The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Town of Oyster Bay Landmarks Preservation Commission has been scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 29. The meeting will be held in the Town Board Hearing Room, Town Hall East, 54 Audrey Avenue, Oyster Bay, beginning at 7 p.m.

While an agenda is not available for the Jan. 29 meeting, at the November meeting representatives of the Glenwood/Glen Head Civic Association appeared before the commission to discuss giving landmark status to a carriage house that was a rental property of the Townsend family in Glenwood Landing.

Mrs. Patrice Benneward, president of the Glen Head/Glenwood Landing Civic Association said she will attend the landmarks meeting. "I have the title search that has been done by Donna Ottusch-Kianka and we have identified an architectural historian who is interested in taking a look at the house and doing a report on it. That person has been harder to locate. We need a little more time for that and I hope the Landmarks Commission can give us that time."

There was an article in the Jan. 4 Long Island section of The New York Times in which Mrs. Benneward said, "The civic association didn't express its position. We prefer preservation. The parcel is about two acres. Ideally the two-family rental unit can be preserved and renovated but not restored (to save costs). There are some huge magnificent beams inside. It makes a lot of sense to preserve it as a transition building from business to residential and it preserves housing options in the community and it looks nice. It would be good if people who are designing this parcel (for a subdivision) could accommodate that building," she said.

Ms. Benneward added, "An extensive environmental impact statement showed the site qualifies to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The petitioner, we believe plans to remove the artifacts and bring them to the Garvies Point Museum. It is probably the last significant site of Native Americans on Long Island. We would understand that it is not economically feasible to preserve the entire site."

The planned subdivision was on the calendar before the Town of Oyster Bay Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Ms. Benneward said the Nassau County Planning Commission has accepted the preliminary site plan, but she said, "It is my understanding they did not accept the engineering plan. The commission doesn't want any soil disturbance less than 25 feet from the property line, which will completely change the site plan. On Tuesday, I will question how they can consider the original site plan until you see the revised site plan. It is a very complex issue," she said.

John Collins, architectural historian and a member of the Landmarks Commission said, "We told them to do the research and put in an application. Once they submit it to the board and it is accepted, the 30-day clock (of the process) starts ticking. Then we would have another meeting in 30 days to hear and pass judgment on the application and see if it is worthy of landmark status."

The question is can an accessory structure be a landmark. The house is believed to have been used by the Townsend family around 1860. "It is very similar to the Layton building (originally located on the corner of route 25A and 106 and now at Old Bethpage Village Restoration) and is a Civil War building. It was an income producing piece of property with a tenant living there. It survives with its original front porch with its molded Tuscan columns. It has the original extended roof edge detail, it has the original clapboard siding and window and door casings, even though the window sash (the glass) has been removed. It sits on an apparently original raised brick foundation that is laid in the American bond (a type of joining the bricks together)."

Mr. Collins, a longtime member of the Landmarks Commission said, "When you are talking about historic preservation in my mind's eye, you don't just save the high kind of architecture. The sense of place is the full spectrum of the architectural heritage of an area including the carriage houses, barns, privies and sheds and these rental buildings - all together give a picture in totality. If you only preserve the high style places, you loose a representative sample of an architectural style. If we were talking about England, would it only be the palace that we save, but not the houses of the craftsmen, merchants and the lords and ladies. The serfs too have a place in the scheme of things. Here in Roslyn we are focusing on the Mott Avenue craftsmen's district. All those vernacular buildings, added to those higher style buildings around the pond give a more complete picture of the village. We saved the corn cribs, privies and sheds."

Mr. Collins said one question the civic association has to answer in their research is which branch of the Townsend family the carriage house belonged to: is it representative of the prestigious Townsend family of Oyster Bay or were they "dirt poor" relatives of the Townsends as well as what role did they have in the community.

Whatever the result of that investigation, the site still has importance as an archeological site. "The developer commissioned the archeological report. So we are waiting to see if it is not just an archeological site with pre-historical archeological material but also has a strong Townsend family connection. Whatever happens, it is believed to be a very good archeological site," he said.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission was formed in 1974 to recommend for preservation sites and structures within the town which have historical, architectural or antiquarian significance. The seven members of the commission serve without monetary compensation. Currently, 37 buildings, one railroad turntable and one cemetery have town landmark status.

The commission is presently lacking a chairman due to the death of Oyster Bay Town Historian Dorothy Horton McGee. It also needs one commission member who must be an attorney. The current members are: Michael Spinelli of Massapequa, an architect; Alan Landman of Plainview, (who is retired from his position as the town's superintendent of the building division in the department of planning and development); Lou Warner of Locust Valley, the designee of the Commissioner of Planning and Development (as per the landmarks law); Beth Faughnan of Locust Valley, an attorney who sits on the board as a resident and not as an attorney; John Collins, architectural historian. The Landmarks Commission needs one member of the New York Bar, three residents, the Commissioner of Planning and Development or his designee and an architectural historian. The town supervisor appoints the chairman of the commission. The members are appointed by the town board, and any decision of the commission is a recommendation to the board, for which they hold a public hearing at town hall, at which time all interested parties can speak.