[MassHistPres] question on demo delay expiration times

[calarey@yahoo.com]

The Boston Landmarks Commission recently issued a Notice of Determination that a building on the National Register of Historic Places was not a SIGNIFICANT building.  This contradicts our Article 85.  Any other findings that Register buildings are NOT SIGNIFICANT?  Calvin Arey, Boston

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

----- Reply message -----
From: "Marcia Starkey" <mdstarkey at crocker.com>
Date: Fri, May 4, 2012 1:01 pm
Subject: [MassHistPres] question on demo delay expiration times
To: "'Dennis De Witt'" <djd184 at verizon.net>, "'MHC MHC listserve'" <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>

P.S. In reviewing the two  Superior Court cases I'm aware of, it was ordered
that 1. the Building official is required to provide the Commission the
opportunity to review and approve or reject an application for demolition,
and  2. that the Commission has the authority to stay a demolition permit
for six months.   Greenfield's term is also six months unless work has
commenced.  

 

Marcia Starkey  

 

From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Dennis De Witt
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 2:14 PM
To: MHC MHC listserve
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] question on demo delay expiration times

 

Charles makes a good point.  This sort of situation can be addressed by
rulemaking -- and sometimes it is better done so that way.

 

For many years the Brookline Preservation Commission operated without a set
of Rules & Regs. -- at least none that I could find.  When we were enhancing
our demo delay law to include a provision to cover certain public interiors
and demolition by neglect we were told by the town's Advisory Committee
(which vets all Town Meeting articles) not to incorporate several complex
sets of criteria into the by-law.  That became a trigger for a set of Rules
& Regs that eventually ran to about 15 pp. -- not including LHD design
guidelines which are incorporated by reference -- once we had taken into
account all applicable issues and statutes. No trip back to town meeting was
needed for any of it.

 

Naturally Town Counsel and the Building inspector were consulted.  

 

One of the items covered was the expiration of a lifted demo delay.  Here,
FYI, is the adopted language -- for better or worse, allowing more time than
Cambridge.  The few obvious cases where this has been an issue have involved
spans of more than three years

Section 7.  Required reapplication

If no Demolition Permit is issued within three years of the Commission's
determination of Significance and of the termination of any court action
preventing the issuance of said permit, whichever period shall be longer, or


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/private/masshistpres/attachments/20120504/a7ef2fd0/attachment-0001.htm>