Support Article 9: Abolish the Historic District Commission

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To visit the Youtube channel where all the video clips are hosted (including those we may not have linked to this site yet), click here.

Here's a statement read to the Selectmen's Meeting on February 3, 2010:

"I had no intention of speaking further publicly about the HDC after the Planning Board hearing, where we presented our case. That was until I viewed a video of the January 21 HDC meeting, where comments by your representative on the board were beyond the pale and provide yet another example of why the HDC must be abolished.

The meeting centered around a proposal by Vice Chair Ryan that 7-8 copies of draft "Preservation Guidelines" be handed out to critics of the HDC. This eventually took the form of a motion which passed. The proposal was for Jim Ladd to choose who should get the 40 page document and for those residents to mark it up and return to the commission by February 8. That was two weeks for us to consider what the commission had been diddling over for 4 years. The document carried the dates 2006 and 2007. More on these guidelines later.

HDC member Peter Roessiger, who has been a voice for common sense and has normally refrained from the infighting of the commission, said:

"I think what we as a commission are forgetting is why this all came to a head. I believe it is not so much the rules and regulations that we are trying to work with, it is the shabby way, disrespectful way in which certain members of this commission address their thoughts to the applicants, and that is what needs to be remedied first..."

Your representative, Sarah Silk, took immediate issue with Mr. Roessiger's remarks and went into a tirade against those of us who have called for reform. Here is what she said:

"I have to take issue with what Peter said... Some of the people that are saying that are so extraordinarily disrespectful... A lot of your angry neighbors are angry because they don't understand what is legal. Some of their anger is from ignorance because they don't understand what the RSA'a are all about. They don't understand and then they ask for things that are clearly illegal... The anger is on one side and the law is on the other."

I think it is incredibly foolish for an elected official to call the public ignorant, something I hope the voters will remember. She likes to hide behind the RSA's, believing somehow that town officials have a monopoly on them. We are not ignorant of the law and we surely are not ignorant about our rights. And many of us know a thing or two about historic preservation. I, for one, have taken graduate seminars in this field. We know perfectly well that there is nothing in either the RSA's or Wolfeboro ordinances that prevents what we have been seeking: common sense standards for what is allowed in the HD and the right to be treated fairly and respectfully and in a timely manner.

This brings me to my final point from the HDC meeting. Standards. I am on record as calling for written standards for at least 4 years. Many of us have been repeating that there are no written regulations specifying what we can or cannot construct. This has enabled successive commissions to apply their own interpretations and biases. Bruce Fichter hates vinyl siding; Eric Keim has said that metal roofs have "no place in the historic district;" and several members are obsessed with 9 over 6 windows. Yet nowhere are any of these things either allowed or prohibited. Nowhere. But now the public won't have to take my word for it as Suzanne Ryan herself admitted it at the last meeting, where she said:

"I'd like to see the draft (guidelines) keep going. In the meantime, if someone comes in with an application, we don't have the specific criteria that says vinyl siding is not going to fly, or that we don't have anything that says you have to have double hung windows or 9 over 6 windows. We have a zoning ordinance with a regulation that talks about scale and size and so forth, but we don't have it defined and that's what a guideline does. I don't want to see all this work just stop. We stopped it for a court case, we stopped it to upgrade our flow chart and that took a lot of work. We upgraded all our applications and then finally we got into the procedures and got them approved."

I would note that none of the 3 statements I have quoted was reflected in the HDC minutes jointly drafted by Ryan and Silk.

Finally a word about these guidelines. The first third was cribbed intact from Exeter. It is an excellent handbook for the people of Exeter, but Exeter's 3 HD's are entirely built up in the downtown area, and that's why there are only a couple of paragraphs on new construction. Much of this does not apply to our rural district. The second third was not even cribbed, but xeroxed from Amherst's HD and is completely inappropriate. Amherst's district is also concentrated and contains many important properties, which is why cutting down a tree is a big deal. But not here in rural Wolfeboro.

Just to give you a flavor of what's in the guidelines, here are some examples. The HDC would require a hearing for changes in topography (as in installing a septic system?); decorative objects (like bird baths?), TV antennas and trash barrels would all require permission; and there are 5 pages on fences with restrictions on stone walls and retaining walls; privacy fences are allowed only on an exceptional basis. You get the idea.

But the most outrageous requirement for those of us surrounded by trees is that "mature trees," defined as 15" in circumference, that's 5" in diameter, would require a certificate of approval and even with that in hand property owners must wait 20 days before cutting in case someone objects. As I just noted, this probably makes a lot of sense in Amherst, but not here.

The Guidelines would have been a start, especially if the HDC had shown willingness to discuss them with ALL residents, not just a few. But it is too little, too late. I have nothing against borrowing from other towns' experience - I would encourage it - but the fact that the HDC is incapable of adapting such material to our town makes our case: Enough is enough. It is time to abolish the HDC."

Paul D. Panaccione
Trask Mountain Road

Here's video from the April 2009 meeting. The video taping started just after Bruce Fichter and Suzanne Ryan had been voted in by the majority as Chair and Vice Chair, without entertaining any other nominations for officers.