The Fall River Historical Commission convened on Tuesday, July 19th, at 6 p.m. The meeting began with a roll call and the reading of a resignation letter from Ruben Amaral, who had served for four and a half years. The commission then proceeded with the election of new officers for the newly merged Historical Commission. Jason was elected Chair, Richard as Vice Chair, and Elizabeth as Secretary, all by unanimous vote. The commission addressed two notices of intent to demolish: Storehouse Number One at One West Street (Border City Mills Mill Number One) and the Old Brighton Street Bridge. The demolition of the One West Street storehouse was approved unanimously after the property owner explained its structural deficiencies and plans to create a break area for employees, noting significant investments in the main mill building. No objections were raised for the demolition of the Old Brighton Street Bridge. The commission also discussed a request from the Fall River Deaconess Home at 572 High Street to replace 25 windows. While the commission appreciated the non-profit's work, they noted the proposed vinyl windows did not conform to design guidelines. A subcommittee of Joyce Rodriguez, Rick Mancini, and Elizabeth Block was formed to conduct a site visit on Friday at 5:15 p.m. to assess the windows and discuss potential Community Preservation Committee funding for appropriate replacements. Old business included updates on 317 Hanover Street, still in probate with no demolition permits issued, and a High Street house fire, where the owner had not yet contacted the commission. New business focused on a proposed 160-foot residential building at 100 Weaver Street, which the commission unanimously opposed due to its height (exceeding the 6-story limit), parking issues, and disregard for the historic mill district's integrity. Jason volunteered to draft a letter of opposition, and Rick Mancini agreed to read it at the upcoming ZBA meeting on Thursday, July 21st, at 6 p.m. The meeting adjourned with a motion and second.
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City Officials
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good evening everyone and welcome to the historical commission meeting it is tuesday july 19th and it's 6 p.m pursuant 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
0:30deemed acknowledged and permissible can i please get a roll call joyce rodriguez present rick mancini president connie seoul bouchard iraqi elizabeth the block and kristen cantera oliveira we are missing um one person we do have one open seat i did receive a resignation letter from ruben amaral so i'm going to read it he had he had sent it to alison boucha the clerk and it says dear alison bouchard i
1:07am writing this correspondence to let you know that i will be resigning from my position as board member of the fall river historical commission i can no longer devote the time needed to take on my responsibilities my last day serving the historical commission will go into effect immediately today july 18 2022 i hope this does not cause the commission or the city a great deal of inconvenience it has been a pleasure
1:31serving on the historical commission over the past four and a half years i have enjoyed working with my fellow board members and helping to make our city a better place the preservation of fall rivers historical landmarks is important to me and it is with great sadness that i will need to step down i want to thank the city and especially the board for the opportunity to serve this great community sincerely reuben
1:54amarillo so we wish ruben the best and if reuben you're watching this we will miss you very much absolutely yes and just so you just so everyone knows this is now the newly formed historical commission this originally was two separate commissions the historic district commission and the historical commission and we did after finally three a little over three years we finally merged into
2:24one commission that is doing the same thing the job of of two commissions so um with that being said the first item on the agenda will be the election of new officers and um i just i just want to state for the record that i don't wish to be considered for any position at this time so just keep that in mind when you make your nominations i've enjoyed being the chair
2:56for these past several years vice chair before that and i think it's time for me to take a little break and pass the torch so with that being said can i uh can i get a any nominations for the office of chair i nominate jason i'll second that nomination if it's accepted okay i have a nomination in a second for jason okay um all those in favor
3:45can i have a nomination for a vice chair i nominate richard good idea okay i have a nomination for richard vice chair do i have a second i'll second that okay i have a motion and a second all those in favor aye aye aye any opposed do you accept thank you okay congratulations vice chair and we have pretty easy yeah we have uh can i please have a nomination for uh secretary to do the minutes of
4:21the meeting i would nominate elizabeth if she would like to take the position i'll second that if she is interested uh sure i might need some help i can i have old minutes i can get it's actually really easy the way that we do it so so i have a nomination and a second for liz all those in favor aye aye any opposed okay congratulations thank you yeah that's awesome nothing like jumping in with both feet
4:59okay uh do we have any citizen input okay do you want to take over or do you want me
5:19the new chairperson relinquish the floor to the past the chairperson you said that's a second i'll second that um all in favor all of those in paper okay thank you
5:43so we did receive a notice of intent to demolish structures so the first one is one west street which is uh border city mills mill number one and they want to demo storehouse number one so um we did receive if you if you look here there's um liz liz you're gonna have um so we have this is uh pictures of what the current building looks like and this is
6:13just so that you can see where on the register it is because it was it is put on the register as an accessory building um because it was built i believe in 81 but it was the register it went on the restroom 83 but if you can see it's not it's definitely not one of the original buildings it's a former cash and carry building yeah we were trying to renovate the building
6:41we were going to put some money into it but we started doing some renovations inside to secure the building then we found out that it had no footings or foundation so we decided that we'd take it down and uh not put up another building currently we don't think we have plans on putting anything in its place which is probably going to grade the area and use it for our break area some outdoor tables for our employees
