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Planning board supports placing citizens' petition to excise two Wallace Road homes on the ballot after split public comment
Summary
After extensive public comment for and against a citizens' petition to remove two recently built Wallace Road houses from the Bedford Historic District, the planning board voted to support placing the petition on the March ballot; the petition cannot be edited by the board and will go to voters in its submitted form.
The Planning Board on Jan. 12 heard more than an hour of public testimony about a citizen petition seeking to remove two parcels at 320 and 324 Wallace Road from the Bedford Historic District and voted to support placing that petition on the March ballot.
Planning Director Becky Hebert described the petition and noted a small mapping anomaly: if the petition passed, a roughly 1,700-square-foot sliver of land (part of nearby 328 Wallace Road) would remain inside the district and could be addressed by a future amendment. "There'd be a small, like, fairly benign piece of land that would still be within the district, but not contiguous with the existing historic district," she said, and staff recommended transparency about the configuration the petition would create.
Public comment was split. Supporters of the petition argued the two houses are recently built, lack historic character and should not be subject to Historic District Commission regulation. Co-petitioner Jerry McMonicle said the properties are new subdivisions that do not share the architectural age or significance typical for district designation; "They're newer, they're up in the northwest corner…they're not historic," he told the board. Resident Frank Robertson, who owns one of the properties, said he has had difficulty living under the overlay and urged support for the petition.
Opponents and the Historic District Commission cautioned that removing the parcels would create boundary irregularities and could affect nearby older properties that help define the district. Richard Moore, a long-time resident, urged the board not to support the petition because the area near the Church Road core contains clusters of older historic buildings whose character the district was intended to preserve.
After hearing testimony the board voted to recommend that voters consider the citizen petition on March 10. The planning board's vote does not change the petition text or its placement on the ballot; the board's recommendation will be noted on the ballot as required by state law.
