Marion’s Historic District Draft Bylaw is not quite ready for public consumption, but two key votes held during Monday’s Zoom meeting of the Study Committee have positioned the document for critical next steps.
“This is a huge step forward,” said Committee Chairman Will Tifft.
On Monday, the committee approved changes to Sections 1-8 of the draft and approved Sections 9 through Appendices that were recommended by consultant Eric Dray at the committee’s last meeting on July 21.
Monday’s meeting provided an opportunity to review those changes and vote to push the document forward. One of those changes would have the Sippican Historical Society document buildings to be demolished rather than requiring a homeowner to do so. Public and private signage was also addressed.
“The mission of the committee is to study options for historic preservation in a local community and to then make a recommendation to the commonwealth and the local community as to what should or should not be done. The committee has not yet made a formal recommendation, but we have the committee on a path to recommend that the town pass a bylaw defining a historic district and defining what the requirements of that historic district might be,” explained Tifft. “We have publicly stated in a presentation going back over a year … the committee has been leaning towards a bylaw that is materially less rigorous than is commonly the case in the commonwealth. We are very much taking into account people’s concerns … what people might perceive as an overly demanding set of rules that would prevent people from making their own home their home. We’re still on that path.”
Tifft said the committee does not wish to copy places such as Nantucket or Edgartown and demand front doors are painted a certain color or that certain types of materials and processes are necessarily followed in construction projects. The priority, he said, is to help Marion maintain a character in appearance, not necessarily turn the town into a museum.
“We have deliberately exempted things like signs and fences and lights and window treatments,” he said. “We’re very much conscious – there’s a value in people’s individuality … they should be able to change over time.”
Late year, the Marion Select Board approved the creation of a local Historic District Study Committee, appointed Tifft, Margie Baldwin, Jill Pittman, Dan Crete, George Morton and Stephen Swain as members. Meg Steinberg of the Marion Historical Commission has been acting as an advisor to the committee.
Having researched required processes for the formulation of a historic district, the committee arrived at a tentative definition of the village and, on September 12, 2023, presented results of a village-wide survey to a large gathering at the Music Hall. The survey was sent to approximately 200 property owners, bringing back 80 responses. The 39% response rate was enthusiastically received as a valid representation of the village.
Tifft told that initial gathering that the committee was created not because some people were being “frivolous” or that they were worried a big-box store would be dropped into the village but because of what the town might lose without a bylaw.
“Some buildings were being torn down, some things were being changed in ways that were not necessarily in the character of the town,” said Tifft, clarifying that the committee had not predetermined a problem and a solution but wanted to find out what “other people in the town and particularly in the village thought about it.”
Dray, whose services are paid by the Sippican Historical Society and partially funded via Community Preservation Act funds as awarded by the town’s Community Preservation Committee, calls Marion’s village the “most historic, intact village on the south coast.”
Tracing the growth of the village to the effect that the 1799 Meeting House (now the General Store) had on Main Street’s modest residences, Dray showed that by 1858 the village had taken its current shape, except for Front and Cottage streets. By 1879, Front, Hiller, South and Water streets were filling in.
It wasn’t until the early 20th century that seasonal population began dictating jobs. With the decline of the marine-related economy and the coincidental emergence of tourism, larger cottages appeared on Water Street. The Sippican Hotel and Casino no longer stands, but it was impactful in that Marion became a destination from far-away places.
Defining the beginning and end of Marion village is something Dray sees as self-evident in iterations as shown on period maps. The result is a geographically uneven shape but one that follows key streets developed over time. That includes Main Street clear out to Route 6 (including Sippican Elementary School), Front Street only briefly north (not including Tabor Academy’s sprawling campus), the block encompassing South Street and the full extension of Water Street as influenced by hotel-driven development.
Dray shared visual examples of the main architectural styles represented in the village over the years. The committee does not see Marion as cookie-cutter in its architecture.
While the survey indicated that nine of 10 village homeowners believe in the preservation of a historic district in Marion, only 71% (42% yes, 29% maybe but needing more information) said they would support the district’s review of character-defining details of historic buildings such as decorative door surrounds, as well as additions, demolitions and new constructions.
Tifft noted at the time that a Town Meeting vote to pass a bylaw would require a two-thirds majority.
Limiting the historic district’s review to additions, demolitions and new constructions would boost yes-vote responses to nearly 52% with another 22.41% wanting to know more.
In the 10-plus months since that informational meeting, the committee has been working behind the scenes, using survey feedback while researching other such efforts in the region with the goal of coming up with a draft bylaw that it hopes will reflect the will of the survey participants.
Committee member Margie Baldwin asked on Monday at what point the committee should seek Town Counsel to weigh in before taking its informational pamphlet to the Planning Board or Select Board. Tifft noted that the draft bylaw will also be reviewed by the Massachusetts Historical Society (in an advisory capacity).
“Just looking at how slow this process has been … we should keep trying to move forward,” he said.
In response to Baldwin’s concern over confusion among residents, Steinberg said she has written an article explaining different entities such as the Marion Historical Commission and the Sippican Historical Society but will revise her article to include material on the Historic District Study Committee.
Dray’s latest changes are meant to go before the Planning Board in November.
The committee has an informational pamphlet that will feature the theme, “Educate, celebrate, preserve” and identify Marion village as “a history worth preserving.”
The committee discussed logistical matters of the pamphlet’s presentation.
The next meeting of the Marion Historic District Study Committee is scheduled for Monday, August 19, at 4:30 pm.
Marion Historic District Study Committee
By Mick Colageo