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Date: 1/24/2023
NORTHAMPTON – The city of Northampton is currently in the process of updating the Historic Preservation element of their Sustainable Comprehensive Plan.
As a next step in the process, the Northampton Historical Commission and Department of Planning & Sustainability are asking residents, stakeholders and business owners to complete a survey that will help the city identify specific policies and actions for preservation efforts within the next decade-plus.
This work will culminate in goals and recommendations to guide the city’s preservation efforts over the next 10 to 15 years,” read the survey statement.
The Historical Commission and the Department of Planning & Sustainability are working with Barrett Planning – a community development group from Hingham – to update this element.
Back in June, representatives from Barrett presented the scope of the project to the city’s Planning Board, and then back in the fall, the city conducted a pair of public forums over Zoom and in person to delineate the process of adding the historical element. The city also gathered information from input boards at libraries.
During the presentation in the summer, Judi Barrett, the planning director, owner and operating manager of Barrett Planning, described this project as a “very typical planning approach” that involves an inventory assessment of what Northampton has now and how protected these resources are in the city’s current iteration.
“We’re also looking in parallel at the history of preservation planning in [the Northampton] community and the extent to which that has or has not informed [Northampton’s] existing planning and land use policies,” said Barrett.
According to Carolyn Misch, the director of the city’s Office of Planning & Sustainability, Barrett was hired back in the spring and will spend a year with the city developing this added element.
“The early first stages in the summer when people were away was sort of a data gathering opportunity for the group,” said Misch, in the fall. “They spent June through now in that first phase of data collection, and now we’re sort of entering the second phase, which is public engagement.”
During the Zoom forum in the fall, Sarah LaValley, Northampton’s conservation, preservation and land use planner, said that conversations about this project began four years ago with the Historical Commission, as the city realized there is a rich cultural history, a wealth of historic resources, a local historic district and several national and state historic districts that must be preserved.
“[Northampton’s] most recent preservation plan was from the early 1990s … definitely not current,” said LaValley, during that meeting. “[It] was not helpful for the commission to be proactive and make decisions.”
“We’re seeking a dedicated historic preservation plan element of the Sustainable Northampton [Comprehensive] Plan to be able to assess the buildings, objects, and landscapes of historic significance that are important to the city and its residents,” LaValley continued.
LaValley told Reminder Publishing that the city has a rich cultural history, a wealth of historic resources, a local historic district and several national/state historic districts and previous cultural and other related plans.
“The Historic Preservation element will assess these buildings, objects, and landscapes of historic significance, and guide future actions and priorities,” she said. “That current plan has historic preservation discussions sprinkled throughout, but those sections are very limited and not especially current.The survey and other outreach efforts will inform the consultants’ work as they develop a plan that will guide future efforts and actions to identify and preserve the city’s historic and cultural resources.”
Ultimately, this project will lead to recommendations by the planning group and an action plan based on the city’s environment, as well as their cultural and natural landscapes.
Kathy Broomer, the architectural historian and preservation consultant for Barrett, said that Northampton started surveying its historic properties almost 50 years ago. During that span, more than 1,700 individual resources and areas have been inventoried so far, with data coming in based on age, appearance and history of the resource, as well as photographs.
“Northampton’s inventory isn’t limited to buildings,” said Broomer. “There are neighborhoods, bridges, cemeteries, dams and reservoirs, statues and fountains … there are education and healthcare complexes, and even the Three County Fairgrounds have been recorded in the city’s inventory.”
Almost 500 resources in Northampton have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places, according to Broomer, either individually or as part of a historic district. Alumni Gymnasium at Smith College and the Downtown Historic District was the first of four Northampton listings in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The most recent listing occurred earlier this year when the former campus of the Clarke School was added.
Some, however, are of state significance, like the state hospital campus, Miss Florence Diner, the Dorsey-Jones House, and the Veterans Administration hospital campus.
The survey for residents is available at https://barrettplanning.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2sIYEZX7EOfRyOa? will take about 10 minutes to complete, and it closes on Feb. 1.