Parish Café's Revised Plan Met With Opposition

About 25 people came out Tuesday morning to hear ’s new outdoor seating proposal – specifically how it relates to the two trees in front of the café on Tremont Street.

And after nearly an hour of passionate debate at the public hearing, which was held at the , it was clearly evident that the two sides – the café’s owner and concerned residents – still weren’t seeing eye-to-eye.

Boston Tree Warden Greg Mosman, who ran the meeting with a couple of his colleagues, said department officials would further deliberate the issue with their commissioner and announce a decision in the near future.

Last fall, the café submitted a plan that called for both trees – one green ash and one elm – to be removed in order to make way for outdoor seating. That plan was denied by city officials because they felt it would negatively alter the streetscape.

This time around, the café’s proposal calls for the southern tree (the one on the left if facing the café) to remain where it is, according to Joseph Vozzella, a design consultant representing the café’s owner, Gordon Wilcox. The northern tree would be removed, he said, but a new tree would be planted 28 feet south of the southern tree.

Vozzella said this current plan has less outdoor seating proposed than the one rejected last fall. He also said the updated plan increases the sidewalk width in front of the seats from 3 feet, the state minimum, to 5’6”. Wilcox has also agreed to assure the new tree’s survival for 10 years and plant two more trees anywhere else in the city, Vozzella said.

“It’s a net gain,” he said.

Despite the changes, some residents were still strongly opposed to the proposal.

Lloyd Fillion, a resident of Chester Square, wanted to see the new tree be the same size as the one being removed.

Both Vozzella and Mosman said the new tree would most likely be 8 to 10 feet tall and 2.5 inches in diameter, about half the size of the northern tree. Mosman said larger trees tend not to survive plantings. However, his comments were met with skepticism from the opposing residents.

Fillion also had concerns that when the northern tree box was paved over it would sag over time, once the tree’s roots rot. He also said residents “shouldn’t have to go through the disruption” of a project.

Fillion and the other residents who spoke said their opposition was specifically about the tree issue and not about the presence of an outdoor café.

Another resident, Glen Berkowitz, who serves on the board of the Cambridge-based nonprofit LivableStreets Alliance, wanted to see Vozzella and Wilcox come back with a more creative proposal that kept both trees.

Vozzella said they did submit a plan like that but it was immediately rejected. He said the proposed design has changed 13 times over the last 18 months, in what he called “an extensive community process.”

Wilcox agreed.

“We’ve exhausted every possibility,” he said.