Building Inspector to Face Questions by the Selectmen

By CHRIS BURRELL

Less than a week after the Oak Bluffs zoning board of appeals
denounced the process that permitted a controversial three-story garage
to be built on the North Bluff, Oak Bluffs selectmen now intend to ask
their building inspector to explain publicly how it all happened.

"It's gotten to the point where it's of interest
to everyone," said selectman Richard Combra at a regular meeting
Tuesday afternoon. "We all have some questions about how we got
where we are and where we're going."

Already scheduled to report to selectmen Tuesday night to deliver an
update on his department's work, Oak Bluffs building inspector
Richard Mavro will now face more pointed questions about how a simple
garage replacement at 10 Seaview avenue extension turned into a
structure resembling an apartment building - more than 30 feet
tall with balconies and sliding glass doors.

Selectman Kerry Scott, who first raised the issue at Tuesday's
meeting, also wants to know why Mr. Mavro failed to attend the two ZBA
hearings this month on the project.

"It was his action being appealed. So many questions came
up," said Ms. Scott. "It would have been helpful if he was
there."

Mr. Mavro signed the garage construction permit in the first place,
giving Oak Bluffs businessman Joseph G. Moujabber a green light last
November to replace a 240-square-foot garage on Seaview avenue
extension. Mr. Mavro then defended the permit last spring when the
roughly 3,000-square-foot structure came under fire from a group of
outraged neighbors.

After Oak Bluffs town counsel Ronald Rappaport issued a legal
opinion in May determining the permit should have never been issued, Mr.
Mavro revoked Mr. Moujabber's building permit.

Last week, the zoning board of appeals - whose two hearings
this month pulled in crowds of more than 60 people on each occasion
- unanimously upheld the revocation and declared the garage in the
backyard of Mr. Moujabber's bungalow illegal.

But more than just siding with the revocation, zoning board members
laid the groundwork for a critique of how Mr. Mavro handled the
Moujabber project, referring to a "scantily filled-out"
application and the lack of detailed building plans that showed setbacks
and elevations.

ZBA chairman Gail Barmakian questioned the veracity of the
application on which Mr. Moujabber stated his construction costs would
amount to only $22,000 and that he would do the work himself.

Mr. Moujabber's Boston attorney claimed that his client had
numerous meetings with the Oak Bluffs building department to revise
plans for the burgeoning garage project, but there was no paper trail
- updated applications or building plans - to back up his
claims.

Mr. Mavro was absent from the meeting and couldn't answer
questions about how the garage evolved.

Now, selectmen are poised to take advantage of the chance to ask Mr.
Mavro to explain what happened.

"We have a right and need to know," said Mr. Combra, who
added that he would also like to ask Mr. Mavro about a third floor
addition recently built at Nancy's Restaurant on the harbor. The
restaurant is coowned by Mr. Moujabber and his cousin, Douglas Abdelnour
Sr.

"People have asked me about the third floor at Nancy's.
My assumption is that it has a proper permit," said Mr. Combra.
"I would like to hear from him about the North Bluff and
Nancy's."

Selectman Michael Dutton agreed that his board needs some clarity.

"There's a great misperception about the zoning bylaws,
what they mean, how they're applied. People ask, ‘How could
we allow such a flagrant violation of the zoning bylaws?''
said Mr. Dutton. "But what is the zoning violation?"

Mr. Mavro, who is appointed by the selectmen, has been the Oak
Bluffs building inspector and zoning enforcement officer since 1989.
Until last year, he was appointed for one-year terms but voters amended
a bylaw allowing selectmen to appoint him for three-year terms. His
latest appointment expires in April 2006.

"We are his supervisors," said Mr. Combra. "And it
would be very healthy [to ask him these questions]."

But selectmen also urged some restraint, agreeing they would alert
Mr. Mavro before Tuesday about their intentions to ask him detailed
questions about the Moujabber project.

"It's not fair to blindside him," said Mr. Combra.

"We need to be careful. Feelings are running pretty
high," said Ms. Scott. "This is not an opportunity to take
pot-shots at Dick either."

To date, Mr. Mavro has said little publicly about the project that
has stirred up so much controversy and created considerable political
tension in town.

Back in April, he attended a ZBA hearing on the case and defended
his granting of the permit to Mr. Moujabber, arguing that because the
new structure was set further away from the neighboring lot lines, it
was less nonconforming and therefore permissible under town zoning
codes.

"My issuance of the permit was based on the bylaws. I cannot
presume what someone may or may not use it for," Mr. Mavro told
the ZBA in April. "Right now it is a nonhabitable structure, and
it will remain that way unless [the builder] goes to the planning board
for further permits."

Mr. Rappaport, in his opinion drafted in May, acknowledged that the
bylaws are murky but also argued that garage needs to be interpreted not
as a residential structure but as an accessory structure, subjecting it
to stricter codes.

"It is my understanding from the building inspector that the
situation before you is the first significant matter to which he had
applied [this section] since the town adopted the recodified zoning
bylaws. I am constrained to point out that [the section] is ambiguous in
certain respects. Those two factors may have led, in part, to the
present situation," Mr. Rappaport wrote.

Next Tuesday's meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. in the Oak
Bluffs Council on Aging on Wamsutta avenue, will also feature a public
hearing on the possible inclusion of the North Bluff neighborhood in the
Cottage City Historic District.