e e e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning hi I'm Frank mesina and this is the June 4th 2024 meeting of the chatam historical commission before we start we have a few announcements um please note this meeting is being recorded and will be available shortly Hereafter for scheduled and On Demand viewing on any smartphone or tablet device if anyone else is recording the meeting please notify the chairman seeing none pursuant to Governor Hy's March 29 2023 signing of Acts of 2023 extending certain provisions of covid-19 measures adopted during the state of em emergency suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law General law 30 a20 until March 31st 2025 this meeting of the chadam historical commission is being conducted in person in person and via remote participation every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings is provided for in the order reminder that persons who would like to listen to this meeting while it in progress may do so by calling 508 945 4410 conference ID 81422 383 hashtag or by joining the meeting via Microsoft teams through the link on the posted agenda while this is a live broadcast and simoc Cas simcast on chatam TV despite our best efforts we may not be able to provide for Real Time access we will post a record of this meeting on the town's website S as soon as possible thank thank you very much uh first item we need to attend to is a roll call uh Mr lra is absent Mr Burling game is absent Mr Aman is as absent Stephanie Hamilton is absent what's going on here uh Sandy Porter here Janet Tennyson yes here Robert Stevens here Nancy here and the chairman Mr M is here so we Steve just show so we have a uh I'll wait till you sit down and then I'll ask you if you're here Mr Burling here thank you so uh we do have two uh regular members absent and we do have a a quorum so both Rober Stevenson and Nancy bar will be as alternates will be uh in addition to uh participating in a discussion we also be voting members of the commission this morning thank you very much okay uh we have uh the minutes of May 21st 2024 this was a relatively short meeting any comments Corrections additions deletions move for acceptance move to accept the minutes of the meeting a second please second second thank you very much I thought I shot that off I apologize it's ringing in my ears okay uh Sandy you were absent and B and Steve you were absent so we'll take a roll call on the minutes Steve abstain yes thank you Sandy wasain yes Janet i v yes yes uh Robert yes Nancy yes yes and the chair vote Yes okay we accept the minutes okay I apologize for one second the technology is driving me nuts it rings in my ears okay again we have one uh one hearing and this is application 24014 is that a typo 23014 it is okay uh so 24014 and we heard in accordance with chapter 158 the demolition D bl by law and 24014 to be heard in accordance with Section 12E the Cape Cod Commission is 193 Main Street if you come forward and introduce yourself and give us an overview of of what you're proposing on this iconic and very historic structure what a beauty um good morning uh I'm Hillary fuks um and the application that we're making is to complete the restoration work on the exterior um of 193 Main Street um which will include replacing uh all of the clapboard because the clapboard is mostly rotten uh it's attached directly to the sheathing boards So the plan is to remove the clapboard properly repair the sheathing wrap it and then uh install uh Cedar uh clapboard with the same reveal as the existing which is a fairly narrow reveal so the look will be the same the exterior uh trim on the building as those of you who have looked at it closely know is quite rotten uh so a lot of that will have to be replaced or repaired and much of the ornate trim is missing pieces and the plan on the on the sort of ornate dentils and uh brackets is repair where we can replace where we need to uh the windows um also need to be replaced and the plan there is to put uh in place uh identical windows in terms of the external appearance the actual uh type of window is still I think under investigation and the ideal world we would try to keep the existing windows but we haven't yet come up with a good solution that balances sort of the modern needs for air conditioning on the one hand heating uh proper insulation being able to open the window for fresh air um and trying to balance that with the old single pane windows with the wavy glass so that's kind of a work in progress um I was contacted Yesterday by Ellen Briggs who said she was going to talk to uh Fred eer who's done a lot of work in this area so we may be able to come up with a solution that uh preserves more of the historical fabric of the windows than than we think at the moment um we will also um and that's in the application what we would like to do on the side which you can't see from this picture it's in one one of the other elevations uh n yeah you can sort of see it there um there's a small side porch there um covered Side Porch um and we want to use half of that to put a half bath in so basically the external wall which is underneath that scaffolding board at the moment will come out uh about 4 feet or so and cover half of the porch it's in the architectural plans um in the package again it's not visible from the street the external appearance will be virtually identical um and it will give us the benefit of having at least a uh half bath on that floor because at the moment there's nothing on that floor could you could you I know drawing's a little conf you know it's kind of small do we have a point there I can I can point it out on the screen