Thanks to OH for spotting this:
Chatham cottages historic review underway
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 09, 2011
CHATHAM – Competing requests to determine the eligibility of North Beach Island cottages for the National Register of Historic Places are ready for review.
The clock now starts ticking on the 45 days that the Register’s Keeper Carol Shull has to review the requests, solicit public comment and make an official determination.
First on her desk was the National Seashore’s request on the six North Beach Island structures – five cottages and a shed. The National Park Service, the cottages’ owner, sent its request for a determination Nov. 2 in the hopes of getting permission to demolish the five cottages, now rented to long-standing tenants.
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When the original cottages were washed away in a 1991 storm, the tenants rebuilt them to withstand major storms. The tenants disagree with the Seashore’s finding that the island’s accelerated rate of eroding places the cottages at any risk of destruction from water or winds. The shed washed away in last weekend’s storm.
On Monday the tenants joined the owners of the six other island cottages – all privately owned – and sent Shull a request to find the entire cottage colony – 11 cottages, both public and private – eligible for the Register as an historic district. That request is backed by the town’s historical commission and selectmen.
The fate of the Seashore’s cottages is on the agenda of the Cape Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission’s next meeting at 1 p.m. Monday. Its members were asked to intervene and advise Seashore Superintendent George Price about the cottages. A subcommittee that held a hearing locally in Chatham to gather information will meet at 10:30 a.m. to prepare a recommendation to the full commission.
The leases of the Seashore’s cottages expire at year’s end. In letters to Price and the commission, Chatham selectmen Tuesday proposed that the cottages remain in place and occupied at least through 2012 as the town and Seashore work together to study removal options and monitor erosion.
Read more in “Storm Surge,” and Sea level Rising; The Chatham Story,” available through UPNE and Schiifer tabs, at the top of this page.
