Historic District Commission 10/08/26

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.8-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Historic District Commission heard an educational presentation on the use of PVC millwork in historic preservation, discussed ongoing recruitment efforts to fill board vacancies, and approved past meeting minutes.

0:46 Presentation on PVC Millwork Applications — Tyler from Intex Millwork Solutions presented on the performance, milling, painting requirements, and structural reinforcement of cellular PVC products used in historic architectural replications.
39:51 Board Recruitment Efforts — The commission discussed outreach strategies to fill two vacant seats, including tabling at community festivals, hosting a city board open house, and directing applicants to the city website.
47:19 Approval of Minutes — The commission voted to accept the meeting minutes from July 9.
50:52 Future Business and Historic District Planning — Members confirmed the November meeting date and agreed to add an overview of the process for designating new local historic districts to the next agenda.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Good evening, everyone. This is October's meeting for the Historic District Commission for Medford, Massachusetts. On the agenda tonight is a presentation event, a presentation from in-text bill work from Tyler on historically accurate moldings and applications as regards to PVC moldings. Also a discussion about recruitment efforts for new members and the voting on the meeting minutes from the July 9th meeting. I'd like to get started. We're going to have Tyler present for us first about PVC moldings and PVC millwork. Anytime you're ready, Tyler. Go ahead. All right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's see. I need to send a request to share my screen. Just sent that.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yes. Thank you. I should have thought of that. You should be all set.

[SPEAKER_03]: see if I can get this work. You don't need to see that. You want to see this. Oh, that's over here.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me, guys. Like Joe said, my name is Tyler. I work for Intex Millwork Solutions. We are a full-blown PVC millwork shop, part of the James Hardy organization, but we have a lot of specialization and expertise in kind of the historic replication side of things. So I just wanted to walk you through a handful of slides here. Somewhat of an education, I guess. A lot of it isn't probably new to all of you, but nonetheless, I'm going to talk you through some of the different Um, ways that we've done things in the past, uh, what moving into PVC does as far as adding value to. To, um, commissions like your own, uh, and then from there, we'll, we'll talk a little bit about what what in text does and, you know, how that relates directly to, uh, to the topic here. So. Um, as I get going through here, feel free to interrupt me at all anytime. Um, but, uh.

Let's just jump right into it. Excellent. Um, so, as we kind of know, there's, there's a handful of materials available, but I'd say the majority of. What we would be looking to either replace update, whatever the word we want to use there is, um, in the in, in terms of historic and remodeling and things like that. Traditionally, it's always been wood. Right? Um, and. you know, in 2026, there's a couple different products out there, but especially for maintaining that true historic aesthetic, getting those custom, same-as-it-was type profiles for moldings, railings, columns, you name it. PVC is the, I guess it's not new, but it is the newest and probably the best application for historic when it comes to longevity.

When we take a look at wood, if we go back 500 years, 1,000 years, forever, basically, we've been building out of wood. We still do plenty of wood construction today. And a lot of that reasoning is because, A, it's everywhere. You can get it in all sorts of different flavors, from spruce to pine to cedar, mahogany, ipe, you name it. There's all different species, and it's really easy to work with, generally speaking. So that's historically been why people have tended to use wood in all these applications. But, you know, in 2026, where we are today, with the way that, you know, wood is more or less mass produced, mass farmed, if you will, this picture here on the right kind of illustrates what we're working with today. I know it says 2018, but it's the same, versus what we had in 100 years ago on the bottom.

And really what we're looking at, this is, let me take a step back, actually. This picture illustrates very well why if you go to a historic home that was built in 100 and something years ago, or commercial building, whatever it might be. There's a chance that the railings and a lot of the millwork items on that building are original from from back then. And the reason is because you see the board there on the bottom has those super tight growth rings. That gives it a natural resistance to rot, decay, bug infestations, all of those types of, you know, nuisances that you deal with in working with wood. Whereas the board on the top is a lot more like what you'll see today.

especially in the railing and millwork application, those tight growth rings really allowed you to put it up on the wall and it would last you, not forever, but it would last a very, very long time. Whereas today, you know, the lifespan of wood, it's species, you know, different species are better than others, but generally speaking, you put wood up on an exterior application today, it's probably got a lifespan of maybe 15 years. Um, which, you know, in the grand scheme of things.

It's going to require a lot of maintenance over over its lifetime, um, consistent replacement upkeep all of that. Um, but again, 1 of the big benefits of working with wood and why people still do today is it's very easily workable. Any contractors gotten. Most, if not all the tools needed to manipulate the shapes, the profiles, anything like that to it to any wood product. And the other is that it's paintable, very easily. A lot of the alternative products on the market today are not paintable, or if they are paintable, it takes a whole lot of work, it voids the warranty, this, that, and the other thing.

