Thursday, August 27, 2009

Bristol Public Workshop to discuss HDC procedures


There will be a special Town Council meeting to discuss Historic District Commission (HDC) streamlining and improvements to HDC procedures. The workshop will be on Thursday September 10, at 7 pm at Town Hall. As printed in an article by Scott Pickering in today's Bristol Phoenix, these are some suggestions that most people agree on:
• Create a simple review process outside of the monthly board meeting
• Make training mandatory for board members
• Meet more than once per month, especially in busy spring and summer.
• Hire more staff to support the district
Since the historic district has recently been expanded, this is an important workshop — convened to help the commission and the people of Bristol — especially those in the district, understand the process better and make it more "user-friendly".

1 comment:

Judy Anderson said...

I did not see a follow up post on the Workshop.

A request to the Town Council and the BHDC to discuss "voluntary" as a choice in all future expansions of the BHDC was brought to the floor in the Public Forum part of the meeting and was totally ignored in the "discussion" which followed.

The reason is apparent, but will not be stated on the record. If it was made voluntary no one would comply or volunteer. How is it that our 5 elected Town Council members can vote to put property owners under the jurisdiction of the BHDC when property owners are opposed?