This article by Tommy Gardner was first published Aug. 10 in the News & Citizen.
Morristown has doubled down on its refusal to let people move into a 24-unit affordable housing complex in the middle of town, saying the owner hasn’t yet met the requirements of its zoning permit, one of which is a municipal parking lot reconfiguration that the town has dragged its feet on for three and a half years.
The decision by the town’s development review board, however, doesn’t appear to have teeth, and one of the people tasked with enforcing the prohibition says he won’t do it.
Already, five of the apartments have been filled and more applications continue to be processed every day, according to Jim Lovinsky, executive director of Lamoille Housing Partnership, which developed the property and is a co-owner. The apartments are in the village of Morrisville, which is part of the town of Morristown.
According to minutes from the July 26 review board meeting, the board “instructed” zoning administrator Todd Thomas and interim town administrator Jason Luneau to disallow occupancy of Village Center Apartments, which held a ballyhooed ribbon cutting in late June — complete with local, state and federal government officials — to signal its completion.
Thomas had already fined the apartment owners $500 on July 21, saying he would accept $35,000 for a parking lot reconfiguration to add the required number of parking spaces for the apartment, a project the town has not yet undertaken.
Luneau, who is the town’s police chief and only temporarily filling in as town administrator until someone can be hired, said there will not be any more fines. He said he sees himself as playing more of a mediator’s role and will not enforce the review board’s order to prohibit occupancy.
“One hundred percent, please make that clear,” he said. “There will be no more enforcement action taken at this point. The town is not stopping occupancy of this building.”
It is unclear whether the review board even has the authority to limit occupancy. The discussion was not warned and was added to the already-scheduled meeting at the last minute.
Lovinsky said no one representing the building was invited to the meeting and he didn’t even know about the discussion until Thomas posted minutes last Friday.
According to those minutes — which Thomas himself writes — review board members “expressed dismay” that the housing partnership planned to “continue to violate the DRB’s permit conditions regarding occupancy.”
An email sent to all review board members Monday seeking comment went unanswered as of press deadline.
No work, no payment
According to the review board minutes, the main sticking points are an incorrectly constructed portion of the sidewalk in front of the Hutchins Street building, which Lovinsky said is being addressed, and the reconfiguration of the nearby municipal parking lot, which the town has not started.
Thomas told the owners he would accept a check to the town for $35,000 — one half of the original estimate to reconfigure the lot to allow for more overnight parking spaces, 16 of which would be reserved for the apartment building to satisfy town parking bylaws.
However, that work has not been done and Thomas said it will likely cost well over $100,000. Lovinsky has maintained the partnership won’t pay until the work is done.
During a phone conversation July 25, the day before the review board meeting, Thomas said $35,000 gives taxpayers “the short end of the stick” but he would consider that sum a “partial victory because they don’t want to pay their fair share of the parking lot improvements.”
Lovinsky was outraged Tuesday when he heard that comment, saying it was a purposefully misleading comment meant to make the developer “look bad” to taxpayers. He added the partnership is also a taxpayer, owning multiple expensive buildings in town.
“That’s baloney. That is not true. What gives him the right to say that? He’s a town employee,” Lovinsky said. “I just don’t understand why he decided to go down this path of such obstinance and belligerence.”
He said not only did the developers allocate $35,000 to pay half the cost, which was estimated in 2020 by former town administrator Dan Lindley, but the parking lot reconfiguration will add roughly 35 spaces, only 16 of which will be reserved for the Village Center residents for winter overnight parking.
The 2020 memorandum of understanding between the housing partnership and the town doesn’t mention a dollar amount or a percentage the partnership would owe for parking lot improvements. It only states that the organization would “participate in discussions” with the town to address overnight winter parking and other parking needs and “contribute” to design and construction costs, with no other specifics.
The memo, however, also holds the town responsible for getting the parking lot fixes done within 30 months — it has now been 43 months and Thomas has said the construction likely won’t happen until next spring.
Lovinsky said if the parking lot isn’t finished by this winter, it will put Village Center residents in a serious pinch.
“It’s been three years,” he said. “If it costs more, it’s not on us. It’s on the town for not getting it done in a timely manner.”
Thomas and the review board also said the sidewalk in front of the new apartment building should be made of concrete where it crosses the building’s driveway and is instead made of asphalt.
Lovinsky said the housing partnership is scrambling to “call the workers back” and tear up the problematic asphalt and replace it with concrete. However, he said the original construction was done based on a site plan that was accepted by the town and clearly indicates the sidewalk portion in question would be made of asphalt.
That’s not good enough, Thomas said in an email Tuesday, pointing out the sidewalk must adhere to the town’s sidewalk policy, which calls for concrete along the “full frontage” of the building. He said another developer was forced to tear up a sidewalk on Bridge Street and replace it for the same reasons, adding “everyone gets the same rules and the same treatment.”
“From where I sit in my office, I see a concrete sidewalk continuing across the alley adjacent to Caplan’s/Moss, a concrete sidewalk continuing across the driveway to Peck’s Flowers, a concrete sidewalk continuing across the driveway to Soulmate Brewing,” Thomas wrote Tuesday. “So, what you are being pitched here by the applicant would be the exception and not the norm.”
As for the tenants moving into Village Center, Lovinsky said they are happy to finally have housing in such a tight market— the housing partnership has a wait list of over 500 would-be applicants.
One person who moved in last week is now much closer to his job, and another new tenant lived in a hotel for 18 months waiting for the building to be finished, Lovinsky said.
“By the way, he doesn’t have a vehicle and doesn’t plan on having a vehicle,” Lovinsky said. “One of the reasons he is so happy to be here is because he can get everything he wants right in town and doesn’t have to drive.”