So, you know, it still has a good appeal. But when you paint something that's gonna ultimately rot, that paint just becomes a coating on that, that's why you start to see paint peeling after a handful of years today, as opposed to, kind of what we can do out of PVC. And I'll pause here because there's really two different kinds of PVC in the market, technically three, if you include rigid vinyl, which is technically a PVC product. But for today's conversation, we're going to talk about extruded PVC and milled PVC.

And so what the difference really is, is extruded products. I mean, think of when we were kids, or if you have children, the Play-Doh press, right? You put the thing in and you make the spaghetti out of it. You're basically extruding any sort of profile. So if you go into any given lumberyard in your area, you'll likely see behind the desk a big molding board with all, here's the crowns, the coves, all the different profiles that they have available. Typically out of PVC, those are extruded and those, are a great product because, A, it's all PVC, which is essentially plastic. There's no organic material in it that'll ever rot, decay, fail, anything like that.

And they're relatively affordable. But the flip side is, especially in a historic application, oftentimes those off-the-shelf molding profiles that they have aren't gonna fit the aesthetic of what was that you're trying to replace in kind. So that's where a milled product comes into play. Um, and so I kind of just said all of this with the extruded stuff, but, you know, the way that it's made, it goes through a die, goes down the conveyor belt cools. Um, and then it gets cut to length and that's what you see, um, on a molding board. Uh, it's affordable, it's readily available and it is paintable, which is one of the big benefits of working with a PVC product. All PVC is paintable. Um, it doesn't require paint typically, but it is paintable. Um, so. That's an important thing to know on the flip side of things that you see here, this, this railing in the background.

This looks like something you would find in an old historic home. Right? It's got the big chunky balusters, the beefy rail, the big posts and all of that. And yeah, you could make that out of an extruded rail, sorry, out of an extrusion process. But typically when it comes to an extrusion, the extruders demand a lot. It's $75,000 for a startup cost for just the die itself. Oftentimes they're gonna make you commit to, I don't know, 50,000, 100,000, a half million feet per year in this profile. And for all intensive purposes of what we're discussing today, You just don't need that much. So, when you mill PVC, it's essentially the same way you would machine any wood to shape it into any given profile that you want. PVC is very workable. It works just like wood in many regards. As far as you don't need any special tools, anything that most carpenters don't already have on hand to work with it. Um, it does come at a bit of an extra cost upfront, you know, milling PVC is not a cheap solution necessarily, but the big benefit is again, it's all PVC. So there's no more organic material. This is a do it once it's, it should be good forever type of thing. As opposed to when we were talking about wood, you do it today. You're probably gonna have to do it again in 15 to 20 years. Um, and then you're gonna have to do it again, 15 to 20 years after that. So, um, it really just. after probably 50 years of its life it's paid for itself in what it would have cost wood doing it multiple times over.

Now in extruded PVC I said it didn't require any paint because extruded PVC comes closed cell as we call it so if you've ever touched a PVC board or seen it it's got a smooth almost hard finish to it Um, whereas when you mill PVC, like for that, let's take this railing in the background, for example. To get to that profile, they had, we had to laminate up. Uh, probably about 3, 4 inches tall, thick of PVC sheet stock, run it through a molder to give it all the profiles and shaping and all of that. Um, and in doing that, that ripped off the quote unquote protective skin that the extruded products have inherently. And now it created an open cell product, is what we call it. And if you ever get the chance or you have seen like the end grain of a PVC board or have touched a raw, freshly milled PVC product, it's very rough, it's very porous. And that's because all of those, there's tiny air bubbles inside of PVC. And it basically opened those all up. So it's always going to be recommended if not, required that you put a finished coat of paint on this, as opposed to the extruded stuff that does not require any paint.

And it's not so much because it'll fail, rot, or any of those things. It's just because of the porous nature of it, you put it up, especially in a damp environment or a dusty environment, it's just going to become a big dirt magnet that you're not going to want to look at. Your maintenance cost will be crazy just from cleaning it. So that finish coat kind of seals everything up, tightens it all up to give it the nice finished look that you're looking for.

