At the most recent meeting of the newly formed Londonderry Demolition Review Committee, on Aug. 13, members determined that they will hold a public hearing on Aug. 22 for a house located at 4 Nashua Road, which the current owner is looking to demolition.
The hearing scheduled will be to, “Review the potential architectural or historical significance of the property located at 4 Nashua Road.”
The house was formally the site of a real estate business and sits near the Derry town line.
This was the first time the committee as met since Nov. 26, 2019, according to minutes publicly available on the town’s website.
At the somewhat short Aug. 13 meeting, committee member, Sue Joudrey, was selected as the Chair of the three-member committee. Ann Chiampa and David Colglazer are the only other members at this point.
The town’s Administrative Support Coordinator, Kirsten Hildonen, explained the charge of the committee during the meeting saying it was “very narrow.”
She told members that when a property meets three contingencies is submitted to the building department for an application for demolition permit, a building permit involving a demolition, a site plan review involving demolition is made “the building inspector must determine these three criteria; does the proposed demolition is it greater than 500-square feet of gross square area, was the building submitted more than 75 years before the date of application for the building permit and is the building visible from the adjacent from the adjacent public right of way or public lands.”
From there, if those three conditions are met, the application is then forwarded to the Committee and within five days of getting the application from the building inspector, Hildonen said the committee needed to make a determination of whether or not the “building might be of historical or architectural significance.”
During the initial meeting, she said their role wasn’t to determine what it is, or take any action, but instead they were only tasked with determining if the building might be of historical significance or not.
“Those are your two options today,” Hildonen said.
Hildonen explained that if they determined that there might be historical significance they needed to schedule a public hearing by Aug. 25, in order to meet the 12-day requirement.
Chiampa commented that she obtained information that the property was determined to be protected for its historical significants by the NH Department of Historical Resources.
After some discussion, it was ultimately decided that there might be historical significance and the Committee decided to have the required public hearing on Aug. 22 at 6 p.m.
Hildonen also noted that due to the production schedule for the Londonderry Times, they had to put the public notice in the Union Leader.
Chiampa asked if they would be able to put it on the town’s Facebook page in order to notify the community. Hildonen explained that they don’t usually post those types of notices on the Facebook page, but she would look into it.
Hildonen added that the applicant or the applicant’s agent is invited to the public hearing to hear any concerns.
During the public hearing, Hildonen explained that they are tasked with determining if there is any historical significance or not.
If the Committee determines that there is significance, from there they would meet with the applicant.