. Yeah. That's better. Other facade. Yeah, that's better actually because if you say 25% and you can see all four sides, they'd have to take down a whole side to be considered demolition. And that's an awful lot. You'd rather have 25% of each facade, right? Yeah. Again, 25%, how do you determine it? Well, it's, everything here is subjective. That's why we have a committee, a commission. And I think we'd have to consider important architectural elements as separate from the facade. That's the way the definition is written right now. It's a two-part definition. I'll pull it up now. Yeah. Yeah, it says the 25% and then the second part is the act of changing, modifying or removing important architectural elements from a structure. That's completely separate from the first part, which talks about which elements define the historic integrity of the design, except for the exemptions found in the D3. Well, why don't they understand that? I mean, that seems pretty clear to me. It's just not. I mean, it's because Rob might think one thing is an important architectural element, or for that matter, Rob, whoever is the next building commissioner and the building commissioner after that, if they're not as on the ball as Rob is, who is very keen to historic preservation, if they don't care as much, then it's important, I think, to be clear about what are important architectural elements. Which elements define the historic integrity of the design? I mean, I thought that when it got to that point, there's a representative from our commission meeting with him, right? I thought so too. Well, it's first, the way it's written now, it's the building commissioner's job to first determine if an application constitutes demolition and demolition and a structure over 50 years old. And then it would be forwarded to the staff and designee to determine significance or not. And then if determined significant, it would go to the commission for hearing unpreferably preserved. So we only come in at part two for significance. Part one, whether it's demolition is not with the representative from the commission. Correct. So could we just add to the end after bylaw, comma, such as and give some guidance with such as, which is, oh, oh, that goes, that's Pat's point about Yeah. Not limited to. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, should we go to towns or should we come up with our own? I thought we had our own. I don't know where they are. I mean, I could go back through old copies of this. We've worked so many times on this. I think we're ready for reinventing the wheel every year. I will. Do we want to skip that for now? And I'll just, we'll just leave a note to find the old list and then if we can't find it, we could. I agree. I think that's why. I'll look back. It's going to, I got rid of most of them, but I think probably in minutes from a couple of years ago, we still have some of those, I mean, not minutes meeting announcements because they would have been attached. Right. So it's just a matter of. Yeah. Do you think it was like months ago or years ago, like before my time or before your time? Yes. Okay. So I would, I can look, I can look on the computer at work to see if there's anything on the network drive. Yeah. Because by last fall, do you think you can get it off? Okay. I think she's frozen. Yeah. Yeah. She keeps freezing. I think her connection is really poor. Okay. I couldn't tell if it was mine or not. No, it's hers. So just as a general point, I mean, some of the stuff is just going to have to be on the less definitive side. I mean, is that a point that we need to make to staff, you know, that, that we came up with this 25%? This is where, you know, this is where it starts to get into, to interpretation. And, you know, there's just no way to nail it down to something that, you know, is the clean line. It's just the nature of these things. Well, maybe they wouldn't be so worried about the 25%. If under B, we listed some specific things like Pat said, you know, maybe that would make them feel better about the 25%. If we do the thing about the facade, what can be seen? Yeah. 25% of each facade is obviously a lot different than 25% of the total house. So the buildings of, of, how would we say that? If a building's front, rear, or side facades, right? Do we decide they were also need to be visible from the public right of way? Visible from the public right of way. Yeah. You better write this down while we're saying it, or we're going to forget it. Well, aren't we, aren't we assuming that a building is a box? I mean, let's be a bit, a bit more careful. Well, if I said sides, there could be lots of sides, not just two. Yeah, I'm just, you know, I'm just trying to think ahead to when, I mean, I think they'll be. Well, how about any, any building facade visible from the public right of way? Of buildings, of, no, not buildings. No, it's any buildings. Buildings. Any facade. Of any facade. Of a building visible from the public right of way. Right. Thank you. Lots of other buildings. Thank you. Yeah. So move facade over in front of building, and then you've got a facade of a building. Yeah. I, I have, I honestly think that if we did something like they did in New Hampshire with their preservation commission, where they basically over the years did a barn tour every fall. And it was incredibly well attended and there was a little bit of money available for people to stabilize their barns on their properties. It was, it was education really, education and advocacy which brought, brought some of these issues into better focus. You know, we can't kind of strong arm this bylaw to do things which are going to happen incrementally, I feel. Yeah. I mean, it's just a structural, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's one tool. It's one iteration of one tool. Yeah. And as soon as we get the bylaw through, I am planning my next big thing is to start some sort of public information campaign about barns and stuff. And so then, you know, I just, I want to get this done and then, and the riders walk up and then watch out. Coming in again. So this sounds like a really good solution to the demolition definition. Have we come to a conclusion about the second bullet about building definition? Have we come to a conclusion that that should be handled through local historic district designations? Yeah, we can just tell them