The City Plan Commission denied permission for a half-built house to be completed and a proposal for a Newhallville convenience store, and tabled a request to open a gas station-convenience store on the east side, after the three applicants failed to show up.
The absences filed down the City Plan’s already short agenda at the agency’s monthly meeting Wednesday evening.
Commissioners voted unanimously to deny the first no-show developer, who has a history of blowing off meetings with City Plan Commission staff.
Developer Mario Massimino of MAM Properties began constructing two new houses at 203 Russell St. in Fair Haven Heights last year without a permit, consequently receiving two cease-and-desist orders from the city. He said he had “misinterpreted” zoning regulations but would work to straighten it out.
Thomas MacMillan File Photo
He has since stopped work on the site. The city now wants him to remedy the damage.
City Plan staff worry that Massimino’s failure to appear Wednesday night means he has abandoned the half-cleared site.
“I don’t see how you could approve it,” Tom Talbot (pictured at top), deputy director of zoning, advised the board. “The conditions here are to be discussed with the applicant. We’ve given them every opportunity by the virtue of the process available to make it right, but they haven’t.”
“They’re not going to,” board Chair Ed Mattison said.
“It appears that way,” Talbot said. City Plan staff’s report contains a list of 16 conditions to move the project forward, including approval for various building materials, periodic site inspections to ensure “soil erosion control,” and repaving of the street along the front of the lot. Staff also submitted two additional conditions from the site plan review team.
Fair Haven Heights Alder Rosa Santana and Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola submitted letters opposing the project; DeCola was present at Wednesday’s meeting. City Plan’s board plans to talk with the city’s corporation counsel to figure out the next step.
Commissioners did not vote on Ralph Mauro’s proposal to put a convenience store and gas station at 281 – 289 Chapel St., a proposal first submitted in June 2013. Mauro had also added a request to put an addition on the building in order to make space for large vehicles.
He did not show up to Wednesday’s meeting, which made the board wary to call a vote.
“I want them to say that they understand and agree to the conditions,” Mattison said. City Plan staff had been working with Mauro to edit the proposal and had drafted 13 conditions for approval, including plans for controlling soil erosion and sediment control.
City Plan voted to deny without prejudice one request for a special exception to put a convenience store at 680 Dixwell Ave. where an appliance store used to be. The applicant Gazimd Kader first presented his “dollar store and variety store” at last week’s Board of Zoning Appeals meeting, and did not satisfactorily answer City Plan staff’s questions about his plans for the location.
“He’s calling it a dollar store, but it’s not really clear what the difference between this and a convenience store would be,” Talbot said. “At the public hearing, neighbors were concerned about exactly that.”
Neighbors at the BZA meeting worried that another convenience store on the street would increase unhealthy food options in the neighborhood, especially since several similar stores exist within two blocks of the location. Three spoke in opposition to the plan; none spoke in favor.
Because City Plan unanimously voted to deny without prejudice, BZA will have the last say on whether or not to approve Kader’s proposal, at its next meeting in February.
“Tell him to show up,” Mattison said.
