Neighbors’ Feud Before the Zoning Board

Harriet Canavan said she has had a "terrible summer" because she cannot sit inside her screened porch at her condominium as she has for the last nine summers and listen to the night sounds that float up from  Forest River.

Her neighbor on Lafayette Street, Patricia Hart, is no happier. She may have to tear out her new 72-foot extension she built to her deck. And she is paying out "a fortune" to keep from having to hire a contractor to remove the deck extension.

The neighbors, Canavan, 88, and Hart, 67, are locked in a feud that has lasted for months over their decks. The battle over whether Hart's deck or Canavan's screen porch are legal is now in the hands of the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Canavan opposes the eight-by-nine-foot extension on Hart's deck, and she and her daughter, Cynthia Canavan, an attorney, are fighting it before the zoning commission.

Hart, represented by Beverly attorney Philip Wysor, is trying to prevent Canavan from re-assembling her 130-square-foot screened-in room on her deck.

"It's not even that I don't like the screened porch," Hart said. "In a condominium association, you have rules. That is the problem. It is a very bad situation."

The zoning board, which normally considers houses that are being doubled in size or ocean views that are being blocked, is being asked to play King Solomon in resolving the neighbors' feud, which Hart described as "basically stupid. The whole thing is crazy."

Wysor, trying to put the feud into perspective for the zoning board members, said he has done "a lot of work for a very small thing."

Canavan does not really object to Hart's deck extension, but she and her daughter want assurances from Hart that she will vote as a condo trustee to approve the screen porch being re-assembled before Canavan will drop her objection to the deck extension.

And Hart wants an assurance from Canavan that she will vote as a condo trustee to approve the deck extension in advance of her dropping her objection to the screens.

Both want the other's support, rather than opposition, before the zoning board.

The two women live in adjoining condominiums as part of a four-unit condominium association. Although there has been tension among the condo owners in the past, this fight started when the association decided last summer to allow each of the four owners to replace their deck at their own expense.

Hart, who lives at 146 Lafayette St., used the opportunity to have her back stairway demolished and add to her deck. "I love living here," she said. She enjoys the views of the river. But she does not enjoy her view of the partially constructed screened porch just feet away from her deck.

Canavan, who lives at 148 Lafayette Street, had her aluminum screened porch taken down to allow for the construction of the new deck. But when she began to have the screens re-assembled, Hart and the other owners objected. They got a cease-and-desist order to prevent her from re-assembling the screens. Only the back screen is standing. The rest is stored on her deck.

In March, Building Inspector Robert Ives sent Hart a letter telling her that she needed to get approval from the Zoning Board for the already-demolished stairway and the completed extension to the deck. Ives had already issued her a building permit and a certificate of occupancy for the deck. 

Hart, who blames the Canavans for complaining to the building commissioner about her deck, has launched a side battle of words with Ives over his letter.

Building Commissioner Robert Ives' letter states that he told Hart that she had to get the zoning board's approval for the deck extension before she built it. Now that it is built, she has to get approval for it or tear it out, the letter said.

In a sworn statement last week, Hart wrote: "I specifically refute the statement contained in Mr. Ives' March 8, 2010 letter to me that he told me in July 2009 that I had to appear before the ZBA. I did not create the situation. I followed the instructions that were given to me by the town officials I spoke to."

She said if she had been told she had to get the Zoning Board's approval for her deck extension, she would not have enlarged the deck because of the expense of hiring an attorney to appear before the board. Ironically, she is now paying Wysor to fight to keep her deck.

The zoning board is considering if Hart needs to have a variance, which is difficult to get, or a special permit, which is easier. That hearing was postponed until October, a month after the board hears Canavan's application to re-assemble her screens.

In the interim, the feud simmers in the summer heat. When the wind blew a section of Canavan's screens onto Hart's deck, the Marblehead police were called to retrieve it. Hart said she is not allowed to talk directly to her neighbor.

The condominium owners are scheduled to meet Aug. 16 to see if they can resolve the issues before the Zoning Board meets again. But Hart was not optimistic.