The Church of the Ascension was dealt a major blow Tuesday
evening when Bradford City Council rejected a demolition permit for
a house adjacent to the church on Chautauqua Place, according to
church officials.
The permit had been approved by the Historic Architectural
Review Board last Thursday.
Bill Tremaine, junior warden of the church in charge of
buildings and property, and Debbie Cavagnaro, senior warden, were
at the council meeting, and left after the council denied the
demolition permit.
“I never thought this would happen after what we went through
with the hysterical society,” Tremaine said, referring to HARB.
“What’s it coming to when you can’t do what you want with your own
property?”
When asked if they planned to appeal the ruling, Cavagnaro said
they would have to see what Crossgate Management Inc. wanted to do.
Crossgate is the management company which had applied for the
demolition permit on the church’s behalf.
“This is a liability to the church,” Cavagnaro said of the house
at 22-24 Chautauqua Place. “(The house) is going to take serious
money that we don’t have to get through the winter.
“I was not expecting it,” she said of the city’s ruling.
During the meeting, the only council member to vote in favor of
the application was Dan Costello. Although neither of the other
council members present – Tom Shay and Ross Neidich – nor Mayor
Michele Corignani said why they opted to vote against the
demolition, Costello implied that the decision had a lot to do with
a building at 45 Main St.
“I believe it’s two completely different situations,” Costello
said. The Main Street building was purchased by Roger Feura, who
had applied to HARB for permission to demolish the building.
His application was denied because it was incomplete. “There was
no paperwork … nothing there for us to go on,” Costello said. The
house on Chautauqua Place is a different situation, he added.
“This is a building that the church doesn’t want,” he said.
“It’s going to sit there and start going downhill. Crossgate went
through the process and did what they were supposed to do.
“Maybe if the first one (45 Main St.) would have had all his
ducks in a row, it would have turned out differently,” Costello
said.
Feura’s plan for the Main Street building is to tear it down to
make a parking lot. He plans to reapply to HARB with a complete
application. Had council approved the church’s plan, a parking lot
would have been the result there as well.
In other business, council heard from businessman Bruce Gray,
owner of Foster Brook Glass & Mirror of East Washington Street,
about city-backed improvements that never seem to make it as far as
where his business is located.
“I’m asking about East Washington Street,” he said. “There’s
blight in town and there’s blight right across from my shop.”
Gray asked if any of the city revitalization projects were
planning to include East Washington Street. Most of the plans seem
to stop at Boylston Street and begin again at West Washington
Street, he noted.
Ray McMahon, executive director of the Office of Economic and
Community Development, explained that improvements made on Boylston
Street were with streetscape funds from the Department of
Transportation.
“Our first phase, from Boylston Street to the East Washington
bridge, we’re not going to have enough money to even do that,”
McMahon said. He explained that the figures the OECD was originally
looking at for the project was $400 per linear foot. However, when
considering aspects of the project such as burying power lines
underground, an architect estimated the cost to be about
$1,100-$1,200 per linear foot, he said.
An application has been submitted for another round of
funding.
“We hope to get included in that to get up over the bridge and
onto West Washington Street,” McMahon explained. “From the planning
end of this, we would like to get to this maybe in 2008.”
Gray also asked about the vacant buildings in the area and what
it would take to have them considered for demolition. “How do they
get on the list?” he asked, referring to properties awaiting
demolition.
“Simply by you or others pointing them out as problems,” McMahon
replied. “We can add them to a potential list subject to
inspection.”
Also during the public comment portion of the meeting, Tom Riel,
a candidate for city council in the election next month, addressed
the council and City Clerk John Peterson about an article recently
in The Era. Riel referred to a comment Peterson made about being
financially responsible where Peterson said his office was “down to
looking at the prices of paper clips.”
Riel presented Peterson with a large box and said, “There’s
15,000 paper clips there.”
“Thanks a lot, Tom,” Peterson replied, clearly annoyed.
“You’re welcome,” Riel replied, walking back to his seat at the
rear of the council chambers.
