Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[1:39] Nathaniel King: Good evening and welcome to the June 11th, 2026 meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. My name is Nathaniel King, I am the chair of the commission. The commission members will now introduce themselves, starting with Vice Chair Krupke. Hi, I'm Rebecca Krupke. Hello, I'm Peter Sachs.
[2:02] Katie Coe: Hi, I'm Katie Coe.
[2:05] Nathaniel King: Also in attendance from the City of Bangor is Mike Pullen. Mike Pullen, architect.
[2:12] Anya Collette: Anya Collette, planning officer. Matt Alciero, planning analyst. And we also have our new development assistant Kaylee sitting in the audience.
Unfinished Business
[2:22] Nathaniel King: So, the Historic Preservation Commission has two roles. First, we serve as the Bangor Center Revitalization Area Design Review Committee, designated under Section 71 of the City Ordinances, which covers review issues in the downtown and waterfront areas of Bangor. Second, the commission has several responsibilities under the historic preservation section of the city ordinances, Section 148, including issuing certificates of appropriateness for construction of or changes to buildings within the city's designated historic districts. Depending on location, we may need to review a proposal under both design review and historic preservation criteria. If all regular members are in attendance, our associate members participate in the meeting but do not vote on motions. In the event that any regular members are absent, associate members will vote such that there are a total of five votes for any motion. A historic preservation application must receive four affirmative votes for a certificate of appropriateness to be issued. A design review application must receive three affirmative votes for approval. So the order of the meeting. I will call the applicants and the order they appear on the agenda. When I call your project, I will ask you to present your application from the podium. Once you have made your presentation, I will first ask for the consultant's report, second for questions from commission members, and third for any questions or comments from the audience. When questions are completed, the commission will have a discussion of the proposal and the standards of review under which the proposal is being considered. When discussion. When the discussion is complete, the Commission will take action on the proposal to approve, deny, or otherwise handle it. When a proposal is being evaluated under both design review and historic preservation criteria, the Commission will make separate motions related to each type of review. I will then ask for Commission member votes. So, some final points for applicants before the HPC. If it looks like your project will not be approved, you may choose to withdraw your application, amend your application, and then resubmit your application for a future meeting, saving the application fee. If you disagree with the decision of the Commission regarding your project, you have the right to appeal the decision to the Board of Appeals. All projects need to be started within six months and completed within a year. Otherwise a new application to the Commission will need to be made and approved prior to starting your project. Before we begin, are there any additions to the agenda or consideration? I am hearing none, so we will proceed then with the first item on the agenda, which, need to pull up my notes to see what that is. So the first item on the agenda is a certificate of appropriateness, or as I was, the first item is old business, and that is meeting minutes from the May 14th, 2026 meeting.
[5:40] Katie Coe: I'd like to move to accept the meeting minutes from the meeting of May 14th, 26, 2026.
New Business
[5:50] Nathaniel King: Seconded. Okay, yes, and I also vote yes, and the meeting minutes are approved. Moving on to new business. So the first item of new business is a certificate of appropriateness and design review, 43-49 Main Street, Map Lot 042, 107 Main Street Historic District. The applicant is Rhines LLC. Your microphone is muted. Hello.
[6:48] Speaker D (unidentified): Can you hear me? Yes, sorry about that. I was listening as an attendant, and as you were introducing or bringing up this new business, I was then asked to join as a panelist. So there was a little gap of communication on my end there. So sorry. No worries. Thank you for meeting with me. My name is Nick Mullins. I'm one of the owners of Rhines LLC. Unfortunately, we woke up one February morning to realize that somebody decided to chisel the side of our downtown building at 4349 Main Street, and went on for hours before anything happened, and we were faced with a bunch of damage, as you can see. Obviously I'm not there, so I'm not exactly sure how I am presenting this. I assume that you have the application in front of you with the supplements accompanied with. Okay, I see you nodding your head. Correct. So what we're looking to do, we'll, we'll jump. right into it obviously when you get into things of this nature there's two things you have to take into account right which is to keep this historical building to as much as we can to keep it historic looking to keep with the themes and the architecture that was used in that building at the time of construction and number two the feasibility of the project obviously we were faced with two options we totally redo that, pillar, matching it, 's just nearly impossible. It's been aged for 150 years, almost. Even if you get a marble or looking stone, can't really tell if it's marble or granite, Mike might have an opinion on that. But either way, I mean, trying to match, it's going to be very, difficult. And quite frankly, I don't think it will look that good if you tried that. So we could either just redo the whole thing, which would be about thirty to thirty five thousand dollars, or we could do what I'm proposing, which is still gonna cost about ten thousand dollars. We're looking to, instead of trying to match that pattern color stone exactly and it not looking good, you know, it's kind of like you're trying to wear, you think you're wearing the same shade of blue and then you have a dark blue shirt and then some weird dark blue pants and it just looks odd, you know. We're not, we don't want that to happen on a beautiful building downtown like that where Rebecca's was for almost 40 years. So we think by contrasting the color and then creating, I'll call it a footer below it, similar to the cast iron pillars to the left, we think that would look more intentional and actually look more pleasing to the eye if we did that. So we're looking to do that, as you can see in, I think it is, yeah, supplement B and C in the application, where we have that drawing, that drawing it is similar to the footer. Again, I'm calling this a footer. It's similar to the one on the left-hand side that you can't see in that picture. The one on the left-hand side of a cast iron column is smaller because it is a smaller column, but there is a theme here. And we would do our best to make sure that would match similar design to that. We're looking to build it out a little bit, keeping consistent with the theme and bumping out again to make it look intentional. It'll make it look good. There's also a lot of damage on the store front in the middle that also is circled to the in the oval area, a lot of chipping breaking there. Where we're going to have black granite on the pillar down here, we figure move forward with the theme and keep the black there in the middle, and I think in the middle it would look good while keeping the marble on the outside. Again, I think the contrast would, it would look good, and I don't think it would look patchy if we did it that way. And again, the same reason, trying to match the granite I or marble, whatever that is, I just, it's hard to find, and I'm not sure that it's going to look good, and I think, I think that was really it in the application that we were, we were looking for approval on. Okay.
