Board likes proposed Allston apartment building but tells developer to come back with some more open space on the lot

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday rejected plans for a 14-unit apartment building - with three affordable units - at 17 Linden St., saying that while they and the Boston Planning Department both agree it would be a great addition to the side street off Cambridge Street, it just needs to be pruned back a bit to add some more open space in an area nowhere near a park.

The board voted to deny the project without prejudice, which means owner City Realty can come back in less than a year to try again.

Its plans called for 675 square feet of total open space, almost all of that consisting of decks, rather than any sort of greenery. "It is a good project, it's just not quite there yet," board member David Collins said. One of the zoning violations for which it needed a variance was that the rear side of the building would be just 8 feet from its lot line, rather than the required 30, on the 6,490-square foot lot.

City Realty's attorney, George Morancy, said his client would readily agree to increase the open space, possibly by ditching most of the six parking spaces proposed for the site, which would allow for a little landscaped area in the back.

When he realized the board was on the verge of voting to deny, he asked for a deferral to allow time to revise the plans - he said he only learned of the planning department's objections to the relative lack of space in a document he got on Friday.

But like Omar Khayyam's moving finger, once the board has started a hearing, it doesn't move back and so instead of granting a deferral, it formally rejected the proposal, which will take more time for City Realty to resubmit plans and get a new hearing date than a deferral.

The board does let applicants ask for deferrals, but only before their projects have come up for a hearing; Morancy said that if he realized the board would have voted to reject, he would have asked for a deferral then.

Morancy also failed in an effort to have the open-space issue resolved in planning-board "design review" after an approval. Such review is routine for all but the most minor of zoning approvals.

But while the planning department's Jeff Hampton agreed that "Linden Street is ripe for this type of project" and that the street's zoning is way, way out of date given the rapid development all around it, he said "design review" is usually just meant for relatively minor design changes, such as paint colors or the location of garage doors. He said he doubted the department's urban-design planners would want to tackle what he called "major" changes such as reducing the overall size of the building, which might mean a reduction in the total of units, including of the affordable ones; that that is something City Realty's architects should be doing.

"If the proponent is agreeable, they should've done them in the first place," he said.