NEWS REPORT Green energy, with Nantucket in mind ALTERNATIVES
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NANTUCKET PROPERTY JOURNAL A publication of the Nantucket Association of Real Estate Brokers
August/September 2010 • Vol. 2 No. 3
with netting and anchored with sandbags to prevent them from premature lift-off as helium trucks begin the inflations. Joyner and her 50 colleagues must continually move the sandbags as the balloons fill with thousands of pounds of helium gas. “Once they start to go up, if you haven’t inflated an ear or an arm you’re in trouble,” said Joyner, explaining that a schematic is provided for the filling of each unique balloon. There are usually 14 balloons at each parade. They are secured in place by rope attachments to heavy-duty golf cart vehicles. The crew sleeps Wednesday night at the Museum of Natural History so they are on hand first thing Thanksgiving morning to re-inflate any balloon that may have lost a bit of helium during the wee hours. As each balloon is driven into the parade queue, their anchoring netting is removed and their ropes are released enough to allow the characters to soar. The ropes remain attached to the assigned carts as the parade continues, used to keep the balloons free of trees, buildings and in control when they enter a cross-section
Peter B. Brace is a freelance writer who has lived on Nantucket for the last 15 years. The former environmental, growth and development writer for the Nantucket Independent and the Nantucket Beacon, Brace, the author of “Walking Nantucket: A Walkers Guide to Exploring Nantucket on Foot,” is currently working on a natural history of the island and his sequel to “Walking Nantucket.”
where winds will gust. “We have to be very careful,” said Joyner. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s a wonderful parade and it’s so exciting to be a part of it. The balloons are magical and the kids just love it. It’s absolutely fascinating.” Joyner said last year about one million people of all ages walked by the Stevens site to watch as the balloons were being readied for the big event. “It has almost become bigger than the parade,” she said of the preparations. Mary Lancaster has been a year-round island resident for 40 years. She moved to Nantucket after spending several years as an advertising illustrator in New York City and Connecticut. Her journalism career, spanning 24 years to date, began as a reporter for the Inquirer and Mirror, then The Nantucket Beacon and most recently as a staff writer with The Nantucket Independent. Between and during her jobs with those newspapers she also wrote for several local magazines. She is currently working as a freelance writer.
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dent. Through her job, she met summer resident Linda Lynch, a fellow employee and also fencing director at Stevens Institute, an engineering school in Hoboken, N.J. By happenstance, Joyner learned that Lynch had a connection to the Macy’s parade because students and others at Stevens were involved in storing and inflating the Macy’s balloons. “I asked Linda about it and she said ‘You can’t be a fly-by-night’,” said Joyner. “I loved it. This is my sixth year.” Though the balloons are fun, the work to prepare, direct and protect them is hard work. Each year, the inflation team has refreshment training and test new balloons. Joyner goes to New York the day before Thanksgiving when the featured designs, measuring an average of four car lengths, are laid out on the asphalt on 77th and 82nd streets, off Central Park and adjacent to the Museum of Natural History. Once the balloons are unfolded they are covered
building owners and construction professionals seeking to incorporate the concepts and practices of sustainability into their structures, while at the same time maintaining the historic integrity of the individual buildings, and through them, the overall character of the island.” The HDC urges applicants to make every effort to reduce a building’s energy consumption before deciding on wind, solar or both. If a property owner chooses solar, the commission recommends ground placement. If property owners decide to put panels on their structures, that they do so on garages and sheds, instead of on the main roof plane of the primary building. For wind turbine installations, in addition to visibility from publicly traveled ways and its impact on the property owner’s neighborhood, its actual appearance is also a deciding factor for the commission. To wit, the HDC wants wind turbines and their towers to be painted a muted color that blends in with its surroundings and to be devoid of any lettering and graphics. “These guidelines grew out of looser, unofficial reviews of these projects, so I don’t think the commission’s changed its review,” said Voigt. “It’s been a more formal review and a better set of guidelines for the property owners.”
