Date: Fri 10-May-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

historic-district-Main-St

Full Text:

w/photo: Historic District Finally Approved

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Elated by last week's successful referendum, the Borough Board of Burgess took

steps this week to find residents who are interested in serving on a Historic

District Commission.

Warden Joan Crick urged any borough resident who is interested to contact her

at 426-9497. The board must appoint a five-member commission and three

alternates to oversee the Borough of Newtown Historic District. Only one

appointee must live in the historic district, but all must be borough

residents.

Twenty-nine years after resident Ben Blanchard went to a borough meeting and

suggested that a historic district be formed on Main Street, the concept

became a reality last week. On the sixth try, residents voted 29.5 to 1 to

form the historic district.

This time, however, only those property owners who had expressed an interest

in being in the district were polled. There were 89 properties in the original

proposal, 52 in the scaled-down version which extends along Main Street from

Route 302 to Johnnycake Lane and along parts of West Street, Currituck and

Church Hill Road. Main Street was designated as a historic roadway which links

the properties in the district together.

The Board of Burgesses last month mailed ballots to the 63 owners of these 52

properties (co-owners each were entitled to one-half vote). Forty-eight

ballots were returned: 35 half-votes and 13 whole votes, totalling 30.5. The

proposal needed 20.33 "yes" votes to pass.

When the votes were counted, there was only one negative vote, apparently cast

by someone who had changed his, or her, mind. But during the process, an air

of anxiousness filled the room.

"You can't ever predict what people are going to do," explained Kathy Jamison,

chairman of the Historic District Study Committee.

The vote was "a ringing endorsement of hours of preservation efforts and a

resounding NO to those who would soil or despoil our pristine early American

elegance of the Main Street area," said Burgess James Gaston.

The burgesses then approved motions to accept the report of the Historic

District Study Committee and to create the historic district as required under

section 7-147A-K of the Connecticut General Statutes.

The ordinance must be published twice as a legal notice in The Bee . It will

become effective 30 days after the last publication, which would be June 17.

The study committee will be dissolved at the next Board of Burgesses meeting.

Its members included Mrs Jamison, Betsy Kenyon, James and Stephanie Gaston,

Patrick Hill, Sherry Bermingham, Renee McManus and Christopher Luongo.

"This committee has done a wonderful job and worked very hard," Mrs Crick

said.

When the Historic District Commission is appointed, its five-year terms of

office will be staggered so that the term of at least one member will expire

each year. All members and alternates will serve without compensation.

It will be up to the commission to adopt guidelines for the new historic

district, but these regulations must not be contradict or be inconsistent with

the state statutes.

"I'd like to make them as simple as possible," Mrs Crick said. "The idea isn't

to bog people down with more rules and regulations."

According to state statute, unless the borough decides otherwise, the historic

district commission may:

Provide information to property owners and others involving the preservation

of properties in the district

Suggest pertinent legislation

Initiate planning and zoning proposals

Comment on all applications for zoning variances and special exceptions

Cooperate with other regulatory agencies and civic organizations and groups

interested in historic preservation

Render advice on sidewalk construction and repair, tree planting, street

improvements and the erection or alteration of public buildings not otherwise

under its control where they affect historic districts

Furnish information and assistance in connection with any capital improvement

program involving historic districts, and

Consult with groups of experts.

The commission also may accept grants and gifts, employ clerical and technical

assistance or consultants and incur other expenses if approved by the Board of

Burgesses.

If a property owner wishes to make significant structural changes to parts of

buildings that are visible from the street, the property owner must get a

certificate of appropriateness first. It was this provision, which some

property owners believed would constrict their rights, that caused some

residents to oppose the creation of a historic district.

Ben Blanchard's proposal in 1969 led to the formation of the first study

committee. Commercial property owners objected, however, and the proposal was

defeated in a mail ballot conducted in February 1970.

After last week's votes were counted, Burgess Gretchen Hyde could hardly

believe the long-awaited victory had finally happened. She and Alice

Winchester were co-chairmen of the 1983 study commission. That year, and the

following year, the proposal failed by just a few votes to garner the

three-fourths majority required at that time.

In 1987 the state law was changed to require only a two-thirds majority. Had

that been the case earlier, the proposal would have passed on the first try.