By Bill Forry

Melville Avenue is one of a handful of Dorchester streets that, even today, can transport you away from the bustle of modern Boston to a mythic time when Victorian homes, sprawling yards and wrap-around porches were the norm.

In the local tongue, the name 'Melville' means fine architecture, high-prices- and to some- high society.

And, for the moment at least, Melville also means high drama.

A contentious and drawn out neighborhood dispute over the construction of a single-family house at 99 Melville has become, it's fair to say, the leading topic of conversation in coffee shops and civic meetings in Dorchester and beyond.

The house in question, now home to Jacqueline and Anthony O'Flaherty and their two children, was built last year in the midst of a lawsuit filed by three abutters who claimed it was too big for the sub-divided site.

On January 3, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders sided with the neighbors- Yvonne Ruggles, John Young and Peter Ent- in a stinging, 17 page ruling that prescribed a solution that no one seems happy about: the house, the judge says, must come down.

The decision has sparked outrage in the wider community, where the notion of destroying an otherwise perfectly good home is considered ridiculous. Fliers appealing for the public to rally to the O'Flaherty's cause have popped up on store windows in Adams Corner and have prompted editorial support in a South Boston community newspaper.

Jackie O'Flaherty, who says she has just secured a new attorney to begin an appeal of the Jan. 3rd decision, says she has received a groundswell of support since the news hit the Boston Herald and TV news shows earlier this month.

O'Flaherty also admits that, besides a kind word, there is little anyone can do to be helpful to her position. The issue is clearly headed for the courts, and if the O'Flaherty appeal moves ahead as planned, it could be a matter of years, not months, before closure comes.

"I'm shocked," O'Flaherty says. "I thought that (the abutters') allegations were frivolous. I thought that a home for my family was more important than my neighbors' air quality."

However, next-door neighbor Peter Ent sees it differently. He says that the O'Flahertys ignored a pointed judicial warning that explicitly told them not to build the house in the midst of a legal action- and knew full well that the house could come down if they lost. Ent and others in the area who led the opposition to the O'Flaherty's project- some of whom refused to speak publicly about the case for this article- also say they are being unfairly labeled as heartless for standing up for their rights as abutters and neighbors.

"We filed our appeal well before the O'Flahertys began construction," Ent says. "A number of people may believe the intent was to tear the house down. But it was never that. It was to open a dialogue before they began."

Depends on Who You Ask

Until last fall, when they moved into the newly constructed home at 99 Melville, the O'Flaherty family lived next door, in a two-family house that they continue to own at 97 Melville. The property is typical of others on the tree-lined street, with a driveway through the middle and a large garage in the rear.

Jackie O'Flaherty is part of a family that has lived on Melville Avenue for close to 90 years. For the last 60 years, they have owned the divided lot that includes their new home and the older property that they now rent out.

In 2001, the O'Flaherty's began the process to build the single family at 99 Melville, petitioning City Hall for permission to build. The first agency to hear their proposal, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, rejected the O'Flaherty's plan, noting that the proposed house did not conform to the existing zoning code. The family, like many hundreds of city residents like them, would have to go before the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) to request a variance before building the house. A hearing date was set for August 2001.

There are conflicting versions of what happened next. According to Jackie O'Flaherty, she gathered signatures for a petition in support of her new house and invited neighbors to an outdoor meeting on the property to discuss her plans. O'Flaherty says the plan was met with resistance from the outset from the immediate abutters who did not want any house built on the lot. Others, speaking on and off the record to the Reporter, say that it was the O'Flahertys who failed to cooperate with abutters, ignoring concerns they had about the proposed home's proximity to their properties and to the street.

"My initial reaction was 'Let's talk about it,'" next door neighbor Peter Ent says. "They gave us some pictures of the house, but when we asked more specific questions about the site plan and the architect's plans, it was very suspicious. We wanted to say, 'What are you really doing?'"

O'Flaherty contends that she and her husband were more than accommodating to their neighbors.

"I had meetings and I jumped through so many hoops," O'Flaherty says. "I had to have plans to show where plantings would be and windows. I did a lot to please the neighborhood. But, it wasn't about making something nice. It was about stopping me."

Doreen Treacy, a longtime civic activist in the area who attended the O'Flaherty's first meeting on the issue, says both sides are right.

"To the letter of the law, communication did happen," says Treacy, who lives on nearby Wellesley Park. "Jackie and Anthony made a good faith effort to communicate, but it doesn't appear that their intention was to listen to the feedback."

City Okayed the O'Flaherty's Project

On August 6, 2001, however, the O'Flaherty's got the variance they had hoped for, after a public hearing before the Zoning Board in which the project was supported publicly by several city councillors, including Maureen Feeney and Mickey Roache. The decision was unanimous from the board, which meets every Tuesday to scrutinize development projects across the neighborhoods.

Feeney's third district does not include the Melville property in question, but the councillor says she was asked to support the O'Flaherty's petition by Fr. Dan Finn, the pastor at St. Mark's Church, who also spoke in favor of the family's new home. Feeney denies allegations that she was asked to support the O'Flahertys by Susan Tracy, a former state representative from Brighton who abutters have alleged influenced political leaders to advocate for Jackie O'Flaherty, her cousin.

