[MassHistPres] LHDs a recent narrow unexpected defeat — and some Questions.

[sally milne]

Alarm bells going off.  The push for affordable housing at any cost is a
problem bolstered by 40b.  Where as once upon a time the preservation of an
historic structure could be accomplished by turning the historic building
into multi family seems as if there are holes developing . Maybe I just
never saw them but it’s very concerning.  We could not accomplish another
LDH in Harwich, for the reasons mentioned here. The alternative we
 implemented was a district of critical planning concern bolstered through
the Cape Cod Commission.  I will be interested in the follow up to this
thread, thanks Dennis.

Sally Urbano
Captains’Row
West Harwich

On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 9:39 AM Dennis De Witt <abtdewitt at rcn.com> wrote:

> LHDs a recent narrow unexpected defeat — and some Questions.
>
>
> *Creation of LHDs*
>
> Brookline, which has representative town meeting, has eight LHDs — seven
> are neighborhood LHDs ranging from perhaps 20 properties to perhaps 300,
> plus one single property LHD.  The first two, created ±40 years ago, passed
> with little opposition and no prescribed process.  The first is a
> neighborhood near BU where BU demolished an important building over an
> August weekend (pre-demo delay laws).  The second was and is a very
> together neighborhood.
>
> Then came an attempt in a particularly upmarket neighborhood where the
> neighborhood association hadn’t done enough homework and was blindsided by
> a core of aggressive libertarian opposition — “No one is going to tell me
> what to do with my house!".
>
> That lead to a “rule of thumb” (generated by a conservative selectman and
> effectively institutionalized over time by Town Meeting) that a
> multi-property LHD should have the support of 80% of the owners (the owners
> of multiple properties are counted once and re condo buildings each
> separately owned condo unit is counted once).
>
> All of Brookline's subsequent multi-property LHDs (five total) have meet
> that requirement — as it happens, all had just a little over 84% support.
> In each case the remaining 16% of ownerships was not all opposed.  It would
> be a mixture of NOs, and those who wanted to be recorded as neutral (e.g.
> perhaps an institution), and a few properties for which a responsible
> person genuinely could not be identified or contacted.
>
>
> *A surprise upset*
>
> Last spring a small area of seven properties two of which were condo
> buildings, with a total of 15 ownerships in the area, came to town meeting
> as an extension of an existing LHD.  Two of the buildings, owned by a
> developer, were under demo delay.  To everyone’s astonishment the developer
> said they had no objection to the LHD.  One other owner, who lives part of
> the year out of the country, asked to be counted as neutral but
> specifically *not* opposed.  In Town Meeting it ran into stiff opposition
> from pro-housing folks who do not believe in single family houses nor even
> in single family zoning (in fact the developer clearly was going to convert
> his two large houses into multi-unit condos — and the neighborhood and
> Preservation Commission both said that was OK).   In town meeting after
> lengthy discussion it came one vote short of ⅔.  The next night there was a
> motion to reconsider and after another lengthy discussion it again fell 1
> vote short of the ⅔  with only a very few changed votes (mostly due to
> absences).  In the past it would have been passed with a nearly unanimous
> vote.
>
>
> *I would like to know the following*
>
> Has anyone experienced any similar defeat ?
>
> Has anyone ever passed an LHD in Town Meeting where less than ⅔ of the
> owners in the LHD supported it?
>
> Has anyone ever lost an LHD in Town Meeting where the owners
> overwhelmingly supported it?
>
> How many representative TM towns have multiple LHDs? — and how many LHDs?
>
> How many open TM towns have multiple LHDs? — and how many LHDs?
>
>
> If Chris had some of this information stashed somewhere it would be great
> to know that — and not have to reconstruct it.
>
> Dennis De Witt
> Brookline
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