Preservation commission

shares town plan
By Frank Ruggiero
frank@mountaintimes.com

More than a year ago, the Boone Historic Preservation Commission was established.

The rest is history.

Commission chairwoman Bettie Bond presented the group’s year-end report to the Boone Town Council at its regular meeting last Thursday, Sept. 18. The commission was established in March 2007 to safeguard the heritage of Boone by determining steps to preserve and regulate historic landmarks and districts.

The group held its first meeting in July 2007, focusing on organization and reviewing current ordinances with council and commission members Rennie Brantz and Janet Pepin. Other members include Appalachian Cultural Museum curator Chuck Watkins and area architect Bill Dixon.

For four months, the commission reviewed materials relating to guidelines for historic properties, as determined by the National Register of Historic Places, in other cities, Bond said.

From December 2007 to March this year, the commission helped craft wording for the town’s proposal to purchase the downtown post office, while composing a comprehensive presentation on the matter for community member and organizations.

The group also helped coordinate an inspection of the post office’s Daniel Boone mural. An expert came to inspect the mural and determined it simply needed a cleaning, Bond said.

“That was a real plus for us,” she added.

During the same time, the group began reviewing an inventory of 149 properties in the town of Boone that may be designated as landmark properties or properties in a historic district.

Criteria to assess potential properties include age (the average was 50 years), if the property had historic use, if a historic person lived there and if it were built with local materials.

Bond said the commission hopes to employ a rating system for historic sites, which could become the basis for a historic walking tour throughout Boone and its neighborhoods.

She said commission members will also draft language for a preservation element in the town’s comprehensive plan.

“We also hope to be able to develop the language for an ordinance aimed at preserving and conserving our neighborhoods,” she said.

Bond said the commission is glad both Boone and Appalachian State University are simultaneously creating land-use master plans with help from the Lawrence Group consultants from Davidson.

“(Appalachian State) has a very strong historic component to it … and all this coming at the same time makes our commission feel very important,” Bond said.

“We feel like we have a lot we can offer all these groups in the development of the historic preservation of our town.”