[Christopher Bader]: OK, let's get started. So the details of the contract I want Fred to be here for, if he can make it. So why don't we move on to communication strategies. I have my ideas. I think Chris Donovan, you have your ideas. Sharon, you have yours. And we want to run them all by Fred.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I want to have a party. That's my idea. Yes. Yes. Right.
[Christopher Bader]: OK.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I think we save the party till after we actually get the district made. And then we have a huge party.
[Christopher Bader]: I think that's a good idea. Chris Donovan, why don't you go ahead and tell us what your ideas are on communication strategies.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Well, I guess, you know, communication that that's the larger picture of everything that's kind of going out there. So I'll see what I can do about that. Outreach, you know, Sharon and I have been talking about some kind of like personal database of kind of networking to the right people through, you know, kind of sneaker netting and, you know, over the fence, you know, talking and trying to advocate that. I'm just trying to see if we can get us together for a little bit of a cocktail party or something, see if we could kind of promote you know, this as the core of why it's good. So I did a lot of soul searching, not soul searching, researching Chris Skelly and Chris Bader about what is a historic district and what it means, the guidelines, and that's kind of the purpose of with you, Chris Skelly, today is what can we write down and either hand people or say to people, and I got a little bit better understanding of what the historic district is all about. And so I feel better about talking about it, you know, to people and what it's not, right? What it's not. So that's kind of where we stand right now is how is that messaging getting out? And if I didn't understand it, and I'm helping to kind of create some of it, but Chris Skelly, I'm happy more than to grab pre-produced a brochure. I made a trifold. I made a trifold of what's a historic district and how it affects you. You know, something really simple to hand out, but it's also digital. But what is the message? How are we going to sort of get it out? Do we do it video, access TV, a little bit of everything? Do we need to talk to everybody? Is it just the core players? Is it just the core players plus distance? Is that the win? When do we take it in front of city council? I think it should be some fanfare. I think it should be exciting when we either celebrate getting it done or getting it into the mix because that's what it to me is. It's a celebration of an area. It's also architectural preservation and and restoration. And so even looking up something about tax credits, and why were the positive benefits, you know, of it other than having a neighborhood, you know, look kind of like it did, right, it's going to be some continuity with that, but is there any tax credits or grants or can we bring the city Chris Bader to to the area and say hey by celebrating this area we're going to you know put some landscaping time in it so those are the reasons why you know I want to get it up to the community that's a positive you know thing the local historic district.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay what are you thinking as far as actual media in the literal sense, like brochures, in-person visits, what do you think?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So I think there's a grassroots level, which Sharon and I were going to talk about, and we could make it sort of more public, whatever you think, Sharon, on that. We'll talk about that. But what are the players? We almost know them. It's almost, Sharon, how many homes are in the district?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: There's 15 pre-1855 houses, and I think we threw, well, my house and then a couple others in just to make continuity.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: In total, how many homes?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I think it's under 20.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, let's say 20 for the sake of argument.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Are those 20 contacted? Chris Skelly, how should we sort of approach those? We have a lot of people that are advocates right now already of it. I don't know what the other ones are, what the numbers are, where we have an actual database or just a sort of a checklist on the back of an envelope. But how do we go down that list of making sure those 20 homes that are going to be in the historic district are notified either So softly for first introduction to it, and then the formal will have to come out. And that's the index card or bingo card, Chris Skelly, we have to make to send out to everyone is that the official stamp.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: So I'm gonna tell you how this works best. And that's if you are not the lead, that if it's some of the actual residents of the proposed district, they are the ones actually reaching out to other neighbors. Often it ends up being, yes, the Historic District Commission, that's the lead, but it's not the best approach. And you really run some risk of just being the authority that you're not quite as, don't come across quite as trustworthy when you're part of city government. That's just how it is. So yeah, I'd much rather see The neighbors talking to neighbors about this, and that they're the they're the voices, their voices right within the neighborhood saying this is what we, this is what we want, we need a local historic district and here are the reasons why. So I think having some of those public. Those informational pieces like you said I mentioned a brochure you're working on those are great to have. But if the neighborhood meeting themselves or if the handouts could be done neighbor to neighbor, that's that works best.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: That's what I was talking about. Sharon, do you want to say something?
[Christopher Bader]: Go ahead, Sharon.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: So, you know, we have to go to the city council and get them to, like, say, OK, go ahead. Right. I mean, we have to present it to them.
