[MassHistPres] Brookline/Cambridge/Boston/Newton

[Dennis De Witt]

> Broadly, how do the City of Brookline's preservation laws compare  
> to other big (and relatively wealthy) places like Boston,  
> Cambridge, Newton, et al.?  It sounds like your HC made great  
> strides at Town Meeting.  Congrats.
> Anne Kornitsky

Anne

You have asked a potentially huge question and I'm not sure that I'm  
the right one to answer it.  The following are my impressions and I  
would welcome comments and corrections from Cambridge, Newton, and  
Boston.

First, an important note, Brookline is NOT and probably never will be  
a city.  We have a very strongly diffuse political culture nurtured  
by 240 active, involved TMMs and an uncountable number of committees  
for everything conceivable.  And we have a tradition of active  
involved selectmen working with a strong -- but not mayor-like town  
manager.  From a preservation standpoint that has its strengths and  
weaknesses but in some real way it does make us fundamentally  
different from those three cities.

I'd guess we are ahead of the three of them re DD, altho I understand  
Cambridge may be working on some sort of revision.

We don't have Landmarking, much less interior landmarking, which  
Boston & Cambridge do.

We don't have Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCDs) which Boston  
& Cambridge do, although there has been work done on a possible bylaw  
here.  I'm yet to be convinced that I have seen a neighborhood here  
that would be interested in one, although its possible -- and we  
wouldn't want one where an LHD was appropriate.  It appears to me  
that Cambridge's NCDs may have been instituted as a way of fighting  
off the effects of overzoning.  To me the original Cambridge NCDs  
seem rather weak with respect to existing buildings and much stronger  
and more zoning-like re replacement buildings. Their zoning-like  
aspect makes them not just 40c-lite, as is sometimes thought.   
However, at about the time Cambridge was establishing its NCD's  
Brookline had a radical downzoning which perhaps dealt with the same  
issue of intrusive development in a different way.

 From what I know of Boston's NCD's they tend to be in rowhouse areas  
which are not as demanding in terms of preservation controls.

Also both Cambridge and Boston do a lot of staff design review.   
Everything in Brookline is done by the Commission or its  
subcommittees with staff more involved at a preliminary guidance and  
execution follow-thru level.

We don't do paint colors.

We have 1.66 staff which is small compared to Boston or Cambridge.

We have one commission with seven commissioners and four alternates  
(In the back of my head -- but maybe no one else's -- is the idea of  
recreating our Historical Commission which was merged into our LHD  
commission 23 years ago, but that's just my thought.)  Boston,  
Cambridge, and Newton all have multiple district commissions or one  
sort or another.

We have 5 LHDs, three large one medium and one quite small, 18 NRDs,  
and two National Historic landmarks.  (Earlier there were three  
failed LHD attempts in two very up-market NRD neighborhoods.  I don't  
see any additional LHDs at the moment.)  We hope to update our  
comprehensive NR survey cutoff from 1927 to 1957 next year.

Our planning Board has design review over everything built on Route  
9, Harvard Ave., Washington St. Beacon St. and Brookline's part of  
Comm. Ave.  In addition they appoint professional design advisory  
teams for major projects.

We have an anti-billboard bylaw which Boston clearly do not.   
However, our building sign controls which were once very tight are  
now very loose.

I didn't say much about Newton, because I don't know much about it.   
I hope I didn't misrepresent anything re Boston or Cambridge.  If so,  
I trust someone from those towns can continue the conversation.

I hope this helps.

Dennis De Witt