A monthlong dispute with town officials that forced a temporary shutdown on construction of a museum conversion at the Mayflower Meetinghouse appears to be over.
Work has been allowed to resume after the building’s owners filed new paperwork.
Town officials had ordered construction stopped in October on the historic building located on Town Square.
At issue was whether the building would be classified as a museum rather than a church.
“Until such time as approval by means of a building permit for a change of use has been issued the current work may not continue,” wrote Jason Silva, the town’s director of inspectional services, in an Oct. 14 email to the project manager.
Silva said a work permit granted in July was apparently issued in error and work had to stop immediately.
Silva told the Independent on Monday the Mayflower Society, which owns the building, has now complied and asked for a change of use for the church building to a museum. Silva issued a new commercial zoning permit that allows work to resume.
But the work stoppage was just the latest turn in an ongoing dispute between the town and the Mayflower Society over plans to make controversial changes to the façade to make the church basement a wheelchair-accessible museum.
The building is on a list of projects on historic buildings where Town Manager Derek Brindisi has asserted the required historic deed restrictions were not properly filed. The restrictions are intended to ensure the historic nature of the structures remains protected in perpetuity.
The changes would make the meetinghouse—the historic church on Town Square built on the same site where the Pilgrims built their first church in 1622—accessible to people with disabilities in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Mayflower Society’s plan includes the removal of a pillar, two windows, and some stonework on the façade to add a doorway and a wheelchair ramp.
Cheryl Soares, the Society’s executive director, said in a July 26 email to Brindisi, Select Board Chair Deb Iaquinto, Community Preservation Committee Chair Ed Bradley, and other town officials that the Society has always been forthcoming about its intentions at the property.
Town Meeting awarded a $2.6 million historic preservation grant to the Society in 2018 to restore the building’s stone façade.
“Why would the Town authorize the expenditure of millions of dollars to restore and preserve historic architectural features if those same features could subsequently be removed or substantially altered without review under the preservation protections expressly required by the grant agreement?” Bradley said in an email responding to Soares’s July 26 email.
Brindisi has listed the meetinghouse’s failure to file a new deed restriction as part of a systemic failure to record restrictions on 43 grants involving 27 projects totaling more than $38.9 million funded by the Community Preservation Act funds, raised from a surcharge on Plymouth property taxes.
“The Meetinghouse is a symptom of a much larger problem,” Brindisi told the Independent in August. “We have a systemic problem here.”
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org