Permission To Demolish Several Historic Homes Approved, Proposal To Amend Zoning In Business Limited District Explained, And Discussion Of Jones Library Preservation Agreement Postponed
Architects rendition of the planned Center East Commons (on right) with an existing office building, also known as the Jared T. Wescott House, (left) . Photo: Amherst Planning Board
Report On The Meeting Of The Amherst Historic Commission. May 19, 2021
The meeting was held via Zoom and was recorded.
Present
Commission Members:Patricia Auth, Robin Fordham, Jane Wald, Hetty Startup; Jan Marquardt arrived after 7
Staff: Planner Ben Breger
For the meeting packet with background information look here.
Demolition Of The Ted Westcott Homestead
An 1820s Greek Revival farmhouse, the Jared Taft Westcott homestead, is to be demolished. Three engineers and builders experienced in restoring and re-locating historical buildings provided testimony that the structure is beyond repair at a reasonable cost. The $250,000 to $300,000 cost to raise the ceilings and replace the wrap-around porch invokes the requirement to bring the building to current codes, which would destroy the architectural character and historic charm of the house. Rotted sills, failing foundation, and serious water damage in the walls from years of leaking do not provide solid and stable bases for repairing the building and also prohibit moving it to a different site.
Westcott built his homestead on land acquired from palm hat factory owner Leonard Hills in what became known as the Railroad Depot District, an area rich in Amherst business history. Westcott spent 20 years in the palm leaf hat industry, often working with Mr. Hills, and later became the first director of the First National Bank of Amherst, located across the street from the Hills mansions. The Westcott house was the only house in the area until the railroad came in 1853, greatly increasing the value of the land as it became developed.
Others know the structure as the Garvey house, since it became the home of James and Mary Harrington, a foreman on the railroad until his early death in 1912. His wife was a trimmer in the hat shop. The Harringtons were grandparents to Robert J. Garvey, a math and science teacher who was a member of the Select Board (1971–1976), Hampshire County Commissioner (1976–1984) and Hampshire County Sheriff (1984–2016). Thus, it also figures prominently in the history of the Irish immigrant experience in Amherst.
The Greek Revival-style house is listed on the Massachusetts Historical Commission inventory. With its full-length windows, pedimented gable and cornice to the street, it is one of few surviving in Amherst, though there are many similar homes in Hadley, particularly North Hadley, dating from the 1830s. The flushboard siding is unique. The wrap-around porch (ca. 1890) with its carved posts is its greatest charm. None of the original interior architectural features remain. While recognizing its historical, architectural, and geographic significance to the Town, the Commission regretfully allowed its demolition with the hope that the long windows onto the porch and other “period” elements can be salvaged and repurposed.
It should be noted that removal of the Westcott homestead will require amending the previously approved Site Plan Review allowing the 24 housing units on the site. However, the “mixed use” designation will not change, as the current tenant, Tom Crossman, will continue to operate his property management business from one of the new buildings at the site.
The Commission also approved demolishing three other historically significant structures that are more than fifty years old and also in very poor condition. Members felt that the ranch house at 90 Memorial Drive, bordering a golf course, was typical of housing in a post-war subdivision but not so unique that its removal would be detrimental to the Town. Similarly, an early 19th century cape at 599 East Leverett Road, in a charming location next to a pond and mature trees, had been reconfigured so many times over the years that nothing old and worthy of preservation remains. Lastly, a truck and car repair garage, along with a former farm stand (converted to a dwelling unit), at 20 Ball Lane in North Amherst will be demolished. Neighbors testified to the precarious condition of the buildings. There was evidence that houseless people might be living in the garage and that brownfields existed on the site, which the Town will need to monitor. The present owner will not spend the money needed for environmental remediation; he has said that a bank financing a sale would require a 21E evaluation and cleanup, and he does not want to have to pay twice. A potential buyer had offered significant funds towards this remediation, but no agreement with the owner was reached.
Rezoning of The Downtown Limited Business District (B-L).
