Westfield

Westfield ZBA seeks legal opinion

The Zoning Board of Appeals voted Wednesday night to continue the public hearing on a special permit requested by FRP Holdings Westfield, LLC to create six apartments in a Main Street building.
FRP is seeking the special permit to allow conversion of second-floor commercial space to a residential use at its 24 Main St., building complex. The ZBA can issue the special permit only if the parking accommodations required under city ordinance are satisfied.
Rob Levesque of R. Levesque Associates said the commercial space has been vacant for a number of years.
“This special permit was filed concurrently with Planning Board permits,” Levesque said.
The CORE district zoning ordinance requires two parking spaces be provided per residential unit, but other ordinances provide options to fulfill that parking requirement through special permits approved by the Planning Board.
The Planning Board, at its April 3 session, voted to grant two special permits and to grant a waiver for a site plan. One of the special permits allows the developer to have shared parking, while the second special permit allows the developer to “buy-back” two of the required spaces for a fee of $2,500 per space.
The City Council approved an amendment to the parking regulations last year, allowing shared parking (Article VIII, Section 7-10-7). The ordinance allows shared parking in the CORE, commercial, business districts and in residential districts, except for residential and multifamily uses. The shared parking has to be in the same zoning district as the primary use.
The shared parking will be in the lot of the Rocky’s Ace Hardware store, located at 44 Main St., which is part of the same parcel as the buildings being converted, and has more spaces than required under ordinance. The parking requirement is based upon the square footage of the store.
Levesque said that five of the surplus spaces in the Rocky’s lot will be used to satisfy the 12 space requirement for the residential units.
FRP also owns or controls five spaces in the Thomas Street parking lot, an issue discussed by the Off Street Parking Commission at its April 18 session. The parking board has requested a legal opinion on the status of those five lots, shared costs for maintenance of the spaces, and the city’s liability exposure related to the residents of the apartments.
City ordinance code, (Article III, Section 3-100.5, Special Regulations for Multiple-family Dwellings, paragraph 3) does allow the Planning Board to approve a special permit requiring the payment of $2,500 per space to the city.
However, the ZBA members questioned both the off-street parking and the special permit for the buy back of the two spaces.
“The decision of the Planning Board is something that we should look at,” ZBA member Martin Newman said. “The ZBA has to approve this special permit, but we need to verify that the parking spaces are there before we can decide.”
Levesque said that this is the “first of many projects in the CORE district (to use) the buy-back parking spaces.”
“Residents will be subject to the Off-Street Parking (Commission) requirements and regulations,” Levesque said. “We did navigate this process with the assistance of Advancement Officer Jeff Daley, Sue Phillips of the Law Department and the mayor,” he said. “We did confirm with the Law Department that Mr. (Rocco) Falcone does own that land (in the Thomas Street lot).”
ZBA Chairman Michael Parent requested a motion from the board to keep the public hearing open until its May 2 meeting. The motion also included a request from the Community Development Department to provide the Planning Board decision and to the Law Department for information pertinent to the board’s decision and the parking issues.

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