[11:43] Nathaniel King: We can go ahead then and proceed with the consultant's report. Mike, if you're ready. Thank you, Nick, very thorough.
[11:50] Speaker E (unidentified): in my response back to the commission you got my responses there's an illustration in the back just shows kind of a storefront kind of a general storefront just to make sure we're all talking about the same materials and the same areas Nick especially on the building is in a commercial storefront the lower portion that contacts the ground is considered the bulkhead that's the term that's used the bulkhead really is that space all the way from the ground level up to what will be a display elevated display floor, if you will. This building is a bit unique in that it looks, Nick, like you have a grill, like a cast iron grill covering up what may be prismatic windows or some other, if they're windows, they were done to provide light into the basement. So yeah, I don't think they are anymore. I think they're boarded up there, but anyway, they were, they would have been. Yeah, they were at one time. Yeah. So in essence, starting with the history of the building, this is an important building. It's a circa 1872, according to Deborah Thompson. It's, she refers to it as the Bass Rhines Hatch block. It was designed by architect George Orff, was with detailing similar to the 1871 Pickering block up on Main Street, which I think, Nick, you and Courtney are own as well. Yes, we do. So this is your second George Orff building, which is wonderful. Yeah, if you look at the details next time you get a chance, look at the window hoods, which are incredibly ornate in granite, and they're similar on both buildings. Okay. this one was broken up into three bays an important detail of this building when you look at any photographs you look at this photograph that i provided to you 'll see that the building has a real strong structure to it he breaks it up into three bays of triple windows in each one and around 1922 or just over 100 years ago rhines and company made dramatic changes to the storefront of this building they developed this recessed condition you see here today so it dates back over 100 years and Ryan's and Company was, if for those that are not familiar, was a very high-end fashion store, women's clothing. They existed till like the 1970s and then they were gone, the very classy store. So that's a little bit of a brief on the history. I gave you also a backup of what Deborah Thompson had to say about the building, and she did go on to say, she referred to this as the insertion of a handsome recessed 20th century storefront. So I just want you to be aware that when we're talking about that base portion of the storefront, it's the bulkhead, and the bulkheads sometimes are paneled on a lot of buildings downtown, but it's quite unique to have one that has or had prismatic windows that provided light to the basement, quite unique. So what I think, Nick, what I understand that you're proposing is obviously the base portion of your column, the center column that was, we'll just say it was marble, that was above the green marble. So on that lower portion, I think I'm, I think the commission's pretty clear, or should be, about the use of a black polished granite on that lower base. So I think what Nick is asking is if they were to do that and replaced the green marble of the bulkhead in three places with a black polished granite, is that what Nick, is that what you're asking tonight? Yes. Okay, so you would retain though the metal, the cast iron metal grills that are there. I would, if anything, I would just
[16:01] Speaker D (unidentified): upgrade them. I have, I've been in contact with someone that can save them. So those would not
[16:06] Speaker E (unidentified): go away. If anything, they just look better. Perfect. Okay. So my points were, and I think Nick, you probably addressed a couple of these already, but I'll go through what my points were. How thick is the black polished granite that's proposed? It is, I'm going to, cause I don't have
[16:24] Speaker D (unidentified): the exact width, but it is almost identical to what's already there in its countertop width
[16:32] Speaker E (unidentified): About that's about, yeah, what's there is about three quarters of an inch thick, right? Yeah, okay, that's for your information. It appears that the center cast iron column is now exposed to the base, the stone veneers to remove. The column capital is interesting. If you look at that photo that I provided, you look at the capital, even though there's cast iron columns on either side of this central one, the capital is the same on all of them. It's rather unique, so that may have been a cast iron column in the center and it might have been detailed similar to the others once upon a time. So again, Deborah Thompson's reference to the handsome recessed 20th century shop front and the green vein stone on the column relates visually to the stone on the store, on the bulkhead. So it's up to the commission to determine if you think that with the use of the black polished granite on the base of the column will that relate as well to a black polished surround on the bulkheads. That's for you. So I would just say that this is a unique feature of the building, both the bulkheads and the column, and I personally don't think that there's any particular issues with the black polished granite on the column, but I think for me, as long as the cast iron grills are being retained, which is an important feature,
[17:57] Speaker D (unidentified): yes, and I can touch on that, Mike, and when and when I'm talking about those grills, I 'm not talking about removing those at all. I'm only talking about replacing the stone above and below
[18:10] Speaker E (unidentified): with the same black polished stone, right? That's all I had, guys. Okay, thank you, Nick.
