Amherst Historic Preservation Commission
The owner of the landmarked house at 22 Chateau Terrace has asked the Town Board to redraw the designation boundary to exclude a garage already demolished without a certificate of appropriateness; the hearing is November 9. The commission also picked over the board’s denial of the 4467 Main Street designation. Also: repointing at a town-owned landmark needs no permit.
On September 14 a Chateau Terrace resident of more than twenty years stood at the Amherst Town Board's microphone with photographs of the landmarked house at number 22 — bought by a developer about five years ago, she said, never lived in, never maintained, and now sitting inside an active construction site. The board gave her a public hearing date: November 9.
On Monday the Historic Preservation Commission learned what else is arriving that night. The property's owner[3] has made a request directly to the Town Board, bypassing this commission, to narrow the landmark designation's boundary so that it covers the house but not a secondary structure — a garage.
That garage no longer exists. “Officially, on the record, the garage was demolished without receiving a certificate of appropriateness,” a commissioner said, “and still to this day, we've never given one for that property.”
The commission's discussion turned on whether that matters now. The position several members took was that it does: even where a structure has already come down improperly, the certificate question does not simply evaporate — the application still has to come back for a determination of whether the demolition was appropriate. Whether a demolished structure must be rebuilt, one member noted, is within the board's purview under the code.
Against that sits what the commission itself called the grey area. At the time the garage came down, the requirement was new — “it was not in there” — and what should have been triggered may have been a demolition referral rather than a certificate of appropriateness. That, members suggested, is why nothing has ever been enforced on the property.
The sequence matters, and the commission walked through it: the Town Board accepted the nomination as written, covering the entire property. The request to carve the garage out followed. “And that was done intentionally,” a member said, “because they demolished it inappropriately.”
The commission took no action it could act on. The request is the Town Board's to decide, on November 9.
Once a property is a local landmark, an owner cannot simply alter or demolish it. Work affecting its protected features requires a certificate of appropriateness — a permission granted by the preservation commission after reviewing what is proposed against the designation.
It is a layer on top of ordinary building permits, not a substitute for them. A project can be perfectly fine under the building code and still be refused a certificate.
The practical difficulty here is the one the commission kept circling: the instrument is designed to be consulted before something is altered. After a structure is already down, a commission is left arguing about a determination that can no longer change the outcome — only the record, and whatever the board decides to require next.
The commission's other preoccupation was a loss. The landmark designation at 4467 Main Street was denied by the Town Board, and this was the first meeting at which members worked through why.
Their complaint was not really about the outcome. It was about the record. Designation is supposed to be a criteria test: the commission applies the five criteria in the town code, and either the evidence satisfies them or it doesn't. “We have our five criteria to judge if the information aligns,” one member said. The commission had found multiple criteria satisfied on every count, and watched that finding, in another member's word, “disproved.”
Two procedural things compounded it. First, a letter the Town Board relied on arrived after the commission had presented — and the commission had no opportunity to answer it. “There's no chance for rebuttal,” a member said.
Second, and more unusually, the board closed both public hearings the same night rather than leaving them open. Members described that as a departure: “On previous town boards, they have left the public hearing open at the end of the public session instead of adjourning it, leaving it open for further comment. In this case, both were closed that same night.” Another: “Yeah, that's not typical.”
Closing a hearing has a specific effect, and the commission talked it through carefully, because members disagreed. Once closed, the evidentiary record is shut — “the record doesn't end the night of the hearing, the record ends when it's closed.” Anything an interested party wants considered has to be in before that moment. One member pushed back that submissions to the board still land on an agenda and become part of the official file. But the practical conclusion was not in dispute: closing a hearing the same night it opens signals the board considers itself to have everything it needs.
Underneath all of it ran a quieter frustration about where the criteria stop and politics start. “Knowing what I do about town politics and the way towns are run,” one member began, before the recording loses the thread. Owner support, the commission noted, is not one of the five criteria either — they recalled a nomination where the owner was present and supportive, “but that doesn't matter either,” and another where ownership changed midway through the process.
A public hearing is the window in which evidence can enter the record. While it is open — and boards can adjourn one to a later date rather than ending it — anyone can still submit material.
When a board closes the hearing, that window shuts. It is a signal that the board believes it has what it needs to decide, and it means a party who wanted to answer something said at the hearing has lost the chance.
That is the commission's grievance here in one sentence: a letter it had not seen entered the record, the hearing closed the same night, and the body that wrote the nomination never got to reply to the document used against it.
In July this commission approved a full restoration of the front entry at the Harlem Road Community Center — a local landmark and former school — funded with federal community-development money. That work required a permit, which is why it came before the commission at all.
On Monday the chair reported meeting the town architect and the contractor at the building that morning, and brought back a problem. The next phase — repointing and the replacement of cast-stone elements, also paid for with block-grant money — has been determined not to require a permit. “So that wouldn't have come before our board,” he said. He had inserted himself into the work anyway, in his standing as chair.
The commission did not take that calmly. “It doesn't matter if it's a permit or not, they still need to see it,” one member said. Others moved straight to the craft questions that decide whether repointing helps a historic building or quietly ruins it: the contractor should be submitting a mortar mix; there should be a small mock-up before the work proceeds, checked for texture as well as colour; the scope should be reviewed for any substitutions, including whether handrails are being replaced.
