ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES

 

 

April 15, 2004

Neighbors battle housing developer

Yawu Miller

For more than 30 years, Beatrice Jones has parked her car in the driveway next to her Monroe Street house.

Three weeks ago, when a construction crew turned up at the vacant lot next to her triple-decker, she had her first inkling that things could change. Over the next days, as a hole was excavated and a foundation was poured, Jones and her neighbors learned from the construction crew that a two-family house would go on the lot that has been vacant for the last three decades, leaving Jones with no space for off-street parking.

“They didn’t notify anybody,” Jones said. “They came here at seven in the morning and woke everybody up.”

While developers in Boston typically notify neighbors before they begin major construction projects, LaRosa Construction had no official communication with the Monroe Street neighbors until the complaints began rolling into the city’s Inspectional Services Department.

“To this date, we don’t know what the project will look like,” said Monroe Street resident Dorothea Jones. “Nobody knows what they’re building.”

The neighbors’ complaints did win them leverage. The Inspectional Services Department shut the project down Monday after LaRosa allegedly failed to meet a deadline for submitting a parking plan. ISD spokeswoman Lisa Timberlake said the agency will review the developer’s ammended parking plan, then determine whether LaRosa will be required to seek a zoning variance from the Zoning Board of Appeal.

However, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative organizer Jason Webb says LaRosa has repeatedly pushed projects through the ZBA despite significant community opposition. Webb recalls a two-family LaRosa was building on a small lot on Alexander Street. Because LaRosa was building in DSNI’s core area, where the community-based organization has the power of eminent domain, LaRosa was forced to submit his project to community review.

But while the project was roundly rejected by abutters, neighborhood organizations — and representatives from the offices of city councilors Chuck Turner, Maureen Feeney, Stephen Murphy and Michael Flaherty — it slid through the ZBA hearing like a greased pig.

“The ZBA didn’t even blink,” Webb said. “They just said ‘go ahead and build it.’”

LaRosa refused to comment for this story.

“He doesn’t have a statement to make,” said LaRosa’s attorney, Joseph Feaster, adding that his construction manager would speak at a meeting that was scheduled for Tuesday.

“He was asked to come to the community,” Feaster said in a phone interview Monday. “He will send his foreman. All these issues will be discussed tomorrow.”

Feaster, who also serves as the chairman of the ZBA, said he recuses himself from votes when LaRosa comes before the board.

“I would never do anything that is a conflict of interest,” he said. “I’m a lawyer.”

Webb and others in the community are skeptical.

“No matter what he’s trying to build, no one can stop him,” Webb said. “It seems like he has a free pass to build whatever he wants.”

In addition to the Alexander Street project, LaRosa has built homes in the East Cottage Street area and is currently erecting pre-fabricated homes on Roby Street.

“He’s buying a lot of property in Roxbury,” said a Cottage Street resident, who asked not to be identified. “He knows he can get away with anything.”

Activists in the area say his homes are typically spartan, low-cost two-family homes lacking in ornamentation or amenities — none of the dormer windows, bays, or gables found in the existing Roxbury housing stock.

“They’re lacking in detail,” Webb said. “If you’re going to sell these homes for $400,000, there should be some details that fit into the existing neighborhood.”

 

 

Back to Lead Story Archives

Home Page