Wood splitting raises neighbors’ ire in Swampscott

By Cyrus Moulton / The Daily Item

SWAMPSCOTT — An ongoing zoning dispute between a contractor splitting firewood at his property and abutting subdivision neighbors at the Lynn-Swampscott border has recently sparked cease-and-desist orders, police complaints, tickets and both sides claiming they are unable to work at home.

“It’s a big business here,” said Morton Hill Avenue resident Alex Frezinskiy, describing the property of his neighbor Timothy Demirs on Tuesday morning. Frezinskiy pointed behind his backyard fence to where he said a gas-powered wood-splitter, gas-operated saw and bulldozers moved logs and split wood, and trucks hauled logs and cordwood to and from the property weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The property is in a residential district. “I work from home for a software company and can’t hear clients.”

But Demirs’ attorney, Kenneth Shutzer, said that it is his client whose livelihood is being threatened. Shutzer contends that the property has been used continuously for commercial purposes since before zoning laws were enacted, making the property’s commercial use as an existing non-conforming use. He plans to provide proof of this to the building department.

“His entire livelihood, entire family is dependent on this information we will provide that,” Shutzer said Monday. “(Demirs) believes it is an unconstitutional taking of his property.”

The dispute over wood splitting began in summer 2010, according to Olga Frezinskaya, Frezinskiy’s mother, who lives next door to her son and whose property also abuts Demirs’.

Frezinskaya said she purchased her home at a foreclosure sale in December 2009 and Demirs started chopping wood on his property the next summer. But when she complained about the noise, she found that Demirs’ property straddles the Lynn and Swampscott line. This resulted in “a ping-pong game,” according to Frezinskaya, as the City of Lynn and the Town of Swampscott both tried to determine whether the woodsplitting and other allegedly prohibited activities were occurring in Lynn or Swampscott.

She eventually took the matter to Swampscott, and Building Inspector J. Alan Hezekiah sent Demirs a letter dated Sept. 27, 2010 which ordered the contractor to “cease and desist all activity associated with that of a Contractor’s Yard,” as it was not a permitted use in the neighborhood’s zoning. But the letter also recognizes Demirs’ claim that his property may be “grandfathered.” Hezekiah wrote that Demirs’ had to prove this, however, in order for the cease and desist to be revoked.

Meanwhile, Demirs presented his case to the Zoning Board of Appeals twice. The board dismissed the first appeal because it was not filed in time, according to a letter from Town Counsel. A second appeal to the board was withdrawn without prejudice, according to an email from board Secretary Helen Kennedy.

But Frezinskaya said that the woodsplitting had stopped over the 2010-2011 winter and the issue died down. Shutzer said his client had provided approximately 100 pages of documentation that the property has always been used for commercial purposes, including advertisements for firewood being sold at the property. This fall, however, the woodsplitting and Frezinskaya’s complaints resumed.

Frezinskiy said his mother lost her job working at night for an insurance company because she could not sleep during the day due to the noise. He also said the noise upsets his baby.

Meanwhile, Demirs has ignored the cease-and-desist orders and been presented with six tickets at $300 apiece, Hezekiah said Friday. And there is further confusion about the history of the property and the town’s zoning changes. Although Demirs presented documentation that the property was used as a contractor yard since the 1940s when Demirs’ family bought the property, Hezekiah wrote in a Nov. 18, 2011 cease-and-desist letter that the information was “still not” documented. Friday, Hezekiah said the department now believes the zoning bylaw was enacted in 1929, according to town records. Shutzer disputes this earlier date, saying that town records do not appear to include any zoning map with this change that would make the 1929 bylaw valid.

But both sides want a resolution.

Frezinskaya said earlier in the week she has gone to the Lynn and Swampscott building departments, Swampscott Board of Health and Town Administrator Andrew Maylor as well as Demirs to try and resolve the issue. She presented the town with a letter from several neighbors asking the town to stop Demirs from using his land as a contractor’s yard. She said her next step is to go to the Attorney General.

“I know the town of Swampscott is trying to do something, but they are moving very slowly and every day is a torture because of this,” said Frezinskiy.

Neighbor Helene Olsen said that she was sorry that the dispute had caused such tension. She said that Demirs had always been nice to her, but she also felt like his use of his property was “unfair.”

“I don’t want to take someone’s livelihood away, but my husband works the third shift and sleeps during the day,” she said. “It’s difficult but we could have lived in a commercial area if we wanted to.”

Cyrus Moulton can be reached at cmoulton@itemlive.com.

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