Heritage / Historic District Commission - Regular Meeting

It is 7 p.m. I will call to order a Londonerary Heritage Historic District Commission meeting for October 23rd at uh 2025. And uh this is a special meeting uh that uh we had arranged uh last month with uh client and uh that will be uh we'll fit it on the agenda anyway from what we have. But uh our uh chairman Chris Kenny has uh resigned. I think it was a Sunday night council accepted the resignation at its uh Monday night meeting and uh I'm Art Rug. I'm vice chair so I'll be running the uh the meeting and uh we will see. We have a couple of vacancies. I know that TH is advertised for it. So, we'll see what we uh we get in.

Arc, can you move the microphone closer to you? Oh. Oh. Oh, I didn't notice that.

You're like Mary. She's always reminding me to get close to the microphone. I don't want to eat it. And uh let's see. Uh we have I'm here. Uh John Man's here. We have a cold glaze not going to make it. U Sue Judrey is here and uh David Ellis is here. I'll appoint David to vote for the uh vacant position that was occupied by Chris Kenny. So that gives us uh four voting members and that is a quorum and we can proceed. So uh minutes of uh let's see that would be September 25th, 2025. Uh if anyone has any corrections or want to make an amendment, just let me know. I've got two. So, uh, at the in the header, right after a district commission meeting, add minutes so that we know that the minutes are not an agenda.

Yeah, I got that one. All righty. And then uh on under B where it says the minutes of March 27th, 2025, that should be July 24th, 2025. And I will take a motion to approve the minutes of September 25th, 2025 as amended. So moved. I have a motion by Ted. No. Sec. Second by Sue. Uh any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

I. Those oppose say nay. Shave was affirmative and unanimous on the acceptance of the minutes of September 25th, 2025. Uh next item is u and one thing I just want to emphasize the uh the heritage commission makes recommendations on the plan that goes to the planning board. The planning board makes the uh the final decisions. So the planning board can certainly ask us questions also. So, we have a public hearing for view of a demolition permit lendary zoning ordinance section 9.3 for 225 Rockingham Road, Tax Map 15, lot 126, GenX Construction Group LLC as the owner and the applicant. And we have information uh concerning that property. And uh George Chadwick is here to uh give us your details.

Good evening. My name is George Chadwick. with Bedford Design representing Gen X tonight. Um, as the chair had mentioned, we had a talk about a demo permit. Um, two months ago, um, Gen X applied for a demo permit and, um, it was put on hold as a result of having to meet with the historic commission. Um, we didn't have time to notice the abutters and do what was necessary for last month. So, uh, we appreciate you having the special meeting tonight for, uh, for this project.

Yeah. And we've got new duties, this demolition delay. So, that's new to some of us who has been on the demolition delay committee, but there's no more demolition delay committee. It's all heritage committ heritage. Yeah. And I apologize. This is my first having to go through this process. Um, so if I need to um answer questions for you and stuff like that, I'll certainly try. Um, the house that we're looking at demo is located at 225 Rocky Ham Road. Um, the fire department would like to use it as a uh practice burn. Um, I think they had two dates set up. Uh, those dates had to be rescheduled. I don't know what the new dates are, but hopefully we'll get a permit tonight and uh or approval tonight and they can move ahead. Um the house was built according to town records in 1926. Um thus being over the 75 years, thus requiring us to come in front of front of the board. Um there's a series of pictures that we have submitted um of the house, what it looks like. Um, other than that, if there's anything specific I can answer for the board, I'll certainly try. Um, but if you want, we can just flip through the the pictures of the house. You don't mind? That's the front of the house looking from the street. Side, back of the house. Um, our client put a few extra pictures in here, the stone wall, um, which has to do with uh, the DRC review, but

Mr. Chair, and looking at our documents that we were provided, it looks like from the state that they are stating that there's no historic properties affected by this. That is correct. Yeah. Is this a traditional bungalow style from the mid uh, probably from mid mid20s up through World War II. Is it? Yeah.

I mean, I've looked through what what I have and it's not on the town's list of historic properties. No. When I checked, EMTT and it's not in there either. So there's nobody has recorded anything historical about it. So yeah, I mean I look at it and I carry it. I'm saying gee this it's a quaint little house but I guess it's lowcost housing in those days. It is falling down around itself right now. There was some asbestous in there that's been taken care of already for the fire department when they're able to schedule a burn if we, you know, get approval tonight.

Thank you, John. What is the process now if we don't find this? This is the first time one of these demos has come before us. Uh if we find there's no historical, so we just bless this or something. Mr. Chair, I can answer that if you'd like. You want me to answer? Yes, Kelly, please. So, essentially, but right in.

So, essentially, if if you're the ordinance uses the term significant or not, it's obviously talking about historic uh value. So, you would uh it would be appropriate to make a motion stating that the commission is in agreement that this is not of historical value to the town. Um, and then we would let the uh chief building inspector know that that was your determination and the applicant would be able to proceed with the demolition of the structure. Yeah, that's we just have to make that declaration. It's a whole another thing if we say it is historically significant, but I look at it in this case it's not. So,

I agree. So, uh, I want to go to the public because this is a public hearing and, uh, I don't see anyone, uh, that is, uh, interested. So, it's a rather silent crowd tonight. So, I'll bring it back for the commissioner to make a decision. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to move forward for the, help me with my language, Kelly, the appropriate uh, demolition of this building. The structure is not significant. Not of historical significance. Structure is not of historical significance. I will second that.

Okay. Motion by John, second by Ted. Any discussion by the board? I mean, commission. Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those opposed say nay. Extensions. Sh affirmative. And that 225 Rockingham Road is not of historical significance.

Thank you. Um, Mr. Chair, if you remember last month, um, I had two projects in front of you. One was at 225 Rockingham Road. The other one is at 196 Rockingham Road. Um, the items that the board asked me to come back with for 225 Rockingham Road, and that's the parcel we're just speaking about, was some colored elevations. If you recall, the elevations I had weren't colored. So, you should have those. They were submitted. So, they should be in We do have that on our folders. Yeah. Packets there. Um, as I stated in the last meeting, it's very similar to um

the project one down in Gilrest that's being built right now. Um, Gilchrest is sort of a a flattened site. So there's no step uh hor ver vertical step between the buildings

where this one not only will have the the horizontal step, it'll have the uh vertical step as well. So as you look at the drawing there, there's a two-ft step between the different colors there. And that's the way it's been designed. So there'll be some vertical and horizontal stepping. The board also asked if we could um add a few windows as it faced the uh uh route 28. So if we scroll along in the pictures, you will see that we have added on the left and right windows on the end. Wonderful. How does that I think David Cool Glazier asked or

No, I agree with you. I think he did. No, you're right. He did. I was agreeing with you. Yeah, I was just going to say I'm noticing now on the plans that they seem to fit well with their placement like um where those windows will be. So in the kitchen it seems to fit well and in the living rooms and the bedrooms they seem to fit well. Is there going to be any any signage for this? We do have that. Yeah, you looked at it last month. On this particular one, we didn't actually have it before, but it's in our packet now.

Uh on this one, I think I did describe it on 225. You asked me to come back for uh about 19628. That's right. We have that now.

Mr. Chair, you'll find it labeled as revision 196 198 Rockingham Road Village at Bundary Black. Yeah, that would be the next one you asked me to come back on.

