[Christopher Bader]: Why don't we come to order? We have a couple of new members tonight. If you guys are here, do you wanna introduce yourselves? Hello? Any of the new members here? Wait a minute. I was wondering.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Tonyann Snow, is she new, Chris?
[Christopher Bader]: So Tonyann is not a member. She's an applicant.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am definitely not a member, no.
[Christopher Bader]: No, no, no. You're welcome. You're most welcome. No. But no, no. We have a couple of new members. We have Joyce. Their names are Joyce and Chris. And I don't see them.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: I don't see them.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. Joyce and Chris, are you there? Okay, well, we'll go ahead without them. So our first order of business, which I hope we can resolve pretty quickly, is Tony Ann's application for a fence for 16 Hillside Avenue. So Tony, I want you to tell us a little bit about what you want to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so I live at 16 hillside Avenue, anyone's been to the new library, I am now naked as a jaybird. I am the brown house on the corner that had all my trees that weren't my trees they were the city's trees taken down right lived with construction for two years so I now need to put up a privacy pass. I was originally going to try for vinyl, but I don't got the fight in me. So I just spent two years fighting with the city and the library over the tremendous inconvenience of living next to a major construction project. So I will go with cedar. So I can show pictures. I have to put up a fence, right? This isn't a want. Oh, no, no.
[Christopher Bader]: We get it. We get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to put up a fence. So I can show you the pictures if people want to take a look. Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Why don't you do that, Tonya?
[SPEAKER_03]: All right. Give me one sec. Oh, it says you disabled screen sharing for participants.
[Christopher Bader]: Dennis, can you enable screen sharing?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll try again.
[Christopher Bader]: For Tonya.
[SPEAKER_03]: Say when, and I'll try again.
[Christopher Bader]: Dennis? OK, well, I've got the pictures here, so let me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I have other ones, too. I got to get which ones. It was hard to decide. I don't know why they, oh, it's letting me share now.
[Christopher Bader]: OK, oh, it's letting you share. OK, good.
[SPEAKER_03]: yeah yeah I don't know why it was giving me such a hard time when I tried to send them to you, so this is actually a lot of pictures about my house so let's.
[Christopher Bader]: let's just focus on the fence.
[SPEAKER_03]: yep yep yep so.
[Christopher Bader]: This.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, so this. Let me move our faces out of the way. was where my garage was so now I need a fence along here and along here. And it's only going to go, so and this is another point, it's only going to go to right about here. It's not going to go all the way across, because then I can't get into my back. And this would be the other side. The fence is only going to go where the concrete is. It'll stop about in here and then go straight across. Let's see. OK, nope, those are not anything. Here's the fence.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. This is the proposed fence?
[SPEAKER_03]: The proposed fence, yes. I'll go with cedar, scallops, nice and pretty, and I'll paint it brown to match the house.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. Any questions?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Is that, Tony, is that like a stockade fence or is it more boards?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. It's Cedar. I think I sent along the proposal.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not stockade. Okay. I've looked at the picture pretty closely. It's got a smooth top, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes. That's what I requested. Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: I think what Fred is alluding to is that the, the so-called stockade fences, that have little points at the top of the boards. Those are kind of lovely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no, I wouldn't do that. No, those are ugly.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, good, good, yeah. Good, so thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got this picture from them, so.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And do you have a picture? This is sort of your side. This is the inside, the owner's side. Do you have a picture of what the outside looks like?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I didn't get a picture of the outside from McDonough Fence, no.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And Chris, do you have the product?
[Christopher Bader]: I only have what Tony Ann sent me. Okay. I think it's smooth on the other side though, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. I would imagine that it's smooth. Yeah. I didn't know they were options. So I'm going with the fact that it's smooth.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And what, how tall is it? What's the height?
[SPEAKER_03]: Six feet.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: It's a six foot tall fence. Okay. I mean, I don't have any particular, it looks, I like the scallops. I like the, I hope it's smooth and not, Like a typical stockade fence, which I wouldn't really be in favor of. So if it's a nice fence, it's McDonough fence, you say?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's McDonough fence, yeah. And I understand it to be smooth and I think it'll look great. You know, I mean, actually, I'll probably put little plants up on it so the people from the library can see nice things like when the budget allows. And, you know, it's it I don't mind really being on the corner. I just need some privacy with it. So and I might dress it up myself with We put those little lights in where the sun catches them, the solar lights. And because when the kids come by, it's cute. The kids all go to story time and I do enjoy it. So it should look nice at the rest of my house. Okay.
[Christopher Bader]: All right. Anybody else have any questions? That's just the rest.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what it used to look like if anybody wants to see. Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. I remember you getting rid of that. What a nice where that was.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was that had to come down. It was cool.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, it was built in the 40s or something right or the 50s.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would think so. Yeah, it looks like everybody else's.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, no, you know, we definitely did the right thing getting rid of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we got rid of that. And the trees coming down was like a blessing, like the privacy and they were nice, but they will.
[Christopher Bader]: I don't know why they had to cut down the trees, frankly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know either. They were too close to my house, but I don't know the ones they put in. Yeah. No great shakes. Anyway, that's my fence. That's my story with my fence.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. So, and that's all you want to do, right? That's it. At the moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: At the moment, and then I'm done. The budget's expended. Everything else will be some pretty landscaping and some lawn furniture.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. So can I have, Tony Anne has actually submitted a formal application for this thing. So can I have a motion to, PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB – David Ensign – He's not here. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Okay. Tony and I I'd go easy on the lights and things like that. Just keep them all.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, I wouldn't go. Like the little ones that you stick in the, that the solar and then they light up and they look like a rooster or something. No, no, I'm not going to.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: On your side of the fence.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay. I'll keep it on my side of the fence.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: But I, I, I think we could.
