Having seen and written about the teardowns (and tree destruction) around the city, I couldn’t agree more with Donald Lang’s column in last week’s Tab, which is based on first-hand experience inside and outside of local historic districts.In the packed hearing room I was asked by a distraught neighbor, as chair of the NHC, “How could you let this happen?”
Sadly, I explained, the only real protection for neighborhoods rests in residents organizing and creating local historic districts.
He’s right, because all that the Newton Historical Commission can do is impose a 12-month (or 18-month for National Register properties) demolition delay, which developers routinely wait out.
I may not live in Newton Highlands myself, but visit often, and the architecture in the proposed district, along with the well-preserved village center, is what makes it so appealing. I suspect Newton Highlands’ village center is many people’s favorite, after their own village, or even favorite of all. And even if I were not a regular visitor, I would support any neighborhood’s effort to organize itself.
If you’d like to learn more about local historic districts, check out Chris Pitts’ video of the Newton Villages Alliance’s forum last year, The panelists explain what difference a local historic district can make, and the process to create once. It is challenging but doable if people are motivated and there is community support.
For those of us who can’t attend tonight’s hearing, what is the best way to get our thoughts to the Zoning and Planning Committee?
I am really impressed with the amount and quality of the work performed by the NH Local Historic District team to prepare this proposal. More info, plus links to the documents they prepared, can be found here.
The best way to get your comments to the Zoning and Planning Committee (ZAP) regarding the proposed Local Historic Districts (LHD) in Newton Highlands and West Newton Hill is by emailing the committee clerk, Karyn Dean, at [email protected].
I chair ZAP and I have informed the members of the committee that I intend to keep the public hearing open and to allow public comment at future meetings to discuss the merits of the proposals, collect information about the level of support within the proposed LHD, review and revise the draft ordinance to create each LHD, and discuss the boundaries. I anticipate that the review and approval process will require multiple meetings as additional information and questions arise. ZAP will not be taking these proposals up for discussion over the summer, so future meetings on the proposed LHDs will resume in September. So, if you miss tonight’s public hearing on the Newton Highlands LHD or the June 12 hearing on the West Newton Hill LHD, you will have other opportunities to speak.
In addition, the planning department will be conducting a survey of residents in the proposed historic districts as to whether they support and/or want to be included in the proposed LHD. Based on past experience with other LHDs in Newton, it is possible that the boundaries of the proposed LHDs could change based on the feedback received from residents. In the past, ZAP has established a minimum level of support within the proposed LHD for it to be approved. I will urge the committee to consider establishing a minimum threshold to help guide our decision-making process.
For more information, please visit the webpage that the planning department has created concerning the process for establishing LHDs. To learn more about the LHD design review and approval process, please visit this webpage on the city website.
Ted- thanks so much for clarifying the process.
@Ted – thanks!
What a horrible and invasive idea. I cannot fathom how anyone can possess the audacity to think that they should have such a degree of control over the aesthetics of their neighbors’ property. The market provides a simple obvious solution to the problem these people seem to have with change. If you want to keep a piece of property the way it looks, buy it and keep it the way you want it to look. Why should any tax paying member of the community have to seek permission of some board to change the look of their abode? What qualifies these people to decide what is acceptable and what is not? It is absurd on its face and represents only the latest surge of misplaced conservatism in Newton.
@Elmo – I agree with some of your concerns but I think you have an extreme and one sided view. We have all sorts of other non-controversial rules that limit what we can do on our property and require us to go before boards for permission. You can’t build an eight story house on your land. You can’t build to the edge of your property, etc.
I don’t agree that the market addresses the problem that historical districts are meant to do with. I do agree thought that historic districts come with a price that some might not like.
I live in the Upper Falls Historic District. Nearly the entire neighborhood was built out in the 1800’s as a mill village. Because of its history, it has a different look and flavor than most of Newton. The plots are all irregular shaped. Some houses are packed together. Other houses don’t face streets and are hidden behind others. Nearly all the houses were built in styles no longer common today. It truly is a unique neighborhood due to its history.
I have a somewhat ambiguous feelings about the Historic District. On the one hand, I truly value what it has done for the neighborhood. There is absolutely no doubt that without the existence of the Historic District, Upper Falls as we know it would have ceased to exist over the last 30 years. Left to market forces, all of the attributes that make Upper Falls unique would have long since been destroyed.
On the other hand, I do as a property owner find it annoying and occasionally onerous that certain, particularly smaller, work on our house requires pre-approval from the commission. I also think the well meaning commissioners can at times get a bit carried away in an overly prescriptive way.
In total, I think it is a very imperfect vehicle that overall has done a good job at maintaining most of what I love about the neighborhood and only occasionally gone off the rails. If I was voting today on it’s existence, I’d vote for it.
