Rental Apartments Approved For Sundae School Site

 HARWICH – The Sundae School ice cream shop will be scooped up and replaced with a 28-unit multifamily rental complex. 
The planning board approved the new plans put forward by property owner SS HPORT, LLC, Campanelli Company, for the 1.75-acre site at 606 Route 28 at its Jan. 13 meeting. 
 The project was initially proposed as 28 luxury condominiums but was met with a lot of neighborhood opposition based on its size and lack of community character. Seven public hearings were held over the past eight months, and while Campanelli emphasized that the proposal was consistent with town zoning, a straw poll taken by the planning board Oct. 28 showed members favored issuing the multifamily use and site plan review special permits 4-3. However, approval of the project required a five vote super majority. 
The straw poll changed the direction of the project. Campanelli agreed to rework the project and in December put forward a change from condominium ownership market rental apartments. The building was downsized and the underground garage and roof decks were removed from development plans.
Campanelli attorney Marian Rose said the changes addressed the massing and density concerns expressed by members of the board. The smaller apartment units, reduced by 700 square feet, accommodate the smaller building footprint and reduce the building population from 120 people under the condominium plan to 82 in the apartments. The number of bedrooms will be reduced from 60 to 41. 
The building massing was reduced from 616,587 to 354,873 square feet with a footprint reduction from 29,025 to 17,875 square feet. The height came down from 39.7 to 29.4 feet.
 “The goal is to create a desirable living community within a very desirable village neighborhood,” said architect Russell Dion, a partner in the Campanelli Company.
He described the new look as Cape style, capturing several of the architectural styles in the neighborhood, including colonial, Greek revival, gambrel, and elongated farmhouse styles. The facade of the building will be a mix of one-and-a-half and two-story features representing the various architectural styles, and there will be a couple of one story wrap-around porches, he said.
There will be 15 one-bedroom and 13 two-bedroom apartments in the complex.
“The architectural design reflected many features of historic single-family homes to blend in with the character of the  surrounding neighborhood and to soften the building’s massing,” Town Planner Christine Flynn said at the Jan. 13 session.
The conditions in the board’s decision included measures sought by the residents who opposed the initial condominium project, including that they only be rented year-round, but also provide some flexibility to rent on a month-to-month basis. However, short-term rentals of 31 consecutive days or less are prohibited. 
While the condominium proposal drew overflow crowds of people protesting the project, only a couple of residents were in attendance Jan. 13, and no objections were raised over the granting of the required special permits.
The board’s votes in support of the project permits were unanimous.