By KIM SMITH DEDAM
WILMINGTON — With standing room only in the Town Hall, the Zoning Board of Appeals approved area and conditional-use variances allowing 27 townhouses adjoining town beach property on Lake Everest.
The 4-to-1 vote Wednesday night came with 19 conditions after two hours of discussion.
Casting the single dissenting vote, Zoning Board member Robert Girardin criticized project developers as "self-creating hardship" by asking to put more than the 16-unit hamlet zoning policy allows on 8 acres.
"This should never be in the town center," Girardin said. "For the sake of the town, the uniqueness of the location, I would like to see something within zoning there."
Girardin's comments echoed what many said at the public hearing last month.
Zoning Board member Gerald Bottcher said alternatives might not give the town as much control over what gets developed there.
"The choices are difficult. This is a threshold event for the community," Bottcher said.
With variance approval, the development will next go before the Wilmington Planning Board.
First Columbia LLC plans to construct nine three-unit buildings on what is now a densely wooded 8.1-acre lot buffering the beach from Route 86.
After the meeting, lead developer Paul Wos said they hope to break ground next fall and will progress as each structure is sold, hoping for three years to build out.
The project had been rejected once — in late 2008 — when developers proposed 36 townhouses on the site.
