TROY – Hillside neighbors walked out of City Hall Tuesday night disappointed and angry after the city Zoning Board of Appeals voted 3-2 to allow the conversion of a closed church into an apartment building in their neighborhood.

“I’m livid,” said Amy Halloran of Tenth Street.

Nineteen Hillside neighborhood residents raised their hands to show their opposition to the $1.25 million project to transform the United Armenian Calvary Congregational Church at 144 Ninth St. into eight apartments containing a total of 27 bedrooms with 13 parking spaces.

The 2-2 stalemate the ZBA faced on the project was broken when new board member Gary Pavlic, a former Rensselaer County legislator and former Democratic candidate for City Council president, cast the deciding vote to approve the variances for the project.

The neighborhood is zoned for single-family and two-family homes. The neighbors convinced the City Council two years ago to adopt tougher zoning for Hillside in an effort to protect it from the encroachment of development from Hoosick Street and the conversion of buildings into apartments from nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The ZBA must vote to approve the apartments which are not allowed under the zoning

Pavlic said that there are tax delinquent properties near the closed church and argued that having addition people on the street would make Hillside safer.

ZBA Chairwoman Catherine Conroy and Jack McCann joined Pavlic to grant the variances requested by Michael Ginsberg, an attorney who is buying the church and undertaking the apartment development. John Normile and Katie Spain-McLaren voted against the apartment project.

Hillside neighbors were represented by attorneys Victor and Ryan Caponera, who said the project did not demonstrate the financial hardship required for variances by the law. The neighbors said there had been interest expressed in the church by artists seeking living and studio space.

Halloran urged the ZBA members to follow the City Council’s example when it rejected a proposal by Sequence Development to buy 168 Tenth St. from the city as an apartment site. Instead, the council awarded the site Thursday to a developer planning to build a single-family home.

“You guys have the opportunity to take a page from the City Council and adhere to the zoning,” Halloran told the ZBA.

Ginsberg said the project would save the deteriorating church building and prevent it from becoming a neighborhood eyesore. He said the church has been closed for seven years as the small aging congregation has not used it.

Halloran said the neighbors would consider what possible legal action to take to stop the project.