Aliyya Swaby Photo
Squillacote and Almodovar make their case.
Wooster Square neighbors will have to wait for the right development project to come to their stretch of Grand Avenue.
That’s because Board of Zoning Appeals has turned down developer Paula Squillacote’s request for a variance to allow two residential units on the bottom floor of a mixed-use building, where the code does not permit them.
Neighbors argued at a zoning hearing last week that the proposed project is too dense and that the space would be best used for retail on the ground level.
Squillacote originally asked for a variance to allow 13 units instead of the maximum of six in a general business district, including nine on the first floor where they are not permitted.
She changed the application at the last minute, scaling back the number of units to the maximum six, and requesting that two of those be residential units on the bottom floor.
Lawyer Miguel Almodovar said the residential units are “not permitted by the ordinance but necessary to make the building valuable rental property for my client.” The residential units would be easier to fill than the four office spaces, he argued, allowing Squillacote to make money while searching for quality business owners.
“Several local business will directly benefit from the increase in foot traffic,” he said. The project would take the neighborhood one step closer to uniting Wooster Street with William and Lyon Streets, “where I live and work,” he said.
Squillacote owns 850 Grand Ave. and has been successful renting “luxury” apartments on the upper floors while the bottom floor is not full, he said.
Neighbors urged the board not to approve the variance.
Wooster Square Alder Aaron Greenberg pointed out that financial hardship was not a legitimate claim for a variance. He said Squillacote wants to build residential units on the bottom floor because “they’ve already been built.” He said she was served a cease and desist order for “doing construction that they had no right to do.”
Neighbor Mona Berman said the building has not been vacant since 1984, when she moved into the house behind the property at 78 Lyon St.
“It’s a commercially viable building,” she said. The new planned apartment complexes on Chapel and Olive Streets will only increase its viability.”
Berman said Squillacote regularly ignores neighbors’ requests for cooperation and has damaged several trees in between Grand Avenue and Lyon Street. “All trees at the back of their buildings (on land that directly abuts homes on Lyon Street) have been destroyed. The areas abutting the neighbors’ properties, a once interestingly green space of trees and ivy, are now barren, filled with debris, and have not been cleaned since construction began,” she wrote in a letter to the board.
Almodovar said his client cannot fit more than four units on the top floor, which is the hardship he was using to appeal for the variance.
But board Chair Pat King said Squillacote’s case “really is a case of economic hardship …They need six economically generating units to make this work for them financially.” She said she sympathized but could not approve the variance on that basis.
Four board members voted to deny the variance. Board member Ben Trachten removed himself from the discussion due to a conflict of interest.
Great, so instead we can have an empty space at street level instead for a few more years.