Back Bay residents between Commonwealth Avenue and Newbury Street were awoken by a high speed car chase through the neighborhood's public alleys Monday night.
Eduardo Rafael Matos, 19, and Johnathan Pimental, 21, both of Dorchester were arrested for attempted auto theft, concealing stolen goods, driving to endanger, failure to stop for police and other traffic violations.
A Back Bay resident called the police after spotting the duo trying to break into a blue BMW parked in Public Alley 431 between Gloucester and Hereford streets behind Newbury Street. The witness said he observed two Hispanic males trying to pry open the rear driver's side door of the vehicle.
Police responded to the scene and tried to cut off Matos and Pimental’s escape from the alley. Police got out of the way of the suspects’ car once they realized Matos and Pimental weren't going to stop. After the car sped across Hereford Street and into Public Alley 430 police gave chase.
After exiting the public alley the suspects blew through several red lights and sped off down Massachusetts Avenue.
There, police were able to box in Matos and Pimental's car. Officers quickly apprehended Pimental but Matos took off on foot down Massachusetts Avenue. Other officers that arrived on the scene chased Matos several blocks and were able to apprehend him on the corner of Burbank and Edgerely streets near Symphony Hall.
After the two were booked, police took an inventory of evidence found in Matos and Pimental's car. There they found one clear plastic mask, five screwdrivers, one electric screwdriver, one pair of black gloves and three rolls of electrical tape in a backpack. In the car police also found three cellphones, one Ice Star and one Movado watch and a box filled with 13 pocketknives.
According to police the witness to the crime turned over a surveillance videotape allegedly showing Matos and Pimental trying to break into the BMW parked in Public Alley 431.
Appeals court agrees: no variance for illegal roof addition by Karen Cord Taylor
A panel of three justices in the Massachusetts Court of Appeals last week affirmed that the illegal roof top addition at 194 Beacon Street does not merit a variance.
The opinion upheld a Boston Zoning Board of Appeal decision, as well as a lower court decision, that denied a variance to condominium owner James Rudolph, who, through his company Steamboat Realty LLC, built a roof top addition that exceeds the Back Bay’s 65-foot height limit. Rudolph has until November 19 to ask for a re-hearing or appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court.
The appeals court noted that there was no order before them to require Steamboat to “return the roof to its previous condition.” But the justices said that step was “implied.”
Removal is what Back Bay neighborhood leaders will press for now. “That would be the appropriate remedy,” said Victor B. Castellani of Commonwealth Avenue, who has been following the case for the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.
This case determines whether Back Bay’s residential zoning and building code limits have any teeth, say observers.
The original roof ridge on the 1862 building at 194 Beacon measures 69½ feet high, according to court records — 4½ feet above the height allowed by current zoning. The addition on top of the ridge brings the height of the building more than eight feet above the current height limit, according to the ZBA. It also makes it subject to codes for buildings over 70 feet.
Rudolph began renovation on the top floor of the building in 1997, and the exterior design went before the Back Bay Architectural Commission in 1998. At the time, the architect told them the renovations would not raise the roof at all.
Shortly thereafter, however, Rudolph, the architect, the Inspectional Services Department, the Back Bay Architectural Commission and the Boston Zoning Board of Appeal began more than two years of wrangling about the addition’s exact height. Finally everyone agreed that the height was excessive, and in 2001, after ISD said the finished product needed relief from zoning, the ZBA denied a request from Rudolph for a variance.
Rudolph appealed the decision, and after more legal wrangling and delays, Superior Court Justice Janet Sanders heard the case in January, 2006. In her February 27, 2006 decision, Sanders affirmed the board of appeals’ denial of a variance.
Justice Sanders directly addressed the concern about whether zoning has any meaning. “If one could be excused from such regulations on the grounds that the nonconforming structure has already been built, then that would not only take the teeth out of zoning laws, but also would reward those who plunge ahead with construction, penalizing those who proceed more cautiously,” she said in her decision.
The recent appeals court decision noted that a variance would be almost without precedent. The decision cited Judge Sanders’s observation that the board of appeal “has consistently taken a tough stance on requests for variances that increase building height.” It also noted that “the evidence suggests that the board has refused to grant any height variances in the Back Bay neighborhood in the past ten or more years.”
“It was quite clear,” said Susan Prindle, the chair of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay’s architecture committee, of the appeals court opinion. “The Boston Redevelopment Authority and the neighborhood group have been very consistent in this kind of thing, and it’s one of the reasons the neighborhood is still here.”
Neither Rudolph nor his lawyer returned phone calls regarding this matter, but in legal documents Rudolph has said it would be too costly for him and too disruptive for the building’s occupants to destroy the rooftop addition.
The justices said that was too bad. “While the financial expenditures Steamboat has incurred and may incur in the future are regrettable, they do not supersede the board’s interest in preserving the architectural integrity of the neighborhood,” they declared.
Whether the appeals court decision will end the more than ten years of legal wrangling is still not known.
