Heritage Commission

ACEPTED MINUTES – NOVEMBER 13, 2024 MEETING 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Marjory Wilkinson called the meeting to order at 3:58 PM. 2. SALUTE TO THE FLAG Chair Marjory Wilkinson led the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. ROLL CALL Members present: Marjory Wilkinson, Jane Whitehead, Mark Haynes, Lois Kessin, Scott Ringer Members absent: None 4. RECORDING SECRETARY Jennifer Place 5. STAFF IN ATTENDANCE No other staff were in attendance. 6. ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES FROM PREVIOUS MEETING Chair Marjory Wilkinson stated she had a question under 10.1 of the Rules of Procedure. Marjory directed Jennifer to look at the third paragraph up from the bottom that states “it would be nice if the Commission could amend the Rules of Procedure because it’s unclear at this time if they’ll be merging with the Historical Commission.” Marjory stated she thinks her intention was to say “approve” rather than “amend” even though the Commission is not sure if they’ll be joining the Historic District Overlay. Recording secretary Jennifer Place asked Marjory if she was questioning if the Rules of Procedure were approved at the last meeting, because they were. Marjory said she was not questioning that approval, just the term “amend.” Chair Marjory Wilkinson directed Recording secretary Jennifer Place to look at the third paragraph down starting with the financial report. Marjory asked if this paragraph could be moved because it was not relevant to the Rules of Procedure. Marjory also asked if the paragraph containing the motion at the end of the meeting could be moved to the end of the minutes, where it’s more applicable. Jane Whitehead noted the misspelling of “Siena.” Scott Ringer asked if there was a motion to accept the meeting minutes and a discussion. Scott said normally when someone makes a motion and someone second’s that motion, there’s a general discussion before the final vote. Jane Whitehead made a motion to accept the minutes with the discussed changes. Lois Kessin seconded the motion. All members voted in favor. 7. CITY COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT Mark Haynes stated there was nothing to report that involves the Heritage Commission. Last month there’s been a lot of discussion about housing and changing of zoning ordinances. Mark asked if anyone had any questions regarding the State School project. No questions were asked. Mark said there’s been a lot of discussion about the property and the amount of housing that will be involved, but no ground has been moved yet and it won’t be anytime soon. Mark said he didn’t think there was anything immediate that would happen to help solve the housing problem. 8. PLANNING BOARD UPDATE No Planning Department staff were present. Recording secretary Jennifer Place directed Commission members to look at the back of their meeting packets where there are 2 property cards. Jennifer asked members to look at 77 New Salem Street. There are multiple buildings that the new owner will be submitting demo permits for. One of the buildings was built in 1947 and had recently been housing the Salvation Army Thrift Store. Inside there’s a “Book Nook” that sits inside an old vault. Jennifer said she’s never been inside the building, but her co-worker Scott has been several times. The property  was purchased by Kevin Morrissette and he plans on constructing two new buildings with forty units in each. They’ll more than likely be condominiums or something like that. Jennifer said these demo permits will likely come before the Commission at some point. Scott Ringer stated it would be a good idea to look at the vault before the building is demolished. Recording secretary Jennifer Place stated she would give Chair Marjory Wilkinson Kevin Morrissette’s contact information so she could schedule a time to look at the vault. Lois Kessin asked if the thrift store was still open because she saw items in the window recently. Chair Marjory Wilkinson stated they were not because they’re moving to Union Avenue. Recording secretary Jennifer Place directed members to look at the tax card for 136 Old Prescott Hill Road which was also purchased by Kevin Morrissette. This property was recently subdivided into 9 lots and the original house on the property was built in 1780. Jennifer said that demo permit will more than likely come before the Commission as well, but they’re in the very beginning stages of this project. 9. NEW BUSINESS 9.1. 