Sheldon House (photo by SUNY JCC)
MAYVILLE – A group of residents have challenged the Jamestown Zoning Board of Appeals’ decision to grant a variance for the Sheldon House.
The Post-Journal is reporting that city residents Paul Leone, Ann Servoss and Timothy Mills filed a petition on May 31 to challenge the ruling in the state Supreme Court in Mayville.
At issue is whether or not the zoning board properly granted a variance for the Sheldon House, located at the corner of Lakeview Ave. and Falconer St., to be used as a business office. The property sits in an area zoned for residential use only, and the variance was needed to help pave the way for the Lynn Development Group to purchase the property from Jamestown Community College. On May 4 the zoning board granted the variance, despite Leone and others appearing before the board and speaking against the variance, saying the case didn’t meet the hardship requirements necessary to allow a variance to be issued.
According to the Post-Journal, the group of residents challenging the variance would like the appeal to be heard on June 28 or as soon as possible.
Meanwhile the SUNY board of trustees were scheduled to take up the $250,000 sale of the property during its June meeting and finalize the agreement between the Lynn Group and JCC. It’s unknown if the appeal will delay the board from acting on the sale.
it would be nice to know why the JCC did not look at any of the other offers that were made. The offer made by the Lynn Development Group seemed to be left open without an expiration date. Other offers that wanted the home to be kept as a residence or to be used as it had been, for special events, were not even considered. These facts would support the claim that there was no hardship in selling the property. Hence no need to grant a variance to use the home as office space. The conversion of this beautiful historic home to office space is the first step in what will eventually be the destruction of this treasure. Are there no commercial buildings in Jamestown for sale that would lend themselves to being a corporate office, without chopping up this home?