The Community Preservation Committee convened on Monday, November 20, 2023, at 6:30 PM. The meeting began with a roll call, noting the presence of Kristen Can Al Vera, Joan Bentley, Alexander Silva, Rick Mani, and John Brand, with Chris Oliv also present remotely. Victor Ferris and representatives from the Mayor's office and City Council were absent. The committee unanimously approved the minutes from the October 16th meeting.
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okay let me know when you're ready okay uh welcome to the community preservation committee meeting tonight uh being held one government center the hearing room uh it's 6:30 uh Monday November 20th 2023 uh you can watch the meeting through uh uh fer TV Facebook live live stream um okay uh pursuing to the open meeting laws any person who make an audio or video recording of this public meeting
0:36or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and deem acknowledge and permissible um we start off with roll call we'll do uh two on Zoom tonight we have Chris oliv here yep Kristen can Al Vera present attending remotely by Zoom okay Joan go ahead Jo Joan Bentley
1:07present attending remotely by Zoom okay Alexander Silva present Rick Mani present John brand present we are missing Victor Ferris from the parks department and we have a open seats open from the mayor's office and a city council um any citizen input tonight Sandy missing and planning sorry about that um no citizen input no okay we do have a uh oh can I have a motion for approval of the
1:40minutes from October 16th meeting I'll make a motion that we approve the November 16th October October 16 minutes I'll second it time okay uh we'll start roll call Chris will'll start with you yep Chris and Cana Oliver yes Jo and Bentley yes yes Alexander Silva yes John BR yes brick manen yes okay now tonight we have a uh a guest speaker uh Brett ran did I say that right uh he's gonna uh he had sent us
2:16some information and um we just thought it'd be worthwhile to have uh being this a light funding year for us and uh down the road people are looking for additional funding tax credits like that uh we thought it'd be a good idea to have him come in we're not endorsing him on our end but uh we thought he uh had a nice resume put together and you know interested so we figured we'd have them
2:41come in and give them some information so hopefully it'll be uh useful to you if it is we'll go for the next so right how do you want me to do this to you um you can spin around however you want to look okay um I'll just stand up that's probably more comfortable just maybe turn the mic towards you one that's fine okay well I'll just stand here hopefully that'll pick up um so I'm
3:19Brent runan um I am uh principal of runan Heritage Associates I recently formed my company in July of this year after leaving the Providence preservation Society where I was executive director for about 10 years I've been a historic preservation professional for nearly 20 years um half the time in Georgia and half the time in Rhode Island so I'm not by any means an expert on funding but in my roles at
3:48nonprofits I have always looked for funding um some of your needs may be different from things that I'm familiar with but um I'm certainly happy to talk about some of the more common ways to the fun projects and uh if you have any questions I'm Happ we can just have a conversation so I guess the first I mean the great thing about massachusett if you had the CPA that's huge we don't have that in
4:14Rhode Island um so hopefully hopefully that'll help you get started with whatever you're working on um how many of you well it's hard to know who's in the audience but um how many people have incom producing properties anybody are we all nonprofit you have any income so historic you are but you're okay so historic tax credits can be used um uh they're state and federal and some of the nonprofits may be eligible as
4:42well um I know in Rhode Island our nonprofit was eligible for a state tax credit that may be the case in Massachusetts I'm not as familiar with Massachusetts program um but those are good programs they they cost they cost cost money to get but you can ultimately get 20% of your Rehabilitation expenses back in a state tax credit and another 20% back in a federal tax credit now obviously you have to have a tax
5:14liability to use a credit so typically if you don't have enough tax liability because you're a nonprofit or a small business you might be able to sell those and get cash from an investor it's pretty complicated so I'm not going to get into it here since most people are not um in that business but if you want to talk further just send me an email or give me a call um so most
5:39people here are nonprofits is that that right or churches um so let's see I mean the this the thing Sandy handed out I don't know did everybody get this it's got a lot of it's It's got the primary sources that I would say are um people would seek uh one thing I'll say about funding is you have to think about what your goals are that will direct you to the funding sources I'm happy to give you
6:08some feedback um if you want to narrow it down for me but there are a lot of ways to go and you're not going to be qualified for everything um churches are especi how many people are churches okay churches are especially difficult a lot of funders won't touch a church um but what I've seen over time is that you can often make the case that your church is more than just a something that serves your congregation
6:33because most funders aren't interested in that if you're doing uh any kind of Public Service social service through your your facility um then you should look for funders that are particular to that service you're providing so if you're doing homeless Services if you're doing Food Services um you know USDA can be a a place to go um there is also a program I don't think I saw in here but it's called