So, the second project you asked me to come back on was the Village at Londereary. Um, it's located at 196 198 Rockingham. It's the SNS metal recycling um parcel. Um, you asked me to come back for two purposes. One, I didn't have a sign at the time. We do have a sign now. Um and secondly, I did have an elevation, but I did not have a colored elevation. So now in your packets there or in the um thing, there should be a a colored elevation in there as well. Um that is

Yeah, it would look like this. There you go. Um, you asked me to come back. There was a question regarding the blue. Um, one of the members of the board didn't like the blue color. Yeah, the flag changed out the blue to gray. Um, thank you.

The, uh, roof is a, um, a charcoal color. Um the top section is a flag stone shingle type siding and then the bo bottom part is a sandstone beige vertical siding. I like the two-tone and I like the uh um I guess the front gable kind of makes it look like a a ski chalet. Like a shalet type thing. Sure. Any more comments?

I'm good. Nice job. Yeah, nice job. Okay. So, um so this will be uh I guess this mean as presented making you know the recommendation is what they presented is good. Okay. On both of them. Yes. Okay, good job. Well, thank you very much for having this meeting for us and I know you have other business to take care of, but uh we do appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great night. You too.

Okay, next we are in other business. Uh we are planning on a discussion of the Reverend Morrison Meeting House on the New Hampshire State Registry of Historic Places. Where did the town council leave that?

So the task of this commission has varied a little bit, but um essentially so Mr. Ellis presented some information to the council several meetings ago. Um this commission had I believe a brief discussion about um the Reverend Morrison's meeting house and uh whether or not the commission is supportive of looking into or andor placing that house on the state um register of historic structures. Uh the council has had a couple of meetings where this has been discussed and at at that level the town manager and council level um I may defer a little bit to Sean since he's here but the the town manager essentially at this point has is developing a plan associated with the what are we going to do or how can we uh deal with the the use of the structure essentially getting it to the point of usable whereas this commission's focused more on the historic side of it uh specific to the state register. Do you need to add anything to my

Well, I think that's the president's state certainly. I can certainly answer any questions there might be in terms of in regards to what my particular task is, but how that might relate to what you folks are doing, but other than that, yes, I think that's a good overview. Okay. So, I I'll I'll go through David. We'll go through the commission here and see how I'm sorry. I'm going to have you know for the commission to express its uh its ideas and this is on the historical aspects because I've read what Yeah, we've been over the historical stuff many times. Yes,

I think that's sort of fairly well known now the history. Does anyone have questions about the history of it? Well, I think we had left off that we wanted to have more input from the state and as well the people had put together the document from Arco their opinion on the historic value of the building because from the document from the Arco company, it doesn't seem like there's much historical re revelence at all anymore. I not I don't agree with you. I disagree on that, but um it doesn't seem like it at all. I items are within the last 30 to 40 maybe 50 years at most

and with the renovations that we need to make to the building we'd most likely be getting rid of anything that could be historically relevant to make the building structurally stable? I don't think so. I I went through the archive on the points that you sent me email. Um there's a couple of things there that we I need to sort of point out. Um you raised the issue that the windows have been replaced. Yeah. If you read that paragraph carefully and look at what they're talking about, they're talking about the 9 over9s on the front extension, not the 25 over 25s. Okay.

Uh the ones at the back there. Now, I don't know how we determine the age of the 25 over 25s if the town doesn't have a record of specifically replacing those. That style of window really hasn't been used much since the 19th century.

Okay? And if the town had replaced them, they would probably have been replaced with a more modern window, unless somebody spent quite a bit of money getting a custom window for it, which seems unlikely, right? Um, moving on from that, uh, I believe that they missed identifying the timber frame structure within the walls. It's mentioned in the structures north report but uh they refer the what they use is the preservation brief number 17 from national park service and under that those roof structures are a character definfining feature. I think it was just an oversight probably

but we know that those date back into the 1700s because they weren't using that type of structure at all. Um, if you go to the structures north report, um, they questioned whether the rendition correlated with the current building because if you go to the rendition, it shows essentially what looks like a two-story building with two rows of windows. We have a one single row of tall windows.

I think what's happened is they've misunderstood what took place in 1845. The old building originally it it I don't know as you'd call it a twotory. It had a ground level with pews and then there was a balcony went around inside above the pews and you had a layer of windows serving the bottom and serving the balcony. Now when they took it down and moved it up to the common, they took out all the pews. They took out the balcony and it is presumed at that time that they replaced the short windows with the single tall windows that are in there. The same time they pulled off the two end staircases that used to provide access to the balcony.

That's why the rendition looks different than the main body of the building. Uh, I think Structures North just missed that probably because they weren't familiar with what went on in 45, 1845. Um, they also mentioned the first floor was originally constructed with SA lumber joists spanning between peer supported timber beams. That's patently incorrect. We've got the timber frame joists down in the historic society. Aside from a lot of pictures of them coming out, it's it's it's really not gerine. If you look at what those two reports were created for, it was to provide guidance to the town on how they could

uh repair, maintain, or whatever restore the building to a point where it was usable. they were far less concerned about the historical aspects and there was no need to be um or at least I should say the history not the historic aspects the history of it um you if you read page five of archive I think I mentioned this you before I mean I think that history they must have pulled that out of a a chatbot or something because it's talking about things that have nothing to do with the building. Well, again, it's more of a reason to have them come and present to us and from the state because

and I feel at this point that there's not much of historical value that could be left. Yeah. I mean, these are a couple of points that I would certainly ask them, but I don't think they are points that should swing us one way or the other in the decision making. I also feel that with the renovations that will be needed to be done for the building, we could be removing what historical value that there is left. I'm not sure how much our construction management company's looking at removing or not to making the building structurally stable. Are you going and H and handicap accessible

in its different ways? and as well the the mold removal and if there's any other removals that need to be done with the building that they could be damaging any of the historical items that Mr. Ellis has been mentioning, Mr. Town Manager. Well, you you're you're imagining that repairing or restoring the building, you're going to be tearing the roof off and taking the beams out. It depends. I don't know how much they need to get into. I doubt you would be doing that. But I mean the town manager may be completely non-cost effective if you did that much. You might as well level it. Well, the the roof needs to be replaced at multiple locations. It does.

I mean, what is it? It's a sh I think at the moment it's an asphalt shingle roof, isn't it? Which has been replaced many times. Would you like to go to the town manager for his commentary? Yes. I mean, replacing asphalt shingles is something that you do all the time. And we've got them on the Morrison Museum House. Ideally, they would be wooden shakes, but uh Okay, Sean, that's not considered detrimental to the rest of the building. It's something that happens.

Yeah, our our town manager would has items also that'd be helpful for us. So, I visited the site on the 15th last week, uh, Wednesday of last week with Rearch Construction Company, uh, Arove, the architect from AR Cove, um, and other trades that were there to look at the building. Sean, can you get a bit closer to the microphone? Yeah. How's that? That better? That good? Can you hear me? Yeah.

Okay. Um, so there's a number of issues here, so I'll try to go through them in order. In terms of the roof itself, um there are spots where there's leakage. So what RIO construction just from looking at it from the ground, they're seeing that for the most part the roof seems the shingles seem to be functioning and they're supposed to other than the areas where there's leaks and that's probably right around where the chimney is. So they're thinking a day's worth of work just to fix those particular shingles will be adequate to secure the roof. They don't think we need to re-roof the building. Um, the chimney itself needs to be repointed in a number of spots, but other than that, it seems to be functional, at least looking at it from the ground, you know, and we were looking at it from binoculars, is just a few spots that have to be repaired on that. Terms of the roof trusses, unfortunately, somebody went in there and they cut sections of that out. I don't know why. Uh, those are not going to be removed. They're just going to be uh resupported. Yeah.

