Historical Commission Meeting July 6, 2026

So I want to welcome you to tonight's Local Commission meeting. Make sure that the lights turn on over there. And I want to let you know that this meeting is being recorded by the Dartmouth Community Media. We're going to kind of get right to it because we've got some time constraints tonight. But first of all, I want to welcome up HDPR 26-24, 18

Wilson Street, please. If you want to come on up and just say who you are in relation to the project and then talk us through it, we'd be grateful.

Thank you. can you hear me yep okay um so my name is kat hall and i own the property at 18 wilson street i'm remodeling it um we do want to put obviously it needs a new roof it needs new siding we're going to do like um what's what's there now basically shingles and like roof and then bring it up to code so i guess because the house is over 100 years

old and even though it has already been remodeled in the past i did need to get permission right yeah Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, you do. And I saw that everything seems like it's very much like-for-like, which is great. I had a question about this. So the roof is current, what is the roof currently? It looks like it's a shingle. Yeah, just like a regular shingle. It's going to do very similar,

but, you know, just longer lasting type of a shingle. But architectural shingles. Architectural shingles, yep. Okay, great. Does anybody else who looked at this... So, do you have any other questions about 18 Moselle? The only comment I would like to make is that if there are issues with pictures, if they're not available to us, for example, I do not use my phone as a

computer. So my only opportunity to review the applications through the portal is 1st thing in the morning. So, if these come in any time after I leave the house, then I don't get to see them. And I feel like I'm not doing my due diligence unless I can. Fair enough. So these were not on the portal? Most of the pictures were on the portal. It's just that when I sent them in,

she said she didn't get the two from the side view because I did upload pictures several weeks ago to the portal. The only picture I saw was from the front view, and there were no pic-- and it needs to be all four sides.

That's how it's worded for the-- You have them now over there. Right. Fair enough.

I almost saw the wine when I looked at it a couple days ago, but that's fair enough. Okay, I appreciate that. Other folks, questions? Good. Well, I appreciate you bringing the photos in, and I'd like to go ahead and make a recommendation that we go ahead and approve HTPR 26-24 with the like-for-like replacement of the roof and the siding. Can I get a second on that? I second. Okay.

All in favor? I'm not sure if I need to abstain because I know Kat playing tennis occasionally. We know a lot of people in town. Okay, all right, in that case. Okay, we've got all four raising their hands to that. Kat, thank you for coming in. All right, thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks. Okay, great. I'm not sure which HDPR is.

This is 88 Hancock Street. There's no... I thought that was the one that you said should have been passed through.

Didn't you email us today about 88 Hancock? That was Suffolk. Oh, Suffolk. Okay. Is anybody here representing 88 Hancock? That makes it easier.

Let's go ahead and just postpone talking about voting on... Oh, it's 26-1. So this is from back in January. I believe the way it was left here was you were supposed to be processing them.

Okay, I think I did. Actually, I don't have the right answer right now for that tonight, but I will get the right answer. And I'll just and then I can I think that we approved it, but we wanted to check on something. And so I either did it and wrote it down and forgot to tell you or I didn't hear back from them. But either way, tomorrow, I'll make sure it is

what it is. And I'll let you know. So you can go ahead and forward it around. Right. Okay, got it. Fair enough. Okay, HCPR 26-1854 Barney's Joy Road. Again, just say who you are and what you're doing for the project. My name is Eli Powell. I'm the general contractor for the job. The proposed project is to demo the existing building rebuild a very similar

building with an extension off the back in its place. Essentially the same footprint, like I said, with a small extension off the back. The basic idea is that the foundation under the existing structure won't support the expansion that the homeowners want and the building's dilapidated enough that it makes sense to start with a new building with essentially the same curb appearance

as the old. Okay. And it looks like it's just a garage not being used for anything. It's a garage office. Okay. Not an ADU or anything like that. Okay.

So the new foundation, same footprint? Same footprint with a small extension off the back. Okay. What is the foundation currently? It's a slab on grade. Okay. All right. So that's the question I had about the foundation. And the the stairway is now interior, not exterior. As you see from the photos that I uploaded, the stairway is currently exterior and will become interior. Okay.

