The Fall River Historical Commission convened on Tuesday, December 21st, at 5:34 PM, with all five members present virtually. The meeting began with a motion to take certain items out of order to accommodate guests. First, Liberty Utilities presented a request to demolish two structures at 45 Anawan Street, a property on the significant structures list. Derek Tompka, representing Liberty Utilities, explained the structures were non-contributing and their demolition was necessary for environmental remediation of coal gasification contamination. The commission unanimously voted 5-0 to waive the six-month demolition delay. Next, Michael Labossiere from the Fall River Department of Community Utilities requested letters of support for three Community Preservation Committee (CPC) applications: the Barnabas Blossom Workshop, the Interlaken Cultural Resource Stabilization Project, and the North Watuppa Pond Sea Walls Condition Assessment and Restoration Plan. Despite concerns raised by Chair Kristen Cantera Oliveira about the absence and unresponsiveness of department head Paul Furland regarding other historical preservation issues, the commission acknowledged the merits of Labossiere's projects and his commitment. They unanimously voted 5-0 to issue letters of support for all three projects, noting that historic preservation restrictions would be placed on them. Finally, Mike Keane requested letters of support for two more CPC applications: the restoration of the hayloft at the Historic Massasoit Number Five Fire Station (77 Freedom Street) and the replacement of failed windows at 25 Water Street with historically appropriate ones. Both projects were unanimously approved 5-0 for letters of support. The meeting concluded with the approval of September and October 2021 minutes, tabling November 2021 minutes, and a discussion about setting 2022 meeting dates for the third Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM.
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City Officials
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okay good evening everyone and welcome to the historical commission meeting it is tuesday december 21st and it's 5 34.
0:11pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or 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 are deemed acknowledged and permissible can i please get a roll call uh joyce rogers present connie soul present reuben amuros
0:44present richard mancini present via zoom and kristen cantera oliveira present uh virtually and everyone is attending virtually tonight by zoom we do also have two open seats on the board and we had no citizen input this evening
1:18connie you're on you i i know you're talking but you're on mute i wanted to make a motion to take out of order correspondence a and b um move it up on the agenda before we do minutes okay a is not actually do you want to do 5d is actually i think first did i do i have the wrong yeah your hips 6b would be michael oh yeah and 5 5d is liberty utilities i
1:54know they are here okay so that's what i wanted to do oh okay i i i don't know if i have the right agenda but anyways i did want to move it up um my time is limited tonight and so i wanted to make sure we heard the people that are present okay so connie is making a motion to move uh 5d 45 animon street liberty utilities to the beginning now out of order do i
2:24have a second yes i'll second that okay we'll do a uh roll call vote joyce rodricks i i agree okay connie soul yes camera you're on you reuben hi uh richard mancini yes and kristen cantera oliveira yes um so we did receive a letter um from liberty utilities about 45 animon street and they want to um demo two um two structures on the property and the property itself the whole entire complex of 45 aniwan street
3:11is on the significant structures list so i know we do have someone here that's a representative so if um if you'd like to introduce yourself and just um let us know what it is that you're you're not i did send it i did send it around to everybody so we are aware okay thanks um i'll be as brief as you need me to but you know if you're not getting the information that you want
3:37please ask questions um my name is derek tompka i'm the senior director of environmental compliance with liberty um excuse me i have a bit of a cough so i appreciate you making the this meeting of zoom meeting so i can still participate um the the property that we're looking at was first developed by the the fall river gas works company in 1880 and they burned coal to create coal gas which was then
4:07the gas that came off of the burnt coal gas was collected and scrubbed and purified and was stored and then was was distributed out to the to customers for town gas lighting gas heating and the this facility was used to make coal gas until about 1945 when the manufacturing operations went somewhere else however this property has been within um the gas companies or the gas companies operations system since since 1880
4:45but as you can imagine the uh the coal gasification process was a dirty process that pre-existed the clean air act and the clean water act and it was a dirty process in 2008 the gas company started doing some environmental investigations at the property and ended up reporting the environmental conditions to dep and since then we've been working through deps massachusetts contingency plan on a risk-based closure
5:18and part of that work is to remove contaminated soil and some source material in the subsurface environment from some old historic structures that that exist below the asphalt and below the garage building so we've been excuse me we've been investigating the property for a good number of years and over the past year we've gone through a bitter selection and just recently awarded the work to our remediation