7:07we currently have about 130 employees working there full time in two shifts it's a great location we love it in florida we love our building i've been taking care of that building for five years um it's it's getting better every day we've spent 35 million dollars in the building over the last uh four years and plan on spending a couple million more over the next uh year or so when we do a repoint on the
7:36exterior of the building some parking lot upgrades and we're excited to get going moving forward keep going with the building we love our we love our industry we love the world it is i love it the building is just absolutely beautiful thank you does that pointing include the scrub coating also of the building it may we may we may wash the building completely point it um it really depends on our budget um
8:04i know we we grow marijuana but people think that it's a it's a very it's a profitable business but it's not as profitable as it has been over the last few years with more and more regulations and competition in the market so we're trying to spend our money wisely we just finished about six months ago the third and fourth floor complete renovation and got and rebuild and it was uh 23 million
8:31dollars to complete that with what we did on that building it's it's great inside you're all welcome to come visit um we saved the dispensary our dispensary is all we uh refinished all the floors in the building we sandblasted the majority of the ceilings clearing of paint off the floors and exposed all that on our uh level one of our building those are the original floors it's uh
8:56it's hard to tell i i don't think it's original but it's uh it's ah it's a hundred years old apartment not you know 104 it's uh built in 1880 yeah old yellow pine yes it's hard the floor subfloors are four inch thick uh timing groove boards wow it's a great building it's a great building it looks great inside that those pots are upstairs looks more like a hospital now than a historic building but um it's
9:25it's in great shape right now but from the outside it looks like yeah you know the same building it's it's not the inside that really concerns us most of the time it's the outside thing i'm just proud of the whole building yeah getting back to this building is this on a slab it is on a slab we uh we started doing renovations we spent some money inside we started doing some
9:50framing to secure the roof in areas that were weak we did some cutting of the floor to install electrical lines one of the problems with that build is a lot of columns it's very column rich it's it's not biggest span they use small wooden beams um then we tunneled under the side of the fountain stuff the building to uh add new services to the building when we did that we found out there was no footings
10:19and no foundation at all um so that's when we decided to stop and we waited a while to to see what we were going to do and we decided to move forward to try and take the building down it's in sad shape the outside of it it's texture 111.
10:35it's uh it hadn't been maintained probably finished on the inside no we had gutted the building completely um and started framing to go up forward with the reddit we had a building permit to uh we were going to turn that into our packaging room um but we moved that to the lower level of our building now that we couldn't use that building okay when you demolish the building are you going to raise the slab also we're
11:01taking the slab up completely we want to incorporate it to the area around it it sits a little bit higher above the building of the area we want to keep that flow because this drains at the bottom of that's little side streets eighth street and there's drain at the bottom um that the city city drain at the bottom of the street we want to make sure we maintain the integrity of that drain so we're
11:25gonna level it and pitch it towards that area so so the concrete slab will be getting it'll be guys and that whole grade will then be it'll be beautiful it'll be kind of good excellent so does anybody um have any objection to them demolishing the building no no i don't that would have one question if it's so it is listed as part of the inventory of the mill complex um in relation to
11:57the state office so there where we just emailed up to the historical commission up in boston to say that we approved the demo with this to remove it also yeah so sometimes they take it off and sometimes they don't sometimes i think on the thing they just write demolished right yeah yeah yep so it's just to let uh them in the back because i'm i'm not sure the relationship of that stack to
12:28the building that's not in any danger no that the stack is uh located more on the uh north west side of the building this is a little bit further south of the building but there's no danger doing your construction of damage no no the stack is up that stack is owned by verizon um they own that little area in between there's a fencing area probably maybe uh a hundred square feet and that's where
12:54the stock sits yeah i can see yeah they have it yeah yeah because we got notifications they worked they did some work on it uh early this spring they did some upgrades to their equipment and uh i was unaware that they owned that i i know we have given them uh sanctioned them with uh towers you know a tower but put some of the cells up there but i never realized that they owned it
13:23yeah it's like a little patch right in the middle but interesting i think when uh the mill was originally sold from um patta to uh the original owners of hope hill health um she had separated prior to that interesting so can we get a motion to approve demolition i'll make the motion that we approve the demolition of the outbuilding and and the complete restoration of the property okay
13:59okay motion in a second all those in favor aye all right hi okay so we will um we'll get a letter to you i'll send it by email and then to the building inspector and you'll be good to go outstanding thank you so much you thank you thank you for what you're doing thank you too okay next up intend to demolish we did receive a letter here it's from the state and they want to demolish
14:31the old brighton street bridge no mystery there right no so what they did was they asked if if we have any objections to this we need to put it in writing and send it to them um so does anybody have anything that they want unfortunately i didn't it was some sort of meeting i wanted to attend that i missed but are they taking the abutment right back to the river bank to the bank