[Christopher Bader]: So can I have a second?
[Unidentified]: Charlotte? You're on mute, Charlotte.
[Christopher Bader]: Charlotte, we need your vote.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Charlotte, you need to unmute yourself. So is that a thumbs up, I guess? I don't know if Dennis, if you could unmute Charlotte or whatever. I don't know.
[Christopher Bader]: Charlotte. We can't hear you. You're on mute.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Can you hear me now?
[Christopher Bader]: Yes. Yes. Okay. Did you hear the whole thing about Tony and Spence?
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Yep, I said I agreed. And I'm ready to move on.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, so you're you second.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I second.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, can I. So all in favor. Charlotte.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yes. Yes.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, I vote yes. Our new. So, I don't know if the new members are sworn in yet, and I'm going to give Tonya the benefit of the doubt. So we will say this is passed unanimously. Thank you all.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it. I'll be given the deposit, and then I go on the waiting list, because a lot of people do fences in the spring.
[Christopher Bader]: So two to three weeks out. OK. Thank you so much for coming before us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for listening.
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, no, no problem at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: You send me the certificate back so I have it in my pile of stuff.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, yes, I will do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great, thank you, gentlemen and ladies. Enjoy your evening. Have a good one.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, right, bye-bye. Okay, so next we have results from the new survey. Mm-hmm. I took it upon myself to send out, with the help of City Hall, whom I have to give a shout out to Dennis and Teresa for helping us with this, because they did essentially all the work, and I just said, I just wrote the, they even rewrote the text of the postcard, and put one of those two-dimensional barcodes on it, which I don't quite understand. But, Anyway, we have now a lot of new results. We have, Dennis, do you remember how many cards were sent out?
[Alex Giller]: I think it was about 150 to 200, somewhere in that. I'm just trying to remember the number of pages of labels we had, and I think it was at least, there's 30 to a page, so we had at least five, so at least 150, I think.
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, wow, okay. So we've gotten results from about, at this point about 50, no, I guess it's about 60 respondents. And the results are not uniformly negative, but strongly negative. It's almost exactly two to one negative. People do not want to, just for background for people who haven't been following this, especially with Fred's help, we redrew the proposed boundaries for the Fourth Street Historic District. We chopped off the houses that are north of Valley Road So we included the very old houses that are right at the very end of, right at Valley Road, but everything north of that was removed because it's mainly new houses. And we added Medford High School. And so we have about 60 votes and it's about, it's running, I get new, new votes are trickling in, but it's running about, about 40 are negative and about 20 are positive. So the question is, how do we proceed at this point? And I can see two ways of going forward. First of all, we simply leave it up to the city council to weigh the results of the survey. And that is we approve it, but send it to city council saying, okay, well, this is what we should do. That is leaving it up to them to decide what to do. Although some city council members have expressly said that they don't want to consider anything that it does not have a majority of residents. And apparently that is the standard for historic districts across the state. So we could leave it to city council. We could vote to drop it ourselves. or we could focus on the very small Clisby Mitchell, I think it's Clisby Mitchell, historic district area that's on the, that's close to Valley Road, but across the street, and there's some very early pre-Civil War, certainly pre-Civil War, but possibly earlier, I don't recall exactly. So basically we would take the, the area that is designated on the mass, on the MACRS survey as area A, in an area A form, but because it'd be Mitchell's. And we would simply restrict the historic district to that. I see those as the three options. So can I open, I'd like to open the floor to anybody who has an opinion on that, how to go forward.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, Chris, I mean, we have a lot of guests here and we could probably hear from some of the people on the call as well. I'm not surprised, certainly, that it's a negative response. I think it's an uphill battle for all of us with these districts. The one, I mean, in some ways, we could try to swim upstream with this thing because that's what we do, that's what we're supposed to be doing. The other one is, It's a historic district that we've submitted, but, you know, to some extent, it's not as in character as some of the other, you know, like Wong Simons and things where there's old, you know, 17th century houses and 18th century houses. So, you know, I think you could hear from other people that are on here and just see if we have the will to do it. If we have some new members and some new energy and some new to do more outreach and have another public hearing and all the things we need to do to continue on with this thing, that might be helpful.
[Christopher Bader]: So- Yeah, I'm disappointed that Chris and Joyce are not here.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: But- But, you know, Sharon's here, Ryan's here, others, you know, we could go around the horn and see what other comments- Okay, Sharon, what do you think? I'm going to unmute everybody again.
[Libby Brown]: Myself. Oh, wait, there we go. So because we're concerned about owners buy in, do you know how the owners of those houses feel?
[Christopher Bader]: Well, so as I say, so far it's been running about two to one against.
[Libby Brown]: When you say two to one, this is- No, but I mean, the owners, I'm sorry, in the Clesby House area.
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, no.
[Libby Brown]: I'm sorry, I wasn't clear.
[Christopher Bader]: No, I haven't done a specific analysis for Clesby Mitchell area. But I'm talking about the general, assuming that, let's assume for the moment that we have at least 50% buy-in on Clesby Mitchell. Would you wanna go forward with Clesby Mitchell?
