(May 16, 2024) T he race for an open seat on the Historic District Commission pits an associate member of the HDC against a member of the group that advises the town on historic preservation issues.
Angus MacLeod, an architect, preservationist and current member of the Nantucket Historical Commission, and Joe Paul, an architect and current associate member of the HDC, are vying for the empty seat on the HDC left by outgoing longtime member Diane Coombs in Tuesday’s town election.
“Nantucket’s been evolving since the beginning, there’s nothing new with that. It’s just doing it in a way that enhances, or at least doesn’t compromise all of the unique facets of Nantucket that we have. The more we water that down and modernize it, the more we compromise the authenticity of our history,” MacLeod said this week.
He has been endorsed by Coombs, who has long asserted herself on the board as a preservationist, to serve as her replacement.
As an islander since the 1980s, living in Sconset for 20 years and then bouncing around other parts of the island, MacLeod said he’s seen tremendous change.
“Old South Road comes to mind immediately, where it doesn’t even look like Nantucket anymore. How much of the island is going to be like that?” he said. “And how did that ever happen?”
He described the aesthetic of some neighborhoods today as suburban, while also pointing out the sheer size of some newly-built properties. One of his goals as an HDC member, if elected, would be to more strictly enforce the guidebook for island architecture, “Building With Nantucket In Mind,” in hopes of limiting further major changes to the island’s viewscape.
“I just feel like it’s out of control, so whatever way I can help rein in further development and make it more in keeping with Nantucket, the better,” MacLeod said. “I feel like everybody will play by the rules as long as they’re clear, and everybody has to play by them.”
He said that now he’s ready to have his own vote on historic matters.
“The HDC is the only thing that’s going to be able to say whether something is happening or not. As much as I’ve been advising, it’s not a vote,” MacLeod said.
Paul has lived on Nantucket since 1996 and has worked as an architect, designing newly-built seasonal and year-round family homes and renovating both modern and historic properties. Until about 10 months ago, when he became an associate member of the HDC, he was more used to presenting applications than ruling on them.
He had been pondering the idea of getting involved with the commission for a few years before being appointed as an associate member by the Select Board in July 2023.
“I just thought it would be good to see that side of things and be involved in the design community, not just as someone who helps clients, but someone who can have a voice in what’s happening with work outside of my office,” he said.
While not being a full-time member of the commission, Paul sat on what he said is around 30 percent of applications that come through, because members often recuse themselves and one of the alternates reviews the application in their place. He’d like to have a vote on all of them.
“There have been some applications that I wanted to sit on, that I didn’t have the opportunity to, and as a full-time member I would automatically be on those,” he said.
Paul admires the uniqueness of Nantucket architecture and thinks the way to carry that on is by encouraging property owners to continue that tradition.
“There’s always opportunities to push the envelope, and we see it all the time. Sometimes they are appropriate. I’ve approved details that you wouldn’t think would be approvable,” he said.
“We’re not trying to create Disneyland or something that is homogeneous and doesn’t have unique character. There needs to be a little bit of that playfulness that exists in the existing architecture. None of the architecture that’s there was governed by a design review board.”
“In my opinion, there will never be a black and white guidebook. I don’t think that’s what the island wants. I think it’s much more nebulous than that, and it is on a case-by-case basis,” Paul said. “I think that’s the challenging part of the position frankly, that there aren’t any rules that I think would be universally applied, because every application is so different.”
Both candidates believe that “Building with Nantucket in Mind” is worth updating, and that doing so might help applicants be more informed about what changes would be deemed appropriate by the com-mission. The last time it was reworked was 1992.
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