Delay Delayed: Demolition Halting Article Pushed Back 'Til June

"What a mess!"

An exasperated Mark Paolillo leaded back into his chair with a look of frustration on his face after hearing the latest news concerning the proposed demolition delay article on the Warrant set to be placed before representatives at the annual Town Meeting set to start tonight, Monday, April 29 at Belmont High School.

The chairman of the Belmont Board of Selectmen heard from town officials at an "emergency" meeting of the board this morning, Monday, April 29, that a last minute move by the By-Law Review Committee to take out a list of approximately 210 buildings to be "protected" by the new bylaw that the Belmont Historic District Commission placed into the article.

In addition, he was told that nearly a quarter of the structures at McLean Hospital – the large landowner the town is working closely to develop the property – that would be effected by the regulations never got to the hospital officials due to incorrect addresses. 

"I can't believe this happening," said Paolillo who voted with Ralph Jones to reschedule the article so it will now be the final piece of business Town Meeting will take up in June.

The proposed bylaw was already a carefully-crafted house of cards, a fragile set of regulations that will prohibit anyone take out a demolition permit to take down a building the town-appointed Historic District Commission deems as important to the town's history or architecturally significant.

During the delay, the by-law hopes the owner will work with the town to find alternatives to tearing down the structure.

An attempt by the Historic District Commission at the 2012 Town Meeting to pass an demo delay bylaw was withdrawn after opposition from many segments of Belmont town government.

This year, the Commission worked with the town's Planning Board to write a bylaw that would resolve many of the concerns from preservationists and homeowners including what buildings would be subject to delay and how long the prohibition would last. 

Pressure mounted for the leaders of both entities – Sami Baghdady of the Planning Board and Mike Smith of the Historic District – to complete a bylaw after the historic 1870 First Congregational Church of Waverly in Waverley Square, the oldest church structure in Belmont, was razed a few weeks after the new owners obtained the deed.

Yet the two sides were close to bringing competing articles to Town Meeting as the Planning Board wanted to add "opt-out" language – which would allow a homeowner to take their house off the list of protected properties – to the article while the Historic Commission sought to have a year-long moratorium on taking down a structure.

In a compromise, the two sides agreed that the demolition ban would be limited to six months, a short enough time that would not require an opt-out clause.

The ban would also be limited to about 210 "significant" buildings on an existing state inventory of historic or architecturally important structures that would be included in the bylaw. The Commission could ask future Town Meetings to add properties onto that list.

The compromise article received the approval of the Planning Board, Historic Commission and Selectmen in the past month. 

But within the past week, the Bylaw Review Committee – a permanent group that under state statue is responsible to review proposals for General By-Law changes – declared that the list of structures could not be "embedded" in the body of the bylaw due to existing law. 

With the list outside the article, the By-law Committee decided that the list should be kept by the town group with the greatest knowledge and influence in the matter: the Historic District Commission.

It also declared that since the list was no longer in the by-law and, thus, outside the purview of Town Meeting, the Historic Commission would add or remove structures from the list at its discretion. That ruling had Paolillo suggesting the new article would be a tough sell to Town Meeting.

"We will need to reconsider our approval as it's currently written," said Paolillo.

If the By-Law's action wasn't enough of a headache, town officials told the Selectmen that notices sent to McLean Hospital for 7 of 27 buildings that would be impacted by the by-law never arrived since they were mailed to incorrect addresses. 

McLean has informed the town that it believes it has an agreement with the town hammered out nearly a decade ago when Belmont and the historic medical facility reached a landmark agreement on future use of the property that supersedes the proposed regulations. 

With the news of McLean's questions and the possibility of an amendment from the hospital to the regulations, the Selectmen decided best for the article to be removed from the first days of Town Meeting and reassigned it the very last session after the budget articles – for the town, schools and capital budget – have been voted in the first week of June. 

"We to clean this up before we can present this (before Town Meeting)," said Paolillo.