Bid to replace 1960s Portsmouth home with multi-family home rejected as emotions run high

PORTSMOUTH — Representatives of the late owner of a 1.4-acre Sagamore Avenue property failed in their second attempt to gain a variance needed to redevelop a 1960s-era single-family home into multiple residential units.

The team representing Frances E. Mouflouze — whose son said she died Monday — sought the variance needed as part of the plan to demolish the existing home at 550 Sagamore Ave., and replace it with “three units within a Colonial home and barn,” according to documents filed with the city.

The property is located in a single-family home zoning district. The team sought a variance to allow a three-dwelling-unit structure in the single-family zone.

The variance application failed when members of the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment deadlocked twice on motions to both grant and reject the variance Wednesday night.

The board voted 3-3 on both motions with Jeffrey Mattson, David Rheaume and ML Geffert voting to grant the variance while Vice Chair Beth Margeson, Paul Mannle and Jody Record voted against that motion.

A motion to deny the variance by Mannle also deadlocked, with he, Margeson and Record voting yes, while Mattson, Rheaume and Geffert voted no.

Members against granting the variance stated the applicant did not prove a hardship that prevented the property from being developed.

The two tie votes mean the variance application failed, Margeson said.

Very emotional testimony

The controversial request — which came just four months after an earlier bid to demolish the existing home and replace it with two duplexes also failed — led to what Rheaume described as “very emotional” testimony during the hearing.

The board denied the initial request for variances in October, but the estate representatives appealed the decision to the state’s Housing Court, according to documents filed with the new application.

There has not yet been a ruling in the case, according to official statements.

Neighbors again object to project

A number of neighbors spoke out against granting the variance while the late owner’s team – and her son Ted Alex – asked the board to grant them.

Lindra Brown of 650 Sagamore Ave. told the board she was “kind of surprised that we’re back here again today addressing this again.”

She maintained that the applicant did not meet the criteria needed for the variance.

“Cramming as many houses and using every inch of land to make more money, is not a hardship,” she said. “And threatening that if this is not approved the house will be demolished anyway, and three single units on a cul de sac will be erected … feels very much like a bully on the playground to me.”

The attorney for the owner’s estate, Timothy Phoenix, said they believe a plan to use the property for a three-lot subdivision with single-family homes on each lot would meet the city’s zoning requirements.

But the development team doesn’t want to do that because, he said, it would create a “sea of asphalt” and eliminate “a significant portion” of the wooded area on the property.

Christana Wille McKnight, who lives on Sagamore Avenue near the property, told the board her family bought their home in December.

“Part of what is important to me is how the city makes decisions. This would obviously impact me and my family, and my husband and my two children, very directly,” she said.

She added that if the variance was approved, the neighborhood would “feel different.”

“I don’t think I would have bought my house if this was a three-tenement condo, nothing against it, it’s just not what we were trying to do for our kids and for our family,” she said.

Suzan Harding, who owns 594 Sagamore Ave., said “again I am here to ask that you not approve this.”

“When I bought my house, I appreciated the land. I don’t feel that you just have to devour every little piece of property to build something on it,” she said during Wednesday night’s hearing. “I know there’s a housing shortage but I don’t agree this is the issue here.”

She bought her home “appreciating the peace and the quiet and the land and the trees behind it.”

Harding added she didn’t “ever imagine” that “someone is just going to try to build all of this there.”

Property owner, Frances Mouflouze, dies at 91

Ted Alex, Mouflouze’s son, told the board his 91-year-old mother had “planned on being here tonight to speak about her Sagamore neighborhood of 40 years.”

“But my mom unfortunately passed away Monday after a fall in assisted living in Portsmouth,” he said as an audible gasp was heard in City Council Chambers.

“My mom through 91 was sharp and on top of all things Portsmouth,” Alex said. “Our family truly thought she would outlive us all.”

'It's not about greed'

He shared that his mother’s major concern was that other families would not have the opportunity to live in and enjoy Portsmouth like she had.

In terms of the application, he said the revised plan they brought to the board still left half the property undeveloped.

He also pushed back against what he heard from opponents of the variances in October.

“Our family are not developers, it’s not about greed,” he said about the redevelopment proposal.

The motivation for the project was to keep his mother “in assisted living, period,” he said.

“My mom never thought of her neighborhood as a single-family neighborhood,” Alex said. “It was all a neighborhood, not a single-family neighborhood, but a neighborhood that didn’t discriminate between those that have and have not.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth Sagamore Ave. multi-family home rejected again