[MassHistPres] Demolition Delay Success (Aubrey Theall)

[aubrey theall]

We have a demolition delay bylaw in Groton that affords 18 months delay.  We have a very historic home in town presently under demo delay and it seems the owner is content to wait us out until the delay expires in November of 24.  There does not appear to be an appetite in town to create a single address historic district as a lever to block the demo.  Unfortunately, therefore, there’s a good chance the home will be lost despite the existence of the bylaw.

Aubrey Theall
Groton Historical Commission 

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> On Sep 25, 2023, at 3:44 PM, masshistpres-request at cs.umb.edu wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Demolition delay success? (Courtney Meyer)
>   2. Re: Demolition delay success? (Jack LeMenager)
>   3. Re: Demolition delay success? (Ralph Slate)
>   4. Re: Demolition delay success? (annelusk at gmail.com)
> 
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> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 13:15:00 -0400
> From: Courtney Meyer <courtney.opalka at gmail.com>
> To: MHC MHC Listserve <MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu>
> Subject: [MassHistPres] Demolition delay success?
> Message-ID:
>    <CAKsLO89kg4v4n0qpM-X7HtDon_9yeBMw9Nzot3PcAk8g5x=yTg at mail.gmail.com>
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> Hi all,
> 
> Our Historical Commission is considering instituting a demolition delay
> bylaw. Does anyone have success stories in buildings they've saved as a
> result of a demolition delay? Or any pros/cons folks would like to share
> about the process?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Courtney Meyer
> Hadley Historical Commission
> 
> -- 
> Today's Children, Tomorrow's World
> www.theglobalchild.org
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> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 13:50:44 -0400
> From: Jack LeMenager <jlemen11 at icloud.com>
> To: Courtney Meyer <courtney.opalka at gmail.com>
> Cc: MHC MHC Listserve <MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu>
> Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Demolition delay success?
> Message-ID: <BA70F887-6920-41A3-8983-F166B519312F at icloud.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Winchester instituted a demolition delay bylaw in the mid-1990s, and subsequently expanded it over the years to where it now encompasses more than half of all properties in town with the lever of a 12-month delay. We’ve had mixed success with the bylaw, but feel any historically significant property it saves is worth it. 
> 
> Winchester’s challenge, like most suburban Boston communities, is the pressure for more housing. Many out-of-town developers see our town as a lucrative pocket of Boston suburbia in which to build large, profitable new houses. But, because the town has so little open land, those new houses usually mean the loss of smaller, older, often historically significant homes.
> 
> Our successes have certainly included instances where a threatened property was saved. But in the larger number of cases, we have successfully used the delay as a period in which to negotiate with developers for a mutually satisfactory outcome, in which case we lift the delay prematurely. This can sometimes mean saving the house while allowing the builder to renovate and add floor space. More often, however, these negotiations result in the design of a new house that is appropriate in scale, massing and design for its setting, often among other historic properties. 
> 
> We feel that expanding the delay period to 18 or 24 months would result in more successes while also serving as a deterrent to developers unwilling or unable to invest in a property that cannot be demolished for such a period.  
> 
> Jack LeMenager
> Chair
> Winchester Historical Commission
> 
>> On Sep 25, 2023, at 1:15 PM, Courtney Meyer via MassHistPres <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> Our Historical Commission is considering instituting a demolition delay bylaw. Does anyone have success stories in buildings they've saved as a result of a demolition delay? Or any pros/cons folks would like to share about the process?
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> Courtney Meyer
>> Hadley Historical Commission
>> 
>> -- 
>> Today's Children, Tomorrow's World
>> www.theglobalchild.org <http://www.theglobalchild.org/>
>> _______________________________________________
>> MassHistPres mailing list
>> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
>> https://mailman.cs.umb.edu/listinfo/masshistpres
> 
> Jack LeMenager
> 781.454.7611
> jlemen11 at icloud.com
> 
> 
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> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 13:58:16 -0400
> From: Ralph Slate <slater at alum.rpi.edu>