that right and then cross it off. Mm hmm. Okay. Let's go back to your, I have the marked up bylaw in front of me on my computer, but let's go back to your list of concerns and recommendations that they had. Yep. That's, you know, that's what we're, that's what we're up to. We're going to the, now we're going to the third back to the third bullet about under concerns about the 18 month delay. More appropriate if we control the pot of money. Is our position that we will pursue this pot of money through CPA? That's my position. Yeah. Also, it's both that and if you have 18 months, the homeowner would have time to apply. Right. I think the 18 month delay allows for a lot of, I mean, what we're looking for is flexibility in terms of, you know, a period of time to allow for advocacy and alternatives. And I think to start, Robin, I was going to say the other thing with the 18 month delay that I think it'd be important for staff to know is that, that, that timeframe came as a recommendation from Chris at Mass Historic. I mean, like, we didn't just pull 18 months out of the air. He recommended 24 months. We went with 18 because we thought that was a reasonable amount of time to allow for advocacy and finding funding for both the historical commission and for the private owners. Yes. All of the above. Yes. Yeah. Again, we don't want to want them to see it as just a stick. It's also a carrot. Yeah. Yeah. So the fourth bullet, this is, this also is exactly in exactly the same camp as, as the 18 month delay and that's concern about using the considering the future use of a property as a criterion in determining, in making a judgment about a demolition delay or not. And Mass Historic recommended it. That's right. Yes. Correct. Yeah. Well, and that was based on, he recommended it and he, he used, wasn't it Newton that he used as the example with that one? And I think like we've got the example of the house, I think it was the one on Fearing Street where they were going to take down the garage and then build a new one. And while the, the garage would have been considered historically significant because they were putting in the new garage to, they were, they were going to mirror the architectural style so that it didn't take away from the historic value of the house itself. And I think if, if our whole goal is for historic preservation, then it's important for us to know if someone's going to, if someone's taking down a piece of a building and they're replacing it, if it's going to look similar to the rest of the architecture on the street, I think that is part of our purview. Yeah. I mean, I think that's something that we haven't considered before and I don't know what the right language is, but it's sort of the continuity of, you know, of the public space. And that was, so you have this demolition delay, which you can't prevent the demolition of a building, but it is one of the, you know, one of the sort of baby team that you can use to encourage somebody to develop something that's more to your liking by giving them a, you know, a shorter delay period. But that's the whole point of having a longer delay is to be able to say, well, you know, if it ends up looking like this, which is, you know, a better fit for the, you know, the historical environment, then we can shorten the delay. So it's, it's actually one of the things that, you know, you, you're right, it's one of the things that we want to be able to do, that we felt like we couldn't do before. And yet, the National Historic Commission is telling us this is a perfect way to use demolition delay as a tool to promote, you know, consistent design and development in historic areas. And Ben, isn't this just somebody who's used to the old bylaw saying, wait, that's not what the bylaw does, because they don't, they don't know what we're trying to do. I think this came out of like a concern that the commission, historical commission can use the delay as leverage to influence like how, how a property is used in the future. And this person felt that the, it's not the role of the historical commission, that would be more the design review board, the planning board, the ZBA who would kind of Yeah, but does only in the little downtown area and planning board hasn't been doing that and and it's not a, it's not a hard and fast decision. We can't say we want it to look like this. We can just say if you make it look like this, you know, we'll delift the delay earlier. I mean, anybody can wait out any delay. That's something It does have the potential to kill. It could kill certain projects if having to wait to during the delay. That's more teeth than design review has. Design review board, we get ignored continually. We have no teeth. All we're allowed to do is make a suggestion and people to say, fine. Thanks very much and totally ignore us. So at least we have, I mean, you could go back to whoever that staff person is and says, what are we all wasting our time for if we don't get to have any tiny bit of control here? I mean, we are spent hours on this stuff. And then if they could just walk all over us, what's the point then let the staff do it. So I sort of think that this is probably the most political part of the bylaw. And I am pretty sure it does not represent only the opinion of town staff. So sort of, I think that this is an area in which we should present our case. But I think it is probably one of the most fraught areas of what we're proposing. So we may want to have an ideal and an acceptable and a really rotten status quo would be yeah. But I'd be interested in hearing Heddy or Pat or Jane, what your thoughts are on this because I do think this is probably a pretty you know, red button area. So I went to the city of Newton website with historic preservation and they have like under their preservation resources, they have design guidelines. So it's the Planning and Development Department is pleased to announce that they have design guidelines created through CPA mass historic commission grants are intended to assist property owners with caring for their historic buildings and properties. When contemplating changes to historic buildings and properties, applicants are encouraged to consult the guidelines. And they've got it for exterior woodwork, masonry and stucco, windows and doors, sustainability, architectural style, yada, yada, yada. And so I think it's if we