Vote 'no' on Article 3; that house is one of 5 oldest left

To The Daily Sun,

Save our Gilmanton heritage. On March 12 we will be asked to vote on Warrant Article #3 on the Gilmanton ballot. This article asks you to remove one of the five oldest houses left in the Historic District.

The Town Planning Board had a hearing and recommends that you vote “No.” The Historic District Commission held a public hearing and recommends that you vote “No.” In both cases, no one testified in favor, nor did the property owner appear or submit a letter explaining why they wanted one of the oldest houses in the Historic District removed.

In both cases, no one in the district was informed of this request and the majority of the people in the district do not approve of the warrant article, after finding out what was requested. Abutters were not notified.

1. The people in this area ask you not to approve Article #3. The present owner never alerted anyone in the district that they were unhappy having bought the home. This house was on the town map at 1860 but its architecture is of an earlier period, and even if it wasn’t, isn’t 160-yearsold, it's old enough to be called a historic structure?

2. Abutters were not notified that there was a petition to withdraw from the Historic District. A vast majority of the signatures were those who live outside the Historic District.

3. The owners never appeared before the Historic District Commission to ask for a design review before going forward with this warrant article. To this date, there is no public utterance as to why this historic home should be taken out of the Historic District.

4. In my experience, the Historic District Commission will work with builders and owners in such a way to maintain the original architecture of the house and outbuildings.

5. Taking this house out of the Historic District subjects it to demolition without any review from the Historic District Commission.

Everyone who buys property in the Smith Meeting House District knows that there are additional regulations on the type of architectural design and types of materials allowed to be used. With good building practices and acquired sense of architecture, members of the Historic District have built nine new homes, and many outbuildings, such as barns and sheds, conforming to the regulations authorized by the Historic District Commission.

There is no need to discard one of the five oldest houses left in the Historic District.

Please Vote “NO” on Warrant Article #3. We in the Historic District want to retain the Historic District as a residential and agricultural district.

Don’t throw away our heritage!

George Roberts

Gilmanon