15:02of the river or they you know they're removing the piers and the pilings and the dolphins all that's coming out right the dolphins and all right and the steel structure then then that steel structure attaches to a couple of abutments are they stopping at the abutments it doesn't it's not it doesn't say yeah it doesn't say so i really don't know actually the article that um dan aguiar was quoted in
15:31the newspaper it had um aren't they going to turn they were going to do it in phases yeah i don't think they're going to go that far back i thought from what i had understood a while ago they had talked about making uh like a fishing area but i don't know so so the abutments will probably stay there because they are taking all the steel structure
16:01actually i think you could put that to good use of the fishing pool yeah other things that could make a nice scenic plot so yeah for people to just walk up to themselves if they do i mean i'm sure somebody will do something with it it's horrifying yeah and i have no objections either way whether it comes down to the river to the bank or whether your button extent i have no objection
16:25even if the structure can get used um some people have another some comments on online or the idea of the best research you have to go hide
16:47it's not like it really you know has some iconic look or even other than historical memories that we all have of it it doesn't really matter how long the gear recreation providence has been sitting right right going it's just gonna yes so yeah all right then we don't if nobody has any objections we don't need to do anything okay okay um i did receive a request for 876 wood
17:14street to do a demo it is not on the register so i just sent them a letter saying it was not on the register and not under our purview and the same with uh 247 tuttle street i sent a letter stating that it was not on the register not under our purview so that was it for that next up we have correspondence and this is 572 high street they want to remove and install
17:4425 new windows and they did give us a packet with the the application and everything um so if you want to come forward to the table and just state your name and address for the record pull the mic over and you can speak right in there the address is 572 high street
18:27okay so do you want to just tell us a little bit about what it is that you are going to do and just so that you know that the people at home that are listening can also hear too so this is for the father deaconess home we're a small non-profit residential program providing group home and residential education services for adolescent youth we've been in the city of fall river for
18:51approximately 130 years in the highland district for about 50 years servicing youth from the local communities and we provide intensive in-home services as well for about 70 families and we've been in the community we have five residences in the highlands area one being a commercial building for our administration and four being group home and we employ approximately 105 employees
19:22and this building that we're looking at is one of our group homes we've um it's currently empty because we hope to replace the windows some of our safety our concerns was the safety of the youth because the windows no longer stay up and they were using sticks and we just felt at this point to have them residing in another building so we can hope to do some of the work and replacing the windows
19:48we've been at this site for approximately 30 years when we purchased the building it was already sided with aluminum siding and the windows are not original to the building they are also replacement windows that have rotted you can see some of the pictures show that there's space in between where the window and the molding and the house are i have a picture of a stained glass window here to show that we are not
20:17replacing that we've kept original in all of our residential settings we've worked very hard steve overseeing any project of anyone coming in to make sure that they are maintaining the integrity of all of our sites we really on the outside and the inside strive to have a home-like comfortable clean environment so again i know it's mostly the outside that everyone is concerned but even the
20:46inside of our facilities we've worked very hard to maintain the historical building in itself the woodwork steve and his team work very hard do their work themselves to maintain the setting for the youth um and for our employees to have a safe home like environment to work in um so the windows again as you see there really are rotting and some places just just really need repair for the safety and fuel efficiency
21:18in the winter with the gaps and we're also again hoping to do this project and we also mirror what is in the community driving around on prospect and rock and high street many of the homes do have already vinyl windows in place again the house the framing around you can see is is vinyl as well and again when you purchase the building this is what it looked like 30 years ago
21:59so although um what you're saying about driving around the neighborhood uh the local historic district hasn't been a staff uh has only been established how long has been 2014 20 yeah so 2014. so going from forward from there anyone that's making changes now has to conform to the design guidelines so even though it's vinyl scior aluminum siding and other you know the homes have vinyl replacement windows
22:30going forward we don't approve we have the design guidelines and we approve replacing them with the appropriate materials so what you're proposing from what i see what you're proposing is not acceptable to the design guidelines i do appreciate your work in the neighborhood i i see you work in the neighborhood and i know you work hard and the homes are maintained really well but i think you could probably
23:06you could you could do replacement windows and you could do wood uh replacement windows instead of the 7400 series i'm looking at this and i'm gonna i'm gonna point this in the direction in a moment but i'm looking at a lot of this and the window replacement you want to put in is a one over one a lot of these windows are many of what your photos that you're showing are storm windows these aluminum
23:45windows over on the outside are storm windows and if i could look at some of your photos here it appears that there's wood appears these are wooden windows um yeah the old um so the replacement windows um that were in the building the old replacement windows aren't the original windows but they are made out of wood and they're they're in really tough shape they're not vinyl but the slides on them
