By Alice Waugh
The First Parish Church tonight will resume its attempt to win approval for expanding the Stearns Room when it goes before the Zoning Board of Appeals at 7:30 p.m. in the Town Office Building’s Donaldson Room.
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 Views of the proposed addition (with the existing Stearns Room in red) from the west, east and north sides of the church. |
Discussion among church officials began in 2001 when an abutter to the west and north gave 2,788 square feet of land to the church to enable the expansion of the Stearns Room at the rear of the building. Tonight’s hearing is an appeal of town building commissioner Daniel Walsh’s denial of a building permit in March 2014.
That denial was based on a Planning Board decision in February to deny a setback request on the north side of the property. At the same time, the board approved proposed setbacks on the south and west sides, as well as relief from current zoning limits on lot size, lot width and parking.
The latest proposal called for increasing the rear setback relative to the pre-2001 property but sought a north-side setback of 6.4 feet, or 4 feet less than the current measure. The board asked the church if they would be willing to preserve the setback of approximately 10 feet in exchange for extending the structure to the west by a few feet, but church representatives responded that “the change would unacceptably impair the appearance of the addition,” according to the account in a March 25 letter from Walsh to the church.
The First Parish Church was built in 1842 and won a zoning setback variance in 1963 to add the Stearns Room to create space for gathering and hospitality, a small kitchen, restrooms, storage space and a robing room for the ministers. Since 2000, the church has tried to get permission to demolish the Stearns Room and rebuild a larger version. “The building is inadequate in regard to access and restroom facilities, and plagued with mold to the point where many parishioners will not enter it,” the church said in its appeal to the ZBA.
The church’s proposal aims to provide a covered, handicapped-accessible entranceway located between the sanctuary and the new Stearns Room. The plan also calls for handicapped restrooms, a sitting area with a fireplace, and a space on the south side of the addition for robing, private phone conversation, and gatherings at various times including after Sunday services when the Stearns Room is full. The room would open to a small patio and a view of the field to the west.
In its appeal, the church argues that, as required for a variance, it has sufficiently demonstrated that complying with current zoning regulations would “substantially diminish or detract from the usefulness of the proposed structure, or impair the character of the applicant’s setting or campus, without appreciably advancing the purposes of this by-law.”
“It is not possible for the church to comply with current zoning regulations. The building long pre-dates such rules,” the appeal says. “The only option available to the church is to do the best it can to minimize the extent of the violations as it rebuilds to promote its continuing health and vitality.”
The church argued in its appeal that it can’t shrink the proposed building further “without substantially detracting from the ability of the structure to meet the church’s needs… The proposed space is not large… [and] the need for more space in this room is acute, as anyone who has attended a reception following a service can attest. It is frustrating and not acceptable when parishioners cannot make their way to greet a bereaved family member following a memorial service, for example.”
As for the northern setback, the church said the gift of land specified two restricted areas in which construction would not be allowed, including a six-foot-wide strip on the northern side, which the proposal does not intrude on.
In addition to zoning approval, the church will also need permission from the Historic District Commission to proceed with its plans. The church has postponed applying to the commission while it works on getting zoning approval. However, the Planning Board noted in its February decision that if it “receives an opinion from the Historic District Commission, based on architectural or historical considerations, that the requested setback at the right side of the property should be granted because it is in the best interest of the town to do so, it will consider such opinion to be a specific and material change in the conditions upon which this decision is based.”