Cosmo wants Main St. demo
Published on May 7th, 2003
STONEHAM, MA - Listening to the complaints of over a dozen local residents at last night's selectmen meeting, the town's selectmen ordered the owner of a burnt-out, dilapidated structure on 104 Main street to tear down his house within two weeks or face legal action from the town.
Stoneham native Dale Halchak, the owner of several buildings across town, will now have to contact building inspector Gene Argiro for a demolition permit to knock down the Main Street structure, which has remained boarded up since a local arsonist attempted to burn the commercial building down over a year-and-a-half ago.
If Halchak fails to comply with the order, the town will take legal action and knock down the structure without the owner.
"We had a meeting this afternoon and I think the board should give him two weeks to raze the building and if he doesn't we'll refer to Mr. Solomon and we'll go to court," motioned selectman Cosmo Ciccarello, the room exploding with the victory cheers and applause of Nixon Lane and Main Street residents.
Before that unanimous vote took place, Nixon Lane resident Gary Lombard, designated neighborhood spokesperson before the meeting, told selectmen what he and other neighbors have dealt with for over fourteen months now.
"It's unfortunate Mr. Halchak had a fire, but now the building looks worse and I didn't think that was possible," complained Lombard. "It has the siding ripped off, lots of garbage, huge piles of dirt, a huge crane in the backyard...We believe the building's unsafe and we just want to see what we can do," he added.
Adding to the list of complaints, Main street resident Mary-Ellen Mazone told the selectmen that Halchak's inaction has resulted in neighbors putting off their own home renovation and beautification projects.
"I gave you those pictures to show you what we look at night and day," said Mazone, who told selectmen that teenagers regularly enter the burnt out house. "We're trying to improve our property, but why should I landscape when I walk my dog and all I see is beer bottles and Burger King wrappers?" she asked.
While the selectmen previously approved a site plan for Halchak to rebuild the structure shortly after the blaze, arguments between the building's owner and the town's building inspector over the square footage of the commercial home have halted all building efforts. In particular, Halchak claims that he has presented Argiro with a 4000 square foot rebuilding plan while Argiro interprets those building plans as containing 8000 square feet.
Saying that he has done virtually everything he could to get construction on that site started, Halchak claims that the selectmen acted unfairly in passing their newest decision on the property.
"I got picked to serve on a jury and I have to go to trial tomorrow. All I can say now is that it's truly unfair...the facts will come out when you hear our side of the story showing we have taken numerous efforts to improve the building with no avail," said Halchak in a phone interview after last night's meeting.
Claiming that he was not invited to last night's meeting, Halchak added that he felt last night's decision was the result of a mob-mentality.
"It was like a lynch-mob asking for justice. But what they got wasn't justice, it was completely unjust...It was totally unfair," the businessman responded.
Halchak also revealed why he can not tear the building down before the next building project is approved, saying that doing so would force him to relinquish his legal rights to rebuild.
"It's a legal matter...There are property laws that stipulate that if a building is removed, you're relinquishing your rights to build a new one," said Halchak.
"I think people will understand how our property rights have been violated, including the most recent actions of the selectmen...We just don't have a lot of faith in the system right now," he added.
While Halchak insists he received no invitation to the meeting, Nixon Lane resident Gary Lombard claims that the developer had to know of the meeting since he had met with town officials earlier in the day.
"The residents expected him to be there," said Lombard. "I'd be very surprised if he wasn't told we were going to meet tonight. It's my belief that he didn't want to be there and see twenty-plus angry residents. I think he had a pretty good feel for what was going to happen tonight," speculated Lombard.
Despite the bad feelings stemming from the fourteen-month saga, Lombard claims that the Nixon Lane and Main Street residents would be more than happy to allow Halchak to build the structure originally approved by the selectmen. Yet at the same time, Lombard admits that he's very concerned that the structure will be larger.
"It's been five long years of frustration dealing with this," said Lombard. "Nobody's saying he can't build on his property. We're just asking him to be a good neighbor in return. Tear down the building and come to some type of agreement with the town...But we're also suspicious of what Mr. Halchak is going to build there," he explained.
In other news resulting from last night's meeting, the selectmen finished selecting and voting on candidates to serve on various town committees and boards. Forced to extend the deadline for letters of intent until this week because of a lack of interest, all of the vacancies for the committees have now been filled. The new appointments are as follows:
Board of Appeals-Anne-Marie Simmons; Conservation Commission-Matthew Whooley and Michael Krist; Historical Commision-Christopher Willard; Water and Sewer Ordinance hearing board-Larry Rotondi.
The selectmen also wished to tell citizens and residents concerned with the proposed chapter 40B town house development on Isabella and Christopher streets that Thursday night's scheduled board of appeals hearing on the project will again be continued until July 5th. Because the annual town meeting coincides with that hearing, the board was forced to continue the hearing for a second time.
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