[18:18] Nathaniel King: Does the, do the commission members have any questions for the applicant?
[18:21] Speaker F (unidentified): I have some questions. I just have for clarity, hi Nick, hello, how are you? I'm hanging in there. So I have some, I need clarity questions answered, okay. So the column will have the black granite now. If it's not the same exact size as the marble, how are you going to kind of rectify like the potential like that might happen between the two materials? Or yes,
[18:53] Speaker D (unidentified): good question. So because of that, the natural, the nature of the bulkhead, I now know it as not the footer, those do they naturally, it's going to be a flare out to show some distinction between the actual main pillar and the bottom of it, so that will naturally flare out, so you're not going
[19:15] Speaker F (unidentified): To see any sort of weird connection. Okay, good. And then the bulkheads currently have green, but were they kind of attacked at the same time as the pillar? Is that what I'm understanding? Or is it over time the wear has happened on the bulkheads? Attacked.
[19:36] Speaker D (unidentified): You can see there are some clear marks of some chiseling and hammering and things of that nature. Really, probably even some on the left-hand side of the storefront too that I'm going to kind of look the other way at with the cost of this.
[19:53] Speaker F (unidentified): And then so you're thinking of taking the entire bulkhead marble out and replacing it with black granite, or only the parts that are damaged?
[20:04] Speaker D (unidentified): For the sake of uniformity here, where we're kind of replacing this pillar, the bottom of this pillar with the black polish, and most of the damage is in the middle section of the facade, I think it would look better instead of trying to replace just the parts that were damaged, because these long pieces of stone on the bulkhead underneath the windows, those are single pieces of stone. So if you were to try to cut them and just kind of splice and put patches in, it wouldn't look good. So we think it would just be better to get longer pieces of stone and just replacing the entire things. Yep.
[20:46] Speaker F (unidentified): I think that's all my questions. Okay. Katie, Peter?
[20:51] Nathaniel King: Me? Okay, I do not have any questions. I think you've pretty well explained this, and I think your materials show it pretty clearly. Public hearing. Is there anyone in the public that has any comment? Hearing none. Do we have anyone, no one else on Zoom? Okay, hearing none, I'm gonna close the public hearing and we will move on to discussion amongst the commission. Discussion. I mean, I think it's gonna, I think it will work having the black granite. I understand replacing a marble, like it's difficult. Oh yeah. Absolutely, it's a smart, and that he's keeping the metal, the cast iron, girl, there, and then making some, I guess, repair or treatment to it. I think that's, I think the cast iron is probably, to me, the more defining sort of feature than maybe the color of the ground of the stone. No, I think this will, I think it'll look sharp and obviously much better than it's looking right now. Absolutely. Any other, we have any other comments, any other clarifications? Feather, Mr. Poland
[22:10] Katie Coe: Or Mr. Mullins, it seems like it's the closest to a like-to-like transition as
[22:16] Speaker D (unidentified): They could do, which is fantastic. Yeah, and we tried, sorry to interrupt, and a nod at the black when we were doing the storefront for 105 Main Street to bring it back to that gothic era look. We just, we would love it if most of downtown looked like that anyway. So we think that it's going to be a real, not a real good nod to the era, and instead of going with some crazy color, you know, we think that's a good choice. Okay, I guess one quick question, Mr.
[22:51] Nathaniel King: Mullins is, what do you know exactly what sort of treatment you're going to be doing to that cast
[22:55] Speaker D (unidentified): iron? It's going to be where there are some missing because there's a, there's missing, well, I'll call them fingers, and brackets, and things like that. I have a welder that can, he can re-weld, he can, so it will be with more cast iron, so there's going to be some welding. We are going to keep that black, so any sort of painting that needs to be done to it after we're done sanding and fabricating, we're then going to paint it black. Okay, thank you very much. As what looks like was the original color, black or some sort of dark color? Okay, that is all the questions I have.