24:17are all vinyl and they're all sharp they don't even match up all of the windows all over every single window there's not one one original window in that house and when you replace the windows and that you're then going to put or do you intend to put aluminum stone windows back over it no like this no that aluminum that aluminum frame would go up that matter of fact a lot of those aluminum old aluminum stone windows
24:47don't even go up they don't even track right yeah i mean they're in pretty bad shape looking at a window here photo number nine you can actually see a wooden window that's got glazing on it that's got to be quite old that's blazing oh yeah i would i don't know if this is what i would like to do is maybe before we vote on this i would probably make a proposal like a few of us
25:28go up there and physically look at these windows and we can meet with you and you show us what your dilemma is and we could get a more captive view of what your intent is the window i'm counting here the window that's you proposed i'm so sorry right here i got a model of papers thank gosh and i i apologize this hand is totally numb it was just operated on the two o'clock i can't feel
26:01it thanks i can't pick up am i getting any sympathy this window is a one over one and a recommendation would be at least to go back to the original historic value of your windows here which is a double of two over one and double and i'm sure you're going to go back with double hung windows not single right it'll be double hunk that should uh no but the windows themselves are going to be double
26:34hundred it won't be like a casement window that's fixed it will have the part that the slides yeah to be able to open it yes and open the bottom exactly okay yeah and then there'll be a double of the glass on the top will have a device yeah it would have like a style a split well i would imagine it can be a style yeah at a lot of modern windows it has
27:00something that you pop in yeah something that you pop in rather than you know in the window itself however if you go with the with the appropriate series then that wouldn't be a pop in that would be built in exactly the pop in the plastic pop-ins just not part of the design guidelines and what's acceptable to the boys my proposal would be at this point to the number of us all of us will be nice
27:34meet with you at your convenience and ours and let's review and we'll bring the guidelines for that particular building and the windows for that particular style home and that way you could you can see what the guidelines are we they can have a i don't know if it's legal do that but at least we can go up and review we can't do it one three because more than three would be an open
28:03meeting but you could have three people do it okay and um yeah that's not we have to be careful for the open meeting laws and then we could get back here and discuss the issue more thoroughly with with the board some of our concern would be the cost as well we are small non-profit and i mean with colbit and funding it's been a difficult two years to continue to provide the services we are to youth and
28:31families and we haven't lost any of our employees we continue to maintain the 100 employees in the last two years without having to let anyone go so that is we would love to be to really have much more detailed windows and be able to do that but we're really concerned about the cost there is an option so the the because you're a non-profit um especially the community preservation committee
29:00um in the city these are the type of projects that they fund i'm the i'm the um the person on the cpc from the historical commission and i'm the vice chair of it and we have funded projects similar to this in the past there were actually two that were done this past year for uh non-profit groups and i mean this is it they they fund for historic preservation open space and recreation and um affordable housing so
29:36it would definitely meet the criteria for um for his dark preservation it might also meet the need for housing it might it might also fall under that category i'm not exactly positive that might have to be looked at but it definitely meets the criteria for historic preservation and so the projects that we did this year were funded in full for the amounts that they were looking for
30:01and rest assured our goal is to assist you you don't want to be a rogue roadblock and that's not the direction that we're going to go in right where we're going to try and help you and find every avenue and approach that's physically possible to assist you in this maneuver and the judgments will be accordingly we understand what you're doing you're two houses away from me on french street you know what i mean so
30:33i understand that's okay we'll work with you but everyone in the 40c is held to the same standard we're not saying that's because it's you know this particular home but the difference is not everybody in the 40s meets the criteria to receive funding from the community preservation so in this in this case you are lucky for that especially being a non-profit so um so do you i mean and that's something to consider too
31:09down the line being in the district you're a non-profit state down the line you want to replace you have to repair the exterior the vinyl that that can be removed and yeah every the exterior can be potentially redone with um i would assume would claps or shingles or however um uh so whatever the appropriate design would be and this would be um like a perfect project for that area um the home is grand and
31:44it it would just like pop and you'd be contributing to that and the only thing that's sort of coming out of me if you look at photo number three and you look at the window that's the one that had that nice stained glass window you look at that second floor level those are all double hung two over one windows that are in there so those are original wood windows still
32:10now i don't know how old they are but their originals they might be uh you might be able to redo those and save those and that would be far less they they looked at from here but they're not the original ones okay they got the plastic slides that are just falling out of the window the screws are rotted there's the strings on them are gone so that i guarantee there is not a
32:37regular window in there because i remember all the windows with the window weights and all that kind of stuff but these are all the replacements from maybe the 60s do you um also jump back on to what you're mentioning about the house big brand it has a very fascinating history too um and with this could be a pretty good project in the neighborhood the house was it's a joseph darling designed