> To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
> Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Demolition delay success?
> Message-ID: <170eb961-4d44-943a-b0f8-713ac10441dd at alum.rpi.edu>
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> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 15:38:22 -0400
> From: <annelusk at gmail.com>
> To: "'Ralph Slate'" <slater at alum.rpi.edu>,    <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
> Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Demolition delay success?
> Message-ID: <002c01d9efe7$d88e5270$89aaf750$@gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Ralph,
> 
>   For your LHDs, what was the percentage of property owners in the district who had to say “yes” for the LHD to go forward?  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Anne
> 
> 
> 
> Anne Lusk, Ph.D. 
> 
> 18 Hart Street, Brookline, MA 02445 
> 
> Boston University Metropolitan College Lecturer – Urban Agriculture
> 
> 617-879-4887 h
> 
> 617-872-9201 c
> 
> <https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4436> https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4436
> 
> 
> 
> From: MassHistPres <masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu> On Behalf Of Ralph Slate via MassHistPres
> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2023 1:58 PM
> To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
> Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Demolition delay success?
> 
> 
> 
> Here are some in Springfield:
> 
> * 151 Chestnut St., the Wilys Overland building. Owner proposed demolition, historical commission delayed it, and created a local historic district preventing it from being demolished without approval. Owner sold the building to a developer who created the Overland Lofts apartments, project is completed and occupied.
> 
> * 270-274 Liberty Street, the Thomas Wason House. Owner proposed demolition, I, along with another member of the Springfield Historical Commission, met with the owner, told him of the building's history, he changed his tune and instead voluntarily got it listed on the National Register and had a Local Historic District created.
> 
> * 88 Birnie Ave. Former Atlas Motor Car company, an early American auto manufacturer. Owner proposed demolition because he thought an empty lot would be more marketable than an old building. During the delay period the owner found a buyer who wanted the building, it was redeveloped and is currently in use as a UHaul self-storage facility.
> 
> * 55 Emery St., the National Needle building. New owner proposed demolition, supposedly to build a hotel. During the delay a local historic district was created, blocking demolition. Property sat vacant for a few years, but is now being redeveloped into - wait for it - a self-storage facility.
> 
> The issues we have had are:
> 
> * Sometimes there are forces at play which undermine our process. We had one large building go down (Hendy Chocolate company) because "the demo application never got sent to the historical commission". We also had someone change the date in our GIS system so that a 1840 building suddenly became a 1950 building and didn't qualify anymore, and then it just disappeared, no prior notice - can't prove who changed the record though. 
> 
> * I suspect that some savvy building owners have preemptively demolished their buildings when they were approaching our 100-year cutoff for delay. 
> 
> * There is nothing in our process that ties future use to the lifting of the delay. In one instance, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield came to us to lift the demolition order on a church. We lifted it, part of the reason that people voted yes was because he said that they were going to build a smaller, more sustainable church in its place. Right after it was demolished, they "changed their mind", no new church built, and old church gone. The lot is vacant.
> 
> * Our delay is 9 months, which is barely enough time to get a LHD created. The city has become more resistant to helping with the LHD process due to the time and effort it takes to get through it. I think 12 months would be a lot better.
> 
> 
> Ralph Slate
> Springfield, MA
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/25/2023 1:35 PM, Courtney Meyer via MassHistPres wrote:
> 
> Hi all, 
> 
> 
> 
> Our Historical Commission is considering instituting a demolition delay bylaw. Does anyone have success stories in buildings they've saved as a result of a demolition delay? Or any pros/cons folks would like to share about the process?
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> 
> 
> Courtney Meyer
> 
> Hadley Historical Commission
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Today's Children, Tomorrow's World
> www.theglobalchild.org <http://www.theglobalchild.org> 
> 
> 
> 
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