[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay, it is seven o'clock. Peter, are you good for minutes? Yeah. Okay, thanks. It's seven o'clock, Monday, May 15th. This is the Medford Historical Commission. We'll read our Zoom statement here, and then we'll just get going with our brief agenda for tonight. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting of the City of Medford Historical Commission will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by using the Zoom link provided for in the agenda. No in-person attendance or members of the public will be permitted. Any public participation in any public hearing during this meeting shall be by remote means only. So we have one item on the agenda tonight. That is 17 Green Road. We are meeting to vote to release their demo delay. So Peter or Doug, do you want to walk us through how we got here? The applicants are not here. I don't know if they're coming. I don't know if we have the original version of the plans and then the revised version that we can go over.
[Doug Carr]: Go ahead, Peter, why don't you share screen? Okay. I think you'll see a dramatic contrast between what was and what is. Great.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Can you guys see this now?
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yep.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. Doug, if you want to talk about it, then I can switch.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, this was what was originally proposed. And again, this is a house that's being extruded and that porch is being, house is being extended by about another 20 feet. And then the porch is being extended around the end of it. What we objected to was the giant mass with the flat roof in the back that looked like nothing like the architecture of the building itself. So we just asked them, and I asked them about a month ago before saying, you want to get a headstart on it? I said, make it look like the rest of the house and it will be a quick meeting. And it was. And then I think, Peter, if you switch to the other version, you'll see that they pretty much did what we asked. They broke it down. get a very small flat roof on the top, but it's broken up with articulation and bays. And it feels like it's part of the building, not something that was glommed onto it a hundred years later. So we approved it in subcommittee.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Also, despite what these materials show, this will, you know, this roof shingling here will be going on these roofs. This little part will be rubber roof, but. And this will be shingled here as well, right, Doug, on the porch roof. That's right.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Is that flat or is that?
[Doug Carr]: This is slope.
[Jennifer Keenan]: With a slope. Okay, it's just hard to tell.
[Doug Carr]: The only flat part is in the existing slope of the existing porch. It's just being extended. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let's see if I can get to the other page here.
[Jennifer Keenan]: How much square footage are they adding? I'm just curious.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't know. Maybe it's a line.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Oh, Doug, you're muted. Doug, you're muted.
[Doug Carr]: It's about a third more than it was before. I'm not sure how much, but you see there's a line there where it's about a third more square footage on multiple floors.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It looks like about 32 by Morning or something yeah, scroll Peter.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I just want to see the 2nd floor. They're adding 2 bedrooms here in a bad in a bedroom on the 1st floor.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think they're adding this bedroom too.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, so it's going to be a 4 bed. A 4 bedroom addition that's a lot.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think it's for the in-laws.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, it's just, yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Cool. And a new attic. So.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay. Is there, does anybody else have any comments? Thank you to the subcommittee for your work. Thank you, Jess. Looks much more like It definitely looks so much better.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's a quirky building for sure, you know.
[Jennifer Keenan]: That's one hell of a porch. I know.
[Doug Carr]: It's a hell of a porch right now. It's just even bigger.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, it's the biggest porch in Medford maybe.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Wow. Looks like the Mount Washington Inn.
[Adam Hurtubise]: But some of this weird stuff is still gonna stay here like this. This isn't quite accurately depicted, but there's some funk to this house. It's a cool house. Okay.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Should someone have a motion?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I could move to release the demolition delay. PB, David Ensign — Herndon, he's on mute. PB, David Ensign — Herndon, he's on mute. PB, David Ensign — Herndon, he's on mute.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay, on a motion to lift the demo delay for 17 Green Road pending these plans dated 4-7 to be uploaded to CitizenServe. I will go around for a roll call vote. Ryan? Yes. Kit? Yes. Doug?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Peter?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jennifer Keenan]: And Jess? Yes. Okay, so that is one, two, three, five, zero. Great. Um, all right. So we are done with this case. Does anybody have anything else since we're here?
[Doug Carr]: Well, Jen, the reason we did this quick meeting is we didn't want to wait a whole nother month, right? Talking about, we don't need to resolve it now, but we're trying, you know, the per the constructive criticisms of the building commissioner tried to streamline our process. I think what we want to do is see if we can take like a 90 day I think it would be a good idea to have a subcommittee on the other side of this phase and they get something smaller, and we don't need to decide it tonight, but. I think it'd be compressed on the, on the acceptance of the demo permit stuff. Using staff. And maybe. Circulating approved plans and maybe doing it. From the subcommittee on the other end could make it a lot smaller. But we can't, we probably need it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: As I mentioned in my email, I would be inclined to okay and speed up the process for any building built before 1900 by just automatically determining it similar to what we do with garages, making it significant going right to the public hearing.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, I would be curious to go back and look through a couple years worth of annual reports and like how many of those did we get versus how many were post 1900 just to have a little bit of kind of working knowledge of, because I remember when the ordinance was updated, that was right as I joined the commission. I know that the biggest concern from going to pre-1900 to the rolling 75 years was missing that chunk of homes between 1900 and like, say, 1930. And not that we still couldn't find them significant, Um, just something to think about.