44 CENTENARY AVENUE DEMO PERMIT Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked if the person representing 44 Centenary Avenue could come to the podium. Frank Merrill is representing the new owner, Steven LeBoeuf and shared photos with the Commission. Frank said the home was built in 1930. Chair Marjory Wilkinson stated she did a drive-by and noted she’s never been over that wooden bridge before. Marjory asked if a foundation is being poured on that property. Frank Merrill stated that’s a different property with a different owner. Lois Kessin said one of the homes in that area was given a plaque years ago after it was renovated because they did a beautiful job. Jane Whitehead stated she doesn’t remember awarding the plaque, only that the Commission voted to do so. Members review photos given by representative Frank Merrill. Lois Kessin asked if there was anything in it that was extraordinary. Frank Merrill said it was an old cottage. Jane Whitehead asked if one of the photos showed cardboard on the ceiling. Frank Merrill said it probably was. Lois Kessin stated this is such a beautiful little neighborhood and noted that most of these houses were in the same families for years. Scott Ringer said the place is falling apart and asked if it was a rental. Frank Merrill said the gentleman who bought it was from Florida but used to live in Laconia and plans on rebuilding it to use during the summer. Lois Kessin asked if the new home was going to be an ultra-modern home or will it be kept in the same character of the neighborhood. Frank Merrill said it will be taller, as there will be a garage underneath, but it will remain in the same footprint of the original home. Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked for a motion to approve. Lois Kessin made a motion. Jane Whitehead seconded. All members voted in favor. Recording secretary Jennifer Place said she would email the demo permit to the owner. 9.1.1. 9 KINGSLEY AVENUE DEMO PERMIT Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked if this permit was in her packet. Recording secretary Jennifer Place said she thought it was, but she may have forgotten, as it just came in yesterday. Jennifer stated that we should probably establish a deadline for submitting demo permits. Jennifer said she doesn’t want to push an applicant out a month if she doesn’t have to, but at some point, we should have a cutoff. Frank Merrill was representing the owner of this property. Lois Kessin asked where 9 Kingsley Avenue was located within the city. Frank Merrill said it’s just up the road from Centenary Avenue. Frank submitted photos to the Commission and said the place was a mess. Scott Ringer noted the size of the home as being 3,100 square feet. Lois Kessin asked if the home was built in 1930, and Frank said it was. Chair Marjory Wilkinson stated the demo permit was not in her packet. Scott Ringer stated he had a copy and helped Marjory find her copy, as there was a lot of paperwork in the packet. Lois Kessin asked who the owner was. Frank Merrill said it was under an LLC. Lois stated it’s a nice area and asked who the original owner was. An answer was not provided. Frank Merrill stated half the foundation is rock and the other half was sitting on the dirt. Scott Ringer said nothing looks original based on the photos provided. Frank Merrill said the owner wants to tear it down and rebuild another in its place, as the owner also owns another property right up the street, so he bought this home so he could have control  of it. Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked if there were any pictures of the inside and Frank said no and noted the home was a mess. Frank said the previous owners left everything inside, including trash. Scott Ringer asked if anything was salvageable from 1930 or if it had been redone. Frank stated the home has been redone, down to the windows. Nothing is original except for the foundation. Lois Kessin asked if this was a summer cottage. Jane Whitehead stated she liked the curve of the roof. Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked if the owners were going to save the roof. Frank Merrill said they were not saving anything. Marjory asked for a motion to approve the demo permit. Scott Ringer made a motion to approve. Lois Kessin seconded the motion. All members voted in favor. 9.11. WOLFEBORO GATHERING OF LAKES REGION HERITAGE COMMISSIONS Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked if any of the Commission members received an email about the Wolfeboro gathering of the Lakes Region Heritage Commissions. They will discuss different Heritage Commissions, their successes, issues and concerns. Marjory and Jane Whitehead will be attending on Saturday from 9:30AM-12PM that includes a lunch. Scott Ringer said he had family coming to his home and wouldn’t be able to attend. Lois Kessin stated she could not attend either. Chair Marjory Wilkinson reminded members that they need to RSVP to Maggie. 9.111. AGENCY REQUEST FOR CITY FUNDING Chair Marjory Wilkinson said she received the Agency Request for City Funding form from Glenn Smith in Finance. This form is used to request additional monies for the 25/26 fiscal year. The deadline for this request is December 12, 2024, and the next Heritage Commission meeting is on December 11, 2024, so that doesn’t give much time for the Commission to discuss how much to request and to provide a summary of the service the Commission will be providing Laconia residents. Marjory said members should do a bit of thinking about where the Heritage Commission is right now and how they can serve our community. Marjory spoke about the number of Laconia residents that were served last year and how things could differ if they join forces with the Historic Overlay District. Marjory instructed members to think about if they want monies to further the Mae Williams study into