here if that helps yeah we have an electronic pointer that we don't is not working oh that's not working okay go ahead I've got a man yeah just just they won't pick you up so so this is the exis we just can't hear you so you just point and then come back and speak yeah that's that's our that's our high tech announcing system so the the the the top elevation there is the current appearance and you can see in the middle on the first floor um that window in the middle is on that covered porch and the elevation below that shows you when that window in effect has been bumped out it's not going to be bumped out flush with the the cape on the front because the roof doesn't extend that far so it'll still be set back I'd say 2 or three feet from the front Cape line okay now that you've explained it could you just go don't talk just just show me again where it is okay existing yes proposed got it and this this roof line here is set back got it 3T okay the roof line will be set back 3 feet I'll repeat what he said thank you very much okay my friend in the the booth is not happy you know it's live television you know and uh it's not like Johnny Carson okay good um why don't you continue so well that's that's basically it so we've come to you previously for approval of various phases of the work uh as we've gotten to them and what we'd like to do now is get approval for all the remaining uh exterior restoration and and renovation work because uh at this point if we touch one part of it we're going to touch other parts of it so we sort of have to look at it um as a whole and uh the final appearance of the building will be uh restoration to its original Glory I would say U and other than the addition of the half bath it will be exactly the same but better thank you very much okay uh again this this building and this property has been before us a number of times and I would like to just thank you again we really appreciate the fact that you're you're coming back to us even though it generally we like to have one application but we realize the complexity of this project and the need to do this on a continuing basis uh uh and you know we we are usually bound somewhat by the concept if the uh demolition or the change is more than 20% of a gross floor area was supposed to involve the the Cape Cod Commission uh hopefully I think the commission will agree that uh even though the changes that are being proposed uh are greater than the 20% is 20% threshold yes that you know that we feel the the the criteria is you can exceed the 20 some % but we feel that if we do that the changes you're making do not substantially mitigate its listing on a national register and therefore we do not refer it to the cape cart commission I'm jumping ahead to the end but I just wanted to let you know the process that we're going to go through so there's two things we'll do is we'll first reaffirm or affirm the historical Integrity of the property and that it is in fact uh uh historically significant which allows us then to proceed with a review on chapter 158 is in fact this demolition you know uh changed the historical significant of the property and secondly not referring it to the cape card commission again as I started off we do appreciate you know you're coming back to us it's this is an outstanding property and it's kind of the centerpiece of the whole village and they're very interested you know as you know I had one question from somebody relative to metal pillars is there metal pillars on the property so so to structurally support the front Portico we took down the the wooden the original rotting wooden pillars right um and you will have seen those sort of it's Canal levered at the moment with braces to hold up the Portico structurally we have to uh install metal posts to support the Portico and then wrap the the restored wooden columns around those metal posts so the metal post we actually have and they will be going up sometime in the next month or two and you will be seeing those metal posts for quite some time because it's going to take us a while to get the columns restored so we can wrap them around so yes people will see metal post there that's just an interim step when did the metal post C appear on your property uh they've been there maybe a month uh we have just painted them though so well no I'm just I'm I'm almost commenting in that I'm they're already starting the call oh yeah no no no I I would not be surprised if you get you have more sidewalk superintendent than you ever needed okay so I just thought I'd ask you may well get some additional calls yeah one question I do have and then turn it on if I may I apologize for that the clab you you really don't feel you can save any of them they're not okay and I I I tend to agree just taking a look and we did have a comment yesterday relative to the trim and the ornate brackets and stuff and we understand I think I understand you know your attempt to save as many as you can uh and then replace them uh repair as you can and of course the windows we do appreciate my good friend uh Ellen Briggs being dogged in historic restoration and and and con connecting you with uh Fred eer who's a re restoration specialist architect who could maybe help you in some way um having said that we really should look around to the rest of the commission do we have any questions Sandy or comments my only question would be what color are you going to paint it excuse me Sandy what color are you going question is out of order let's not go there he doesn't hasn't decided we de we don't have any jurisdiction of color I know we don't I'm sorry you said we haven't decided I think it's it's safe