"I don't know any elected official who was contacted by Susan Tracy," says Feeney.

Some neighbors, though, including the ones who eventually filed an appeal of the ZBA ruling, were taken aback by the decision. One claims that the abutters did not receive proper notice of the hearing and another claims that they did not know that the O'Flahertys were even seeking a variance.

Once the decision was made, however, the opponents had only two options: let the issue die and accept the project; or file an appeal of the Zoning Board decision within 20 days. The three abutters say that after the O'Flahertys rebuffed attempts for a meeting, they decided to go with the legal route.

"It's not like everyone wanted to shoot it down," says Doreen Treacy, who was not party to the lawsuit. "When it was ruled right there on the spot by the ZBA, the community felt like wait a minute, this is the only thing we can do. They wanted to put a halt on the process. That was the concern. Nobody intended for (the house) to be built or torn down. The idea was, 'Let's stop it before it starts so we can get it right.'

Despite the legal action, which neighbors filed in November 2001, the O'Flahertys received a building permit in January 2002 and immediately began construction on the new house. Opponents sought an injunction to stop the work at 99 Melville, but a Suffolk Superior Court judge turned their request down.

A Pivotal Day in Court

The decision to allow the work to continue, made on Feb. 22, 2002, now looms as the pivotal day in the Melville case. In his decision, Judge Jeffrey A. Locke ruled that the abutters could not force the construction to end, but warned the O'Flahertys that they built at their own risk. It was a warning that Judge Sanders duly noted in her Jan. 3 decision: "The Court made special note of the defendant's concession that, in the event that the (ZBA decision) were struck down, (the O'Flahertys) would bear the expense of removing the house and thus proceeded with the construction at their own peril."

And, proceed the O'Flahertys did, finishing the house over the summer and moving in by September 2002.

Jackie O'Flaherty said last week that she interpreted the judge's decision to let the construction continue as a sign that the ZBA ruling would be upheld.

"I took that as a huge sign in my heart," O'Flaherty told the Reporter. "I thought a unanimous decision from the ZBA meant something."

Joseph Feaster, chairman of the Zoning Board, says that he too was "surprised" that Judge Sanders overruled his board's decision to grant the variance in 2001. However, Feaster noted that "abutters always have the right to appeal."

"In the normal course of things, nothing would have been built," Feaster says.

Maureen Feeney, who has emerged as the O'Flahertys key ally, says that normal was hardly the description for this case, however. She claims the O'Flahertys were pushed to move ahead with the house by an illness that befell Anthony O'Flaherty. Feeney says the kidney problems that kept the UPS driver out of work was one in a series of "extenuating factors" that she felt outweighed the abutters' grievances.

"Every neighbor on that street had a right to take a position and I feel comfortable with objections," Feeney says. "Where it went beyond the pale was when people weren't willing to sit down and say, 'Okay how do we fix this.'"

Feeney's analysis is rejected by the plaintiffs in the case and by some of the allies who supported a legal fund set up to help pay for the abutters' appeal. As many as 20 neighbors contributed to a fundraiser held last year to help defray the costs of the lawsuit brought by Ruggles, Young and Ent. Another fundraiser may be planned for this year to continue the legal battle if the O'Flahertys continue to appeal the most recent decision of January 3.

Healing the Wounds

Today, according to Doreen Treacy and others, the Melville area remains deeply split by the case. Even the most well-meaning neighbors feel that the wounds of the feud and the resultant media coverage are too fresh to attempt any mediation right now. Adding fuel to the fire, observers say, is a cottage industry of gossip that generates almost daily reports of tit-for-tat threats targeting the principles in the dispute. Both sides allege that their opponents have used class and even sexual orientation as weapons in the feud. And while no one claims that any physical violence has resulted, at least one of the primary litigants, Peter Ent, has moved from the neighborhood as a direct result of the dispute.

Maureen Feeney, who has herself become a lightening rod for critics because of her pro-O'Flaherty stance, says that a courtroom is the only place for resolution at this point.

"In between the first appeal, we did try to ask people to sit down and talk about it. Now that there's a court decision, though, it really has gone too far. I think that it's probably going back to court. There's no other solution."

Jackie O'Flaherty says that the lesson she's learned from the whole saga is to get a lawyer involved from the start.

"I was told that if I had an attorney from the beginning maybe I could have avoided this," O'Flaherty says. "I just didn't know enough. I wanted to put all my money into the house. I'd tell people to be very careful, I guess."

Down the line, Doreen Treacy counts herself among those who are loathe to see a house torn down, but who believe that fairness dictates that the law be upheld in some manner.

"I don't think it's a good thing to tear down a house, but people also shouldn't flaunt the legal system," Treacy says. "There needs to be some kind of mitigation. Perhaps the O'Flahertys would have to pay some sort of fine to the community. There has to be something to say it wasn't okay to go against the judge's orders. Otherwise, we become the wild west again, where anything goes.

"It's not really an isolated thing anymore," Treacy says. "It's a precedent setting case and a real challenge to the current process of how the ZBA and the city is doing business."