So, we're not going to tear those out. But they're not structurally stable then at that point. Right. They're not right now. No.

Right. So that's what they have to go up and brace those, but they're not going to remove them. They're just going to brace them, put the bracing back that was removed, and then that'll meet the requirements for that. So that's the work that by looking at it on the 15th, they thought that would probably be adequate from what they could see in there. So not not a big issue there. The tin roof, I told them we'd like to expose that. That's all covered right now. I'd like to keep that so we could re utilize that tin roof. You don't have many of those around. It would be nice to get it back to that status inside of that first floor area. Um, I said, "We'd like to keep the banisters from the stairwell because those are original wood. Those you don't see those anymore either." So, I said, "I really like to keep those." In terms of the floor, we needed to tear that out and we need to put concrete down below because it's all open ground. You got a lot of moisture coming up through there. And then a subfloor needs to be put on of some type. And they look at the options as to what those might be. Uh, the building is not it doesn't meet the present energy code. And because we're going to be making more than 51% improvements in the building, we're going to have to bring those windows up to the energy code

and also the walls, the insulation, uh, you know, they could they were able to see in several spots where you have that old type of lattice material that the walls are constructed of and also the flooring up on one of the sections up there. Um, so that has to be done and the wiring of course is, shall we say, ancient that needs to be updated to meet uh modern requirements. Uh, I'm not doing any um I shouldn't we're not doing anything to the to the um siding on the outside other than the door that goes to the kitchen needs to be replaced. It's all rotted around that and there really you don't have an a stairway that meets code compliance because the way it drops down and there's a piece of concrete there and there's no protection from cars coming. So, that has to be done on the outside and then there's an overhang on the door in the back that goes to the parking lot that's in poor condition. needs to be constructed properly. But other than that, there's really not much of a change in the outside other than the ADA accessible ramp in the front. Not that full construction that you saw and and other proposals, but a ramp anyway to be able to get down. It'll be a significantly smaller type of uh project in the front. And then bathrooms, uh they do have what appear to be ADA compliant bathrooms, but it doesn't meet all the code requirements in terms of the number and all that with the occupancy of the building that you're going to have. So, there'll have to be some reconfiguration of that. I told them I'd like to keep the stage the way it is in case people wish to use that. Uh, and that does require a lift because there are stairs to go up. That's a relatively small lift. We're not installing an elevator or a lift to the second floor. The second floor floor is going to remain unoccupied. We'll make repairs up there, fire protection, those sorts of things, but other than that, it won't be fit for occupancy. uh that those improvements could be made later on whatever those are donations or however we wish to do that but the first floor was the focus to get that operational so we could use that. So I hopefully that answers your questions in

terms of the observations that we made based on the reports that we have and what needs to be done to get make those improvements there. The other thing I did is, you know, this was at the request of the Lions Club. Um, I did a we created a survey to send out to all of the registered nonprofits in the town of Londereary to ask them what use or what interest they may have in the building. Several said no, like the American Legion because they already have a facility, right? The church has said no. They have their own facilities. We did have a couple of groups that have said yes so far, but I'm waiting for the rest of those survey results to come in to see what kind of demand there is actually in the community for the use of this space. Um, it's going to take couple more weeks here at least to get the information. The architect has to do some redesign, minor redesign inside of the building to meet the requirements in there. Um, and then, uh, Rearch will price it with the subs, the trades that they have involved here, and we'll get a, as soon as I get a price, uh, quote or estimated cost, not a price quote, but an estimated cost, I'll the plan is to bring that back in front of the council. And it looks like the council wants me to submit a warrant article, and that'll probably be for a bond uh, to pay for that project. That's where we are. So in terms of the historical value, I told them I'd like to preserve as much as I can. There's, you know, there's limited amounts of things there, but that tin roof right now you have like this. I want to remove that and have the tin roof exposed to the extent we can do that. There might be some minor repairs that have to be in there because people have nailed boards to it in some spots. You've probably seen pictures of it in there. Uh, but I want to keep that. I want to keep that that railing on the banister because it's it looks uh historic to me anyway and it would be nice to keep it the woodwork. So if that answers your question,

Mr. Town Manager. Uh yeah, Sean Warren article passes. You move forward, some construction time to put this together. Where would you see the building being would that put it in shape to be open to the public at that point? The the first floor? Yes, first floor.

Yeah. So up upstairs, what I'd have to do is the insulation, the fire protection, and the wiring, and we drywall it or whatever we're going to do up there, and then just leave it. I wouldn't do anything with the floor. I would leave it. So that way in the future, if we want to do additional work up there because it's not accessible, and an elevator is a big expense, right? Or if you have to do a lift, whatever, either one of those are going to be quite a bit of added cost to do that. So I'm just focusing on getting that first floor open right now. That is is it right now. Sean. Yes.

Um, would there be a significant savings if we deferred getting the metal roof, the metal ceiling back in there? I mean, I'd love to see it long term, but I wonder whether that's going to put a significant extra cost in doing it as opposed to just leaving that existing hanging ceiling. Yeah, they'll they have to get up there anyway to put the fire protection in there. Oh, okay. They'll take a look at it and they'll they'll tell us what the options are there, but those are really there ain't too many of those left and we it would be nice to really keep that. Oh, I know. It would I'd love to see it go back.

Yeah, that So, I I told him I said that that you know, I'd like to see what that looks like that option. Um because there ain't too many of those left around. Yeah, that metal ceiling dates to I think around about 1900. I don't have the dates in front of me, but it was put in either at the very end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th. And then they did some work on it and some further work on the metal ceiling in 1920. It gives it I think the real historic authenticity.

It would be kind of neat to see what that would look like in there. I had the city hall project in Lebanon. Same thing. We had a tin roof up there and it was all covered up just like this is. And when you open that up again, it really Oh, yeah. It was pretty impressive. Especially when it's cleaned up. Not good for acoustics, but No. No. Visually, it's good. But there's way there's ways to deal with that. If you're going to have an event in there, too. Temporary things that go off to the side, then they come back in and they they sound deadening. So there's ways to address that and still have have both. I want to I've asked them give me the options so we at least we know what it looks like and we can make decisions when we have options in front of us.

Sounds good. Any further comments from uh mission? Well the I mean as far as putting it on the state registry I mean that's sort of independent of this repair. If you put it on now and then you make changes that cause it to no longer be um acceptable for the state registry, they just take it off. So you can make that decision independent of repair, which is what I tried to explain to council. Yes. But I don't know what council expects this commission to do. Um, if

we could just offer a recommendation if you know Yeah, should be I think it's appropriate to to give a consensus at least about this commission's position with respect to the state register. Well, I mean, obviously I'm in favor of it. I proposed it. My worry is that if we do this that then will the state be forcing on us to use more historic resources of repairs for the building? If I may, I want to be clear. You're not making a motion to place this on the register. It's providing

your input as the Heritage Historic District Commission on your position about that about placing it on the register. Right. Well, then if the council then does agree to do so, does then the state then require us to use historic resources and our repairs? The state doesn't require us to do anything if it's on the registry. We're in completely at liberty to do whatever we want. I mean, you can put it on the registry. You could go in and gut it and turn it completely modern. All that will happen is they'll take it off again,

right? But then at that point, what would you know prevent then the heritage commission from then requiring the town to do so? Because we've seen at other times the heritage commission come down on people who have historic properties in town saying, "Oh, no, you need to do it this way." So, I'm worried that by doing this, we're putting further costs on this other town. They state blatantly and publicly, Ted, that that is not the case. The Gra has been on the list for 20 odd years and they've done renovations, all sorts of things and it's still on on the list. Yeah. And to my knowledge, they have not been booked at all by the state.