5:50contractor who was just recently in touch with the building inspector to get the building permit and that was when we were made aware of the listing on the significant structure list so you can imagine my surprise when i'm looking at this concrete block building that was uh on on slab um with a corrugated metal roof and trying to understand why that would be listed as a significant structure so chris
6:19i appreciate you explaining that um this building is just guilty by association for being on this this property right we we actually there's um a few different things in the city that are especially around mills and things like that they're listed together as a complex and then you have structures that are contributing and non-contributing and from when i looked at it they look like they would be non-contributing
6:45structures because i did um i did look at them and i sent it around to everybody else um so that's the whole the whole point is just we need to vote to see whether or not because normally anything on the property would have a six month demolition delay and as long as the um as long as the commission finds that there's no reason to do that then we can just you know we can go
7:11either way and that was that was the point of having you come in case in case anybody has any questions sure about it yeah i can i can share some photos um i think we sent one over we have a few more that i could share if that might be helpful um and then i'm sorry oh i was gonna say i i did send the photos to everybody so i'm just
7:34gonna say just so that we don't make you keep talking because i know you're not feeling well does anybody on the board have any questions about the two structures that they want to demo i just have a question about cleanup is it the responsibility now of the gas company to clean up the area before demolition or after demolition yes like the gas company has a notice of responsibility from dp so that's the
8:05work that we're doing towards remediation so that yes the gas company is doing that work derek is it to the degree area be able to be used by a commercial venture of some kind or would it be yep um apparently i have this area or a brownfield uh the the closure strategy that we're moving towards is there will be restrictions on what it can be used for um so you know we don't want to see a
8:36daycare center um occupy the structure um however for commercial establishments industrial establishments parking lots all of that is uh is fine um this this property will have an activity news limitation placed on it after the the cleanup is completed which will list the activities that are consistent with the the aul or the activity and use limitation and then if um if a future owner wanted to change
9:07that activity they would simply need to evaluate the new act or the proposed activity in the context of the environmental situations at the site to see if there is no unacceptable risk so and speaking more directly to to your question i think is the the gas company has entered into a purchase and sales agreement with the fall river redevelopment authority and they have expressed interest in acquiring this property
9:42they're they're aware of the activity and use limitation that will be in place after the remediation um and then ultimately it will be their their decision what the property is ultimately used for in the future derek is the removal of soil going to be limited is that what's going to be part of your restrictions are you removing a limited amount of soil in order to eliminate contamination yeah what we've found at
10:13at this facility is there's four structures that have the bulk of the um the contaminated soil in it two of them are old gas holders that straddle the the front wall of that um that garage building and then uh there's another one in the kind of center of the parking area and then there's another structure that is uh just inside the garage building so we we think we're fortunate here that we
10:44can actually remove the contents of the structure without having to do a lot of extra excavation so we don't think it's going to be an extensive um extensive dig and that the our our excavation limits are really confined just by virtue of the structures okay okay are there any other questions okay would anybody like to make a motion either way the motion is to what to lift the restriction the six month restriction
11:23yes on the on the two property on the two structures that they are looking to demo yes okay uh i'll second that motion okay well i haven't made it yet he hasn't made it yet i would uh derek i i would just just if you could and if in and if if it's handy paperwork that you have i can make the motion that we lift the restriction the six month restriction from your project but
11:56could you ship us maybe what level of restrictions are going to be placed on the property would that be possible just send it to kristen and she try and get it out to us yeah we i can share um what we've submitted as a draft notice of activity news limitation that we shared it with the rda when we were negotiating the sales agreement yeah that would be much appreciated it just for some general
12:24knowledge that i could star in this uh aged mind okay sure no problem all right joyce you can now second i'll second that motion rick okay so i have a motion and a second to waive the six-month demolition delay on those two structures so roll call joyce rogex i connie soul yes reuben amaral aye mancini yes and kristen cantera oliveira vote yes so that is unanimous so i will um i'll get a letter to you
13:00to wait waving the six-month demolition delay and i'll also send a copy to the building department okay that okay wonderful okay yep um can you tell me roughly when you expect that my contractor is already breathing down my back and wants to wants to start the process as quickly as possible i can hope to do it in the next couple of days the thing is we we all work full-time and then christmas is in the