The city’s legal department would not comment on the matter, since the appeal period is still in effect. An ISD spokesperson said that department officials were also waiting until the appeal period had concluded before determining what their next move would be.
A board of appeal spokeswoman said it would be up to the Inspectional Services Department to enforce returning the roofline to its original height. There may also be a question of whether the tenants now occupying the condominium unit would be allowed to stay if the addition is illegal and the occupancy certificate previously issued by ISD is invalid.
To destroy the addition or make any changes, Rudolph would have to return with his plans to the Back Bay Architectural Commission, which has jurisdiction over any changes to a Back Bay building’s exterior. The plans they approved in 1998 were not the plans that were built, but the approval is invalid anyway since too much time has passed, said William Young, the BBAC’s senior planner.
If Rudolph, who is a real estate and construction attorney, decides not to ask for a re-hearing or an appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court, it probably does not mean the end of litigation for him.
Last spring, Rudolph put off a suit he was bringing against Patrick Ahearn of Ahearn-Schopfer & Associates, the architect he had hired to design this roof-top addition. That case was on hold until the appeals court made its determination, but it could preceed now that the determination has been made.
The College Club of Boston unveiled two rooms and dedicated another two rooms as part of their “Designer Dream Room Makeover Challenge,” on Sunday, October 14.
The College Club, established in 1890, started the “Makeover Challenge” in the fall of 2005, said Barbara Gomperts, chair of the marketing committee for the club. Each designer has two weeks to remodel their room and a budget of $3,500 for single rooms and $7,500 for doubles. The club usually unveils two rooms in the Fall and two in the Spring, said Gomperts.
This Fall, the Boston University room, by Janet Gaffey, and the Oberlin College room, by Barry DeCosta, were remodeled. Each room is named after a prominent college or university and that school’s traditions and history are reflected in the designer’s work.
Along with the unveiling, plans for the September 2008 renovations were announced. The club’s second floor Drawing Room and Members’ Room as well as the grand staircase and foyer will be unveiled next Fall. The remodeled rooms will be named after two past presidents of the club, Elsbeth Melville Percy and Catherine Dauber.
Gerald Pomeroy, one of Boston’s premier interior designers, is spearheading the restoration on the Percy-Dauber Drawing Room and Members’‚ Room. The unveiling of these rooms will be accompanied by a public open house, said Gomperts.
Proceeds from the open house and Sunday’s unveiling and dedication benefit the College Club Scholarship Fund, Inc. The fund was created in 1985 and scholarships are awarded to up to ten students from Boston public high schools.
A few weeks ago it was surprising to read a letter to the editor in the Boston Globe from Mark Neff, the president of the Home Builders Association of Massachusetts. He wrote that “our housing stock in Massachusetts is becoming increasingly obsolete.”
Since probably 90 percent of our readers live in housing that is anywhere from 80 to 150 years old, we wondered: Is he talking about us?
Apparently not. When we called him he said our neighborhood is great. He said he was referring to mostly suburban communities, where people want bigger houses than they did in the 1970s and where they want houses with 2007 technology. Sometimes, he said, it is hard to retrofit older houses with today’s technology.
We could have said that we do it all the time here, since we have no other choice.
Instead we listened to him describe the homebuilding situation in Massachusetts. He said Massachusetts was third from last in the number of building permits for new homes on a per capita basis. A lack of supply of new housing keeps all prices high and makes it more difficult for prospective buyers to find any house, never mind if it is affordable.
“You can’t have a growth economy and at the same time exclude people from the housing market,” he said.
He’s got a point.
But one thing we’ve learned from living in a historic neighborhood where you can’t do just anything to your house: Old houses aren’t obsolete. They are wonderfully adaptable. While many city folk tend to live in relatively small spaces, they can, if they have the money and the inclination, create a house as big as those McMansions in the suburbs. Commonwealth Avenue houses are typically 10,000 square feet in size. And if you want a bigger one, you could follow the example of a couple with young children at the corner of Exeter Street and Commonwealth Avenue who are combining two row houses to make one with almost 21,000 square feet.
There is also new technology such as the small high velocity heating and air conditioning tubes that can be inserted into standing walls. Some technology, such as computer networking, no longer has to have hard wiring at all, so you don’t need to renovate to plug in.
And our houses are naturally energy-efficient. The side walls we share with our neighbors keep the heat in. Thick brick and stone walls keep the cold out. Windows, remarkably, don’t often need replacing. They can be tuned up and tightened. You’ll do better at stopping air leaks by installing interior storm windows than replacing them with new windows, even if the architecture commission allowed you to do so.
Aging housing stock is a perjorative term that new-home builders throw around. But just look around. The age our houses carry makes them more beautiful, more environmentally friendly and more interesting than anything being built today. This renovation issue shows you how some of your neighbors have dealt with their old houses. We bet you wouldn’t trade the one you live in for any new house, even if it were given to you.
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