by BRIAN NADIG

A proposal to build eight townhouses at 4051 N. Narragansett Ave. is on hold after residents reported that there are no easement rights from an adjacent alley, according to Alderman Nicholas Sposato (38th).

"We’re going back to the drawing board," Sposato said after he held a Sept. 11 community meeting on the proposal. "They’ll try to reconfigure (the site plan)."

The project’s developer would have to look into creating a driveway on Narragansett, Sposato said.

Plans had called for parking to be site accessible from an east-west alley, which is located to the south of the parcel. However, there apparently is no legal access from the alley to the parcel, Sposato said.

The buyer of the property told residents that he was unaware of the restriction, and residents at the meeting were not interested in granting easement rights for the project, Sposato said.

The front half of the 300-foot-deep parcel is 27 feet wide, while the back half of the property is 54 feet wide. Not all of the property runs along the alley.

Despite the alley concerns, the building townhouses remains a possibility for the site, Sposato said. "For the most part, they were supportive," he said of the approximately15 residents at the meeting.

The project would require the 8,830-squate-foot parcel to be rezoned from RS-2 to RT-4 and for the existing one-story frame home of the site to be demolished. The projected asking price for the townhouses is $500,000, Sposato said.