[Libby Brown]: Well, OK, so to my thinking, there's no way you're going to get a large district. And I don't even think you should bother, you know, using your time to take it to the city council. OK, you could. But, you know, yeah, I know the time is valuable.
[Christopher Bader]: Their time is valuable.
[Libby Brown]: And so we're concerned about your time. But sorry, Zach. there are a number of houses on that street that deserve to be in historic districts. And, you know, people can walk down that street and point at them, you know, oh, this one's really nice. That one's really nice. And. You know, so much smaller districts, even single house districts might be the way to go with this, you know, just get as many as you can that are interesting, you know, architecturally significant, have a historical connection to Medford and, you know, leave it at that. You can perhaps add on later.
[Christopher Bader]: All right. Anybody else have some opinion? Zach? Is Zach Beers here?
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. What do you think?
[Zac Bears]: Well, it's, it's, it's your call. I don't want to, I don't want to jump in and say, uh, don't send it, but, but I do tend to agree with Sharon's sentiments.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. Um, Charlotte, any, any, any thoughts? Are you on mute again, Charlotte? Charlotte, you're on mute.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna try to unmute Charlotte.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Can you hear me now?
[Christopher Bader]: Yes. Okay.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. Okay. I agree with Sharon. I think we should move on and not spend a lot of time spinning our wheels.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. Sounds good. I think, yes. So, So I think a resolution would be, rather than just leave it at that, I think a resolution is appropriate here. Does everyone agree for it? Charlotte? Okay. I do, I agree. Can we have a motion not to proceed with a local historic district for Forest Street at this time?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I guess that's a tough call. I mean, we did, um, I mean, put a fair amount of effort. Oh, we did Sharon and, you know, to, and ourselves writing up narratives, redrawing the maps. And, uh, I agree. It's, it's like a, an entry street to Medford square. It, it, it, it, it has merits for reasons why we should be. protecting our square and that particular street. It's a Chevrolet liaison there. I get a lot of visitors. So, you know, it's a hard pill to swallow to just say no. And if the bar indeed is having to get buy-in from all the neighbors, that's going to be an uphill climb for us. I don't know how they pass that.
[Christopher Bader]: I've been following the mass historical list, and apparently the de facto standard is 50% of the houses that are actually in the district. So the abutters, their opinion is valued, but it doesn't figure into that 50% threshold.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we might be able to turn some of those boats around, you know, but it's legwork. It's knocking on doors with the COVID epidemic. I mean, nobody's doing that. We can reach out with postcards in our survey, but if we sent out 150 and really only, you know, 50 or 60 of that came back, that's only a third of the respondents. And if it's a 20, 40 split, and I don't know if we know like whether that's exactly people within the districts, if you can sort of quantify that, that yes, they had a house that was shown in our last iteration of the boundaries. Is that something that you can identify from the survey?
[Christopher Bader]: Survey monkey does not make it easy, but yes, I can do that analysis. I haven't had it yet.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And to see for, if we could, I mean, can we continue to, Okay. I agree. It might take more. Effort and outreach. Then we were able to give it this time. Okay. And I agree if it goes to the council and, and there's a lot of people as we're in our public hearing who.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Speak up two, three, four times against it. And the people in favor of it. the response and the way people look at it. So I'd like to continue on at least for until our next meeting and think about it a little more and see if we can.
[Christopher Bader]: And maybe we can talk to the new members too.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: We can put our heads together and just see if we can go. Or maybe we decide to just focus on the next one, Medford Square or whatever we think is the next domino. I just started about that.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, I mean, my objective here is to be transparent and and you know, to get on with things. I think the mayor is concerned about that. So, you know, and this has been dragging out for years, literally. So, I would like to put it to bed, but if you want to leave it open for one more meeting, we can do that too.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you and Charlie, I mean, we don't have our new members or Melanie here or Nino.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. So why don't we postpone a vote on that until our next meeting?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And I think I could be persuaded easily to try to move on to the next thing, but boy, it would be nice to.
[Christopher Bader]: I know.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: present something and have some success with these things. I have to say that that would be, and I think this is a good district to think about. So, okay. That's my two cents.
[Christopher Bader]: Ryan, you're on the call, right, Ryan? Okay. All right. So we'll take no action. I suggest we take no action for the moment. And we'll bring this up when we have our new members present, hopefully, at our next meeting.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I would encourage anyone who wants to chime in on this public forum, convince us otherwise, or to say something would be more than welcome to hear from other people who are on the call.
[Christopher Bader]: OK. Let's see, obviously we cannot introduce the new members because they're not here. So, and I gave some thought to-
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Oh, there's a note here from Alex who might want to chime.
[Alex Giller]: Oh, Alex, Alex, why don't you go ahead. Yeah, if you don't mind just since it's like Fred kind of opened it up there for a second. So I'm a resident of 55 for street, I'm actually the homeowner here. I live directly across the street from the old high school and the war Memorial. I know between myself and my neighbors in the immediate area, I'm the only one who heard about this survey, even though I do understand that you guys did do the mailing. None of them had a clue about it. So, I guess better communication and I don't necessarily have a solution for you as to how to do it but. I mean, if you want to get true engagement from the people who live here, I think a little bit more than a single postcard that sent out. I mean, I received my postcard last week. So maybe if you do want to make a final decision for next meeting, I think you guys need to come up with a plan right now to try and execute in the next week so that you have two weeks to gather information so that you can make a better informed decision if that's really what your goal is in the hopes of having more information or more members. I mean personally I like the idea to a certain extent of what you're trying to do. I just feel like there's a lot of us like myself who's getting clumped into a historic district when my home has zero historical value and then to have to come in front of you guys to do any little bit to my house. Like I bought this house four years ago and I am planning on doing work on it and You know, it just kind of seems like it's going to turn into an uphill battle. I'm not quite what I signed up for. And I think that's kind of. the sentiment that a couple of my neighbors have, but I will absolutely be the first to admit that there are homes on this street that should be protected. So I think there should be some sort of finessing, if you will, of what the current proposal was that was in that survey. If you guys do want to propose something that has a better chance of getting passed or supported, if you will.