[23:37] Nathaniel King: Any other discussion before we move to the next portion? Okay, so I would entertain a motion as soon as I can find the page that has all the things, it's criteria for us to vote on. Page seven, is it picture on page 23? There we go, page seven. All right, so I will let Peter and Katie fight over who gets to read and who gets the second, but I would entertain a motion that the entirety of the procedural background has been met. All right, sure, I motion to declare that the entirety
[24:19] Speaker G (unidentified): of the procedural background has been met. I
[24:25] Katie Coe: second that. Okay, starting with Katie. Yes,
[24:33] Nathaniel King: yes, and I also vote yes. Now I would entertain a motion for part one under the applicable provisions and finding findings. You just want to switch off? Sure, I'd like to move
[24:50] Katie Coe: that part one, number one, the commission finds that based on exhibits one and four through 5, the application satisfies historic preservation code 148-9A, requiring any alteration of the historic structure will preserve or enhance its historical and architectural character.
[25:15] Speaker G (unidentified): Seconded. Okay. Rebecca? Yes.
[25:19] Nathaniel King: Yes. Yes. I also vote yes. Now, I would also entertain a motion if there's any sections under Part 2 which may not be applicable, which I am assuming is why they are highlighted yellow. So I would entertain a motion if the commission agrees that those highlighted yellow on the sheet are not applicable to this application. Sure, I move that the sections
[25:46] Speaker G (unidentified): highlighted yellow which is part two sections one five six seven eight and nine as well as Part 3, Sections 1, 2, and 3 be considered not struck and considered not relevant.
[26:04] Nathaniel King: Seconded. Okay. Katie? Yes. Yes. Yes. And I also vote yes. So we find that Section Part 2, Sections 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, as well as Part 3, Sections 1, 2, and 3 are not applicable to this application. I would now entertain individual motions starting with Part 2, Section 2.
[26:30] Katie Coe: I would like to move that Part 2, Section 2. The commission finds that based on Exhibits 1 and 4 and through 5, the application satisfies Historic Preservation Code 1489B2B, requiring that rehabilitation work does not destroy the distinguishing qualities nor character of the structure and its environment.
[26:52] Speaker G (unidentified): Seconded. Rebecca? Yes. Yes. Yes. And I also vote yes. I motion that the commission find that based on exhibits 1 and 4.5 that the application satisfies historic preservation code section 1489B2C requiring that while repair is preferable to replacement in any event that replacement of deteriorated architectural features is necessary the new material should match the material being replaced in composition design texture and finish seconded yes and I
[27:30] Katie Coe: also vote yes I would like to move that part two section four the commission finds that based on exhibits one and four through five the application satisfies historic preservation code 148-9b2d requiring that the distinctive stylistic features or examples of skilled craftsmanship which characterize historic structures is not damaged or destroyed whenever possible seconded yes
[27:59] Nathaniel King: and I also vote yes so we will move on and to the decision section B I move that the that the
[28:08] Speaker G (unidentified): commission find that based off of the findings in parts one through two section four of this document the project meets the requirements for a certificate of appropriateness and therefore grants a certificate of appropriateness and design review permit for this proposed project seconded
[28:23] Nathaniel King: Rebecca yes and I also vote yes well I believe that wraps up your application Mr.
[28:34] Speaker D (unidentified): Mullins fantastic thank you everybody and we will get going on that in the next few weeks here you'll see an updated beautiful storefront we're excited thank you so much looking forward to it awesome thank you hey will I be receiving the certificate of approval or appropriateness
[28:53] Anya Collette: In an email or in the mail, yep, so we'll send it to you. It'll be probably in a few weeks because the commission actually has to adopt it at their next meeting, but you're free to move forward anyway. It's just a formality. So awesome, well thank you everybody for your time, have a nice
[29:10] Nathaniel King: night. Thank you as well. So we'll move on to the next item of new business, the parks historic dis or parks historic designation public hearing. So is there anyone here who wishes to talk about the parks historic designation public hearing? Please, when you approach, ensure that the microphone is turned on and let us know who you are, where you're from. Hi, thank you ladies and gentlemen
[29:37] Ben Kelleher: of the HPC. My name is Ben Kelleher. I represent Bolkos Properties. We own property adjacent to Broadway Park. Just a quick question for anybody who cares to answer on the council, what is the effect on property surrounding the park, on the abutting streets of French and Pine, with respect to governance by the HPC for maintenance rehabilitation items? Are
[30:00] Anya Collette: properties on those streets affected? No, yep, it doesn't put any restrictions on the properties around it, just focuses on impacts to the parks. So thank you so much.
[30:12] Nathaniel King: You're welcome, thank you for commenting. Is there anyone else? No one on Zoom I assume, and no, okay. Well I will close the public historic design, parks historic designation in public hearing, and we will move on to the next item of business, the, sorry, oh go ahead, sorry, you have to make a
[30:33] Anya Collette: recommendation to council on whether to, oh cool, we have any discussion amongst ourselves. It might be good, you know, if you have extra after our workshop last time, and I don't know if you want me to say anything extra as well, yeah, about it. Well
[30:52] Nathaniel King: we'll go down and find it.
