This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
02/08/2017 07:30 AMAn ordinance that would define how long owners of some historic properties would need to wait before tearing down the structures will itself need to wait for a yet-to-be-determined timeframe.
At the Jan. 24 Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting, the selectmen decided to table action to move a revised demolition delay ordinance on to Town Meeting. At press time, First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Jr. had not decided when to bring the revised ordinance back to the board for consideration.
The draft ordinance under discussion included revisions made by Fortuna since the ordinance was first before the BOS earlier in January.
In the revised draft, the length of the demolition delay that would be triggered, were the ordinance to be adopted, was changed from 180 days to 120 days. A new provision was also added to provide a relief-valve for property owners who, though their homes were over 75 years old, did not feel the structures were historically significant. The new section laid out a path for an owner to appeal the applicability of the ordinance to an older home; an owner could object and have the objection heard by a panel that would rule on whether the ordinance applied within 10 days.
“The ordinance language was revised in consultation with Attorney Mark Branse,” said Fortuna.
Branse is the town Planning Commission’s attorney and drafted the original demo delay ordinance that was referred to the Selectmen for consideration.
The Planning Commission was to discuss the revised ordinance draft at a meeting last month.