Town officials in Provincetown, MA are considering asking voters to approve harsh penalties for any illegal demolition of buildings in the historic district.

A proposed bylaw is currently being drafted by the Provincetown Historic District Commission that would require a contractor to restore a partially or completely demolished building to its original condition. In addition, HDC members are considering imposing a fine of the entire assessed value of the property, a penalty that could potentially amount to millions of dollars on large, waterfront structures.

Carol Neal, HDC vice chair, said the proposed bylaw would be submitted for inclusion on the April Town Meeting warrant. While the final wording is still being determined, the purpose will be to stop the increasing number of illegal partial and full demolitions HDC members said have proliferated in town over the past few years.

“If [contractors] have to put back the building as it stood, that takes away the incentive to knock it down in the first place. Money, as we have seen, isn’t a deterrent,” Neal said.

Neal was referring to the current bylaw, which allows the building commissioner to impose a maximum fine of $250 a day from the date of the illegal demolition. The most serious fine was imposed last month on the contractor at 531 Commercial St., where a historic house was demolished without going before the HDC for consideration. The $250-a-day fine levied on Parker Thompson, a Providence, R.I., contractor, was retroactive to Dec. 15, when the demolition was first discovered, and will end when the exterior of the house is completed. Glenn Parker, president of Parker Thompson, said the exterior portion of the project could be finished in approximately eight to 10 weeks, depending on worker schedules and weather conditions, resulting in an approximate fine between $23,500 to $27,000.

“I think that’s nothing,” said Michele Couture, Provincetown selectman, at an HDC public hearing on enforcement last week. “Twenty thousand dollars is lunch for the guys. It’s the cost of doing business and means nothing to them [wealthy owners].”

“I think it needs to be done,” echoed John Dowd, HDC chair. “A fine of $250 a day won’t be a deterrent to anyone who has a large scale project.”
Neal said the proposed article being drafted by the HDC would also include a stricter definition of what constitutes a demolition. Tom Boland, former chair of the Provincetown Historic District Study Committee, which wrote the original demolition bylaw, spoke at the HDC enforcement public hearing last week and acknowledged that the current definition of what constitutes demolition is unclear.

“One reason the demolition definition is so fuzzy is we didn’t know what the political climate would be and if the article would pass [Town Meeting]. So we referred a lot of the demolition definition to the building department’s interpretation. Hindsight, and use of this regulation over the last three and a half years, is an indication that probably wasn’t a good way to go. We put a lot of trust on the people downstairs,” Boland said, referring to the building department’s offices in the basement of Town Hall.

Marcene Marcoux, HDC board member, agreed there has been confusion over the past several years about who in town government — the HDC or the building commissioner and/or inspector — has the final say over whether a house can be demolished. While town bylaws state that any demolition within the historic district must be approved by the HDC, it was also believed that the building commissioner could overrule the HDC if he determined that the existing structure was unsafe.

However, Marcoux said that she now believes that assumption was in conflict with Massachusetts State Building Code 780 CMR Chapter 1 Administration Sections 121.3 and 121.4, which require in the case of a building owner’s dispute of a demolition order that a board of survey be convened to determine the veracity of the demolition order.

It is unclear whether the HDC would have the same rights as a building owner to challenge a demolition order made by the town building commissioner.

“There has been building after building that we didn’t want to demolish. But [Provincetown Building Inspector] Dick Anderson, I think with a good heart, came in and said it was not safe. The HDC thought it was the last word,” Marcoux said, adding, “The decisions made in the past were incorrect decisions.”

However, Town Counsel John Giorgio, responding to an inquiry by Town Manager Keith Bergman last month, said if the building commissioner makes a determination that a building is unsafe, “he can order the building torn down without the approval of the HDC if he determines it ‘to be necessary for public safety because of an unsafe or dangerous condition.’”
Marcoux said she wants the incoming interim building commissioner, who will take over for resigning Doug Taylor on Monday, to give the HDC guidelines of state law and enforcement.

Selectman Couture urged the HDC to draft a demolition bylaw that would prevent the “dreadful situation” that occurred at 531 Commercial St.
“531 is going to be your rallying cry to draw a line in the sand. Now is a perfect opportunity. You would probably garner a heck of a lot of support” at Town Meeting, Couture said.

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