13:25next couple of days so the latest i would have it to you would be early next week okay just it shouldn't hopefully i can get it done tomorrow at some point okay yep anything you can do to move it along would be appreciated okay okay thank you very much and i'll send over the draft aol okay that's great thank you thank you okay thank you i'm gonna drop now okay
13:59okay getting back to our agenda well we're moving now to sorry i keep losing it a lot of my element here i had motions to have him d first and then i think you're going to say six big okay so i have a motion to move six b up out of order next which would be um michael labassia do i have a second second general second so i have a motion in three seconds
14:51okay so roll call boy uh vote joyce rodriguez i connie soul yes okay richard mancini yes reuben amarillo yes and kristen cantera oliveira yes so uh we will uh move so uh mike lavassier and he is presenting requesting letters of support for community preservation committee applications on behalf of the fallen department of community utilities so he has three uh mic you're muted he has three
15:30projects that he submitted for he's looking for letters of support for uh the bonhams blossom workshop the interlocking cultural resource stabilization project and the north wartupple pond sea walls condition assessment and restoration plan does anybody would anybody like to start well i can start by thanking the committee uh the commission for uh allowing me to uh present this request again um
16:05we all three of these applications were before the cpc last year um they didn't rank highly enough to get funded all three of them i i don't think it was necessarily uh you know due to their merits because i think all three are very good i think you you have before you all three eligibility applications for this particular fiscal year so we were encouraged to um you know the the the
16:35committee um sort of had a different mandate last year and i think they addressed that and uh we were encouraged to resubmit and so that's our plan we uh all three of these passed the first eligibility round again and um last time we were very grateful that you wrote letters of support for each one of these three and um you know you uh we simply want to um ask once again that the commission would
17:02um would look at these view them as um you know worthwhile projects and um you would support them based on their particularly on on their uh they're somewhat mixed projects i mean they they all have a historical element but um each one has has a little bit more than that so um i know you have these applications before you you've probably reviewed them but i'd be happy to answer any questions relating to them and
17:31each one i think is really exciting so uh um you know far away if you have any questions okay mike are you going to be the charge person for these projects yeah so um it's a really good question so my my purview um as the forester for the whatever reservation has continued to creep as jobs in the city tend to do um so i'm i'm basically now project manager but all of these are relevant to the
18:06what's upper reservation and um you know sync up with some aspect the barnabas blossom house for example i should say the blonde the barnabas blossom workshop um is associated with the uh uh half a dozen or so buildings at the what upper reservation headquarters and that headquarters has actually been dedicated to a blossom farm that's been dedicated for uh operations since uh 1911.
18:32um so that's that's basically where my entire operation works out of um the other two projects interlocking of course is within the whatever reservation and the sea wall project really those sea walls um sort of um are constructed along the perimeter of northwest upper which which is surrounded by the reservation so by virtue of all three of those um these are my projects because they're
18:59all you know directly involved with the whatever reservation okay uh do you report to a board at all mike just i'm just sort of curious as to as your structure yeah so um the you know the department of the department of community utilities actually um falls under two boards is this there's the the sewer depart the sewer division and then there's the uh the water division water division is under the water
19:29water board and that's a that's a three-member uh commission okay so that's that's the oversight board for these three projects correct okay if there'd be any um talk about funding other than cpc is there any funding that might have come from the federal government during this pandemic has that been a possibility or is it strictly cpc um um i would say the precise answer for that is strictly
20:08cpc at this point this this project and the funding the budget work and all of that really preceded the pandemic um so it really hasn't changed i will say that um you know there's there's an element of the funding that we always assume that we will provide whether it's the in-kind uh you know services of of of staff or whether it's some additional cash funding um you know we don't have a very great
20:38you know a very big budget and and none of these are sort of under any kind of capital budget allowance but in particular the barnabas blossom we've had a number of years uh standing partnership with diamond and um they will be they will figure prominently in sort of a like kind um you know service match if you will um haven't really you know worked out what that value is but they have contributed tens of
21:11thousands of dollars in value with working on a number of other projects at the reservation um including you know new hvac system uh you know new entirely new wiring um you know shingling of the forced all garage you know new windows uh um just on and on so that's that's not a small um contribution and also it's it's a really vital partnership that we've that we've forged with uh with diamond and we're