I think Upper Falls is somewhat of a special case. (It’s like children, we all think our own are special 😉 ) In neighborhoods that are much more of a mix of houses from all different eras and styles the decision to support a Historic District is a little tougher to make. The danger there is that the standard of what the goal of preservation is, is much slipperier. If the houses are all different eras and styles – is the goal to freeze the outward aesthetics of each house in all of those distinct styles? The danger with that ethos is that it can easily drift into freezing out change in general or using the commission as a backdoor tool to stop all new development – not a good thing.
A Historic District focused on a unique, semi-homongenous area of houses that share a history may be a good thing. A Historic District that says all houses are unique and must be preserved, not so much.’
What Jerry said.
Fortunately for Elmo, the proposed Newton Highlands Local Historic District does not include Sesame Street. I am not in the the proposed local historic district either, but I like the approach the project team has taken. I support its adoption IF a very significant majority of owners support it, and if its boundaries are adjusted to maximize that majority (excluding properties whose owners don’t support it, and including properties of those that do). Support will not be 100% (as with most community decisions), but if support is high, on balance it will be a good thing to do. I don’t expect that adoption of the local historic district would affect current property values much, compared with other factors.
There are people who would like to be in the district but can’t because, because the city (Planning Dept?) imposed a limit of 240 houses. I find that odd to set an arbitrary limit. I would think the borders should be determined by natural boundaries like Rt 9, where they exist, or when you come up to an area where most people don’t want to be in it.
What is the Annie Cobb Historic District? Is it different from the Newton Highlands Historic District administratively, or it is just a name?
And NOW, a sermon. Read on if you must, but you have been warned.
Historically, Newton (or much of it, anyway) has been populated by limousine liberals who favor regulation to maintain or improve quality of life, good services, parks and schools, and high taxes to pay for said services, parks and schools. The effect is as you might expect—the town regularly shows up on lists of the best places to live in America, and often right near the top. We do come up short in smoking, groping, opioid and alcohol abuse and violent crime, but that’s liberals for you. They don’t know how to have a good time.
Historic districts are very much within the ethos of a town populated by limousine liberals who want to live in a nice place. A historic district is intended to maintain the character of a neighborhood. You give up some freedom over the way you deal with your property, but so do your neighbors. This sort of thing goes on all the time with respect to all sorts of issues, all over the place—it’s called “zoning.” As with any zoning law, there will be winners and losers. We have to balance benefits and burdens. It seems to me that parts of Newton are fairly old and quite lovely, and that we should want to preserve their character. Yes, that does involve giving up some of one’s “freedom” in just the same way as we have to give up our “freedom” to play loud music at 4 a.m. or put up a ladder to peek in the window of that hottie across the street (neither of which I have ever done or aspired to do, by the way).
Even here in Newton, you’ll occasionally run into somebody who is content to enjoy the benefits of living in such a nice place, but chafes against the burdens. This person is likely to say that a homeowner should not have to allow a committee to impose its will on the individual. In the abstract, that sounds good. However, the alternative is to allow some other stranger to impose his or her will by constructing or modifying a building or buildings in a manner that might ruin the character of your neighborhood. If you choose to live among other people, you will always be running into this issue in some form. You can have a committee appointed by an elected official, or you may have to bow to the will of a developer or a homeowner who cares nothing about his neighbors, but only about himself (and more specifically, his bank account). The committee has accountability and there are layers of review; that may not be true of the developer. Buildings last a long time, so you have to be careful or you’ll be looking at that eyesore across the street for the rest of your life.
So, it boils down to this. If you live in a nice historic area and you want it to stay that way, you might want to get a historic district. If you value your freedom to such a degree that you want the fewest constraints on your behavior, and are willing to live among people who have few constraints on their behavior, you’re in the wrong town, buddy.
@Julia, I am not sure where that information came from. Neither the city, the planning department, the Newton Historic Commission, the Massachusetts Historic Commission, the Planning Board, nor the Zoning and Plannning Committee imposed any cap on the size or number of properties within the proposed local historic district. Under Chapter 40C, LHDs can be any size or number of properties. The proposed West Newton Hill LHD, for example, includes more than 340 properties. Indeed, the entire island of Nantucket is an LHD.
Anna Cobb was an accomplished 19th Century/early 20th Century architect who designed a number of houses in the district. It is entirely within the proposed NH LHD. She is believed to be the first female architect in America. For more information, please check out the Newton Highlands LHD study.
The 240-house limit was noted by Bob Burke in his presentation at the public hearing, when he explained how they determined what streets to include in the district. It’s at 40:00 in this audio:
http://yourlisten.com/NewtonVillagesAlliance/zap-newton-highlands-local-historic-district-may-8-2017#
[NOTE: yourlisten is a free website, but you have to keeping closing those popup ads!]
If there is in fact now not a limit, someone from Planning should make that clear, as it seems there are more people who would like to be included, and more streets that the organizers found appropriate to include if it had been possible.
I spoke with planning department staff and the historic preservation planner. Bob was mistaken.
Among other things, the City Council will determine the boundaries of the proposed LHD and could add and/or exclude properties. So everything will be on the table.