01/28/1999 HISTORIC DISTRICT COMMISSION Minutes

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MASHPEE HISTORIC DISTRICT STUDY COMMITTEE MINUTES,28 JANUARY,1999 Present: Curtis Frye,Earl Mills,Russell Peters,Edward Callahan,Chance Reichel Others: Sarah Kor eff, Jack Magee,Tom Fudalla Mr. Fudalla informed the committee that the first thing it would need to do was organize itself. It needs to appoint a Chairman and Vice Chairman. Russell Peters nominated Curtis Frye to be the Chairman. Earl Mills was nominated to be the Vice Chainnan. This was voted unanimously in favor. Mr. Fudalla reported that the concept that brought the committee together was the idea that we have the area around Town Hall that is indeed historic, He stated one of the principle items the Committee has to decide is what would be the boundaries of this District and would there be more than one district. The target is to go to the Town Meeting where the by-laws are established. The Committee would then disband and be replaced by the Historic District Commission, Mr. Fudalla showed an old map of the Town of Mashpee, dated 1965. The Committee reviewed the map and pointed out different landmarks. PRESENTATION—Ms. Korjeff Ms. Kodeff started off by saying there are a lot of local historic districts on Cape Cod so there are examples to look out to see how well they are working and get some ideas of how well it might work in Mashpee. There are several different types of historic districts on the Cape. There is a National Register District which is a federal designation. Right now Mashpee has two properties very recently listed on the National Register. There are several towns on the Cape that have large areas that are listed on the National Register. She stated that listing on the National Register doesn't really provide much protection. It doesn't give the Town the ability to regulate anything. It is mostly an honorary designation but it recognizes a lot of historic significance. Mr. Fudalla raised the question if there were any financial or grant benefits of being in a federal district. Ms. Kor eff stated there are some. She said there are benefits to towns and non-profits that are listed on the National Register because there are grant funds available for rehabilitation. She said there are some protections you get with National Register listing, Specifically,protections for projects that relate to State or federally funded endeavors. The most common issue is if you are on a state highway and if the State or Federal Government talk about making improvements to that highway that might have an effect on some historic buildings or historic settings that are near the highway,you can get the State involved. With local historic districts,you have as much protection you decide to adopt. You can design a local historic district to have the amount of regulation you are interested in having as long as you follow some basic guidelines. In general,with a local historic district you review all kinds of new development,whether they are new buildings or additions to existing buildings. Probably the most important thing is that it focuses on changes that are visible from a public way. There are some variations for types of local historic districts. In the Town of Chatham,for example,they have created a Historic Business District. It has the kind of review that you would find in your average local historic district where they are reviewing new construction,alterations to existing buildings,but they have a particular interest in doing this in a way that protects and encourages new business. The best thing about local historic districts is you really can protect your historic resources whether it's a historic landscape,historic building, or just the general setting of an area,and archeological sites. What allows you to protect them is a good set of regulations and guidelines. Being able to spell out exactly what the significant features are that you are interested in protecting and then devising some regulations. I