HomeMy WebLinkAbout20190634 Corridor Rooming House Correspondance Date: October 15, 2019
To: City of Saratoga Planning Board
From: Joseph Fahy &Jennifer Williams, 166 Lincoln Avenue, Saratoga Springs, NY
Subject: 138 Nelson Avenue, Objection to planning application
Dear members of the Board:
We are writing as the owners of the house at 166 Lincoln Avenue, Saratoga Springs. Our home
is only 1 house away from the property at 138 Nelson Avenue and we are constantly, negatively
impacted by their tenants and the manner in which they have operated this property since it
was purchased in 2015. We are responding to the planning application now since we were
away in the late summer and only just became aware of their application for official boarding
house status.
We are absolutely horrified by the recent application of 138 Nelson to make their property an
'official' boarding house, since we feel the property needs to be shut down, not encouraged to
operate by the City of Saratoga.
Since the sale of 138 Nelson in 2015, the property has caused us enormous noise and quality of
life issues, with constant sleepless nights while their student renters are present from Sept-
May, and their Spring/Summer renters (bachelorette parties, family reunions, etc) continue in
the intervening months.
At 138 Nelson, there are constant parties on almost every weekend and sometimes during the
week at which there clearly appears to be underage drinking, loud music, drunken students
screaming in the streets until all hours (sometimes as late as 2am or 3am), with students
frequently congregating in front of our house and beneath our bedroom windows. In addition,
when parties do wind down, we are then treated to an endless stream of Uber cars/taxis
speeding up and down the street, with doors slamming, final drunken screaming goodbyes by
the party goers, and sometimes fights. We have witnessed male occupants and/or party goers
of 138 Nelson exposing themselves as they urinate on the back lawn of the house, detected the
strong smell of pot smoke coming from the premises, and routinely wake up to a street strewn
with red solo cups, beer cans and trash, left behind from the previous night's festivities. We
have also witnessed and reported incidents of the student party goers climbing the fence into
the abandoned Saratoga Race Course in the late hours.
When the students finally leave, the house is routinely rented out for large weekend gatherings
and parties. Just this summer we witnessed a large moving van unloading tables, chairs and
installing tents for another weekend party. The onslaught of noise and disruption is relentless
from this property at the expense of the residents of the neighborhood. It is a gross
understatement to say that this house and its occupants are a neighborhood nuisance.
We have made repeated phone calls to the police in the years since Cyrus Boga purchased the
property at 138 Nelson in 2015, and have been informed by the officers that we should keep
calling to report our complaints. The police have always been very helpful and arrive as soon as
they can to break up loud parties, only for the parties to quiet down, then regroup and regain
full strength hours later. Most recently on October 12, 2019, my husband was woken from a
sound sleep around midnight, called the police due to the loud noises and screaming of the
student party at 138 Nelson. After the police arrived and the party died down, it only restarted
around 2am when he was awoken once again by loud noises in their backyard where they had
then started a large bonfire.
We have called the owner previously, only to speak with their management company in
California and be told they would take care of the problem. This has not happened and their
continued renting to ill behaved, out of control students, followed by party goers in the
Spring/Summer months, only underscores this absentee landlord's total disregard for the
community in which his property is located. If he had to sleep on this street, with his rowdy,
crude, dirty, noisy and disruptive tenants we sincerely doubt he would find it acceptable or
conducive to his quality of life. We feel that the 138 Nelson house and its tenants are a
complete nuisance and a danger to the neighborhood and we are at our wits' end with this
illegal 'frat house'/boarding house.
We rigorously object to the application of 138 Nelson to make their property an 'official'
boarding house. They have been operating it illegally and to the detriment of the neighbors for
years now and if anything, it needs to be shut down, not legally validated by the City of
Saratoga.
Further to that point, we have also made a formal complaint against 138 Nelson to the
Commissioner of Public Safety, Peter Martin, requesting an immediate remedy to the operation
of this house as an illegal boarding house.
Best regards,
Jennifer Williams and Joseph Fahy