21:41really happy about it okay so i i just want to express my concerns and it is not about the projects necessarily i think they are very good projects my concern is that the name listed on the projects is paul ferland and paul furland is not here to answer questions even though he knows that the commission had some concerns um and we did want to speak with him and this is the third meeting that he is not
22:24attending and um my my concern is seeing that he has the ultimate oversight on these projects because his name is on them um i mike my concern i i can't speak for everybody on the board is that he has not um i guess been what i would consider a an advocate for historic preservation in the project that is being done up at the waterworks complex as the entire complex is on
23:00the um state national and city register and they are they have clear-cut the land and they are putting up a modern building and i did speak with the architect and ask that mister that i have mr furling contact me so that the historical commission can be part of the discussion about putting up a modern building on a historic complex so my concern is that since he has the ultimate oversight of these projects he is not
23:35going to really see um the full significance and value of historic preservation on these projects um i i don't know how anybody else feels but that is how i feel and i feel that he is asking for letters of support from the historical commission but he is not being respectful to the historical commission by not coming to our meetings to answer the questions that we have for him so i i might respond by saying um
24:11you know and i i i hear your your your concern about that um as i said these these are these are projects under my immediate purview um obviously he's the department head um but um my my my view at this time is that you know i would hope that these projects could be looked at um you know on the basis of their merits alone and you know it sounds like there are other
24:41um you know concerns that um maybe you know can can be addressed but separately um these these projects you know and i would i would point to our good track record with the cpc on almost a million dollars of other land conservation project so for us this is a first for getting really involved for us meaning you know the the tupper reservation and um you know the land conservation work that that that that we
25:09do out there um these projects support that they are you know they're really in that wheelhouse and um you know for that reason um i would just hope that we could um you know see that those those can be supported and um you know i i see your point um and i would just hope that those could be those could be dealt with separately you know i i'm i i'm on the fence i'm a little
25:44more in favor of the letter but i i've been on a fence for a while with this but again on a one to ten ten being the best i'm probably a six right now convinced me to put me up at eight and nine uh for this letter i know we we did a sign a letter last time with with uh very happy to do that because these projects are and they truly are good
26:12projects that need to be taken care of there's no question in my mind uh that they that they're really good projects up and the statement that that i just overheard is we have to look at monies that were accumulated and spent on projects in the past but if you if you use that analogy we also know what has happened on stonehaven road and bedford street and that again is saying is there a change in your administration
26:46stinking uh make me feel real comfortable mike that you're the man that's going to be grabbing this project these three projects and running with them and that we're real comfortable that there'll be no outside influences well so if you look at the you know the the organization chart of the water department um there are several um you know several branches there's maintenance there's
27:19administration and there's treatment and resources treatment and resources if you will is is sort of the third of the three legs of the water department treatment has to do with the water treatment plant um and resources is you know we have a um half a dozen dams and a half a dozen different towns we have um you know two reservoirs and we have almost five thousand acres of forest
27:43land with partners in the buyer reserve that is all my domain and um uh except for the treatment plant which of course you know has its own director but um that's a separate division from maintenance and maintenance is involved with the distribution system underground in the city your hydrants the water water um the water services uh the maintenance building the street you know bedford street and
28:09and uh you know those facilities up there that's a separate division um and then administration has to do with you know billing and and metering and all that so um um you know i think our divisions integrate to a point but there's also a firewall in terms of the direct line of administration so i'm really comfortable in saying i have um you know these are my projects uh they're not really subject to um you
28:38know influence or diversion um and i think as i said if you look at the conservation work that we've done over the last five years um we've we've acquired eight different you know conservation parcels and then from soup to nuts um as kristin knows you know involved with working with state partners working uh to put conservation restrictions was this which is a secondary overlay of
29:02protection on each one of those and not just with one partner we've worked with you know we've had independent conservation restrictions with um the division of fishing uh the department of fish and game um dcr which is department of conservation recreation and with the buzzes bay coalition so um you know we've the experience that we've had in our division is um you know is is very strong and um you know i think
