A year after voters created the Wiscasset Historic Preservation Commission, the panel faces a possible decision Thursday, June 30, on the first project application to come before it. The couple who own a former carriage house at 31 Fort Hill Street want to bring back its original look and make it a gallery and living space.

Among the commission’s charges under the 2015 historic preservation ordinance is to field requests for certificates of appropriateness. Filling the panel’s five seats took most of the summer; then the monthly meetings which started in September 2015 have looked at whether to exempt any of the district’s properties, and how best to reach out to district property owners, among other early steps.

Some proposals the panel reviews will also face planning board approval; but others, like the proposed renovation it takes up Thursday night, will not, Town Planner Ben Averill said. So if the commission awards the certificate, the project will move on to the code enforcement officer for permits, Averill said.

If the panel turns it down, the applicants can appeal the decision to the town’s zoning board of appeals, he said.

The commission took its first look at the proposal in June and since then the applicants have provided more details the panel asked for, so a vote Thursday is likely, Averill said.

He described the commission as very prepared to handle its first proposal. “And the applicant is very dedicated and committed to really bringing back the building’s historic character.”

The building is believed to be the former carriage house for a property to the north, at 35 Fort Hill Street, according to the application James L. Cochan and Kim L. Dolce filed.

The couple plan to live there and have an arts and antiques gallery on the lower level of the building’s north side, the application states. “Great pains will be taken to alter the appearance back to one that has the aesthetic of a carriage house of the last quarter of the 19th century, especially the facade most publicly viewable, the street side ...”

A previous owner gutted the structure down to the studs in 2014-15, the application states; aluminum siding covers most of the exterior.

Cochan and Dolce are proposing a 5.25-inch, cement-like siding that, according to the application, closely matches the look of most of the Wiscasset historic district’s wooden homes of the 18th and 19th centuries. Explaining the choice to forgo wood, they write that today’s wood siding is prone to warping and rapid rot, and the wood, such as western cedar, generally doesn’t fit the region.

If the front door turns out to be original to the building, every effort will be made to restore it, Cochan and Dolce tell the town. As proposed, uninstalled windows that came with the property will be put in; they were part of the previous owner’s renovation project that had local work permits, the application states.

Reached Saturday, Dolce deferred comment on the proposal until after the commission has reached its decision.

Thursday’s meeting is set for 5 p.m. at the municipal building. Also on the agenda is an update on the commission’s letter to property owners.