The Boston-based restaurateur is trying to skirt the permitting process to create a restaurant on Alford Road

To the editor:

We are property owners, with the largest abutting border to the restaurant and bar proposed by the potential owner of 87 Alford Road.

The applicant, a Boston-based restaurateur, by going straight to the ZBA, did an end run around the established permitting process for:

• Zoning (putting a commercial restaurant operation into a residentially zoned area)
• Commercial building oversight
• Health department
• Conservation commission

Their local law firm McCormick, Murtagh & Marcus states their clients will turn 87 Alford Road into a producing farm, so the restaurant is allowed without permitting oversight. They say their farm-to-table restaurant would merely be an agricultural subsidiary to their potential farm operation, not the main thrust of the restaurant company’s restaurant project.

This avoidance of permitting is not in keeping with our town having zoning and boards.

For any restaurant, conforming or non-conforming, there is always oversight from:

1. The Planning Board
2. The Board of Health
3. The Conservation Commission
4. The Building Department

All this oversight is regarding planning, waste, water management, local traffic, noise, safety, and the ability of neighbors and abutters to maintain their quiet enjoyment without impingement from commercial activity. That is the standard for commercial zoning; to put this into a residential zoned area, without a special permit, local hearings, etc., is way beyond the scope of exceptions that go before the ZBA

The law does allow subsidiary food service, stands, etc. for farms, but nowhere in previous cases has a restaurant been allowed, including in the cases McCormick cites. Furthermore, the subsidiary has always been secondary to an already existing farm operation, not a theoretical, potential, or future farm operation.

Another part of their request is for unlimited worker housing in ADUs. “Unlimited worker housing” might be an easy pivot to another kind of “no permit needed,” agricultural subsidiary: “farm tourism.” An easy change, especially if you already have a series of ADUs suitable to “resort glamping” plus a restaurant, like the nearby new and successful Cliff House restaurant and glamping resort on Prospect Lake.

We would welcome another working farm next to us or in the neighborhood; however, this is not a farm but, first and foremost, a restaurant and bar.

Put the restaurant in any of the 20 places in Great Barrington that are seeking restaurant tenants or owners; use the produce from your farm at your restaurant; keep the residentially zoned neighborhood that 97 Alford Road is within—as it was designated by the master plan and zoning of Great Barrington, the same laws and restrictions that those of us who live there already follow.

We urge neighborhood and town residents to come to the ZBA meeting on October 7 at 6 p.m., and voice your opinions as to the merits of this request for a massive exception.

Ronald Blumenthal and Naomi Blumenthal
Great Barrington

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