On the message and order, referred on July 21, 2021 Docket # 0849, for your approval of the receipt of a Preservation Restriction Agreement on 41 Melrose Street, Boston, Ma 02116 by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities d/b/a Historic New England, the committee submitted a report recommending the order ought to pass. The report was accepted, the order was passed
Madam Clerk, would you now please read docket 0849? Thank you. Docket 0849 Message. In order for your approval of the receipt of a preservation restriction agreement on 41 Melrose Street, Boston, Mass. 02116 by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, DBA, historic New England. Thank you, Madam Clerk, that you're now recognized as Councilor Michelle Wu, chair of the Committee on Planning, Development and Transportation. Chair. Will you have the floor? I want to thank our colleague and the district councilor who represents this area for stepping in to chair the hearing. So we'll defer to him and then ask for to move this forward for passage. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes the District Councilor and temporary chair during this hearing. CHAIR Excuse me, Councilor Ed Flynn. The floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, we had a productive and informative hearing yesterday on the stock docket, and I was joined by counsel of Counsel Braden, as well as Joe CORNISH and Rosanne Foley from the Boston Landmark Commission. This is a preservation restriction agreement between a property and the village, which I proudly represent in the historic and historic New England, which is an agreement that outlines what the property can and cannot do in order to preserve its historic elements. This agreement needs to go through city and state to get approval in order for it to be rendered perpetual. This is a private agreement, and once it's approved, the historic details of the property will be preserved and protected. And if there are renovations needed, the owner would need to get approval from historic New England and the Bay Village Historic District Commission. This property was constructed in the 1840s, and this agreement will preserve its preserve its exterior staircase, interior details, fireplace and other features. This is a great way to preserve some of our city's historic properties, and it is supported by all parties involved. I also want to thank and acknowledge Consalvo and her staff. I hope that we can vote to approve this preservation restriction agreement today. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes the district councilor from Beacon Hill. Councilor Kenzie Bach. The floor is yours on docket 0849. Thank you so much, Mr. President. And thank you to everyone for your indulgence. Although this is not in my district, I feel, I think is the only daughter of Bay Village ever to serve on this body. And that I just wanted to say a word about why I'm so excited about this. It's four doors down from the house I grew up in. And, you know, I think a lot of folks don't know that Bay Village was very much built into the name Bay Village like back Bay. It's on Phil and it was when it was first built, it was very much a tradesperson neighborhood and it was inhabited by and these are smaller houses, many of the people who were building the grand mansions of the back bay. And so you have Bay Village kind of come in in the 1830s, 1840s, and then when the back bay gets filled in and you have those buildings in the 1860s seventies, this is really an artisan neighborhood. And so a lot of the interior features that a preservation restriction like this is going to protect are the kinds of hallmarks of that sort of tradesperson housing, smaller rooms like sort of functional approach that often goes kind of unnoticed when again, we focus only on the kind of grand mansions. And there's also some pretty cool built history here. If everyone looks on the very back of the packet, this passageway that runs between two of the buildings, these run along Melrose Street between a bunch of the buildings. And you can see stairs because shortly after they built the neighborhood, it started flooding and they realized they needed to raise the street. And so they actually they actually raised this the street like, I think six or even ten feet and then kept these sunken gardens in the back. And so as a result, there's like a kind of floors worth of difference between the back and the front of the houses. So I just think, you know, it's some it's important it's some important hidden history in the city. And this really does reflect private leadership, both the owner deciding to go for this preservation restriction and historic there and then being willing to steward it. So I do think that the least we can do as the public body that won't be responsible for enforcing it is to give it our go ahead in this moment so strongly endorse the chair and the chair pro tempore is here. So thank you. Thank you very much. Would anyone else wish to speak on docketed 0849 saying no takers? Councilor Michel Wu, chair of the Committee on Planning, Development, Transportation, as well as Councilor Flynn and Councilor Box. Seek passage. Seek passage of docket 0849. All those in favor please indicate by saying I oppose. Nay, the ayes have it. The docket has passed. Madam Clerk, would you now please read docket 0638?