Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Attorney’s Office

TO:                  David L. Corliss, City Manager

                        Toni Ramirez Wheeler, City Attorney

FROM:            Randy Larkin, Senior Assistant City Attorney

CC:                  Scott McCullough, Director of Planning and

                                    Neighborhood Development

DATE:             June 21, 2012

RE:                  900 New Hampshire Supplement

__________________________________________________________________

On March 6, 2012, the City Attorney's Office drafted a Memorandum outlining the City Commission's scope of review and standard of review relating to appeals from the Historic Resources Commission (HRC). The Memorandum anticipated specifically the appeal of the owner of record ("the applicant") of 900 New Hampshire Street, in Case No. DR-12-185-11, from certain findings of the Historic Resources Commission. That appeal was scheduled to be heard by the City Commission on March 27, 2012. At that March 27, 2012, public hearing, at the request of the applicant, the appeal was continued to a date certain in order to permit the applicant to submit a second revised proposal to the HRC.

On April 30, 2012, the HRC reviewed the applicant's second revised proposal. At the conclusion of that public hearing, the HRC took two separate actions: (1) it determined that, under state law, the second revised proposal would "encroach upon, damage, or destroy" the environs of the North Rhode Island Street Residential Historic District; and (2) it granted a local Certificate of Appropriateness with respect to the second revised proposal. The applicant has appealed that decision under the state law framework and that appeal is scheduled to be heard by the City Commission on June 29, 2012.

The purpose of this supplement is merely to update the factual background to reflect events occurring since March 6, 2012, to reconfirm the substance of the March 6, 2012, Memorandum, and to advise that those portions of the March 6, 2012, Memorandum, appearing under the heading, "City Code Framework," and dealing with the Certificate of Appropriateness are moot and no longer relevant to this proceeding.