[Doug Carr]: I know we have another, you know, the building commission is going to be putting together some thoughts about our process. Um, you know, we obviously have our own opinions about that once we see the language and the details, but just shaving 30 days off of somebody. in the planning department can, can use their judgment to say, okay, this is a complete application that saves an entire meeting that we don't 30 days, you know, from the process that seems to me like anybody could do that. You know, it's a, if we can cut it down on both ends, I think we'll look better politically. Um, I think that's some of what the complaints is, is that our process just takes long. And if we can not lose the integrity of our process, but speed it up as much as we can on the front and back ends. And I agree with Ryan, if there's some automatic triggers that just take out an entire meeting, that makes it even faster. So I think that's worth considering too. I'm open to any suggestions that would help that, and I think it would help us with the city council and some of the people who are not our friends.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I was just going to say, we do the acceptance of the application specifically because it takes 30 days to generate the Form B. But if we have them, sure.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah.
[Doug Carr]: Wouldn't that automatic process, if it's accepted and there's no Form B, just say, go ahead and do that? Can that be an administrative trigger as well?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. I mean, it's going to still trigger it, but it's going to take John 30 days to prepare.
[Jennifer Keenan]: So we might not have it. That's the, depending on when that comes in.
[Doug Carr]: Sure. And we talked about an accelerated process that the owner might contribute to, to make it even faster if they're really interested in getting it two weeks, then maybe it's a thousand dollars and he puts it to the front of the line. You know, I don't know. I just, I think there are, there's gotta be ways for us to be creative, to get it done quicker. and to be a little bit more transparent. The homeowners clearly think three months is a long time just to get through the basic process without any negotiation of design, if that's what it takes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Make it one month for homeowners, six months for developers. Bad joke, just kidding.
[Jennifer Keenan]: So just one other thing while I have you guys real quick is that we talked about kind of researching some other commissions and in terms of the commissioner saying that our decisions need to be filed in land court to be kind of standing. Ryan has access to emailing every commission to find out what they're doing. So if we, Doug, I thought maybe Um, Ryan says if we give him an email, he can send it out. So if we can craft an email of the information we're trying to get, um, to, to, you know, basically want to know, like, how are their decisions upheld and what is the process? Um, he can put that out there and we can get that data back.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, I can forward the one I sent to Winchester who responded within a day, um, with the exact question. I'll just forward it to you, Ryan, and you can tweak it.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay. Yeah. And then Ryan and I are meeting with the mayor tomorrow. So we're going to ask her also to ask KP.
[Doug Carr]: Sure. We just had no idea what he was talking about.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, I will be interested to see what the 351 other historical commissions of which I think there's like 100 that have demo delays in the state. And there's something like 3,600 historic preservationists on this chat board that I belong to. So you will get the full, many of which are good. Like we will hear from Brookline and we will hear from Newton, I'm sure and we will hear from other communities that are on the up and up, because he could be setting a precedent. And if the rest of them don't have that precedent, it could, we could be making it really difficult for the rest of the Commonwealth so we, we don't want to set that precedent.
[Doug Carr]: Agreed. Are you doing a survey, Monkey?
[Adam Hurtubise]: No, no, no. I belong to the historic preservation listserv in Massachusetts. It's run by the Mass Historic Preservation, Mass Historical.
[Jennifer Keenan]: I think that'll be valuable information.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It'll definitely be valuable because there'll be a lot of people on there. There's a ton of information on there, but it's not very searchable, so it's just easier to ask people to give me new information.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, and current information.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, right, right. Especially for those communities who have established new bylaws.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay, so can we get that out this week, Ryan?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, as soon as you, Doug, if you send it to me tonight, I can tweak it and get it out tonight.
[Doug Carr]: I can do it tonight.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Okay. Does anybody have anything else? I'm coming up on my 15 minute deadline that I promised you all would be.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Real quickly. Speaking of long drawn out processes, I sent Nelson another, hopefully final round of comments today. So we'll see. I think after the fifth time of asking for those front windows, I think we'll might get them. You never know.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah, hopefully we can vote to lift that one at our next meeting.
[Doug Carr]: Between the grocery property and the two stone walls, I think grocery is looking pretty swanky these days.
[Jennifer Keenan]: It's looking good. Yeah. In fact, Peter, maybe you can say to him, we'd really love to vote to lift you at our June meeting. We need these back by next week or whatever.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I already sent him the email, but.
[Jennifer Keenan]: All right, well.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I could do a follow up.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Well, yeah, just a reminder. We have time. We have lots of time still, because I forget when our June meeting is. June 12th. So we still.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's usually, he's been pretty quick. It's just been a lot of iterations.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Yeah. OK. Anybody have anything else? No? Motion to adjourn. Adjourned.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So moved.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Seconded. Thanks, Jess. Okay, motion to adjourn 7.16 p.m. Ryan.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Hit. Yes. Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Yes, please.
[Jennifer Keenan]: Peter.
[Doug Carr]: Yes.
[Jennifer Keenan]: And Jess. Yes. Thank you guys. Talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody.