Reappointment of Robert Tullis, 8 Thurston Road, to the Historic District Commission (HDC), for a three-year term, said term to expire on the last day of February 2029.

Transcript (~17 min @ 1:28)

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▶ 0:48 Ryan Williams: I see no objections, public comments. Now open public comments, a portion of the meeting where people can come and speak on any item on the agenda. Do we have anybody remotely for public comments? Okay, I think all of our participants are on the agenda tonight, so I don't think there's any public comment there. So I will motion by unanimous consent to close public comment and with no objections, public comment is now closed. Okay. So we have a number of reappointments tonight, and I want to say first that I very much appreciate the members of the commissions for coming tonight to be with us, because as counselors, we frequently reappoint people so often that we never see them or know who they are or what their committee is. So every once in a while, I thought it would be good to just get people on the floor, um, to make face contact and talk. So, uh, with that said, the first, uh, reappointment on the agenda is ID number 2 0 2 6 dash 3 9 7 reappointment of Robert Tallis of eight Thurston Road to the Historic District Commission for a three year term, said term to expire on the last day of February, 2029. Uh, Mr. Telus, would you please come forward and tell us a little bit about your experience?

▶ 1:55 Speaker 2: Good evening. Thank you.

▶ 1:58 Ryan Williams: Um, I thought you could just give us a brief overview of your experience on the, um, historic District Commission and any expectations you have for the future, and let the counselors know anything that you want us to know, whether

▶ 2:11 Speaker 2: Year ahead. Okay. So I've, I've served for one term, which I think is, what, two or three years. Um, and, uh, we meet, uh, monthly as needed. So sometimes there are no petitions in front of us and we don't hold the meeting. Other times there is one or two or three. Um, so I've attended almost all of the meetings. I may have missed one, um, that we actually held to here. Um, petitions. Um, the petitions that come into us are for people who are making, um, or proposing to make visible changes visible from a public way or visible to the public, I think is the way. It's, um, the way it's worded within the historic district. And Melrose has one historic district. It's the downtown district. It basically borders Main Street from up at, um, uh, Essex Street, I guess, um, street. The library is on and down to, um, halfway, uh, through the middle of town, just below the old savings bank building. Um, and most of the, uh, petitions that we hear are for signage changes because the district is so heavily commercial, the things that change the most are the tenants or their needs for branding and signage. So we hear a lot of, um, petitions about, uh, the need to, um, revise or, or put up a new sign sometimes that involves lighting. Um, we don't allow any internally lit signs, so, uh, signs can be lit, but the light has to be cast on the sign. Uh, sometimes, uh, the building already has, um, gooseneck lamps or some other methodology of lighting the sign, and the petitioner is just reusing those. But sometimes they want to, they're sign to be lit at night, and the building does not have any lighting on it, so the lighting comes along with it. Um, we also hear petitions for, you know, changes in windows, uh, changes in, uh, door thresholds, um, things like that. Uh, we had one up the block where, uh, a porch that was on the back of the house but was nonetheless visible to the public was falling down. They needed to replace the entirety, two story porch. Um, so we hear those kinds of things. Uh, just recently, for instance, the YMCA wanted to make their front entrance handicapped accessible. They had a small step at the main door. They proposed taking out that granite slab that's, you know, been there since 1893 or whatever, and replacing it with a sloped, um, granite threshold that that project has done. Any of you go to the y know that it's been in place for about a month now. So those are the kinds of things that we, that we hear, um, of concern to me in particular, um, as an individual on the board is, um, the need or the, the perceived desire. Uh, I have that desire to expand the existing districts such that it incorporates all of, uh, downtown down to the gas station and the, and the runner store. Um, even though there aren't any, um, really important existing historical structures that are in the uncovered part, I feel very strongly that the perception of town and the street corridor that one, uh, uh, is aware of as one travels through downtown, really consists of the buildings on both sides of the street all the way to the end of that density. Um, and again, since we hear so many, um, uh, petitions about signage, whether the building is of significant historical, uh, note or not, I think it's important that we protect the overall ambience of downtown Melrose. So I'm advocating that we try and expand the, um, the historic district. Another thing that I've been working on just recently is, um, an effort to create a historic district around certain individual, um, buildings, or small groups of buildings, um, in town. Um, this was given rise to by the, um, Benjamin Lined House at 2 44 Main Street. Uh, and the ability of, uh, of, uh, anybody who wanted to develop that more densely, uh, if they utilize the chapter 40 B, um, to really densify the site. Uh, and in the act of doing that, either demolish, um, or hopefully preserve for relocation, um, the existing Benjamin Line House, which is a very historic house occupied by a very, uh, a person of historic note, uh, in the history of the town of Melrose, and really even in the founding of our country, because he, uh, fought, um, uh, and in the, in the battle, the shot heard around the world was fired in Lexington and conquered. Um, so I prepared a, uh, uh, historic district study. Um, the process as the city council should know, and if don't, if they don't, they're gonna find out very soon, um, is that the Historic District Commission prepares an initial study. We submit it to the planning board of Melrose and to mass historic. Both of those boards have 30 days to respond. We then take their responses, if any, into consideration, we, um, choose or not to modify our initial study. Then we present the revised, um, study, uh, taking those comments into, um, into account, um, to the city council and the city council votes as to whether that historic district should be created. Um, as you also know, separate from the Historic District Commission, there was an effort to, um, pass a demolition delay, uh, permit, which you guys voted on, I think, two meetings ago. And that's just another protection that we can have for some of the historically significant, um, uh, culturally significant and architecturally significant infrastructure in the town. So I'm interested in all of those things, and that's why I volunteered to serve on the board. And basically that's what I've been doing for the past couple years.

