New House at PNC

[Guest]

If you read the HPAC meeting minutes, you ought to be concerned about the new house that will all of a sudden appear in the PNC parking lot... apparently the architect and owners are requesting some design elements that are unsympathetic to our designated historic district, like an oversized McMansion palladian window... please no Colonial Williamsburg Disneyland on Main Street

[Guest]

A house stood there before and was torn down. It was a large beautiful home.

[Smartone]

[sketch?]

[Guest]

Our town is too stringent on the look of Main St. to the detriment of residents in these homes many of whom are retired seniors. There is a balance that needs to be employed when making determinations on what homeowners can do and we have an HPAC board that lives in homes where they don't have to face the issues of the people coming before them.

Read the notes and you'll see people being forced to spend $50-75,000 (money these seniors do not have and telling them that they don't have) on slate roofs even though their next door neighbors have asphalt shingles on the roof. That same roof may only cost $10,000 in quality asphalt shingles.

We have people wanting to use cement board which is approved in many historic districts and preferred in some of them due to the protection it affords them. In ours when you can get approval you can only use flat board and not any type showing a grain which is out of character and a personal view.

We have people wanting to upgrade windows, but being told that they have to be wood with fixed grills. Yet other historic districts have a variety of approved types so people who can't afford $1,500 a window can still replace the window and save on energy costs.

The HPAC board is ruling based on personal opinion and their view using National Park standards as their justification, rather than a review of what other historic districts are doing and employing their practices who also are using the National Parks Standards. One lady who lives in the district was close to tears when told if she could afford a home in Cranbury then she could afford the cost to meet their standards. This was a retired senior.

If the TC wants to add value for residents, they will step in and employ some level of reason to this board.

[Guest]

Just another reason why Main Street will never be vibrant

[Smartone]

[Guest]

As long as it fits with national standards, they connot stop you.

[Guest]

[Guest]

Please. This isn't about replacing existing roofs. It's about a proposed design on a house that is yet to be built. Specifically, it's about the appropriateness of a Palladian Window. The suggested alternative is a triple-hung window or similar window of about the same size. There would be little or no difference in price.

[Guest]

[Guest]

WHAT?

WHAT IS A PALLADAIN WINDOW?

Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of Palladio's original concepts. Palladio's work was strongly based on the symmetry, perspective and values of the formal classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. From the 17th century Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture was adapted as the style known as Palladianism. It continued to develop until the end of the 18th century.

Palladianism became popular briefly in Britain during the mid-17th century. In the early 18th century it returned to fashion, not only in England but also in many northern European countries. British Palladianism is present in Manuel da Maia's reconstruction of Lisbon under the auspices of the Marquis de Pombal following the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, notably the Praça do Comércio and adjacent Rossio and Baixa Pombalina[1]. Later when the style was falling from favour in Europe, it had a surge in popularity throughout the British colonies in North America, highlighted by examples such as Drayton Hall in South Carolina, the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, the Morris-Jumel Mansion in New York City and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and Poplar Forest in Virginia.[2]
The style continued to be popular in Europe throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, where it was frequently employed in the design of public and municipal buildings. From the latter half of the 19th century it was rivalled by the Gothic revival, whose champions, such as Augustus Pugin, remembering the origins of Palladianism in ancient temples, deemed it too pagan for Protestant and Anglo-Catholic worship. [3] However, as an architectural style it has continued to be popular and to evolve; its pediments, symmetry and proportions are clearly evident in the design of many modern buildings today.

[Guest]

OK so what if you put a roof on or windows in without HPAC approval? What are the penalties?

[Guest]

As someone with experience. If you do that then your in violation of doing work without a permit and the zoning officer and town will make you change it because HPAC will complain. They did that with fences where people used vinyl instead of wood. They did it with the air conditioner when the Presbyterian Church put it in.

The only solution is to take HPAC authority away and make it advisory again as it was prior to 2006 and it worked well then. Make people get advice before a permit, but don't make the permit conditional on the approval. I will vote for the TC candidate who makes this happen.

[Guest]

dear smartone, get over it? how about you getting with it?? why do you even live here?

[joe the plumber]

It IS going to be a REALLY big house!