Legal & Legislative Committee — 2017-10-30
Attendance
Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr. ; Michael P. Zwirko
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● OCTOBER 30, 2017 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Rescheduled Meeting 7:30 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived John N. Tramontozzi Chairman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Vice Chairman Present Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present Robert A. Boisselle Nonvoting Member Present Gail M. Infurna Nonvoting Member Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Nonvoting Member Present Monica C. Medeiros Nonvoting Member Late 7:40 PM
ORDER-2018-31 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances by adding Chapter 132 - The Demolition of Historical Structures in the City of Melrose as set forth herein. Hold City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 11/6/2017 3:55 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:01 John N. Tramontozzi: Order in the chambers. Good evening. This is the Legal and Legislative Committee of the Board of Aldermen of the City of Melrose for Monday evening, October 30th, 2017. My name is Alderman Tramontozzi, chairman of this committee, and with us this evening as voting members is Alderman Francis Wright. He's the Vice Chairman, Alderman Peter Mortimer, Alderman Scott Forbes, Alderman Michael Zwirko, President Kahn, additionally with us as non-voting members, Alderman Robert Boisselle, Alderman Gail Inferna, Alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis. As customary and usual with our meetings, this meeting is open to the public and being recorded pursuant to the commonwealth of massachusetts open meeting law
▶ 0:58 John N. Tramontozzi: and is a view available for viewing uh through mmtv motion to open the floor for public participation mr chairman secondly thank you we have a motion to open the floor for public participation by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman forbes on the motion all in favor seeing no um nobody against that um motion we do now open the floor for public participation And what that is, is any members of the public who wish to come forward to speak on one order on the agenda, I'll read that order as well. You can come to the table, sit down, write your name and address on the paper, and you may speak on any matter on the agenda this evening. So please, anybody in the public who wishes to come forward?
▶ 1:43 Motion to close public participation, Mr. Chairman. Wait a minute, wait a minute. I withdraw the motion. so waiting to see if anybody else wants to speak first gracious of you counselor attorney bell good to see you this evening uh mr chair and members of the board i'm here tonight and you know my private capacity as a citizen of maurice not as an attorney and i do have some written submission to go along with my oral comments so they can pass it out now please do we would like we will accept those through for you Peter thank you oh okay fair enough thank you sir thank you sir to be a 12th and not a 11th. Do you have one moment to go? Pardon me? I do, I do, I do. So I apologize to Alderman Inferno
▶ 3:03 and to the rest of you about the size of the font, but this is something I did myself five minutes before I got over here. I do wanna emphasize that I am in support of a demolition delay. I think it's a useful tool, and we all do very much revere and care for Melrose as it is Melrose. We don't want to see it radically changed. That being said, however, I do have some issues with the proposal as it currently stands based on i i would say a lot of experience you know dealing with development issues in the city i have i think a strong record in support of historic preservation along with the original city planner jerry mimno i did in fact write the historic district regulations that became the framework for the rebirth of downtown in the
▶ 4:13 architectural control that has made downtown really a model in you know Eastern Mass if not you know even greater geographical areas and I was a founding member and in fact incorporated the Victorian Melrose Society and the Melrose Historic Society both of which particularly the Victorian Society had a lot of influence in hoping helping to bring Melrose to consciousness of its architectural heritage in that it was worth preserving in in 1976 when this effort all started the Victorian properties both commercial and residential did not get the respect that they deserve when we Melrose had lost out on the earlier waves of urban renewal Allah Malden for instance that involve tearing down and rebuilding from scratch and thank goodness that you know
▶ 5:23 we didn't get in on that so when we took a look at trying to raise up Melrose which which in the from its you know high point in the 60s when I was in high school you know into the 70s the city had somewhat of a loss of morale and optimism about its future and a bunch of us got together and said how can we how can we improve our city well if everyone felt a lot better about their property values they'd feel better about the taxes that they were paying and there'd be a general you know lifting of spirits and that basically was the mission of the Victorian Society which is very active for those of you who old enough remember very active for you know 15 or 20 years or so and and brought about a
▶ 6:26 real deeper consciousness of our built environment so that being said you know I think I have a track record for preservation but I do have some problems with the ordinance as it's presented and they're they're in the bullet points of member I have a problem with 1940 you know it's just too recent if you use 1940 you're gonna capture about 85% of all the buildings in the city I mean my partner lives in a nice little Cape of no particular architectural distinction you know I like capes it's built in 1926 you know I'm not sure that's the kind of property that we're really looking to necessarily prevent from being you know if somebody chooses to to being rebuilt in a in a way that isn't in keeping with
▶ 7:27 its exact style right now the other thing that bothers me another thing that bothers me about it there is a circuit breaker process within the ordinance that allows a property to be determined insignificant and therefore not subject to the delay. But if you look at that, the timing of it, it really, it's 15 days for the building inspector to determine the age and therefore refer it to the historical commission and then they have 45 days to have a hearing, but then if they can't determine it within their 45 days, it extends out another 75 days. Well you add those up, there's your six months right there. If we're going to have a circuit breaker, it really should be a much more summary process
▶ 8:23 to determine that a property is not significant enough to have the idea of a delay put upon it and so i'd like to see that speed it up significantly i'm also bothered by the fact that there's no defined standard of what's preservation worthy it really comes down to more or less for the members of the commission to know it when they see it well i don't really feel that's that's appropriate i think there should be some kind of defined standard i leave it up to your wisdom but it could be something as as simple as that the building is either architecturally significant on its own or that's significant in the context of its immediately adjoining properties or something of that nature but there should be some you know defined standard rather
▶ 9:15 than just the individual tastes of the members of the historical commission I'm also concerned that there's no definition of who should be the decision makers. On every other board that is in the permitting process in the city, there is a list of people who should be on the board, whether it be the Board of Appeals or the Planning Board, that there are within the ordinance, and actually in some cases within state law, that it should be composed of like the planning board has design professionals a municipal law attorney a real estate attorney and the board of appeals is likewise it's stipulated who should make make up the membership and i think that should also apply to this i mean there are you know serious
▶ 10:10 property rights at stake here and i think it should be by the decision should be made by people with some experience in the field the the other thing that i'd like to touch on is i have a i have a suggestion that properties in the b zones the business zones be exempt from this process the properties in the b zones are already tightly regulated by existing processes in terms of any kind of reuse that they go into you know that that happens to them they're going to go through an extensive process in the planning board at the very least and i think the planning board has an exemplary record of guiding those proposals through those so that the designs come out in keeping with you know the existing fabric of melrose there isn't any of us who
▶ 11:06 want things that are detrimental to what we've already got but by the same token you know we don't want to impose a new delay upon projects upon developers for the on top of an existing process that is extremely if you're not aware of it it's extremely expensive for developers to go through the planning process for site plan approval it involves not just architectural design review it involves impact review of every conceivable impact it may have upon the city and the neighborhood it includes traffic studies it includes sound studies you know of the the noise created by the hvac and similar systems i mean everything that you can think of from an impact point of view is mandated to be studied and they all cost significant money because you've got to have
▶ 12:12 professionals involved in it. So adding six months to the process on developers who are already facing significant expense, you've got to realize that although the Melrose market is hot, it will not always remain hot. Although it's hot, it's partly hot in the commercial area because we've had a great history of public-private partnership that has gone forward, has brought these projects forward. The development community has to contend with the fact that sellers of properties are extremely impatient to get transactions done and it's really hard to hold deals together for long periods of time while the proponents of a project are trying to get their permitting done and I'm concerned that we not kill the golden goose here because we've got to remember
▶ 13:16 that when all is said and done, Melrose, to continue to be Melrose and to pay for the the things that people want. People in Melrose want a full service community. They don't necessarily want to pay for it. Development is a way that some guy from out of town is paying for the things that we need. When a property gets redeveloped and people come into it, our tax yields go up exponentially. That's what helps us to defeat the inexorable mathematics of two and a half, which keep us from ... When we have costs that are constantly raising at more than 3% plus per year, and we only have an income stream that can increase by two and a half percent you know we ultimately have to either cut back on services as other
▶ 14:18 communities have done or in order to maintain services we have to have new forms of revenue and controlled growth is the only way that you can beat two and a half because as you know growth revenue is exempt from the cap and so i am concerned that we not um we not upset the fragile marketplace that has been bringing us great benefits without a great deal of thought. Beyond that, I leave it to your discretion. I know that this will be a process that you give serious consideration. I thank you for the chance to talk to you. Very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there any other members of the public who wish to come forward, please? Good evening. My name is Richard Chase, I live at 60 Orris Street.
