Abutters used law to surface details
A property owner’s preliminary plan to build out as many as two dozen additional housing units on a Minot Street lot that includes an existing two-family house is stirring early opposition among some neighbors, who are calling for more transparency if the project proceeds.
A spokesperson for Jim Paskell, Jr., the owner of the 39 Minot St. property, confirmed to The Reporter that he is “exploring the possibility of creating additional housing on the nearly 25,000-square-foot site.”
According to Catherine O’Neil, who is advising Paskell, a meeting for abutters that was planned for July 23 was cancelled amid concerns that the venue scheduled to hold the meeting— McGonagle’s Pub on Neponset Avenue— could not accommodate a group larger than the 30-person abutters meeting initially planned.
The meeting, O’Neill said, was not intended to present a finalized proposal, but to discuss “early ideas” shaped by the city’s Planning Department and to hear directly from abutters about their concerns and priorities.
In a statement, an attorney for Paskell said that “future meeting opportunities will be shared as they are scheduled,” but reiterated that no plans for the site have been finalized.
“Meetings like these often lead to changes in project plans as neighbors raise questions and offer feedback. We fully expect that will be the case here,” said the attorney, George Morancy. “This stage of the process is a starting point, not a conclusion. Unfortunately, the location secured for the abutters meeting cancelled.”
News about the emerging project had been shared among abutters, some of whom requested and received internal city documents using a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The FOIA information suggests that city planning officials and Paskell have discussed adding as many as three four-story buildings – with roof decks – that could make for 26 new units on the site.
Ray and Lauren Hanley, who live directly across the street from the potential development, say they recognize the need for additional housing, but note that the scale of the project and the failure to engage abutters like them in the early stages have already prompted “significant community opposition to the scale, density, and neighborhood impacts.”
In a statement to The Reporter, the Hanleys said that “the development team and the City have held multiple meetings, discussions, and interdepartmental reviews during this year-long ‘pre-file’ phase without disclosing the active planning effort to the community or releasing project details to abutters, which demonstrates a lack of transparency.”
They added: “We hope the community will be an active participant in any reasonable development of the property. However, based on the lack of community engagement, the developers’ efforts to withhold information, and their characterization of relaying the limited available information to the community as ‘unhelpful,’ we believe that community engagement, transparency, and reasonable development are not priorities for this development team.”
Morancy, on behalf of the development team, said they “remain committed to a process that is transparent, respectful, and genuinely collaborative. We understand the concerns, as most members of the development team have deep roots in Dorchester and this neighborhood,” he added.
