40 Warren Street Hot Topic at CNC

The proposed development at 40 Warren Street dominated the monthly meeting of the Charlestown Neighborhood Council (CNC)Tuesday night.

More than 25 abutters to the proposed project came to the meeting to ask that the Council reconsider its vote to support the project stating that the developer had not properly informed them of the meeting dates so that they could express their concerns.

On Monday, the Zoning Board of Appeals had delayed its approval of the project stating that more community input was needed before they could vote on the measure. (see related story below.)

“I have lived here for 16 years and this project will adversely affect my property values by as much as 20 percent,” Laura Pellegrino of 21 Main Street told the Council members.  “I found out the day before the meeting of the Real Estate Project Development Committee of the CNC on October 26 while other neighbors never had any notice,” she added, implying that the Committee vote on October 26 as well as the official Board vote of support by the CNC on November 6 was flawed as all the views of the neighbors were not known to the Board members before they voted.

The core of the issue was that the developer of the project had said to the CNC that he would notify all abutters to the project of the hearing dates of the CNC and its auxiliary boards and according to the residents at the meeting on Tuesday night this never happened.

CNC Board member Bill Galvin said that had he known that all the residents had not been notified then he would never have voted to support the project on the vote of November 6.

“The deferral by the Boston Zoning Board was granted to allow further discussion, Mal Watlington, an abutter to the project said. “We are here to have you open yourselves to a new consideration of this project,” he added.

Tom Cunha, CNC chairman, told the abutters that he was not inclined to change the vote of support for the project that was given on November 6 unless there was a significant change in “sticks and bricks” of the project.

Mark Rosenshein, chairman of the CNC Real Estate Project Development Committee asked the residents to try to work out their concerns with the developer.  “Let’s have some compromise,” he added.

A meeting of the Development Committee has been scheduled for January 5 to hear the concerns of the residents on this project.

Cunha did leave it open that if changes to the project did happen and a vote was necessary to reconsider their support of the project, since the primary meeting of the CNC would be on January 3, he would call a special meeting of the Executive Board to vote on whether to support or not to support the project.

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