Historical Commission To Examine Historic Preservation Restrictions For Jones Library Expansion In September

Report On The Meeting Of The Amherst Historical Commission, June 10, 2023

By Hilda Greenbaum

This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded

Present:
Robin Fordham (Chair), Pat Auth, Madeleine Helmer, Mikayla Rasnic, and Antonia Brillembourg

Absent: Hetty Startup

One Vacancy

Staff: Nate Malloy (Senior Planner, staff liaison)

Historic Commission Must Review Plans For Jones Library Expansion
Toward the end of this meeting, Senior Planner Nate Malloy announced that the Historical Commission will need to hold a public hearing on the plans for expanding and renovating the Jones Library. This hearing will probably take place in September. The planned demolition of the 1993 addition could be subject to review for demolition delay, and the Commission must review and comment on the Jones Library preservation restriction signed last week and recorded with the Registry of Dees after many years delay. The Amherst Historical Commission is charged with overseeing that the terms of the historic preservation restriction between the Jones Library and the town are met.

New Members Introduced
There were no public hearings scheduled for this meeting.  The next public hearing is for a demolition permit for an addition to an older barn in South Amherst. The addition is thought to not be an historically significant structure.

Two new members to the Commission were introduced. Both were recently appointed to one-year terms expiring June 30, 2024. Mikayla Rasnic is the Program Coordinator in the Amherst College Russian Department. She previously worked for the Humboldt County Historical Society and is committed to preservation of local history and connecting history with artists. Antonia Brillembourg, a rising junior at Amherst College, is an editor of the Amherst College Law Review. She is majoring in political science and art/architectural history and understands the importance of maintaining the character of a place through the remaining artifacts of the time and has a specific interest in indigenous narratives that are not as prominent in the town’s history as they should be. She hopes to represent the voice of youth, specifically Hispanic/Latin youth, in historical preservation and help be a liaison between Amherst College and the town.

Commission Will Hire Consultant To Document Barns And Outbuildings
Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds for FY24 CPA are now available to hire a professional consultant to assess and document barns and outbuildings on a list of about 300 structures considered to be at high-risk of demolition. With the goal of educating the public about the importance of preserving these structures, the Commission is planning a barn tour and public lecture in October. Owners of structures on this list will be contacted. In addition, members of the commission expressed an interest in documenting the “modernist” buildings in Amherst.

Robin Fordham was reappointed as the Commission representative on the CPA committee.

“Jane’s Walk” Considered For Next Summer
Another possibility for a public education program suggested is a “Jane’s Walk”  for June. A Jane’s Walk is an annual festival of free, community-led walking conversations inspired by Jane Jacobs. According to the Jane’s Walk web site, “On the first weekend of May every year, Jane’s Walk festivals take place in hundreds of cities around the world. Jane’s Walks encourage people to share stories about their neighborhoods, discover unseen aspects of their communities, and use walking as a way to connect with their neighbors.

“Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was a writer, urbanist and activist who championed a community-based approach to city-building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve, and fail that have become conceptual pillars for today’s architects, planners, policymakers, activists, and other city builders.”