▶ 15:43 Good evening, Mr. Chase. I came here 24 years ago. I have to say that I respect Mr. Bell for who he is, and I disagree with 80% of what he just said. I think that if we allow the real estate attorneys and real estate agents to govern what goes into this bill, it'll gut it. We came to this city for three reasons. Because it had a real downtown, because of its topography, which was brought here by nature, and most importantly, because of the housing stock. Melrose has a wonderful housing stock. It is not just like any other city. It has cottages, ranches, Victorians, rich people's houses, little people's houses, working class housing. We have everything here and you can go to Bellevue Avenue and two blocks from
▶ 16:42 there you can find a little house that doesn't compare at all to the mansions on Bellevue Avenue. That's an advantage. We are not like Newton or Dover or Wellesley where the housing is pretty uniform. Now in the United States, so far as I know there is no crisis for rich people not having enough housing but there is for middle class working class and poor people and that's where Mel Rose comes in it still has housing available to some almost everybody the recent housing surge prices have made that harder for everybody Mel Rose is now not for everybody because of the housing surge because I understand that a major magazine in the country said we were the number one zip code when I first heard this I started laughing because I had to say to myself where's
▶ 17:46 the beach now we also have torn down a number of houses Melrose Wakefield hospital toward a bunch of them down recently to build a parking lot people do not come to Melrose for its parking lots they come here for its housing if we don't save it it will disappear and we don't want to become another Framingham I realize that developers have to go through a bunch of hoops to build something and I'm fine with that the more hoops the better there are a a lot of cities in the United States and towns and villages and in Europe as well who basically have tried to stop all development because they realize that it is a good place to live already. And I think that any of the fear that may be engendered tonight that this bill
▶ 18:46 is going to be overreaching or onerous for some people is misplaced i live in a house that was built in 1882 it's the oldest in the neighborhood it was a fixer-upper as they say when i moved in so there would have been people today that would have wanted to tear it down You're welcome to come over and see what it looks like now. It's taken a while, but we've got it in good shape. And that goes for any house in Melrose can be redeemed. So I would encourage people here to look at your housing stock and say it's one of your jewels and that it shouldn't be messed with. It should be saved. And thank you for listening to me. Thank you. Is there anybody else who wishes to come forward at this time, any members of the public?
▶ 19:54 John N. Tramontozzi: Motion to close public participation, Mr. Chairman. Seeing no other members of the public wishing to come forward, there is a motion on the floor by Alderman Mortimer to close public participation. Seconded by Alderman Forbes. On the motion, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that will conclude public participation. And we do have one order on the agenda this evening. It's now order number 2018-31, amending Melrose revised ordinances by adding chapter 132, the demolition of historical structures in the city of Melrose as set forth herein. Motion to suspend the rules that we might hear from appropriate city personnel and volunteers from other boards and commissions of the city. All right.
▶ 20:43 John N. Tramontozzi: We get a motion on the floor by Alderman Mortimer to suspend the rules, to hear from the city representative seconded by alderman wright on the motion all in favor aye aye any opposed seeing none we are now in suspension of rules would somebody like to come forward to speak on this ordinance as we have a lineup of city officials coming forward and if we can just identify yourselves for the public benefit i'm jim bennett i'm the chairman of the Melrose Historical Commission. I live at 45 Wentworth Road. Good morning, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Good evening. Rob VanCampen, City Solicitor. And Denise Gaffey, the Director of Planning and Community Development. Thank you. Would you like to make some opening statements
▶ 21:32 about this ordinance? Anybody? Feel free to. All right. Well, I guess I'll be going first then. Thank you so much for receiving us here tonight and for hearing about this ordinance. It's been a long process to get to this point and I would like to thank Mayor Dolan, the people flanking me on either side, as well as Paul Johnson for working through this process for about two years now. So first of all I should say you're probably not too familiar with the Melrose Historical Commission because I don't think we've come before this board in many many a year except for regular reappointments. So we are the Commission part of city government that under Mass General Laws chapter 40 section 8d exists for the preservation protection
▶ 22:10 and development of the historical or archaeological assets of Melrose. I should say that none of our members are compensated. We are a volunteer board. We have seven members that are nominated by the mayor, appointed and approved by you. On our board right now, we have two architects, a professional historic preservationist and consultant, a city planner, an IT professional, a retired engineer, and myself, who is a historical educator, so a pretty broad base of people. do we do then without demo delay well we we try to exercise I guess what you would call our soft power to influence the conversation in the town by having public events and so on so just in the past month we've had a couple of
▶ 22:49 researcher home nights at the library where we've invited homeowners in so they can find out a bit about their house learn about it appreciate that architecture then take that message back to their neighborhoods to grow that we've done some walking tours we had one at Victorian Fair Day of the downtown historic district we had a booth at that fair answering people's questions we had an architectural scavenger hunt for the kids, very much enjoyed with prizes, as well as I've given lectures to a couple of Cub Scout groups, done activities for them. And anything involving the Massachusetts Historical Commission, we are the local body for that. So for instance, just a couple of months ago in August, the question came up of this rail bridge over the parkway that
▶ 23:30 triggered a mass historic law, and we were consulted on that to give approval. Of course, as you probably know we were involved for many years on the stone place development that is in fact still ongoing the last piece really isn't in place so that's what we do but we don't have the one major power that a lot of communities have granted to historic commissions which is demo delay which is what we're coming forward to tonight so one item that has been given to you is a map of communities that have demo delay and I just like to set up the context for this a bit and as you can see all the communities in green have a demo delay ordinance and I should say this map is a few years old at this point it's 2012 so
▶ 24:07 probably a few have been added I'm not aware of any community that has rescinded demo delay after granting it and as you can see it is most of the suburbs around Boston as well as Boston itself and most of what I suppose would be considered benchmark communities for Melrose some of these communities have had this in place for decades I understand Cambridge was the first to have this back in the mid-1970s and it is a program that really does work and I think the thing to take from this map that's very important is you sometimes do hear from other communities and the news that there is a demo delay ordinance that has not worked out that has caused some controversy but as you can see there are
▶ 24:42 dozens of communities which have this law which report no problems in any given year it is a public program that really does work now as for Melrose the Melrose forward plan which is yet to be approved by this body I know it's coming forward demo delay is in in that plan that it is something that the city should have it was also in the 2004 master plan why in the past 13 years that hasn't happened I don't know that predated my time on the Commission but it's actually been in the works for many years now and I think the other context for this that is very important also to note that mr. Bell and mr. chase have both mentioned is the real estate market right now which is that according to mr. Johnson we maybe get about a half dozen demolition requests a year but of course
▶ 25:26 with the real estate market the way it is, that number is ticking up and is expected to tick up. So this is coming at a moment not necessarily of crisis, but at a time that is certainly appropriate to consider this sort of ordinance. So with that context, I'd just like to address a few concerns, some of which were made by Attorney Bellen. I do thank you, sir, for your thoughtful comments. First of all, is the proposal anti-development? This is not an anti-development proposal. This is a pro-smart development proposal. Our goal on the commission is never to create a Disney World version of Victorian Melrose or to freeze Melrose in place or, God forbid, to bring Melrose back to some idealized place
▶ 26:06 that we can never go back to. The goal is to move into the future and to do it in a way that preserves the architectural and historical fabric that brought Mr. Chase and other people into this community and continues to bring them in here every single day and week in our real estate offices. Now the perfect example of this was what Mr. Bell worked on so very hard 40 years ago, which is the Melrose Historic District. I'm sure there were people at the time who thought what onerous regulations to put on the businesses of downtown Melrose. But if you want a poster child for how historic preservation government regulation works, we are sitting in it right now, that our community has been enhanced, not just for the businesses
▶ 26:44 in this district, but for everyone who has come to live and work here. So that is historic regulation that is very much pro-development, which I think is what we're putting forward here today. Now what would demo delay do in that case? People come into the city. Well, ultimately, I like to think that it's an act of communication. It is to let developers know that it is a priority in this community that we do value historic regulation, or I should say our historic fabric, because there are people who come in here, they purchase a house, they purchase a business. They might not be aware that, in fact, something that gives value to the property they just bought is that very historic fabric. So they might see a short-term value in gutting this building, in destroying the building,
▶ 27:27 and building a new. But in fact, what they're doing is, is over time reducing the value. And by having this process, it pauses this process for just a moment, for this particular concern, so that they can hear from their neighbors, so that they can hear from the historical commission, and they can take a full accounting of this. It does not, of course, take the right of that owner to ultimately demolish that property away. It stops the clock for a moment. It opens up other options. It gives them a breathing moment to figure that out. It also allows us to make suggestions that, all right, you want to gut this building. By all means, you're perfectly within your legal right to do that. Please preserve the facade on this street, something like that.
