Zoning Board denies residence permit for six-unit house on Charles Street Avenue

In a 4–1 decision, the Zoning Board of Appeals rejected a building owner’s application to allow two basement apartments to continue to operate at 3 Charles St. Ave.

The building owner, Fabio Varano, had applied to the board to overturn a decision from the building inspector, who last fall ordered Varano to halt the use of two basement units not included in the building’s permit. Varano reported that he immediately stopped using the units, evicting the tenants of one of the apartments and moving the tenants of the other elsewhere in the house.

The lot, which lies in a district that generally allows only one- and two-family homes, received a permit to construct a four-unit building from the ZBA in 1968. At some point before 1990, the owner of the building added two additional units in the basement. The current owner, Varano, purchased it in 2018.

Varano’s lawyer Bret Francis made a case to the board on Feb. 3 that the units had been operating continuously for long enough that, even though they did not conform to the house’s permit, they were grandfathered into legality. 

Massachusetts General Law lays out a mechanism for how this can happen, saying that if a building breaks its statutes but does not receive an “action, suit or proceeding as to an alleged violation” within ten years from the time it was erected, the structure becomes legally non-conforming. 

Francis provided documentation from a withdrawn ZBA case in 1990 proving the basement units were in use at that time, arguing that this meant the units had been in use for over ten years and should be deemed legally nonconforming.

Ward 9 Councilor Robert G. Logan came to the board to speak against overruling the building inspector’s decision. He read out a letter from nearby residents with worries about rodent and parking issues from additional units on the street. Francis argued these concerns were moot because the applicant was not asking to add any new apartments.

Logan also brought evidence from four separate occasions before 2025 where city departments had cited the units for being beyond the scope of the building’s permit, in 1989, 1991, 1992, and 2018.

Board members questioned Francis on how the previous owner could have built additional units not allowed by the building permit. ZBA member Matthew Deveaux argued that if Varano did not know before purchasing the building that two of its rental units were not included in its permit, that represented a lack of due diligence.

In the end, board members Deveaux, John Sergi, Glenna Gelineau, and Stephen Taranto voted to uphold the building inspector’s cease-and-desist order, with member Mark Hickernell voting against the motion.