So there's no there's no secondary means of egress, just the interior staircase. There'll be two means of egress, but both interior both there won't be exterior staircase, but it will still achieve the code of two means of egress. But it's not a living space? Correct. So they can go out the garage door if they want to, right? Correct. Okay, other folks, any questions from Bev

or Chris? It's pretty straightforward. It was just the building doesn't look like it's in such bad shape from the pictures. There's nothing you can do to just redo the foundation and put the building back or that wouldn't suit the needs of the The building is not, it's been added onto since, you know, in the sixties and it's not historically accurate for starters and it would take considerable,

probably almost similar investment to lift the building, move it, put a new foundation under it, replace it, renovate the building and still wouldn't provide the homeowner with what they need out of the building. And so it doesn't make financial sense. Is the foundation itself is damaged? The foundation itself is not structurally capable of carrying an extension

that would make the building more useful to the homeowners.

And there are cracks in the existing foundation. So. Do I have anything? Can I get a motion on this HGPR? I'll make a motion to approve the renovations and the work being done on HDPR 26-18 at 54 Barney Street Road. I'll second that motion. All in favor? Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate you coming in. Thank you very much. Have a great evening.

Next I'd like to call up HDPR 26-20 183 State Road. Is there somebody? Oh, hi. Hi. Welcome. Please, yeah. You're on the block. So we're just looking for permitting, this is my husband Mark, it's in his name, for the home to be vinyl-sided.

It's currently, well, was cedar shingles that were just falling off. Okay, so you're the homeowners? Yes. I didn't realize we could do this all on our own, so it's in a contractor's... Oh, okay. New to this, so. If you, have you considered synthetic shingles? It's expensive. It's very costly to do. Yeah, this was the most cost-effective way to go about it. I would have loved to do

the cedar shingles. It's just not in our budget. We've done a lot of work to the home already, so I think that this is just going to be it.

Yeah, we wanted to keep it as original as possible, but placing the singles was extremely expensive going back that route. Yeah. Right. I see. And all the other neighbors around us have vinyl, so I didn't even think that it was going to be.

And we thought that we didn't even know about this part of it, hence you see the. Right. We just didn't know, you know, so. But it's not much done.

And we've just been waiting. Sure. I understand. It's going to look pretty. It's a nice color. Coastal blue, right? And that's something we really did take our time with it to sort of not look too much outrageous, but something beachy, just kind of, yeah, oceanside. Okay, great. Questions or comments from folks? there's one photograph where it looks like there's a section of

one exterior wall where the work had already been started we yeah we were told by this person jesse that the permits were all set and so we got started um then i get i don't know if he was behind on the emails i wasn't included in the whole process I then realized I needed to get involved to sort of oversee what was like where the hiccups were. And so we halted

right then and there. That was the only section. And taking the shingles down, de-shingling was the only thing that we did in that one tiny section. Yeah, because the part you're looking at where it's a couple layers of vinyl siding. We're a new homeowner, so all this came upon us. So we just halted everything and... That way. Yeah, no, no clue. We like we were told everything was okay. Good to

go. And then we weren't by the building inspector's office. By by whom Jesse 1st told us that we were okay to go. He went, I don't know what at what point I think my understanding is there was some sort of.

some way he interpreted that the permit was all set i don't know if he's not ever dealt with a 75 year old home in Dartmouth he's done these permits all over the place is it easier GC yes okay gotcha i wasn't sure where he was okay yeah i thought it had to be a GC i could have just i guess neighbors tell me i could have just done this myself they won't

be next time but i'll let somebody know okay it's a learning experience yeah any other questions or comments from folks I go by there all the time and all the rest of the houses are excited. Who's Michelle? Michelle's back there. Thank you. There was somebody else I wanted to thank from the building department that I had... - Is that lady? - That's me. - Oh, thank

you so much. It was so helpful. - She is super helpful. - They were, they tried. They tried to see what we could do, but. - Okay, well, I will go ahead and make a motion that we approve HCPR 26-20, 183 State Road and their project to remove the road. remove the existing shake shaker shingle siding and replace it with vinyl siding not something that we uh we like a lot but

I understand your they were falling off we we like did a quick like try to make it look pretty moving for it even the paint everything was just they were actually coming off on their own and it that too the you know the um loss of energy you know we put we did the solar with China Save some money. Well, you know, prison, yeah, and the earth. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, me too.