6:58partner for sacred places are you familiar with that um so they have a fund that was recently established um I think it's called the fund fund for sacret places I'm doing a little Consulting work for them but haven't really gotten started yet but if you're interested in that um primarily what they'll do is bring in people to do feasibility studies um to determine if you're ready to take on a funding
7:22campaign they can help point you to funding sources as well um most nonprofits are going to be looking for things I don't know it's what I'll say as a preservation professional is that there are very few grants out there just for historic preservation um you might have some local or some Statewide that could be helpful but um there aren't many national funders that are going to
7:48give you money for bricks and mortar for your buildings which is unfortunate um so I didn't have anything prepared because I didn't think I was talking about funding tonight but um are there any questions or specific specific questions you have or like tell me a situation maybe I can come up with some uh answers for you um how many of you are already on the state historic register couple people how about the
8:22National Historic register okay so that's um whether you're doing historic tax credits or many of the grant programs that are going to give you money for historic preservation that's going to be a a requirement so I would encourage you if you haven't already to get the research done so that you're able to submit to the state for determination of Eligibility which will give you the first that's the first step on the
8:51ladder as you're seeking funding for historic places um yeah I know other questions sort of a nutshell kind of without a you know looking at specific case studies but okay yeah is that helpful at all how about architectural um you know if you have a church and it's architecturally important are there any hunting sources for architecturally important um again I don't I'm not as familiar
9:28with Massachusetts funders um The National Trust has some small funds to help with planning um I know the Champlin Foundation which might only be restricted to Rhode Island they're really hesitant to fund churches but they did help some churches with their stained glass because that was also public benefit because it was on the outside um yeah we're looking for the outside yeah yeah no it's it's pretty
9:56tough who's doing stse well the Champlain foundation in Rhode Island I don't know if they go into Mass they might because they were founded by a textile mill industrial so he may have also had work you know they might this might be part of their service area um 1772 Foundation is uh they do a lot of work in the Northeast um and their grants are typically you know like 10 to 15,000 so not huge but
10:25they can be helpful for like a discrete project within your building sorry did you did you have your hand no okay yeah it's uh I don't know I'm hopefully Partners um for sacred places can be more helpful in helping identify those since they work nationally um there are I mean there is a fund for um black churches historically black church church so if anybody is involved with one of those there's a National Fund for
11:03that uh yeah what's your sense of of corporate and business interest sort of has it gone up it's gone down the last few years if you've got a an iconic local Landmark yeah or that has both you know could be a church or a nonprofit in it um they seem to get they seem to corporate giving seems to be going more towards um basic human needs housing food security um you know things like that
11:36more than I mean 20 30 years ago preservation was pretty high on everyone's list but um I would say it's it's getting tougher and tougher to make a case for historic preservation within the corporate world um depends on also I mean perhaps their their fun their founder if it's a company with a human being that you can actually talk to they might have some uh some interest if you can get their
12:01volunteers like their their employees to do some volunteer work they will often um match that with some money you know $5,000 or so so it's that they need to have some kind of investment themselves whether that's a legacy investment or or something their employees are interested in so if someone wants to seek out like say uh state and federal historic funds what they need to get the ball
12:31rolling um I would I would look at um either preservation Massachusetts website or the state um historic preservation office's website they will often have fund a list of funders that'll be pretty specific um but it's often going to be I mean like if you look at this list you can go crazy chasing down every opportunity so I mean there are people there are grant writers um who can help kind of narrow
13:04it down and tell you what you're more likely to be eligible for or competitive for so it's often worth spending a few hundred dollars just to consult with someone like that um the historic tax credits are um the process is complicated they have applications four times a year you have to submit if you submit one time and you don't get it you have to submit again they don't keep you in the hopper so that's a
13:32process but um the funding it could be could be worth it yeah I wish I came like it's funding is such a challenge I mean if it were easy everybody would get it um and preservation you know it's seen these days as a nicity not as a necessity for many so unfortunately that's the case you know we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of the country and at the 200 anniversary the B
13:59Centennial preservation got a big push I don't know if that's going to happen this time um but you might look to see if if there's a whatever committee 250th Committee in the state there might be some funds that are going to become available for helping fix up places if there's some connection I don't know what their criteria might be but that's some states are doing that okay yeah thanks have you seen a growing