What typically happens would be if you make enough changes that would ren make it invalid, somebody is going to tell the state, hey, we don't think this thing is valid anymore. The state will take a look at it and delist it. Keep quiet and don't tell them we're safe, Mr. Chairman. Well, I mean, no, I mean, you can be open and upfront. If we decide we no longer want to maintain the historic property, we can go and say, "Please take it off. It's not going to be relevant. We're going to go our own way." Okay, John. It It gives it a little publicity while it is relevant.

Okay, John. Um, I I said this last time. Uh, I I and I I guess I still feel this way. The uh I I think we're doing things out of sequence here. um that um I'm not I al although I really don't see the particular advantage one way or the other of getting on the registry because if the advantage is that at some point in time we might qualify for some grants okay we could apply at that point perhaps um but I am also aware from past dealings with grants that every grant oh the ground place a restriction

has restrictions on it so I I don't want to jump into the pool for a grant that we might not want to take in the first place.

But you're kind of tying your hands by doing that because you at the moment they're lined up to review it or at least they they have reviewed it. It'll go before a council before it goes on which takes I don't know how often that council meets. I think it's about every three six months. Now, if you hear of some grant money that you might be eligible for in the future and say, "Oh, we'd like to apply for that and you are not listed." You could be looking at a 12 to 18 month time frame to get listed, by which the grant is history. The advantage is getting on early.

Not that the state is actually burying all the towns with grants at this point in time. No. There's not a heck of a lot out there at the moment and there isn't going to be.

Be beyond that, I I think it's very encouraging to hear the town manager is working on a plan and perhaps uh uh coming up with an application, a use for this this building uh after the fact with doesn't sound like it'll be a for-profit use, but it be, you know, with some of the charitable uh organizations in town. That's that's great. Um, but I think my feeling is what I'd like to do is is um kind of defer uh the the uh signing up for the registry uh till we see the dollar value of of the modifications that the town is looking at and what happens on the warrant article uh when it goes in front of the folks. Um because I haven't heard frankly from anybody yet what plan B is for this building if it goes on the Warren article and and fails again as as we've seen a lot of them fail.

This is an option and uh we know what's going to go on in December. It's going to be tight the money I and even may more so I mean we have a new partnership I guess with the schools now and um we've got the construction of the uh the facility on the back of this building and

um and we've got some other things going on in town. So I would just assume say let's not tie our hands right now and I realize you don't agree with that language David but let's not commit to the state registry at this point. Let's roll the dice on maybe we'll miss a grant. Although again, there's not that many of them floating around out there and and set that aside. Let the let the town roll out its plan for how much we're going to put on the Warren article and how the Warren article is going to look. If the Warren article passes, bring it back and then and we'll you'll have my vote at that point. Well, you've heard from Tad, you've heard from me, we've heard from John.

Sue. Yik, your turn. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. I want to keep it going. So, I'm hoping with whatever we need for um estimates for cost or whatever that are. We waiting for that. We're waiting for the the estimate from the men or people to work on it. Is that what we're waiting for for the waiting for the cost of repairs um on the on and I still want to say Lance Hall but Lions Hall, but is that what we're waiting for to see what the expenses will be? Yes. What the cost what the estimated cost of of renovation. Okay. And then what all what options we have with that? Yes. Otherwise, yeah, I'd love to see it.

They'll also produce a cost for demolition, too, just so you're aware. I know that. But I'm just telling you that I'm have I'm making sure when I deal with the council, I give them all the options available to them. Here's what they are. Y because folks, you know, some folks want to know what that is. Is it going to be just as much to renovators to demolish it? They want to know what that number is. So, we'll we'll produce that that information as well.

I tended to be a little more cautious anyway than me, but I would say uh we should let see how things progress before we make a make that move. I think the way grant situation is is now where it's rather shaky. I think especially with the economy there there's uncertainty there. It kind of scares me a little bit stocks. There's definitely a lot of so uh I think it's just to proceed with caution. But I think we still have it in our sights at at some point.

So just to summarize, so the consensus I'm hearing is we're in a hold with respect to your position on the state register. You're looking to see what happens in March. What that's I would agree with that. That's a good summary. That's okay. Yeah. bring that back to the council and Ted I know we'll also I'll report back to the council that we're holding off until March elections to make that determination proceed cautiously. Okay.

Okay. Uh next uh we've got uh code of ethics feedback. Has anyone gone through that and read it? Also, don't you have a a later version than what I think we've probably gotten, Sean?

Uh, yes. Ashley Kirsten was putting that together after Monday's meeting with the council. They authorized certain things to be added based on feed feedback we received. So, that'll be pushed back out to all the boards and committees and all the departments of the town to provide feedback. Once again, it's a deliberately long process made that way. Uh so we'll receive that feedback and then we'll have a public another public engagement session and then what will happen after that is we'll go in front of the council uh for a first reading and then a public hearing as the second reading uh then hopefully approval of the new uh ethics code provisions. So you have plenty of opportunities to provide feedback. You can provide feedback on the older version which is what you have in front in front of you now. Um, or you can wait till we uh you're going to get it by email here shortly from Kirsten uh regarding u the a revised draft of that which you might want to wait for that and you have time. We don't we we are no rush to do this. We want good feedback from folks. So if you wanted to wait till your next meeting you'll have that in front of you uh to look at. Um it's up to you how you wish to proceed. Certainly uh you know the commission can give individual comments also it's individuals but I don't think we're going to vote on it you know as a complete you know board committee or anything.

Yeah that's an option some boards that say you know we don't think we need to take a stand on this as individuals you can bring that up you could send it directly to the manager your comments you can go to the public engagement session and provide your feedback there. That's certainly a strategy as well. So feel free. I know Ted has a lot of input. So um I mean I've been looking over it. I mean it seems like it's um part of the course. It seems like it's um some good improvements to uh the code of ethics. Yeah, I think it's more more thorough. Question is how thorough do you want to make it?

At least I agree with Ted. It is an improvement what we got right now. I was glad to hear about the increase for the the gifts and favors that Sean's comment was the other day. Um it's hard to get, you know, say for example, if someone had passed away and in my family and you bought me flowers for someone who passed away, good luck buying a bouquet of flowers that would be under the dollar amount, which I thought was a good comment to have on that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because there are there are gifts and they're not meant to to influence right and that's the key part

kind of a hard hard line there you know all depends upon the individual bring on the complaint

anything else on that we'll move along uh discussion on Monday resing ordinance 9.3 which is uh amendment feedback and that deals with the uh demolition delay my my only opinion I think it's some of it is is is duplicative in it you know that we should probably go through and streamline it so it just looks easier. I mean, it's easy if we say there's no historic, you know, significant historic value with it. That's eliminates it, but when we get to the rest of it, there's some complexity. I didn't know if that could be Yeah, we can we can certainly

smithing a little little more.

