The Claridges Condominium has reached the end of the bureaucratic rabbit hole and will finally be able to close two longstanding code-violations centered on a pair of air conditioners installed without proper permits.

The Town Council voted 4-1 on April 15 to grant two variance requests to the zoning code triggered by the height of both units, and two variances that will allow the condos to avoid screening the equipment. Council Member Julie Araskog voted against the variances.

The council’s approval ends a saga that began roughly a year ago when code officers cited the condominium for installing the air conditioners without the proper permits. Since then, the condo has undergone five Code Enforcement Board hearings.

While the board ordered Claridges Condominium to pay a combined $300 in administration fees during the process, the condo has managed to avoid racking up daily fines, thanks to the condo association’s efforts to address the problem, according to the members of the code panel.

Throughout the process, condo association attorney James Gavigan has stressed that building officials had believed the contractors had obtained the proper permits before installing the air conditioning units.

The council’s review came a month after the Architectural Commission unanimously voted to approve the new mechanical equipment and voiced its support of the variance request pertaining to the height of the cooling towers.

The Claridges Condominium will now be able to close out a pair of code violation cases, after the council approved four zoning-request tied to a pair of cooling towers installed without proper permits.

But architectural commissioners were concerned about establishing a precedent of allowing rooftop mechanical equipment without screening and voiced their opposition to granting those variances. The commission recommended the council deny the two screening-related variances.

 

Most Town Council members were unconcerned about the screening variance, as the air conditioner units could not be seen from the street. Moreover, the condo’s neighbors, The Patrician Condominium to the north and La Bonne Vie Condominium Apartments to the south, had sent in letters in support of the screen variance.

Those neighbors had sided with the condo's more affordable alternative — painting the air conditioners the same color as the building to help disguise them.

While that satisfied most of the council, Araskog said the price of screening was not enough of a hardship to grant the variance to avoid screening the mechanical equipment.