14:28interest lately and the sort of Tourism aspect of this you go to cross parts of America every place looks the same they have the same the same Banks the same so cities and towns that have a unique sort of architectural and historic core yeah is a reason for you to go there absolutely and it seems to me that as people are trying to differentiate their communities to draw more tourist dollars
14:53right that that would be a real selling point have you seen that increase lately I think it is but it's not just the buildings it's the stories yeah and I think you guys have some great stories here obviously um but yeah I think that that um is increasing more and more especially with digital storytelling it's enticing people who may not otherwise have um got kind of gotten plugged in because they're not reading
15:17newspapers they're not reading magazines they're on social media all day so there are some really good creators um that travel the world their whole job now is traveling the world somehow they get paid to do that um but they are really creating fantastic stories about places that I think do entice people to travel yeah so that would be a different kind of Consulting you'd find somebody that
15:39really is a good Storyteller on social media yeah and you've got you've got a program here at um UMass Dartmouth um there was a we hired a young woman when I was at the preservation Society to do some work for us last summer and she was really amazing like knew the tools did she created content all day long easily um so you could look at maybe an intern there or what's the name of the program
16:01you going to start with um I don't know it's I can't remember if it I can get it to you if you want that'd be great yeah yeah I can't remember what the program was called but probably media and Communications or something like that any other questions or feel free to contact me through my website it's on the Fly I handed out and I'm happy to correspond with you to help you get
16:32going all right thanks for coming in yeah thanks for having me pleasure to meet you you have other business ium yeah all right well I'll slip out like I say if you do have any questions feel free to give him a call this thing's
16:57dangerous we'll move on to our next uh project assignment we want to do that tonight or put that I think you said next month um can I have a motion to put that off till next month when we're meeting live hopefully live I'll make a motion to move the project assignments to the December meeting and I'll second that motion uh roll call we start you Chris uh Kristen K alera yes Joan Bentley yes
17:34Alexander Silva yes Rook May s yes and John BR yes uh if you do have projects because we did have a lot of rotation if you want to email me or Sandy to so we can piece it together or we can wait but if there's something you really like let us know beforehand um next to document reviews I think we voted on this last uh month but just to make sure uh I think we covered
18:05the award agreements the um documents historic preservation community housing open space Recreation uh we went over the guidelines uh eligibility application the funding application uh reimbursement paper work uh certificate of non conclusion um um so I think we went over all that we voted that in right yep so everyone was okay with the paperwork on that end um not sure if everyone had a chance to
18:41look over the new CPC plan that we updated um do we have any questions on that anything we want to add yep I don't have any questions okay um it looks good to me okay I think there's just a couple more places where we need department heads to provide some more information then it'll be all set to right like the Housing section yeah we do need to just tweak that
19:12um but if we uh um that we just have to update the figures on housing the uh the vouchers and all that then we'll be covered on that uh if everyone's okay with that we could vote that in so go to a public hearing has to be uh public hearing for two weeks and then the city council will vote on the plan to go in so can I have a motion to I'll make a motion to
19:39approve the um CPC plan uh once we have all of the the details that we're missing okay I'll second that okay roll call vote Chris CHR K olera yes Joan Bentley yes Alexander Silva yes John brt Yes Rick manen yes and John brt yes uh any new business I I would just like to um say something I like to actually make a motion to move the December meeting uh to actually not have a December meeting
20:23because the meeting is going to fall right before Christmas like really close to Christmas and I know everybody gets really busy at Christmas and I just think that unless there's something really urgent and dire that comes up maybe we skip the December meeting uh there's really not much uh that we the bulk will start in January so uh I'm in favor of that if somebody wants to make a motion and so we'll
20:49schedule the public hearing for the CPC plan in January then if everyone's good with that that gives us a little more time so yeah okay so I'll make I'll just make a motion to uh cancel the December meeting and just have our regular January meeting okay second I'll second that okay roll call vote Christ can oliv yes youle yes Alexander Silva yes John Yes Rick man yes all righty um that concludes uh can I have a
21:24meeting to adjourn I mean a motion to adjourn make a motion that we adjourn I'll second it uh roll call First can Oliver yes go Bentley yes Alexander Silva Yes Man yes John BR yes and while we're still on air if anybody out there we have two seats open on the mayor and the city council give them a call email them if you if you're interested if you're interested and have a desire to see preservation
21:56open space and all that um we could use uh two good people on the board so you're out there listening send an email okay thank you