By Michael Coughlin Jr.
At the Harbor View Neighborhood Association’s (HVNA) monthly meeting last week, a presentation about a proposed restaurant at 636-638 Bennington Street was tentatively scheduled to occur but did not happen once again.
According to HVNA Board Member Skip Marcella, the presentation has been on the group’s agenda for the past three months. However, the association has yet to receive the paperwork to proceed with a presentation.
“We have not received the project form for this particular project, and our by-laws state that you need to provide us with the project form in order for a project to move forward,” said Marcella.
The proposed restaurant, El Parche, has been a prominent topic for the HVNA since the first abutters meeting was held in June.
The proponents initially wanted to open the restaurant with 40 seats and operating hours of 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m., but residents resisted, citing the late hours and other issues.
Then, at another abutters meeting in September, the plans were amended to have a restaurant with 20 seats that would operate from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. Again, residents were not fond of the plans.
It should also be noted that at the time of the September abutters meeting, it was indicated that the proponents were seeking a beer, wine, and cordials license, a common victualler license, and live entertainment from the licensing board, and approval from the Zoning Board of Appeal to change the occupancy of the building and finish other renovations.
Marcella explained that there had been no recent communication with the proponents since he spoke with one of the project attorneys to get the presentation on the agenda for last week’s meeting.
“I have not heard anything from El Parche or from the attorney on the project to say why it is that they did not submit the paperwork, why they’ve not stated anything about coming to this meeting or not coming to this meeting,” he said.
Moreover, Marcella made it clear that he was under the impression that the project would not be able to proceed until it was presented to the HVNA and that East Boston’s Liaison, Roberto Gomez from the Office of Neighborhood Services, had informed the boards that the proposal had not been presented to the association.
“Whether we’ll get a request from them to come to our March meeting or our April meeting — we’ll keep people informed, but again, we will require them to submit the project form to us in order to be able to move forward with presenting here to Harbor View,” said Marcella.
The next HVNA meeting is scheduled for March 3rd. For more information about the HVNA, visit its website at https://harborvieweastboston.com/ or its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/harborviewna/.