[Christopher Bader]: No.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, we do. We do. Well it's part of the flowchart, but also they want to know what's going on, like last time with four street we didn't do that. So what I want to do is, you know exactly what Chris Kelly said, I can't just say Chris. So my house is not a pre 1855, but I want to make it into a district. And so this is my neighborhood that we're talking about. I know a number of the owners of these houses. And of course I know a lot of other neighbors as well. I want to talk personally me and Chris, whatever, you know, as a, I'm not on the, on the historic district committee, by the way, I'm just as a citizen volunteer here.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: In the historic district, Chris Skelly, which is what we were just talking with someone from within the district. promoting this, and I don't want to put that all on Sharon's shoulders to do that, but I think we do have a couple of people that are pro it. So if the campaign kind of comes through their voices, but I don't want to put that on them, but I do understand how it reads better to the public.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: We've got at least two owners besides myself and probably more that are into it.
[Christopher Bader]: Who are those?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I'm sorry?
[Christopher Bader]: Who are the other two people besides yourself?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Oh, well, the owners of Grandfather's House.
[Christopher Bader]: Yep.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: And Anne Marie. Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm blanking on it now. 48 South Street.
[Christopher Bader]: 48 South, OK. And what's the name of the owner of Grandfather's House?
[Unidentified]: The Wheelers.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Kelsey and Miles.
[Unidentified]: Kelsey and Miles Wheeler. OK.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And so I think for all of them, they still need the information, but I think they understand the nature of it and are positive behind supporting it.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: So my thought is, you know, we go and talk to these people, I can get them to come with me and talk to some of the other neighbors. And, you know, just get these 20 houses on board. We're not going to get them all on board. Three of the houses, three of the pre-1855 houses are owned by developers at this point. So I don't even know if I want to bother talking to them. Yeah, and we go with the brochure or a flyer or a handout, we'll talk to them about what it means to be a historic district, the benefits or the pros, the cons, or if you wanna call them cons, what you can do, what you can't do, all that, but leave them with a flyer, also some links on there so they can look things up. And then hopefully we'll have a majority on board and we go, you know. I'm thinking not a lot of fanfare. You go to the city council and you say, hey, we're going to do this.
[Christopher Bader]: We have all these neighbors on board. Sorry, I was negative earlier. That's not appropriate. Yeah. No, I think you're right.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So Chris Bader, Sharon, do we have those 20, we have the 20 names of the homes, excuse me, the addresses. Of course. We'll equate them with a name and we'll at least make the show those 20 are identified and we've reached out to them. Sharon, you and I will do that.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, let's do that.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So that's kind of informal, but we'll come back to the next meeting with an acknowledgment of everyone that we've talked to or who's still outstanding. But Chris Skelly, we feel like that's good step one. That's all the people in the district and everyone that may come out and support it or sign for it. When you're saying they have to advocate for it, it seems like we're asking them to step up and do stuff that I'm sure they'll be proud of and excited about, but it's a little time consuming. Your thoughts?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, you just want a few people from the district itself that can really be advocating throughout.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: That's talking about the local historic district, neighbor to neighbor, but also when you get to the point of going to city council, that it's not just the historic district commission going to council, it's actually the public hearing, city council, the property owners themselves are getting up and saying, we want a local historic district and these are the reasons why.
[Christopher Bader]: So I think that's a very good approach. Fred, do you have some notions on some ideas on community outreach? What our approach should be?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: No, I like the idea of some little just eight and a half by 11 colored flyer that we could make up of what that is. And just, if we can, knock on doors and put it under doorways, whatever it takes with contact information. And I guess the other thing would be to start to, you know, once we have some momentum on this, to meet with the individual city councilors, you know, to, to give them a heads up. So it's not a surprise that everybody knows it's coming.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: So you don't think we need to go in front of them and say, Hey, we've got these people on board and whatever. We just talk to them individually. So then I was coming.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, we do have to, we'll have to be voted on.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, at the end you have to because they have to read it into the thing and improve it, but.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that we do that before the official meeting. I think you could do it just walking around City Hall or however we approach it to talk with them individually and try to get as many as possible on board. And then you go with the official vote, which may,
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And then everyone says, oh yeah, they already came by. I talked to Chris about it and, you know, I'm aware of this and. They hopefully have already voted, made up their mind. Hopefully positively, but one way or the other about the district before the meeting.