if we approach it from the stance of this is all about preservation of of the area, we're trying to we're trying to preserve our, you know, the historic aspects of Amherst. And so we want to have a say and I mean, I think I get why it's political. But I just feel like I don't think that there's anything wrong with us wanting to know what's going to replace what's going what's going in in where where something's being demolished. Because otherwise, what's the, yeah, like, like Jan said, what's the point like they can just wait it out for a year and it will have been an entire like we all have spent all this time having a public hearing and discussing it just so that it can be torn down in the year anyway. Um, Jane, I mean, I think a lot about how, you know, people imagine the things that they can't do, but they don't imagine the things that happen that are awful that people really regret. Like, and all I can think of is, I should think like, what's a really good example, well, maybe like the Bank of America building a great example of, you know, wouldn't it have been nice to have had a little bit more, you know, design and encouragement. I mean, I think, I think it's hard for people to imagine why that would be a good thing, but that is a really substantial landmark building that I think most people would agree. Yeah, we could have done better here and that's all we're trying to do. Well, Robin, that was the building that caused the commission to be formed. Yeah. Right. So we can start our explanation of anything with that. Right, this is our logo. Yes, that's why we exist. Maybe what we need is a, whoops, sorry. No, you just muted yourself, Eddie. Unmute. I'm sorry. Yeah. Um, maybe what we need is a little bit of visual advocacy that, you know, is in the, in a accessible format every now and again, you know, Jan was talking about that earlier, but places like the Bank of America where we can say, you know, talk a little bit about sort of case studies. I mean, I keep thinking about Three Fearing Street where, which we looked at last year where they removed an addition. And, you know, I walked through that neighborhood and I could see how much better house looks from the back, you know, and it has the most beautiful tree in the backyard. And everything is just... Well, the house that we approved where they took down the garage and replaced it with something similar. I mean, those are two great, you know, kind of bookends, you know, sort of like what, you know, what's, what we're all we're trying to achieve here. Exactly. Yeah. I'm not lifting it long enough, but those two, I just, I think, very telling. And sometimes people don't get it when you have make them read something like a white paper, but they might get it if they had a before and after or this is how it could have looked or this is what was here before and look at it now. You know, pictures and a thousand words, you know, worth a thousand words kind of thing that that doesn't answer the question or get at some of the meat of the problem. But yeah, I mean, I think we're going to be able to, we're not going to be able to do everything with this in the document. I just think we're trying to shoehorn current sensibilities that may change, you know, 20 years from now. So for purposes of the language of the bylaw, do you all feel that the criteria in there actually does focus on the future use of the property or does it only include consideration of information about the future use of the property? I mean, it could be that that the review comments make more of the language than we had intended. And it could be that a little adjustment of the language would help to mitigate the concern while not removing our opportunity to understand what's going to happen in the future. Maybe the word that is the biggest sticking point for people is replacement. You know, the owner's plans for reuse, reconstruction or replacement, if it's repurposing a historic building, we're reusing it or reconstructing it, that shouldn't bother them so much. Maybe it's the concept of replacement that we're trying to determine what comes next. I mean, we can tweak that somehow. Jen, I agree with you. That's putting a thumbprint on the future. And what we're charged with is helping to maintain what is. And so the replacement thing adds another element to that designation of a building. Is that what's the political piece, Ben, do you think? Um, I don't know if any one of these three words is more concerning than the others. I think it was more just the idea of the Historical Commission influencing future development as opposed to merely just preserving existing was the. But how do we? I mean, I will say, I mean. I think one, to me, the triggering language is as well as, which sets it apart from, sets that consideration of sets that consideration apart from any of the factors that led to designation as significant. So. I mean, including might be a better word, but there is still a little bit of separation there. Yeah. Restoration, reuse, restoration or reconstruction. Take replacement out. That's, that sounds good to me, Jen. Yeah, I wrote this so I can change it if I want to. Yeah, I will say one thing like Nate and I were talking about was how, you know, right now it's just the designee and staff who are considering these four criteria for significance. And I, you know, I think we all staff, we all like these four criteria fairly straightforward. I think we still need to figure out the view shed thing. But one thing Nate and I were talking about was like if we can steal some of the criteria from here and maybe bring it into the preservation. So that actually gives the commission a little bit more to consider as opposed to just the designee and staff. Because right now, you know, we refer to any of the buildings, any of the factors which led to the significant designation. But you know, I was joking with Nate, like what does it mean? Like the building is, you know, a lot of value in association with a specific location or like is really historic or like what's the, how does it go from being significant to preferably preserved? It needs to be all of these things plus like all of these criteria plus like, you know, being detrimental lost to the town or something. This is why legal documents get so long and so complicated. Because if you have to spell out every possible permutation