Guest post: A little checking may save you thousands of dollars

Well, the City Council went ahead and adopted the Stretch Code. This will initially have little impact on the average building owner until you attempt to do an improvement project that will require a building permit. Then it will cost you many additional dollars compared to a standard building code to attain the new green standards. Fortunately for most of us, we’re an historic city and many thousands of our homes are designated historic and are exempt from this punitive measure.

Unless of course, you don’t know if your home is historic or not.

Even then, if your home is inside the Newburyport Historic District, it is not necessarily an historic building! The information as to which structures are included is tucked away in the National Register’s Inventory Listing. A listing that is not posted on the City’s website. To find out often requires journeying down to the Library’s archives and painfully digging about. Don’t ask for the copy in the Planning Office, it’s missing pages out of it!

But It is now, in complete form, digitally available at www.newburyporthistoricdistrict.org.

Your home is historic and exempt if it contributes to the National Register of Historic Places. Therefore a designation in the Inventory of a “C” for contributing or “MC” minor contributing puts you in the exempt status.

But let’s say you do due diligence, check out the online listing and you find the code ‘INT’ next to your home. This designation means that your structure is not a contributing building toward the National Register. Yet, you may still be exempt.

There is a sliding scale on the Inventory. It is now 2010 and according to the preface of the listing, the cutoff date for the report in 1984 was 1930. It says, “Finally, those structures built after 1930 have been designated as intrusions [INT]; included in this last category are a number of buildings which may be re-considered as contributing structures once they achieve the age of fifty years.”

Therefore, any buildings that have this designation and are between 1930 to 1960 as the date of construction, need to have their owners appear before the Historical Commission for reconsideration and change of status.

I assure you, there are many City Hall employees who are not aware of the nuances involved in historic house categorizing. If you are still unsure of your building’s history after checking the listing, appeal to the Historical Commission.

As for the building inspector, he has indicated that he will explore other requests for exemptions in accordance with the Massachusetts State 780 CMR 7th edition, Chapter 93 for certain homes older than five years old.

Remember though, the time-honored warning, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” This time, willful ignorance of your historic building’s status may still cost you thousands.

Even at the presently enacted building code, historic homes are often exempt from some restrictions.

So take my word, do some research and be prepared before seeing the building inspector.

Jerry A. Mullins
Newburyport, MA

From Gillian: Sorry, Jerry, about how long it took me to post this.

CPA debate

I read with interest this letter from Jerry Mullins to the editor in today's DN about the Community Preservation Act and repealing the surcharge it allows municipalities to levy on real estate taxes.

My understanding from all those interviews I did for CEB is that Newburyport is tied to it for some 20 or so years because it is funding the payments on the bond the city took out to repair the exterior of City Hall.

I don't think even one of the candidates suggested that the CPA should be done away with in the city, or repealed entirely. I could be wrong; I just can't remember now what everyone said.

Carousel ousts Lowell's

And the winner is - the Paragon Carousel in Hull.

The Greater Boston Partners in Preservation program announced yesterday (and today) the winner of the popular vote. The Carousel will receive its full grant request of $100,000 to restore its doors and windows, recreating a fitting home for "this seaside gem."

The National Trust for Historic Preservation says not to worry (yet) -

Don’t despair if your favorite project didn't come in first, there is still a chance that your favorite project will be awarded a grant. In the second part of our effort to give away $1 million, our Advisory Committee will be making recommendations on the rest of the grant awards. Stay tuned for our June 16th announcement of all the additional grants.

So Lowell's Boat Shop may get something yet and if its not from there, it may be from here:

Each year, The Provident Bank gives the community the choice to vote for which local non-profit organizations should receive a share of the $20,000 set aside by The Provident Community Foundation for their OUR COMMUNITY, YOUR E-VOTE PROGRAM.

Vote today for Lowell's Boat Shop by visiting TheProvidentBank.com and clicking on the "OUR COMMUNITY, YOUR E-VOTE" button.

Deadline: May 31, 2009. Only one vote per person, please.

A race for Lowell's

Nice story in today's Daily News about our mayor, John Moak, this weekend racing Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer - in dories!

Anything to help out Lowell's Boat Shop, eh?

Speaking of which, I'll join Tom Salemi of Newburyport Posts in encouraging everyone to go here and vote for Lowell's, the oldest continually-run boat shop in the country (I think) so they can get some money.

According to the piece in the DN, they're up to #9 in the voting!

