Project rendering.
Builder Andrew Consiglio got his final approvals Tuesday night to finally get start on building a house in historic — and architecturally protected —Wooster Square.
Consiglio, a retired police captain, has been trying to build the two-family house.
After starts and stops with various architects who provided insufficient or historically inappropriate plans, Consiglio eventually won the support of historic district commissioners to proceed.
And Tuesday night, at the regular meeting monthly meeting at the 200 Orange St. Hall of Records, Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) commissioners voted unanimously to approve variances for setbacks and projections and to allow for the construction of two-dwelling unit where a single is allowed. The BZA had previously approved those variances back in 2018 and 2013. The approvals had merely lapsed.
BZA commissioners Anne Stone, left, and Sarah Locke, listen.
As a result, shovels well might be be in the ground at the corner of Greene Street and Olive as early as April, said former city Building Official-turned private consultant Andy Rizzo, who appeared at the meeting with lawyer Ben Trachten to represent Consiglio.
If victory laps were allowed at the staid BZA hearings, Trachten just might have taken one.
“Grant our relief yet again,” he urged the commissioners, and this time we’ll build it.”
Consiglio’s formal efforts began back in 2012 when he bought an old surface parking lot from the city.
Because the property is located within the Wooster Square Historic District, any proposal required receipt of a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic District Commission (HDC)
Four or five tries before the HDC — no one is quite certain how many there have been — ended in rejections for want of detail and or appropriateness for the area. Then Consiglio hit on working with architect Peter MacPartland, who, like Consiglio, has roots in Wooster Square.
The former parking lot, site of the proposed new structure, at Greene and Olive, looking southeast down Olive.
The result was a presentation that last month dropped jaws of HDC commissioners at the meticulous and thoughtful detail. (Read about that here.)
That included right down to the height of the wrought-iron fence, 36 inches, proposed to surround the proposed building, the precise size of the border around Wooster Square Park.
The project’s been before the HDC many times and before the BZA three times, Trachten Tuesday said in his presentation to the zoning commissioners. Now he urged expeditious approval given the virtues of a project that replace a long empty lot in a residential district with a building that “the HDC has really labored over.”
And he was not wrong. The vote was quick, and unanimous, to support the variances.
Rizzo said Consiglio expects to pull permits within two weeks and begin building in the spring.
A wonderful example of the developer researching and presenting a building plan that is in character of the other buildings in the neighborhood. Congrats to everyone on making it happen.