[Christopher Bader]: What do you think we're scaling? Do we approach city council now or.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I'm gonna imagine city council likes to know what's going on in their city. So yeah, I think communicating what you're thinking about is always a good idea. But officially, no, they're not officially part of that process right now. You're in charge of moving forward with this or not. And they're only gonna get officially involved after the public hearing when it goes to the council vote for the two-thirds majority. Sure, I would imagine they'd like to hear what activities you're working on.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I've dropped it to a couple of councilors just that there's some excitement coming from the South Street Historic District and maybe coming up in front of you in a couple of months, but didn't go through the details of that, but there's some energy out there that they know something's happening.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, that is that one of the big things in with the forest street historic district was that they said we had no idea this was happening, we, you know, and they got all, you know, up in arms about it and, you know, you have to prevent that.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Well, the other thing, the official, we went in front of them officially for the single house historic district. I forget that. We never got to the official meeting with them, but there was pushback from the city councilors because, you know, the developer was there with his team and they were sort of blindsided that we, the historic district commission was supporting this and hadn't reached out to them and inform them. And they were sort of put in a, a difficult spot and had to vote like right then and there without sort of advocates on our side coming to prep them for all this stuff. So I think the secret of city council is no surprises. They have to know what's on their agenda and what's coming.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Of course, we have a different makeup now than we did then.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Everyone that I know seems pretty amenable. I mean, I probably talked to maybe four out of the seven of them and I'm excited for history to be acknowledged in the city. That's kind of where that comes from. It's not zoning, right? That's another thing we'll maybe talk about later. Chris Kelly, the zoning issues in some of my stuff is beautification and history and notification and markers and all that kind of stuff. But some of the stuff we'll get to, which I think Fred was on for the guidelines, what things are. and aren't important to know about a historic district. And I got new paperwork from Sharon to review that. What is a historic district? Can I paint my house? Can I change the color? So I have a lot of that here, and I can repurpose that into a piece of paper, Chris Bader, for our own branding of stuff that's already been, the stuff I was kind of looking for Chris Skelly to do. I think he probably already presented it to us before. This is some stuff Sharon had sent me, which is just- Oh, that's the flow chart, yeah.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: from the historical. Isn't there a step on there that says, talk to the city council?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: That's a public hearing. No, in the beginning.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Anyway, it doesn't matter. I think we're on.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it doesn't matter. That's only if you don't have a local historic district already. You already have a historic district commission. Let's say you had no local historic district commission. then they would be appointing, then the city council would appoint a study committee or the mayor, depending on your form of government.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I see, okay, so we already have a- You already have a- We put together, yeah, okay.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So I'm gonna put down in the notes that Sharon and I are gonna go contact the 20 district homeowners in some way, shape or form, right? As some kind of outreach, as step one.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: And I would think of it as, present it as listening sessions. This is really about, asking them, giving them some sense of what a local historic district means, but you're not really necessarily trying to convince anyone of everything. You really want to hear what they want to ask for questions and leave the floor open for them so that they can really express whether they think this is a good idea or not.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. Yeah.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Go ahead, Chris Bader.
[Christopher Bader]: Sure. One thing that I'd like to add to, for one thing, PB, David Ensign — He-Him, He-Him. He-Him. He-Him. in my opinion, and I welcome everybody's input on this, a brochure explaining, you know, not just what you can and can't do, but what the goals are of creating a historic district. And in particular, that it's a, I thought about this in the past couple of weeks, in particular, it's a means for the community to have input on what happens to the buildings in their community. That is, we listen to the residents and the developers listen to us. I think that should be part of our message. Yeah, I think as long as you're making it clear that there's room for new growth in Medford. Oh yeah, of course, right. But I think we need to contact our, are we need to craft our content very carefully and have it reviewed by the group before we send out brochures or throw stuff up on the webpage or whatever, because I've gotten a lot of pushback on our FAQs. People are really put off by them.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And- I have them here, Chris Bader. I thought they were excellent.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: No, those aren't the ones that they did. Those are the ones that Kit Nichols put together.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: It says does method already have historic district so it's method basis that same one Sharon.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah. If it's the one I sent you, it's, it's not.
[Christopher Bader]: Is it the web is the FAQs on the web page on the website.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I maybe was originally taken from there but I was rewritten.
