Not a pretty site
Published on April 30th, 2003
STONEHAM, MA - It's an ugly sight. The lawn is strewn with garbage - cigarette packs, plastic coffee cups and bottles and cans found almost everywhere on the property. Construction equipment, with its mechanical claw left sitting in a heaping pile of gravel and broken pavement pieces, sits abandoned in the backyard, the dried remnants of autumn leaves and windblown trash filling the vehicle's tracks.
The house itself has been stripped on its exterior, silver strips of flapping insulation beaming in the setting sun. With the front porch chopped off of the structure, the house's wooden siding is pitted and deteriorated, and several of the structure's windows and doors are covered with faded boards.
And left in this state for over a year, residents whose homes surround 104 Main St. can't take it anymore.
"I have a visitor and when they come they always say, 'what's going on there? It's embarrassing,'" said Nixon Street resident Mario Corsano of the dilapidated Main street home.
Once the site of a successful commercial building that housed several local businesses, the house located on 104 Main Street has been uninhabited ever since a local arsonist set fire to the building over a year-and-a-half ago. While the building's owner, Stoneham native Dale Halchak says he understands the anger and frustration of the neighborhood residents, he claims that the town's building inspector Gene Argiro has stymied rebuilding efforts.
Specifically, Halchak accuses Argiro of making outrageous interpretations of the town's building by-laws, refusing to endorse the developer's proposal to rebuild despite the fact that the site's plans were endorsed by the town's selectmen and community development office.
"We've tried to push this project. We've just had absolutely no cooperation from the building department," complained Halchak. "We lost faith in this guy...his ability to communicate is impossible. We just lost our wind. We just got burnt out," he added.
Citing an example of what he considers a ridiculous interpretation, Halchak claims that Argiro insists the building will contain 8000 square feet of office space, not the 4000 square feet of space that was approved in the plan. In dispute is the building's basement and third floor levels, which will only be used as storage space, says Halchak.
However, Argiro questions why Halchak would bother to connect those two floors to an elevator if he had no plans to utilize the space for tenants, and says that the town's by-laws clearly require him to count the two floors as office space because of their relative size. Stating that the building's plans only call for 4000 square feet of space, Argiro refuses to approve the plan.
"Let me ask you a question. If you're a businessman and it costs more for the basement and it costs more for an elevator, and you didn't plan to occupy that space, would you include them? I've been in business long enough to know that if you run an elevator to those floors you're going to occupy them," explained Argiro.
Argiro also claims to have another reason to reject Halchak's claims about the two extra floors, the developer's past with complying with similar requirements. Citing several letters sent to Halchak, the first of such sent in January of this year, Argiro says a Manison street property owned by the developer violated an agreement not to occupy the basement of that building.
"He'll swear up and down that it will only be used for storage, but if you pull a file on the Manison street property, you'll see that the plans call for only basement storage. But he has tenants in there," charged Argiro.
While Halchak could not be reached to respond to those specific violations, the Stoneham native claims that Argiro continually blocks efforts to work out some type of compromise by never responding to his proposals in a timely manner. Saying that it took nearly six months for Argiro to respond to his initial rebuilding plans, Halchak believes that he has addressed virtually every concern listed by the building department.
"We submitted three separate site plans before this one was endorsed. We made an application last year for a building permit and it took us six-months to get the plans back...we've made several building-code improvements and addressed almost every recommendation," explained Halchak. "A week would go by, a month would go by, months would go by, and he wouldn't respond to us with a written answer," the developer added.
Regardless of the arguments over the building, residents living close to the uninhabited structure want something done immediately to address the issue.
"I don't want to put the guy down, but do something. Do something reasonable. Don't leave it like a dump like that," said Nixon Lane resident Leone Torlai.
Echoing sentiments similar to Torlai, Main street resident Mary-Ellen Mazone expressed her belief that the developer should tear the home down to spare the neighbors.
"I think he should be allowed to put something there. It's his property. But I think he should be more accommodating and stop asking for more...At least tear it down until you get something done. Tear it down and let the weeds grow. I'd rather see that than this mess," said Mazone, adding that teenagers and adolescents often frequented the building this autumn.
Asked whether he would consider tearing the building down, Halchak quickly said he would not, offering no explanation why.
"I'm not going to tear the building down," responded Halchak. "The town should take some action. They're losing money here. And we're not going to take any action until they do something. This guy should be an ambassador for the town...He's not interested in the community," continued Halchak, again placing the blame on Argiro.
Some neighbors agree with Halchak also placing the blame for the rotting structure on the town as well.
"I'm not upset at the guy. The town as the authority when it affects other neighbors can take the initiative. They can tear the house down," said Nixon Lane resident Ottavio Passanisi. "If any one of those people lived on Nixon Lane, I guarantee that something would be done with it," suggested Passanisi.
While Argiro affirms the fact that the town does have the authority to tear down a building, he said the structure must first be declared unsafe or a public health hazard. However, the town would be hard pressed to prove that, the building inspector says.
"It'd be tough to say that it was unsafe. As a building inspector, we're not really in the position to declare it unsafe and evidence of that's evident in the fact that its been there for a year and it's still standing," said Argiro.
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