other areas of Laconia like the Weirs. Catherine was involved in that study. Scott Ringer asked what the cost was for that study. Lois Kessin thought it was $16,000 and Jane Whitehead stated it was not that high. Mark Haynes said it was around $5,000. Recording secretary Jennifer Place said she would look through the files to see if there’s any record of the cost of the study (nothing was found). Scott Ringer suggested members email each other if they have any requests for additional funding so they could vote on them. Jane Whitehead suggested asking for meal and mileage reimbursement if members attend a meeting out of town. Jane recalled a time when members went to Concord and Manchester to attend conferences hosted by the NH Preservation Alliance on how to build fieldstone foundations and visiting sites that were historical based on their construction techniques. Jane Whitehead made a motion to request additional funds to hire Mae Williams to extend her reports to other parts of the city. Lois Kessin seconded the motion. All members voted in favor. Lois Kessin stated she has another meeting tonight, but wanted to jump ahead. Last week she was out on the lake and was near where the old cottages that were torn down behind Christmas Island. Lois said the new owners put up a behemoth of a house and it’s very disheartening to her. The footprint of that home and what it will do to that channel is appalling. 9.IV. DONATION TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked Recording secretary Jennifer Place for an update on the donation to the Historical Society. Jennifer said she did not get to it yet and noted no timeline was established at the last meeting. Marjory asked if this donation was coming out of this year’s budget and Jennifer said based on the minutes of the last meeting, it was to come out of the donation account. 10. OLD BUSINESS 10.1. RULES OF PROCEDURE FOR THE HERITAGE COMMISSION – THIRD DRAFT Recording secretary Jennifer Place reminded Chair Marjory Wilkinson that if Lois Kessin left the meeting, based on what Marjory said in the last meeting, they wouldn’t be able to approve the Rules of  Procedure, as Marjory wanted to have a full Commission to approve it. Marjory asked Lois to wait ten minutes before leaving so they could take a vote. Lois agreed. Chair Marjory Wilkinson asked for a motion to accept the Rules of Procedure. Scott Ringer made a motion to accept the Rules of Procedure third draft. Jane Whitehead seconded. All members voted in favor. Marjory asked Recording secretary Jennifer Place if they need to be submitted to Rob Mora. Jennifer said she did not know and asked Marjory if she had Rob’s email address. Jennifer also mentioned that she would upload them to the website, as other committees posted their procedures online. Scott Ringer asked if there was anything in motion to merge the Heritage Commission with the Historic District Commission or if it was still in the discussion phase. Mark Haynes said the Planning Department is overwhelmed right now as they’ve been instructed by the City Council to manage several projects. Scott Ringer said it doesn’t sound like it will happen right away. Mark Haynes said it will probably occur in the spring. 11. PUBLIC COMMENT No members of the public were present. 12. OTHER BUSINESS 15 PARK STREET DEMO PERMIT (NOT ON ORIGINAL AGENDA) Recording secretary Jennifer Place stated there was a snafu with a demo permit that had not been submitted and the gentleman representing the property was in attendance. The address is 15 Park Street. Mike Lokken represented the owner, Scott Everett. Lois Kessin said she would be willing to hear the permit, but not to vote on it. Scott Ringer stated it depends on the permit. Jennifer passed out the photos Mike Lokken brought to the meeting and said the home was built in 1850 on Park Street. Mike said they purchased the property from Peter Burnette next to the church. It’s currently vacant and has lots of mold and damage because it hasn’t been kept up in years. Scott Ringer said some of the beams look original. Mike Lokken said some of them are, but the foundation is in tough shape. At this point, it’s not repairable and their plan is to add a parking lot because you can never have enough parking. Jane Whitehead asked if it was going to be a parking lot or a parking garage. Mike stated he didn’t know that yet because this plan came about thirty to forty-five days ago, and they’ve been researching the best use for the property, including completing a traffic study. Mike said they may try to join it with the existing garage and currently have engineers looking at that. Scott Ringer asked if the parking would be reserved for the occupants of the building or would it be general parking for businesses. Mike said that hasn’t been defined yet. Lois Kessin asked about the restaurant. Mike said the new restaurant will be called The Junction. Lois asked if anything other than the beams were salvable. Mike said no, not even the staircase. Lois asked if Mike was willing to let Commission members see inside and potentially take anything salvable. Mike said yes and reminded the Commission that they’ve worked together before on the Gold