News

Residents resume fight against Sylvan St. office building

By Ethan Forman
Staff writer
Published: September 5, 2008

DANVERS — Six years ago, Deanna St. John and her neighbors successfully fought off a second office building behind her house at 128 Sylvan St.

In 2002, the zoning board termed the project "overly ambitious for the lot" and the developer withdrew his plans.

On Monday, similar plans for this patch of woods, this time with a smaller building on a larger piece of land, is headed back to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Then, as now, St. John thinks the project would put her in a fishbowl, with busy Sylvan Street at the front of her 1950s ranch-style house, and the new office building at the back.

Her yard slopes downhill, so privacy fences won't work.

"If I look out my bow window ... I will be looking right into the office building and they will be looking into my house," said St. John, 66, who shares her house with her grown son and grandson.

The developer and owner of an existing professional office building at 130 Sylvan St., John Giacalone, wants to build a Colonial-style, 7,000-square-foot, two-floor office building, down from 12,000 square feet and three floors six years ago.

Giacalone was able to enlarge his land from just over an acre to just under two acres after he bought the house next door to St. John at 124 Sylvan St. for $425,000.

"We bought the blue house to give it a little more space," Giacalone said.

St. John and another neighbor, Betty Almeida of 120 Sylvan St., are again trying to galvanize the neighborhood to thwart the office building.

"My concern is there isn't enough parking," Almeida said. "The driveway would have to be widened for a fire engine to come down with two buildings on the property. It's just a disaster waiting to happen."

The developer said he is trying to cooperate with neighbors and historic preservationists by keeping the home he bought intact as he splits off a portion of the backyard to make way for parking and landscaping.

"We try to cooperate with them," said Giacalone, "but every time we turn around it's something else."

The problem for neighbors is their homes border a commercial zone that also includes the likes of Dick's Sporting Goods and the Liberty Tree Mall to the east. The new office building is proposed for land in this commercial zone.

But to get permission to build, Giacalone needs a variance from the zoning board because he lacks the required 100-foot side setback and 50-foot landscape buffer from St. John's house. Such setbacks are meant to shield homes from busy shopping centers and commercial developments.

Plans show a 26-foot-wide landscape buffer and a 75-foot setback.

St. John said she has rejected offers from a representative of the developer to buy her home in the past, wondering what would happen to her and her family if she sold out. She has owned the home since 1997.

Giacalone said he was willing to pay more than market value for her home, which is assessed at $341,600, but not the $700,000 to $1 million the family sought.

Giacalone said he would install fences, trees and use the proper lighting to reduce the impact on St. John.

"No matter what he does," St. John said, "my privacy is gone. And once you do that, the value of my property is different."