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PROPERTY NEWS Vol. 1 No. 6
A publication of the Nantucket Association of Real Estate Brokers
LNantucket I N K New Listings
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July 14 - July 28 $8,950,000 Cliff Kimball Ave. 5/3 Island Properties
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July 30, 2009
After searching for a home on Nantucket for 12 of the 17 years they have been visiting, Jill and Rick Lesko found their oasis in Nanahumacke Preserve, off of Hummock Pond Road. The couple purchased their partially built home last September, and closed on it in April.“We fell in love with the natural surroundings and the pond that is here, and the fact that it is surrounded by conservation land,” says Jill, who first visited the island when she was 13.“We love the natural setting and the beauty of the 23 acres that are being developed.” Jill also cited the development’s close proximity to the beaches, Bartlett’s and the brewery. Rick is an internal medical physician who heads a medical group in New Jersey. Jill worked as a marketing and sales executive for Johnson & Johnson for 23 years, and is starting her own independent consulting business. They have two daughters — one just graduated from college and is planning to work as a graphic designer or an animator.The other will attend Harvard Business School this fall.
$3,950,000 Town Pleasant St. 5/5+ Great Point Properties
$4,495,000 Sconset Main St. 4/3 Maury People/ Sotheby’s
New Listings continued on page 30
JORDI CABRE
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Ranneys share reflections of Real Estate firsts istorians are an interesting bunch. They love libraries and the love doing research in libraries. They love going through piles of old books and documents, searching for that elusive clue that will shed some new light on a relatively obscure (what they like to call “historic”) fact. A
H
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lot of times they end up with findings that include phrases like, “It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact year when suchand-such-a-group actually came into existence, but the first recorded organized meeting was in whatever year.” I’m not a historian.
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wind turbines than when you’re looking at a traditional three-blade By Peter B. Brace wind turbine,” said Barbara Property News Writer Gookin, a member of the Energy Study Committee who helped the hen the Nantucket High high school work its way through School went to the Historic the HDC process. District Commission to seek O N N A N T U C K E T In all cases, wind turbines approval of its 190-foot wind turrequire good elevation to turn as bine, the commission said it did not like the pro- efficiently as possible. Solar photovoltaic panels posed location next to the historic Newtown require as much exposure to direct sunlight as posCemetery on Sparks Avenue. sible for optimal performance. In both cases, the Such a modern piece of equipment juxtaposed preservation of Nantucket’s historic integrity is of against the cemetery, visible from nearby roads, greatest concern to the HDC. despite 20th and 21st Century development already “The wind applications seem to be a challenge surrounding the graveyard, did not belong so close when they’re larger because this is going to affect to the burial site of the island’s ancestors, ruled the more people and there’s a noise issue,” said HDC commission. Administrator Mark Voigt. Instead, the HDC allowed the turbine to be The HDC is also concerned about the potential installed 200 feet from the school, next to the rear visual impact of roof-installed solar panels. “That parking area. seems to be a stopper. It’s either going on the roof When a Liberty Street resident in the Old or not at all. They seem to want to put them on the Historic District proposed a small solar panel for roof,” said Voigt. “We would understand on the his roof, the HDC conceded, but only after the ground that there’s too much foliage to make it reaproperty owner presented plans to disguise the solar sonable. [But], the HDC looks at these things — panel as a shuttle, a sliding roof hatch. Another there are visual impacts.” OHD resident successfully hid solar panels within a Seeking clarity of its historic preservation, the pergola. HDC wrote and adopted an addendum to its buildThis bargaining between property owners and ing bible, “Building with Nantucket in Mind” the HDC is another required hurdle for those procalled “Sustainable Preservation” in Fall 2009. posing wind and solar systems on their property. In it are new guidelines for windows and doors, However, the success or failure of each application solar technologies, wind energy conversion sysis subjective to the site, type of installation, size, tems, alternative building materials, rain collection appearance and its visibility. barrels and permeable paving blocks. ”It’s certainly different when you’re looking at The opening sentence of this addendum explains wind than when you’re looking at solar, and it’s certhe commission’s goals: “The primary intent of this tainly different when you’re looking at vertical document is to provide assistance to Nantucket’s
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ENERGY
Third in a Series
HISTORY OF REAL ESTATE ON NANTUCKET PART 4 By Andrew Spencer Contributing Writer
That’s not to say that I don’t like research (I don’t, just for the record) and that I don’t like libraries (again, not the world’s biggest fan). But before anybody gets all out of sorts and ready to yell at me, I’d point out that on Nantucket, we don’t have a library. We have an
Atheneum. Totally different ballgame. I knew that legal retainer would come in handy. And speaking of lawyers, I happened to be in the neighborhood recently of Denby Real Estate on Whaler’s Lane, an office that was, at the time of my arrival, populated by See History, page 25
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