18 December 2008 | Approved: 15 April 2008
HPC members present: Bob Booher (Chair), Mimi Styles, Margot Bohan, Ed Mroczka, David Neumann, David Stopak (Liaison to Town Council).
The meeting was called to order by the Chair at 7:35pm. Ed Roberts and Carol Sanford were also at the meeting.
The agenda proposed by the Chair was posted on the outside of the Town Hall Meeting Room door and was adopted after several adjustments by members. Margot Bohan agreed to take minutes for this meeting.
Meeting minutes from September, October, and November 2007 were reviewed; Margot motioned to adopt these minutes with comments and Mimi seconded the motion.
Reviews
Carol Sanford came to the meeting to discuss the demolition permit for 118 Chestnut Avenue. Given her concern about the open state of the house and the possibility of intruders and/or liability if anyone was hurt there, the Sanfords want to take the house down as soon as possible. She has had contractors bid on the demolition; she’s interested in getting it done in the next 30 days and came to this meeting to discuss getting HPC’s buy-in. Bob mentioned interest in documenting house photos/history. Carol offered that she has pictures of the house from 1976 when she purchase it. She also mentioned that she’d be off all week or working close by if HPC wanted to record/photograph the original features and structure underneath. Ed suggested that the town could save aspects of the old structure as architectural reference for the Sanfords and for other town residents with future interest in renovating according to the old structure. Bob asked if Carol would be amenable to having any of the older parts of the house moved/saved for posterity. Carol said that she’d not be opposed but was interested in doing things rather expeditiously. The discussion concluded with Bob and Ed agreeing to meet Carol to take pictures and to evaluate the possibility of moving the old/contributing structure and with Carol planning to move forward with submitting the demolition application.
No other projects were presented for review.
Town Council Report
David Stopak, the Council Liaison, reported on Town Council actions. He focused briefly on the fact that the council is waiting to approve the size of the commemorative plaque and boulder to be placed in Morgan Park. The Council also sought clarification about the inscription format, whether it would be narrative in paragraphs or bullets.
Commemorative Plaque
The decision to locate the plaque/boulder in Morgan Park was discussed briefly. In addition to having it along Grove Road, one of the most frequented entries into the Grove, the location is also a good tie-in to the railroad proximity-which was one of the justifications for the town originally locating here. The plaque will commemorate what the town looked like ‘way back when’ and its location in this park will, ideally, become a destination point.
Oral Histories
Work on the proposal request for oral histories funding from the Maryland Historic Trust has been put on hold due, for the most part, to time constraints given the imminent proposal deadline. A brief discussion ensued about the possibility of establishing HPC subgroups to address tasks for the commemorative plaque project, the oral history project, etc.
House Histories
Commissioners were reminded to add anecdotes.
Annual Award Criteria
Commissioners were reminded to submit comments to Margot on the draft award criteria
PC review procedure
The commissioners discussed the possibility of having a joint session with the Planning Commission to see if we can come up with a more efficient and more inclusive procedure for incorporating the HPC review into the PC review procedure. Bob will call John McClelland with this suggestion. McClelland suggests bringing in HPC sooner to conduct the preliminary review, then having it go to PC. Questions still needing answers include the following: How do we make this preliminary review a requirement? How do we get into applicant’s heads in advance of their planning stage? Should we allocate more space in the bulletin and/or on the website to discuss the review procedure?
Library & Archive
It was suggested that HPC consider subscribing to Fine Homebuilding and a few Old House magazines re: renovating older homes. These subscriptions could be housed in the HPC library and made available for “checkout” by town members.
ICC
Shelley Winkler discussed with SHA representatives the ICC’s potential environmental impact, using the potential impact as a lever to have the localized areas of ICC planted in collaboration with ball fields and homes to be built.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:10 p.m.