Historic panel seeking
direction from council
By clare MARie celano
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — Members of the recently organized Historical Preservation Exploratory Committee came to a Bor-ough Council workshop meeting to tell members of the governing body they are ready to move away from "exploring" and move into action.
Councilman Kevin Coyne, who is the town’s historian, also sits on the exploratory committee. He spoke for the panel in comments to his fellow members of the governing body.
The nine-member committee was charged with exploring ways to protect the town’s housing stock from unnecessary demolition and with developing ways to preserve the historical buildings that line borough streets.
Stating that committee members have moved quickly, Coyne said the panel members have recommended that borough officials "not jump in and form a (historic) commission or a (historic) district."
He said the consensus of the committee is that the council should definitely have some type of advisory panel designed to achieve these goals.
"We know and understand your fears about creating a new level of regulation in the town," Coyne said.
He said committee members were working on the possibility of having one of their member serve as an alternate member of the borough Planning Board at the suggestion of code enforcement officer Hank Stryker III.
Coyne said this action would give the committee a voice on the Planning Board and allow panel members to keep track of what goes on in town.
Wayne Mason, a member of the Historical Preservation Exploratory Com-mittee, told council members that Coyne was helping the members of the panel get familiar with what a preservation commission actually does.
"You can’t protect it unless you know exactly what you have first," Mason told council members. "We need to explore what buildings are significant and which ones are not so significant. We’ll need to do a complete inventory of our homes."
He noted that the Monmouth County Park System had undertaken such a survey years ago, but said it was incomplete.
Mason told council members that a housing inventory was critical and that involving residents in the process was something the committee planned to do.
"If we can have residents help us with the survey by doing things such as deed research and finding out the date of the construction of their home, this will make a big difference in our workload. It would take us a decade to do this inventory all on our own," Mason said.
He said involving people in the community would also raise residents’ awareness that their homes are significant and that their homes do contribute to the town.
"This is, after all, what makes Freehold, Freehold," Mason explained.
Mason also told council members he would like to bring in a consultant from the state Historic Preservation Office to help work on an ordinance specifically designed for Freehold.
"All ordinances are not alike. In this case, one size does not fit all," he added. "We need an ordinance written for a town the size of ours."
Mason said Coyne had provided the exploratory committee members with stacks of ordinances from other towns to review in order to become familiar with the style and contents of the laws.
"We’re looking for a happy medium that will prevent wholesale demolition and the degrading of our buildings over time," he added.
Borough Attorney, Kerry Higgins told council members she will work on an ordinance to allow for the creation of an Historic Preservation Advisory Committee and requested a list of ideas and details that the exploratory committee members felt would be important to put into the ordinance.
She said she would work on an ordinance that would give the committee "broad powers" that could be used for things such as the inventory survey and noted that it could always be refined later on.