Can I get a second on that? I'll second. Okay. All in favor? Okay, great.

That's great. We'll go ahead and approve the project, and we wish you great good luck with it. Okay. Thanks for coming on in. We can go? You're free to go. All right. You're released. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Sure. Thanks for coming. Okay, we're looking at HCP our 26-21 304 Hicksville Road. You're up Thanks for being patient Craig Cassop owner of the house Just

replacing the siding I did that Mass save thing two years ago and they drilled like 200 holes in the house And so all the shingles are kind of falling off on the south side. So replacing it with party board clapboard I've had some problem with some bugs as well. So I I wanted to go to kind of an original clapboard look. Okay. Yeah. So hardy board will be the outside? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's just, you get I guess shingles or clapboard. When I bought it, it was a nice historical yellow vinyl siding. So I think it'll look nicer this way.

Okay, so it says shingles were were a bit of a place due to weather.

Okay, so a new siding. So it's just gonna be on the south side? No, the whole house. The whole house, yeah. Okay, and I guess I don't know what the Hardy clapboard, I know what Hardy, the foundation board looks like, but this... It's beautiful. It looks just like natural wood. In fact, I didn't go with the... You can go with wood imprints, which I think looks fake on clapboard. If I was

doing shingle, I would have gone with the wood imprints, but it looks exactly like natural clapboard. Okay, well, excellent. I've got to get familiar with that product.

That's beautiful. Expensive. Beautiful. I hear you. Okay, well, thank you, Craig, for that. Sure. Folks, any questions about this project? The only thing, I could only find one picture. Same with me. So, Can you do this if you if you could, can you take pictures of the other sides? Because we have to see all 4 sides. Sure. And what we'll do is we'll, we'll delay voting on this to get that in. But it sounds like

it's pretty straightforward project. But please go ahead and do that and upload them to the portal. Just just under the same same project that you started this on. So we can see all 4 sides and we just want to. the questions that we would ask and i can ask you this over email is any architectural features what when you go ahead with the new siding, will they be replaced or what will

happen to them, doors, stop at work, that kind of stuff. So we want to take a look at it. All that stuff was replaced about 25 years ago. So it was all redone, cedar shingle, cedar shingle after the vinyl siding. Okay. And so that's what's decayed over the past, you know, 25 years. 25, well, it might be more than 25 years, 28 years ago maybe. Okay. At this point, yeah. Okay. Okay,

well if you could do that, Craig, I appreciate it. We'd upload photographs from the other three sides. Anything that gives us any kind of view of the detail would be great. Okay. And so let's go ahead and just I tell you what, let's go ahead and vote on this with the caveat that we'll wait until your photographs arrive and we can take a look at it and with the provision that we

can revisit this if we feel like we need to, okay? - Okay. - Okay, great. Can I get a motion to go ahead and provisionally approve HGPR 26-21 at 304 Hicksville Road? I'll make a motion that HDPR-2621304 Hicksville Road be approved on the provision that the additional photos be submitted.

I'll second that motion. All in favor? Thank you. If you can do that tomorrow so Michelle or I will watch for it, okay? Thank you. I appreciate it. Have a good night.

Okay, 16 Suffolk Street, Suffolk Avenue. Not going to do.

H.C.P.R. 26-23, 37 Middle Street. Hello. Hello.

Our names Robert and Christine Long. We're the owners of the home at 37 Middle Street. And it was built in 1898. In the carriage house we have termites. And the building's in tough shape, as you can see from the photos.

we would like to you know renovate it but one of the one of the big one of the big problems is all the new building codes today it's it's pretty much by the time you do all that and change it and this it'd probably be twice the cost To rebuild it. So we're going to tear it down and we've pretty much decided that we're going to go with an ADU, but we

don't have any plans as of yet. But what we are going to do is try to fashion the building similar to the carriage house when we do build an ADU there. Okay. We like the look of it. Sure. Okay. So, so. Try to keep the same footprint or something smaller than actually we right now when we tear it down, we're going to be about a foot from the sideline. So I would

think that I'm not exactly sure how that's going to work. I don't know whether we'll go for a variance on it and see if we can get the foot.

