OBSERVATIONS
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In the flurry of excitement that accompanies work on a building, it's easy to overlook a check for zoning-related issues. Don't. It can be costly in money and time, and sometimes can make it impossible to execute your project. Local zoning ordinances and by-laws specify permitted uses, minimum lot sizes, and the minimum distances that must be left between lot lines and buildings--and between one building and another on the same lot. Old buildings pre-date these laws, and often do not conform to their requirements. This condition does not in itself represent a problem; the buildings are normally "grandfathered" as legal non-conforming structures. When a change that enlarges the envelope of such a structure is contemplated, however, permission must be obtained from the local Board of Appeals before a building permit can be issued. In Massachusetts, that permission takes the form of either a variance or a special permit, depending on how the local law is written. Variances are more difficult to obtain than special permits, since state law specifies a number of conditions that must be met for the Board even to consider issuing one. The process is similar in both cases: A written application is filed with the Board, a fee is paid, an advertisement is placed in the local newspaper, and written notice is sent to all abutting property-owners. The application normally includes drawings and written material sufficient to show the facts of the matter. On an appointed date, the Board holds a hearing, at which the property owner or his attorney presents the case, and opportunity is given for supporters and opponents to be heard. In Massachusetts, the Board normally votes and renders its decision at the same meeting, unless there is a reason to continue (postpone) the hearing to a future meeting. A month then elapses to allow for appeals to be filed before the Board's decision becomes final and a building permit can be issued. This process has the potential to disrupt your project schedule if it is not considered from the beginning: Boards of Appeals typically meet monthly, and their agendas close two weeks or more before the meetings. Adding the period between when the Board renders its decision and that decision becomes final, the minimum time required to seek and obtain a variance or special permit is two months for a small, uncontroversial matter. To that time, add the uncertainty generated by the permissive wording in most zoning laws: Even meeting all the conditions for a variance or special permit is no guarantee that the Board will issue one; standard zoning language states that the Board of Appeals "may" issue the requested permission, not that they "shall" issue it. Indeed, some towns have the reputation of being extraordinarily reluctant to issue either variances or special permits; several years ago one of our clients successfully obtained the first dimensional variance that had been granted in his town in three or four years, but only at a cost of several thousand dollars and a six-month project delay. This all adds up to the critical importance of you or your architect checking out and dealing with zoning issues as early in the project as possible. Failure to do so can result in time, effort, and money spent on an unbuildable project. Necessary disclaimer: This article represents a summary of the author's own experience, and is not intended in any way to represent legal advice. Back
to the top "Did you just paint your house a few years ago, and now you have to paint it all over again?" the seductive voice-over asks. "End the endless cycle of painting and repainting..." How? By applying the sponsor's oversiding product, of course. "Then you'll never have to paint again... and the siding is guaranteed maintenance-free for as long as you own the house!" Our sponsor misses (or ignores) the point, repeatedly. To begin with, "the endless cycle of painting and repainting" is precisely what paint is about: Paint protects a building from the weather, and is renewable. It is intended to wear away and eventually need to be renewed, and so protect the surface under it from damage. The alternative to renewability is to use a weathering surface that is not readily renewable, such as a building's wooden exterior. When compared to replacing shingles--or clapboards--and trim, repainting all of a sudden seems a bit less daunting. So, what about that maintenance-free guarantee and never having to paint again? Alas, every product, including "maintenance-free" oversiding, has a finite lifetime, and it will eventually wear out. "Wearing out" can mean many things--loss of color or surface, frank failure of the material's weather-resistance, and much in between. When traditional building products do start to fail, they are readily patchable. Individual clapboards can be removed, and new ones patched in--first trimmed to fit as needed--and painted to match the remainder of the wall. Manufactured building products like oversiding, on the other hand, tend to come in fixed, non-adjustable sizes and have factory-applied finishes that can not readily be touched up in the field. Consequently, when they begin to fail, they often must be removed and replaced wholesale rather than simply patching deteriorated areas. So, beware the maintenance-free miracle product... but wouldn't it be nice not to have to paint every few years? Back to the top Asbestos in old buildings is a subject that a lot of us wish would just go away, but it won't. In fact, one of the characteristics that resulted in the mineral's wide use in shingle underlayment, tarpaper, plaster, roofing cement, and similar materials was that it is chemically very stable. It neither corrodes, nor rots, nor dissolves, nor becomes more brittle with time. It is also an excellent thermal and electrical insulator, and was even used to give strength and flexibility to wall and ceiling plaster. Asbestos was viewed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the great Modern Miracle Material; building-material manufacturers often bragged about the quantity of asbestos their products contained: "Our very best asphalt paper--85% asbestos fiber!" Identifying asbestos in an old building is not intuitive; in the cases of tar paper, roofing cement, and plaster, laboratory analysis is often required. One common type of asbestos, however, is readily identifiable. If you encounter something in your old building that looks like white or light gray corrugated cardboard, either wrapped around pipes or applied in sheets to flat surfaces, it is almost certainly asbestos. To deal with asbestos safely, or to determine whether a material contains asbestos, consult an asbestos-abatement consultant. Start your search under "Asbestos Abatement" in the Yellow Pages. Most asbestos-abatement firms offer consulting assistance, although when feasible, I prefer to use a consulting-only firm for information and advice. Firms that also perform abatement work can have a bias in favor of greater intervention than might otherwise be necessary. Despite the temptation to remove asbestos pipe insulation and similar products yourself, the liability issues involved (to say nothing of the law and governmental regulations) make it a risky business, and one to steer well clear of. Back
to the top Sometimes, when my clients are having a hard time coming to agreement about what they want to do, I wonder whether learning mind reading or dispute-resolution facilitation might help. For two (or more) people to agree on design criteria or any other complex matter can be a major challenge. Yet, agreement on those criteria is critical to the success of their building project. Over three decades of marriage, my wife and I have developed a way to create a joint product out of strongly differing ideas and viewpoints: Writing our annual Christmas letter, it's called. It is cumbersome and time-consuming, but it works: We begin by each writing a draft. These drafts often read as though they came from opposite sides of the planet, rather than from two people who have lived together throughout the past year. We exchange them without comment, and each write a second draft, attempting to incorporate the essence of both previous drafts. Typically, these second versions do show a family resemblance. Then we sit down, drafts in hand, and review and revise them, line by line and word by word, to make a mutually acceptable third and final draft, which we print and mail (to the accompaniment of deep sighs of relief). With appropriate modifications, this process can be used to develop a thoughtful and mutually-agreeable set of design criteria (the "design program") which you and your architect can use to guide your project. Back
to the top A while ago we wrote a piece on the importance of story lines in restoring and rehabilitating museum buildings,* and their use as a reality check for work proposed for any old structure. The essential benefit of a story line can be simplified into a one-sentence guide for making changes to older structures: Work from a more recent stylistic period overlaid on older work is usually historically convincing, while work from an earlier period overlaid on stylistically newer work usually isn't. The reason why this is so should be easy to understand: Buildings exist in time, as well as in space. Time flows from the future through the present to the past. The most convincing changes to old buildings, therefore, are those that follow the direction of that flow. When we lay elements onto a building that are stylistically older than the building itself, we are suggesting that time can flow backward. It can't. This physical and historical impossibility leads to an architectural-historical failure. This is not to say that wonderful buildings and environments can't be created by juxtaposing elements without regard for their stylistic age. I have seen and been in some, but they are in no way restorations or even preservations. They are free fantasies on period themes--arrangements of objects that, however much presence they may have, lack the historical and architectural coherence expected of a responsibly and convincingly preserved old building. |