to assume that it won't be white okay that's fine also thank you so much for the time and the effort you've put into to restore this building thank you thank you I like to remind people that the ponon in Greece and most of the Greek buildings including the Venus dealo was not white it was painted many colors it's just paint thank you Janet no I think it's wonderful what you're doing and thank you very much it's just the landmark in chadam it's terrific thank you Steve as you said it's um as you said it was perhaps one of the it may be the centerpiece of the Old Village um it stands out for a number of reasons um it receives lots of attention and I more than pleased to see the owner giving it the the attention that it deserves um that building restored is going to hopefully be a catalyst for more successful efforts in the future but thank you thank you Steve thank you Robin no just thank you it's an amazing property and what you're doing you're going to be so happy when you get finished with it years special yes thank you Nancy um I also just want to second third and fourth the gr gratitude for restoration I have a couple questions and one thing I want to emphasize um just because you're getting questions is you're putting the metal up to as a support the metal pillars correct but you are saving the original wood pillars and as much as you can correct you're not re you're not building new pillars you're saving as much of that as possible and finding a way to rewrap them around the metal ab ab absolutely it's it's um a somewhat thankless task but yes yeah I just wanted to emphasize that so that the public was aware that you're doing that effort and my last um comment or question is I don't know if I can ask this legally but would you be willing to keep us informed of what happens with the windows um sure it's wonderful if you're you know would be wonderful you're able to save them but also if you're not able it would be lovely to see what you decide or identify as the replacement um just for a matter of information sure very happy to do that so you just need to let me know what the best way to communicate is with I'm not sure but okay I'm sorry I'm just I don't I don't know what the best process is to keep us informed but I would love to be kept informed if you were willing yeah absolutely no problem yeah well we'll stay in touch trust me we have enough eyes and ears on this program then you as I got three emails this morning okay all right um okay I think that's it if there's no other further questions or comments from the members of the public anybody in the public wish to be heard one way the other for or against all right uh Janet can we have a couple of motions oh or Steve either one of you ladies or gentlemen first would be the reaffirm M first the first motion that I will make is um presuming to section one uh chapter 158 of the chadam general bylaws I move that the chadam historic commission reaffirms that the building structure at 193 Main Street is historically significant because it is whole or in part 75 years old more and it is listed within an area listed on the national estate register of historic places further that is located with within a historic district a second second thank you we reaffirm any other comments all right we'll do a roll call uh Steve yes Stephanie uh excuse me uh Sandy yes Janet yes Robert yes Nancy yes and the chair vote Yes all right number one now to affirm it we have to determine that we're not going to impose a demolition delay as 158 a move that the chadam SC commission finds that materials presented this date showing that the proposed alterations Renovations at 193 Main Street um do not constitute a substantial alteration um to the contributing to a commity structure and therefore a referral to the cape card commission for review is not necessary it's the back of the blue form not the yeah well we we did that one so why don't we just continue the back of the blue okay um the CH historic commission also finds that the proposed work to be done uh dated help me with that I think the plans have a date of uh February 13th 2023 yep U Got It will not materially diminish the historic significance of the building at 193 Main Street and therefore the commission does not impose a demolition delay second thank you very much any other comments roll call Steve yes Sandy yes Janet yes Robert yes Nancy and share V yes all right now we deal with the referral to the Cape Cod Commission we're not going to do you got that one is that the green one or the pink one the one you were doing before referral to the cape card okay not we're going to do two motions um one of them I moves that the chadam sore commission confirms that the dwelling building that used that located at 193 Main Street is a contributing structure in the National Historic registered District that's one motion all right second to that second thank you any of comments Steve yes Sandy yes Janet yes Robert yes Nancy and vot yes now last but not least referral I further move that the chadam historical commission finds that materials presented this date showing that the proposed alterations of Renovations at to that structure do not constitute a substantial alteration to coning structure located in the the National Historic register district and therefore referral to the Cape Cod Commission for review is not necessary all right second very good comments none Steve yes Sandy yes Janet yes Robert yes ncy and VES thank you very much again we appreciate your efforts and uh look forward what's your estimated completion date don't put yourself in that position well since I'm doing most the work myself I would say