29:32that's that's our mo um we do our projects very thoroughly um i think they have strong leadership we have strong partners um we complete them uh and we complete them um you know very acutely and um and i think to um you know i i think a lot of you know a number of people um are i think the city is really has benefited greatly from that and i think i would stand by
30:00the fact that that's the way we're going to proceed with every one of these projects madam chairman i i would offer a suggestion i don't know if this is usual or or not but would a letter of support be written with a via to mr furlin who would be asked in that letter to attach an endorsement uh and then that letter could be forwarded on to cpc uh if that is something that we've done
30:40in the past or not done um but i would i would think we could get around this um and also indicate to mr phillip that his support is necessary well he he his name is the name that's on the application it's submitted under mr throne's name so he's well aware of the project because the past two years when they came before us he attended the meetings with mr labasia he is not attending the meetings this year
31:10and i don't know why but i i do know that i have tried to get in contact with him he did not respond to the email that i sent inviting him to the meeting with the zoom things and he did not respond via the message i sent by his architect to the questions that we had regarding another issue that's on our agenda later on which is 1620 bedford street so i don't know why this time
31:38he is not responding um but it is there's no he doesn't need to sign an endorsement for the projects his name is on the projects so um i don't know connie did you have anything i know i know your time is limited so did you have anything that you wanted to add or captured my thoughts reuben uh you know rick did a good job uh asking questions i was going to ask and feel like
32:19if mr furland is going to be involved in this project uh it's upsetting that he's not here right now but if he's going to take the back seat and allow you to handle these three very important projects then um i would feel comfortable approving the letter but again it's going to be a board decision and mr friendly not being here is upsetting but it is what it is so just so you all are aware too um
32:50there would be a and the one thing that makes me a little more comfortable um is there would be a historic preservation restriction put on all of these three projects so interlaken would have a preservation restriction on it and it would be a 30 usually they do a 30-year restriction so um it would it would have to be maintained and historic um you know there couldn't be any demo nothing could
33:24happen to it for 30 years so on interlock and on the walls and on um barnabas blossom so they would all three have preservation restrictions put on them it's just i know that my other concern part of the walls um while it goes around the entire pond part of part of that also includes the water works complex on bedford street which as we know mr furlin has completely disregarded the historic value of
33:54by what he did so that's really that's what makes me a little more concerned there but if if there are historic preservation restrictions in place then it it would limit anything that can be done i guess negatively to all three um i'm still really i'm still disappointed and i do feel that uh mr furlin is being um disrespectful to the ward knowing that we have asked to speak with him and he is not
34:31um he's not doing that so i i think it's disrespectful to ask for a letter of support for projects and then not show up to answer the questions that the board has so that's all i have well i would um i really have experience with what mike is going through so i don't think it's i would like to support the letter of the support that he needs because i think in the final analysis
35:08mike knows that when he gets to cpc mr freeland will be there or my cpc will i don't think we'll go any further than than what we're doing tonight right i think that that that needs to be clear and um you know that not without saying but i think that you can't proceed further without the department behind you so i would be in favor of a letter of support knowing full well that might
35:46we'll move that forward and make it clear to cpc that when that's considered that um his supervisor will be with him that emotion is that a more i will just say i i do appreciate everything that that mike does and has done and you know i have always supported him in the past and my issue i just want you all to know my issue was not with um mike labassier or anything that he
36:16does because i know that he does things impeccably well so yeah and the other the other side of the point is i i would hope that the department understands that the life there's a life work here it's not just a a good idea and a project that's going to be completed from start to finish it's a life work going on in the reservation and in the interlaken area so i'm going to make a motion for a
36:45letter of support okay for which project are we talking all three i'm talking all three okay so i have a motion for a letter of support for all three of the projects do i have a second i'll second that motion okay so i have a motion and a second roll call vote joyce right and i will i will just like to interject uh that uh appreciate your comments uh reuben and also joyce uh mentioning that
37:14for mike it's a lifelong project which it is you've been with them for 40 years mike and have done an honorable job and you are well thought of here um so uh that that six has gone up and and uh if we're taking a vote i'm in favor okay so let me do a roll call vote joyce rogers yes connie soule yes richard mancini yes reuben amaral and kristen cantera oliveira i will vote yes as well
