Library Garden Move On Hold Pending Historical Commission Response
Photo: Carol Pope on amherstma.gov
Highlights of the Meeting of the Jones Library Building Committee, March 1, 2022
Present
Austin Sarat (Library Trustee), Alex Lefebvre (Library Trustee), Sharon Sharry (Library Director), Paul Bockelman (Town Manager), Sean Mangano (Town Finance Director), Anika Lopes (Town Council), George Hicks-Richards (Library Facilities Supervisor), Christine Gray-Mullen (resident member), Alex Lopez (resident member), Ken Romeo (Colliers Project Manager), Hala Lord (for State Representative Mindy Domb).
Jones Library Building Committee (JLBC) Chair Austin Sarat announced the approval by the Board of Trustees to accept a proposal to move the Kinsey Memorial Garden in the rear of the library to the headquarters of Kestrel Land Trust on Bay Road. He qualified the approval as “pending necessary consultation with the historical commission.”
Library Director Sharon Sharry further explained, “I have a question in to the town’s historical commission because we have a historic preservation restriction on the building and grounds and so we need to look into the possibility of having to go before the town’s historic commission to get approval for this”.
If the question were to be considered by the members of the Amherst Historical Commission, it would need to take place in a public meeting.
A Historic Preservation Restriction Agreement is a legal agreement designed to protect significant building and landscape features of historic properties, defined in Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 184, section 31. The Jones Library Trustees have granted the Town of Amherst a Preservation Restriction in return for $140,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) historic preservation funding to restore the Library’s original slate roof, in 2010, and its original six chimneys, in 2011.
The Community Preservation Coalition, which was organized to help Massachusetts municipalities understand and utilize the CPA, has published a technical bulletin on preservation restrictions that advises, “the key to avoiding problems and court costs is catching problems before changes are made to the property.”
Newly appointed resident member of the committee, Alex Lopez, introduced himself and posed a question. Observing that there has been much internal communication about the Kinsey Garden move, he asked “Just how has it been communicated with the wider community?”
Sarat replied, “Well, I don’t think we’ve had broad consultation with the community except that the meetings in which these things were discussed are open meetings so they’re noticed and people can come. But we did not undertake a kind of broad community outreach about the relocation of the garden.
[See related: Letter: Jones Expansion Would Destroy Kinsey Garden and Kestrel Trust To Transplant Portion Of Jones Library Kinsey Garden]
Lopez will be serving on the JLBC Outreach Subcommittee.
Sean Mangano gave a finance update on the project. The town has received one installment of state construction grant money totaling $2,774,263 which sits in an interest-bearing account. In two months it has accrued $1672.66 in interest.
Ken Romeo, project manager from Colliers, reported that negotiations with Finegold Alexander Architects for design services are nearing mutually agreeable terms and will soon be brought before the JLBC. Sarat asked what the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners’ deadline requirement is for starting construction. Romeo answered that shovels must be in the ground within two years, but he is hopeful to begin in a year and a half.