[Christopher Bader]: Let me.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: It just seemed very succinct, Chris. Chris Bader, it seemed informative. A lot of questions were there that I was asking. I go, oh, so a lot of things can be pulled from there for this content you may be talking about. But those were I thought they were really well done in the Medford centric.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Kit Nichols and I were trying to organize something just to get people interested in historic districts and saving historic houses so the both processes of the HDC and also the HC, and just what kinds of things you can do. And so we were also talking about the need for design review in Medford. So it was a bigger thing. And Kit wrote these things up.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Sharon, can we run them by Chris Skelly and Chris Bader and let them kind of look at them and you can outline, scratch them, but it's kind of the basis.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: And there may already be something out there, Chris Skelly that- It needs to be shortened and whatever, but that was, yeah.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah. I'll send that to Sharon. We'll send that to you. We'll send that to you, Chris Skelly, if you could look at them, but it was kind of well done, but it was a FAQ page. Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. So yeah. So I like, Before we go forward with the community outreach, I'd like everybody to have a shot at making comments on what's in the brochure. I'm sorry, what's in the brochure, what's on the webpage, and what our message is when we're going door to door. Because we want to have a clear message, I think. And I think having group review of this, I mean, you know, five heads are better than one is all I'm saying.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And I think it's really upbeat and positive. I think it's an exciting thing. So it should be reflective of that versus the list of rules.
[Christopher Bader]: Right, right. Okay, so what I would propose is maybe Sharon and Chris Donovan, maybe you guys can put together your ideas for what should go in the brochure. what, if anything should go on the webpage, if it needs to be changed and submit it to the group and enter Chris Skelly, and then we'll talk again. At the next meeting. And review that and make some suggestions. Does that make sense?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah. Fred, on that note with Chris, the things to be created was the architectural guidelines. I think that was your thing, which seems like really the nitty gritty of homeownership, because it seemed like a lot of the other stuff that I read was, don't worry about the small stuff around your house, but what are the things that you sink your teeth into for those guidelines?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's on my plate. And I admit, I've had a couple things keeping me away from that, but that's my goal is to submit a draft of those guidelines, whatever they are. I was gonna look at some of the neighboring towns and how Arlington does it, for instance, or whatever. And prepare it up, try to keep it simple, try to keep it short, not get into the weeds if we can.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, I think staying out of the weeds is a good idea.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: But basically people go through major renovations or something that coming before the historic district commission. That's, that's the teeth that we're, you know, the other stuff seems celebratory and don't worry about this, the small, you know, kind of things, but what is the stuff that brings them in front of the commission that, that, you know, we can push back on that's too much. That's overreach. And Chris go that may come to you is how much can we get in to make sure that people don't overreach in the community, which is the, you know, the other side of this commission. Right. My one side celebratory that, you know, want to do, but the other side is how much is too much. And is that what zoning with us Councilors do we already, I think we have some people that are working on new zoning, you know, things in the city, how that ties in with the historic part. I don't know, but be nice to work together on that.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Chris, that's rather confusing. The only part of zoning that's important in this context is what the MHDC does, and that once a historic district is approved, it's read, it becomes part of the ordinances, the city ordinances. And that's part of the zoning. So what are you talking about? Like what it means to be in a historic district? What can the owner do and not do?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yes.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Okay.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And that's what the architectural guidelines were, which is it's not what they can't do. How are they limited by being in the historic district?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah. Okay. That's basically.
[Christopher Bader]: So can everyone put together specifically the text that you want to put into the brochure or the website and submit it to all five people here. And then we'll talk about it in two weeks. Does that make sense?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Okay.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, so, uh, Christie, Chris Kelly, do you think we're on the right track here?
[Unidentified]: So it sounds like there's a design guidelines projects as going on as well.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: No, no. There's multiple things being talked about here. I think all that architectural detail was just what can and can't be done.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: My interpretation, Sharon, is that those are the design guidelines. If you come and you want to replace your siding, if you want to replace your windows or what if I have vinyl siding on my house and I don't want to remove it or whatever. And then what Chris Donovan is talking about, I think the more the zoning is and it comes up to us in the district is most of these old homes are single family homes, but the developer wants to come in and turn them into multifamily housing. And that triggers some zoning interpretations as well. So hopefully we're not getting into the weeds with that stuff, but those are the sorts of things, some of the houses on South Street where, all right, it was a single family house, guy wants to, I forget the address, but down the road, convert it to a four family. So those are the things that involve zoning more so than historic preservation.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Well, I guess if it's part of a historic district, you can tell them, you know, you can't add another door or whatever.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I'm not sure that we can say, listen, you're if you're allowed to have a multifamily house, we can't say sorry, you have to keep it as a single family house, for instance.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: No, probably not.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Technically, your historic district ordinance is not zoning. I'm getting into I'm getting really specific there. But technically under state law, your local historic district ordinance is not zoning. Zoning is land use, and you guys don't do land use.
[Christopher Bader]: Right. Okay. So can we move on, at least temporarily, to some details of the contract? I think, Chris Skelly, we'd like you to visit the historic site and maybe tour it with us. Yeah. Can you do that?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I can do a tour. Yep.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, great. Do we want to do that? Do we want to arrange a time right now? Or do we want to do it by email?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: You can get back to us, Chris, on a time that kind of works for you and maybe throw it around. But we don't have to make the time right now. But the fact that you're going to do it sounds great. Yeah. Okay, great.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I'd love to have it when I could be there, just because it's my neighborhood.
[Christopher Bader]: That's, that's pretty much the goal. Yes.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: So we, I mean, we go back and forth to Vermont. So I sure.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, so so I don't want to if you can send me some days and times, that would be good for you, Sharon. Same with you, Chris, the same with everybody, basically.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Sounds good. Why don't we work off Sharon and Chris Skelly's kind of windows and then see how we can fill that in. But if, Sharon, you kind of just pick a couple windows and we'll run it by Chris Skelly if you can kind of do it. Chris, with Skelly, what kind of time of day is good for you?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I mean, I think a late morning, early afternoon is probably best for me. And I can give you a bunch of dates. I think the hard part is for me to keep those dates open. So if I if I can give you a bunch of dates in the next few weeks.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So you're saying like 11 to two, 11 to two in the daytime?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, and I think that's, well, that works well for my schedule, but also works well just for daylight hours as well. Yeah, obviously we can't do this in daylight. Yeah, the hard part for me is just holding a lot of days open. When I get those doodle pulls sometimes and it's like 20 different, 20, 30 different, times that I got to keep open and I can't really hold them for that long.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Chris Kelly into the south street in the next in the next month or so.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can easily do that. Okay. And Chris Kelly, can you give us an idea of when you could complete the once we once you have a look at the at the site and you think you either give your blessing or suggestions for exclusions or or additional inclusions. What would be the timeframe for you writing the 40C report? And really, I mean, whenever people will say no pressure, they're totally disingenuous, but I actually mean no pressure. I mean, you know, a month, two months, whatever.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Okay, yeah. I mean, in terms of what I can write, this is where it gets tricky. In terms of what I can come in and write, sure, I can do that in one to two months and get that off to you. However, this doesn't necessarily fit well into your public outreach. So you've got two targets going on here, trying to finish a study report, but also trying to do all of your outreach and that might actually, your outreach might actually change what the boundaries of the district are, depending on how things go from there. So yeah, it's hard to get, because it's not necessarily my schedule so much, it's really how your outreach goes that's gonna be the driving force on when this study report is done and you're ready to go towards public hearing. And you can't rush it. If you try to rush this, if you try to rush your public outreach, it's pretty much going to go over like the balloon there. It goes down in flames pretty quick. As I think you've learned, you get a lot of bad feelings if you try to rush these things.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: And I hate it when my list goes down.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: But in this case, we have like 20 owners to deal with. And it's not like we're having to contact the whole street like we did with Forest Street. So I don't think it's going to take that long and we'll know who's in, who's not.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: OK, great. I think if you do a lot of that really face-to-face personal outreach, we'll have a really good sense of this. A lot of times people just send out a survey survey that goes out in the mail. What do you think? And they get a 20% response rate back. And it's like, Oh, yeah, that was it's positive. It's a people think this is a great idea. And then it goes on in the public hearing.
[Christopher Bader]: We did that last time when it was disaster. Okay. Yep.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah. I mean, there were too many there were too many houses involved.
