[MassHistPres] success rate of demo delay?

[Anne Lusk]

Dear All,
   If a demolition delay is to give time to form a Local Historic District
to save the building, then we also need to look at the requirements for
local approval of a Local Historic District.  We worked to save the 175
year old workman's cottage at 17 Hart Street.  We had written the LHD but
did not have the "required-by-Brookline 80% of the owners" on Hart Street
in favor of the LHD.  In a less than high income neighborhood with some of
the workman cottages being rentals and others in family trusts, we had
different owner-characteristics compared with large expensive single family
owner-occupied historic homes in which the majority of the owners could and
would support an LHD. Trying to match the high approval threshold of
wealthy households on a less wealthy street is difficult and unfair.  That
is why it is harder to preserve the less wealthy homes.  Instead at that
upcoming Town meeting, another wealthy home was allowed to become a
historic-themed district.  We need to do better if we want to reflect the
full story of housing.

https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1008/2022/01/Harts-Content-Brookline-MA-Local-Historic-District-Study-Report-Lusk-8-23-2021.pdf
Anne Lusk


On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 12:28 PM Ralph Slate <slater at alum.rpi.edu> wrote:

> Springfield implemented a 9-month demo delay about 10 years ago. Success
> is a subjective word.
>
> I would deem the demo delay a success in Springfield because it definitely
> saved four buildings that I can think of off the top of my head:
>
> 1) The Wilys-Overland building, which was a four story structure that had
> been originally used as a sales/service building. Its owner had left it
> abandoned for decades, and applied to demolish it simply to get rid of the
> liability. The city responded by creating a Local Historic District, the
> owner sold the building soon afterward to a developer who transformed it
> into 60 market-rate apartments (which are rare in Springfield because of
> low demand for market rate)
>
> 2) The National Needle building, a similar story, industrial building from
> the 1890s, abandoned for years, owner wanted to demo just to get rid of the
> building, no other development plans. Demo delay kicked in, property was
> made a LHD. The property is not redeveloped yet though, so the future is
> less certain.
>
> 3) A building which was from the late 1800s, built as an early automobile
> factory (Springfield was a cradle of early the vehicle industry). The owner
> applied to demolish it with the belief that a cleared site would be more
> attractive to sell. Demo delay stopped him. There was no groundswell of
> support for creating a LHD, so the building was just in limbo, awaiting the
> expiration of the delay. However about 6 months in, the owner found someone
> to redevelop the building, and it now serves as a storage/U-Haul facility.
>
> 4) An 1870s Italianate building which was the home of the owner of the
> Wason Railcar Company, and was being used as the office of a
> warehouse/moving company. The owner wanted to tear it down, we were
> notified, and two members of our historical commission (I was one of them)
> talked to the owner, conveyed the importance of the building to him, and he
> decided that he would not only keep it, but would pay to have it formally
> surveyed and turned into a Local Historic District.
>
> Our delay did *not* save quite a few other buildings (probably in the
> dozens), most of which were 100+ year old houses which were usually in
> pretty bad condition, but also a church, another car manufacturing
> building, and a couple of apartment blocks. I think that it might have
> *accelerated* the demolition of at least two buildings which were
> approaching the 100-year old trigger.
>
> However without the demo delay, we would have at least 4 fewer historic
> structures, which is why I view it as a success.
>
> Ralph Slate
> Springfield, MA
>
>
>
> On 10/2/2022 1:43 PM, Dennis De Witt wrote:
>
> The demo delay experience in Brookline has been that partial demolition cases are almost always resolved through mitigation design negotiations.
>
> However full demolition delays of principal buildings (i.e. not garages etc.) and especially by developers, often result in the developer simply waiting out the delay. (It is 12 months for non-NR / 18 months for NR).
>
> It would be interesting to hear from others who feel they have had a better than average success rate in saving buildings when a delay has been imposed — and what they attribute that to.  It’s my impression (perhaps wrong?) that most delays of an intended full demolition do not eventually prevent that demolition.
>
> (That said our demo delay law has directly lead to the creation of 5 of our 8 LHDs and saved the Coolidge Corner Theater.)
>
> Dennis De Witt
> Brookline
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