of understanding word, we were trying to cut this to where it was more readable for a person making an application. And if it gets longer and we keep putting all these hanging definitions on everything, it's going to just be impossible to read. You know, it says all the factors which led to the building's designation is significant. If you want to, you can put CE1234 right there and they can go back up rather than having to restate everything again and just make the document longer and longer. Yeah, I agree. I wasn't saying restating. I was actually saying maybe taking these two or these three and actually putting them in preferably preserved as opposed to just. But doesn't that defeat the purpose of what we were trying to keep from coming before the committee of, you know, like when we really have to talk about whether it's worth preserving as opposed to whether it's in front of us. I guess I'm wondering how, how does that discussion go about whether something's worth preserving that that I think was the concern about town staff is right now. The only considerations are these four factors, which have already been discussed with town staff. And then future plans for reuse. So the question is what it what discussions are actually taking place when it comes time to decide preferably preserved. So perhaps a simple. Yeah. Because it is a two step process. Once we get down here to F, we've already can, we've already considered one through four. So you mentioned value. And if we were to qualify value with just a single word like has recognized a value or demonstrated, we can't say significant because that's yeah, but, but there's got to be a word that that's documented. Really vague though, you know, I mean, where is there, is there, I mean, I sort of feel like when we get to F. So when I first joined the historic commission, and I asked, you know, at what point do we say, I mean, we weren't using the term preferably preserved before, but I was looking for guidance, you know, how do we decide what it's okay to get rid of. And what's not how do we make that decision. And, you know, we had a little bit of discussion around it. I carry with me Jan's remark that I use the no great loss rule in my own head. But it does get to, I mean, there is a certain point where it becomes a more complicated discussion that you can't put into just a bullet list. And maybe that's what's not understood here like when does, you know, the, the, you know, one of my arguments in my class was around the little schoolhouse that was torn down. And I was saying, well, nobody made a particularly strong argument for, you know, a gendered history perspective. Do I have to list that under F, you know, I mean, that's where we kind of get into the interesting aspects of, of what historic preservation means. And I don't know if you can know that thing to say to staff is that they've gone one through four and they've decided it's significant. Just like when we've done it, it doesn't necessarily mean it can't be demolished because we have determined things and still demolish them. Right. So it's a two step process. In a way, it's almost like, you know, checks and balances. They can determine one. And then we're going to talk further if necessary about what we want to preferably preserve it. We may not want to preserve it. No. Can I make a suggestion for this language here in the second paragraph? To this end, the historical commission will weigh the factors which led to the building's designation as significant, including confirmation of, okay, not quite getting the language here, confirmation of determinations made for criteria under one through four above, potential plans for restoration, reconstruction or reuse, so that, you know, once there's this administrative review, if the administrative review takes it out of a full review by the historical commission, fine. If the historical commission, you know, if something advances to the historical commission, the full commission itself can go back and consider these four things alongside of other factors. Yep. I like the restoration, adding restoration to that list. Reuse, restoration, reconstruction or replacement. No replacement. Take replacement out. I was suggesting restoration to replace replacement because it's a charged word. And I don't know why it says the or any for building. I guess what you just said led to any building. Yeah. Okay. Plus, Ben, I had mentioned this in an email just off the cuff while we're here. This entire set of three paragraphs needs to be moved back over to come under designation. It's indented too far. Oh, yeah. Looks less important than every other section. I think that's fine. I think we can clean it up a little, but I think you're right. We're weighing the one through four determination and plans for what will happen next. And then we'll decide if it should be preserved. I mean, yeah. And I mean up here, it says say to avert the possible negative impacts of a significant building's loss or replacement with the structure. So I think that that's almost like the purpose statement for the this section and is something that can be considered as well is, you know, it could be a significant building. Like, you know, I think about the vet's office on Kendrick Park that we looked at that was determined to be significant, but you know, it was tucked back a little bit and the commission determined that it could be demolished. And so, you know, I it might actually be interesting to revisit that discussion, but I think part of it was like it would be a detriment to the town and the town's historic character was kind of what what that right. And if you have some gorgeous historical structure that I mean, and this has happened with many Amherst college buildings that in order to restore it, they have to tear a lot of things down and rebuild them. Well, they need a demolition permit, but they're going to restore and reconstruct. And we just want to know that that's going to happen if they're tearing it down. There's something wrong with us asking that. And yet under the old bylaw, we couldn't even ask that. I think maybe the list I made was too strongly worded because I'm noticing here, I think what we talked about was, you know, kind of just it shouldn't be the primary criteria, the reuse, but it can be something that's considered. But I think the way it was worded now, it