▶ 8:26 Ryan Williams: Thank you very much. Any questions or comments from counselors? President Freeman?

▶ 8:30 Bradley Freeman: Yep. Um, thank you for, for all you've done for, for the commission and for Melrose. One question I have is, as you're talking about expanding the district of downtown, is that consistent with what other cities and towns have done with non historic components of a longer corridor?

▶ 8:46 Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. Short answer is yes. Yep.

▶ 8:51 Ryan Williams: Thank you. Uh, Councillor, um, sorry. Councillor Vandiver.

▶ 8:55 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Um, thank you for coming tonight, and I really appreciated, um, your writeup and all the writeups we have in the packet. Um, I, this was a change we made a year ago to, um, have reapp appointees give us more information about what they, um, have been working on. And, um, and I think everybody has really risen to the occasion, and I love reading all of the detail and the work that goes into these boards and commissions. Um, I had a question about, I had attended one of your meetings, um, would've been I think December, uh, and there there was a question about signage, uh, for a dog grooming business that had come up. And there was some discussion at the time, uh, about the fact that this business owner hadn't been aware of, um, what they needed to take into consideration with this sign. So they'd gone ahead and purchased a, purchased a sign that turned out to be non-conforming. Um, and there was some discussion about what could be done to make sure that anyone issuing permits was aware anyone was, you know, working on signs, was aware so that, you know, the rework could be prevented and you could get ahead of it. Is there, um, I'm just curious if there's any update on, um, what, you know, somehow inserting yourselves earlier into the process or making sure that permits get approved with this?

▶ 10:12 Speaker 2: So, it's a problem. It, it, it's, it's a re recurring problem in the three years that I've been on the board. Um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the act of being notified generally happens when somebody applies for a building permit. And the people at inspection services are supposed to look at the permit, determine whether the building that is the permit is being pulled for, is in or not in the district. If it's in the district, they're supposed to tell the permit, applic, key, applicate, appli, whatever they are the applicant that they have to, um, come before us, uh, in order to get permission for, as I say, any publicly visible changes. Um, two different things tend to happen. Either, um, inspection services just misses it. Um, to be quite frank, I don't think they're as good as they should be and as zealous or as aware as they should be. Um, Lori, uh, Masa has had some discussions with them trying to focus them on really looking at the address, making sure that, um, it, it, um, if it's in the historic district that the applicant is told that they have to come see us first and not to issue the building permit until they have the sign off letter from us. It happens. Sometimes it doesn't happen. The other thing that happens is, um, when somebody applies for a permit and they're in the district, or they apply for a permit in general, um, the permit doesn't always spell out everything that the applicant intends to do, um, as a part of the course of their work. Um, sometimes it's because they have a contractor and the contractor just says, you know, electrical work and it doesn't say adding lights to the outside of the building, for instance. So electrical work in general would not fall under our purview, adding lights to the outside of the building would, so ISD doesn't know that they're going to do something. The other thing that happens, particularly with signage, and this is just, it's the industry, the signage industry, is people who are in the sign business. One of the things that they do as part of their business is they procure permits from the cities and jurisdictions where they're erecting the sign. So what a sign guy will say is, don't worry, I'll handle it for you. And then they do whatever they normally do or wanna do. They don't necessarily come in for a separate permit. The building permit doesn't say, oh, by the way, I'm erecting a sign because the applicant has been told by the signage guy, don't worry, I'll handle it. And so the permit never says that there's a new sign there or revised signs or whatever. And the other thing that the signage industry does is the people who erect the signs also design the signs. You know, and they have little software packages where they can, you know, design signs and, you know, they're pretty good, but they're not great. Um, and so there's nobody looking over the shoulder saying, is this sign appropriate for the building on which it is mounted? Is it too big? Is it too small? Is it too tall? When it should be wider in terms of proportion? You know, should it be a blade sign that sticks off the, the, they just don't think of all the various options that a real, uh, real, it's a bad way of saying it. A uh, it's a pejorative way of saying it that a, uh, an architect or a graphic designer, or a true signage designer would consider. So they just go to their bag of tricks and they say, you know, we've done this before. It's been successful. How, what do you think the owner says, that's great. He says, don't worry, I'll take care of all your permits. Next thing you know, the sign is installed. Somebody drives by at night, the sign's internally lit and it's too big. And we're like, well, what happened? And the owner is thinking, you know, what happened? I, I paid $5,000 for this sign, and now I have to take it down. So, um, it's a problem. It really, um, requires, I think everybody, um, but particularly the applicants 'cause it's the, it's, it's the, it's the responsibility the applicant to understand the, um, the regulations under which they are operating, uh, to be aware. But it, it's, it's just, I don't wanna say constantly, but regularly falls through the cracks. Yeah. Yeah. And then we don't have really much, unless it just happens to be wonderful, in which case we say, you should have come to see us first. But it happens to be wonderful, so we'll approve it. But lately, there's some ones that don't happen to be wonderful, and, and we've sort of, as a, as a commission said, you know, we can't just, you know, have people ask for permission anymore, ask for forgiveness anymore. They have to ask for permission. So we're gonna say, no, you gotta take the sign down and reapply. And the dog one, um, in particular, they were going to reapply this month, and they don't have their act together yet. So they've, um, requested a, um, uh, uh, a