[30:55] Speaker G (unidentified): Okay, yeah, well let's just go, yeah. To be honest, I'm inclined to oppose this because I like, after what, after speaking about what you said about speaking about what this actually does, certainly I recognize the historic importance of the parks, but this isn't just a memorandum to show its importance. It's, it adds a legal process to any change of the parks. And we have to think about what this process, like the effect of this process, whether it improve it whether it improves bangor whether it improves the whether it whether it serves the purpose of the commission and i think and it and thus far when it when you spoke when you spoke to me about it 's you emphasized the things it wouldn't change the things where we would have to get the things where we would in our best judgment choose not to change and the things we would preserve would be stuff Like you specifically mentioned curvature of the paths. That is, if the city decides to change the curvature of the paths of the park, to change it more than as we saw in the presentation, it's already been radically changed since it was first done, and facing the needs of the city and facing the change, the changing in budget conditions and conditions of the city, then I believe it may cause additional cost, additional hassle in improving the park. It may cause additional, it may cause additional, I worry it may cause additional more problems than it would solve furthermore about like the specifically on curvature of the paths would this if we were if the town if the city wanted to make the park more say wheelchair accessible and wanted to do a big and to change the paths such that they would be wider be it so that way it's easier to push a stroller down or to or take a wheelchair down would that be a change that some would that account that this committee depending on the composition and The judgment displayed, would oppose for being a change from the original
[33:17] Speaker E (unidentified): Purpose? If I could, yeah, you would treat alterations to these parks the same way that you, the commission reviews any application. So the commission gets an opportunity to consider the importance and the impact, what changes would be, using the same standards when you review the ones that you're familiar with. Yes, the city can make whatever proposals they will desire, and the commission will have an opportunity to protect those things that are important historically, these parks. It's as simple as that I don't, I think cultural landscapes like parks are typically protected, especially in the case where the urban parks, because when road widenings occur, modifications to the roads, you consider the impacts of those widenings and a historic element locally or nationally, so you have that going for you. So I don't think there's anything to be fearful about necessarily. I think what it means is that, and the reference to the curvature is just something that shows up on occasion even in aerial maps, it's really almost not evident on the ground. So I don't think anybody, and I would not think that the commission would ever want to hold, say, the city to those original layouts, you know, necessarily. So there's flexibility, and it, you'll be reviewing it, any modifications or alterations, just the way you review every application that comes to you.
[34:51] Speaker G (unidentified): I suppose, but I feel like we're in a situation where the best situation is that the commission chooses to do nothing when the, when the town proposes a repair or anything, or anything similar.
[35:05] Speaker F (unidentified): So my thing is, okay, so my issue with the park, by keeping the historical board and having a say in that, is that Bangor is incredibly unique because we do have so many pocket parks that have been preserved. If you look at any other city, there's just not that variety. I mean, almost every single district of houses has its own unique park area. So that's something that we really want to kind of try to protect, because my fear is, and I don't, I think that like what Mike had mentioned, it was kind of, it was unique and it was cool to see that there used to be curvatures in the park. In my understanding of growing up here for the last 47 years, I literally thought that was just natural footpath because it's been so like run down. So I don't think that 's as much as in like a fear in my mind as much as the freaking, I'm sorry,, the city or state coming in and being like, let's make this road wider. We have too much traffic. And all of a sudden half the park is chopped off. So that can happen so quickly and so easily. And if we had a chance to just say, hold on a second, we have a say in that, I want to at least have my voice heard about you taking away half the land for a new widening of the road because you don't think the traffic's flowing properly. So like that's my thing with the whole pocket park issue and kind of trying to preserve it.
[36:32] Katie Coe: Anything else, by all means, I mean, my concern is always, especially now, a concern that we're not valuing the parks enough and that the park might be determined it would be appropriate for as much as we need new housing I prefer not to have those in the parks. So my concern would be that the park would get requisitioned for some other purpose and while I would think it would be great to have more infrastructure in our parks that would suit the needs of the community, bathrooms, that kind of thing, I would like to protect the fact that we have these parks at all as well and I feel like perhaps it might also give us an opportunity for more funding sources for the parks and that might be something that might be lovely to be able to give us more opportunities to invest in them. So the, if these are covered
[37:37] Nathaniel King: under the register or they get listed, if say the city needs to replace playground equipment, that's going to come in front of us as I'd like a minor revision or if it's a complete install of new playground equipment, would that be more a line of like they got to come presented in front, presented to us, how's that going to work because I know playground equipment usually gives
[38:00] Anya Collette: out every five or ten years or so. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's, I guess it's up to you guys how you think we should consider that, you know, our current processes with a minor revision we can also choose to send it to the full commission if we feel like it needs that extra review. So I guess I would ask you all that but I just want to note that this wouldn't put them on the register, it would just write designation. I used registered my own, I'm
[38:31] Nathaniel King: sorry, apologize, those are incorrect words. No, I think it's me personally, you know, I think it's important that we protect cultural spaces and cultural spaces are more than just our buildings, are more than just, you know, monuments and things like that, sites, structures, objects, districts and I think parks, you know, I had the opportunity one point in my life to be able to live near Savannah, Georgia and being able to be in a place where they have beautiful squares, beautiful parks, you know, we've seen Forest Gump, you've seen some of those parks, you know, and I couldn't, you know, I know they couldn't bear the thought of it, but you know, just the idea of these gorgeous parks in Bangor that, you know, you would like to hope that our city will always protect them, that will always have city counselors that have the best interests, you know, these sorts of things in mind, but as we've seen, you know, it doesn't take but a generation or two before a park that's left to a community gets sold for, you know, for some other use. So I think me personally, given the cultural significance of these parks, the designers that designed them, how these parks have grown and changed with the city, and how they've changed with how we as people interact with the space, to me, I feel like that's something that's worth protecting. And also, I think it is good that landowners and property owners that abut these parks aren't going to have any negative impacts on their properties that might cause some heartburn. And at the end of the day, if we have to, if future commissions have to hear the parks department talk about replacing playground equipment or making something more handicap accessible, you know, I think that's, I think that's a good thing. Rather than to not protect these parks and, you know, I look at the paper in 15 years and find out they sold it for a Walmart neighborhood market or something, God forbid. Bit so I am inclined to support and I will support the designation of the parks, but with that, do we have enough people to vote on putting it forth to council? Yeah, well speaking
[40:51] Katie Coe: to his concerns, I do think it would be a good idea to include changes made for accessibility updates to playground structures, the continuation of the maintenance for the AA adult playground equipment, those as being items that do not need to come before us.
