Orchard Street Project OK to Continue

The owner of the structure at 23 Orchard St. which was originally approved for additions making it a two-family home in what is a single-family zone was given the OK to continue construction.

Thursday night the Zoning Board ruled that the variance application was consistent with the approval granted on Oct. 8, though not before much deliberation and some new provisions.

Though the application was approved originally at a prior meeting, the structure was leveled and could have been considered a brand new construction.

The owner of the property, Kevin Gero, and his architect Alan Andreas, owner of ASA Architectural Design, said once the renovations began on the home it was discovered that the foundation was in poor shape and would not have been able to support the renovation.

The board's decision was based on if it felt the foundation issues were known before or after the variance was granted. If there was a sense it was known prior, the board could have looked at it as a tear down and made the applicant present a brand new proposal. That proposal would have been forced to comply much closer to the single-family zone, because the original variance approval was based on the original structure, not as though it was a vacant lot.

Gero said if he had known the foundation was in such poor shape – a fact that did not come up in the home inspection – he would not have purchased it in the first place.

"We by no means wanted to or had any plans to make this one family," Gero said. "If we had known that this foundation was bad, we probably would not have purchased this property."

He also said that the purpose of the purchase was not to sell it right away.

"We bought this house to keep this house, to make it a better two-family dwelling," he said, "to make it look nicer and conform to the neighborhood. We went into this purchase to keep this house. We're not flipping it."

Some members of the board were in favor of making the applicant reapply as though it was a tear-down situation. Board member Nancy Northrup was one who was in favor of such action, saying she felt sorry for Gero, but that, although she hated to say it, it was more a "buyer beware," case.

"I think the question is, is this really appropriate under the current circumstances, for a two family?" she said. "Is that really the right thing to do?"

However, Northrup was one of three members of the board that were unable to vote on the matter this time around. Board attorney Gary Hall said that because only four of the members had voted on the original application, that those four would be the only ones to vote on if it was still consistent with that application.

Those members, chairman Russell Stern, vice-president Joseph Glade, John Ciulla and alternate No. 2 Joseph Santoro, voted 4-0 in favor of the application, though Glade did so with some reservations.

"I kind of have mixed feelings about this," Glade said. "I think it's a difficult decision. Would I be looking at this differently if i knew this was a vacant lot? Yeah, absolutely I would. But if I looked at the lot and the size of the lot, and if I look at the neighborhood that is there, I don't think what we approved or what's being proposed is really out of character with that neighborhood."

The application was ruled consistent with the original approval with a few conditions, one of which is that a dry well system must be installed, which Gero had planned on doing once he realized the entire structure would need to be rebuilt.