And then when it comes to painting PVC, all PVC requires a paint that has an LRV or a light reflective value greater than 55. And that just usually means on the lighter end of the spectrum. Reason being, PVC is very susceptible to movement. If you, like say you take this and paint it black and you don't use a proper paint, it's gonna wanna move all over the place and have all sorts of unwanted side effects, if you will. Whereas these lighter colors naturally resist the heat absorption in the sun. Now, there are paints out there that that are in the market. There's a handful of manufacturers that make a paint that you can go dark colors, like a dark green, dark blue, black, even that are friendly and they've. Added a bunch of science into it. I'm not a paint guy. I don't understand. I can't speak paint that well, but they did the science behind it. And basically it reflects or doesn't absorb any of the, any of the heat from the sun, which prevents any sort of movement or anything like that.

Um, And again, I sort of touched on a lot of this, but I mean, as a material, PVC itself is it's, it's not that it's dense, but it's not super dense, right? It's, it's a fairly light product. Rigid PVC is what I was talking about at the beginning. That's kind of the third one that we're not going to really talk about. And that's if you've seen like a vinyl fence or a vinyl railing, those vinyl projects, that's a rigid products. That's a rigid PVC.

So there's little air bubbles in here. Like you can see from this picture, that's a, I don't know, quarter inch thick PVC cap there. It's got good density, but it isn't heavy. But PVC is a super high tensile strength, so that means you can bend them. You can manipulate the profiles in many different ways without any concerns of it cracking or breaking, even at cold temperatures, anything like that. And I actually just said all of this, so we don't need to double down on this slide.

And then when it comes to durability, cellular PVC, it really, like I said, there's no organic material in it. So it resists almost everything that we can think of that are challenges with working with wood products because. Excuse me, UV exposure, not a concern. It's not going to fade. There's levels to it, right? The quality of the PVC that you purchase, the higher the quality of PVC, the better quality of finished work that you're going to get out of it. Because there is a little bit of a spectrum there.

In general, PVC resists moisture, wood boring insects. You don't have any concerns about ground contact like you would with wood. It can be in a damp, wet, flat roof environment. You don't have to worry about getting any of that extra moisture absorbed up into it and it's swelling. And on the topic of UV, You know, that's one of the big killers, if you will, to wood products. UV and moisture are the two. And one of the main ingredients in PVC is titanium dioxide, which if you didn't know, that's the main ingredient in sunscreen. And I was talking about the spectrum of PVC manufacturers that are out there, and at the high end of the spectrum, they have a ton of titanium dioxide in it, and that's gonna keep that bright white color, assuming you don't wanna paint it, that bright white color for as long as the product is warranted. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are some cheaper lower end import boards that have a lower amount of titanium dioxide in there, but there are some inconsistencies, we'll call it, with some of the over time exposure finishes to that product.

Um, and then, yeah, from a workability standpoint, like I said, most carpenters are gonna have all the tools you need to work with any PVC product. outside of like say somebody wants a full-blown custom profile that you're gonna have to run it through a molder and stuff like that a carpenter probably not going to carry around a molder but you know as far as you don't need custom you don't need special saw blades you don't need special drill bits or anything like that anything you would use to work with wood is going to work just fine with pvc and because it's ultimately plastic it can be heat formed for any sort of radius application. So picture like a round window, you wanna do a window surround like that, or you've got a balcony with a curved railing, like we saw a few slides back. All of that can be done by simply warming it up, putting it to a mold and letting it cool.

Oh, and the paint, I forgot to talk about this. Yes, so paint naturally, like I said, PVC is paintable, it's very paint friendly. So, it doesn't require paint in most applications unless it's milled, but all PVC can be painted. And different manufacturers have different paint requirements as far as prep work or no prep work. But if you're using a proper PVC paint, a paint designed for working with PVC, it will actually molecularly bond to the PVC itself. which will prevent it from over time starting to peel and all that. Like when you see, when you see an old wood, you see paint peeling on a wood project, that's typically because the wood itself is failing underneath the paint because that paint is acting more as a coating.

Whereas with PVC paint, PVC and paint, they kind of chemically bond to each other and move as one. It becomes a part of the product itself. Which is really great when you think of expansion, contraction, things of those nature. The PVC is really just it. Once you apply the paint, it's typically a paint at once. And most paint warranties are 30 to 50 years these days for PVC paints. So, in theory, you shouldn't need to touch it again, unless you just want to brighten up the color or change the color or do something along those lines.

And then lastly, on the PVC side of things, these are just examples of things that you can do with PVC outside of the normal realm of things. Your options have always been, if you wanted a decorative piece like this, your options have always just been wood or nothing. And with PVC, now we're able to do pretty much anything you can think of and make it make it architecturally accurate to whatever you're trying to achieve. Whether that's a turn baluster, it's this crazy infill here, a custom rail profile, custom molding, all of the above are reachable and attainable under the umbrella of PVC.

