January 10, 2006

The meeting was opened and called to order at 7:10 p.m. Mark Greenwood, alternate, was asked to sit in for one of the missing regular members.

MINUTES of 13DEC05: There were no changes to the minutes. Sandra Heaney made a motion, seconded by Dorcas Gordon, to accept the minutes. The motion carried.

DISCUSSION: Clay Dingman presented to the commission for discussion the next draft of the Historic District Ordinance for the town’s 2006 meeting. This draft included edits proposed recently by Bristol’s town counsel, as well as the Planning Board. The commission was comfortable with the draft in its current form but did recommend that one change be made to Page 2 to correct an omission. In the second paragraph, first line, the number "174" is to be included to correct an omission of the reference to the contributing property of Plat No. 174 so that it corresponds to the property’s depiction on the map of the proposed Historic District Overlay.

At this point, Clay Dingman related the feedback on the presentation of the Ordinance at the December 28, 2005 Planning Board Meeting. He said that the Ordinance seemed to be well received by those at the meeting, both the Board and members of the public. Mr. Dingman asked that the Historic District Commission members try to attend the next evening’s (January 11) Planning Board meeting as the Ordinance was to be reviewed again at that meeting and it would be good to have additional Commission members present to address any of the public’s (or the Board’s) questions or concerns and speak to the efforts of the Commission to draft the Ordinance. Clay Dingman stated that it was his understanding that at this meeting the Planning Board could vote to place the Ordinance on the ballot for the March town meeting but if this did not happen that there would be perhaps one further public hearing on the Ordinance.

The Commission then reviewed a draft of the introductory language for the Historic District Ordinance zoning ballot and recommended some changes to make the language a bit clearer to the town voters. Clay Dingman volunteered to make these edits and present them to the Planning Board the following evening.

The Commission continued to the final point on the evening’s agenda, a discussion of how to increase public awareness of the proposed Historic District Ordinance in advance of the town meeting. Clay Dingman said that after significant work on the Commission’s website, he had had only limited time to work on it in the past few weeks in order to finalize it for upload to the Town’s website. He would, however, work to finish this as quickly as possible. Sandra Heaney asked if the Commission could contact the local newspapers and make them aware of the draft Ordinance so that these media might write articles about it and publicize it to the town. Clay Dingman said that it was his understanding that if the Planning Board voted to place the Ordinance on the zoning ballot that the Board would put out a press release on the matter to the local media, and that the typical response at this point was that the media would report on this (and other proposed zoning changes on the ballot). Mr. Dingman said that he would work with the media to be a point of contact for the Commission and a resource for information on the Ordinance. Sandra Heaney wondered whether or not it might also make sense to prepare a presentation on the Ordinance and invite the town to this presentation. Clay Dingman said that this was a good idea but that it might make sense to have it take place in the context of a regular Historic District Commission meeting. Such a presentation could be advertised within a press release (or an article in the local papers) so that the town would be aware to attend a specific Commission meeting, perhaps the one scheduled for February 14 or the one for March, which could take place on Tuesday, March 7 because the regular Commission meeting for that month coincided with the 2006 Town Meeting.

During discussion of new business, Clay Dingman asked if anyone on the Commission had read the article in the Sunday, January 8 edition of the Citizen, which talked about some of the concerns facing New England towns over the next few years. The article went on to report that small towns in general in New England were, because of development, gradually losing the small-town charm and identity that attracted tourism and consumers to these towns in the first place. Mr. Dingman also cited a Citizen article from several months ago that said that New Hampshire, in particular, had seen a decline in tourism over the past year because much of what attracts tourists to the state in the first place – open spaces, rural charm and small-town identity – was being lost to development. In fact, the newspaper article mentioned that two states adjacent to New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, were seeing an increase in tourism, possibly some of that which New Hampshire had lost, because public perception was that two states still had significant open space.

Mr. Dingman felt that the proposed Bristol Historic District Ordinance was a small, but important, step toward helping Bristol keep intact and ultimately revitalize its Central Square in an effort to help draw tourism to the town.

