Lincoln Historical Commission
Historic District Commission
Business Meeting Minutes
November 6, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Board Members: Ruth Wales, HDC Chair, LHC/HDC; Lucretia Giese, LHC Chair, LHC/HDC, Kerry Glass, LHC/HDC
Alternate: Jack MacLean, HDC
Secretary: Elaine Carroll
NEXT ANTICIPATED MEETING: December 4, 2007, 7:30 p.m., Town Offices
The meeting was called to order at 7:35 p.m. and the minutes of the Oct. 2, 2007 meeting were approved as written.
Informal Discussions:
Inventory Priorities and Timetable:
The members discussed the priorities for inventorying the historic houses in Lincoln. Jack MacLean gave the members a list of the “starred” properties on the Lincoln Historic Properties and Study Areas list. Kerry Glass reported that Kathy Anderson of the Thoreau Institute is not interested in a Historic District at this time but may be in a year or so. They are busy with the Adams stables renovations. They would like to buy the Hewitt property and may want to tear it down so they are not favorable to a Historic District. Kerry said that right now she has nothing positive to report. Ruth Wales said that the members should concentrate on Red Rail Farm and continue with adding individual house inventories. There was a discussion as to the timeline for inventorying
the properties around Red Rail Farm, which have not been done. Jack MacLean said that the old Baker House and Billings (Mygatt) house were inventoried but need updating and he would need to inventory other buildings on the Adams complex. The write-ups on barns have been done as a farm complex area. They were done on both individual forms for different houses and as a complex and that everything is contiguous as a group. Ruth said that she would ideally like this area to be a Historic District but registering it as an area can be done as fast as the forms are filled out and then in terms of demolition delay, it would be considered a significant area. It would also give the ZBA information as to an area of significance. There was a discussion about concentrating on the need to add to the inventory and not updating properties already inventoried. After some discussion, Jack MacLean said that he would inventory the properties
on Red Rail Farm, along with the Clogston house at 3 Old Concord Road, and update any properties already inventoried as his priority, which he hopes to have for either the December or January meeting. Jack will also update his list of Lincoln Historic Properties and Study Areas for the Long Range Planning Committee by adding the FoMA properties and arranging the entire list alphabetically by street name instead of by area designation. This will need to be done by January 11, 2008. Ruth said that Mass. Historical has gone through with processing the FoMA properties into their data base and also has them on their website.
Inventory Funding:
Lucretia Giese will check on what the CPA grant was to be specifically used for. She had noticed a discrepancy in the accounting sent her by Veronica Phillips of the Accounting Department. The funds for Paul Marsh were mistakenly taken from the Commission’s CPA funds. Elaine will show Veronica what bills were presented for payment by the HDC and Lucretia had looked into the problem and would have the problem corrected and get the Paul Marsh PR funds charged to the proper account, which should leave $20,644 for inventory work. The members also received a copy of a letter from Mass. Historical announcing the beginning of the MHC.s Fiscal Year 2008 Survey and Planning Grant cycle, which is a matching grant. Ruth was wondering if CPA funds could be used as matching funds. She will call
someone at MHC to clear up some questions. There was also a question about the reasoning behind the “Certified Local Government” reference. Concord and Lexington’s names were not on this list. MHC is required under Federal law to pass along 10% of its Federal allocation to “Certified Local Governments”. This needs to be looked into. Jack will write up the required one page statement necessary to qualify for the grant and Ruth will check on the details of the grant.
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There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Elaine Carroll
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