33:06house he and his farm did a number of houses in the highlands and um i looked up the history on this particular law and um the giant italianate that stands next door on prospect street was moved uh to make way for this particular house um so that's why it has a funny shaped law it's very long towards the corner um but no like that one facade that you see when you
33:33drive down prospect street and you have the side of that stained glass window and those are features that you want to maintain and um you know that's kind of like the one of the highlights of the house um so hazel probably has a lot of wouldn't be surprised if even the the collabs or shingles or whatever are still underground yeah as is the case with a lot of the houses in the city um
33:55but so that could be a very excellent project for seeking for the cpc
34:19look at the windows and then we can get back here and report okay so i have a motion for a sub committee or just a group of three people to um to meet with their board look at the windows and really assess in detail what the situation means yeah just yeah so that we can help you along and get this part okay so motion in a second all those in favor all right okay any opposed
34:53okay so you'll just need to decide yeah do you want to take the lead on the um sure figuring out a date yeah phone number my name is um on the application are you normally um available monday through fridays i am i will be going to the azores for two weeks on saturday um but if you could connect prior to we can set something up when i get back if that's possible
35:27um and i do appreciate the committee's support in getting the funding and the support because we're a child welfare agency so we will definitely need as much support and how to move forward with limited resources not just financially but manpower to get this project going um as i mentioned the building is currently closed we have youth on waiting lists and hope to the contractors ready to go and we'll
35:51have to figure out next steps so we can get this building open and the youth into the program that we serve older is it more convenient well we have to select the three individuals they want to go i'll take the lead i'm one who else would like to be involved i'm actually going away on the 31st for two weeks um i would like to go okay there's two this is a darling house darling
36:29is anyone here you're leaving when saturday saturday and would an evening be convenient or saturday or sunday how do we want to do that i can go at any time i've been retired for 19 years normally a week night after work but fridays i get done working at two so i'm available friday afternoons i'm available at like after five on friday this week's a little tight um but or i could even do tomorrow we'll
37:03have to wait two weeks then until then i'm available any one of these next three days i can do after five or any time that's fine friday after five wouldn't be too much of a rush between i gotta get these kids in this house do you wanna set it up for friday then all right let's see let's do that right now so you want to set it up from four five
37:30like a little after five yeah i'll be in fall river but yeah a little after five um so let's say like a quarter after five months elizabeth yeah that works for me five is good yeah all done we'll see your friday yeah okay i'm sorry that's okay so 5 15 at five so you can eat right at 5 72 you choose the time we can either choose 5 15 or quarter past five from foreign
38:17one if need be to just get the ball rolling thank you appreciate that we'll see you in a few days yeah thank you thank you okay it's gonna say i could walk there and they'll probably be 95 degrees okay do you live in the neighborhood yeah i do on underwood street okay i work at the hospital okay so moving on on old business 317 hanover street update um i know you were uh
38:59yeah nothing since i spoke or emailed um matthew burke uh from he was the one he's the lawyer representing south coast health um that the house the three houses really really are still in probate um from the uh since the passing of lou andrade who had owned those three houses their intention was to let the probate kind of drag out and they still had intentions on acquiring i don't think anything's been what is this
39:30nothing's been transferred between um the hospital um uh in the hospital um and but it's so much we have
39:52um he's just updating us first on the yes which apparently is a chimney but it was just um unusual to see something that looks like it's it's like a niche too different brick work or this is great yeah and the other is brick yeah what what is that all about it's just that oh it's just a decorative it's beautiful there's somewhere just i'm really jumping around at this point there's a
40:24similar house with a very similar design on highland avenue um just past union methodists on the left-hand side very similar so the original chimney would have been granite oh no no that's nothing though it's exactly
40:48uh what is it so yeah they're they still intend to acquire nothing's been transferred between uh the estate and the hospital um and i did call over to the building department uh they have not issued any demo permits so uh at what point does that um the daily it expires in one year in a year okay so a year from the day or a year from the day they notified us yeah okay we're
41:14approaching that so um the only thing that has passed was a variance i think but that's it um so they're yeah and they're actually the hospital is doing active work in that in the area i know they're looks like they're drilling uh boring for uh in the parking lot on highland avenue the big parking lot i noticed they were doing that last week um and they have plans for the parking garage around the
41:38corner yeah there's a lot of activity going on over there yeah um it may come to like with everything else going on it may be kind of on hold for a while and there may still be a chance that it now is this joyce joyce we're we're talking about something else right now okay okay um yeah my man end up bouncing back onto us to review another demolition permit about things right
42:05and that's it so once because we we've given the the um date and it's it's one year from the date that we give them g okay i'd have to look back but it was sometime in the fall yeah so um yeah once that's up then the house is still occupied as far as i i as far as i can tell um i know he said that they hadn't uh there they had an issue with the
