The Zoning Board of Appeal on Tuesday unanimously approved a developer’s plans to build a five-story, 24-unit condo building on what is now a vacant lot filled with trees and ledge between the Cedar Grove Cemetery and Granite Avenue.
Developer Denis Keohane’s plans for 157 Granite Ave. call for three affordable units – two to be sold to people making no more than 80% of the Boston area median income, one to somebody making no more than 100% of that level. Overall, the units would be split between 6 one-bedroom condos, 15 two-bedroom condos and 1 three-bedroom unit.
Keohane’s proposal also calls for 25 parking spaces in a garage.
Opponents, who included City Council John FitzGerald, said the building was simply too dense on a busy street, too tall, didn’t have enough parking and would cause privacy issues for residents of an existing four-story condo building next door and possibly even cast a shadow on the cemetery – especially since the five-story building would sit on the equivalent of two stories worth of ledge.
Keohane’s attorney, George Morancy, however, cited that ledge as one of the reasons the board should grant Keohane the variances he needed – blasting it away to create a building at street level would create a hardship. Also a hardship, he said, is the lot’s irregular shape – it has an unusual spike-like part along the cemetery.
Ledge in shaded area on a pointy lot:
Although at one point, the building would be roughly 5 feet from the cemetery rather than the required 20, Morancy said that because of the odd shape, most of the building would be further away from the cemetery boundary. Also, the entire lot was once part of the cemetery land – its trustees sold it knowing it might be built on, he said.
In addition to its size, height and lot lines, the proposal also needed variances for parking – its zoning would normally require 36 spaces – and because the lot is zoned for a single-family home, even though it has a condo building on one side and a commercial building on the other.
