Thomas Breen photo
269 Humphrey: 6 apartments now. 15 to come.
An East Rock landlord won permission to boost the number of apartments at a Humphrey Street house from six to 15 — after a local attorney pointed out that the existing building contains four floors, not three, and therefore has enough gross floor area to accommodate the higher unit count.
The City Plan Commission voted unanimously in support of that proposal Wednesday night during its latest monthly online meeting.
The commissioners approved a site plan to renovate the existing apartment building at 269 Humphrey St. so as to increase its number of dwelling units from six to 15.
City land records show that that property is currently owned by the Richard S. Bruno 2017 Revocable Trust. The site plan’s applicant, Humphreysville LLC, is a holding company controlled by East Rock-based landlord and attorney Albert Annunziata.
Attorney Ben Trachten, representing the applicant, told the commissioner that the project includes a “full interior renovation” of 269 Humphrey.
The assessor’s data for this property is “significantly incorrect,” he added. While the assessor’s card currently states that the building has just over 12,000 square feet of gross floor area, “the property presently has more than 15,000 square feet of gross floor area,” Trachten said. That’s because the assessor’s records does not count the building’s existing fourth floor, which has a head height of over eight feet.
That 15,000-plus square footage allows the applicant to convert the six-unit building to 15 apartments as of right — that is, without any zoning relief, per the area’s existing 1,000 square-foot-per-dwelling-unit requirement.
Trachten said that the renovated apartment building will contain 11 one-bedroom rentals and four two-bedrooms. One of the one-bedroom apartments on the first floor will be set aside for renters making no more than 50 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), per the city’s Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) ordinance.
Even though the local IZ law would allow the developer to provide as few as 0 parking spaces on site, Trachten said, this apartment building will have seven parking spaces.
Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand spoke up briefly in support of the project before he and his colleagues voted unanimously in support. “Having more units in this town at this time is going to be helpful,” he said.
