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Email this articleTWO-YEAR BATTLE - Hair salon owner waging campaign to get site rezoned
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By JENNIFER MANN
Everything about Washington Street in Norwell breathes commercial: The large signs, the densely traveled roadway, the Super Stop & Shop and the Head Over Heels gymnastics studio.
Yet despite appearances, not all the properties on the street are zoned for business use.
Daniel DeWolfe, who runs Daniel Phillips hair salon out of a white colonial at 461 Washington St., has been locked in a two-year-old battle with the town because the salon is on a section of the street that is zoned resitential.
DeWolfe lives in part of the house and runs his business from the other.
His property, along with eight others to the left and right, is zoned residential.
DeWolfe said he is seeking a change of his property's zoning from residential to business as a matter of professional survival. A town bylaw says a home-based business can have no more than three employees, including the owner.
That leaves him with one other hairdresser and a receptionist.
''How long can you run a big hair salon when you can only have yourself and another hairdresser on the floor?'' DeWolf said. ''All I'm trying to do is get the correct zoning to get the correct number of employees to run a professional business.''
The shop has six styling stations. According to DeWolfe, and supporting documents, the property was mistakenly listed as being in a business district when he bought it.
He has taken the real estate broker to court.
He has met resistance from people who live behind Washington Street - mainly on Wendall Avenue and Jacobs Trail - who say they have several concerns, although none is aimed specifically at DeWolfe.
''Nobody for a second thinks (DeWolfe) is going to do anything that will change or impact our neighborhood, but there are other people in this petition who we don't know as well and we don't know what their intentions are,'' said Ron Keefe Jr., of Wendall Avenue.
''The guy has been absolutely wronged, and if there were any other way, I think we would support him,'' he said.
Planning officials say DeWolfe's property is on a residential section of Washington Street that acts as a buffer between residential neighborhoods behind Washington and the commercial zone.
Rezoning that section of Washington Street would give the town less control over the type or size of businesses that might open there.
DeWolfe's section of Washington Street is one of two or three along the street established as residential in the 1950s and '60s.
''Those holes of commercial, or bubbles of residential, were intentionally laid out to act'' in that way, Town Planner Todd Thomas said. ''Turning a property like Mr. DeWolfe's into commercial really eliminates that buffer.''
Last year, DeWolfe included all his neighboring properties in his petition, on the advice of his attorney, who said changing DeWolfe's property alone would be spot zoning.
The proposal was handily defeated by town meeting. This year, DeWolfe has included only two other properties, on the far end from Jacobs Trail.
More than 30 neighbors turned out for a recent planning board hearing on the matter.
''This is the biggest turnout of any public hearing we have had,'' Thomas said. ''And the overwhelming response of abutters is negative.''
Keefe, the Wendall Avenue resident, said it is not just a matter of the land in question.
''We kind of feel a responsibility to protect that buffer, which has existed since the 1950s, so there is no precedent-changing activity that would further impact other neighborhoods in Norwell who are protected by a similar buffer,'' he said.
The planning board, which unanimously recommended against the zoning change, is taking a long-term view.
''Once the underlying zoning is changed from residential to commercial, it is effectively impossible to ever put the genie back in the bottle,'' board Chairman Bruce Graham said.
Graham said he pulled DeWolfe aside at last year's town meeting and told him he would have better luck fighting the home-based business bylaw.
''I told him it would be worth the planning board working with him to increase that threshold to give him the relief he needs, give similar property owners the relief they need, and not impact the neighborhood,'' Graham recalled.
DeWolfe, interviewed at his home on Thursday, said it is not fair that a fraction of the community is deciding his business' fate, and said his hope is riding on other voices that will be present at town meeting on May 14.
With a sigh, he looked out his window at the mass of buildings and cars streaming by.
He wondered aloud: ''How can you say I'm not in a commercial district?''
Jennifer Mann may be reached at jmann@ledger.com
Source: The Patriot LedgerAll rights reserved.