BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — Many people recognize the precious character of their community’s historic buildings as they watch one of those properties go under the bulldozer.
So it will be with Freehold Borough when the 19th-century Bartleson home on South Street is razed to make room for a 21st-century office building.
In a bid to keep more historic properties from meeting the same fate, members of the borough’s Historic Preservation Advisory Committee met on April 11 to discuss what steps will be needed to protect Freehold’s historic housing stock.
The committee was formed in July 2003 precisely to stop what Councilman Kevin Coyne, who is the borough’s historian, once referred to as the “clear-cutting” of certain properties in the borough, specifically those in the downtown area as well as in the B-1 zone.
The B-1 zone, which includes South Street, is an area that encompasses many older homes that have been converted to offices and small businesses.
Acting on the recommendation of the advisory committee, the Planning Board initially rejected a developer’s plan to demolish the Bartleson home and replace it with an office building. In light of a legal challenge mounted by the developer that the board may not have won, board members earlier this year granted approval for the Bartleson home to be demolished and for a smaller office building than was initially proposed to be constructed.
The Historic Preservation Advisory Committee as presently constituted does have the authority to stop any building from being demolished. Members of the committee would like that to change.
The advisory committee members have the job of reviewing applications that go to the planning and zoning boards. Their job also includes preparing recommendations for both boards and for the Borough Council.
Committee members want more authority and more power to protect the town’s housing stock that they say is dwindling — and they want it soon — before any other landmark structures that are precious to Freehold’s historic fabric sit on the chopping block.
Members of the committee met in borough hall with George Chidley, a representative from the State Historic Preservation Office. Chidley was invited to discuss crafting an ordinance that would clearly reflect a desire to retain the borough’s historic nature by setting down some very specific guidelines and standards on certain properties.
The ordinance, when created, will not apply to residential homes, but to existing businesses and buildings in the downtown area and in the B-1 zone.
Chidley, who has helped other towns create historic preservation ordinances, said more than 160 municipalities in New Jersey currently have an historic preservation commission (as distinct from an advisory committee).
Members of the borough’s advisory committee want to become one of those commissions.
Coyne told Chidley that Freehold officials have been conservative and historically have not been in favor of establishing any type of regulatory commission since 1962 when the Karagheusian rug company pulled its operation out of the borough and moved south.
“Our community was shaped by that act and anything that might discourage people from investing in the borough (i.e. regulations on what could be done to an historic property) was turned down,” Coyne said.
He said borough officials have now given the advisory committee “the green light,” to work on an ordinance that would achieve “genuine protection powers.”
Chidley suggested creating an historic preservation plan within the town’s master plan.
“Your goals must be clearly articulated within the master plan,” he explained. “You must articulate how the town developed and why the history is important to the town.”
According to Coyne, the borough’s master plan already contains some elements of preservation.
Chidley said an historic commission would be eligible to receive grants from the state to help with research and preservation work.
Public education is an important part of establishing an historic commission, according to Chidley, who said that charettes (brainstorming sessions) would be held to discuss the goals and plans of the historical commission with residents.
He suggested that the advisory committee members reach out to towns that have historic commissions for assistance in creating their own ordinance.
“You will determine what is appropriate for your town right down to the last detail,” Chidley explained.
Suggestions for an historic commission ordinance will be forwarded to Borough Attorney Kerry Higgins. In order for such a commission to be formed, the Borough Council would have to adopt the ordinance.