Portland City Council to discuss Munjoy Hill Historic District on Monday
Photo / Maureen Milliken
The Portland City Council Monday night will hold a workshop on the long-debated historic district proposed for Munjoy Hill.
The Portland City Council Monday will hold a workshop on whether a historic district should be established in the city's Munjoy Hill neighborhood, a topic that has been discussed for years and will go before the council for a vote in the coming weeks.
The council on Nov. 16 put off the issue until the council's three new members, Andrew Zarro, Mark Dion and April Fournier, could get up to speed and weigh in.
The council held a workshop on the district proposal in Nov. 9 after it was approved by the planning board in August by a narrow margin. Monday night's meeting will also be a workshop, with no vote taken.
The meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. via Zoom, and it can also be accessed on Facebook live and the Portland Media Center local access channel. The workshop is the only item scheduled, though no agenda is available yet.
The council is scheduled to hold a public hearing, final deliberations and vote on Feb. 1. The council at that meeting will also vote on designating six historic buildings outside the boundary of the proposed historic district as individual landmarks. Those buildings include 21 Sheridan St., which was the childhood home of film director John Ford, as well as 101-107 Congress St., 7 Lafayette St., 8-12 Montreal St., 51 Monument St. and 28 Waterville St.
Landmark designation means any exterior alteration or addition requires review and approval, whether or not the change is visible from a public way. The individual landmark designations, all to residential properties, though the Congress Street one also has ground-floor commercial space, were unanimously approved by the Historic Preservation Board, but, as with the historic district, the council has the final say.
In the historic district, property owners of contributing structures — those that are considered to have retained enough historic features to be considered part of the district — would have to get approval from the city before making any improvements or alterations that can be seen from a public way.
The proposed district includes 427 parcels, of which 376, or 88% are classified as contributing, which means that they meet the criteria for age and retained historic features. Overall, the district represents 49% of Munjoy Hill’s building stock, according to the city. Most of the proposed historic district property is in an R-6 residential zone, but it also includes 10 buildings in the neighborhood’s B-1 or B-1b business zones. Two of those buildings are previously designated landmarks.
On both the district and individual landmarks, the council will consider whether the proposals meet the criteria of the city's historic preservation ordinance as well as whether they relate positively to goals in the city's comprehensive plan,
The planning board recommendation in August came after several years of debate, zoning changes and an overlay district in 2018 that slowed construction because of concerns about buildings being torn down and larger condominium buildings going up in their place.
The neighborhood, at the tip of Portland's peninsula, was long working-class and has small lots jammed with triple-deckers and small houses. In recent years, a gentrification trend has replaced many of them with larger, more modern structures, and rents and housing prices have skyrocketed.
In August, planning board members on both sides of the vote said they struggled with their decision, and also said the city must look beyond establishing a historic district when trying to solve issues of affordable housing, housing values and inclusion.
The district was approved by the city's Historic Preservation Board in November 2019.
Property owners of contributing structures would have to get approval from the city before making any improvements or alterations visible from a public way.
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