[Christopher Bader]: I agree with that, too.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. Part of the report is going to be the methodology. So there's a section of the report that talks about how we arrived at the time right now, a completed study report. And that's going to be a lot about outreach there. So I'm working with another community right now, and they're ready to write the study report. And I said, no, you haven't done enough outreach. That's got to really be well underway. can always change a little bit, but you really have got to have your outreach well underway by the time you have a study report completed.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: So Sharon, excuse me, you feel like we've touched a lot of these people, right? We're probably, you know, maybe 40, 30, 40% knowing who's behind this, who's going to approve this, right? We don't have many people left to go to, to get that outreach done, at least for the, for the district itself. Do you, do you think how many more people think we need? Maybe six, eight, 10?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: You mean out of, you know, we need to contact all of them, I guess. the developers are gonna say no, but.
[Unidentified]: I would do the outreach to the developers too.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: I mean, more density in the neighborhood is not necessarily a bad thing. And they may be concerned that you were opposed to additional units. When I hope that you're not, I hope that's not part of the reason for establishing a local historic district. I hope it's really about protecting the architectural significance of the area.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah. But see what developers do is they take an old house, they make it into two. That's not the problem itself, but then they completely redo it, you know, inside and out. We have no jurisdiction of the inside, but the outside, and it doesn't look historic. you know, it looks plastic.
[Christopher Bader]: If I may, Sharon, that, it depends on how we regulate it.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Right, but that's after, that's after it becomes a historic district, not ahead. So right now, they might, well, I mean, they're going to have it done before it becomes a district anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: We'll see about that. there's lots of ways that that you could still have additional units and they can still they can still have no as i said the additional units don't have to be the issue it's you know they won't like not being able to do what they want to the outside yeah yep it will it will have some impact on what they can do for for changes to the exterior of the building yep
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, Chris. With that answer, Chris Kelly, does that mean you kind of not shoehorn them, but you, you, you, you limit them to certain looks. And that's not, that's not a crazy thing to ask if they got additional units and they passed that bar. We just want nods to, to, to the, the, the time periods of that, that, that area. Yeah.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: So it's not, it's, it's quite possible that this happens in other communities that, uh, especially when you have design guidelines, that you can point to design guidelines and say, here's what we want to see in the historic district. Here's the kinds of changes to an exterior that we would likely approve. And that can make it a whole lot more palatable to go, oh, OK, that doesn't sound so bad at all then.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, I'm sure they want modern and fresh and all that too. But some of these things from the historical architectural palette are still hip, still great. They still look great. So I don't know if people know that. As long as they stayed within certain guidelines, it wouldn't necessarily be an issue with some of the growth that's there. I'd like people to see that as they are potentially maybe doing some of these growth expansion things, as long as you kind of keep it in somewhat architecturally, you know, in the same vein, you probably- It's not somewhat.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I mean, they have to be- Well, it has to be appropriate.
[Christopher Bader]: I mean, that's what I think of appropriateness.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, I mean, the house across the street that they made into a duplex, added on. They maybe gave a nod to the historic myths but it doesn't look historic at all. And it's an 1870, it was an 1875 house.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Another ham or carrot with carrot and stick. Grants, tax rebates, is there anything else that's out there? I tried to read something and Massachusetts federal, I'm not sure, is there any other things to keep people in line with potentially getting money for that if they follow certain guidelines? Is it hard?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, unfortunately in Massachusetts there isn't much for financial incentives in local historic districts. So there's federal and state tax credits, but those are for income producing properties. So if it was say a mill building that's being converted from industrial to residential units, and those are gonna be rental units. There'd be federal state tax credits that could possibly be used for that, but particularly for residential homeowners or for the residential units that are being converted. There aren't things at the federal and state level that exist. I mean you could at the city level, you could develop some sort of programs that would that would be incentives and I can I can point to a number of examples. nationwide on on local on great amazing local programs that really. give some wonderful incentives within local historic districts, but I don't have much that I can offer for examples.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: If you could send those links, Chris, or something at your leisure, if you found a couple of those, inform Chris Bader to pass down the line, because I think locally they are looking for some of that preservation stuff. They don't know what to do, but if it's CPA, they can pull someone in.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: One of the ones I heard about just last year that I thought was interesting was a couple of towns that have a small grant program. And I'm talking, it's like two, three, $4,000. And it basically, so when somebody comes in, developer comes in with their proposal for the exterior, and it doesn't meet your design guidelines, but you'd really like to see a better design. You'd like this project to happen somehow. In a few cities, they offer a grant owner can hire an architect, a preservation-based architect to go come up with a better design plan for the property. And that's paid for with the grants. I mean, it's a great program. It's low cost, because it's not bricks and mortar construction grant program.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: It's an alternative idea with, you know.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's for design assistance.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, okay. I've got a question, Chris Kelly. What about CPA, Community Preservation Act? Does the city has access to funds that it could channel to local historic districts, correct?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yep, they could. I don't know of any CPA locally based financial programs that are just for local historic districts in Massachusetts, but there is possibilities there for how CPA funds could be directed to local historic districts.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: As a commission, can we request a grant? Chris Bader, do you think that's as a commission? Can we try and get some money?