The shop was encouraged by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to vie for restoration funds via a contest launched by the American Express Partners in Preservation Program, through which $1 million is expected to be given to restore and repair buildings of historical significance in the state. Now several weeks into the top-vote style contest, Lowell's has received enough votes from community members and friends to place ninth in a field of 25 remaining contestants.

So cast a vote for Lowell's, willya?

IC sign turns heads

Alerted by Tom Salemi's post about the P. Preservationist site, I checked it out.

In doing so, I noticed a little blurb at the top of the page about the new sign outside the Immaculate Conception Church, on the corner of Green and High streets.

I had been alerted to this sign, and a general negative reaction to it, a couple of weeks ago. I would go take a photo, but I'm just still too sick.

Let's just say it's rather large and I gather that it lights up at night. I'm really kind of surprised that it's the direction the IC church chose, seeing as how it's ... not in keeping with ... the neighborhood? Good taste? You decide.

I gather that the sign falls under the Dover Amendment, since I can't imagine that it would have been allowed otherwise:

The "Dover Amendment" is the common name for Massachusetts General Law (MGL) Chapter 40A, Section 3, which exempts agricultural, religious, and educational corporations from many zoning restrictions. It allows a facility that provides certain services, educational chief among them, to ignore local zoning laws and build the facility it needs to provide those services. The Dover Amendment has allowed many developers to build facilities that were substantially larger than zoning laws would ordinarily allow or which were inappropriate for the neighborhood. (source: Stepps)

I couldn't find anyone who was willing to criticize it "on the record," so I didn't write it up for the Current.

So let me get this straight

The Budget and Finance Committee of the City Council has voted 3-0 to recommend the Council NOT approve the $35,000 funding recommended by the Community Preservation Committee for a master plan for the former Kelley School building, according to the Daily News story.

The reason for the recommendation for denial, Holaday said, is that the committee questioned if this is "really the appropriate use of CPC funds, master planning."

She said the committee is going to look at additional information to see if other communities use Community Preservation Act funding in such a way.

At-large City Councillor Donna Holaday is chairperson of the Budget & Finance Committee. She goes on to say the committee is going to look at additional information to see if other communities use Community Preservation Act funding in such a way.

So, they vote to recommend denial, when a quick check online shows that CPA money can be used to cover administrative costs associated with implementing projects?

According to information provided on the website of the Georgetown (MA) CPC (couldn't find the wording in the legislation):

The CPC is permitted to appropriate up to 5% of the funds for administration and operational costs, so that the town doesn't have to bear the cost of administering the Act. These funds can be used to hire an administrator, purchase office supplies and cover the cost of professional services that may be needed to properly plan a project.

Is Newburyport already using the allowable 5% of the its funds? Whatever - using funds set aside for administration might not even be necessary.

Hingham's CPC, according to this report in the Hingham Journal, this year approved $40,000 for a study of preservation needs for documents and artifacts that are central to the town’s history and development ... The overall goal is to catalog, preserve, and digitize these items. The initial phase would determine the type, amount, and conditions of the documents and artifacts held by each project proponent.

What's the deal? Isn't this like a master plan for the project? Another quick check of this page on Hingham's town website showed they used CPA funds for detailed architectural analysis and designs of an old building.

And to what does this proposed Master Plan relate? Perhaps that's the problem!

Marketing Newburyport

I think this is an excellent idea, as detailed in this Daily News story I meant to post about last week.

I've been thinking for a while - and debated with others - what it is that brings tourists to our fair city. I know people who come to visit me and other relatives want to come here for the historic buildings.

The city is now taking a proactive stance on the issue with The Greater Newburyport Area Cultural Heritage Assessment Project.

Working in conjunction with Historic New England and the Newburyport Preservation Trust, the project aims to pinpoint the assets the city has and how to better market them to potential visitors by learning more about those visitors and where they are most likely to visit.

Karen Battles, vice president of the Preservation Trust, noted tourists who come to an area to experience the culture, known as "cultural tourists," generally stay longer and spend more money than those who come to the city for one specific event or festival.

In any case, it sounds like a great thing to do. I don't think that many people come here for the beach, since there are better ones elsewhere (from a swimming standpoint). Even my neighbor goes to Crane Beach more often than the one across the island.

I once proposed that bird watchers were a good market to target, but since I wrote that, I've learned that they don't necessarily spend a lot of money locally (although they might stay in a small, moderately-priced in by the traffic circle)!

Speaking of tourists, I still don't know what happened at that NRA meeting where they were discussing full-time charges to park in the waterfront lots.

Anyone?