Letter: A different view of historic home debate — Aggressive commission bullying private citizens

Posted 4/26/18

As the property owner depicted on the front page of the March 22 edition of Westport Shorelines and in the April 18 edition of the Sakonnet Times, I feel compelled to clarify a few significant points …

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Letter: A different view of historic home debate — Aggressive commission bullying private citizens

Posted

As the property owner depicted on the front page of the March 22 edition of Westport Shorelines and in the April 18 edition of the Sakonnet Times, I feel compelled to clarify a few significant points of fact and logic that were incompletely reported in the article.

Shorelines and Sakonnet Times are community papers that ostensibly exist to connect and inform the residents of Westport and Little Compton. What was published was an incomplete account of what took place.

As a lifelong Westport resident, my wife, who is a shopkeeper in town, and I always envisioned our children, fourth-generation Westport residents, growing up in a town we love and on the same land where I played as a child. With this in mind, and as our family has expanded, we started to plan how we could renovate a 300-year-old home to suit the needs of our children.

Unfortunately, even though our family spent a significant amount of time and money on various repairs since the property was purchased in the 1950s, it quickly became apparent that renovating, or updating, this structure may not be feasible based on the feedback from many builders and architects.

A certified Historic Building Inspector concluded that much of the exterior is in poor condition, while the only original features include some of the interior doors, partial framing and the base of the chimney in the basement. A much different report than what the Historical Commission outlined in their 20-minute walk-through inspection.

A more thorough review of the meeting minutes would have revealed expert testimony on the financial scope of the recommended renovations; the Commission’s own architect explained during the meeting that a comparable renovation to a similar center-chimney dwelling in neighboring Little Compton had incurred cost overruns that brought the total cost to more than $700,000.

I find it concerning that more speculative quotes about cost were incorporated into the story and represented to your readership as fact, while expert testimony that provided a more realistic figure of the burden that the Commission suggested we undertake was apparently deliberately omitted.

Most concerning to me, however, is Chairman Kendall’s assertion that “normal people” would have maintained the home differently than our family did. Who, exactly, does he hold up as a standard of “normal?” His comment presupposes that “normal” entails a substantial disposable income stream that is simply not reflective of the demographics of our town.

His dismissive and derisive comment smacks of the very type of elitism that the Westport I know has rejected time and time again. He further goes on to boldly assert that if I am unable to make these substantial investments to preserve a structure that does not meet my family’s needs, that I should sell off a property that has been in my family for generations for a “very reasonable” price.

His line of thinking is deeply problematic at best and autocratic at worst. Luckily, Chairman Kendall does not have the authority to demand I sell my home at whatever price he deems appropriate, but it seems he believes he should.

By his logic, and by association, the Commission’s, the only options would be to jeopardize my young family’s fiscal future with renovations we cannot afford or to sell it to someone with no ties to the land, but ample cash.

These options aren’t feasible or fair. Most disturbing of all, they don’t respect the property rights upon which our town, and indeed our country, have been built.

I recognize and fully appreciate that there is a public interest in maintaining our town’s historic spaces. As a school teacher, the issue of public service is near to my heart and I regard the work of historic preservation as an equally noble cause. We support the preservation of open space, our coastline, and historically significant landmarks for the public to see and enjoy. Our private home, however, has no such access. Located more than a quarter-mile down a private driveway, it is not even visible from a public road.

Westport is an extraordinary town, but the unscrupulous backchannel proceedings of the Historical Commission represent the kinds of small-town, self-serving politicking that holds us all back.

The Commission failed to present a reasonable solution. Rather than accept that our home is beyond their prevue, they are attempting to bully our family through media channels.  A staff member from Shorelines confirmed that they originally ran this story on a tip from the Commission. They did this without ever contacting my wife or myself, which creates an impression of complicity that seems oddly personal and certainly unwarranted.

The Commission also supplied Shorelines with a photograph taken without our knowledge or permission while we graciously and voluntarily invited them to our home. Furthermore, many Commission members failed to provide the common courtesy of introducing themselves, making my wife and I uncomfortable in our own home.

The Commission’s energy would be better spent working to protect the places and spaces that are accessible to all Westport residents. When they instead direct their efforts toward an unjustified interference with the property rights of a family working to build a future here in town, there are no winners, only division and mistrust. Our town is much better than what this ordeal represents, and I urge your paper to hold itself to a higher standard of journalism in the future. Our towns deserve better. 

Benjamin Squire

Westport

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