42:29tenant that was still living in the house the other two houses i believe are vacant but they're not on the register um it's just that one corner house um thank you okay perfect um then high street house fire update um so i my contact information was given to the owner of the property on high street where they had a house fire she has not contacted me as of yet so i don't know um
43:01i don't know what the plan is for that so as of right now it's still sitting i believe open to the elements yeah still yeah um last i knew anyway it hasn't changed in the last like week or so right i just walked past it the other day yeah so we're just a lot open yep you can see the light yeah through the windows so um the building commissioner and he's been speaking to the insurance people
43:33asking them to secure the building re-secure and secure it more properly to and at that point he was waiting for them to get back to him he was a little concerned about covering structure yep because it's so saturated with water right he thought maybe it would be dry better if it was left open for a while but you know it's getting rain too so not so much lately but yeah
44:06yeah so it's just it's not good to have it open but he was working on it at this point was going to get back i had spoken to him he was going to get back to me and he had a better resolution and i haven't i know this there's problems with the property the pool in the backyard and stuff like that is you know a lot of algae and bullets it's not a
44:35very delicate situation all together yes yeah and then the longer that house sits open we haven't had a lot of rain this this summer but also we've had we did have it pointed at
45:02thank you i know this too although it's been a little maybe a couple weeks since i've drove down there even the house next door that was affected by the fire i think they saw windows boarded up um one of the owners of the property and they do have their contractor and they just just started working on it so the problem was contract getting contractors yeah timeline do they no i mean we're talking about the
45:35the house that to the fire but then the house to the right if they're repairing windows and so forth these don't even come before us though right or no it depends on what it is that they're gonna do okay but i mean she knows that she's very yeah if they if they're doing anything that's gonna change anything at all on the outside they know they have to come back and the contractor doing the work also
46:00knows that yeah okay uh so what would that actually be in my opinion maybe a good point to mention to the contractor just drop in and give us a little update as to what the proposal is yeah i can reach out to uh i can reach out to um just an update so that we're in the room okay i'll email you all right so um new business um so two days from now
46:44thursday the zba on their agenda is a proposed demolition of the current building and construction of a 160 foot tall residential building on weaver street 100 weaver street the building that they they want to tear down is not a historic building however it does sit in this historic mill area and um i mean i know you just had someone sitting here who spent 30 minutes 35 put 35 million dollars
47:23into there and then his neighbor wants to do something like this yes which is completely right inappropriate i hope the zba does the right thing and so it so my thought is um well i wanted to get everybody else's thought on this but i was thinking that it might be good to have um us send a letter and maybe someone show up at the meeting to read the letter out loud from the historical commission stating
47:56whether if if we all do oppose putting this type of building in there and why we would oppose that um what um so the one before zoning what is the car i i can't remember all the time i have what is the current height limit in that neighborhood six stories six stories any is there a measurement at all or isn't this 12 stories no i mean like for if it's six stories
48:26is it is it 60 is it 60 i think it's 60.
48:30that for some reason sounds great for me
48:43there's a lot of variances that are resolved yeah they don't have enough parking they don't have um and it's going to completely i mean if i were living in the uh border city mills apartments i would be so furious because it's going to completely block any view that they have going down there as well i mean does um the city requires um how many parking spaces per unit supposed to be two must be two
49:11okay supposed to be they've waived that
49:26you cannot count on just say well they're saying that the uh the computer rail is coming which okay but it's not here yeah anyway but then also look at that new building that went up on the corner uh on the ball it has a big post bank in it there's not a parking there are parking all of them down the street over there yes um and you know be that they don't offer their parking
49:52and i think this is part of the problem is i think the the zba um i mean i'm sure it's a difficult decision for for any of these people to make because we obviously want to bring in construction we want to bring in more people living here in that but at the same time you want to do it in a way that's not going to affect the rest of
50:11the city and in this way first of all you're going to have not enough parking anywhere over there you're going to be obstructing views of other properties that are in the area and we have no idea what this building is even going to look like and there's a lot of like traffic concerns traffic concerns i mean they listed all this in the herald news in the article that was written yeah um it's that it's um
50:36just escape my mind that's a dangerous spot too when you get well weaver street's closed at the moment but that weaver in north main is a very it's a it is hidden intersection to even drive coming off the highway right there trying to go i used to live in port city mills and and back then it was sketchy and that was a long time ago and not like yeah and and the current owner who's proposing this
50:58has already been marketing that's what was in the newspaper right i was already marketing um the apartments and marketing the property yes uh without even an approval yeah with the assumption that the city is just going the zba is just going to approve it right so so any so that was my thought was if we if we all are on board with opposingness if somebody would be willing to like
51:25blast out a quick letter and go to the meeting and read it publicly um at their public input i think it's thursday thursday night let's see the six or six so the 21st thursday um i can't remember what time don't you want me to look it up it's unfortunately not available that evening all right let me see i have it in my email i think it's at 6 00.