[Christopher Bader]: Well, I asked the folks at City Hall if we could use, for example, their constant contact list. And they actually didn't think that was appropriate because they don't have addresses for people who, they have their email addresses, but unless they blast the whole city, we don't have people's actual physical addresses. So that was not considered an appropriate way of contacting people. And we have their addresses. And as I say, as Dennis mentioned at the beginning, I don't know if you're here for that, that about 150 of these postcards went out. I don't really know what we can do besides sending people door to door.
[Alex Giller]: So, um, the one thing that I will say is so that I have my, um, contact information with the city to my PO box, which is right down the street at Medford post office. Okay. I did not receive a mailing to my house. I received it to my PO box. So the PO box is where I'm registered with the city and all my tax information, water bills, whole nine yards, but I didn't receive anything at my own property address.
[Christopher Bader]: So just to kind of give you guys a user experience. You know, I can sit down with Dennis and Teresa and we can review the actual addresses that the postcards were sent out to and the survey is still open. So, you know, we could see if we can just check to make sure that everyone got their postcards.
[Alex Giller]: Okay. Thank you for your time.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes. Oh, and by the way, you know, as far as, well, you saw Tony Ann's application. I mean, it's not for me to say that that was not a big deal. But, you know, please consider her experience, which I, you know, she applied, we held a meeting within 30 days, we approved her request in about five minutes, and that was that. So I don't think we're, in my opinion, we're not really, you know, setting up a, sort of, you know, Kafkaesque bureaucracy for you to deal with.
[Alex Giller]: I completely understand. I mean, that did look like a painless process, but it also was a fence. I know I'm planning on putting a dormer most likely on my house at one point, which a dormer is going to be a whole nother ballgame than doing, you know, 40, 50 feet of linear fence.
[Christopher Bader]: So, you know, as long as you have appropriate materials and design, It's really sure.
[Alex Giller]: Oh yeah, no, I have a lot of experience doing this in Somerville and Cambridge and we keep it very appropriate, but that I'm not going to go down that road right now.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, sure. All right.
[Alex Giller]: Well, thank you very much. Absolutely. Thank you.
[Christopher Bader]: Right. Okay. So, uh, let's, um, let's move on. Uh, now I didn't make a specific effort to reach out to the owners of 78 Cotting Street. So maybe we should postpone discussing that until the next meeting, because I don't want the owners to say, well, this is the first I heard of it. Do people agree with that?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: What's that in reference to, Chris?
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, so there's a house that has a demolition delay at 78 Cotting Street. And it's a pre-Civil War house in very good shape. And they're working with the Historical Commission to, they want to do some significant modifications to the house. And they're working with members of the Historical Commission to verify that those changes are appropriate. But some residents feel that this should simply be in a historic district. And that it actually, the statutory business of, I mean, from a statutory standpoint, the business of reviewing appropriate changes to historic house is our province rather than the historical commissions. I don't want to turn this into a turf war. Sharon, yes. You're on mute, Sharon.
[Libby Brown]: I'm sorry, I was just adjusting my light, not raising my hand.
[Christopher Bader]: Sorry, I'm sorry. No, no, no. Yeah, as I say, I did not reach out specifically to the members. I mean, it is, of course, on the city website, but I think we should, in the interest of transparency, I think we should probably postpone this discussion to next time. What do you think, Fred?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's the first I've heard about it, so I'm happy to, if you have some information you wanna forward.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, I think- I'll start working on it then. Yeah, I'll send out the form B. It's actually, you can't really see the house very well from the street because it's totally surrounded by other more modern houses, but it's right behind Whole Foods. So, you know, if you're over there and it's convenient, maybe just swing by, look at 78 Cotting. And okay, so let's move on because as I say, I should have, I should have reached out to the owners and I didn't. So, and I don't want them to be blindsided by this. Okay, so finally we have 10 Manning Street, which is owned by Sharon Guzik and her husband. And Sharon, why don't you tell us a little bit about the house and what you wanna do?
[Libby Brown]: Okay, I'll do it in slightly different order. Okay, sure. We want to make our house a single house historic district. Our house was built in 1896. It's in excellent condition, both inside and out. We've taken special care to retain you know, any architectural detail, but we really haven't made any changes to the outside except painting it. I'm concerned, you know, with all this development going on and people, you know, doing weird additions to houses that I want to protect it for the future. And this is something, Here you have an owner wants to have a historic district. It's a seems like a win win situation.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I agree.
[Libby Brown]: Do you want to know anything specific about the house? No, I think it's pretty well-documented in the form B. Yeah, I have a form B. They have a few details incorrect, but they didn't ask me about it. A report should be fairly easy to put together. I've done a lot of research on the house. There's research that has been done the historians that did the survey of South Medford, and frankly, Will Tenney, who did a report for the Historical Society, the House Marker Program. He wrote extensively about the area, and I'm just... a few three houses away from the house that they did that for. So, you know, putting the report together should be easy. Yeah. And, you know, it's not OK. Seems like low hanging fruit.