So, before I go any further, I know I just kind of rambled for 10 minutes or so there. Does anybody have any questions on any of this?

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that was excellent. I've written down a bunch of questions that I have, but I think it'd be rude if I went first. Maybe we can go through everyone else's questions, and then I'll pop through some of mine if they didn't get answered. James, did you have any questions or comments?

[Peter Miller]: I know. The presentation's been great, and I know we've used, if not this product, we've used something similar in our firm, so I'm familiar with it.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Excellent. Roberta, did you have any questions or comments?

[Roberta Cameron]: Yes, I do. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to ask if you have any pictures, it looks as though in all of the pictures that you've shared with us. The PVC is white, I'm assuming unpainted and I wonder if you have any. Images to share of PVC milled PVC that's been painted. So we can see what that looks like.

[SPEAKER_02]: This 1 here is it's. Off white, but, uh, it is, uh, I don't think I have any more in here that are. Colorful, um, any darker colors you run through here. No, that's all white. Yeah, pretty much everything in here is all white. Um. But to your point, yeah, that's it either in its natural state or the owner, the contractor on the job just painted it white again.

[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. And what I'm particularly interested to see is because you had shown a picture that showed the fence a little bit closer up and it looked like plastic, frankly. I mean, yes, you've replicated the form of the original wood. Very well, but the material looks like plastic and I'm curious to see if it's painted if it looks more like a wood material.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, that's that's a good point. I, I'm assuming the 1, the, the, the point. You see, let me know which picture was it this 1.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm assuming has been painted. Maybe they just installed it. Well, yeah, no, they've got decorations around. Yeah, this was this is it's finished painted, painted look. And I think to your point of how do you make it look more authentic, there's a bunch of different ways you can apply the paint. And I think the one that keeps it I'll say a little bit more plasticky-ish, right, would be spraying. Adding like a paintbrush or rolling it on will oftentimes add a lot more of that texture that you would find in a finished wood product.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: And the sheen, I think, not to jump in, but I think the sheen would also make a difference as well. So if you went with a satin finish as opposed to a gloss finish or whatever, that's going that's going to impact the plasticky look of it as well.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Thank you. I have a quick question. Yeah, absolutely. At one point, like 20 years ago, I worked for a home center. And at that time, it was rigid plastic with metal inserts to create some reinforcement there. Is modern railing systems like this, does this still have some sort of center core reinforcement to help with the structural integrity? Is it not needed? I see something here. Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely. So that's a great question. PVC on its own is not structurally sound. So all of our products, at least, that's what I can speak to, have an aluminum reinforcement inside of it that gives it that structural integrity.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: But not to jump in again, I'm sorry. Tyler, what are the lengths unsupported that you can get those railing systems in? Like how, cause that's what I, so like when you have other brand products of vinyl railing, like, you know, you're stuck with six foot or under, you know, what are the lengths that you can get in like a custom?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so we can do, I mean, And and unsupported, I assume you're meaning without having a full blown post in it. You see in this picture here, we have the little crush blocks up underneath. I don't know if you can see my mouse or not, but underneath the bottom of the rail that support will always be there, but. We can do 6 foot 8 foot 10, depending on the rail and the profile, we can go up to 12 foot spans.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: That's pretty good. So that's. You know, when you imagine something historic, that's, you know, that that's about what you'd get out of a maximum you get out of a wood rail. Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, these rails here, for example, I think that curve section. That looks to me, probably it's every bit of 12 feet.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Wow. Yeah, Ryan, did you did you have any 1st of all, thank you for coming right? Did you have any questions?

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. All right. So as a board, if we're presented with a project where someone's looking to use PVC millwork in some form, so I understand there's extruded, there's milled, Is there a chemical formula that we should be looking for? Because we would be interested in the longevity of the product. So you had said that the high quality PVCs have the titanium dioxide. Is that a whitening agent or does that make it, what does that do?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, that's a good question. To answer your question on chemical formula that you should look for, I don't know how much of that is going to be fully publicly public knowledge, but if somebody presents you X, Y, or Z manufacturers name, and you can go to their website, they typically should have a section where they have, like, an or something like that, where they give you sort of the chemical makeup of it. I don't I doubt they'd give you their full recipe, but you might, you might be able to glean some insight out of it.

