[MassHistPres] 18-month demo delay amendment approved at Medfield town meeting

[David Temple]

A demolition delay extension to 18 months was approved,
251-151, at the Medfield annual town meeting Monday.  The warrant committee and the board of
selectmen supported the proposal. Our delay period had been 12 months since
1999; it was initially set at six months when the bylaw was passed in 1994. The
delay has always applied to houses over 50 years old. 

Predictably, both of the opponents were in construction.
Unpredictably, they sought an amendment to limit the scope to houses built before
1900; they did not object to the 18-month delay! 

We also closed several procedural loopholes to prevent, we
hope, preemptive demo applications. We didn’t realize it until years after old
bylaw passed – but a person with no immediate intentions of selling could apply
for a demo permit, incur the delay, and then wait many years to sell their
delay-approved house.

In Medfield, most delay applications have been reviewed and approved
without imposing delays. In most of the cases when a delay is imposed, developers
come back in a month or two with a modified plan that satisfies the commission’s
preservation concerns, and the delay is lifted. In only about 8% of the cases
has there been an unbreachable impasse where the builder waits out the delay and
tears down the preferably-preserved structure…and everybody loses.  How do these results compare with others?     
 
 
In your reply, please include my original message. AOL users please note!

David Temple 
David F. Temple, Inc. 
300 South Street 
Medfield, MA 02052 
508-359-2915 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/private/masshistpres/attachments/20130502/673e10ac/attachment.htm>