Waltham ponders town house complex

By Denise Dube, Globe Correspondent, 12/2/2001

ALTHAM - Wayne Brasco Jr. stood before the Zoning Board of Appeals last week and pitched a plan for Waltham's south side that would demolish 12 outdated buildings and replace them with 54 townhouses.

Little more than a mile away, two doors down from the funeral home that bears the family name, and close to the streets where Brasco hopes to build the new homes, local and state police barricaded a homicide scene at an aging Moody Street rooming house that looked similar to the houses Brasco hopes to replace.

Brasco, 29, was at Tuesday's meeting to ask for variances on one single-family and 11 multi-family properties that make up eight lots on Alder, Ash, Myrtle, and Beech streets. Brasco purchased some of the properties in August 1998. The remaining sales are contingent on the Zoning Board's approval.

To make the development work, Brasco needs variances to turn the eight lots into one complete lot, another for reuse of a nonconforming lot, and another for building setbacks from the streets.

''It's nonconforming now, and what we're going to put back is also nonconforming,'' Brasco said, adding that nearly three-quarters of the south side neighborhood is nonconforming.

By the end of the meeting, the Zoning Board continued WSB Realty's hearing until the next meeting and asked that the proponents return with specifics on building heights, and drawings and detailed plans for the back of the townhouses.

What could not be tabled was Brasco's desire to revitalize an area where he and generations of other family members have lived and raised families. ''You have to start in your own backyard first,'' Brasco said during the meeting.

The demolition of the 11 buildings will take 49 affordable housing units off the Waltham market and replace them with 54 townhouses that start at $325,000 - a price out of reach for most of the 214 adults and 60 children living in the buildings WSB Realty hopes to demolish.

''Unfortunately, that is our toughest issue that faces our project,'' said Brasco, a former accountant who is a real estate agent and funeral assistant.

Faced with that displacement, Brasco decided, after a conversation with his brother, City Councilor Paul Brasco, and another councilor, David Marcou, to offer three of the units in an affordable housing lottery for municipal workers or anyone at the apartments who could not find alternative housing.

Even Lisa Soucy, an Alder Street tenant who has been one of the most vocal opponents of the development, stood and offered her support. ''The situation is not a pleasant one for the tenants. We do have to agree it will happen eventually. We prefer to deal with Mr. Brasco.''

The Alder Street buildings are owned by Alex Steinbergh of Resource Capital Group in Cambridge, and, with zoning variances will be sold to Brasco. Tenants have publicly made previous complaints to Steinbergh about the lack of heating in some units and the need for repair in others.

This story ran on page W7 of the Boston Globe on 12/2/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.