But to your other question about what the titanium dioxide does, it's kind of both. It is a whitening agent, but more than that, it is a whitening keeper. What's the word I'm looking for? It basically resists any yellowing fade. It keeps it that bright white. just like you go to the beach, you put the sunscreen on, it keeps you from getting burnt. Um, you know, same, same concept, but think of it in PVC.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Is there, I would imagine that a lot of what we're going to run into would be painted. So is there, is there like a, is there like a formula? I know that is there something we should be looking for that is there like a dead giveaway? Like this is the quality one. Like it has, you know, um, xyz in it or something like that makes it more dimensionally stable that makes it, you know, not crack and not have some of the problems that could be associated with PVC.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are. And without throwing names under the bus right now, it's kind of hard to answer that. But what I would say, though, is definitely a lot of your lower price point PVC products. generally are a little more susceptible than your higher price point products. That's probably the easiest. It isn't guaranteed. I mean, anybody can go name a price anywhere, but I would say import versus domestic is also a big. Imported products generally have a little bit lower threshold for a lot of those things.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Is it like a higher, is it a, is there a, because it's a cellular product, is there a higher amount of air, entrained air in it or something? Is that something that we should be looking at?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a mix. Yeah. So I've seen, um, I've seen imported products that are, you know, there's, there, there's a lot of extra fillers in there, if you will. Um, as far as, there could be one of them, chemicals, you name it. There's a, there's a, There's about 150 different variations of what it could be. So, it's a hard one to answer in a quick answer.

[Peter Miller]: Quick question. I know with certain products, certain fiberglass extrusions and some other materials that they are allowed by the historic standards of the Department of the Interior. Are these products, are they certified? Are they mentioned in that?

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a really good question. I actually am not 100 percent on that answer. I do know that there are a lot of, in our broader organization, we do have a handful of lobbyists that are going in and having those types of conversations, and I would imagine yes, but I can't answer that wholeheartedly without knowing that.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Okay, you don't happen to know what. What pain companies have the, the doctor. Colors that they meet that the 55 threshold, because you were talking about the.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the owner be greater than 55. you're specifically in darker colors, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so, I mean, the one that we use as our spec is carried from the manufacturer of the PVC that we make all of our products from is PPG. They have a whole line that's designed for darker colors. I believe Sherwin-Williams also has a line, and I believe Benjamin Moore does as well.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and are those paints, so the paints that do the darker colors that allow for the LRV of 55 is that the that's like a commercial line that has to be sprayed like that's not a brush applied What is it can be applied either way?

[SPEAKER_02]: I think you can get it ordered It's important to note also that those these paints are not typically off-the-shelf paints. They're typically a special order product So it is something that if you know, you do need to want to go one of those darker colors You do have to plan a little bit ahead for that. It's not a matter of paint guys going to swing by the store this morning and go out to the job. But again, as not a paint expert, I don't think there's a right or wrong way to apply the paint. I've seen it done both ways.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. No, that's fine. It's just that if someone was interested, that's a good thing to know. Yeah, we cut everything else so that in, you know, it's commonplace to add aluminum inserts in for rigidity.

[SPEAKER_02]: For any sort of structural, you'll likely get an aluminum reinforcement inside of it for rails, pergolas, things of that nature, yeah.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Right, excellent. Inside like the post sleeves as well?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's typically going to be like a 4 by 4, 6 by 6 treated lumber is what's commonly is there are steel posts and products out there you can use in lieu of that. Um, but I mean, yeah. Okay, that those are not, uh. As far as what I manufacture, it's it's going to be the PVC products itself. Um, so what gets installed on site? There's a couple options.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Excellent. Um, I don't answer my questions. Does anyone else have any questions or comments?

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I'll just share if I could again. Absolutely. I have a couple roles in the city and one of them is supporting our community preservation act grant program. And we recently had an application come from us from, um, the, uh, the folks that manage the David Osgood house here in Medford, and they were replacing their gutter stock because it was, it was the old wood, um, that was historic and, Apparently those have a maintenance plan, an annual maintenance of applying linseed oil on the inside. And we had made the recommendation for them to look into a fiberglass product. And that was very successful for them. And maybe Roberta wants to piggyback off of that and see her hand raised. But it was a really great solution because wood was going to be an inexpensive option for them. you know, there are only a few people over there who are caretakers of that building. So it was a really great way for the city to make a recommendation for their contractor to chime in as well on a solution that would prevent them from having to go up on a ladder every 12 months.

So I just, you know, applauding the technological advances in our millworks and our architectural moldings.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, yeah. Uh, Roberta's better sure. Go ahead.