[Christopher Bader]: Sure. OK. The. So the question in my mind is, You know, we here have an owner who wants to put her house in a single house local historic district. As Sharon says, it seems like a no brainer. The question is, should we do this in the context of a larger historic district that perhaps includes 21 Toro and Grandfather's House and perhaps some other houses, because these are not the, there's actually a very old house on Maple Street as well, I believe. So does anybody have any comments on single house versus trying to define a- Can I make some comments about that? Yes, absolutely.
[Libby Brown]: So at the time that Ryan and I were working on the fourth street research for the historic district proposal, I was also putting together information about all the houses that you're mentioning and the other houses on the street and drew out a proposed boundary for a South Street Historic District. Now, several of those houses have undergone alterations already since I did this. One is about to undergo alteration. It just seems like it's too ambitious to try to make a huge district. A, it's going to take a long time. B, it's going to be, you know, you'll have a lot of people in there as on Forest Street. It's not as huge of an area as Forest Street, but you still have a lot of people there that are not going to be happy with it. Um, so, you know, I, I'm gotten. Let's just say I'm not happy with a lot of the changes that have been going on, and it's almost like it's too late to make a, you know, a historic district that actually protects these houses. I agree that 21 Turo, is that 21? Yeah, I think it's 21. And grandfather's house, they should be protected, but you can't really, I mean, you'd essentially have three houses with no physical connection. So those really are three single house districts. Maybe once you start creating these districts, other people in the neighborhood will be interested as well. I know a neighbor of mine on South Street is very interested. Again, she doesn't abut me, so it's still be... So it's like- Isn't that beautiful house that's around the corner from you? The purple house. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a yellow house in a purple house and everybody knows these houses that drive down the yellow house is going to have something done to it. The purple house, though, is she's taken a lot of time to re renovate it, and she's, you know, very protective of it herself. So sure.
[Christopher Bader]: Anyway, so you favor going the single house district? Yeah.
[Libby Brown]: Okay, yeah. I think you can you can, you know, write up individual houses fairly quickly. You cannot get them through. You can only hope that other people will want to follow. I mean, you could pursue a larger district in addition, but I don't know. We've seen how that works. So.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Anybody else have an opinion on this sort of multiple single houses, historic districts versus a single, I mean, these houses are all within a few blocks of each other. I don't think the idea of a single larger historic district is crazy. But anybody have any opinions, Fred, Charlotte?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, I do. Sharon, that's great news. Thank you. I'm all in favor of helping with your single house historic district. And as you know, there's a state process that we would have to follow. Right now, we have a public hearing and all the things we all the steps. But I'm intrigued by the idea that if we could just piece together, even if it's a few houses in their grandfather's house 21 true and insurance, even it's just three houses in the in the boundary literally just goes down the sidewalk. We're here at mom Simon's district. It just travels along the house. So Charlotte house is in the district. The house literally next door to her is not, and then it loops around the sidewalk and goes around to Chris's house, you know? So we might be able to be clever and carve out a little, a gerrymandered district, because that's the thing now, to include a couple others. And if it looks like a puzzle out of a broken, you know, cardboard puzzle kit, all the better, but that would, and like you say, Sharon, maybe the next door neighbor would plug into that and say, okay, just put my house in here, put the next one, because that neighborhood, as you say, is going through pretty robust changes, and there's a lot of things going on over there that are unchecked by any sort of, I don't know if there's any. Historic overview or anyone zoning or anything else.
[Libby Brown]: I will, I will say that the historical commission is. You know, doing. As much as they can to maintain some of the. Houses. But there's only so much they can do.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: 100 homes or whatever, I forget what we have in our few districts here. And I know Ryan, you know, steps in when people want to demolish some of the things and provides design review to try to, you know, push things in certain directions and maybe, you know, have a better outcome than some of these other possibilities where just people do what they want. So I would be in favor of supporting you, Sharon, to get the district done and to maybe do a little creative districting if we can, and maybe pull together. Because I think if we had the public hearing and we had a city council meeting and everything that, and all the ducks were aligned, it probably could you know, we could make something happen on a pretty modest scale, but still maybe tie a few things in that aren't in just your district. But certainly move ahead with yours right now and just, you know, start the ball rolling with that. So I'm in favor of starting the process for sharing and seeing where that takes us.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, Charlotte.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: You have to unmute again, Charlotte.
[Libby Brown]: I think she's frozen.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, maybe. Charlotte, are you there? No, I think her connection went down or something. And, you know, Chris, I think you could open it up to any other members of the public that are on the call, if they have any comments or any opinion on this. No, Charlie is still trying. Your screenshot is frozen, so it doesn't look like anything's happening.
[Libby Brown]: And I say a few more things about historical single house historic districts. Do you. I did a little research.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, go ahead.
[Libby Brown]: Chris, you're muted now.
[Christopher Bader]: Sorry, I was coughing. So, yes, go ahead.