▶ 28:05 Or you want to remove the roof from this. Are you aware the slate here is really quite valuable? You could salvage it. used in another building in the city that sort of thing the only people therefore I think who would be turned away from coming to the city the only developers who would say no are the people who I get phone calls from maybe twice a year because I foolishly put my own personal phone number on the city website who are developers who do call up and they have just one question I want to destroy this building is there any law stopping me from doing it and I tell them no and if that's the person who I stopped from coming into Melrose if that's the sort of development that stopped that's fine by me because those
▶ 28:40 are not people who are concerned with the people here and the future of this community if that is their only concern at that moment aside from that I don't think you're going to stop anybody from coming in now I know there is some concern about even so what would this process look like attorney Bell raised the point that there's no set of criteria and so on you know and I do hate to say it but I said it just this morning that how is architecture significant how is history significant you do know it when you see it a A building is like a human being. It cannot be summed up with a mathematical formula. I wish I could give you 12 point bullet on check this number of marks and here this building should be saved
▶ 29:17 or here it shouldn't be, but it is a very subtle process. And I can only give you an example of how we went about this. And this might actually be a little disappointing to hear for you, Mr. Chase, although I appreciate your remarks so much, which is a couple of years ago, there was an article in the paper about a concern brought forward by a citizen here about the development of that parking lot. And we were not invited to be part of that conversation, but we decided to insert ourselves into the conversation about the parking lot over by the hospital. And the buildings in this case were 775 Main Street and number 8, 12, 18, 20, and 24 Porter Street. The building on the corner, which you all may remember,
▶ 29:52 which was this very strange shaped building, a member of the community mentioned that it was designed by the architect Hugh Stubbins, who went on to be a great modernist architect. We looked into this, and not only was it designed by Hugh Stubbins, his director at the time, he was working for the great Royal Barry Wills of Melrose. In the end, we decided to recommend that that building can come down because the architectural form had been so totally burglarized, it was almost unrecognizable as a modernist work of art. The roof had been changed, the window treatments, the door, it was a shell of what it was. But we did recommend that number 12 Porter Street be saved for the reason that it was actually
▶ 30:29 the oldest building there, it dated to the 1820s. So in the end, this was a decision we came to that was not based on a desire to keep Melrose as it was, but that was in fact in the end very pro-development, that in fact this was what the hospital wanted. It was not necessarily what some vocal members of the community wanted, and I think that does show that as far as our board goes, we are very much able to be independent and to act in a very professional way, and to do something that is forward-thinking for the community. Second concern that was raised, and I think this is very important to talk about this, raised by Attorney Bell, that the scope of chronological competence, 1940 being too early, right?
▶ 31:07 I should say that this date of 1940, from our point of view, is a compromise because the Massachusetts Historical Commission recommends a 50-year dating period, 1967, and they want that date to be rolling so that every year it would roll forward. That is the ideal, according to the Massachusetts Historical Commission. So this is not a case of us taking, trying to take as much as possible here. If anything, it's sort of the reverse. So how can you justify all these buildings, which by the way, according to at least our analysis of the assessor's database, is about 66% of the housing stock here. How can you justify that? Well, I'd ask you just briefly to do a thought experiment in your head right now.
▶ 31:46 It's very appropriate to the season. Imagine if you will right now what a haunted house looks like. Go ahead, think of it in your head. And what you probably pictured just now in your head was a Victorian house. And that is a holdover from the fact that up through the middle part of the 20th century, Victorians were considered ugly. They were the thing you wanted to tear down. They were big, creaky, scary-looking buildings, but aesthetics changed, and the Melrose Victorian Society was, of course, a very important part of that. Now, times have changed. What encompasses from 1925 on forward? Well, there was a great reaction against those scary Victorian buildings. We usually think of it as modernism,
▶ 32:24 as Walter Propius or as Frank Lloyd Wright, but in fact, those buildings were never popular the suburbs the movement that caught on and was very important here in Melrose was the colonial revival and we have as many colonial revival houses as we do Victorian houses and the greatest architect of domestic for domestic colonial revival architecture in America in those years was royal Barry Wills of Melrose who was raised here who lived at 59 Oakland Street in a house that he designed that is still very much there there are dozens of Wills houses in this community and one of the most frequent questions we get in the Melrose Historical Commission is oh is my house a wills house people get very excited
▶ 33:04 about this at our last researcher home night two of the people who showed up their houses were built in 1940 and they were very excited to learn about their house and I would ask you to think about one particular section of the city that was just mentioned by mr. chase in fact think of that area of the east side from about say Lincoln Street on back to the Bellevue Country Club it's always been known as a very neat part of Melrose, a very pretty part of Melrose, but you might not have thought of it as an architecturally significant part of Melrose because you didn't think of colonial revival in that sense. Well, if you put a big multi-gabled stucco and fake brick house on one of those lots, it
▶ 33:44 would ruin that entire street because it is a fabric in its own right and it largely went up between the 1920s and the 1950s or thereabouts. So times have changed when the Victorian Society of Melrose was founded that was 40 years ago 40 years in relation to the Victorian period is now the colonial revival period and people are very excited about that and you would have a chance of losing those houses if the 1940 exclusion date was not put in and I would also just point this out it might be kind of offensive if it dates some people in the room but 1940 at this point in 2017 was in fact a long time ago. There are people who are buying houses now in Melrose whose grandparents were not born yet in 1940. And every year that passes from now into the future, 1940 will recede
▶ 34:34 more in history. And I don't want to be here 20 years from now if in fact I am still alive and hear about all of these beautiful houses designed by Royal Barry Wills and others that were destroyed because the committee decided only Victorian buildings were significant. So that is why I really think you should consider the 1940 dating point. Also, I should say with only about a half dozen demo delays coming forward in a year, this would not be especially taxing for the Historical Commission otherwise. And finally, I would just mention the process and the timing of it, which was raised. And right now, as the ordinance states, the first part of this is 45 days to a first hearing. The second part of this is 75 days.
▶ 35:17 Altogether you add this, it is going to be about 120 days. So not six months in this case, four months at the most. And I should explain that usually it would not be that case. The reason why it's 45 days is because we meet once a month, right? So on the first Monday of the month. And sometimes the first Monday of the month is five weeks out. It is in fact 35 days from the start of that first month. So in all likelihood, the 45 days just gives us a buffer period if in case we hit that five weeks if there is a holiday on the first Monday of the month if that is disagreeable to this board then certainly we could change that in some way but that's why it's 45 days it would probably take less time because we want
▶ 35:58 to get it at the very next meeting that we have which could be as little as just a few days away and the 75 days is so that when we do enter into that hearing process when we've determined that the building may have some significance it is so that we can have up to two meetings but only two meetings so really this is a three-month process first initial meeting when a very simple yay or nay is determined and then a second process which has two meetings open so that we can have a very full discussion on the building and give it the proper respect that it deserves so I don't think in relation to what the other committees in this community do the Zoning Board of Appeals the Planning Board and their time limit this is in no way exceptional and of course these
▶ 36:38 processes can go on simultaneously so I do dispute the notion in every way that that this would hold up development in a very significant fashion, it would not. It's designed to go actually as quickly as possible. And just by way of closing remarks, I do realize I've taken up quite a bit of time that I would say, let me see if I have anything more on this point. I would simply say this, that as I say, this was a long process to get to this point. This is a glorious thing to be here. I do hear Attorney Bell's concerns, and of course we're willing to discuss and all of that so that we can get to this provision into our city government thank you thank you miss Kathy mr. VanCampen anything further I don't think
▶ 37:26 Denise Gaffey: I can add to that other than to say we're here to answer any questions members may have on the more boring technical side of this ordinance and I would just affirm chairman Bennett's comments that it is in fact the demolition delay is in fact an item that is recommended in the master plan that that has been recently approved by the Planning Board and it was also recommended as an action in the 2004 plan it was not a priority for us at the time and over the past several years we have had our you know work cut out for us in other areas and I do think and I would agree that we have experienced a little more pressure recently with regard to demolition so I think the timing is is excellent now to bring this forth all right very good why I do thank
▶ 38:12 for your comments um and it will open it up for any questions that any board committee member might have of president khan yeah um the first thing that struck me and the thing that i've been pondering and thinking about since we received this proposal is is what what the appropriate uh period would be and i have talked to ms gaffey and what what would the coverage in terms of the percentage of buildings in the city be if we went with the ordinance as proposed we said it was 66% according to the assessors database if you went with the 1940 threshold you would you would see approximately 66% of all structures in the community having this ordinance apply now all structures includes every structure in the community not just residential single
▶ 39:05 two or three families every structure commercial etc so that's a probably an artificially high number president Khan but it's roughly 66% now in terms of the discussion of setting it having a rolling period of time 50 years 100 years whatever or setting a date how did you come to the 1940 proposal and how do other communities handle these in general and I know there's a lot of communities probably with all different ordinances but how did you come to the 1940 and why did you pick it but that set date instead of a rolling time period yeah so the so the the 1940 really is a compromise between as mr. Bennett alluded to in his remarks between what the historic Commission was requesting of the administration and what we felt was appropriate for this
▶ 40:02 board's consideration 1940 was viewed as a period of time which sort of marked kind of getting to the end of World War two and and you know the development that was going on at that time so that that time period that sort of snapshot in time as opposed to a rolling period was determined to be most appropriate for for the board's consideration and for the city it varies president Conn as to whether communities that already have demo delay ordinances either have a have a snapshot in time threshold or a rolling period. We felt that the rolling period might be a little hard to track going forward. So if we could just sort of have that threshold at 1940, it made it easier administratively for the building department and the historic commission to follow those properties.
▶ 40:50 And I admittedly haven't had an opportunity to look at many other communities. Demolition delay ordinances, and I hope to look at some before we have a final vote on this. But it did seem to me that the ordinance is somewhat light on process. And how do other ordinances set the process for this procedure? And for the most part, do they have more detail on their ordinances? Well, so we've tracked, our ordinance was based upon a model that I think MAPC, or the Mass Municipal Association. I mean the Mass Historical Commission. Mass Historical Commission, excuse me. The model that MHC had issued. Our process is probably a hybrid between an overly regulated demolition delay ordinance in some communities.
▶ 41:45 And a less regulated demolition delay process in other communities. So we're not light on process, but we didn't want to be heavy on process. We wanted to be sort of in the middle, and that's what we think we've done here. And this is not a 48 zoning change. This is a stand alone general ordinance, is that correct? Correct, correct. So if somebody had a beef and they were appealing this, they wouldn't go under the 48 framework. Correct, so there was some discussion internally about the appeal process under this ordinance. If an applicant felt that their property was adversely affected by a decision of the historic commission. And that process could be administrative here at the local level.
▶ 42:27 The only issue we had was the appeal would be technically back to the historic commission, unless it came to the Board of Aldermen. And we felt that having the appeal go back to the historic commission, where they were the body who actually made the determination, didn't seem logical. So the way the ordinance is crafted, any appeal would go um under i think it's 249 section 4 which is in the nature of certiorari where you go to superior court and you would essentially ask the superior court to invalidate the decision of the historic commission and mr bennett how much how many things that are analogous to this does the commission You can have hearings on in the course of a regular year, if you can answer that.
▶ 43:19 This ordinance would fundamentally change the nature of our commission. I'll be very direct about that. We don't have as much business as we'd like because we don't have much of a legal presence in the community right now. So aside from when Mass Historic comes to us very directly, that there is something that impinges upon them and therefore legally we are that local body. Aside from times when neighbor groups come to us. for instance we met with a group about a year and a half ago who were very concerned about number 84 Essex Street and you know and and asked and came in we talked to them about that and you know that led to the creation of a document which was then submitted to the Planning Board as a suggestion to them
▶ 43:54 as they move forward aside from that and when we take our own initiative as in the case of the hospital which of course we have to be very careful with because again we have no legal authority we are light on work such as this and that's That's why moving forward with this, as I say, would change the nature of what we do very much. Okay. Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm sure that we will come up with some kind of an ordinance here. I think there are some issues that I'd like to think about, and I don't know whether I'm in a position where I want to take a final vote on this this evening, but I'll yield the floor at this point. Okay. Very good. I think all of the men right, who is next up in the queue.
▶ 44:31 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. for being here and appreciate the presentation um just a couple of technical points on my part um under 3.4.2 with regards to notice talks about 14 days notice for publication but only seven days notice to the applicant and more importantly to me the owners of all property which you're defining as abutting the property um i think if you're gonna give 14 days notice in the paper you it should also be 14 days notice because people can be on vacation that type of thing so if they get seven days notice they may never see it before the hearing takes place the other thing is on three point four point two point two I would like to expand that to beyond just the abutters to you know perhaps all
▶ 45:20 Francis X. Wright Jr.: property to all let's say we see the owners of all property within owning property within 300 feet and we can discuss this as a committee but but i just wanted to throw that out there for for your thoughts as well um along the lines of um with alderman khan raised i would be interested in seeing some type of uh graph or chart comparing and contrasting our proposed ordinance with other ordinances um obviously there is two new the number of communities in the state that have a demolition delay ordinance are too numerous to compare and contrast them all but perhaps if we limit it to uh the communities we are generally compared ourselves to which are those in the middlesex league and abutting communities that have demolition delay ordinances
▶ 46:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: um that would be helpful i suspect this will be tabled this evening so that when we come back we could have that type of comparison um on the what you considered to be the major points and anything that we raised tonight um we could include that as well but i but i think it's important i really think that we need to consider adopting this i know in ward 3 we've had some teardowns and they've been replaced with buildings that fit the community and we've had teardowns that have been replaced with buildings that don't fit the neighborhood in my opinion now i know that goes to zoning more than demolition delay but if we had had the opportunity to take a look at the buildings they were going to take down a couple of which come to mind directly you know i think
▶ 47:13 Francis X. Wright Jr.: they were consistent with what was there and were replaced in a way that that they don't really fit the neighborhoods they're in we might have found that those buildings were historically relevant and should have been preserved in some way shape or form so i'm in favor of this i hate to see the nature of our community change because we are so popular and people decide they want to come in and and tear down and rebuild um i am curious about how many particularly in residential how many demolitions we have because people should understand the definition of demolition is a complete tear down complete raising it's not a partial it's not anything like that so i don't know if the three of you or maybe paul johnson could answer that question you know on average
▶ 48:04 Francis X. Wright Jr.: how many demolitions we have and what are we talking about this impacting as far as what we see now for building permits presently presently uh we we've seen typically a handful a year maybe if we're lucky and it it there has been an uptick over the last four years you know i may i may have seen one or two five years ago a year um and you know within this last year i've had interest on eight or nine properties already okay so less less than a hand less than the fingers on my two hands yes and what we're asking for is a pause to decide whether or not these structures are historically significant enough to warrant consideration of preservation that's basically what we're talking about and you know what what takes their place could redefine the neighborhood
▶ 49:07 Peter D. Mortimer: so that said mr chairman i mean i'm in favor of continuing to look at this and give it a thorough review and um i'll yield the floor at this point very good thank you um alderman mortimer was up next in queue i think thank you very much chairman Tramontozzi um first thing i'd like to do uh before i proceed to any questions is just a little bit of housekeeping kind of an innocuous motion is in the ordinance the proposed ordinance here it says the building commissioner i think here in melrose we use the term building inspector commissioner yeah that's your official title of commission director of inspectional services and building commissioner director of Board of Inspectional Services, okay, and Building Commissioner, okay, very good.
▶ 49:58 Peter D. Mortimer: So now I'll proceed to questions. The amendment from 1940, would you anticipate that in five years or ten years that future boards of aldermen, you'd be coming forward and asking that the date be moved up? Or would you always want to be preserving those colonial revivals and those Royal Barry Wills halls? Would you see that happening at all? Well, I think as the march of time goes forward, there's always going to be a movement at some point to move that date forward. So the advantage of having a rolling date is that it just happens automatically. But certainly in the next few years, I wouldn't imagine coming forward. But will the equivalent of whoever I am 10, 20 years from now perhaps come before this
▶ 50:48 Peter D. Mortimer: board? would expect they would all right now in that vein I'm just interesting in just to flesh out the conversation entirely those homes would still be of the important architectural significance that you delineated in your monologue which was very impressive very informational appreciated a lot but those so you wouldn't see it coming forward or would you would you see the date being moved forward in the future because those homes ostensibly would still have their architectural significance which would kind of be an argument against the rolling forward because those homes are still those beautiful architectural revivals and will Barry will home so what would you think about that in the future would you see it in ten years the date being
▶ 51:37 Peter D. Mortimer: changed through an amendment to this ordinance in 10 years possibly for the moment you know we reach this compromise because for us on the Historical Commission 1940 seemed like a fair date to us at this particular juncture and when we do very much want to get this on the books but I think inevitably over time the date would change I don't know when that would be we would have no No immediate plans to do that, but it might be somebody in 2030 or 2050 says the state needs to be moved forward. Right. Because I'm getting the sense from hearing these public comments of my fellow aldermen that this is something that we are going to adopt. The question is just how it will be implemented and what date we'll go back to.
▶ 52:25 Peter D. Mortimer: Although it seems like the mood in the room is also that we're going to study this further and this in committee tonight that's what I'm starting to hear but good I'm glad we're going to have this chance to have this colloquy and and get some information out now it's important to me because most of the business district is in Ward six and we've had some changes that have been made to the business district and it's also bordered by some mixed-use neighborhoods which raises some interesting questions, and also some closely situated residential neighborhoods right around the business district of Ward 6. So how would you think that this might be applied, and how would it affect these mixed use and residential neighborhoods that are close to the downtown area?
▶ 53:24 Peter D. Mortimer: And one of the areas I'm thinking about in particular is an area, and I'm sure you know being an expert on the history of Melrose housing and I'm sure Attorney Bell knows it as well but it was called Cork City after County Cork in Ireland and it's called Cork City now some of those houses as was pointed out are very old but they're also a lot like cottages as we heard at public participation what would you think of those buildings have you noted the historical significance of those buildings as well oh sure and I know a bit about a bit more about some of those houses than others I don't know if I can comment on any particular structure and that of course this wouldn't be up to my decision would be up to
▶ 54:11 the decision of the in the entire Commission in the end but certainly that is a neighborhood of great concern one neighborhood that is of concern to me is actually down at Cedar Park that mixed use district and with you know with due respect to mr. Bell I would in no way be in favor of limiting this only to residential structures it should include business structures I look at say the beautiful mansard roofed second Empire Waverly building on the corner home to Melrose's first public library right that is mixed business and residential what what could happen there so so yeah I mean but I mean every neighborhood has its particular fabric and and and that's That's why it does need to encompass the entire city, so.
▶ 54:53 Peter D. Mortimer: All right, would you anticipate that if a house is an extreme disrepair and is a blight to the neighborhood, that there could be some type of even stronger or quicker circuit breaker that would allow for demolition to occur in kind of a summary process? If somebody wants to come in and take down a house that is, it may be historical, and I understand the point that any house can be saved. I've rehabbed five or six houses myself in my lifetime, and I love doing it. I've had so many people say to me, it's a tear down, it's a tear down, it's a tear down, and I've fixed it, and I love that. But sometimes a developer wants to come in, and it's probably the best thing, to put the house out of its misery.
▶ 55:42 Would there be any process in here to take care of that? Yeah, the circuit breaker is that first meeting. So, very simply, it's brought before us at that first meeting, and a summary decision is made then. You know, if the people on the commission see absolutely no value to this whatsoever, you know, well, I guess I can't comment on particular buildings, like for example, we had those, I think it was two or three houses right across from the football field, right between the train station there. nothing too spectacular about those houses. I think that would have been a pretty, pretty quick decision right there, even though they're built around the year 1900 or so, there are plenty of examples of that sort of thing.
▶ 56:20 That would be something that, you know, a decision could be made very quickly. I should say that the good thing about a historical commission is that we have only one concern, which is the historic value of the structure. So in some ways, you know, one thing I would be very careful about is directing the commission actually not to consider so much public safety issues or public sanitation issues even because that's not our purview it is merely to look at the chance of saving the historical value of this structure so if it was determined that there was just no possible developer who would ever come in here and and save this structure because of the bad condition it's in then yes that's an example of as you
▶ 56:58 would call it a circuit breaker but it would be up to however if there was a chance of saving that then you know I have to admit we might put the skids on something that seems like an obvious teardown if there is if this is very very significant you know if it's something you know a house from 1790 that yes is in terrible condition but has been so very important and it would be a shame to lose it then that's an example where we might actually be a little bit of a pain from the point of view of the city but aside from that no I agree with you that where there is a clear case of this is a building from 1890 there are dozens of examples of this style this one is in terrible condition it's a public safety hazard at that first meeting it can be put to rest so so there
▶ 57:38 Peter D. Mortimer: might be many factors in the decision even if the house were in abysmal condition if it were from 1790 and had a chance to be saved there might be some anguished deliberations at the historical commission sure i think those would be the tough calls and that that's why you have to have good competent people in the commission i'm very happy with the group we have there now but of course we we serve entirely at your sufferance if at any point you felt we were doing an incompetent job or we're standing in the way of development it's entirely up to this body not to renew our terms well you recited the credentials of the Historical Commission at the outset of your comments and they're very impressive so I think we're fortunate to have you and in the future there may be
▶ 58:22 Peter D. Mortimer: some sentiment along the lines you just expressed but right now you guys if anything are overqualified and we're lucky to have you sir I'm looking at the map that you gave us and I see that Melrose Malden Everett Chelsea and Winthrop have kind of created an island of communities that don't do not have this ordinance is that just random was that just by chance or what is there something happening that the communities around us August Lynn Redding Wakefield have this ordinance. Stoneham has it, I see here. And so why do those communities, we seem to be on an island of communities without the ordinance. I have absolutely no idea. I think every community tells its own story, has its own particular political history
▶ 59:16 Peter D. Mortimer: and its own particular reason for why they have it or they don't have it. Right. All right, yeah, and I was quite surprised looking more closely at the map. I see that Belmont does not have it and Wellesley does not have it which surprises this alderman at least I'm not sure but I can tell you about a conversation I had a few years back with someone who served on the Weston Historical Commission where they deal with about 30 teardowns a year because the big houses aren't big enough so so as far as those community like Wellesley goes that might actually be what's going on there and but I don't know would you say developers have weighed in that because the community is so desirable they're trying to put in the wait 15 years ago we used to call them
▶ 1:00:03 Peter D. Mortimer: McMansions yeah and I'm not sure I don't think that term is still used in the industry anymore but a community like Wellesley you could see where somebody would want to take down a house that might be along the Paul Revere route ride and you know it has the leaded glass windows and put up some giant giant house um so that's all i have thank you very much mr chairman very good uh the next in the queue is uh haldeman's workout thank you mr chairman um appreciate you guys taking the time to discuss this tonight um and also the two years of work it's uh shocking to hear that it was two years coming before us so it goes to just show that there's a lot of work that was uh put into this and it doesn't go unnoticed don't want to discount all of that so so yeah
▶ 1:00:52 Michael P. Zwirko: I agree there's there's a lot here I do support some form of an ordinance but I do think we need to sit on it for a little while I do have just a couple of observations that haven't been mentioned yet and I'd be interested to hear some feedback you know it was raised in attorney Bell's comments that you know the date might might be arbitrary and that you know the historical house there's really no codified definition for it but it's like a kind of know it when you see it and I'm just curious would would it be better I mean we we don't really have that many new developments that are occurring in Melrose there's not a lot of developable land so instead of maybe using a date would it maybe be something that the Historical Commission could entertain of
▶ 1:01:32 Michael P. Zwirko: taking maybe a survey of the existing buildings as to where it would apply and it wouldn't so then when there is a petition by a developer to let's say raise a home they can just look at the list and say oh you know 18 cottage street is actually considered historical by this ordinance versus just an arbitrary date you know I understand that that could be a large undertaking but you know it might be something that would be helpful not only for folks that may be considering to purchase a home and raise it but also for us here as well instead of kind of shifting the date you know we discussed the rolling date mechanism versus a static one so i i don't know if having some sort of a survey would be
