Image courtesy of Cathartes.

Portsmouth’s Zoning Board of Appeals denied a request by developer Cathartes to allow a fifth story on a proposed office-apartment complex on a vacant, trash-strewn lot at 105 Bartlet St. on the city’s North Mill Pond. 

Because the project will also open up public access to the area and create a park on the 5-acre site, it is allowed to be four stories tall but Cathartes had requested the fifth story in order to reduce the project’s ground-floor footprint to comply with the city’s request for more open space on the site.  

Board members said they “didn’t hear why 178 had to be the number of units,” the Portsmouth Herald reported, despite neighborhood approval and testimony from Cathartes representatives that 178 units was required to meet their profit targets. An objection to the building’s height was also cited. 

The project may still be built with the units added to the building laterally, instead of vertically, the paper reported.