[41:11] Nathaniel King: Right. Would that be acceptable? Yeah, I think that's, you know, I think we can easily say that like if you're replacing within the existing footprint of a playground, right? You know, we talk about that in my line of work, where if you're doing work within an existing disturbed footprint, you're not really impacting anything new. That footprint's already been impacted by the installation of, say, playground equipment. Where we may want to say we want to look into it or have it presented is if we're going outside that footprint. So now maybe we're taking a playground and, well, we got some great funding. Now we want to make it even bigger. Well, then maybe we want to look at that expansion. Are we going to impact where that curved path once was or where the where the well railway once ran through just so we can make sure that well if we are going to impact it we can account for it or maybe what if we just turn the playground this direction something like that but I think you're right that general maintenance and you know you got to replace a swing we don't need to they don't need to come in front of the
[42:07] Anya Collette: council yeah mission to do something like that maintenance is already exempt okay but I think it would be good since we don't currently have parks or other landscapes designated in the code I think for the next round of ordinance updates it would be good to make some clarifications like
[42:23] Speaker G (unidentified): that for yeah it's fundamentally I see this as a public space for the use it's for the use of the public and that we've seen thus far that a lot of people have come before us saying that you know I've talked about the you know additional costs additional difficulty in getting use necessary in maintaining the historic requirements of it I do worry that we may
[42:51] Nathaniel King: be putting that burden on the city I don't believe that we are you know I believe these were parks that had more historic features like I'm thinking again the part of the Savannah squares or I guess Central Park you know New York City or something like that where you have some existing features and structures you know cast iron fencing or you've got monuments statues or might be buildings or something that exists within that you know the duck house in Portland
[43:20] Katie Coe: if that was historic you know the waterfall in Cascade Park for example the waterfall in
[43:26] Nathaniel King: Cascade Park so if you've got these existing features like that then yeah you're right that is going to put some onus on the city to make sure that they are abiding by their own code and not going to tear out a historically significant feature but as far as the rest of the parks go I think this doesn't put any additional strain or burden in my opinion doesn't put any additional strain or burden on the city I think you have a legit concern oh yeah
[43:53] Speaker F (unidentified): And I think that it's super smart because we haven't ever touched this area before to make sure we map it out appropriately and talk about like, okay, well, what are the guidelines, what, where am I going to be designated to make a decision? Oh, yeah. So, yeah, that's great. It's good. It's smart. I think overall, I just want to make sure that the chunk of land is preserved because I can see that getting taken away real quick.
