Saugus resident’s home demolition request tabled

SAUGUS – The Saugus Board of Appeals voted unanimously to table a hearing for Robert McCarthy, who is seeking a variance to tear down a vacant house at 15 Wolcott Road and build a new single-family home.According to McCarthy, the existing home, which was built in 1920, has been vacant for more than a year and takes up around 1,200 square feet. The proposed new structure would take around 1,400 square feet.”If you look at the garage, there’s a hole in the roof, the walls are tilting ? and the home is similarly in disrepair,” said McCarthy. “It needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up. The property itself right now isn’t in sellable condition.”McCarthy ran into some trouble with the board because he didn’t submit actual building plans for a new house. But McCarthy said there’s a “good likelihood” he would sell the property just for the land.”If we have this piece of land and it’s approved by the Board of Appeals to rebuild on it, it would make it more marketable and easier to sell,” said McCarthy. “If we give you a specific house plan right now, we’re going to be limiting the choices of the person who might buy it.”Despite this, Board of Appeals Chair Catherine A. Galenius said she wants to have a plan in place for the next meeting.”We, and I’m sure the neighborhood, would want to know what’s going in there,” said Galenius. “We do want to make sure that we have a plan that we can hold people to. To give you a variance ? and just kind of give you carte blanche, I don’t feel comfortable with it.”Precinct 10 Town Meeting member Peter Manoogian spoke in favor of the project and said abutters also support it, but acknowledged it would be helpful if McCarthy presented a building plan.”The question that I could not answer is what’s going there,” said Manoogian. “Clearly to have these questions go unanswered at this point, I think there’s somewhat of a risk. But I want to reiterate, the neighbors are not opposed to it and I’m not opposed to it.”The board voted to table the hearing until its next meeting on Dec. 19.In other business, the board granted a variance to Robert and Teresa Moore to build an open Farmer’s Porch at their home on Adams Avenue, and granted a variance to Sandra Woodworth of Tuttle Street to build a bay window in her kitchen.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].