If you have a big backyard in Boston, don’t think you can just put a second house back there – Universal Hub

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday rejected a proposal by the owner of a two-family house in Roslindale to subdivide her land and build a single-family house in what is now the backyard.

Pamela Bardhi of West Roxbury, who owns a two-family house at 233 Metropolitan Ave., had sought permission from the board to carve roughly 6,900 square feet off the rear of the 14,000-square foot lot and build a 3,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bath single-family home there. A 20-foot-wide easement that extends to the back of the property would serve as a driveway and access for emergency responders, she told the board.

But the board voted 7-0 to reject the plans.

"This board has not been very open to having a subdivision created in this way," board Chairwoman Christine Araujo said. Araujo said the main concern is privacy, not just for the neighbors on either side of the two new lots, but of the people who would live in the existing house.

Bardhi said she would be willing to plant trees to help preserve privacy.

The plan was also opposed by the mayor's office and the offices of City Councilors Ricardo Arroyo, Michelle Wu, Annissa Essaibi George and Michael Flaherty. Conor Newman of the mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services said "there was a lot of resistance expressed by the neighbors" over the privacy issue.

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If you have a big backyard in Boston, don't think you can just put a second house back there - Universal Hub