51:59it's either 6 or it could be 6 30.
52:04and basically they're i mean there's from our standpoint there's a complete disregard to the historic nature of the neighborhood where the pre-exit the existing buildings that are there um not even you know they're all mills but not even looking at a smoke stack which is typically high anyways but um 6 p.m it's many times more than the height limit in the neighborhood so those yeah that's kind of that's where we
52:32i think our strong points are we can't really talk about parking and things like that because that's not really our jurisdiction but we could um it does affect the historic nature of the neighborhood but even if you live even if you go to parking and as as dumb as that may sound when you have a neighborhood and you don't have enough parking around your building so then you have cars all up and down the street and
52:55parked all around this historic neighborhood and i mean it's still and the infrastructure in the neighborhood's not even there to even support on street parking there's no sidewalks so there's no sidewalks uh the city is doing something on eighth street i have no idea what they're doing they look like they're widening i can't tell um or maybe it's just more utility work but um no there's not i'm there
53:17pretty often there's no there's no sidewalks there's nothing right but i mean we also see what's happening with you know you have an area you have some people that are really maintaining the old historic mills in this area and then you have other people who like um you know knocked one of this gorgeous mills down and then you have star putting up a a new building that really doesn't fit and
53:48although they did keep the smoke stack which that was a very good thing um so i mean you you could end up completely changing the whole feel and the look of this historic place and you have people like um you know west street putting millions of dollars into maintaining something and you know i'm sure that there's others in the area that did the same thing in border city mills and then there's the owners really
54:14it's not fair no neon the owners at sagamore number three at 1 8th street they the new owners from my experience they are investing they are trying to invest in the rehab of that building yeah for commercial use but yes but even uh the waterfront uh urban renewal plan stresses that whatever is built there is no higher than six stories well that it should complement the current name oh
54:42yes and that would not right and no part of that too and noise yes yes yep it is okay and they and i think when they approved a 12-story building down on the waterfront they didn't take that into consideration either that you know in their own in their own waterfront development plan they're completely they have plans that are done for this week we have we have the city's master plan we have the waterfront
55:12um urban renewal plan and they just basically chuck the plans out for for whatever logic and i don't think there is any logic and i think they need reminding that look at the current limit size it's 80 feet it's six stories and 80 feet in height so this is a double wow yes it's a 160 12 story fourteen stories fourteen fourteen fourteen stories hundred and sixty foot eighty feet and that is a historic
55:48commercial mill district so and i think it i mean we really need to impress to the zba that there's a reason why we have these historic districts and if nobody is going to uphold the integrity of these districts then we are just going to look like every other generic city everywhere else what's happening right now and i always refer back to province just because i i worked there and so forth and but
56:19their master plan their zoning ordinance which the city spent millions of dollars revamping their entire zoning code and now there's this what 400 and no i think it's more than that 500 something story tower that's being proposed and i think it's actually going to be i think it's going to be a reality on the waterfront on the river 500 schools it's they since they got a variance from the city
56:42and the city is not even looking at their own zoning ordinance and their master plan and they're allowing this you know 50-story building to go up um it's a vacant lot but it's that's what happens and but the same thing we see it happening here a little bit well i think i think the assumption on this uh person was that the city would just approve it for him to already be advertising it
57:16like it's already a given that it's you know he was selling it uh with the um the variance well i think as a city board and being charged with preserving and maintaining the historic properties and the historic integrity of historic neighborhoods and areas in the city we really should um we should send the letter and uh i know that um the preservation society will be there that night oh good
57:50excellent so i that that's even better so if we had you know if we don't have representation as a city commission i think that that's you know to our decisions we can get a letter of the sent to them prior to that they can read it they can read it they don't always though you can actually request for it to be read we if it's drafted and yeah
58:34that was down by the water that was the waterfront that was something different that was a different one i can't even remember 21. it was on the wall street oh yeah the wall street the 12 story one that they wanted to put up on the wall yeah which thankfully that didn't happen yeah yet yes but they did approve it um yeah yeah that was for that so that wasn't for this this is brand new on
59:01their agenda i think there was something initially planned for that oh wait no i'm thinking of across the street there's something else that's planned for the other side of weaver but um that never came to fruition that was uh i think multiple buildings of like maybe three or four stories but then i never came to fruition so is it can anyone go well i think they can know okay and you'd be willing to read it well