It's actually a stone foundation now. There's no cellar to it. It's in tough shape. A fieldstone? Nah, I wouldn't call it a fieldstone. I'm not exactly sure. One of the requirements for a demolition from the building department, not even from us, is that you have in hand plans for what you're going to do with it next. And so I wanted to nobody told me

that. So I guess I want to go ahead and confer with my colleagues and talk to the building for just to make sure not not necessarily a stumbling block.

that is on if it's just if it's a demolition, complete demolition. It's in the town bylaw. When you applied for the permit with the building department, did nobody mention nobody talked to you about that? Obviously, did you do it online or in person?

You have to do it online. That's true. Good point. Yeah, I'm surprised that that doesn't pop up. Yeah, but if we have a building that's in our yard that's deteriorating, that things are falling off it, and we have grandchildren, and you guys are waiting for a building plan, we're not sure exactly what we want to do with it. I understand and I'm not, I didn't make the rule at all. I'm just

a volunteer here trying to help out. But I don't want to turn you down out of hand by any means. But let me go ahead and investigate it more and I'll contact you in the next couple days over email. Okay. And we'll figure something out. How close is it to the property line? It's like 19 feet rather than 20. You don't want to lose any rights if you take it down. Sometimes

you're going to lose some of those rights. If that's the case, most likely we're going to tear the foundation out most likely and put a new one. And then and yeah, you know, with the ADUs, you got to be 900 square feet. So that's what we would do on the first floor. And most likely that's what's going to happen. you know that we're going to tear it out we're probably not even

going to come in for variants we just call the 20 feet 20 feet that's what the rear and the side and the general resonance okay yes if all goes according to your plan when do would you intend to build a new structure to replace this one ideally i would say within a year i just want we just want to get it down yeah yeah It's really deteriorating right now. Pieces are falling

off. We just had someone have to climb up and take a big piece down that was ready to fall. It's an older structure. We love our home and we just want to be sure we're going to enhance our property by doing this. We're going to do our very best and make sure it complements our property as well. And we want to keep the beauty of of our

home. That sounds very fair. We love our home, we love our community, so we're going to do our best to. Appreciate that. Okay. The only other thing, if I might, is it would be great if you could document it well with a lot of photographs and the details and the, you know, the this kind of a cupola thing and the shape of the kind of eyebrow, I guess it is, if you

could document it really well. Documented. I'm not quite sure. And I was going to actually. Take photographs of it. That's all. Take photographs of what? Of the inside and outside. Yeah. Of now? Yes. Before you take it down. I thought you wanted six photos. This is a totally different topic now. What we're saying is if it's going to be torn down, a building that old, we'd like to have in our records

some photographs of what it looked like. Not in any punitive way ever. Just more for our edification for the town. Right. So we know what was there in the past. That would help us out. We can do that. Excellent. So... Robert is Christina, Christine, Christine. Let me do some work on our end and I'll come on back to you in the next couple of days. Okay. That's my promise to you. And

I'm sure we'll find a way to work something out soon or something. Oh, pardon me. That's all right. Were you planning on reusing any of the special features from the building like doors or there's 1 that what was originally a haymow door, which has. A leaded glass window in it, are you going to be able to reuse any of those features? Yeah, well, we would need to

know that as well, because that's always going to be a question for us. At least I think so. We won't be able to use them because they're not energy.

They're not going to pass the energy code. I can tell you that, right? Yeah, I don't think there's anything I don't know where in the carriage house. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess it depends on whether it's going to be a carriage house garage or it's going to be a living space. It's going to be living space.

Okay. That wasn't clear on the application as well, because all we know that is it's going to be a demolition. I also think that had the opportunity to also look at the house because the carriage house comes under the same address. And we don't have a good inventory form or form B on either one of them. So I think we should do something to... That's a good idea. So if it's all

part of the same parcel, then I guess make that house part of the next batch and document the carriage house with photographs pretty thoroughly. Is that your intent? It's VAR 217. But it is poorly documented, isn't it? Yes, it is.