▶ 1:02:16 helpful i don't know have you was that something that was considered is that something that other towns have done a survey of the parcels in melrose yeah well not the yes the the structures so we know that for example we've had our chief assessor look at this as we were working over the last two years and we know that there are 7 280 single family two family and three family homes in the city of melrose that's the total number of singles doubles and triples the average age is 1922. we also know that there are 5355 structures of those 70 to 80 that are 1945 or prior so that you know that's roughly that's a high percentage of those structures from 1935 backward there are 4,823 structures and from 1925 back 3,872 so we've looked at sort of the
▶ 1:03:15 Michael P. Zwirko: demographics of the residential single single double triple those are the numbers right but that's that those are the numbers but that's not the definition of what would be considered historical significance so my point is is that my house was erected in 1933 I'm sure some people could debate it but I don't think that there's anything that's historically significant about my house on my street alone there's four types of models of homes they were all erected around the same time you know so there's more than just the numbers and dates on this stuff and that's why I'm thinking that a survey might might be helpful because there's a there was a teardown on Grove Street it's probably erected in
▶ 1:03:56 Michael P. Zwirko: the last three or four years it sticks out like a sore thumb it's design but you know there might be some historical significance to the architecture of that building so i'm just i'm just trying to get away from what could be deemed arbitrary dates in time when we're actually considering historical significance uh yeah we actually do maintain a list and we are constantly surveying buildings this is something that is actually part of the mandate of what we do so that list has been worked on for over 40 years now are the earliest files in that and if you google the word macris m-a-c-r-i-s you will go to the Massachusetts cultural before resource information systems and you will have all the buildings there that we have managed to catalog now Rob just
▶ 1:04:41 mentioned a number of what was it over 7,000 buildings here in Melrose there are a few hundred buildings on that list that list will never be complete it we do not have a budget right now so it would be lovely if we could hire professional house researchers to go out and do that we have done that in the past when some grant money has become available but it would take an extraordinary amount of money time and effort to get the full listing of all the buildings that we need the Massachusetts Historical Commission has said that the one way you don't want to do this is to have a list of surveyed buildings because inevitably you miss buildings and you know it's amazing you go through that list and sometimes you will have a house that is in our
▶ 1:05:20 inventory and the house right next to it is clearly more historically significant It's not in the inventory. Why is it because the person who was doing that street in 1985 for whatever reason didn't see the greater historical significance, so I think in an ideal world we would have a wonderfully Cataloged inventory and it would be very very helpful We're not in that world as of yet And if you go with a list like that then you miss building so the city that's actually always put forward is the city that Went with that idea and is now regretting it entirely is Arlington Which did go with a list and they constantly lose buildings because oh well the building wasn't on the list So I you know use the word arbitrary. I would suggest. It's actually a bit more
▶ 1:06:02 Objective less subjective to have a firm date Because then it allows us to look at all of the structures built at that period and the other thing is in in anticipating What? Business owners and homeowners will have to deal with I think it would feel very arbitrary to me if my house was on the list and the house next door in the same style wasn't on the list and I might say well how come I'm on the list and you're not on the list and I think that by having a date it also avoids that problem that hey everyone is in the mixed who's there from 1940 on back thank you it's helpful there are a couple other questions I had was the I'm wondering if do are these all so the map I'll refer to the map that you passed out as the resource are
▶ 1:06:50 Michael P. Zwirko: Are these demolition delays, are there any municipalities in which the historical commission in the respective town does not have the authority of the demolition delay? Meaning, is it bestowed upon a planning board or someone else, or is it generally speaking, does the power derive from the historical board? It is, it always derives directly from the historical commission. There's variety there. What we're asking for is a six month delay. That is at the very low end of the spectrum. There are some communities which slap on one-year delays or even two-year delays in some cases. And you had mentioned, speaking to the circuit breaker, that the historical commission meets once a month, that's the point of the 45-day,
▶ 1:07:34 Michael P. Zwirko: but do you have the power to meet ad hoc on an ad hoc basis? Yeah, I mean, that's always in my discretion as chair to call that meeting. So that 45 days, that could be moved, it could be shrunk? if there was ever a sort of emergency situation yeah and the I noticed in the the remedies section I'll specifically mention 5.2 that there's essentially if if I'm a rogue property owner and I decide to raise the building even though I was told not to there'll be a remedy section that does not allow me to build structure for two years is that is that do i read that correctly is there any thought i mean and i understand that there's obviously a monetary uh penalty there um inherently but do any of these
▶ 1:08:27 Michael P. Zwirko: ordinances across the commonwealth or did yourselves consider any type of a monetary penalty for other types of um issues where you know they're just ignoring the will from the historic commission i understand a two-year delay is going to be very prohibitive i i get that but But I think the issue you run into there, Alderman, is under state law we can only fine up to $300 per day under state law. So I think that the view is the two-year delay is much more severe of a consequence than a $300 fine. Okay. I was wondering about it's a lot of power that you're giving the historical commission on this. and I'm wondering if it might be better that there's not only teeth to it but if some of this power is folded under you know another board like like planning or
▶ 1:09:25 Michael P. Zwirko: a recommendation comes from the Historical Commission I know that you referenced the parking lot at the hospital and also the 84 Essex in which you felt that you know while your recommendation was in you know in good faith it was just a public comment that was really the only teeth to it so I i understand the need to have a little bit more kind of leverage there but i am you know it's it does seem to uh it does seem to give some some power that maybe is probably might be better for another another organization i'm not quite sure if if that's you know maybe a subcommittee that's an ad hoc group of a member of the zba the planning board and one member of the historical or i don't know i don't want to get too complex but that's a concern that i have about about this
▶ 1:10:10 Michael P. Zwirko: this this plan I don't really know where I'm gonna go with it quite frankly but it did jump out at me you know there's there's other commissions that historically haven't had a lot of power and when it comes to development issues and land there they can somehow you know gum up the works a little bit and you know I don't want to be overly pro development but at the same time I just extension of powers or something that I take a little bit seriously so three responses to that first of all I don't consider this to be an extraordinary power in that it stops a builder for six months which in the grand scheme of development six months is how much you how much time you might expect to put forward your proposal to the zone the CBA into the Planning Board in the first
▶ 1:10:55 place so I don't consider this to be a great aggrandizement of power if we were asking for a two-year demo delay as some communities have yeah that would be pretty extensive but but I don't feel like this is an extraordinary power is Is it an irritation perhaps to the developer that they have to go before us? Yes. Is it a bit of an expense? Yes, but not a great expense in light of all the other expenses that will go into this and so forth. As for folding this into the planning board, I guess there are two issues there. First of all, that the planning board already is, at least from my point of view, so extraordinarily overworked that their meetings go so very late at night and the commitment they put
▶ 1:11:30 in is just extraordinary. But also, with due respect to the people who are on the planning board, historical significance is not their main consideration. They have so many other considerations to look through. The glory of this, in a way, is that it is a group of people who have this one consideration in mind, which oftentimes, with all the complexity of what the planning board and the zoning board of appeals look at, gets lost. And I've seen it get lost. And so that's why I think that this voice is very important to have as a distinct voice within the community okay um i do appreciate these answers that you know i had a lot of thoughts going in my head so it's nice to kind of get them out there uh and um i'm looking through my notes and
▶ 1:12:13 Monica C. Medeiros: those are the only questions i had at this time so i yield the rest of my time very good thank you mr chairman thank you you're very welcome uh alderman Medeiros you know that if you wish thank you thank you very much um i was hoping you could talk a little bit about we've talked a lot about 1940 we will go back to that in a few minutes but about what it takes to get a building on the State Historic Commission District Commission or the National Historic District Commission and what the responsibilities of the property owner are to to get a property there and what the limitations are currently that somebody faces who has a piece of property that's on the National Register of the State Register the National Register of Historic Places
▶ 1:12:58 it's a program of the National Park Service is administered through the Massachusetts Historical Commission and you know we are the local organization for that so anyone who wants to do that they would come to us would talk to them a bit about the process it would then go their application to the Massachusetts Historical Commission the person who's in charge of that the Historical Commission happens to be a Melrose resident that's Betsy Friedberg who formerly served on the uh melrose historical commission now serves on the um on the board of the bb estate uh and then it goes from the massachusetts historical commission up to the national park service and it's a bit of a long process it's lovely to have buildings listed on
▶ 1:13:32 the national register of historic places in fact if i recall correctly it is part of the melrose forward master plan to get more of our structures onto the national register but in a way it's kind of like joining an honorary society it's very nice it calls attention to your building it does absolutely nothing as far as preservation is concerned and that is also true with the state record of preservation and all buildings on the National Register then go on the State Register that's essentially how that works but there is no preservation involved with it whatsoever so if for if if the up and Family Society should go insane tomorrow and decide they want to demolish the up and house they are perfectly within their rights to do that
