[MassHistPres] Compliance Self-Reporting

[Andrew Shveda]

The Worcester Historical Commission is currently working on revising and
updating the rules and regulations pertaining to the three Local Historic
Districts found in the city, Massachusetts Avenue, Montvale and Crown Hill.
One item we have been struggling with is how to ascertain compliance with
issued Certificates of Appropriateness. We currently have one dedicated
Historic Preservationist on staff, and that is a new development which we
are very grateful for. But asking this person to be responsible for
compliance checks and fulfill all the other duties of the role is not
possible. Especially since we will hopefully soon be reevaluating our
Demolition Delay Bylaws and making some changes with regards to compliance
as well.

The question is, how to other communities' HC's and LHC's  handle
compliance checks as well as penalties for failure to comply with the
issued certificates?

One idea that was passed around was to ask the applicant to submit a
self-report form with a detailed narrative supported with photographic
evidence describing how the specific points of the Certificate of
Appropriateness was adhered to. We could then sign off on them either
administratively or as a commission and then close out he application.

If this where to be successful we would think about applying this to
Demo-Delay applications as well since we see many more of those than
Certificates of Appropriateness applications in LHD's.


I would be grateful for any input on what your community does to enforce
compliance and thoughts on this particular idea in general.

Best Regards,


Andrew Shveda, AIA NCARB
Chairman
Worcester Historical Commission
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