[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Um, so maybe a related question. That was an example that we saw where it just made more sense to use. Something other than would for that portion of the site that was going to be the most heavily impacted by water. But I wonder whether it's possible to mix and match, to use a mix of wood and milled PVC in an installation so that the portion that's the most exposed could be PVC and maybe a portion that's more visible but less exposed could be wood. Is mixing and matching something that would ever make sense to do?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't think there's a wrong answer or a right answer there. I think it both could have legs to go all PVC or mix and match or even go all wood. I mean, there's a use case for everything. I don't think, what I wouldn't do is like, say, you see this picture here, they've got the top and the bottom rail. Say they made that out of PVC and then the balusters are wood. I wouldn't do something like that, mixing and matching, but like, Front of the front of the building front of the house. That's where it's going to be touched and seen and whatever the high higher traffic areas do that out of PBC do the back of the house out of wood. Maybe it's a little less traffic. I've seen things like that done. Yeah, for sure. But, I mean, as a, as a whole, I. You know, if, if, if that's if that's a thought. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer there. Just whatever. Yeah, that's the project best. Yeah.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: I actually met Tyler on a project on a historic home in Melrose. And we did the whole, we did all the siding over and his company did the front entry PVC. And from when it was originally done, it was like the third time it had been done. It just kept rotting out because of the way the trees were, the way the water was. So it made sense. And they did a turned element. it's like a, like an urn is part of the entry. And, uh, we did wood clad woods fighting against it. It was like a perfect, it was a perfect situation for the PVC. Cause the, the trim is what really was takes the abuse on the home. And it was a perfect spot to do PVC in this spot. And then the windows with PVC and the rest of it were authentic clad woods. Um, we actually even the client spent the money to have, um, non-finger jointed cedar clad woods so that they wouldn't have that when the moisture hits it and it swells up and you're looking at the side and you see a patch. You cannot tell from the street when you look at this home, it looks like it's all wood. You cannot tell the difference.

[Roberta Cameron]: I'd be really interested to see a picture of that because I'm trying to learn what it looks like to have different materials on a house.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Sure. I can send you some pictures that I have of it as well as the progress pictures I have if you'd like to see it. It's a nice job. Thanks.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll kind of piggyback on this and tell a little bit of a story that's fairly relevant to you guys, I guess. This was before I worked at Intex, but our rep down in Long Island had a And you guys all know Beth page, the Beth pages, like the, the PGA golf course, and there's, it's like a big park, but it's all historic everything from, like, the 1800s. And they were doing a big renovation on it. The contractor was a big in tax fan. But the, the historic committee that was overseeing it, which was New York state. The New York state parks division, I believe it is. They were very against using PVC and we're like, hey, I mean, this is.

if you wanna buy it, we're not gonna not sell it to you, but we're also not gonna, we know the rules here. So the contractor was like, I'm buying the PVC, did all the millwork in PVC, and five years later, calls up the parks department, and she's like, hey, yeah, how's the maintenance been on that project lately? Have you had to go back and paint it? Have you had to, just checking up on my finish work, did I do a good job type of question? And they actually were like, No, you say that single thing to it at all. And now New York state parts department approved it since that moment. And then he goes, well, yeah, that's because I did it a lot of PVC. He goes, really? We didn't even know.

And now the New York state parks department. Doesn't they don't specify it, but they prefer using PVC and any sort of historic replication any historic work that goes on in the state of New York, which. I find that to be kind of a, the contractor went a little rogue and we were involved on it, but it turned out to be a good story overall. That's awesome.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. Well, thank you very much. That was very informative. Um, I enjoyed that tremendously and I'm sure they speak for everyone with that. And, um, thanks again.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Thanks for having me guys. I appreciate you having me in. Have a good night.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Thank you as well. Great. And our education series continues.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: I love it. Excellent. Um, so, uh, let's see. So the next step is that we should discuss recruitment efforts for new members. Um, we need to, we need to recruit some more people. Um, so if you could read, if everyone could reach out to, uh, friends and family and other medical people, um, it'd be great in no matter whether in construction or outside of construction, whatever they're doing, everyone can bring something in to this. Um, everyone's got an opinion and that everyone's opinion is awesome.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: You know, it's great to have architects and folks in the trade, but, um, anybody, I guess that has, yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I, I have met, uh, uh, a community member who has expressed interest. She's, She's interested in history. She herself is a research librarian. So she does not have architectural or swinging hammers experience, but she lives here in Medford. She cares about Medford. She loves the look of it. And so I have somebody who is interested. Excellent. That's great. And I think at this point, we need two additional members. So if you have friends.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Neighbors. I've been making some phone calls and you can get a lot of people like, oh, you know, and it's it's a really easy board. I mean, it's pretty fun. I think I'm having fun. You know, the one I saw a sign in the way here, there's a. The Sarah Bradley Fulton Day, I want to try to attend that and see if we can speak to people. I don't know if anyone else is interested in going to that. That's a good idea. I don't know how you talk.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm trying to think of how to how to promote the board at that. I mean, I don't know. But I'll be there. I'm going to see what I can do with anyone else. I mean, it looked like an interesting event. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