You're right, 217. But it's very... It was done in 19...

not not for you just the people who did inventory work we so inventory just means that we we we have contractors who um who investigate the history of the town of the historic buildings in town get photographs um and help us understand the history better so that's your house is one that was maybe done you know 40 years ago but wasn't done super well and so that's one we'd like to just

revisit just in order to capture uh the beauty of the old old home and both of them. So you taking photographs of the inside and outside of the home.

Or if it's easier for you, you could invite, I live like two blocks away from you, I'd be happy to come on over and just take some pictures of it. Just for posterity's sake, that's all. Sure, anytime. So your contact information is on the forum. I'll reach out to you in the next couple days. I live on Elm Street, just right by the sail walk. I can just walk on up and...

you know, see what's what, just take some pictures at all. That'd be great. I appreciate that. That'd be nice. - Thank you. - Any other questions or comments from the group? - I would think you would, if Linda's willing, I would think it would be a, a plus to include her as part of that field trip. Good idea. Good idea. Excellent. So I'd like to go ahead and delay approval of HGPR

26-23 but with the with the caveat that I'll go ahead and get some kind of an answer from the building department and share that with you and we'll try to work something out. Okay. I understand your intent for sure. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much for coming in. Thank you, guys. And I will contact you and I'll come on over and meet you and take some photographs, Linda and I,

okay? That'd be great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good night. So I... I don't have my documentation for the historical plaques that I wanted to, that I put in tonight. I have done the work, I just don't have copies to hand out to people tonight. So I'm going to go ahead and postpone or delay those for a month. Right, but I don't

have the deed records going back a long way, which I think I probably need to have. Photographs are there, but not the rest. So, but Deborah at five near Gans Street has all of her stuff in there. And she has been waiting a while for this. So I've got to leave right now. But we could go to my thing but we could, I could either we've had three people who could vote

on this with that would that be a quorum would it. No, for. Okay.

Do we have a, we've only done a couple of these. I don't know what the process is. Do we have a discussion about it or and then vote on it or how does it work typically for the historical plaques? I think we did a couple about a year ago. Putnam, yeah. Putnam, yeah. It should be Putnam. I just want to make sure we got. Okay, I think

that's a typo. So. Okay. I think that the process that we agreed to was that we would receive these and then we would go check the work of the homeowner and go to Bristol County. I've got to do that anyway as part of my process. So I will go in and take a look there and take a look at our office just to make sure that her records are correct. I know

that she requested a plaque that has got three lines on it, which I think we don't do typically, but but I don't feel like we need to have a hard and fast rule about that. But whatever you folks agree or what's the precedent in the past has been done. I'm not even sure that the plaque maker can accommodate three lines, but I think her request asked for three lines, the date and

the property name and something else. - I think the goal is to have them be consistent throughout town. - Right. If it says two lines then. We also have had some that I believe I've seen that are a different style, different design style from years past, but I'm not sure about that. Do you have any idea, Michelle? Okay, all right. Well, then I will go

ahead and communicate that to her after we... And this is in non-quit, correct? Yeah, it is. Nonquit has two historians, one of whom is Judy Lund, the other is Sally Aldrich. And I would speak to both of them about that property because both of them have... Sally Waldrich? Sally Aldrich. Aldrich, okay. Yes. Okay, I might hit you up for the contact.

I know I reached Judy, but not Sally. And I think that's probably a good idea. Okay, at this point, I'm going to go ahead and...

We're going to go ahead and... I don't think we voted on HDP or 26-24, but my intent was to put off voting on it. And then with regard to Mrs. Haffner-Reffer's request for a plaque, let's go ahead and provisionally approve it until we can go ahead and check the math on that. I'll go ahead and look at the records. So I don't think any votes required on the plaque. We'll go

ahead and just... I'll contact you over email with my findings that what I find is historically in line with what she has suggested. With that, I'd like to go ahead and if there are no other comments, go ahead and adjourn our meeting tonight for the Historical Commission. Oh, pardon me. I'm so sorry. I don't even have the minutes.

I don't think I got the minutes. Oh, from last month? Okay. You know what? Can we postpone reviewing the minutes from until August. And let's go ahead and do that. So I'd like to go ahead and adjourn the meeting. All in favor? Okay, thank you very much.