[Libby Brown]: Well, so I would suggest using this approach of single house districts. And hopefully to expand that some of them into multi house districts but just approach it as a single house district house by house, you know, owner by owner that it supports it, you know, provided that there's some historic value to the house. heard numbers that there's an estimated 3,000. It's an estimation. It's impossible to tell how many pre-1900 houses there are left in Medford. And I don't know whether that includes other buildings like the like the Bigelow block or the Usher block or anything like that. So roughly half of those are estimated to be pre-1855. But as I said, it's impossible to know exactly with the data that we have available. A lot of those houses have been altered, like vinyl sided. you know, as you know, that architectural detail stripped and you think, oh, okay, it was built in, you know, 1889, but it looks like, you know.
[Christopher Bader]: 1970, right?
[Libby Brown]: Or I wouldn't, yeah. I mean, you might know it's that way because of the foundation or something.
[Christopher Bader]: I particularly, my particular, you know, bugaboo is these bay windows that are just stuck on the outside. They're just sort of glued onto the outside of the house.
[Libby Brown]: But... Yeah, so for instance, right. But you know, the houses that still have architectural details still have some of the old, you know, beauty to them. Not to say these other houses are not beautiful, but you know. Okay. I mean, as we know, this development is going crazy. Houses are being renovated beyond recognition. And so we're losing our old houses rapidly. I don't have to tell you that. What I did was I looked through the MACRS database and I filtered out so that I just had houses as best I could. you know, I came up with 832 extant residential buildings that includes like some small apartment buildings, like six apartments type thing. Yeah, only of those 832 houses only 29 I I could only tell that 29 were protected by either being in a local historic district. Now you said there were a lot more in your district, but- A lot more what? What? A lot more houses. I mean, so I came up with 29 that are either in a local historic district or they have another sort of preservation easement on them. Okay.
[Christopher Bader]: That could be right. I'm not sure.
[Libby Brown]: OK. Of those 832 houses, 17 are in the National Historic Registry, but only eight of those 17 are protected. And there's an additional 25 houses that have been identified as being eligible. They meet the criteria for the National Historic Registry. They're not on it, but they've met the criteria. And none of those are protected. And then like some of the ones we already mentioned, grandfather's house, you'd be surprised. Grandfather's house is not protected. As far as I can tell, and maybe Ryan left the call, but he would know better, the Jonathan Wade house on Bradley Road is not protected. It's not in a local historic district, and it doesn't, as far as I can tell, have a preservation restriction on it. Isaac calls house is does not is not protected.
[Christopher Bader]: Yep.
[Libby Brown]: The engineer house next to the library. Yeah, you know that beautiful gothic building.
[Christopher Bader]: We're definitely we definitely. I mean the topic for a member square historic district there's a whole other question.
[Libby Brown]: Right, but I wouldn't worry about that. I would get these houses now.
[Christopher Bader]: I see, okay.
[Libby Brown]: As long as the people, as long as the owners are for it, you know, these are like easy houses that the community would support and we just would have to check with, but then there's tons more, you know, like my house, you know, and there's tons more that don't have forms in MACRS. Um, yeah, so that was my feeling is that, uh, could be a good way to approach things and you can string them together when you can, but at least you'd start saving the houses or protecting the houses. Let's put it that way.
[Unidentified]: Sure.
[Libby Brown]: You know, before it's too late before somebody dies and the house gets sold to, you know, the, um, Anyway, I'll stop.
[Christopher Bader]: Thank you. Okay. Let's see. Charlotte, are you back? Still no Charlotte.
[Libby Brown]: Okay, well- She came back and she left.
[Christopher Bader]: I have to say, speaking from my, Speaking for myself, I tend to agree with Fred. I tend to favor the gerrymander approach just because it's less paperwork for us and it allows buy-in for people who hear about it and say, oh, we should do that too. But we don't really have enough people here to make that decision.
[Libby Brown]: So- I just wanted to put it out there and- No, no, no, we hear you and this should definitely go forward.
[Christopher Bader]: I mean, certainly 21 Turo grandfather's house and your house should all be incorporated into historic districts, whether it's a single historic district or whether we formally do it as three separate historic districts, that remains to be seen. But I agree completely that yes, your house should be an historic district one way or the other. Charlotte is not a co-host. Okay. Hmm. Zach, are you back on the call? No. All right, well, that's pretty much it for this evening. I realize that's not very conclusive.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Hello?
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. Yes, hi.
[Maryanne Adduci]: I'm from the public. I'm from the public, and I was wondering if, I sent two letters to the historic commission meeting, and I cc'd the historic district commission. I sent one letter on the 14th of March, and the second letter was on April 10th. And I was wondering if you got them. This is about 78 Carding Street.
[Christopher Bader]: Right. Oh, okay. And what's your name, ma'am?
[Maryanne Adduci]: My name is Mary Ann, and the last name is Adusi, A-D-D-U-C-I, and I'm at 2 North Street.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. Yes, I got your letter. Did you hear what I had to say?
[Maryanne Adduci]: Have you gotten two of them or just one?
[Christopher Bader]: I think I got two. I assumed they were the same one.
[Maryanne Adduci]: No, it's two different letters, but I mean, it's the same property. One was on March 14th and the other one was on April 10th. Yes.
[Christopher Bader]: No, I think I got both of them, yes.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Okay. Now, it seemed to me that the rest of your commissioners didn't have any information on 78 Carding Street. the form B report or the inventory report or whatever you call it, I would ask you to also forward them my copies of my letters.
[Christopher Bader]: I will do that, absolutely. All right.