▶ 1:14:09 and being on the National Register doesn't stop that so the primary forms of protection that are available to buildings don't come from the Fed the federal government it comes from state authority and that's done through two methods which is having a local historic district like the one we are in right now and of course any residents who want to come forward to talk about that in their neighborhoods we always do encourage that and having demo delay and are there any prohibitions about types of repairs or having to keep within the theme of the existing historic district or things of that nature but the the historic district and and just to be clear if anyone isn't there are actually two different bodies there is the local historic district commission and there
▶ 1:14:53 is the historic commission and in the local historic district there's quite a list of issues having to do with the appearance of the building which mr. Bell you know relating to signage and all sorts of other appropriate materials used in the facade but only with the facade you can gut any building you want it is only concerned with exteriors as for the historical commission I would never want to get involved with the aesthetics of a house and and dictating to a neighbor you know what sort of paint they can use whether they can put up vinyl siding and so on that is something for a local historic district but for our concerns it is only a total demo that's it but in some cases some cases in some other communities that may be the case only with the local historic
▶ 1:15:38 Monica C. Medeiros: districts and every local historic district has the authority to have their particular set of criteria and in this map that we've received from the Mass Historical Commission and does your town have a demo demolition delay this includes this could include anyone that had a demolition delay based on the year house was built or whether or not it was on a list right so this is not so i also would like to think about this i'm not a voting member of this subcommittee however i'd like to think about it all a little bit more and i would like to see maybe what some other communities are doing and and what their ordinances look like you know um and i'm also curious to see I would assume that we're doing this to stop some buildings
▶ 1:16:37 Monica C. Medeiros: from you know being raised and obviously to maintain the historical fabric of the community but I will and I imagine that's why they've been put in place in other communities but I wouldn't like to know if they're successful if they actually stop demolition or do they just delay the process and maybe cost some people some more money I don't know you know are they successful it and am I reading it right when to say that you could have you know say I want to sell my house and let's imagine that it's built in 1939 which it's not but I want sell my house and I have a buyer that's ready to purchase and maybe my house is in disrepair and they want to take it down now I have to wait and I can't close on the sale of my house because I have to wait for another buyer who might
▶ 1:17:37 want to keep it is that to come in and break that agreement I'm not sure if I understand well in that scenario it would be the buyer that it would not be upon you whatsoever so I mean I can imagine a situation where the buyer wants to do a teardown becomes aware of this process and is perhaps reticent to buy from you because of that but if that buyer has bought then then you're under no obligation but it only if the the agreement is actually closed so to speak yeah I mean it six months seems like a long time to me I've worked in just to correct again it is not six months at most this is four months at most it is not six months under any circumstance oh sure oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I thought you're just talking about general
▶ 1:18:34 process because I'm sorry alderman because the building you were describing it sounds like something it's in bad repair it's not architecturally significant in which case it would probably be a very quick decision if I I could just interject, 3.8 talks about six months, so can you just explain that? For the moratorium, yes. So how's that different than what we're? I'm sorry, I was talking earlier about the process of going through the committee, which is at most about three months, should work out to three months. So about three months in committee, and then the six months gets laid upon that, yes. three months in committee and then six months and then six months if the building is found to be historically significant then the six months it could
▶ 1:19:22 Monica C. Medeiros: actually be nine months from start of process to I don't I don't like to put those two periods together because one is the process of going through the committee when the determination has not been made the other is when a determination has been made and then the delay is put on which is six months I apologize yeah i didn't follow um thank you uh going back to the idea of 1940 it does seem to me to be a bit arbitrary and it it concerns me that adding this delay might actually make it so these smaller houses that are built that and Mr. Chase talked about the fabric of our community and how it's it's so great that and you spoke about too this there's different areas like up by you know the Bellevue golf course I mean so many of those homes are beautiful homes
▶ 1:20:30 Monica C. Medeiros: it's very significant neighborhood but I'd say most of them are probably built after 1940 And to demolish those homes would certainly change the character of that neighborhood. To demolish some of our smaller 1950s capes that might be the starter homes. We're always talking about new developers don't want to build small single family homes, because they don't make the kind of profit that they want. If we start letting those houses be torn down, but not the bigger ones, then those starter homes go off the market, disappear. And maybe it's only the wealthy people who can come in and wait six or nine months to rebuild. But it just, it does seem, you know, arbitrary to me. And then it makes me question, you know, should we really be in this business of deciding who gets to build or tear down a house or rebuild or not, you know?
▶ 1:21:46 Monica C. Medeiros: It's, I'm not sure. okay yeah because I guess my question for you older woman is can you imagine a system that is not arbitrary to your thinking I'm not quite sure and I'm not I'm not quite sure what the if there's houses or homes maybe that are already on a specific register that somebody's I'm not sure because it's just as you say someone it's all subjective it's some one person's decision that this person's house is worth you know his to of historical value and somebody else might say no it's no it's not I mean there could be an argument to be said that alderman's work goes house is very historic and that that's the kind of house and the kind of neighborhood that was built in that time that snapshot in
▶ 1:22:45 Monica C. Medeiros: time and i mean it's definitely uh i i'd like to hear you know more on what other communities have done has it been successful in stopping houses from because i don't want to see houses and dollars torn down and mcmansions built and replacing them and i don't want to lose what we do have of that modest kind of single family especially you know start our home to disappear so that we become a different kind of community in total and but i'm not sure if this is an effective way to do that and i really would like to see what other communities have done and i'd like to hear more from the public on this because i know there's been a couple of newspaper articles but you know i'm not sure i've heard from a couple of people
▶ 1:23:38 on one or two on each side and and not enough to say that there's a consensus that would really kind of looked at and thought about this I guess on the question of has this been successful in other local communities I can certainly contact the Massachusetts Historical Commission and see if they maintain any data about that I don't know that they have a sort of statistical reservoir of this is the number of houses that have been saved versus not what they will probably send to me to be quite honest would be here are some success stories though that doesn't that wouldn't answer your question either because it's just a list of success stories I will say that I think the proof in some ways to me
▶ 1:24:21 Monica C. Medeiros: that this does work is that you look at the number of communities that have adopted it have kept it in some cases for decades and the number of communities that continue to adopt it which does suggest to me that there is value to this you know and of course I'd be particularly interested in in the communities that that do surround us and you know or within 128 and you know maybe when they've adopted it and have they changed it and unfortunately I imagine that whether or not it's been successful might take calls to those historic Commission's to find out and I'm not sure whether or not they keep tracks how many saved or how many that didn't go through so this came about as a initiative from the historic the our Melrose historic Commission as I say it
▶ 1:25:22 long before I joined the Commission I joined the Commission in what early 2012 I've been chair since late 2013 I guess and this had been an initiative long before I ever arrived so it was part of the master plan in 2004 there was an attempt to have this maybe 15 years around that time that for whatever reason was was not successful and I was not there at the time so I really have no idea about the details of it but it's certainly at the Commission is always on our mind because this is the chief and most important legal tool that commission's use thank you very much thank you very welcome um alderman my goals next thank you mr chairman um thank you mr bennett and to your um commission fellow commissioners for your work on
▶ 1:26:09 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: this um in in my mind i do remember in 2004 and feel like it's been a long road since um since that master plan initiated it and i've had i guess because of some personal experience in my neighborhood it's something that has been of interest to me I remember many many years ago there was a lovely little old Cape on Green Street that got torn down like overnight nobody even knew and whether it ever had any historical significance or anything like that it you know the property just sat and sat for a long time and and now we do have some lovely townhouse condominiums there you know which is good for the housing stock it's good for the town city's revenue but you know it's it's a shame when you lose things that really you
▶ 1:27:00 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: can't replace in some ways and on the other hand I had a recent experience in in my area with a house that was built in the 50s that was in you know disrepair that was sold and torn down and in fact the new house has has really changed the fabric of the neighborhood somewhat but it has certainly it is certainly an improvement over over the house that was there that had no significance and that was in need of more attention than then it could be saved with really so I can really see both sides of this and I think that the historic Commission is probably the right body to be addressing this because that is as you say your primary interest I do appreciate the comments from the member from the members of the public and in regards to mr. Bell's five points I think it would
▶ 1:28:03 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: not be a bad idea to designate on the on the Commission its membership or or some some generalizations regarding the professional experience or you know you You could certainly have a member of the public who has no real interest other than representing the public, but I think your commission right now is very well representative of people who have an interest, it seems, in this, and certainly qualified, but that may not always be the case. I just think that's something that we could certainly think about. One thing I would like to talk about just briefly, because I know we're not really going to get to all of you know anywhere with this formally tonight um is the um the business zone and um i i'd kind of just like to hear maybe from miss gaffey and from you how this could work hand
