Westwood Commission Reconsidering Historic District

The Westwood Historic Commission will delay its vote on a plan to , according to commission Chairman Donald Rubin.

If the plan goes through as originally conceived, property owners in the district would need to get approval from the commission before having work done to the exterior of their buildings. Several property owners came to a hearing about the plan last week to share .

"We had a lot of comments from people who are afraid we would become another layer of bureaucracy," Rubin said.

The commission had been scheduled to vote on the plan at their September 12 meeting, but they will delay voting to discuss the issue more, according to Rubin. The historic district could just include optional guidelines for business owners, instead of requiring them to bring plans to the commission, he said.

"Our goal is to benefit Westwood," Rubin said. "We're not trying to slant things as pro-business or anti-business. We do want businesses here, we just want to prevent Westwood from being a tacky-looking community."

The commission is considering the designation because downtown Westwood is home to a wide variety of noteworthy architectural styles, according to borough Preservation Consultant Gregory Dietrich. In a report he prepared for the commission, Dietrich wrote he found Art Moderne, Art Deco, Colonial Revival and mid-20th-century commercial architecture in the area.

Westwood officials created the borough's first historic district on Jefferson Avenue last year. Only five buildings were included in that district.

Do you think Westwood Avenue should be a historic district? .

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