[Maryanne Adduci]: I'm not the owner, I'm just, you know, yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: No, no, and you're, I had actually planned to discuss it, that's why I put it on the agenda, but then I realized I hadn't reached out to the owners and I didn't want them to, Yeah, no, I understand.
[Maryanne Adduci]: No, no, no, I understand. But I, where you, you had mentioned that you were going to circulate the Farm B report to the- I will do that. Yeah, no, but I mean, from when you said that, I said, well, they probably haven't got anything yet.
[Christopher Bader]: Right, right. So, yes, that's correct. And we'll discuss this, you know, in a more serious way at our next meeting.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Right, okay. Because they did discuss it, the historical commission had a meeting on Monday night and they made reference to the fact that it was going to be discussed tonight at the historic district commission, but they didn't really go into it very much. They just said it was going to be discussed tonight, but that's OK. I mean, you can set your own agenda up whenever you want to discuss it.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. No, no, definitely my fault for. No problem. But, you know, actually, you know, from a legal standpoint, we have to give them, I don't know, 14 days notice and all this kind of thing.
[Maryanne Adduci]: So, yeah, yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: So we will, we will, we will, we will, we will.
[Maryanne Adduci]: While I have you on the call, let me ask you a question. I live on the route of the Middlesex Canal, and I have already spoken to the Middlesex Canal Commission. And I spoke to the Medford Historical Society, because I don't know who's got jurisdiction here. But I would like to donate a marker that I wouldn't put on my house, but I would put on someplace close here. I don't know if you're familiar with the intersection of North Carding, West, and Auburn Street. There's a monument there. It's called Leahy Square. It looks like a tombstone, but it's a memorial to a World War I soldier who passed away. Well, it's a diamond-shaped little triangle of space. And I was thinking that would be a good place to put the marker for the Middlesex Canal, because the Middlesex Canal came right up West Street in front of the intersection here, and then it veered off a little bit onto North Street, then it went behind where Walkman Court is. So I said, the Middlesex Canal people told me they didn't have any money to put a marker. And the Medford Historical Society, they didn't have money to put a marker, but I volunteered to pay for a marker. So when it comes time to do this, who do I go to? Do I go to you or who do I go to?
[Christopher Bader]: Well, strictly speaking, it's I'm passing the buck here, but it's the historical commission from the standpoint of the city of Medford and the canal commission is probably statewide, right?
[Maryanne Adduci]: It's probably a state commission. Well, there's a Middlesex Canal Commission, which is a state overseen, and it was supposed to have one representative in each town. They told me when I called, when they set this up in the 1970s, It was Tom Lincoln, but I haven't been successful in connecting with Tom Lincoln. I don't know if he's still the Metro representative or some or someone else's, but I talked, but I talked to the Middlesex canal association, which is, you know, they're, they're, they're the whole shooting match there. They, they, they have maps and so forth. Uh, and they told me that some of their records are kept at the UMass, uh, Lowell campus. But as far as who's got the authority actually here, I don't know. I'm willing to foot the bill. So it should be a no-brainer. And I have a surveyed map that shows that it did go by here.
[Christopher Bader]: That's right. There are actually no no-brainers in city government, but. So from a practical standpoint, I would suggest the following things. First of all, you can contact Tom Lincoln through the Royal House. Do you know what that is?
[Libby Brown]: Yeah, yeah. He's not the executive director anymore.
[Christopher Bader]: He's not, but they know how to contact him.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Well, I know where he lives. He lives on Gleason Street. Yeah, I could just send him a letter.
[Christopher Bader]: There you go. And, you know, I'm not sure what Brianna's policy on this kind of thing is, but Mayor McGlynn would always be to say, you know, you got a problem, you come to me. And so I would try the mayor and just say, you know, I can't get anyone to take ownership of this.
[Maryanne Adduci]: Well, it's not that I can't, I just, I think, you know, there's no disputing it. It came by here. There's a piece of land here that we could put it on and I'm willing to pay for it. So I don't think anybody would refuse it, but I don't know.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. No, no. If you wanna cut red tape, what I would do is, as I say, this would, Mayor McGlynn would definitely have said, come to me. I'm not sure the mayor, Brianna would take exactly the same attitude, but I would go ahead and try and contact her. See what she has to say.
[Maryanne Adduci]: I'll start with Tom Lincoln first and see what he thinks. And if I can't get ahold of him, I'll go to the mayor.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, terrific.
[Maryanne Adduci]: All right, well, thanks for the info. Okay.
[Christopher Bader]: And we will discuss Serbian cutting at our next meeting.
[Maryanne Adduci]: All right.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, so one final thing. We sort of, we need a strategy going forward for creating historic districts, you know, whether it be, you know, many, many single house historic districts, maybe it's focusing on Medford Square until we get that through. Maybe it's sort of gerrymandering historic districts, whatever. I think we need some professional advice. And I'm thinking about contacting Chris Skelly to work as a consultant for the commission. Fred or Charlotte, do you have any opinions on that? Fred?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Charlotte, you're muted again if you want to go first.
[Christopher Bader]: No, I'm not muted.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: No, Charlotte is, though.
