By Adam Swift
The planning board was receptive to the changes for a proposed apartment project at 46-48 Library St. at its meeting last week.
The board voted to recommend the approval of the special permit and variances for the project to the zoning board of appeals.
The proposal to have nine apartment units built over three garage bays and connect it to the existing three-family home on the parcel raised some questions from the planning board when it was before it in December. The project will be built on the existing footprint of the garage.
Those questions revolved around how the new units would connect to the existing building, the entrances to the new units, and the number of windows at the back of the units.
“Right now, if you drive by the property, it’s somewhat of an eyesore,” said project attorney John Mackey. “If this gets approved and developed, it’s going to be a beautiful project and it is going to increase the housing stock and it is also going to provide for a couple of affordable housing units.”
Project architect Beth McDougal said in December, planning board members had some recommendations for the project, and that she tried her best to pull the ideas together and update the design.
“First off, what we did is we changed the siding on the existing building over on the right,” said McDougal. “We heard you with regards to it kind of looking disjointed and we agreed. We spoke to the client and he agreed to change the siding and the windows so that it would look very cohesive as one building on the site.”
The architects also looked at the back side of the proposed building, which was initially flat and undulated the back.
“If there are kitchens or bathrooms that don’t necessarily have to have a window, we recessed it to three feet so that we could actually put in windows in bedrooms on this side and a little slider with a small balcony,” McDougal said. “The top floor we kept the original three-foot step back … we like the horizontal band so that we have a base, a middle, and a top to the building, which helps the proportion of it.”
McDougal said the project keeps as many three-bedroom units as possible, since she said the owner wants as many units for families as possible.
“I think this is a great job of listening to the board and really coming back to us with some great ideas in terms of some things we asked,” said board vice-chair Regina Taylor.
Board member Nick Valentine also said he liked the redesign of the project, and that there was a much better flow between the new units and the existing three-family. He did ask if there was going to be any interior work to the existing building or just to the exterior. McDougal said the current plan is just to do the work to the exterior and leave the interior as is.
The next meeting of the zoning board of appeals is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 10.