[44:16] Speaker G (unidentified): I mean, the central historically valuable feature of this is that it is a park, is that it's usable as a park. And I think certainly like we as a community should work together to preserve that and make sure that our laws just are really helped to enable that, yeah, and listen, giving it a designation
[44:37] Nathaniel King: isn't gonna limit the ability of people to use the park either. It's not gonna say he can't take his kids to go, you know, take, go down the slide or something at the park because it's historic now. It doesn't change any of that. You can still go watch movies, play frisbee, hacky sack, if kids still do that, I don't know, I'm old. Yeah, that's my intention of
[44:57] Speaker F (unidentified): what I thought about with this all is that is protecting the land so that we, he can go with to the park way across from his house and throw a frisbee and it's not going to be like, you know, new housing or whatever, or get rid of the market, yeah, or enable them, right, another benefit
[45:13] Speaker E (unidentified): that when you talk about financing options for future improvements is as a local, locally designated resource, historic resource, you as a CLG have access to monies that can be put to those for any rehabilitation of those or signage or identity of these parks to make sure that people, visitors and people that live here are aware of the importance of what these parks are. There might actually be some, you might consider doing some like the museum in the streets project where you actually put information up that shows the evolution of this park, you know, so people appreciate what it, what it was and what it continues to be. So all very valid points, you make really good points, but this kind of takes it to another level and it makes the state and others and visitors especially aware of the importance of these parks, that they've been in our history, how they were some of the earliest things that were laid out in the grid of the city, pretty remarkable. So anyway, yep, that's all I got. Do
[46:24] Nathaniel King: we need a motion still to
[46:26] Anya Collette: Present this to it'll be a motion to recommend to council whether it ought to pass. I would recommend saying ought to pass, and then if you feel like it shouldn't, then vote no on it. Okay, so we will
[46:38] Nathaniel King: entertain a motion that this ought to be sent to the Bangor City Council. Yeah, could we, would it
[46:46] Speaker G (unidentified): be possible for us to like put a recommendation to have this, to have this flexibility, to have the flexibility to maintain, to improve the park as a park, that can't really be put in
[46:59] Anya Collette: here because all this ordinance would do is just list the parks under historic landmarks. But what we can do is, like I said, with the second round of ordinance changes later this
[47:09] Nathaniel King: year, we can work on that language, so we could put language into the updated ordinances for historic preservation to cover the parks, Portugal lands, right? Yeah, okay, well, entertain any emotions if
[47:31] Speaker G (unidentified): you're, yeah, sure, it's, do we need a majority to pass, or would it have to be unanimous? It would have to be a majority, it has to be a majority in that, yeah, and in that, in that case, I imagine that I'm going to just vote like vote no to as a means of expressing my concerns, but certainly look positively on the full, the proposed full series of changes.
[47:59] Katie Coe: Then I'd like to make a motion for us to send this to the council with the recommendation that it ought to pass. Seconded. Yes, I know, no,
[48:17] Nathaniel King: yes, I also vote yes. You did great recognizing that he voted no. The motion passes, and we to send this to the city council. So I believe that wraps up that piece of business. Let me go back up to the top of my Andy dandy handout, and the next item of business, much anticipated historic preservation ordinance changes public hearing.
[48:46] Anya Collette: Yep. So nothing has changed since the last workshop on this. I did just want to make a few comments in response to some of the points that were sent to you. Number one, the point about CLG funding and how we've only, we've only received 15,000 in the last 5 years. The only reason for that is because we didn't have the staff time to apply for additional CLG grants. But they make the CLG grants available every year, and sometimes they actually do 2 rounds of CLG grants. So hopefully, I'm hoping moving forward after we're done with our land development code update, we can have more time to apply for CLG grants. I do also plan to apply for it if they open around up this fall. Do plan to have us apply for that, and I do want to come to you all later this summer with ideas for what we would use that for, but I just want to make that point. And then also, and I will say too, like previous to 2020, it was like 2018 through 2020, we had multiple CLG grants that we did also. I just want to point out that, you know, we didn't intentionally make any part of the ordinance more subjective. I think what maybe what he was referring to in there was that we, what I had pointed out at council was like when we talk about technical and economic feasibility, not wanting to limit people too much by setting very strict parameters, and then somebody else comes along and they have different parameters that you might still feel they meet the definition of it being technically and economically infeasible, but then they would be limited by a certain set of parameters. And then the point about the Secretary of Interior language, so the proposed amendments that they had submitted used Secretary of Interior guidelines, but those are just guidelines and not standards. We actually took word for word the standards from the Secretary of Interior when talking about rehabilitation, with the addition of where technically and economically feasible, so we added that in to provide hopefully that extra flexibility. And then as far as the pre-application meetings, I, you know, I was actually looking at with the second round of ordinance changes to require pre-application meetings because I do feel like they're so helpful, and we've already had quite a few with applicants and I do feel like it's really helped guide them and make them more ready for you all with an application. I know that, you know, we could argue about whether Mike should, you know, be guiding you on what a character defining feature is, but I think that he's well qualified to do that because expert in architecture and our historic secretary standards, so you know, I think, and as far as the timing on the pre-application meetings, like we, as soon as we get an application, we reach out to the applicant to see whether they can do a pre-op meeting with us if we feel like it needs one, and with Mr. Farren's application in particular, he, we had intended to send him to the next month's meeting, but he had requested it the next week's meeting, so we did expedite it for that specific application, but generally we try to, you know, give them more time after that pre-op meeting to get revisions back to us to make sure they're prepared for you all. So I just wanted to respond to a few of those things. And if we do, you know, if issues come up with this, you know, again, we are working on the second round of ordinance changes, which I do feel like is gonna take us a while to do. And so we can also edit it again. So just wanted to put that out there.
[52:37] Nathaniel King: Okay. Thank you. Is there any other discussion?
