[MassHistPres] Demo delay: 18 mo / interiors / siding

[Dennis De Witt]

I am pleased to say that last nite Brookline town meeting by a  
unanimous vote passed an upgrading of our Demo Delay law.  I thought  
it would pass but didn't expect ZERO opposition.  (Significantly, a  
week ago CPA lost at the polls -- due in no small part to opposition  
from the schools community who thought it would weaken support for an  
inevitable schools override.)

Maybe it was dumb luck but I have been trying to think of why there  
was not one word said against our proposal.  For whatever it's worth,  
earlier in the evening TM had passed, but not unanimously, a  
clarification, (overriding a ZBA ruling), which made it clear that,  
under its design review power, the Planing Board and ZBA had the  
right to review demolition as a "design change" and to permanently  
prevent demolition of a facade along the town's five major streets,  
over which the PB & ZBA have design review.

We have our quota of libertarian types in TM but one of them strongly  
endorsed our article, after a lot of negotiation and revision, which  
helped immeasurably.  Maybe the recent creation of three new LHDs has  
given the commission a lot of good will in an anti-development pro- 
neighborhood TM zeitgeist.  And the very process of getting three  
LHDs through the Advisory Committee and Selectmen has developed some  
rapport with them that lead to unanimously favorable reports from a  
BoS, three of whose members have said they would not want to live in  
an LHD, and from a conservatively weighted (but very fair-minded) sub- 
committee of the Advisory Committee.  Good networking also helped.   
(Maybe even an overspill of some goodwill towards one supportive  
Selectman may have played a part.)  And maybe TM just had its eye on  
the clock.

In any case we now have the following enhancements.

a) DD on all NR properties found Significant is extended from 12  
months to 18 months.  The only selling point we offered was that we  
reported that some opponents of the three LHDs had argued the LHDs  
were put through in a hasty manner because of the 12 month delay, and  
so we said that this would give more time to everyone for a more  
orderly process.

b) DD can be applied to the "substantially total" gutting of historic  
spaces open to the public in NR buildings.  We figure there are about  
20 such in town and that such a case might come up once a decade.

c) DD can be applied in cases where all the trim is stripped off an  
NR building to re-side it.  Re-siding if the trim is kept is not  
covered.

d) the definition of demolition is significantly fleshed out to  
include criteria for partial demolitions.

e) We added a definition of demo-by-neglect and included Demo-by- 
neglect in the definition of demolition.  This probably will only be  
useful in a case where a building is condemned due to DbN, in which  
case we may be able to impose a two-year no build penalty.  However,  
the concept is on the table -- more on that below.

f) we incorporated language and definitions from MHCs new model  
bylaw, including the right to create rules and regulations -- more on  
that below.

Initially we had also several other new features but the whole  
package proved, understandably (see link), mind-numbing for the AC &  
BoS.  So we agreed to remove them for consideration at a later time.   
This too may have helped get the favorable reports from them.

The sections removed were to do the following:

i) prevent speculative demolitions by requiring that no demolition  
occur until the replacement project was ready to begin

ii) Prevent "timing out" of delays by requiring that demolition must  
occur within a three year time frame after the end of the delay or  
the process would have to recycle.

iii) Add a demolition by neglect enforcement cause to allow an owner  
to be taken to court and required to stabilize (but not restore or  
even bring up to code) a property.

iv) add an anti-arson clause (cribbed from Newton)

During the course of our conversations with the AC we were strongly  
advised by several attorneys involved that some or all of these  
things might be accomplished through rule-making -- altho our Town  
Counsel disagreed.  We would be very interested in knowing of towns  
that have an apparatus of rules or guidelines to accomplish any of  
the above.  Please let me know.

Here is a link to the Warrant article.  The original version of the  
bylaw, as first proposed is at the beginning, including the abandoned  
sections.  The final version is at the end.

http://www.townofbrooklinemass.com/TMM/PDFs/111406TM/ 
A19-111406COMBINEDREPORTS.pdf

The deleted sections in the first version are 5.3.9 & .16 & .17.  The  
second version is structured slightly differently especially with  
respect to the definition of demolition, which is the core of its  
extended power.

Dennis De Witt