At this point, the lone member of the public in attendance at the meeting, Vincent Migliore, was asked if he had any comment on the draft Ordinance or any other aspects of the meeting. He said that while he felt the Ordinance was an impressive effort and clearly the result of significant hard work on the part of the Commission, nonetheless he did want to address two items within it.

The first item was the Commission’s proposed area for the Historic District Overlay; Mr. Migliore wondered why more buildings in town had not been included, in particular the Henry Whipple House and the Mica Building. Clay Dingman responded to this by saying that the Commission had worked over the past few months to determine what area in town would make sense to propose to the town for the Historic District Overlay and the result had been to recommend an area that met three key criteria: (1) the area was made up of contiguous plats in a central area in town; (2) the area was recognizable as an historic section of town and its selection could be supported because it was defined by structures on the National Register of Historic Places; and (3) the area was manageable in size and would not be so large as to create a burden on the town because it would be beyond the Commission’s capability to oversee it.

Mr. Dingman said that because the Henry Whipple House was so far outside this proposed area, it was not even considered for inclusion within the Historic District Overlay. In addition, the single remaining structure in town on the National Register that was not included in the proposed area, the Minot-Sleeper Library, was not part because to include it would make it necessary to include all buffer buildings around the library and those on contiguous plats between it and the central business district, making the district too large and unwieldy for a first attempt at creating the district.

Mr. Dingman continued by saying that the Mica Building was not on the National Register and as a result a reasonable argument could not be made to include it and not include other buildings in town that were not on the National Register but that had historic value. In fact, there were probably thirty or forty more buildings in the central area of town that could fall under this category, but to include them would make the proposed district so large that the town might reject it outright. The Mica Building is located just outside the proposed area and by its proximity it could still be an indirect beneficiary of the intended results of the Historic District Overlay.

Mr. Migliore felt that the town was missing a valuable opportunity to include this structure in the proposed district. Mr. Dingman said that the Commission’s feeling was that it should start small with the District and get the proposed area designated first and that, if the town wanted to increase the size of the District in the next year or two, it certainly could. During this time the Commission could educate the town and any owners of town historic structures on the benefits of having a town Historic District – how its existence was a litmus text of sorts that allowed owners of historic structures within such a district access to potential federal tax relief benefits and state-supported grants available for rehabilitation. Without such a district, property owners could not qualify for state grants and would have to pursue inclusion on the National Register, often a lengthy process, to be eligible for federal benefits.

Mr. Migliore supported these benefits of the proposed Historic District. His only other concern with the draft Ordinance was the language in 6.B.7, regarding the Commission’s review of a package for Certificate of Approval. Specifically, Mr. Migliore felt that with the language as it now stood (it empowers the Commission to seek outside professional opinions and advice regarding an application), the Commission could use this as a way of intentionally holding up or "stonewalling" a particular application because the Commission would continually be able to claim that it was in the process of seeking outside professional advice (and never actually complete receipt of the advice). Mr. Dingman explained that this was not the intent of the language, and that its purpose was far more benign and meant to make certain that the Commission had the information it needed to make an informed decision on the applicant’s package. Mr. Dingman also stated that the town’s legal counsel had reviewed the Ordinance and had not mentioned this section as a concern. The other members of the Commission indicated that they did not see the intentional delay of an application as a by-product of 6.B.7’s language, but that the language here could be re-written to diminish any concerns.

Dorcas Gordon said at that point that she could understand how this part of the Ordinance as written might be construed instead to place a burden on the applicant because the language said that the cost of any outside professional advice sought would borne by the applicant. She felt that the language could be changed to say that the Commission could simply ask the applicant to furnish professional opinions, if necessary. Dorcas said that she would review the language and craft alternate copy for this particular section.

There was no further discussion on the Ordinance. Clay Dingman invited Mr. Migliore to attend the Planning Board meeting the following evening, and encouraged the Commission members to do so, as well, as a healthy discussion of the Ordinance in a public forum could serve to strengthen support for it.

NEXT MEETING: will be held on February 14, 2006.

With no further business, Sandra Heaney made a motion, seconded by Dorcas Gordon, to adjourn at 8:15 p.m. The motion carried.