it's going to be probably easily two years say again two years two years okay we have another preservation Awards uh Committee in about two years so we'll see what happens all right thank you very much Hillary well thank you I really appreciate it and I appreciate your efforts okay uh we have a a number of of items just quickly just to comment uh under old business uh I haven't gotten an update on the court action relative to the monoy theater Washington Tay House and soon as I get that I'll share it if anything it's about to happen is it not the court has began they're hearing motions okay and this is the mo motion of whether or not he's allowed to build houses which will allow something to happen with the Washington Taylor and the theater the second item is the uh William and Ania Taylor Nicholson home site and this is the efforts by palal in order to prare prepare to prepare and provide uh the historical commission with information on the eligibility of the home site as a national register that contract has been issued the efforts are underway and had correspondence with uh uh Holly harp of pal and that effort will be completed in the fall so sometime in October November we will get the documentation on the Nickerson homest set that documentation consists of the results of the archaeological dig and why it is eligible as a national register site which the commission we will look at it review it submit it to mass historic and ask to for determination of Eligibility which is the first step to potentially getting a recognition of that site as a national register site uh The Boat House the saga continues um you know we all know what happened at town meeting U and the failure of the uh the the bond issue for uh the efforts on the uh the various efforts on the port uh the town I know is working on ways to reduce the cost of that uh effort and specifically on 90 Bridge Street and hopefully there'll be some kind of uh revote at some point and then there'll be work done to allow us to bring the boat house back to chadam finally so you know it's it's going to happen when it happens but it ain't happening yet I know the boat house is still in good shape and uh Dave Dy who is potentially the owner of the boat house if you will you know has done a lot of work to button up the boat house so it withstands weather and it's it's waiting and uh we have the funds through CPC to bring it back but we just need the the work done uh by the town to prepare for its receipt okay I have so-called Chairman's report uh demolition delays I guess there's nothing new to add to that just the same status of Bridge Street bark Clift and Highland so uh there's no changes I do have a couple of items that if you could bear with me uh and the first item is that I I shared with the members of the commission unfortunately this morning I I realized early this morning that I forgot to send it to you guys and so we're not going to discuss it in in depth but I just wanted to let you know in your inbox there's a package which is the uh the survey we we performed an update to the to the survey plan I guess in 2023 and that was where we paid to look at the survey plan and the survey plan is the status of all the form B's and form a in the town and to make some determination of what we've inventoried so far what's still yet to be done what's on the national register or not and what are his recommendation as a preservation consultant to the commission so there are a number of recommendations uh and Eric has provided us some guidance I don't want to discuss the details now I'd like you to review it and at our next meeting we're going to put it on the agenda to spend some time to review that at the conclusion of that we will then decide whether or not and I shared with you a memo just as all very you know just the beginning of a rough estimate from Eric Dre what it would take to to meet some of the requirements in the survey if we agree this is something we want to pursue as a commission then we'll proceed with the most important step is go finding some money to do the work so uh that's that's in your in your inbox if you could take a look at it we'll discuss it in detail at the next meeting but I wanted to give you a heads up on that okay uh secondly moving along uh I just want to remind people God bless you or was it my grandfather would say salute uh there's a group in town called historic chadam which we are actually part of as the historical commission uh which we formed historic chadam was formed immediately following the tur Centennial I think I said that correctly chadam 300th anniversary when we got together and realized that all of the historic venues uh and organizations in town were meeting for the first time in a long time at the conclusion of the 300 we realized there's not going to be any organization so I guess was Ron Nickerson and myself and a couple of other people formed a group called historic chatam with the app with the historical society and we still we still meet the the this the group The Historic chatam consists of the chatam windmill Group which this group is part of EX oficio as supporting the windmill the Atwood Museum The monoy Wildlife Refuge specifically the you know the the national register wild uh lighthouse on monoy uh the chadam lighthouse house uh right on Main Street the mcone RCA Wilders Museum the calb Nickerson Homestead the Railroad Museum and the elderd public Li library and last but not least the mail house so these seven or eight groups form this histor this historic group called historic chatam as part of that we do Annie could you put that one up we do something called history weekend every