[Roberta Cameron]: I was just going to say, speaking of flyers, I know the Harvester Energy Festival is coming up. the last like street fair that I know of happening in Medford for the season. Maybe if the, I always forget the acronyms, the planning, development, sustainability, is that it? PDS? Yeah. Maybe if you all have a table, you can have a flyer saying join our boards and If there are any other boards that you have vacancies on as well, you could advertise there.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yes, that is something that we do whenever we do table. So not just Historic District Commission. I think every board is at one point needing some additional members, whether it's the Zoning Board or the Hormel Stadium Commission or Parks Commission or us here. So big call for folks in the community to try their hat You know, join a board. It's always good for whenever people are more involved. But yes, I will ensure it. I personally will not be at Harvester Energy Festival, but I'll make sure that I love that idea. Ryan just put into the chat that we should do a city board open house to lure volunteers. That's a great idea. That is a great idea. I'm writing that down, Ryan.

One thing that the PDS, Planning Development Sustainability Department, has been doing is we've hosted, I think, now two, maybe three open houses over the past 18 months or so, just to talk about the zoning changes that we're undertaking, talk about affordable housing support and development programs and what have you. So we're testing the waters with doing open houses, and I think it's been broadly successful, so we should roll it out. sitting all wide if we can.

[Roberta Cameron]: Teresa, can you tell me if there are other boards and committees that have vacancies right now in PDS?

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: In PDS, I believe, and Ryan is here too, so he can chime in, but I believe the Historical Commission is still looking for at least one other additional member. So that's the Historical Commission. I think the Zoning Board of Appeals is looking for one associate member for the Zoning Board. The Community Development Board, our planning board, does have some vacancies, but I believe those will be filled with some candidates they already have in mind. The Parks Commission, it doesn't roll up to planning, but I believe they're also looking for one or two additional members. The Community Garden Commission is always looking for folks.

But I guess the biggest needs would be our board, the historical commission for one more member and then the zoning board right now.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, that's one thought I was thinking for recruitment efforts. I'm not so much on Facebook anymore, but I have a couple accounts on Reddit, which is, if you're not familiar with Reddit, a lot of folks are migrating over there to talk about more community-based problems and concerns and issues and what have you. So I'll post it there as well. Great. Yeah. And yeah. So if you have friends, if you just met somebody in a bar who said they moved to town and they're interested in history, come out, invite them to our meeting.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's probably the best way to get started. Invite them to come to a meeting.

[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. How can I tell people to apply for the board? What do they do to apply?

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: So if they were to go to the city's website, first of all, they can always email me, Teresa DuPont, T. DuPont at Medford-MA.gov. But if they were to go to the city's website and then under boards and commissions, actually, if you just click on boards and commissions in the banner, in there, there will be a boards and commissions application. I could actually just go ahead and do a quick screen share so everybody's looking at that too.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: And let me drag this one over here so everybody can see what I'm looking at. There we go. So if you go to the city's website, medfordma.org, you can just click right on Boards and Commissions.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, and at this point, I'm just kind of sharing it for the general public, because I know we are going out to broadcast right now. You can apply right here, and then it'll bring you to our smart sheets. And you can apply for multiple boards and commissions. Even if they are staffed fully right now, you can always express interest so that when an opening comes up, we can reach back out. But yeah, please, we'd love We love to hear from new voices and new folks, and it's just a great way to get to know your community a little bit more.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Great. All right. So the last thing on the agenda is the meeting minutes.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yes, which I'll do another screen share successfully here. No. hold on one second folks, sorry. There it is, okay. Essentially, I have a second monitor that is a 72 inch screen. So sometimes I struggle. Here we go, meeting minutes. Okay, so the last time we met was July 9th. We took a summer hiatus in August and we did not have any applications to review in September. So here are the meeting minutes. I'll quietly slowly squirrel while folks read.

