EASTHAM — The zoning board of appeals spent more than two hours on April 6 considering an appeal filed by abutters opposed to the planning board’s recent approval of a plan to demolish a cottage on Boat Meadow Marsh and replace it with a house twice its size.
The ZBA voted to add two conditions to the planning board’s approval that would reduce the size of the house and screen the walkout basement from neighbors.
That decision didn’t last long, however, with Ben Zehnder, the attorney for the owners, arguing that the size reduction would kill the project.
In the end, the ZBA rescinded its two votes on conditions and gave the property owners and their neighbors a month in which to reach a compromise, with the discussion set to resume on May 4.
John Sheehan and Sara Zobel of New York and Mashpee got site plan approval from the planning board in December for a 4,355-square-foot house and 1,321-square-foot garage with an upstairs apartment to be built at 715 Bridge Road.
The approval came despite considerable pushback from neighbors, who argued the project was too large for the neighborhood. Andrea Hanson and Christopher Szwedo, who live directly behind the property at 15 Bayview Road, appealed the planning board’s approval on those grounds, saying the board had not fulfilled its charge to ensure the project blends in with the character of the area.
During the ZBA hearing, Szwedo played a five-minute clip from the planning board’s site plan discussion in which chair Daniel Coppelman said that real estate is dynamic and changes with the needs of the public. “They want taller ceilings and bigger windows,” Coppelman said. “You’re not going to keep 1920s cottages in a town forever.”
While Coppelman mentioned there were “a bunch of letters in opposition,” he said that reading them publicly would take too long. “I think the overriding fact here is it’s a single-family home in a single-family neighborhood,” he said.
Coppelman’s comments on the inevitability of large houses, said Szwedo, are “evidence of leaning toward a predetermined viewpoint.” The board failed to use the town’s bylaws regarding the size of the house and the character of a neighborhood to shape the project, he said.
“We’re not against them wanting to build the dream house they want,” Szwedo told the ZBA. “We just don’t want it to be this big.”
ZBA vice chair Robert Bruns agreed that the size of the house presented a problem. “This is an imposing structure from Bridge Road and from the marsh and not necessarily in harmony with the neighborhood,” he said. And while the proposal complied with setback rules, planning board chair Coppelman “missed shaping the project,” Bruns said.
Project architect Sibel Asantugrul argued that the town’s conservation commission had “shaped the project tremendously and the planning board shaped it as well.” The owners’ concessions, she said, included moving the house farther back on the lot and reducing the size of a deck off the garage. Asanatagrul said they had also reduced the overall square footage slightly.
“The picture being painted by her is inaccurate,” Szwedo objected.
In an appeal, the job of the ZBA isn’t to deny the planning board’s site plan approval, said Bruns, but to add conditions if the board decides they are needed.
Bruns proposed adding two conditions: reducing the living area of the two main floors by 10 percent, which he said shouldn’t change the house’s overall look but would reduce its massing somewhat, and requiring the owners to screen the walkout basement with plantings.
ZBA member Brian Ridgeway spoke against the size reduction. “Do we start to let abutters design houses?” Ridgeway asked. “I’m concerned about that.”
Bruns said it would be up to the applicants’ architects to do the designing.
In a formal vote, the board unanimously approved the screening requirement. Bruns’s motion to reduce the size of the house passed 3-2, with chair Joanne Verlinden, alternate member Jarod Carey, and Bruns in favor, and Ridgeway and member Robert Sheldon opposed.
Zehnder immediately protested. “It will literally kill the project,” he said. “I ask that you revote. We are going to have to go back to square one.”
Asked by Bruns if he thought the conditions would address their concerns, Szwedo answered, “We’d like to see the house smaller, but we’ll take this. We didn’t ask for the house to be destroyed, to throw a hand grenade on it. We just asked it to be reduced.”
Verlinden asked if the two sides would be willing to see whether they could work out a compromise if the case were continued for a month. Hanson and Szwedo said they would be. The owners reluctantly agreed: “I’m willing to have a conversation; I just want to know where it will end,” Zobel said.
To that, Bruns said, “We can’t ignore eight abutters coming forward not liking the project.”
Then, at Zehnder’s request, the board rescinded both of its earlier votes on conditions.