[52:40] Katie Coe: Question about the required pre-app meeting. My only concern with that, I think that it's a great idea. My only concern with that is there might be a financial issue for some folks in not being able to leave their jobs during regular business hours. For that specific instant? Is there any, I don't want you guys to have to work outside of your regular business hours either. Is there any sort of alternative that could be set up? Could it be done over Zoom? That kind of thing? Oh yeah. I mean, we could always do it over Zoom. Awesome. All right. As long as we've got options for folks that might be financially incapable of leaving their workplace. Yeah. And the other thing was, I saw that you have a website link in here and I know that the state of Maine website got updated recently and a lot of the links ended up dead. I'm sure this link is fine however having a link in an ordinance I know it's not great but I just
[53:36] Anya Collette: I just wanted to give people a specific thing. Right. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was
[53:42] Katie Coe: trying to figure out if there would be another way to do that and I don't think so. I just figured I would note it. Those are my only two concerns. I
[53:49] Speaker F (unidentified): think I was mentioning a little bit but the letter that we received this afternoon it said that there were no workshops
[54:01] Anya Collette: but we did have a workshop about the changes, correct? Yeah. What I'm thinking he meant was maybe after that workshop with the revisions and I will point out so a couple things so they submitted this ordinance amendments but I had no idea because that was in the transition time where I was coming up from maternity leave and I didn't know that they had submitted ordinance amendments until they brought them to this commission when we did the workshop but I knew that they were stakeholders and so I Had let them know about this workshop, and actually even before that, you know, I told them when we had the pre-ap meeting with them that we were working on these ordinance changes, and they asked to see them, and I gave it to them. And not that I'm saying it was on them to schedule a meeting with us, but they didn't reach out about that. And then I let them know when we were having the workshop, and I offered to meet with them to talk about it, and I did not receive a response. So, you know, maybe we could have tried harder, but I do feel like I gave them the opportunity to talk with us about it. And again, like I didn't know that they had submitted ordinance amendments. I think we had
[55:12] Speaker F (unidentified): four or five people besides committee members, correct, at the workshop. That, yeah, we did. Yeah, it
[55:18] Nathaniel King: was from the same sort of neighborhood community group, but they were there, and there was a lot of good discussion, I remember, about, they were very involved, it was very well. Yeah, I was wondering if on these, if on this ordinance update, do we have anything, or would it be wise to have some language about the consultants needing, so for example, if we have an architectural consultant, historical consultant, archaeological consultant, that they need to meet the secretary standards, the
[55:58] Speaker E (unidentified): professional standards for, yeah, the professional, national park service has designated, I can't remember what it was, cpu something 36 or something, they definitely needed to have
[56:10] Nathaniel King: right. I'm just wondering because I know there was some, it was brought up that, you know, somebody with, say, an X amount of years of just working in the building industry, right, should be able to say, well, this is a character-defining feature or whatever. And I am concerned that if we don't have any language that says, well, if you're going to be an architectural consultant, at a minimum, you must meet the Secretary of Interior standards for an architect, and it has those standards listed out on the website, like I meet the Secretary of Standards for Archaeology.
[56:45] Speaker E (unidentified): That's the one I'm talking about. Right.
[56:47] Nathaniel King: And I think that just might be something for the city to consider, so if Mike decides he's finally ready for that retirement in Key West, he could, you know, we would know, we would know that then the next person coming on as a consultant would at a minimum
[57:01] Anya Collette: meet those standards. Oh, you're saying as our advisory consultant. Yeah, for whatever, for
[57:06] Nathaniel King: Whichever portion of historic preservation we might have a consultant for. So I know, I know we just have one for architecture, that's mostly what we deal with, but that those standards apply to every discipline within historic preservation. You know, whether you're a historian, an archaeologist, an architect, architectural historian, or even a historic preservation generalist, there's Secretary standards for all of those are National Parks.
[57:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Sure, yeah, also I think it's helpful to have a real character defining features as in definitions.
[57:40] Nathaniel King: Definitions so everybody can clearly and I know I have said it at least three meetings in a row that I have that handout I need to send everyone. I have your emails pulled up so as soon as we're done here I will send that to you. Believe it or not, I'll actually get your email. But I think that's also going to give us a good kind of a good thing to as I've said many times to use because it gives some great examples, photographic examples from the city of Portland. End up when we say we want this. Feature we're looking at this feature here it is on a historic building in the in the city. So yeah, I just, I you know that's been on my mind from the last couple of meetings about the secretary standards and wanting to make sure that future consultants, you know, at least meet that because those standards are put in place for a reason. So they're, they're very important. They can be a pain, but they're, they're very important to have a pain if you're hiring anyway. But that is all I have about the. Ordinance I think we're on a good track with it and I'm excited that there are people involved from the community. I think that's fantastic they're doing it because they care. They're not doing it to be, you know, and to fight with us on it. They're doing it because they care a lot about their community and where they live. So I think that's great. We have anything else for discussion for that or can we close it.
[59:05] Anya Collette: Out no motions needed for that does need a motion because it's recommendation to.
[59:10] Speaker G (unidentified): Council so you're up Peter. All right, I motion that we recommend the included changes to chapter 148 historical preservation code to council, to council. Yes and then seconded.
[59:29] Nathaniel King: It yes I vote yes motion passes and that is concludes the business and the meeting of the 11 June HBC meeting. We are adjourned.