By Phil Orlandella
While the North End/Waterfront Neighborhood Council (NEWNC) failed to generate a quorum, they unofficially supported four agenda items. Apparently, they will conduct another meeting or contact no-show members to secure their votes.
President John Pregmon statement, “As you know, NEWNC did not obtain a quorum for Monday’s meeting. Our bylaws instruct the preceding officer (in this instance, me as president) “may†at ensuring the meeting for another time. I elected to continue the meeting to respect the time of presenters. The Council members present heard their presentation and voted at their conclusion.â€
“These votes, however, were not official. The Council collectively approved a special meeting. This meeting will occur next week and be open to the public. Presenters will be invited to return, but I am not requiring them to do so as they’ve already presented. Instead, Council members were absent will watch the video on NorthEndWaterfront.com and come to the meeting prepared to take an official vote on all three agenda items. I will on you all of the date, time, and location once they’re finalize.â€
NEWRA voted 4-0 to support a request by the owners of 431-439 Hanover Street (Metropolitan Realty) to increase the floor area ratio from 4.54 to 4.39 to increase the existing first floor commercial space into the existing basement. The proposal will add approximately 940 square-feet of additional commercial space to the area.
The Council also voted 4-0 to support a proposal by Chris Young, owner of 3 Jerusalem Place, to construct three two-family residences with a total of six units with garage parking for the units at 6, 7, 9 that is an open space. The five-story buildings will all be less than 55 feet reportedly 53 feet. Construction will take over a year. Young has met with abutters that had no problem with his proposal and there should be no traffic or parking problems during construction.
The Council voted 3-0, one absentee, to support a request by Frank DiPasquale, to change the legal occupancy of the second floor of Assaggio Restaurant, 25-29 Prince Street to restaurant use to include a demonstration kitchen work area to train potential chefs.
The concept will be known as La Scuola Assaggio, is to have cooking demonstration classes and guest chefs. Eliot School and St. John school students can also attend. When not used for demonstrations, the space will be used for additional restaurant space raising the seating capacity from 33 seats to 66 seats.
           He also requested a change of operating hours during the weekends to 1 a.m. The Council did not support the change.