59:29if something's prepared yes okay so if you're going to that meeting on the 21st yes yes is there an alternative that we're encouraging they're talking here about demolishing a building what is in the building now it's not a historic building it's but what what is there now isn't it it's an empty building they make wooden trusses it's like a light industrial use so it would stay as is
1:00:04and because my my point is if we're encouraging an alternative to what is there if that is a profitable business then it should continue if it's not what's the reason for demolition thankfully is planning to demo and sell the property with the variance that somebody else can do that building right isn't that what the plan is no i thought somebody i think they already own it already but they were
1:00:36gonna tear it down to build this yeah i thought he wanted to do that with the variants and then sell it that's what he was advertising am i wrong i i saw the yeah he from what i understand he is already marketing to sell the property with the various variants yes really yes because then it makes it see i got it right right see i didn't so he has no idea of keeping the
1:01:03the current property as is so the the business has no intent of keeping the property as is so again my point is what do we offer what is our alternative are we offering housing development within of a short like exactly yes you know are we suggesting as opposed to a hundred and three hundred apartments you mentioned border city mills apartments so are we suggesting that this is another border city mill apartments
1:01:40development that well no because i mean it's not a mill so they would have to build something but what we can suggest is that whatever they put there meets the the criteria that they've already that they already have set for that area like in in for one in the city's master plan and then in the urban um urban renewal development plan where they give their own criteria for how everything should be done as well as
1:02:09maintaining integrity of historic districts historic neighborhoods so this company this company could come in and say we're not going to do 160 feet we're going to do 80 80 feet and they would be okay yes they wouldn't need a variance they wouldn't need a variance they could do it because it's part of well i don't know if they would because it's uh unless it doesn't mean i don't know but it they wouldn't i think the
1:02:42variance is for the height requirement or the parking and the parking yeah well if they weren't building something and i don't know about residential because i mean i know border city mills is residential but like everything else around there is still considered a mill district so they may still have to get a variance to meet residential because it's only the one building so everything around it is not so i'm not
1:03:05i'm not sure i think there's more that's probably better to do a road the world studies what are they called traffic stop study yes they would have to do that anyways um for the city um especially something of that size right matter it's one road what's that it's one road still won't matter we've seen it we see it all the time but i think it's important to remind them that they really should stay within
1:03:33the guidelines that the city has set in the master plan and in the urban development when when was the master plan and the urban development plan when were those adopted off-hand well the master plan is actually it expires in 2030 oh okay so um was it a 20-year 30-year something i can't remember yeah okay um so we still have about seven ish eight years left on the master plan right the
1:04:06urban renewal was a little more recent than that okay yeah i don't know the dates off hand but so they're still well especially the urban rumble that's still fresh so that's yes they approve it they're not sticking to something that's ancient no and even the master but the urban renewal is definitely more more recent than that so okay so you will go if you have a letter to read is somebody able to write a
1:04:38letter i know i can't because the next two days i'm like i can i can throw something together it won't be a very long letter it doesn't need yeah and i'll reference the uh we have any idea what the zoning board would do do you have any idea what the zoning board is going by the decisions they've made in the past they would my fear is that they will grant this
1:05:01because they've granted a lot of other things and they completely overlook what we have in place and that's that's what we're afraid of they'll see it as as an opportunity for the city economically to get people look at construction great jobs but at what cost at this point now you're costing that's
1:05:29and it doesn't and it would impact that neighborhood it's a residential neighborhood on north main street and it's very congested it's very congested there's and there's yeah it's such a narrow very narrow street and the whole area yeah and actually the fact that the weaver street bridge has actually closed has actually been us an improvement to the traffic flow of the neighborhood because trying to get
1:05:55out of weaver street forget it um so it has been but now there's increased traffic on eighth street cove street whatever trying to access the border city but anyways so okay so jason will do the lettuce rick will read the letter perfect um and i'll email the letter around just for final edits and if there's anything i'm missing or okay cool but just when we reply we reply back to you only and you make it
1:06:25no reply okay um open discussion is there anything that has come up in the last 24 hours that we so okay all right um so the next scheduled meeting is tuesday august 16th at 6 00 p.m for better than we think we might do you think we may we may meet earlier yeah we may have an earlier meeting for for them um and i mean if there's other things on the
1:07:02agenda but if we do it probably be just a special meeting to discuss that okay like a quick and it may even be a zoom meeting if need be so that offers some flexibility yeah we do we do have that always on the table um so as my last my last time can we get a motion can i get a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn motion do i have a second and second set
1:07:29okay motion in a second all those in favor aye aye okay i guys have it we are adjourned thank you everyone