37:56thank you very much okay mike move on thank you good luck i appreciate the endorsement and richard i i don't stop to count those years that's pretty good of you it's a lot of years um but i i i do agree that um that these we we were long overdue like a hundred years overdue on some of these on on acutely looking at some of these deferred maintenance and other issues
38:23and you know we're in danger of losing some of them so that's why it's critical um but i i chris i particularly encourage you to you know stay tuned because i i think that the i you know there are some um i i think you're closer than not as far as the the you know the the view of um bedford street and that historic you know that historic um situation there and i and i think that's
38:51probably you know something that can be resolved uh sooner than later okay so i appreciate it very much i'll sign off now thank you all right thanks mike have a good holiday mike thank you you all as well good luck mike okay now um hey connie do you need to leave are you connie i think i think she's frozen no i i think she's muted no she's muted but i think she's broken oh she's gone
39:34connie all right do you need to leave she keeps she i have a few more we um on the agenda to um mike keynes here okay you can hear me okay yeah i can hear so i have a motion to take 6a out of order next and that is uh mike keane do i have a second i'll second okay motion in a second roll call of joyce rodriguez yes richard mancini yes reuben amaral
40:11yes connie seoul yes kristen cantera oliveira yes so um mr keane is requesting letters of support for community preservation committee applications for um for two projects there is one at 77 freedom street which is on behalf of charles and gloria jacobson and then 25 water street on behalf of gene and jim padilla and again um both of these have come before us in previous years and they are just um
40:45they're doing a little bit more on these projects so the projects are being extended so if mike you want to just give us a very brief um synopsis and then sure i'll be quick thanks christian thanks everyone else for for having me and so um just quickly the first one as kristen mentioned is the historic massasoit number five fire station firehouse and what we have done previously is we've completed a building study
41:17of the building uh back in december of last year and we also have a cpa funded project that we have completed the construction documents for which is the restoration masonry restoration of the west eleven elevation of the fire station um we're going out to re-bid the project this um this spring maybe a little sooner than that we've had some a bit of a tough time trying to get contractors
41:47in the the current bidding climate um but we're hopeful uh we're going to cast a wider net and try to get some additional contractors um sort of outside the immediate area that are qualified and historic preservation contractors that we've worked with previously so this is really um intended to be the third project that we're requesting cpa funding for and it's the restoration of the
42:15hayloft which is on the south side of the fire station uh and this is for masonry restoration part of the project is mason restoration of the east and west and south elevations of that hayloft which is really like a one and a half story you know high structure um we identified some areas of uh significant masonry deterioration on the east elevation of that hay loft where the roof line meets the masonry
42:47and there's water getting in behind that masonry wall so that in particular is going to require most of the work it's not the substantial area but it is something that needs to be addressed um hopefully soon so i could go on but that's really the project in a nutshell yeah mike that was the same wall that was wasn't in question in the last a bit correct a year ago when you presented that was the same i'm
43:19sorry say it again rick i say a year ago when this was presented it that that same west wall was the wall that was having difficulties am i correct right yeah okay we had no it hasn't been addressed no that that has not been yet addressed yet so all right well i i'm i know what we're trying to get through this quickly i know connie's gotta go uh and are you pretty well set with this uh
43:59mike because the project is it appears you're just adding a few other areas i don't think there was were you scrub coding the building last time also no no we weren't doing any scrub coding that was that was masonry pointing uh you know and so we have bid documents completed that are sort of you know sitting on a shelf waiting for you know uh sometime in the in the after the
44:28calendar year it's a little too early i think to bid that project out that's the west elevation restoration so for that project which is already as i mentioned funded uh it's um masonry repointing uh some brick replacement gutters and downspouts because there's that most of those guys are completely gone anyway and there's no downspouts that are that are on that west elevation which is contributing to some of that
44:58damage on the west elevation so this would be you know working to correct that within the secretary of interior's standards okay the building's a nice looking building in it and you know it it does stand it certainly is yeah yeah do you want kristen would you like a motion to send the letter of support yeah if somebody wants to make a motion and nobody else has any questions that's fine
45:26yeah connie you all said yeah reuben i'm good that's it okay then i'll make a motion uh to support this project okay so i have a motion to support the uh massasoit fire station i'll second that second um okay roll call vol joyce rodriguez yes richard mancini yes reuben amro yes connie soul yes christian cantera oliveira i vote yes as well okay and then uh next is 25 water street
