Five townhouse condos rejected behind Ceylon Park to let angry neighbors, developers try to work something out

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday rejected a local developer's plans to replace a decrepit row of eleven garage parking spaces with five townhouse condominiums on a small street behind Ceylon Park in Dorchester after a hearing at which residents angrily rejected the proposal and the developer's lawyer felt compelled to swear an oath as "an attorney and officer of the court" that he wasn't lying.

Developer and restaurateur Solmon Chowdhury was seeking approval of his plans to replace the one-story garage at 226 Magnolia St. in Dorchester with five three-bedroom condos each atop a one-car garage - where he once proposed a four-story building with 28 "compact" apartments and indoor space for 50 bicycles.

The board unanimously rejected Chowdhury's plans "without prejudice," which means he can file new plans within a year, in the hopes he can convince neighbors that the five-condo proposal is better than the six-condo proposal he had earlier submitted to both the city and residents for review. At the hearing, his lawyer, former City Councilor Mike Ross, said Chowdhury agreed to remove one unit at the request of the Boston Planning Department, to increase the amount of open space in the proposed building's backyard.

Residents who testified, however, said Chowdhury and Ross never showed them the five-unit proposal and that they could not accept it because it hadn't gone through the normal community review process.

Tameka Johnson, whose family has long lived in the house next to the lot - with which it shares a driveway easement - said Chowdhury submitted the plans at the last minute and failed to address the "environmental concerns" of the building on a sloped lot next to a city park. She said her family members were "too disgusted" to call into the meeting.

Mike Kozu of Project RIGHT got into more specifics: The building is too tall, it would cause excessive runoff because it would sit on a slope, headlights from residents parking their cars would shine right into the Johnson home and the windows would mean a loss of privacy from people being able to peer into the family's house.

"We honestly believe the process has to be adhered to," Lavette Coney of the Mount Pleasant, Forest and Vine neighborhood association, said. "This really seems like a sleight of hand," agreed Holly Shepherd of the Roxbury Neighborhood Council.

"This has been an acrimonious process, as you might have picked up," Ross told the board. He said the building's originally planned basements were eliminated to reduce runoff and the impact on nearby buildings and that its windows were placed so as not to line up with the Johnsons'. And, he said, "I swear to you, as an attorney and an officer of the court," he did so show the latest plans to Johnson.

Ross added that at this point, it seems like nothing Chowdhury does will make any of the neighbors happy. "Every time we tried to meet one concern, another concern popped up," Ross said, adding it's gotten to the point where people are accusing his client of being an "out of town person coming in to build something," when, in fact, he lives about a mile from the site.

Suffolk County Registry of Deeds records show Chowdhury bought the narrow parcel in 2019 for $200,000

Board members asked why the proposal calls for townhouses perpendicular to the street, rather than a more traditional building. Even if narrow, the lot is still 46 feet wide. Ross said that part of that is because the Johnsons have an easement to use eight feet of the lot for parking, which means the land available for building is a lot less. He said a door could be added to the street side of the building, however.

In addition to height, the building needed variances for being too close to a neighboring building, not having a large-enough front yard or enough open space, being too tall and having too many floors under the lot's zoning.