year I think is about the eth or nth year we do with that and I'm doing it to get some PR here free PR hopefully you know I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of people who watch the historical commission meeting and so you're going to see these around town so this is history weekend and on June 14th to the 16th and some of the highlights of History weekend if you will is the fact that each of the venues you know when we we conceived this history weekend the idea was you know people live in New York City probably never go to the Statue of Liberty you know because it's there they see it was the same thing people in chadam they know we have these very historic venues but they may not go to that so it's kind of June 14th and 16 when we started this about 8 or nine years ago we thought it was before the season unfortunately now the season now Chang because they're here we have a lot of visitors in town but each of the venues on the list here either has a half price or free admission so you can you can view go to these various museums and the dates and the times are there of when they're open some of the highlights of the week of History weekend if you will is the elders Public Library on Thursday the 13th uh is going to have Dan zodo our archaeologist who gave a presentation to us present that to the community so that's there the Nickerson Homestead will be open on Saturday the the windmill you know with Mother Nature cooperating on Saturday the 15th will be grinding corn the Atwood would be open the malcone will be open uh the Wildlife Refuge the lighthouse will be available if you can get out to the end of monoy and go for a tour and of course last but not least the railroad museum is open so you know I'm I'm I just wanted to let the members of the commission and the public who may be listening that that's going on on History weekend last but not least you see this wonderful sign here hopefully the public can see it uh this sign here which you see here I don't know if it's being transmitted or not it is thank goodness thank you very much is a program that was started in the 90s by uh don Edge rest of his soul and uh who who started this sign program single-handedly in town because he felt that we had so many historic structures in town buildings and businesses that it need to be acknowledged of what it was and when the building was put together and uh so da started a program and he came to the historical commission and I think Nancy was on the commission addition to myself at that time and Don Aman Nancy Yore and some people who've been around a while Sandy uh also you know they started this program and after Don had the program Bob Oliver took it over then from Bob Oliver Don Amman took it over and lately we haven't had a chance to really do anything or pursue it excuse me didn't Bill Manley do something with these two well bill was part of it at the time yes okay um but I've convinced Nancy I clouded her perspective and so Nancy is going to take over managing or being the point person for the sign program so uh basically for the members of the public the five of you listening if your home is 100 years old and you think you would like to put a sign it's interesting that M the 193 Main Street May Avail himself of it you know to do a little research not a lot of research we have a form be's you know when was the house built who was the original owner and put that sign on your house uh we provide the information and the documentation then the owner actually goes to the sign shop and gets a sign made according to office specifications and then they put it on the house I'm sharing it that I can't see okay so it's just something we thought was worthwhile many many communities especially historic communities do this and we actually also you know we were very involved in the T Centennial signs that and then uh the of course the preservation award signed and I guess from our perspective it you know the more the public sees you know you see a little cape and you don't know if it was built in 1800 or 1953 you know it's hard to tell the difference and this acknowledges it okay Frank M talked himself out the other thing I would like to do at our next meeting almost almost uh the next thing to discuss at the meeting and this is a request from Nancy and I agree with her we have a number of issues on on hold on our agenda everything from the 75e threshold to uh the administrative review process uh and last but not least our Infamous demolition by benign neglect you know change to our bylaw hopefully in in the near future the town will have hired a uh principal planner who can do some of the help help us in that area and we could proceed but I wanted to discuss at our next meeting what the commission felt we should address from a priority point of view we can't do everything but we certainly could get going with some of the things that we had on hold well ladies and gentlemen anything else that they would like commission members would like to bring up yes sir can I ask that the commission members stay for a minute after we conclude the meeting I just have a couple things to ask and to tell you okay I don't know if that's legal but we'll try it it's a personal matter right AB it's personal has nothing to do with the commission yes okay so we wanted to to just make sure that the police aren't watching okay if there's nothing else I have a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn thank you second second by Janet any other discussion thank you very much Steve yes Sandy yes Janet yes Robert yes Nancy and the chairs yes thank you very much I appreciate it thank you Mark [Music] [Music]