And we'll be looking for a motion to accept the minutes. I'm going too fast for me to slow down. I move to accept the minutes folks couple more minutes. Thank you. Roberta.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Oh, did we lose James? Hold on. I'm going to stop sharing for a second. I think we lost James. We did. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: You can still make a motion. I'll second the motion. And then let's hold the vote. Roberta?

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: OK. All right. I did not have any further business. I will say we definitely will have a meeting next month. I have two applications, one for 8 Grandview Avenue, and the other one is in the Marm Simmons, and I'm just blanking on that address. But we will have two applications to review. We'll definitely have a meeting in October. And I want to say, we are in October, Teresa. November. 12th, which I want to recognize is the day after Veterans Day. Veterans Day falls on a Wednesday this, so City Hall will be closed. I'm sure we'll all still be working in some capacity, but I do want to recognize and see if that would cause any scheduling issues on anybody else's end for it to be Thursday, November 12th, the day after Veterans Day, an observed holiday. I don't have a problem with that. No issues on your end, Roberta? Nope.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. Great. I wanted one last thing I wanted to like, um, you know, did, do people like the presentation? Do they want to see more? Like, would you like to see more of those Roberta's that's on there'd be interesting to you.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: So I don't mind doing like any of them. And I don't mind if you find one that you want to do and have them come in and present or, or present yourself even, but that would be fine too. Anything you want to do. I'm probably one of the most flexible people there are. If we can make it historic, go for it.

[Roberta Cameron]: Thanks. And a question I have is kind of the protocol for putting things on the agenda in the future. I would love to introduce some additional local historic districts. And I'd love to talk about the process for how we would pursue that.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Sure. Sure. Yeah. Unintentionally we've reviewed the process twice since I've been on board just to like refresh it for the general public's knowledge as well as our our new members. So we happy to do that again. I think it's important to constantly be reminding people how we create districts. What's the process. So I can certainly add that to next month just to do like a not like soup to nuts but like a quick overview of how it's done.

[Roberta Cameron]: I do have specific places in mind that I like to suggest we propose as districts. So, after learning about what the process would look like, I don't know if it would be appropriate at our meeting to name some locations that we'd like to initiate a process for.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: I would feel that's appropriate. Yeah. Yeah.

[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, so I'll be in touch with you Teresa to name the locations. That sounds great.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah. We don't have a new district in the works right now and, you know, our job is to support the existing districts, but also to look for new ones. So I support that. So I'll add that to our November agenda to, aside from those two certificate of appropriateness to review, we'll add just an overview on how a district is supported and created, as well as a discussion for potential new district locations. Oh, I have James coming back in.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: The districts that you were thinking of, have they expressed an interest in becoming a district or?

[Roberta Cameron]: Interest, willingness of most of the districts are areas that have been where CPA grants have been granted in the past. And so by virtue of receiving a CPA grant, They've made a commitment to preserving their buildings. And so I think that they would be amenable. And there's one that I think it would probably not be welcome by the property owner, but I think it would be of interest to the city. And so I would like to talk about what that process might look like as well.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Okay, sounds great. James, I know we lost you for a second there, but we were just talking about our November meeting. we will have two applications to review and Roberta has brought up the idea of having a discussion about just reviewing how a district is created as well as what's our next district for us to implement. So we'll have that via discussion point at our November meeting.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: No, actually, yeah, you weren't here for it. So it's November 12th, which I recognize is the day after Veterans Day. So it's a major holiday. Maybe that might affect your availability, but right now it's Thursday, November 12th.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. And when you were off, did you enjoy that presentation? Like, is that something you'd like to see more of? Okay.

[Peter Miller]: Yeah, no, I thought it was very informative. And certainly for anybody in the broader public who's watching the meeting, that's probably an introduction to a product that maybe they've never heard of.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Yeah, the idea would be to take these presentations and turn them down into being standalone videos and then eventually incorporating them into the historic district's website so that it's a reference video at that point. So yeah, if you have ideas about what else.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Yes, any ideas you have that I could put together, or if you have a person, someone that you think and you'd like to do, just shoot an email and we can put it right on the agenda. Yeah. Awesome. Excellent.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: And would you, by the way, James, have accepted the meeting minutes? Were you still on for when we were screen sharing those?

[Peter Miller]: I started to see them and unfortunately the battery in my laptop died. So I scrambled upstairs and got my cord and plugged it back in. So I saw, I did see some of it, but not all of it.

[Community Preservation Manager Theresa Dupont]: Okay. All right. No worries. We'll stick with the original vote then. Okay.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. All right. Unless anyone has anything else, if someone wants to make a motion to adjourn.

[MCM00001828_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much. Take care. Thanks everyone. Have a great night.