46:03which again has come before us in the past so um so this is another project that has received uh cpa funding previously this project we did a study of the building and um we've completed the study and i think um since you know having been awarded the funding for for that study piece of it um it's the project has sort of gotten much more interesting and we did submit an application last year to the cpc
46:43for um some work uh replacement of the the roof system and i think that the argument back then um to lack of a better word was that it's not um the roof system is not visible to the public right so there's no necessary public benefit uh for a roof replacement project and i think that was something that they had recently sort of discussed you know internally but what we're proposing now um is to look at the
47:13windows which are replacement windows that have failed um we've gone back and done some additional documentation and kristen did it did you get the um eligibility application for uh the cpa i don't know if everyone else has a copy of it but there's some historic photos everyone's in there yeah there's some historic photos in there of what that building originally looked like it's a it's a tremendous difference
47:44um there's a photo in there from 1910 which shows the original structure which is a three and a half story high structure that was destroyed uh you know significant damage in the the fires firestone fire of 1941 and so what we're looking to do for this project is to play face the existing uh failed windows with new windows that would be um similar to the historic style of what was there
48:18based on the the photos that we we have which are six over six windows um so uh and of course it would just be for the first floor only is what we're looking to do is some minor masonry cleaning and there's some notes in there about masonry restoration that's really at the jams of the you know where those windows fit in um we'll be doing some repointing and some brick replacement there's also some
48:45metal that's embedded in those more water joints that we're looking to remove the metals um because it's creating some ferrous staining some metal staining on the masonry so um that's all part of of the the project it really it really was um pretty amazing to see what it looked like initially because i am very familiar with the building itself but to see it when it was in its original
49:15three story was was pretty impressive um does anyone yeah and um if i was gonna say if you don't have a copy of the study that we did i could certainly send it to you all um because there's some really interesting stuff that we found i mean there is a you know even a newsreel from 1941 you know you think of the old newsreels and there's a flyby of the whole complex
49:42that's burning um and some some images of this you know this structure in particular so we were able to dig in and sort of get you know a lot of information on the building which was which was it was kind of fun to do that i like to see that yeah certainly and the one thing i'll remind everybody too is that the building sits in the um recently created cultural uh the waterfront cultural district so
50:14it's it's in a significant it's in a significant area it's a state district so well i'd like to make a motion to approve a letter of support okay so i have a motion for a letter of support for 25 water street do i have a second a second second motion okay so i have a motion in a second uh roll call vote joyce rodriguez yes richard mancini yes ruben amaral yes crony soul yes and kristen cantera
50:48oliveira yes so letter is approved great thank you very much everyone thank you like if you can send a copy of the study to me and i can afford it yeah because yeah we would definitely like to uh to read up on that nice holiday mike you as well i'm gonna do that now before i leave it's a it's a link you know you'll get a link because it's a very
51:14large file so you know if you don't see something tonight then just just drop me a line and i'll send it to you some other way okay so sounds good all right great all right thanks everyone have a great holiday happy new year happy holidays i i do have to leave and my wi-fi here is kind of unstable too i keep getting cut out okay that's fine we still have a quorum so we can finish the
51:42rest of the meeting the rest of the meeting is just happy holidays and thanks connie good luck in your good luck in your evening endeavor yes bye-bye bye-bye okay so would somebody like to make a motion to go back to uh number four a which are the minutes and we can get back on track i'll make a motion to go back in order and go to four start with a okay so i have a motion to
52:19go back in order of the agenda with four a starting do i have a second i'll second motion okay second okay i have a motion and a second roll call vote joyce rogers yes richard mancini yes reuben amer yes kristen cantera oliveira yes um so i have uh the minutes from september 21st 2021 would somebody uh do do we have any discussion on the minutes no i read the minutes and i'll make a
52:53motion that we accept them okay i have a motion do i have a second i'll okay motion and a second roll called joyce rodriguez yes richard mancini yes ruben amaral yes kristen cantora oliveira vote yes so minutes approved um next up we have the minutes from october 19 2021 excuse me any discussion no again i read the minutes and i would make a motion to accept them okay i have a motion
53:35oops sorry motion to accept the minutes from october 19th oh i'll second that motion okay motion and a second roll call vote joyce rogers yes richard mancini yes reuben amaral yes kristen cantera oliveira vote yes so next up we have the minutes from november 17 2021 i i did not i was not able to get those minutes to you in time so i need a motion to um to move those to our next agenda if