Yeah. So, just to a quick recap of how we got here. So this uh amendment essentially the the primary intent of the amendment was to remove the demo delay the former demo delay committee and give this commission that that task that authority to review that um review demolition permits per criteria in the ordinance. So that was the only objective of that of those amendments. Now, we're at a point where if your feedback is you want to further streamline that process, that's something that the planning department can certainly look at as a more formalized um zoning amendment and we can look into how to do that if if the commission is agreeable to that.

How does the commission feel about that? I think really I think to build off what you were saying that the one amendment I would have is having a clear cut in here of the determination of is this a historical relevant building or not and reading through it it's it doesn't quite say that directly and I think that would be helpful for this board or future board so that they know that's what their determination is trying to accomplish. Ted, to interrupt, I'm sorry. I I think we heard a little bit of that tonight. To your point, maybe that's what we should do. You know, David looked into the the state system and then Art looked into our local in terms of the historical significance just to formalize that and maybe make that a requirement.

You're saying like some type of criteria that you should follow when you're trying to make the assessment, right? And and I think we saw uh I don't know if there's anything beyond that, but we saw two steps that could be listed tonight. um whether it's done by these two gentlemen or by staff uh in terms of coming to us and saying this is what we've got. We also had that letter from the state. I we did that was a third. So that would be

a good indicator to us whether something's of a start value or not. I guess I was also trying to add in, you know, we have these steps that are in here, but to also have it be more defined out like we we get a lot at the town council upon your voting either this way that is found significantly historical or not found historically significant. And I think having that in here as one of our the steps that we need to go through uh would be helpful for our current board and future board so that they know what their task is. I think clarification also.

I think it would be helpful if uh staff someone on town staff when these applications came in would routinely look at the address. Is it in EMTT? Is it in the list that Art put together back in 2000? Yeah. The 2007 Yeah. Yeah. List of historical properties, but also it was a report because there was a task force that the council at that time put together looking at how we can basically support you know historic properties and there is a little overlap between the two those two but not much because they had different goals. Yes.

Because I know the state has one set of criteria. Town has has theirs. I know when uh Nicole Glazer and I had gone up, this is probably 10 years ago to we submitted a bill, you know, the legislature and the intent was is to give a a tax break for people that have historic properties and we had the criteria listed and everything. because basically uh forget what the name of the committee was but uh they had no problem with the historical part but the assessor from Portsouth was there and says you know he he agrees with us but his problem is that be half the properties in you know Portsouth know and we said it was you know something is written up as enabling legislation

they just looked at you know just losing losing money. There are several other assessors there too and they had, you know, a good argument. I mean, if I was uh sitting on like the town council or something and you know, all of a sudden these these a good part of town is having a reduction in taxes is being historic. So, I think we had two two attempts. I know Sharon supported it. I think at the time it was a state rep. Uh Al Bolero supported it. Yeah.

Wonder if they're able to write that with excusing certain towns from that towns or cities. I don't know if the state laws can do that or not, but for a city where Portsouth is primarily historic property. Yeah. I mean, there's there's there's others, too. I know Nash had a had a problem because they would lose lose property.

The amount that Portsouth would lose was significant. wouldn't argue against that. But that was just to give the uh the homeowner of historic property a break and but I think at least we put together the uh the list which is nothing we can do to save anything other than it's on the list and it helps us you know the demolition delay and especially site plans or subdivisions come up.

Okay. So, um the planning department can certainly look at uh this this section of the ordinance and um propose some draft amendments. Um I don't have a timeline for you as to when that may or may not happen or when that may happen. I think we because we have a number of amendments that we're in the weeds in right now. That being said, if this commission has suggestions, I'm happy to take those direct to me or uh Kristen Kristen Far. I think we realize it's going to take a

take a while. This is not over overnight. But yes, if you have suggestions, um you can send those to to Kristen directly and we can start to at least, you know, form a some draft language, but like I say, in terms of timeline, um I'm sure you're aware I'm in the middle of the PUD rewrite at the planning board level. So, you're not busy at all. So, just in terms of what we have on our list, if you will. Um you can put us to work.

We can certainly add this to it, but I'll have to get back to you with the timeline. Yeah, one reason why it would be good to have the town staff actually check the EMTT database. I mean, it takes only a couple of minutes to log in and check it. That's what I did with this particular property. The problem comes if the property is listed in EMTT. there is always a collection of documentation associated with that that says why it's historic or what part of the property is historic. Now for most of them it's a sort of one or two pages in a PDF but some of them are quite extensive. I have seen I know of at least one in there that was about 40 pages. Uh, that's not the kind of thing that you can review quickly, but if someone on staff checked EMTT, if they found something like this, it could be in our briefing package when this meeting comes is called so that we know ahead of time what's there. And next we've got U 25 Heritage Commission letter and also there's a a worksheet and this goes to our strategic planning process. Want to give give us an overview of that Sean?

Yes. The town council has directed me to develop a strategic go through the process of developing a strategic uh plan to present to them in the spring. Uh the purpose of a strategic plan is you have of course the master plan. The master plan is a 10 to 30 year plan. It involves land use predominantly but also has economic development, transportation and natural resources in it. A strategic plan is a one-year plan with an outlook of the next two years after that. It's for operational uh predominantly operational types of items and it also is used to actually implement pieces of the strategic plan uh in in that next year. It is not designed to be a wish list. It is designed to be things that we're actually going to do. So what you have is you have functional areas in the city and I'll show you theirs. They have 10 functional areas and within those you have objectives and then those objectives all have action items and those action items all have key performance indicators to measure whether or not you've met that that level of success or where you are in that status and then a status report. City of Lebanon is the only municipality that I know of in New Hampshire that has one of these. But if you look across the country, there are municipalities that do like Fort Collins, Colorado, Germantown, Tennessee, Union City, California, and there are others. If you go look at those other communities, they're all a little bit different. Uh Lebanon is more of a a conglomeration of those than its own thing. What we produce will be very different than the city of Lebanon because it has different needs and different issues. But I wanted to at least show you so you get some context of what this looks like. Uh there of course everything they do is is digital. Um and here's the 10 functional areas they have. Again, ours may be and they I I suspect they're going to be different again because they're different communities. High performing government, housing and neighborhoods, um financial stability and efficiency, recreation, arts and parks, environment and sustainability, public safety, transportation, economic vitality,

social health and justice, and public health. Uh so I want to pick on some of these. For instance, uh this might be something that's closer to what uh well housing and neighborhoods you would you would fit into. Certainly recreation, arts and parks and cultural type of things you would fit into that. Um but you're going to have you might have pieces of all these, but I'll just click on it here. And in this particular case, they have uh six total objectives, 32 action items, and then uh they haven't updated their status report on these. and then 72 key performance indicators, two completed KPIs, and then three stall. They'll update this as they go into the spring when they renew this. And then you have a vision statement, and then like here, this is this highlighted there, chapter 10, that's a link to the master plan, the city's master plan with his linkages. Over here to the right, you see the city departments that are involved in this functional area. And then you have the boards and committees. You see heritage commission, their heritage commission is involved with that uh here. So all these committees have a piece of this and then we have also community partners uh that are involved

