Brookline, MA contractor faces fines after ‘egregious’ unpermitted demolition of Beverly Road home

A contractor demolished a Brookline house without the proper permit, failed to turn off the gas and electricity before tearing down the building, and improperly handled asbestos there.

The demolition at 73 Beverly Road has sparked concern in the neighborhood and drawn the ire of the Brookline building department. State regulators have fined the contractor, and the town plans to do the same.

“It was the most egregious violation of building code I have seen in my 30 years on the job,” said Brookline Building Commissioner Dan Bennett.

The contractor, meanwhile, says they were honest mistakes. He told Brookline.News he thought the proper permits were in place and that he was told the utilities had been disconnected.

Debris including a shattered toilet now litters the site,  and the foundation and the chimney are all that still stands.

Carolyn Thall, who lives across the street, witnessed the demolition begin on February 28. The demolition took multiple days to complete.

“I was looking out my window just thinking, ‘Oh, that doesn’t look good,’” she said.

“This home seemed like something we could rehabilitate, renovate and rebuild to be the home of our dreams,” Sehgal told Brookline.News.

But they decided renovating it wouldn’t work. They decided to tear it down and to build a modern, energy-efficient house on the site.

Ahluwalia and Sehgal – who are living in Jamaica Plain with their two children while they wait for the new house to be built – hired Ian Teesdale’s company, IDR Construction Inc., to complete the project.

IDR demolished the interior of the house in September 2023 and applied for an exterior demolition permit in early 2024. Sehgal said he was under the impression that IDR had received that permit.

Teesdale said he assumed he had the correct permit when his crew began demolishing the house Feb. 28. After the demolition, he realized he had only obtained a partial demolition permit for the roof and rear wall.

“A mistake happened,” he said. “It was not an act of willful intent.”

Mike Harrington, who lives in the neighborhood, was driving past the house on the day the demolition began when he saw workers stripping the roof off the house.

“I just thought to myself, wow, it’s about time they got working on that, but it’s kind of weird they are starting it so late in the day on a Friday,” Harrington said.

Thall said she was concerned that no fence was put up before the demolition – a violation of state building code, according to Brookline building commissioner Dan Bennett.

“It was really sloppy and kind of weird,” Thall said. “There was a lot of dust, and nobody seemed protected.”

A couple of days later, the house was gone. Thall took a picture of the site after the demolition and sent it to the Brookline Preservation Commission, which reviews all demolition permits.

Jason Granai, a Brookline building department inspector, arrived at the site later that day.

Granai observed a makeshift electric pole sticking out close to the sidewalk, Bennett wrote in a report. The power and gas lines had not been cut off prior to the demolition, the report says.

The Brookline electrical inspector was notified to cut the power to the house after the demolition. The attempt was unsuccessful, prompting Eversource to come in to cut the power.

Sehgal said he thought that the electricity had been shut off months before the demolition. But an Eversource spokesperson said in an email to Brookline.News that the company has no record of receiving requests to cut the power on the site before the demolition started.

The inspector smelled gas at the site and notified the Brookline Fire department.

When firefighters arrived, they found a live gas line, Bennett’s report says. The firefighters tried unsuccessfully to shut off the gas at the site. A National Grid worker was called in to shut off the gas at the street.

Sehgal said National Grid had posted a notice, saying the company had turned off the gas, on the front door roughly six months after the couple bought the house. National Grid workers visited the house multiple times before the demolition, he said.

A National Grid spokesperson told Brookline.News that it did not receive a request to cut the gas line until after the demolition had occurred.

Teesdale was told to erect fences around the perimeter, Bennett wrote.