54:16somebody would like to make a motion to move that to the next meeting okay so i have a motion to move the minutes from uh november to the next meeting okay roll cover joyce rogers yes richard mancini yes robin amero yes christian cantera oliveira yes so the minutes for 11 17 21 will be put on the next agenda um next up we have notice of intent to demolish structure um
54:56so first up we have 1170 new hall street and that is not on the significant structures list so i did just send a letter letting them know it is not on the list then 22 aberdeen street again was not on the significant structures list so i sent a letter saying that it was not listed and uh same for 5c which was 83 essex street um they were taking down a garage and
55:30again that property is not listed on the significant structures list so i sent them a letter stating that it was not on the list and we already did discuss uh 45 animon street and then next up would have been uh mike keane and michael basia which we have discussed already so moving on old business is the uh 1620 waterworks complex update and i do not have an update on the complex as you know mr furland
56:04did not attend the meeting he still has not uh contacted me and i do not have an update i know that last i knew is the uh the building that they were building is a modern structure with a big blue wave on the front he did say that they were looking at um ways to to uh use some of the old granite from the property on the building but i don't know what that entails because i
56:36um i'm still waiting i can reach out again and see um if he'll respond but that's all i can do at this point so i know they're working on the property they're they're still working up there and they were putting in the foundation for the building that they're going to be putting up um that's all i know okay uh the merger of the historical commission and historic district commission i don't have any update from
57:14the last meeting all i know is that attorney ramsey did send it send the okay to um counselor liberty to um set a meeting to discuss the um the proposal when i had sent him our recommendations and so i don't have i don't have a date yet from council liberty i'm not sure if one has been set because i know the holidays are coming up so as soon as i have that
57:46i will let you know um one or two of us would need to attend that meeting i'm or to answer some questions so um when that happens i will let you know uh let's see moving on uh eight a date for the 2022 meetings i know in the historic district commission meeting we did discuss keeping the date at the third tuesday of every month at 6 00 p.m and um that was the consensus there everyone
58:18agreed to that and i just want to make sure that in this commission we also agree on those dates because um once the merger happens i would assume that we will all be attending together although i i can't say what what their plan is but for now we still have to have either two separate meetings or joint meetings and it would still be on the same day so is everybody okay with
58:45um keeping the dates to the third tuesday uh i mean the third tuesday of the month as i'm okay with it it's like you know as long as somebody doesn't jump ahead of us because i think in the past you've had to struggle with that you know as madam chairman you've you know other people seem to be working the schedules as well so i think we need to lock that in and
59:11make it clear that that is our day right and that's that's why i want to do this now so that we can send it into the city clerk and lock the dates and normally it does what happens is sometimes we can't get a a quorum on any given day especially because the two the two um committees are so fractured we're missing three on one we're missing two on another so if we can't get a quorum
59:35then we have to find another meeting and then we're working around what everybody else already has scheduled but if we can lock our meetings in and then we we can have a quorum then it's not an issue but just making sure that um i know ruben you were not part of that last conversation so does that date work for you as well the third tuesday of the month yeah that's fine okay rick yes
1:00:03okay so what i'll do is i'll just send the dates down to allison and tell her that we're gonna for now it's gonna be booked for the two committees one at six one at six thirty um but the meetings will start at six and i think the joint meetings work really well especially because if we do come together then at least even if not everybody can vote in on one or the
1:00:24other world there to listen to the conversation and be part of the conversation as well so okay um open discussion do we have anything else to discuss any anything anybody needs to bring up no i i just want to reaffirm that uh yes i i think we should continue to try and get a meeting with paul ferlin and find out what's happening over there on stonehaven road and bedford street okay
1:00:59i'm anxious myself to see what the building looks like and having his architect present would be would be really good so that we could uh get some questions answered uh so you know that that's probably the only discussion i'll end it there but i i i concur with the uh with the the sadness that is being presented here you know with the inability to speak to the people who are controlling the projects
1:01:33that's not historic projects so that's not very comforting i agree anything else anybody else have anything okay um that being said can i have a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn okay i have a motion to injection okay i have a motion do i have a second i have a second to that motion okay second uh motion and a second to adjourn uh roll call joyce rodriguez yes richard mancini yes reuben amaral yes kristen
1:02:18cantera oliveira yes um so that being said thank you everyone have a very happy holidays to all of you everyone stay safe stay well have fun and um we will see you all in the new year thank you and the same to everyone else thank you take care now good night alex