City Council Approves Tidd Home Special Permit

WOBURN, MA — City Council voted at their Tuesday meeting to approve a special permit for the Tidd Home. The historic mansion, which resident John Flaherty bought in 2018 with plans of turning into an apartment complex, will have just 15 parking spaces for 14 dwellings. In the residential district the building is in, it would normally be required to have two parking spaces per unit.

The 1809 Elm Street building, formerly a non-profit senior housing building, takes up a large fraction of its lot, making it difficult to build sufficient parking to meet modern building codes. The local charity that ran the senior housing announced it was shutting its doors in 2017.

Because of the building's small lot, Flaherty's proposal also violated units/acre zoning rules. The city council passed a zoning code amendment over the summer for conversion of historic buildings, which allows them to exempt buildings like it from a rule limiting buildings in the zoning district to 20 units per acre.

Partially to adjust for the limited amount of parking, city council added an additional condition to the special permit Tuesday, asking that the units be restricted to people 55 and older. It was one of 14 conditions put on the special permit by the city.

Only one council member, Joanne Campbell, voted against the special permit.

"I believed that we needed more parking, so I cannot vote in favor of that tonight," Campbell said.

Councilman Eddie Tedesco was absent for the meeting.

Other agenda items: A request for minor modifications to the Woburn Armory, 286 Main St, was sent to the special permits committee, rather than passed. Councilman Michael Concannon said that the request was "not really a minor modification."

"Stop torturing this guy," complained Councilman Richard Gately, who voted against sending the request to committee.

Special permit requests for 304 Cambridge LLC and Braese Holdings LLC were approved, with an additional condition on each. The public hearing on the proposed Zoning Overlay District was continued to the next meeting, Dec. 17, at the request of Tedesco.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.