Just a few years ago, downtown streets used to be packed with people heading to local bars and restaurants. Now it seems they are filled with residents heading to Zoning Board meetings. More than 200 people showed up for a Zoning Board meeting Tuesday night that was called to grapple with a double bill of contentious development projects – a half-built parking garage at 916 Garden St. and a proposed 18-story “C” shaped residential building at 1600 Park Ave. After nearly three hours of debate, Zoning Board members voted 8-1 to allow the Parking Authority to construct a mechanical penthouse on top of the Garden Street garage, despite the strenuous objections of dozens of residents who claimed that the project had become too big, too ugly and potentially too noisy. Since it was nearly 10 p.m. by the time the board finished action on the Garden Street facility, the hearing on 1600 Park Ave. was postponed until Jan. 25 at 7 p.m. Debate on the Garden Street facility quickly turned into an all-out gripe session when the public comment period began, as residents from the area where the project is being built strode to the front of the room, one by one, and lodged complaint after complaint. Standing at a microphone in the front of the room, they told the board that the building was not being built with the soundproof walls, the painted bricks, or the windows that they had been promised. Like a broken record, the Chairman of the Zoning Board, Joe Crimmins, and the Board’s counsel, Carl Schaefer told residents that the board was in no position to handle their complaints. They said that the board had approved the Parking Authority’s construction plans more than two years ago and it was meeting Tuesday night to consider a request for a variance relating to the mechanical penthouse only. “I’m not reopening a board meeting from two years ago,” said Crimmins. “We are here to talk about one issue only.” Crimmins and Schaefer stuck to their mantra even though Schaefer admitted that an error he made was partly to blame for the residents’ concerns that the developer was building a garage that did not meet the specifications that were approved by the board previously. Schaefer’s error was brought to light at the beginning of the public comment period when Michael Baldassari, a resident who lives directly behind the half-built facility, pointed out that the contractor was building the facility out of cinder blocks – even though the building’s plans call for five-foot-thick concrete walls to contain noise. “What we have there is hollow cinder block walls, not concrete,” Baldassari said as he stood in front of a three dimensional, one foot by one foot model of the garage that he had designed to show what he considered to be its problem areas. “I’ve spoken to a number of sound engineers and they tell me that there is no comparison.” In a barely-audible voice, Schaefer explained that he had made a mistake when he typed up the zoning board resolution that alluded to five-foot walls two years ago. “I put down five-foot concrete walls when I intended to put down five-inch walls,” said Schaefer as the audience exploded in disbelief. “It was a typographical error. I’m sorry.” Schaefer then told the board that they would have to vote on a resolution to correct the typo. After the meeting, Baldassari was not satisfied. “They can’t just say that this was a typo and move on,” he said. “What if I wrote a check to the city for my taxes that read $12 instead of $1,200? I would not be able to say, ‘oops, it was a typo.'” When residents asked what they should do to get their concerns addressed, Schaefer told them that they could take the city to court, but that the Zoning Board could not do anything to address concerns that did not have to do with the mechanical penthouse. There was a vigorous debate over the necessity of building the penthouse on top of the 56-foot garage as well. In the beginning of the hearing, Jose Caravallo, an architect who was hired to monitor construction of the facility, explained that it was “essential” to build a penthouse that would stretch from the north end of the garage to the south end to house a hoist that would be used to repair the facility. “Basically, it is only a hump in the roof,” said Caravallo. “You can’t even see it from the street.” Louis Rago, an attorney representing the Parking Authority at the hearing, said that it would be prohibitively expensive to place the penthouse anywhere other than the top of the building. “If we put it inside the structure, we would lose 52 parking spaces,” he said. “It is my understanding that the project would not be economically viable if that were to happen.” During the public comment period, Baldassari’s attorney, Peter Agostini, asked the board to strike all testimony that Caravallo had presented since he was an architect, not an engineer. The board denied his request. Under questioning by Agostini, Caravallo said that he had discussed plans to put the hoist in the structure but he could not give the board any more information about those discussions. Specific cost estimates were not presented. As the public comment period stretched into its second hour, several speakers urged the board to postpone action on the garage until further information could be gathered about the necessity of building the penthouse on top of the structure. Hank Forrest, a city resident who said that he had not planned on speaking, urged the board to deny the variance request altogether. “If you turn them down and force them to knock a whole floor off their building you will never have to have a meeting again where people come to you and ask for a variance in the middle of building something,” he said as the audience cheered. “I think you will be heroes. I think that all the people who have come here will get a lot of satisfaction out of knowing that government works for them.” Tony Soares, who was one of a number of city councilmen who attended the meeting, also told the board that this issue was about more than the penthouse. Soares told the board that he thought they had abused the public’s trust and that was why they were encountering so much resistance to the request for a variance for the penthouse. “Two years ago you had the public on your side,” said Soares. “They said they trusted you, but now that we see the mistakes, it’s different.” When the public comment period closed, one board member, Dominick Lisa, seemed to have been convinced by the arguments that the public presented. “I feel like the public,” he said. “There are a lot of things that we don’t know… I think we should postpone it.” But Suzanne Manzi, the vice-chair of the board, quickly pointed out that postponing the vote would only delay the necessity of making a difficult decision. “Although the public is bringing up a lot of perceived problems,” Manzi said, “there is very little that can be accomplished by stopping this now and going through it all again…We are here to deal with one minor issue. The public is right on a lot of these issues, but this is not the right place to address them.” When the motion to grant the variance was offered, Anthony Mitolo was the only member of the board to vote no. “I just felt that the public comments warranted a more profound look,” Mitolo said after the meeting. “I wasn’t satisfied with what was presented.” But board Chairman Joseph Crimmins said, “I sympathize with everyone who came here tonight. They were outraged with the Parking Authority, and so am I over this. But we had to look at the situation where we are now and make a determination about what is the best thing to do. You have to realize that this was not a private developer. If it was, we would have said, too bad. But we had to do what was best for the residents here.” Later in the week, residents who are concerned about the garage found a reason to be hopeful that their concerns would be addressed. After making a presentation at the City Council meeting on Wednesday night outlining his concerns about the Garden Street project, Baldassari said that he was able to get a commitment from City Councilwoman Teresa Castellano to set up a meeting that would bring together the key people from the Parking Authority and the council to try and address the residents’ concerns. Baldassari said that he hoped to have the meeting by the end of the month. “I found Tuesday night to be very disappointing,” Baldassari said ,”but after the council meeting, I became very hopeful. What a difference a day makes.”
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