GREENFIELD — After hearing lengthy testimony about air quality and mold abatement in the kitchen of the Charlemont Inn, the Housing Court judge is giving the inn’s owners one last chance to finish the Phase 1 renovations to the inn, or the historic building will be put into receivership, as town officials have sought for months.
“I have been overly patient with this process,” Judge Rebekah J. Crampton Kamukala told Charlemont Inn owner Charlotte Dewey Friday, after hearing that the kitchen was still without plumbing or wiring. “I did give a drop-dead date at the beginning of December and moved it twice,” said the judge.
“You need to get done what you need to do,” she continued, “and it has to be done in one month. If your (building) permit is denied, after everything you’ve done to get it to that point, I need to know it.”
Kamukala set a new Housing Court date for April 28 at 9 a.m.
Charlemont Town Lawyer Jeffrey Blake had subpoenaed Edward Nowack, president of JEES (Jackie’s and Edward’s Environmental Services), which tested the kitchen’s air quality on March 15 and determined there is no mold issue in the kitchen or likelihood of mold growing between the plaster and the recently installed fiberboards.
But Blake reminded the court that the Phase 1 plan for a commercial catering kitchen was far from completion. “At some point, this needs to end,” he said. “The kitchen isn’t ready. There’s no plumbing, no wiring. With adequate labor and money, it could be (finished) in a few weeks. If you’re not inclined to appoint a receiver, there are other ways to get a court order,” he said.
Mark Tanner, Dewey’s lawyer, countered that, “Every time they get to a certain point, the rules (coming from the health agent) are always being changed. Since last year, my client has spent several thousands on air quality testing.”
After the court hearing, Dewey said the main reason the kitchen wasn’t finished was because the court wanted an independent assessment from an air quality expert like Nowack on remediated mold problems. “If we had finished the kitchen, as we planned, over the last three weeks, before the mold tests came back, we might have had to take off all the wall panels,” she said.
Dewey said the kitchen now has wiring, although the fixtures aren’t in yet. The kitchen roof has been finished, and the employee bathroom has hot and cold running water.
“The kitchen is very close to being finished,” said Dewey. “It’s been a good day for us, and we’re ready to keep going.”
The Board of Health went to Housing Court in April 2016 to seek receivership of the 1770s inn, so that the deteriorating building could be renovated and saved from further decline. Before taking the case to court, the board and Health Agent Glen Ayers conducted several inspections and found the inn, which had been closed for almost five years, did not meet the state sanitation code.
The work to be done in the first phase of the building restoration is to fully restore the kitchen, with heat, electricity and plumbing, so that it has running water and an employee bathroom. It also includes waterproofing work for the basement, which has a partially earthen floor.
Vaughn Tower of Charlemont testified that he has poured concrete for part of the basement floor, has 28 years of experience in pouring concrete, and that his work has been inspected by the architect overseeing the renovation. When asked why the basement floor work hasn’t been finished, Tower, who is doing the work without pay, said weather and his work schedule has been a factor.