was almost like the one of the main things that is considered. So yeah, and I think in, I guess, my comments, I was trying to trying to place the future use within a larger context. So which is a kind of, you know, just sort of amplifying the language a bit. I think the other thing too that we were talking about as town staff is, you know, the the makeup of the historical commission now is, you know, you are all very enlightened, proactive, smart people and are, you know, understand the bylaw in and out, you know, and just thinking about, you know, 20 years from now or something, 10 years from now, you know, there's no dearth of smart people in Amherst. But, you know, what if the future makeup, the historical commission is not as keen to this language or, you know, interprets it differently or something. I don't know. I think that that was another concern is just another reason to spell things out, I guess. But I mean, I guess, to that point, Ben, my thought is if in 10 to 20 years, the historical commission doesn't like the wording of this, they are welcome to rewrite it. Yeah, exactly. Not really our problem. I mean, like, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but like, that's what we're doing. I mean, like, we didn't think that we thought that it was cumbersome and not super helpful. And so, we're trying to make it more readable and understandable and we're making sure we're laying all this out. And so, in 20 years, someone doesn't like it. Have at it. Yeah, exactly. All right. Yeah. Now, you guys are making the bylaw that you want. Very pragmatic. Thanks so much. Also, let me just say for the record, Ben, that I don't think any of us totally understand the bylaw, even though we're bored here, I will never totally have anything. Well, and that's what I mean, though, what's interesting about it is that there are unclear cases and that's why we're here. Otherwise, it would be a challenge and be boring. Well, I mean, like, we've been, we have to leave some of this intentionally a little vague because we don't know what's going to come up. And so, we're trying to make sure that we can capture everything without having a bylaw that's 700 pages long and that's still understandable to the general public. And in order to do that, some things are going to have to seem a little vague. Yeah. I think we've tried to add clarity in an understandable language to it and steps that are well thought out. And give sufficient guidance to have staff responsible for first review and enforcement. Ben, in terms of the wording that you have in there, just if you're going to finalize this, I would just say the criteria E one through four, rather than in the section above, I'm always trying to take words out and make it. Yeah. Okay. The criteria of E one through four or whatever in E one through four. So I think we're from the town staff review, the concerns may have been the most difficult to wrestle with, but now we are down into the suggestions section. Easier to do. And so the first one, no matter how permits are treated during a change of ownership, this may be an unnecessary component of the bylaw and create more confusion. So I think we tried to put this in because I believe we had experienced a specific incident where this came up. And was that, so do we feel that that incident was effectively handled or that there was still sort of murkiness that we really need to address this? What was going to remind me of what the incident was? Yeah, I wish I could. It was. There was the like barn on Southeast Street that yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The commission had approved. Oh no, but that didn't change. On West Street, wasn't it? Well, Southeast Street, there was one where the ownership changed and it expired. Yeah. I have to tell you, I went to Black's Law Dictionary to look up ownership, and it's about four or five or 10 pages more of the smallest font. And I came away from that thinking if we're going to talk about owner, it's the owner of record. And we're talking about that actually with tonight's, with the house that's being moved, that the approval is for the moving of it. But if any other changes were to occur, it's the owner of record who would then be Barry Roberts or some corporation. So I don't know whether we need a standard language, but something that is understandable, as simple as that. Wow, that seems so simple. Yeah. After reading through all of the definitions and the permutations of ownership, it boils down for our purposes of who's the owner of record or represents the owner of record. Great. Let's put that in. We've got it solved. I think the broader question is, that came up was why do we, if a delay is in place, why do we want to revisit the change of ownership? Because there may be a different reason, the new owner may have a different reason for wanting to demolish the property. And quite obviously, the new owner may have a different intention for future use. And as long as we're keeping that among the things that the commission might pay attention to, I think that is easily significant enough as a rationale. I agree. Okay. So only one more suggestion, or should we continue with this? It's 848. The next suggestion is a little bit complicated, and I can just explain it briefly. But it has to do with the appeal process because this is moving to the general bylaw. So I think currently, because it's in the zoning bylaw, it's appealable to the zoning board of appeals. But because we're in the general bylaw now, we have to spell out an appeal process. And so just bear with me for a second because I'm kind of like teaching this to myself too, based on the conversation I heard from Nate and Rob. Because right now, the way it is, we almost provide a directive to the building commissioner to delay or to do administer a demolition permit. And that's really, I guess, just done in writing. Like tomorrow I'm going to email Rob or talk to Rob and say, go forth with the permits for 197 and 205. So what Nate was saying was, and this is how we do it in the local historic district commission, is there's an actual, like, you know, we make up this idea of a certificate that the historical commission is in charge of administering. And so it's a homeowner or, you know, property owner can only get a demolition permit, you know, for a 50 year old building that's deemed significant. They