[Christopher Bader]: The city has. We enacted CPA a couple of years ago, and that gives us money of which a designated percentage, maybe 20 percent, is supposed to be focused on historic resources. That money is totally under the control of the city, correct, Chris Kelly?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: It is, yeah. Actually, I can give you an example from Springfield. It's not quite what we're looking at, but it's a great example, I think. They have a grant program in Springfield. And it basically says, if you agree to establish a local historic district on your property, we'll give you a grant.
[Unidentified]: So there you go.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: it's not a it's not a grant program when you have a local historic district and somebody comes in as I wanted to do work here. it's actually at the time of establishment we were only going to give you this grant if you agree to a single building local historic district on your property. Is that kind of perfect.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: bribings?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: It is, it is.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Yeah, no, nothing wrong with the bribing.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, look at it this way and say, you're getting public funds, you're getting public funds. Therefore, we want to make sure those public funds are well protected.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: So it's going to be, it's going to be protected through a local historic district that you can't demolish this building or, or, or do an inappropriate alterations on the exterior.
[Christopher Bader]: Can you send us, Chris Kelly, can you send us some info on that specific Springfield program you're talking about? Yeah, I think I can find something on that.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Chris Bader, I like the idea of a CPA grant, say for $10,000 as a pool that some of these people could tap into to get a historic preservation architect to maybe review their plans. Or if we had controversy, we could say, can you just work with this guy? see if you find an alternative. It's closest thing I've seen to see some kind of mediation in some as if we had money to provide them an expert, but you know, it's a wishlist. It's not a high priority, but to put a CPA grant and wait for that six months and see if we could find some slush fund for historic preservationist architect that could work on any one that's in controversy or out of compliance. Just an idea for future.
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: I'll say this about it. I reached out to the CPA committee a couple of years ago for money for design services, not for myself, but for exactly this sort of thing for planning and things, and they were not in favor of it. They would grant money for
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: And when I reached out to them, they felt that the ordinance wouldn't allow that. But even though I have examples of other towns in Acton and Groton where they were doing that, Midford kept their own policies in place.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Because I think we've probably even seen some people come through that didn't have a lot of wherewithal to get another opinion or an architect. And their architect drove them down a certain path. And you just kind of go with that. It's not the low ball, but it's the number they had in their mind. And so to have someone else that may be a preservationist that could have some other tricks up his sleeve to start.
[Christopher Bader]: Anyway, let's continue to look into this. And just one more thing, we're kind of running out of time, but Chris Kelly, what do you think? How do you, do you think we need to reach out to residents who are not, whose houses are, you know, like the neighbors of the people in the historic district? Should we reach out to them as well? Do you think that's important?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Probably only if you're thinking about making that you would consider making the district larger than the 20 that you're targeting. If they're outside the district, I don't, it doesn't. I don't know, nothing's coming to mind right now on why we would be really doing outreach.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: This kind of leads to Sharon's theory, which is kind of keep it high and tight, you know, keep it simple. Doesn't have to be, you know, citywide. Then most people aren't really that involved or involves them. Does that make sense?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: At the public hearing, you know, that's open to everybody. So, you know, it would be good to have people besides the people that are owners be there also advocating, you know, people, other people would like to see more historic districts. And so it's, yeah, I mean, it's not a bad thing, but I don't think you have to expand the pool, as Chris said, at this point.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, sounds good. Sounds good. So do we have a plan for what we're going to do before, before our next? So I suggest we talk again at the regular. I start this commission meeting in two weeks. Um, and that.
[Unidentified]: What day is that?
[Christopher Bader]: That is.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: You're going to say February 9th.
[Christopher Bader]: That's exactly what I'm going to say.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah. That's Jack's birthday.
