[MassHistPres] Turning an old house into an auxiliary apartment

[Chris Skelly]

Hello Marisa, Accessory apartments can certainly be a real positive to
adaptively re-using or maintaining existing residential historic buildings.
However, in this case, it sounds like the demolition of the 1860 house would
be very unfortunate.  Is the house inventoried? What is the MHC # or street
address?  Has the Weston HC brought up this issue with your town planner and
planning board to discuss what kind of variances are needed, whether the
variances really meet the threshold of a zoning variance under state zoning
law and where the permitting is at with the planning board?  I think the
Weston HC needs to start there and express concerns to the planning board.
Chris.

Christopher C. Skelly
Director of Local Government Programs
Massachusetts Historical Commission
220 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125
Christopher.Skelly at state.ma.us
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/mhc/mhcidx.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Marisa Morra
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 12:01 PM
To: MHC MHC listserve
Subject: [MassHistPres] Turning an old house into an "auxiliary apartment"
and adding a new house to the lot

Hi All,
We here in Weston have a proposal in front of us that I wondered if anyone
has dealt with before.  We have an owner who has a 2+ acre lot that is long
and narrow, hence non-conformong, with a c. 1860 house and barn & a c. 1910
stone carriage house.  The lot did not proof out as a flexible subdivision
to be divided as they wanted, so now they are applying to take the 5 bedroom
house- remove 3 bedrooms, and have it count as an auxiliary apartment, and
build a big new house on the same lot. The building inspector has told them
that this is theoretically possible, but would need many variances. We on
the Weston Historic Commission are horrified, but have already imposed a 6
month delay, and this house is not in a "district" . We feel this would set
a bad precedent for houses and lots in the same situation, of which there
are many in Weston.  
Has anyone ever had this "auxiliary apartment" scenario  presented to them?


Any thoughts on how to deal with it, once our demo delay time frame has
expired?

Thank You,
Marisa Morra
Co-Chair, Weston Historic Commission
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