with uh that this functional area and they have again they have a piece of that here. You just you can take a look at some of these. Um this one is maintain adapt programing outdoor adventures in sports and keep citizens active. So then you click on that a little bit further and you you drill down to it. And um then the key performance indicators, they spell those out here. Timelines by which they're to be accomplished. Um and again, there's there's status reports in each of these. That just gives you some idea of what what their strategic plan looks like. Ours will be different. We're not going to be using a platform like this. This is created by artificial intelligence and you know we're not going to be quite that advanced on it. We don't need to be right for what we're going to do for the the idea is is this is what you the town council approves this right now. I don't have any written document from the town council. Go and do these things. Right? This is what this town wants to accomplish and these are our objectives. We don't really have that. Right? The purpose of this strategic plan is to spell out what that is and that gives direction to staff and to boards and committees. Go do these things. These are the things that are important to our community. These are the things we're going to invest resources and time in. Go accomplish these and then tell us how you're doing. Each year this is re re uh looked at and it's updated again. Usually it is the start of the kickoff of the budget process. Our objectives lead into budgetary items because some of these things require money. They require resources to get them done. And then again, you measure that every year as to where you're at. That's what a strategic plan is does and what it's for. Right now, we've sent this out to all departments and departments are going through this with their staff determine what they think the objectives are. Boards and committees have the opportunity. We can't tell boards and committees what to do, but we're asking them for their input. So, we would we we are doing facilitated discussions with some boards and committees. Other boards

and committees don't feel that they need that, which is absolutely fine. Um, we offer that to your committee as well as any other that is interested. So, we're looking from you is those strategic what you think those strategic objectives should be things that are applicable to your your functional area, uh, history, historic value, heritage, those sorts of things. But you're all citizens of this town. So anything of any that you think is important can be added. Once we're done with the boards and committees, once we're done with the departments, we're going to go out to public engagement sessions and say, "Okay, what do you think?" We'll do different groups. We'll have some stakeholder groups like businesses. We'll have one just for them. Anybody else can go, but you know, businesses tell us what you think the strategic objectives should be for the town. And then we'll have general uh community engagement sessions with anybody who wants to provide feedback. We'll put all that together, figure out how many functional areas there may be seven, not 10. Who knows what they might be and I suspect they'll be somewhat different. We'll take that draft. We'll get it to the council in the spring. We'll do workshops with that. The council review, they'll say, "Change this, change that. We like this or, you know, add that." We'll have a public hearing on it and then the count and then we'll take that public input and council may make more changes to it and then hopefully they approve it. And usually that's the kickoff to your budget process. So that kind of gives you the 60,000 foot overview of what it is. Uh and uh it it's up to you how much you want to participate in that process. And you know I I we don't look negatively upon you if you wish not to do that but it's an opportunity for you to do that and help drive what is important for the community.

Yeah. My only experience with has been where I've worked biotech area and some of I mean that was everything I remember. Today's a Gant charts even everything was all set up how we experiment progresses and how a product comes out and so many uh involvements along the way you know someone doesn't do it and you get a little admonishing yes I I tend to push people so my staff that's the only way it gets done

right I have objectives that I want that we've been told to accomplish and the governing body is the one that's going to vote and tell us do these things or do your best to try to make to accomplish them with all the partners involved to make them happen.

The only thing I can think of from for me as a member of the Heritage Commission is we're a certified local government and so we have access to you know grants and so forth and you know I don't know we've had 15 years ago, one of the people up there, I don't think she's there anymore, come talk to us about it and how how to do it. But I mean, that was back in the days when there was money had some chance of success, but we would always fill out everything, get things done, and then there's always the matching part, and we didn't have that.

Yeah. This doesn't solve the problem of uh of money. That's always the bottom line, right? Of that's where things stop,

right? I mean, it's just the reality of it's it's difficult. I mean, with the the pressures on people's incomes and families. I mean, it's we all know I won't get more you you're well aware of that, right? But at least there needs to be a plan about how we're going to do the things. And some of them, you know, I I used the example in the budget committee the other night. Um, City Lebanon, for example, has um there's a there's an a National Fire Protection Agency um standard to be able to respond to 90% of the calls within four minutes. It's a total of six. One minute for the call to come in, another minute for it to be dispatched out, and four minutes to arrive on scene. 90% of the time, that's a standard. And the reason why that's a standard, fire grows at geometrically, right? And so the faster you can knock it down, the better. And when someone's having a heart attack, that heart muscle dies, right? the the quicker you can get there, you have a window in which to do that, the better chance of success. So, they had that standard. The city of 11 geographically, they have three fire stations, but geographically there are parts of the city you can't get to in that time. We have the same thing here. We have parts up by Auburn to take 14 minutes to respond to. So, we can't make that. So, what do you do? What are your options? The first option people would say, "Well, let's build another fire station, staff it." Well, that's a lot of money. The other option is, well, the town of Derry has a fire station not farther away and they can respond faster. You can't rely upon mutual aid to be your first call, but they there are automatic alarms. So, if I had to build a $15 million fire station and then staff it, or if I said to the town of Derry, I'd rather give you a million dollars to respond to my calls here so I can meet that four-minute timeline. That may be a better option. I'm just, you know, that may not be a realistic option, but it requires people to think outside the box because not every problem can be solved with the hot most expensive option. There may be other options and there usually are for us to explore. So, it makes us do our homework to find better solutions to to address these issues.

Yes. Sometimes the longer you think about something, all of a sudden, damn, this is an easier way to do it, you know, or cheaper way. But usually you find out after the fact. Yes. Let's do it beforehand. I know I'm only one counselor, but looking through this, I went to your website for this for Lebanon, and I really like how this is set up, and I would like to think the other counselors would be pretty impressed with this as well. I know you were saying that it may not look the same way or may not be set up the same way, but so far, I really like the way that this is,

but it gives you a vision. So you have to achieve that level of expectation what you need to do to it. I think it might be a little hard and could be a little timeconsuming for us to think about what items we'd want to have be included. Yeah. First time through was ordeal. Yeah. We may want to go through this website if the town manager staff can send this to us and look at what they included up in Lebanon that were heritage commission items. see how it could be relevant for us. Some some others I mean even our neighboring town of of you have a fairly active commission.

Well, at least going through the strategic items that were highlighted here for Lebanon to see how they might be relevant for us. Yes. Because Derry may not have strategic items that they've pinpointed for their heritage commission. Some of the things to think about like you might might want to say the historic barns So one of the tasks might be to identify all the historic barns, right? That's a task and do that within six months or whatever the time period be. Who's going to be assigned to do it? Then you measure did it get done. So now we've identified them and then how can we preserve them? And there's actually a statute you may not may or may not be familiar with that that allows for tax exemptions on historic barns when you're renovating them. I don't know if this town ever adopted that.

Yeah. Because what we did was kind of model it after that. Was it 79E? Yeah. Oh, it's not E, but it's one of one of 79D or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, plus they kept changing it, you know, extended the alphabet on it.