Beneath the detail sat a governance question the commission put plainly: on a historically designated property owned by the town, how does the body charged with protecting it see the drawings at all, if the trigger is a permit the work does not need? A motion was raised to request that all construction documents be provided — the recording does not establish whether it was seconded or carried — with members noting the material is a town record and largely public anyway, and that having it on file would serve whoever inherits the building. “Twenty years from now, what do you guys do?”
Certified Local Government report. The commission's annual CLG report template has arrived and the filing date is November 15. Members noted it closely mirrors the annual work plan they already produce. The Certified Local Government programme is the federal-state preservation partnership a municipality joins to become eligible for pass-through grant money and technical assistance; the annual report is the price of staying in it.
A historic district, not yet. A member has done background research on a set of properties she believes could qualify as a historic district, and a short presentation was expected. It was held back. The commission wants a design standards and guidelines document in hand first — the reference that tells an owner inside a district what is and is not acceptable — and does not expect to get to it this year. Members flagged it as the priority for next year, explicitly tied to being able to do district work at all.
An incentive worth stealing. One member reported a conversation with another town's preservation staff about a provision he found striking: an owner of a local landmark signs a one-page form to the planning department, files it with assessment, and the landmark is exempted from highway and road fees. Amherst has a local tax-abatement law for projects, but members described it as abstract where this is concrete — something tangible to offer an owner weighing designation, against a protection regime that otherwise reads to owners as pure restriction. The financial impact to the town was not known and would need the town's own analysis. Members also noted that properties in qualifying census tracts can reach federal and state historic tax credits, and that the town has eligible tracts.
The Amherst Historic Preservation Commission is chaired by Brian Swartz[*], with Vice Chair Catherine A. Waterman-Kulpa[*] and members including Jeffery Amplement[*] and Jennifer Kensy[*]. No roll call is audible on this recording and no attendance is reported here. Unlike the other boards in this publication's coverage, no motions, seconds or vote outcomes could be reliably extracted; the items below are reported as discussion, not as actions, because the recording does not support more.[3]
The request seeks a designation covering the house but excluding a secondary structure, a garage, which was demolished without a certificate of appropriateness; none has ever been issued for the property. Commissioners argued the certificate determination survives the demolition and that rebuilding is within the board's purview, against a “grey area” that the requirement was new when the garage came down and the trigger may have been a demolition referral. The Town Board had accepted the nomination as written, covering the whole property. Public hearing November 9.
The commission had found the nomination satisfied multiple criteria on each of the town code's five tests. A letter the board relied on arrived after the commission presented, with no opportunity to rebut, and both public hearings were closed the same night rather than left open for further comment — which members described as a departure from past practice. Discussion covered what closing a hearing does to the evidentiary record, and whether submissions after closure still reach the board's agenda.
Follows the front-entry restoration this commission approved in July. The next phase, also block-grant funded, requires no permit and so would not normally come before the commission; the chair involved himself in his standing as chair after meeting the town architect and contractor on site. Members pressed for a mortar mix submission and a small mock-up checked for texture, and for review of the scope including handrail replacement. A motion to request all construction documents was raised; the recording does not establish whether it was seconded or carried.
Template received; members observed it closely tracks the commission's existing annual work plan, and confirmed the filing date.
A member's background research identifying properties that may qualify as a historic district was held rather than presented, because the commission wants a design standards and guidelines document first. Not expected to be reached this year; flagged as next year's priority.
This brief rests on a poor recording, and readers should weigh it accordingly. The audio of this meeting is substantially unintelligible. There is no audible roll call, no identifiable mover or seconder on anything, and no vote outcomes; long stretches resolve into fragments that cannot be read as sentences, and several exchanges break off mid-point. This publication's other briefs report motions, tallies and conditions because the recordings support that. This one does not, and nothing of the kind is asserted here. What is reported above is restricted to threads the recording returns to repeatedly and states consistently — and, wherever possible, anchored to documents or to this publication's own prior record rather than to the tape.
No agenda. The Town of Amherst's meeting portal had posted no agenda for this meeting; the pipeline logged “no agenda posted yet (may post later)” on repeated attempts through the night of October 7. There is therefore no docket, no item list and no confirmed set of names. Should the agenda or the official minutes post, several things left open here — above all whether the construction-documents motion carried — would be settled by them.
What is anchored, and how. 22 Chateau Terrace, its designation, the developer's purchase roughly five years ago and the November 9 hearing date come from this publication's September 14 Amherst Town Board brief, where a neighbour raised the property with photographs. 4467 Main Street and the denial of its designation come from the August 31 Town Board brief. The Harlem Road Community Center front-entry restoration, its status as a local landmark and former school, and its community-development funding come from this publication's July 14 brief on this commission. Commission names come from the verified Amherst roster. Everything else is the recording alone.
Unconfirmed. [3] marks detail the audio alone supports. The property owner at 22 Chateau Terrace is not named here. The recording renders a developer's name twice in a form this publication cannot resolve to any confirmed entity, and naming a company wrongly in connection with an unpermitted demolition is not a risk worth running; the September 14 Town Board record refers only to “a developer.” Individual commissioners are likewise not matched to individual quotations, because the recording does not identify speakers reliably. Where a view is attributed to “a member” or “the commission,” that is the limit of what the tape establishes.
Street validation was not run: with no agenda and a fragmentary transcript, the street names in issue — Chateau Terrace and Main Street — were instead confirmed against the municipal street index directly, and both appear. No scanner address cross-reference is reported, as no matter before the commission turned on a property's incident history.