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, OK.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to try again, Charlotte. No, can't hear you.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Can you hear me now?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. It keeps muting itself. I'm having a problem with the computer tonight.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. So I mentioned, I brought up the possibility of the former head of the of, or the person who, the person who handled historic districts at the Massachusetts Historical Commission is named Chris Skelly. And he has actually left city government and he's now, it's now been about a year since he left city government, state government. So I think he's free to consult and, I just wondered if people thought it was a good idea, if A, we need professional advice, and B, if Chris Kelly would be a good person to contact.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'll give you my two cents. If we can have the city budget pay for it, and I don't know if that's possible or not, it would be good. I agree with you completely. better way to do this because our small commission is pretty, it's not easy for us to do these things. So I think maybe Sharon's been great as a volunteer and Charlotte and Ryan and whether we you know, partner with the historical commission, a couple of people there, um, to, to bring a little more manpower to this stuff. Cause if, if, if it's truth be told, if it's up to us, HTC commission to do it, it's, it's, it's not going to really get done in a manner. We can do, we can tackle Sharon's house. I think we can get that done, but going door to door up and down forest street and trying to change minds over there. is a tall order that I don't think we're going to be capable of doing. And if somebody like Chris could bring their years of expertise of how to win minds and influence people, then better. But I guess we'd have to find out what his fees are, get them approved by the budget, and go accordingly. But I think in terms of a residential group here in the city of Medford that can get these things done. We've got to reach out and build a bigger coalition than we have now. And Sharon, I'm looking to you to help with that. So I'll do it. Brian will do it. Get some people in the commission, maybe some of our newer members will step up and do these things. Because we have to follow certain rules and you got to do some steps and it's a process. So Shane, what do you think about that?
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: I think you're right, Fred. It is a process and we do need help.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. So you think I should go ahead and contact Chris and see if he can consult for us on strategy?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, if that's a service he can provide and how much he expects to be paid for it and all those things. You know, and whether that brings, it'd be up for us, whether that really brings value.
[Christopher Bader]: Exactly. Exactly. No, I'm not saying it's more of a conclusion that he can offer something valuable, but I just, I thought it was worth pursuing.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. Charlotte, do you agree?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. Good. Good. Sharon, do you have an opinion?
[Libby Brown]: I think any advice that can be given, it would be a great idea. Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. Sounds great. Okay. Well, we're over time. So let's let's wrap it up.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Chris, can I just say one thing? I'm sorry. You'd send me an email about my commission. expiring in Charlotte as well. So I went down to city hall and I talked to the woman in the mayor's office and filled out some forms and some paperwork and all that to keep on going. So Charlotte, I don't know if you had a chance to do that for you to get another letter of recommendation from Brianna and get sworn in again, but that I think we might have to be doing. So how do I go about it, Fred? Well, I went to the mayor's office, and the woman in the mayor, I have her name, I don't remember off the top of my head, but she forwarded me, maybe I could even just forward you, she sent me an email, it's all online. I'm Frederick Soll, I wanna be part of the Historic District Commission, here's my name and phone number, and there's a little box where you type in why you do this and that sort of stuff. And I sent that back to them. And they have to, the mayor has to write a letter that then we have to go to city hall, the clerk's office and sign in. And you got to do the, the form for the open meeting review and the conflict of interest laws, you know, you got to keep that stuff up to date. So, you know, there's a few, few hoops to jump through to, to keep up. Okay.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Can you just send me off the information and I'll take care of it.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: All right. We'll do.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, I'll take care of that.
[Christopher Bader]: By the way, just for everyone's reference, Nino has now left the commission officially.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah?
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. He offered to resign, but he doesn't really need to because his term has also expired. And I think we should probably write a letter thanking him for God knows how many years of service
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, Trooper did this for a long time. Yeah, I've been on this commission for over a decade now. So we'll figure just I don't know how it happens, but it happens.
[Christopher Bader]: You agree we should write a letter Charlotte and have it signed by the mayor.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it'd be great if we all sign it. Okay. Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, terrific. Okay, so can I have a motion to adjourn?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Motion to adjourn.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, Greg?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Second motion.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, all in favor?
[Libby Brown]: I just want to ask a quick question.
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, sure.
[Libby Brown]: The names of the new members, what were they?
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, I have them. Okay, just a moment. Hold on.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Joyce and Chris, I said at the beginning, is that correct?
[Christopher Bader]: One of them is named Chris, the other is named Joyce.
[Libby Brown]: But they have surnames, don't they?
[Christopher Bader]: They have surnames, yes, they do. Yes, they do. Let's see. Just a moment. Give me a second here. Okay, so it is Joyce Paul, and her email is Joyce, do you want me to send out there? Their emails are in the, I sent you an email for this meeting, Sharon, and you'll see her email in there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: It's Joyce, her email is Joyce2Paul.
[Libby Brown]: Yeah, I believe I know her.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. And the other one is Christopher Donovan.
[Libby Brown]: And his email is I know him as well.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. All right. Yes, and I I'm disappointed they're not here but but hopefully we'll get them here for our next week.
[MCM00001798_SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And I guess before you should ask if anyone else has any business.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, yes, yes. Good point. Does anyone else have anything they they want to discuss? I see there are some other people on the call. Hello.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: So maybe it doesn't sound like there is so that's good.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. So let's, let's, let's, let's.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: So I said, Charlie made a motion to adjourn. I second the motion.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. All in favor.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Aye.
[Christopher Bader]: Aye. Oh, we have to do it. I'm sorry, I have to call the roll because it's the roll.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: So Charlotte.
[Christopher Bader]: Fred.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Christopher Bader]: I vote yes. Okay, so I'll see everybody next month. The date is, let me just check here. The date is May 12th. Same time, same bad time, same bad show. All right, have a happy Easter, everyone. Okay, happy Easter, Charlotte. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
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