But that's just an example of one of the things it might be. It might be, okay, we have our we have an identified historic district. We want to expand that. Our goal is to expand that. What's the value? Let's do a feasibility cost benefit analysis of expanding that district so we can preserve those those properties or there may be a cluster of houses up here, whatever, I don't know, whatever it is, right, that has not been identified. We want to explore the feasibility of now creating a historic district in this location. How do we preserve those things? Or it might be other things that we're going to find a location to be able to restore uh historic artifacts. You kind of already have that you have, you know, a building down the road, right? But things like that that fit within your realm and those those are strategic types of items that should be thought about and what are the tasks to get there and how are we going to measure it. So just those are just some things to to think about. I ask people to try to come in with a a clean slate uh about think think more broadly about what how we the things that are important to us in the area of responsibility that you have um because it's it's pretty broad when you think about it and there are there are existing things that are going on right now that in the future will be of historic value. So looking forward people are going to 50 years from now or 100 years from now going to you know maybe we can do things now to preserve that for later whatever that might be because I know when we're going through the uh the historic the task force was one of the things people you know we had probably about 20 people at his historic old houses they loved it. the labor of love for them was to to work restore the historical authenticity of the place they were they were lived in. So we came to the conclusion that the best thing the historic property is make sure it's used for something you know because either you know residence or the other thing

and this ended up giving rise to to Lfield was to use it as a very light commercial except that was out of the hands of the board. But it's another lesson learned.

Hey, anything else from the board? None of us staff public input and yes, public input and uh go to the public for any comments, uh questions, concerns, and they can't keep their hands down. The line is holding.

Yeah, there is no one here. So, other than us and staff. So, uh uh everyone is all set. Has nothing else. John? Yeah, just a a observation, I guess. Um George talked a little bit about the revisions to the two properties and we didn't spend a lot of time on it, but um I was very encouraged to see him hear him talk about those because I didn't expect that uh necessarily tonight because I thought we had heard a decision that we weren't going to be asking folks back.

You're correct in that uh I had provide I provided an email to I believe the chair Vice Chair, perhaps you, John, uh stating that we're we're not requiring applicants to have more than one um appearance before Heritage Commission. Um it's simply not it's not a regulatory requirement and it's not it's not required period. Um this this board's job is to pro provide advisory comments to the planning board. Uh that is specifically with respect to the design review process, which you've done um throughout your time here so far. So, we're going to keep doing that. But just with respect to the number of uh appearances that an applicant is required to make before you, it's limited to the one. Um, in the instance of 225 Rockingham, uh George had asked if he could still discuss those items since he was going to be here anyways. And I said I will defer to to him and the commission as to whether or not you feel it's appropriate to discuss that. So, that was fine. Um, if applicants choose to or request specifically to come back to the commission for a second, third appearance, um, I certainly won't tell them that they cannot. It's just that we at some point in time we got into a habit, it seems, of having folks come multip multiple times to the commission. Um, and in several instances, at least in my time here, there's been some push back as to the reason why. And I don't have a good answer as to why they have to come back multiple times because they in fact don't have to come back multiple times. So that was the intent of of my email. Um and like I say for tonight's purposes with 225 rocking him and 196 198 um that was the applicant's choice to cover that uh while he was presenting on the demo permit.

Yeah. Um, Kelly, I I'm not sure that I necessarily agree with you. I don't know about the required or not required, but um I think most of the times that we've had folks back and um and I think there was a general consensus that we would do a special meeting for George when it was discussed originally um has been because they've been missing items that we were asked to advise on and It's sometimes very difficult to give an opinion on something if you don't see it, touch it, feel it, or or if the applicant comes in front of us and just says, "I haven't got it ready." Okay. Um and I think in those instances, we should have the applicant back so that we can give appropriate and proper advice to the planning group. Um so I think I would like to suggest to you that we deserve that ability here. It may not be a requirement, but I think it's a need for us to provide the good advice that the planning board's looking for.

Okay. Uh we can bring that discussion to the planning board as that's the board you're advising and I can certainly get their their feedback on that. Now, what is the I think how many months ago we were here with the planning board and Tony different Francesco was suggesting that the pl would take a few things from us. I was um construction or overseeing things that was colors or whatever. I don't even know what became of that. Yeah,

I think it's kind of evolving into this because Tony brought it up one of my recently previous meetings and uh uh he does does watch them once in a while which you know I think he's was just trying to point out that we've kind of lapsed into doing a lot of the planning part of the operation.

I will say I know the planning board basically delegated you know this this to the planning board. So once someone can delegate, they can they can pull back and up the planning board of what it wants for import and everything. I mean, going off of what Tony was probably trying to get at at the time was, you know, potentially maybe re relegating our responsibilities to maybe residential projects and not commercial industrial type of buildings where those wouldn't really probably fit the the heritage. I have argued about commercial. I think commercial kind of goes in with residential because well, it depends on the commercial.

Yeah. You you Yes, it does. I mean, you could have a whole glass building and that wouldn't really look of of a feel of some of the other commercial buildings. Yeah. But I mean it does have a uh you know like a seat on the design review committee and I know most of of my experience is we just have a sheet of paper and and look look at it and everything and write on it and send it into you know for the design review committee and we're involved with bringing in architects or engineers or anything.

Correct. From a regulatory standpoint, this commission is referenced as part of the design review committee and our site plan regulations and it states that you should review and provide advisory feedback through that function to the planning board. It was it was myself and usually uh oh I know when Marilyn was on she and I would sit sit down and just look through the uh like a site plan or subdivision plans were just the only concern there was stone walls and I think we have enough and our regulations dealing with stone walls might overstep things a bit but no one's complained about it.

Okay. But it's it's finding a balance to that input on design and I think the overriding thing with the you know heritage commission is is looking for the the continuity of of the atmosphere the design of the town that gets the limitary lookbook

which is probably the best tool we have for a a developer. was in the process of being updated, which I think when time permits it, it will we'll get I know is like I think when you first started, Kelly, we're all taking pictures. So, you got all these pictures, but we'll we'll we'll get to that eventually. Anyway, I just wanted I just remembered I say four voting members at the beginning of the meeting. There should be five voting members that we have here. So all the votes should be 5 Z. Sometimes things go a little late.

So Mr. Chairman, so so Kelly, what you'll do is you'll uh carry back to the planning board. Um I I think that the desire for us to be able to continue to uh bring back uh folks for a second when when it becomes necessary. Maybe we should be a little more cautious in doing so. But um I think that would be good. And then um I would Are we considered a land use board here? No. No. So we're not bound by some of the same restrictions in terms of the questions asked of applicants that that I u that the planning board is.

Correct. Um so one of the things I've discussed um folks is that we have an opportunity to ask applicants questions that that perhaps um folks on the on the planning board can't ask. So, it might be to their advantage not to put too many restrictions. I understand and I think we've responded pretty well to the requests that we remind applicants that we're an advisory board. Um they can take that as they want, but I've noted that it's it's said before the meetings and it's said frequently to to applicants now

and that's that's probably a good thing. Um but um I I would like to kind of put a stake in the whole thing that Tony was trying to um put together one way or the other. Um I I don't agree with excluding industrial buildings from from our review. I mean I can think of a that have been before us that are at least semi-industrial that that um I think uh by asking our questions we've uh put together much better designs in the spirit of our community versus some of the uh outlandish things that have been brought to us. So, um, I'd like to see that continue and I'd like to get out from underneath this uh, whole review process that Tony's initiated over with the planning group.

It was in the paper or something. There's a meeting coming in December, what's the first Wednesday about Tony and all that he's thinking about us and I going to be here. I want to see what he's up to, what's going on with his suggestions and such. I mean it's it's something you know we got to really look at our uh our role and everything and it has been helpful for the planning board that the planning board doesn't have time to get into the nittygritty of of of colors with industrial buildings most of them are pretty much the same and and they but the developer wants things that kind of look the same so they fit fit in and I know before we really had uh the planning board was still handling all the design and everything and we didn't really have I think we just had uh I think it was Peter L was the planet that was it all we all we had

and being aboard a selectman developers approach you also so when they'd asked me is what's what's the design I tell him to take a ride around town play stuff and then one of the members of the heritage commission came up the idea about the lookbook and passed away now but it was a great idea you know absolutely yeah not many towns have them. So Sylvia Southern New Hampshire thinks it's terrific, though it probably needs to be really updated as architectural and material change over time. Yes. Yeah. The one who knows a lot about architectural the materials and everything is Jim Butler. Yeah.