▶ 15:09 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. Thank. Yeah. Thank you for all of the, the context around that. Yeah, I, I, I think it would be great if there's a way to continue to look at, you know, whether it's the inspection services or perhaps reaching out to all of the, um, the owners of the buildings who, who rent them out or, you know, somehow getting ahead of it and trying to Yeah. Continue to get people in front of you before they already do the work on the sign. I think that would be helpful. But I, I appreciate that. It's a problem. And yeah, you

▶ 15:37 Speaker 2: Know, another good example is the Coolidge and, and the people who manage the Coolidge should be congratulated 'cause they've been a joy to work with, and they were forthright, but, you know, they're just, they're going through a huge air conditioning, um, program. Now, those apartments don't have any air conditioning, so they're adding air conditioning. You would think, what do I need to see the Historic District Commission for if I'm adding it air conditioning to, you know, to my units. But of course, air conditioners require rooftop units and ground mounted condensing units, and they're huge. And for that particular building, they're really quite large. And they had, or originally proposed to put a couple of 'em right out in front of the building between the building and Main Street. We were aghast, as you might imagine.

▶ 16:21 Bradley Freeman: Thank you very much. No further questions. Okay. Thank you. I just have one quick clarifying question. To go back to the expanding of the business district. If that were to happen, would all the existing businesses within the new corridor be grandfathered into all variances?

▶ 16:35 Speaker 2: Uh, so I would hope not, but it really depends on the city council as to the language that they enact. Um, I would hope that they would not be grandfathered in.

▶ 16:45 Bradley Freeman: Okay. I, I'd like to have a further conversation about that, just 'cause to me that's a lot of expenses on, on some of our business owners.

▶ 16:52 Speaker 2: It can be. Um, you know, another good example is the, um, the new, uh, uh, Chinese restaurant and Asian restaurant that went in, um, on this side of the street, two blocks down, just two doors below the bank. And they technically are not part of the district. And when their sign went in, it had a large placard on the face of the sign that said who the sign manufacturer was. And that's one of the things we don't allow. Um, and so I asked Lori if she would voluntarily a, would politely ask them to voluntarily take that sticker off the face of the sign. Mm-hmm. And they did. Um, and it's a much better looking sign than it was when it, you know, in the first three days after it went up. Um, but, you know, I don't want to see s and p sign company prominently displayed on the face of the sign. And I would hope that most Melrose residents don't wanna see that up and down Main Street either. Hmm.

▶ 17:50 Ryan Williams: Okay. Thank you. Um, thank you for all the information I've learned quite a bit, and it's given me a lot of context. Uh, so at this time, I'll ask if anyone has any more questions, and if not, what is the will of this committee?

▶ 18:03 Kimberly Vandiver: I'll make a motion to recommend. Okay.

▶ 18:05 Ryan Williams: Second. Okay. Motion to recommend by Councilor Vandiver. Seconded by President Freeman. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No one's opposed. Okay. I passes. Thanks very much. You do not have to be present for the council order that goes through. Thank you very much for coming. Next up we have, uh, ID number 2 0 2 6 dash 3 0 9 reappointment of George Biblios of 2 64 Grove Street, Melrose, to the Melrose Historical Commission.