[Christopher Bader]: You can't do that. You can't do Jack's birthday.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: What we'll see.
[Christopher Bader]: I'm sure he's a very, he's a very community minded person. I'm sure he would.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: I mean, if we're not out to dinner, I can make it easy.
[Christopher Bader]: If it's, if it's anything, it'll be easy. Or you could just, you know, have dinner Italian time or something like this.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: You know, I can't do that.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I get too hungry February 9th, February 9th. Correct. Chris Kelly, you're gonna try and get back, maybe sometime you may be able to come over for a visit.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: I have that on my list to get back with some dates for you, yep.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Okay, great. Fred, you've got design guidelines?
[MCM00001302_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: I got outreach with Sharon, we're gonna identify those 20 different people. Chris Kelly, part of that grant thing we were talking about, is there any beautification grants, anything that kind of from the district itself may get some kind of infusion of any kind of money for signage, beautification?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: That's the kind of thing you could ask the CPA for. Signage and stuff like that.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: You know, some of the decorative wrought iron barrels make the area look a little sharper. Because it makes it easy to sell people. What does the district do besides maybe limit me? Well, you know, it becomes a lot of positive as well. But it seems where this would kind of be, we're showcasing the area with some better things. But you haven't seen that, Chris.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: No, there might be some ways that you could use some of the admin funds in CPA for things like entering local historic district signage, public educational pieces like that.
[Christopher Bader]: Benches.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: I don't know how you... I mean, if CPA is open space historic preservation affordable housing, So what do you think it takes for wide benches or historic preservation project?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Wait till you're walking with us. It's beautiful down the cross from grandfather's house. It's really a mess because of the ever source, the road, a couple of things are going on down there. So when it's finished, we have a kind of a chance to maybe help that from the local historicist.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Where would you put the branches? That's all DCR property.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: It's all to be thought out in another way. But right now, there's just garbage and trash everywhere. So anything's better than what it is. But I have a couple of visions. but it may even go down by the roadway that goes over 16, something down there, but it's just, it's a beautiful area. It's a beautiful area, but we'll talk about that later.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay. And Chris Kelly, can you attend at least briefly our February 9th meeting? Same time.
[Unidentified]: Nope, I can't make that one. out all day for on February 9th.
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: Sure. Okay.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Chris Bader, what's the 40C? Is that the preliminary report? Another name for the preliminary report is 40C?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: No, that's 40C is the mass, it's that's the chapter of mass general law that's for local historic districts.
[Christopher Bader]: But it specifies that there be a report, right? Yeah. Right. And that's the that's what I was referring to.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And that's Chris, that's what you're working on. You're working on filling all the details. We've got a lot of form Bs already filled out, but you're still working on a couple more of those form Bs. Am I wrong?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: But he's not doing anything yet.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Oh, I thought Chris Bader, I thought we were still short of a couple of reports from a couple of those houses. Do we have everything in?
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: No, we need those.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And who's doing those?
[Christopher Bader]: Do you have time to do that, Chris Kelly?
[MCM00001296_SPEAKER_08]: No, the contract definitely isn't for Form Bs, but you don't necessarily- We've got additional funding, that's not the problem. Okay. But you also don't need Form Bs as part of the study report. Right. It's not required to have Form Bs. Okay. There's local historic districts that come in or two, 300 properties and they definitely do not have Form Bs for everything.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: And Sharon, if I could ask you, well, you had your presentation, is there a PowerPoint slide deck for that? For what actually, and how you mapped it out was beautifully done on the video.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: That is a PowerPoint, yeah.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: We shared that with the committee, is that part of the committee? I just want to either add to that or make that the basis of what's actually in the district.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, I think, you know, it would It's probably a good starting point. That was basically to talk about it with the committee.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: Sounds good. If you could send it to Chris Bader or whatever, but I was just going to grab some more slides.
[pHtJcMxcqAQ_SPEAKER_25]: He has it.
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: That PDF, Sarah, okay, good.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. Okay. Does anybody have anything to add before we adjourn? I think we have missions. Okay, well, Should we meet it and so we'll meet again in two weeks and we'll continue this discussion. Does that make sense?
[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_22]: That's good. Make a motion to adjourn.
[Christopher Bader]: We have a motion to adjourn. Sure. Okay. All right. Well, thank you everybody. All right. Thank you. Good night. Right. Bye bye now.