Street project. Scott Ringer stated that was an interesting place and noted that nothing has happened to that property after the demo permit was issued. Mike said they’re in the design phase right now and will be pulling a building permit for condos in the spring. Jane Whitehead stated the balusters around the porch were nice and asked if they could be preserved. Mike said he didn’t think so. Scott Ringer asked if a motion was needed to discuss if the Commission was going to vote on this demo permit. Chair Marjory Wilkinson said yes. Lois Kessin made the motion. Scott Ringer seconded. All members voted in favor. Scott Ringer stated that making that motion allowed the 15 Park Street demo permit to be added to the agenda of tonight’s meeting. Scott Ringer made a motion to approve the demo permit with the provision that the Commission will be able to go inside the building to see if there’s anything salvageable. Lois Kessin seconded the motion. All members voted in favor. Recording secretary Jennifer Place reminded members of the Commission that if there’s a quorum when they do the walk through, it must be posted as a meeting and to make sure that date is communicated to her. Mike Lokken gave his cell phone number to Chair Marjory Wilkinson so they could coordinate that date and time.  Lois Kessin left the meeting at 4:51PM. Chair Marjory Wilkinson commended Recording secretary Jennifer Place for all the work she puts into the meeting minutes and recognized that it takes hours to prepare them sometimes. Marjory stated she looked up the rules at the State level for meeting minutes and she doesn’t think they need to be word for word. Jennifer stated that everyone has a different way of doing their minutes and it’s a personal preference to do them verbatim because in twenty years, you could read the document and feel like you were there. Marjory stated that if they were in a summary format, it would save time and effort. Marjory said she knows Jennifer records the meeting on her phone and keeps that as a recorded document. Marjory said she wonders if the minutes should be summaries instead of word for word. We look at our agenda, have a brief discussion and any decision the Commission makes will have to appear in the minutes and that’s all that’s required from the State. Marjory stated that’s how Kalena used to do them when she took the meeting minutes and noted that Kalena didn’t spend the same amount of time as Jennifer does. Marjory said if the Commission is not getting the minutes to approve before the meeting, it would be easier to type up the gist of the discussion that comes before the decision, so it shows how the Commission came to the decision. Marjory said she thinks it would be better to note the important points that were talked about in a small summary, but not word for word. Marjory said she thinks it’s a lot for the Commission to go through in the first five to ten minutes of the meeting. Recording secretary Jennifer Place said in her defense, the meeting minutes were emailed the day before the meeting and she’s not getting the agenda six days prior to the meeting as written in the Rules of Procedure. Marjory said she doesn’t want this to be an offense defense. Mark Haynes said sometimes you have to be careful with a summary because you can miss the flavor of the discussion by saying, “well, so and so discussed this.” Marjory said she thinks we need to cover the points that lead up to any kind of decision that’s being made by the Commission. Mark Haynes said a perfect example would be if you discuss the one-way street with no parking on the right-hand side, but there aren’t any homes on the left-hand side, unless you include the discussion, why do you want the parking to be on the right-hand side of the street? If you just record it as a summary, you miss the flavor of why the decision was made. Jennifer said she didn’t want the responsibility of deciding what goes in the minutes and what doesn’t. Scott Ringer said his personal opinion was he likes the way the minutes are done, and it reads like a story so he fully understands what went on at the meeting. Scott said he’s been on several committees, and they usually spend the first ten minutes reading the minutes even if they got them today of or the week before. Jane Whitehead said maybe the Commission should read the minutes and if there’s something too personal or too embarrassing, they could ask for those comments to be deleted. Marjory said it’s more for ease of reading. Jennifer stated she understands there’s a lot to read, but if you’re on a commission and you’re truly dedicated to it, you can take fifteen to twenty minutes to read a document. Marjory stated sometimes the Commission skips around the agenda items and asked if off topic items could be moved to their proper agenda number in the minutes. Scott Ringer asked what he should do with the extra photos for the demo permits. Jennifer said to put them in the recycle bin, as she has a copy that goes in the file along with the demo permit paperwork. 13. ADJOURNMENT Jane Whitehead made a motion to end the meeting. Scott Ringer seconded. All members voted in favor. The meeting was adjourned at 4:48PM.