2006 CPC Rpt STM1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Community Preservation Act permits the funding of projects for the preservation and rehabilitation of a town's historic assets — including improvements that make them functional for their intended use — whether the buildings in question are owned by government, private non - profit organizations, or privately. The Act recognizes that in many cases, a town's historic assets are not owned publicly and gives a town the latitude to preserve such assets regardless of ownership status. The elevator is key to making the Depot a multi - purpose facility —for example, permitting the display of exhibits on town history that can be stored when a community group wants to have a function in the building. 2. Public - private partnerships for the preservation of historic structures are common and mutually beneficial. Buckman Tavern is an example, where the Town owns the building but has leased it to the LHS on a long -term basis for the LHS to protect and maintain. The Depot Building required significant exterior and interior restoration after the Society purchased the building in 1999. To date, all funding for this $2.3 million project — including the purchase cost of the building — has been raised privately. One of the CPC's criteria is to have an organization raise or match funds -- which the Society has more than completed. 4. Events at the Depot bring people into the Center, which is good for restaurants and other Center businesses which need the foot traffic. Lastly, this grant is a small amount in comparison to what the Town receives in return from the Society from programming, a meeting facility, and restoration of the historic railroad station. The Society paid for the brick walkway that connects the municipal parking lot with Depot Square, and permits the town to use and collect revenue from the parking spaces on Society -owned land to the east of the Depot building. The third CPC project is the request for funding the installation of moveable shelving for the Cary Memorial Building vault, Warrant Article 4 (ii)(c). The shelving is the second and final piece of the Town's vault restoration project, for which climate control efforts were authorized at the March 2006 Town Meeting. The vault is the largest repository of the Town's historic documents. Town Clerk Donna Hooper has noted that "the Town Clerk has statutory responsibility for municipal records and.... there are valuable records which are at risk and already deteriorating because of inadequate or inappropriate storage, methods, materials or climate conditions in the vault ". After completion of this project, some important Town archives housed off -site will be returned to the Town Hall complex. The moveable shelving will provide maximum use of space and provide increased storage capacity for official town documents. In the long term, the Town would like to have an archival center outside the vault to regulate access to the documents. At the end of the October 5th public hearing, the CPC voted unanimously to support all three Warrant Article projects. The CPC is in the process of reviewing 16 projects for spring Town Meeting and will hold a public hearing on December 1e at 7:00 p.m. in Cary Hall to receive public comments. November 28, 2006