Suzannah Fabing Muspratt spoke about the two blocks of North Pleasant Street between Cowles Lane and McClellan Street. These are zoned Limited Business, and an amendment to zoning in this area that is under current consideration would permit three- or possibly four-story buildings in a 100-foot-deep overlay district along the street. Muspratt said she is worried that the zoning change would create incentives for developers to tear down the nineteenth-century buildings in these two blocks in order to replace them with bigger buildings to increase revenue. She has asked the Planning Department to create a second option for this district, one that would preserve the historic structures but relax what can be built on the remainder of the lots behind them. This would address the desire for additional housing and retail space in the B-L. She asked if the Historical Commission could support this request. Commission members expressed dismay at the prospect of losing the unified historical streetscape along the west side of Kendrick Park and agreed that steps need to be taken. They formed an ad hoc committee to explore creating a Local Historic District there or adding this portion of North Pleasant Street to the abutting North Prospect-Lincoln-Sunset Local Historic District.
“These two blocks consist almost entirely of nineteenth-century buildings. The B-L is meant to be a transitional zone between residential and commercial, but that needn’t mean transitional in height,” Muspratt said. “It can apply to transitional uses, which these buildings are already providing. They are residential buildings that have been adapted to house small businesses and professional offices, in addition to some apartments. It would be a terrible shame to lose them.”
Discussion of Jones Library Preservation Agreement Postponed
Lastly, the Commission began to address a re-drafted forty-page Jones Library preservation agreement between the Town, the Library Trustees, and the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC). This draft was three years in the making between Planner Nate Malloy and the MHC. A preservation agreement of the 1928 Jones Library is required because in 2010 the library obtained significant Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding for repair and restoration of the roof, chimneys, and stonework. This new agreement apparently is replacing a 13-page agreement signed by the Town and the Trustees in 2017 that might not have been deemed satisfactory to the MHC. The hour was late, so discussion of some ambiguous provisions was postponed to the Historical Commission’s next meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, June 16. Member Jan Marguardt said she is sure that the opponents “will fight tooth and nail,” and she does not want to add any fuel to the fire.
The Historic Preservation Restriction Agreement on the agenda for the Amherst Historical Commission’s 19 May 2021 meeting was in exchange for the $140,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) Historic Preservation funding that the Library Trustees received in 2010-2011.
At that time, I was a Trustee. Library staff reported in 2009 that slate tiles were falling off the historic 1928 Library’s original roof almost weekly. The first CPA historic preservation grant allowed workers to get up on that roof. They then reported that the original 6 brick chimneys were tottering and in danger of collapse.
We Trustees were immensely grateful to the Town’s CPA Committee for its quick action, twice, in approving the emergency CPA historic preservation grants that paid to repair the original slate roof and chimneys. We were also quite well aware that we would have to sign a Preservation Restriction Agreement in exchange for this CPA funding. Drafting that Agreement, however, was not up to us Trustees. It was up to the Town Planning Department.
So we waited for this document. And waited. And waited. There was some input from KP Law, the Boston law firm that the Town uses. Finally, on 25 April 2017, Trustee President Austin Sarat and Trustee Treasurer Bob Pam signed the Agreement that the Town Planning Department had at last produced.
It was rather a surprise, therefore, to learn that the historic “Preservation Restriction Agreement” on the Commission’s agenda for 19 May 2021 was NOT what Trustees Sarat and Pam had signed in 2017. Instead, it was a document that had apparently been redrafted in enough respects that no one has signed it. This includes the MHC. (Document is in meeting packet.) What is going on here?
It is clear that the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) must sign off on such Preservation Restriction Agreements on historic properties. After all, the blank MHC signature lines are there in the 2017 Agreement that the two Trustees signed. So are blank signature lines for the Amherst Historical Commission, accepting responsibility for enforcing the Agreement.
But how did the Town Planning Department sit on this matter for six years WITHOUT checking with the MHC? And why did the Planning Department provide the Trustees with this Agreement to sign in 2017, when it must have known that the MHC had not yet OKd it ? In 2017, in fact, had the Planning Department even shown this Agreement to the MHC? How can this process, or rather lack of it, have taken a full decade? Note: it is still not over yet.
More fundamentally, what does this say about Amherst Town government’s basic competence? Furthermore, how many additional historic preservation grants has Amherst’s CPA Committee made, and for how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funding, for which the Town has still not obtained Preservation Restriction Agreements? We Amherst residents deserve answers.