And he knows what what fits and what stuff is cheap and it's going to fail. But we've had in the past an architect on here who was very helpful. I learned what administrations are. So I guess I'd like to say that I I don't think any property in the town should be excluded from coming before this body because the historical impact can be on anything. I mean we had an example earlier. Remember when they were the development, the Woodmont development over on the hill? They didn't even realize that they were over the top of the old rum trail. And as a result of them coming before us, we had a discussion about that and pointed out what it was and they'd agreed to put a sign up, a small sign, and try and preserve at least a little bit of it.

A little section of it they're going to preserve. And that was a commercial industrial green field development. I mean, you don't know what building might be historic until you look at it. Yeah. And we actually we were critical with uh some of the recent buildings that were put up at uh Woodmont because they were had strayed from you know what was in the uh their master plan

that the dairy first dairy medical building was abomination and I mean that took a couple of couple meetings uh between the heritage commission and uh the planning board just admonishing them get back to your original design and they did and what they came out with was terrific.

So, just so we're clear, so this conversation you're having now, it it sounds to me like the planning board is trying to have some type of work session, for lack of a better way of putting it, in December to continue the discussion that um Tony originally brought up. Um, from staff standpoint, my intent is to just make clear that applicants are not required by our regulations to come back to you multiple times. I've given them the option to do so if they want to, but I'm staff is not going to tell them that they need to come back to you mandatory. That was my point. The the other half of this conversation um in my opinion needs to happen at the planning board level. Um, obviously with your input, like you you had your comments tonight, John, um, I can bring those back to the board as well, but like I say, it sounds like they want to have another discussion about it sometime in December. Um, I'm not saying a date because quite frankly, our agendas are very heavy and I don't know if it's realistic to have it then, but um,

so for example, when Technology Hill came back to us with their um, primary building again last month, they didn't really need to come back to us. because we had approved what they had already sent us the first time or uh so I'm you talking about the Envision building? Yes. So I believe they needed to come to you for that building. I didn't think they had been to you yet with Envision. Oh no, they came to us already the first time. That was the second time we saw them. Yeah. So they're they're they're an applicant that um has a preference to come back. Okay. Um,

I just want to make sure that we're also not wasting developers time and resources with their engineers and architects to come before us multiple times either because I know I've heard that developers don't want to come here because we're wasting their time and resources by coming to too too many meetings. Too bad. So, I mean, I don't I'm not going to I won't frame it that way. My point is that from a staff standpoint, when when I have to interpret the regulations that we have in place and advise applicants accordingly, there's nothing in there that I can point you to to say, "Yep, you have to go back to Heritage Commission for a second round of review." That's my point,

right? I know it's only, I think, recent history, you know, asked them to come back or uh some of them, you know, realize they don't have everything there and they want to come back. Yeah, I mean that that's on him them if they want to at that point. Wait a second though. Wait, Jen, if somebody comes and they don't have what we need to advise.

Um, so what I'm hearing is if I if we say, well, perhaps you could come back and show it to us, they can then go and say, um, I prefer not to do that. Okay. And that to me doesn't make any sense because how can I advise somebody on something I don't see or they don't have ready. I look at that as that's I guess their own risk. So when they get to the planning board level and the board says what you get from heritage. The other thing you're opening yourself up as well if you've got a developer that really doesn't want to cooperate. He'll come before us first time with an incomplete application

or something. I agree. Unable to give a proper review, but you can't call him back to correct it. At the moment, they know there's a chance that they will be called back if they haven't got it right and therefore they get everything up front. I mean that's happened at the planning board and uh you know either they have a chance to do it do it again or you know or start the whole process. heard from the beginning, you know, just have it, you know, yeah, I mean, most developers are fine. They're not that way, but you're going to get one now and then that times that people don't come to the planning board with everything complete.

There's some that that know that are good. You know, the good ones and you know the ones that are a little, you know, and those are the ones, you know, you kind of got to help them along a little little bit, you know. Yeah. Spoon feed him. Oh, I mean

goes through this all the time, I'm sure, because she's the one that gets things prepared for the planning board. So, our life is a lot easier. But the old days before we had really much of a staff, it was, you know, we'd have continued continuouses all the time because they didn't have things ready. So, it' be continued till the next month, you know, and then we've had some this like three or four times they finally get it. This takes up a lot of time of board. So that's where staff has incredibly helped us. Wait, Sean, could there ever be uh a change or rule or something that commercial entities that have gone through us and and they they've done it what we required or whatever and years go by and then because they don't go out of the original blueprint, they don't have to come back to us for colors and such. I wish that could change because I think of London Derry Ford that looks like it should be in Las Vegas with that shiny craziness and Sonoko gas station is another one that's

well that kind of blows out what we do. I mean that that's when we've dealt with Home Depot we found that you get down to their logos and everything that is critical for them. That's why the Home Depot sign has still got the Home Depot colors. Colors of the building are different. We have power to do that. That was when the planning board was doing design review. But still, I just feel like it's, you know, blowing us away and they get to come back and then do their own thing. That's why they were assistant because it's part of their design, their corporate and otherwise it would be in court.

No, because remember Kentucky Fried Chicken. We sent that female architect back to the Midwest on a plane three times to make us happy. Yeah. I mean, Home Depot just with the planning board of the building codes four times. Back, you know, planning board would tell them what what was needed. They go back, they come back, address all that, more stuff, something they didn't do. We've had McDonald's at one time they're going to put a facility up at exit five.

Yep. I remember that. And uh there was a member on here who's not here anymore now, but uh McDonald, Mr. McDonald came in and not the franchisee and had all these corporate designs and commissioner said, "No, no, no, no." And then this this lady had all sorts of pictures that she got off the internet of McDonald's at different places around the country. The question to him was, "Why can't if you do this here, why can't you do it, you know, in London? So uh we never saw him again after that and I think there was problem other problems with the uh the site or the developer but we've had a tussle with the one here even and the franchisee was the one who really I think helped out modify the design otherwise and what's there is really a compromise. We used to have a very uh previous design was very colonial looking but it kind of matched the clock tower building across the street. So to answer your question just I guess as simply as I possibly can there's obviously zoning regulation there's subdivision regulations and there site plan regulations that are passed. Um, zoning regulations are passed by the council, the subdivision and site plan regulations are uh created by the zoning board, I mean the the planning board and those are your rules and those you have conditions when you issue a site plan or subdivision uh plan and those are the requirements they have to have and they have to follow those forever unless there's some sort of change in zoning in the future. So five years from now, if they went if if if there was a requirement to have a certain color and they change that color, then that's a violation of their site plan and then enforcement action be can be taken to do that. Uh if it requires stop signs at the end of their driveway and those get run over and they don't replace them. Uh

they can be held accountable for that. That's on the site plan. It's required. They have to do those things. So that that that's the simplest way I could answer your question, I think. Okay. Anything else? I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. To adjourn by Ted second by David. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. We'rejourned.