can only get a demolition permit if they have this certificate in hand. And we could call it whatever we want, certificate of demolition. And it's, it is that act, the act of granting or not granting the certificate of demolition, that is the appealable process. And so that, you know, then we could spell out how is it appealable. The local historic district decisions are appealed, they go to pioneer valley planning commission, like they have a historic preservation officer there who, and she came into play with the Amherst media case, like she art was the orbit arbitrator arbitrator there. And so so this would be it would be a lot of work to set up this new process and it can happen maybe outside of the work of the commission itself, it would be something that we handle internally, I guess, but it would be it would need to be spelled out in the bylaw basically is, you know, you know, the, you know, the being preferably preserved means that the certificate of demolition is withheld for 18 months or something. So that, or, you know, if not deemed preferably preserved, then well wait, preferably preserved doesn't that's what I mean, we won't agree to a demolition, because if it's a portion of the building, we might say the building is preferably preserved, but we'll allow you to do x. Right. So in that case, we could go ahead and issue the certificate. Exactly. Yeah, for it for the right. Yeah, I like the idea of a certificate. Can I be the one who signs it? I love the thing that you need a seal or an embosser. Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh, it's gold. Yeah. French, they always have all these seals all over their documents. So Ben, I kind of wondered about this when I first read it, but you know, the the point that we're moving this into the general bylaw, and we need to create a process, this seems, this seems like a good one to me. I mean, it is perfectly parallel to the local historic district. And I've, I've gotten too certificate. Yeah, yeah. People going to some demolition situation and waving this dog. Yeah. And so the way the way it works on it. Yeah. Yes, Rubens, red, white, and blue ones. The way it works in the local historic district is, you know, you need for any exterior alteration or anything you need this certificate of appropriateness to get your building permit. So that's kind of the the act that gets you the building permit for anything in the LHD. So it would be a similar thing. Like you need the certificate to get your demolition permit. So do you get the certificate if like, so if you have to just wait out the whole 12 months or 18 months or whatever, like we could grant it under certain circumstances earlier, but you would we would automatically issue one at the end of a delay. If they make a sizable donation towards our on the restoration. Yeah, restoration fund. We might consider giving to you if you put in 1500 or more. So Ben, is there is, there must be in writing an appeal process for the local districts. Is that something we can use and fashion it to the historic commission? That's what I was going to ask to Pat. I was going to say, Ben, can you just send us the appeal process for the local historic district so people can look at it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's spelled out in the LHD general bylaw. So I can find that. That's a good good point. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to amend it to our purposes. Yeah. One question, Ben, is, is this a considerable administrative burden any more than there is currently? I mean, are there, can we just put a picture of a seal and some ribbons on an email? I don't know if it's too much more burdensome. And in fact, it might like, because right now we have this whole permitting software where all the decisions live. And right now there's nothing to upload to the permitting software to say there's a demolition delay or there's not a demolition delay. If any, I just, we just upload the email that I send to Rob saying one way or another. So I actually think this would create a smoother process because like with the LHD certificates, you know, those get uploaded along with the building permit to say, you know, these go together. It's been reviewed. It's been approved. If anything, it's more work for the chair who has to sign everything. So all the certificates. Okay. All right. Well, I don't know, quite reasonable, straightforward and consistent with the local historic district commission, which could be an advantage also that it brings more consistency to processes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So good. Yeah, I'll, I guess that it will happen. I guess there will need to be some language about it in the bylaw because, you know, all of a sudden we're introducing this new certificate idea. So I'll work on putting that language into the bylaw. Um, if it's just changing the words, like makes it makes, you know, the building commissioner cannot deliver or give a demolition permit without this certificate pretty much. So I will find a really snazzy fancy certificate if you like. Yeah. Yeah. Do we need it in the definition span? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. And I can take that from the LHD definition as well. It's just such a weird title. Certificate of demolition. I know. It might be need something. Permission to demolish or I don't know. There's got to be a better. But it is what it is, Jan. It is what it is. Certificate. I don't want to confuse the. If we get a circle, it'll be a Banksy's piece, you know, it will self-destruct while you hold it. It's a definition. It could be certificate to demolish. To demolish. That sounds better. Yeah. How about certificate to How about authorization? Certificate not to preserve. Yeah. Fake them feel really, really guilty. Certificate to demolish. Certificate doesn't mean anything. What the certificate does is it authorizes it. So it's an authorization to demolish. Okay. That's good. Okay. Or to not be preserved. Which is true. Certificate of authorization to demolish. I know. That's what's on the title. Unsignifying itself. Yeah. Certificate of non-preferability. Well, what is the local historic district? It's a certificate of Appropriate. Appropriateness. Yes. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Which does put it in a positive light. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's your restoration and change is not for demolition, right? Correct. Well, it could include demolition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess the implication is certificate that the appropriateness means that the changes are considered appropriate to the character of the district. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we have one thing left here about a sponsor, the bylaw change. And Ben, I would love to hear from you what you think the most advantageous approach would be. Yeah. So I think, like, so my understanding of how town council works is like the, so a council member can present a bylaw change. A department head can present a zoning change or another commission or board or committee within the town. So both the historical commission and town staff are, I guess, eligible to submit bylaw changes. I should know, I think there's also a way for a group of citizens to sign a petition to also change the bylaw. So there is that process too. So I think if I would say if it's just the commission sponsoring the bylaw, then, you know, town council and planning board and stuff would probably ask for town staff's opinion and concerns and questions and suggestions. And so I think part of the conversations that took place, you know, over the past weeks where, you know, it would be great to get to a point where town staff and the historical commission can present together and kind of present this bylaw change as a joint effort. So because otherwise, yeah, I think otherwise there would be just a little bit more back and forth, I guess, and different entities raising questions and concerns. And so I will note too, the town staff, me, Rob, Nate, Chris, everyone in the planning department, we've been charged with helping draft a host of other zoning amendments related to downtown and, you know, various things to do with housing. And so I think there is that process playing out too. And so, you know, I think if any of you have been following the ongoings of town council and the planning board, there's, we were given a list of like seven different bylaw changes that the town council were interested in. And then we're working with the planning board to study, analyze, do some research, and then eventually provide recommendations and recommendations on actual language of the bylaw. So, and the demolition delay bylaw was part of that list of seven recommendations. And so, you know, at some point, we were given the date of March 15th to like present all of that. I don't know if we'll be able to do all seven by March 15th. It's not looking likely, but I guess what I'm trying to say is just like town staff, we were, we will be presenting a lot of zoning amendments to town council over the next, you know, probably maybe starting as soon as early March, but well into all throughout the spring, I guess. And so the, we can kind of, the demolition delay bylaw can slip into that process as well. And and I guess, yeah, strategically. So I guess what I'm hearing, I want to sort of test this with you. Strategically, it sounds like it may be advantageous to present this as part of this larger set of bylaw changes with, so primarily presented by town staff, but with the joint sponsorship or support of the historical commission. Is that, or change my language, however you think. Yeah. I think, yeah, joint sponsorship would, would be, would be great. I mean, we've all put in, me and me, it's only been six months or whatever, but you know, the bylaw, the historical commission's been working on bylaw revisions for years. So I think presenting jointly would, you know, show it's not just a town staff effort, but it's something that commission's been working on for a while. Okay. I guess, okay. So then I guess my, not to sort of drill down into this too far, but I guess I'm wondering if there's advantage in making this part of a greater whole, or if it is better to highlight the, the longstanding investment of historical commission members and town citizens in reframing this. And anybody else, please jump in. Yeah. When it's presented, Ben, do you have the thought that we would need to outline what the changes are, where the changes are, or just to present the recommendation, recommendation for the changes that we've established? So I would say both. I mean, the, when you present to town council, the bylaw needs to be in the form that it would be adopted in. So we would actually present like the, the draft that we're working on. And, you know, that would be, we would need to make sure that's in a position to be adopted as, as written. But I think it would be good to do that in conjunction with, you know, laying out the rationale and kind of pointing out like, oh, we're going to this kind of new two-step process. Oh, we're going from 12 to 18 months. And definitions have changed it, etc. So that's going to be a step that we'll have to do before it's proposed. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So should we try to pin down next steps? Yeah, but I guess one more thing. And, you know, it, it puts, puts us in a little bit of an awkward position, I guess, and maybe me, me more so than anyone. Because like, if, if town, if town staff has issues with some of the directions that the Historical Commission is going in, then, you know, how does it be, how is it jointly sponsored, I guess? So I think that's what is a little bit confusing to me still is like, you know, for example, the definition of demolition, if Rob doesn't think that's something he can support, or, you know, not, not, I guess, in force is what he would be most concerned with, like how we would need to kind of work out those kinks and just get, get to a point where both feel like there's a workable draft that can be presented. So, yeah. So it sounds like we need a, I'm getting this from TV reconciliation process. Yeah. And I should know Chris and Rob are potentially willing to come to the meeting on February 10th, just to talk through the bylaw a little bit, because, yeah, which might be, might be good. Nice to start. Yeah. I think that would be great. Yeah. And that, I hope will give you time to incorporate what we've talked about tonight. And yeah, and then be able to draw out of Rob and Chris what remaining concerns they have. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But that could be, yeah, in terms of the reconciliation process, that could be a good place to start. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, that sounds like a good next step. Thank you. Thanks for all your work on this. Yeah. Yeah, of course. And everybody else, this has been a work in progress for a long time. And it feels like it's in a good spot. Yeah. Thanks, Ben. You've done a great job shepherding us through the whole thing. Trying. So it is now almost past nine. There is a, we wanted to have a discussion of Mass Historical Commission Preservation Projects fund grants related to sort of co-funding for CPA projects. Robin, is this something that we could put on the February 10th agenda or is there a more of a time pressure? Is the deadline for that March then? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And do you think there's enough time? I mean, it's a specific conversation about expectations for seeking grant funding when the town presents for historic preservation proposals for the CPA. And then also, because there is a looming deadline, it's specific to the cycle. But if you think there's enough time for us to move the discussion to the following month's meeting, I mean, it's what is at the 10th? It's not that long. No, it's two weeks from now. Yeah. Right. What do you think, Jay? Well, I think the general discussion can certainly wait till the 10th. If there's urgency about submitting an application for any particular project, that could... It's March 19th is the deadline. I feel like that might be enough time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, I agree. And for what it's worth, we haven't discussed much about it in Town Hall only because we have two other grants we're working on right now. And this is kind of something in the pipeline, but discussions haven't begun yet about how to prioritize the different projects. Yeah. So that's as important a conversation on the Town Hall side as it is within the Historical Commission. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I look forward to talking about that next meeting, certainly. Okay, great. So is there any public comment? There's one attendee here. They can feel free to raise their hand if they have any public comment. Okay. Without public comment, we'll move to unanticipated items. And I have one that I want to bring up. And Robin, you may also have comment on this also. And that is the Mill River Project that the Historical Commission sponsored for a state grant. I think I reported at our last meeting that we were not invited to enter the actual application process. But the District One neighborhood association that is really behind that particular project understands that they may submit a revised application to the Community Preservation Act Committee or Commission. Committee. Thank you. For consideration with, I guess, what amounts to sort of residual funding after grants have been made with funding that may be available after July 1st. So the District One neighborhood association wants to talk with the Historical Commission at our next meeting before submitting a revised application to the Community Preservation Act Committee. So we may let's go ahead and put that on our agenda for February 10th. Okay. Great. Yeah, I'll make a note of that now. I should also note for February 10th, we do have a public hearing, albeit probably a brief one. And this just came in earlier this week, but it's for a single car garage. Pretty old. I think there's an aerial that shows it from the 1950s on Dana Street, 99 Dana Street. And so you can see it from the road. It's in rough shape and the owner wants to take it down and build the new. Actually, I don't really actually know what they want to do. They want to take it down. And so, yeah, I did the legal ad and mailings for that earlier this week. And so, we'll discuss that at the next meeting. And I think the owner will be present. So I can all send you details. I'll send you the application and any pictures prior to the meeting. Okay. All right. Thanks, Ben. Um, we have our next meeting date established February 10th. Do we want to look beyond that? Or did we look beyond that? We haven't yet. Does February 10th kind of return us to more of our previous schedule, which it was, I think earlier in the month? Actually, I think we were on the third Wednesday or third Wednesday. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's see. The third Wednesday would then be very, very shortly after February. The next week. Should we, should we at this point pencil in the third Wednesday of March? Sure. Okay. It's really helpful when it can be on a standard yes day in a month. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, why don't we, then why don't we just pencil in some more third Wednesdays? And if we need to change that, we can do that in subsequent meetings. Yes, that's March 24th and then April 21st. No, the 17th is the third Wednesday. Yeah, look at that. You're right. Yeah. All right. And we'll be putting the Reader's Walk, the Writers Walk signs in. Yeah. What? Yes. And we're all going to be there, right? Of course. We need an inaugural event. Yeah. Case a champagne so I can knock one over. Every single sign. Yeah. Yeah. And then, well, maybe we need two cases because we could actually We can hand them out to people on the street saying, look. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it would be great to plan some kind of, some kind of, well, we need a press release for one thing and then some kind of inauguration event. I think it'd be good also for morale for the town, you know, you all have been locked in and we've been locked in, but we've been getting worked on and look, we have something to show you. So when you come back outside, you can do. I know. It's almost like we intended it that way. Almost. It's actually a COVID friendly thing, isn't it? That's how I walk around. In my April, many, many people will have the vaccinations. So yeah. Yeah. So thanks to Jan for for running that public hearing. Thank you very much. Oh, well, we never thank you for running the regular meetings. And well, the real event now is to ask for a motion to adjourn. Oh, thank you. Second. Second. Okay. That's quick. That's all we need. Okay. Well, I'll miss you all until February. Good night, everybody. See you in a couple weeks. Okay. Be well. Take care. Bye-bye. Good night. Bye. Thanks, Ben.