▶ 1:29:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: in hand um the local historic district that we have now is correct me if i'm wrong from main street to grove street it's roughly um from emerson street to um foster actually it doesn't go to grove i'm a block over receive that it goes to grove because those properties you know right kind of are cohesive to the rest of the downtown but um it actually is from emerson to foster and that is the only um designated local historic district in the city so there's no residential area where we would be saying you can only paint your house white with black shutters or you can't change the facade or anything like that it's just the business section so how how would this work and why is it important mr. Bennett to include this the business part in the in the
▶ 1:30:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: historical preservation delay piece because it actually would be excluded so So there's an exclusion in here. The historical district is excluded, right. Right, the property's in the historic district. The rest of the businesses, I mean, not the ones right along here. Okay. Not the ones in the local historic district, but the other businesses, like Cedar Park and Wyoming. Does not the planning board have oversight with those that would, I know you said before their primary interest isn't historical but just the process of that can you just talk about how that would work with somebody came to the Planning Board and said I got I want to I'm buying this building I want to tear it down it's not in the local historical district it would have to go
▶ 1:30:56 to you first yeah I mean I suppose my reason for objecting to having a carve out for businesses is that in terms of historical significance I don't see any difference between a business and a residential house they're all equally important in the case of business districts these are the focal points for where people do their shopping they go to restaurants and so on it's perhaps it's arguably more important but you know on this again this question of whether you're being arbitrary or not if I were a homeowner I would also be rather annoyed that what somehow that the business community gets an exemption because of what they do but I as a homeowner have to live under this that that's not entirely fair to me and then you get into the issue of you know mixed
▶ 1:31:35 use you know facilities as well with both businesses and residences so I just think a carve-out like that doesn't make sense to me I would also say that Denise just mentioned how yeah there's this perception that the historic district moved south well in fact those buildings have no protections at all on them and some of them are just as architecturally interesting as those that happen to be north of Foster Street so and I and I can appreciate that but if someone is allowed to tear down a house that's pre 1940 and replace it they don't necessarily have to go to the Planning Board is that is that not correct today right you're talking about today right if they were just replacing it with a single-family home there's no and they don't need any zoning there's no there's
▶ 1:32:25 Denise Gaffey: no tool do what they want right yeah so but if it's a business and they're tearing down the building they have to go through the whole process with the with the planning board and well again I mean it has to meet the site plan review right criteria or meet some zoning criteria that's how it gets to the planning board so I'm just I'm not sure in any event neither none of these projects start with the planning board I should just point out they start with the building Commissioner right so that you know a developer doesn't come to the planning board and then find out go through that you know you need to go to the historical commission when someone comes in for a project that may have to go to the planning board the planning board is looking at what they're
▶ 1:33:13 building they're not looking at what's being torn down they do not have to go the planning board to to raise the building there's no hearing process for that whatsoever they come in fill out the paperwork and raise the building okay someone could do that and then three months down the road decide to go to the planning board i want to build this most instances my application says raise the building and to construct whatever a 12-unit multi-family building with you know stores and then it would go through that process but it's not it's not tied to planning board so that's exactly the answer i needed because that means that someone can in fact go to your office pull a permit to raise a building
▶ 1:34:04 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: commercial building and and not say what they're going to do and until they're ready to do it which is basically the reason you the historic commission wants to include this the business yeah and as um rob just whispered in my ear 87 essex street is a prime example of this and negotiations with the planning board for a very long time and the owner of that building decided fine i'm just going to pull this permit and destroy the building now what are you going to give me and that that sort of um attitude which really is very disrespectful to my mind to the authority of the planning board and to the good work of the city that that could be avoided or at least held up and which 84 Essex which is right 87 yeah
▶ 1:34:47 which is right past here that was the structure built around 1848 was the home to a mayor of Melrose to two members of this board and was very important anchor for that neighborhood and it's something that again I guess I can speak of the building because it's no longer standing I personally would have would have slapped a six-month delay on that that's exactly a prime example another example example is the building you mentioned on Green Street which in fact alderman's worker you mentioned about having a list or register that was on our list because that building dated to about 1790 and was a significant structure the Historical Commission was aware the building was going to be taken down I
▶ 1:35:25 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: was not serving at the time but I've been told that there was one request made of that owner would you please let us into the building so we can take photographs and document it before you destroy it and that was enough to spook the owner that he just leveled it and that's the sort of thing that that this is trying to avoid that at least we could take we know you're gonna take it down please let us take photographs in the next six months I remember that it was and I it was you know it was a big disappointment I think to many people in the neighborhood but you know I do think this work is important and I think as we go through um you know there will be opportunities to review the details the devils in the details
▶ 1:36:09 Francis X. Wright Jr.: um i i feel personally that i do support uh a date um certainly with residential business i don't know maybe we i don't know i'm not really sure yet i do want to hear more but um i thank you for your work and your time this evening all of you all said thank you very good you're welcome i'm going to send it over to alderman wright thank you mr chairman um i'm a little concerned mr chairman that i'm hearing a lot of talk about raising buildings in cork city on cottage street and cedar park and the wyoming business district but um everyone seems to want to tear down buildings in ward 3. i think we have some historic buildings in ward 3 in cork city um and uh so i hope we'll get due consideration if and when this pass that said mr chairman i would move
▶ 1:37:00 that this matter be held in committee so that these fine city officials can get back to us with more of the information when they've been requested to provide this committee for a future meeting second the motion to hold the order on committee all right we do have a motion can i ask a question of alderman wright on the information request so just so we're clear um from a sort of a task as we leave here alderman standpoint we're going to try to get you a comparative comparative analysis of demo delay in communities contiguous to melrose in the middlesex league and what we're going to look for is time frames process notice requirements delay period the time that ordinance was adopted in that community and perhaps any additional fine structures that they may have
▶ 1:37:45 Francis X. Wright Jr.: is there anything else you'd want us to look at through you mr chairman my goal is to you know for them to look at the highlights of the ordinance itself that the the significant portions of it as well as all the questions that were raised tonight it sounds like the city solicitor has covered most if not all of those and i'm sure they'll go back and take a look at the minutes of this meeting and perhaps even the tape if there's anything else i'm sure any member of this committee can either refresh their memory now or or later if there's anything they believe is all right yeah that's very good thank you but before we take a vote on the motion I do want to recognize Alderman Boisselle thank you for coming this
▶ 1:38:25 Robert A. Boisselle: evening very interesting and a lot of buildings are coming down in the award the one the 87 Essex Street you've been talking about all night is in my ward and that was an interesting discussions outside of this committee you're using a term demolition delay quite a bit and according to the National Trust for historical preservation it prevents the demolition of buildings or structures that have already been designated as historical landmarks or contributing structures in historical districts now what you're referring to now is basically outside of these areas is that correct buildings will say near north near Wakefield or near Malden and so forth we're not we're not talking about these facilities that demolition delay should we be talking about demolition
▶ 1:39:30 Robert A. Boisselle: review for these particular facilities because according to the National Trust these are exclusively separate and distinct from historical preservation ordinances they preclude demolitions of any buildings or structures over a certain age or any building or structure identified for protection regardless of significance so I'm just trying to get the terminology straight if we should be reviewing the demolition review or demolition delay because according to the national definition it's we seem to be talking about national review or demolition review it's an interesting question I mean that's news to me because we're in we're in no way under the jurisdiction of the National Trust which is an important interesting organization but this is this is a
▶ 1:40:24 program that comes out of the state not the federal government I I know I from my point of view it's just a matter of nomenclature and I'd be perfectly happy with demo review i mean for some people demo review sounds a bit more cheery really we're not delaying you we're just reviewing you right um now i totally have to look with discretion okay and for inspectorial services they have the right to demo a building historical building if there's a public safety issue involved here is that correct all right thank you very much thank Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're welcome. Seeing no more questions, comments, we do have a motion on the floor made by Alderman Wright to hold this order in committee.
▶ 1:41:10 John N. Tramontozzi: And the motion has been seconded by Alderman Mortimer. On the motion, any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We will hold this order in committee for further discussion. I appreciate and thank you so much for coming in this evening. Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. We have a motion to adjourn by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Force. On the motion, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned. Good evening.