Select Board Upholds Demolition Delay Decision

ORLEANS – The select board last week unanimously voted to stand behind a decision from the town’s historical commission in November to impose a demolition delay bylaw on a property on Standish Road, but for a shorter duration.

The owner of properties at 21 and 23 Standish Rd. appealed the commission’s decision relative to 23 Standish to the select board last month. On Jan. 22, the board upheld the commission’s vote, but shortened the delay period from a year to six months.

Last week’s hearing also prompted discussion between the select board and the commission about the need to revise the town’s existing demolition delay bylaw to give it more clarity moving forward.

“We look forward to that in a separate time frame,” select board member Kevin Galligan said.

The property owners plan to raze both structures at 21 and 23 Standish Rd. and build anew on the parcels. The structure at 21 Standish has already been demolished, but disagreements about the historic standing of 23 Standish led the owners to appeal the commission’s decision to call for the demolition delay.

Central to the appeal was how the town registers and catalogs its historic properties. The owners first got approval in 2017 from the conservation commission, zoning board of appeals and the historical commission to conduct demolition at 21 Standish, which is listed on the town’s survey of historic properties. But 23 Standish was not at the time listed on the town’s survey of historic properties, so it did not require historical commission review.

After a delay in construction required that the owners go back to the boards again for local review in early 2024, the historical commission this time found the building at 23 Standish to be a historically significant structure, thereby subjecting it to commission review and the demolition delay bylaw.

Ron Petersen and Joan Nix of the historical commission argued in December that while not individually identified as a historic property by the town, 23 Standish is identified as part of a historic area, and that a form identifying the area as historic is on file with the Massachusetts Historical Commission. A “Form A” identifying the historic area was submitted to the state commission in 2018, after the project initially went before the town for local review.

The select board on Jan. 22 said that it had secured an opinion from Town Counsel Michael Ford that the state’s recognition of 23 Standish as part of that historic area gives the board grounds to uphold the commission’s decision to impose the delay bylaw.

 Sarah Turano-Flores, the attorney representing the property owners, thanked the select board for its consideration of her clients’ appeal, but suggested that the demolition delay bylaw might benefit from some revision. She said as written, the bylaw does not state that data on file with the state historical commission is intended to serve as the town’s survey of historic properties. In 2017, she said, the town used a notebook to catalog historic properties in town.

“I think the facts you just recited reflect that there is some ambiguity in the wording of the bylaw that has led us to where we are today,” she told the board.

“I’ve researched a number of our bylaws, Sarah, and we really could use some clean up,” Galligan said.

However, Galligan said that according to Ford, the submission of the Form A to the state commission does signify “intent” from the town to use that information as its own town survey. He also noted that the town’s historical commission on its website directs people looking to research historic properties to the state’s MACRIS database, the system that catalogs historic properties for the state commission.

“And that’s been up for some time,” he said. “So I think there’s been guidance intentionally by the regulatory body that expects MACRIS to be the source.”

But Matt Cole of Cape Associates, the developer hired to work on the Standish properties, expressed concern with going strictly by the data on file with the state. He said in the historic area in question, 15 of the 168 properties identified have been built since 2000.

“I really find that to be problematic, that we might adopt that outside of the town meeting mechanism,” he said.
There was also discussion Jan. 22 about the need for more “tools” to protect historic properties beyond the demolition delay bylaw. Petersen said as of now, the bylaw is the “only regulatory authority that the commission and the town has to protect the historic nature and character of the town.”

Mathison said as demand for housing continues to grow with less available land in town to support new construction, the delay bylaw might not be enough to entice people to preserve historic properties over building new.

“We’ve identified some of the flaws or challenges with demolition delay, but in future conversations I would love to hear about other tools,” said Andrea Reed of the select board.

Nix pushed back some on the board’s preference to reduce the length of the delay. She said many towns impose demolition delays of a year like Orleans, while others impose longer delays of 18 or 24 months.

“So instituting six months from our point of view is going backwards,” she said.

But while the intention of the demolition delay is to allow property owners time to reconsider demolition or make other plans to preserve a historic structure, select board chair Mark Mathison said the owners of the Standish Road properties have made clear their intention to demolish both buildings.

“In this particular case we know what the inevitable outcome is going to be,” he said. “The house next door is already gone. This one’s going to go whether it’s six months, 12 months or something in between.”

The six-month delay went into effect Jan. 22.

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com