NORWICH - For years, neighbors on South Broad Street watched a family home decay into what they described as the worst address on their block, a dangerous boarded-up drug den filled with needles and filth.

Several residents who spoke at recent public hearing on Tuesday reported making repeated police calls, including gunshots one night.

A contractor purchased the home with the intent of converting it into two rentable apartments, and due to a recent change in the law, had to undergo a complicated process in getting permission from the zoning board to do that.

Norwich Mayor Robert Jeffrey said the city has heard residents’ concerns about their quality of life and is working to formalize policies to protect single family homes and promote home ownership.

The mayor also noted the recent vote in the school district against a proposed low-income apartment complex which was soundly defeated, saying residents had sent a clear message.

In March the city passed clearer housing prohibitions on certain areas, including the home at the center of the hearing, with the mayor explaining once a single-family home is converted it is almost never undone and that single-family residence is lost forever in the neighborhood.

At a full zoning hearing seemly the whole neighborhood, about 30 or so residents, all seem to be asking the city for the same thing: restore the house, but keep it a single-family home, the way the rest of their street has always been.

The Norwich Zoning Board of Appeals decided otherwise. By a 4-2 vote, the board granted a special permit allowing the property at 134 South Broad Street to be converted from a single-family house into a two-family rental, attaching conditions meant to soften its effect on the surrounding block.

The decision capped an emotional hearing that exposed a tension facing small communities across upstate New York: The need for low-income housing versus personal home ownership and nearby property values.

Residents’ said they fear that each conversion away from a single-family home into rental units permanently erodes economic stability and safety.

One said she lives directly across from the property and had witnessed each morning for years drug use, prostitution and squatters. She described watching the home dismantled, piece by piece, over two years before its occupants were finally forced out.

In 2021 on Saturday December 18, Norwich City Police responded to reported shots being fired from the area at 134 South Broad Street.

During a preliminary investigation police said they discovered a meth lab in a home and arrested a 27-year-old man.

“This was a situation where multiple agencies came together and we were able to close down a drug house in the City of Norwich,” reported Detective Sergeant Reuben Roach at the time, who would later become chief and retire.

He said following this incident, a search warrant was drawn up and executed on 134 South Broad with the assistance of the New York State Troopers, New York State Police CCERT (Contaminated Crime Scene Emergency Response Team), and the Chenango County Sheriff’s Office who located within the residence a suspected methamphetamine laboratory, which was collected by the response team.

Norwich Fire and Norwich Codes then condemned 134 South Broad and the house was boarded up for several years.

A contractor bought the home recently and was doing work to convert it. At the hearing the applicant for the permit said they had been reluctantly drawn into the conflict after buying the home. They said the city had not been clear about the zone or the process, which was further complicated by the laws being changed. The contractor said they did not want a fight with the community, just clearer standards and a process to follow to avoid wasting their money.

Board members repeatedly cautioned that the new applicants could not be held responsible for prior occupants.

One resident stressed the same point, telling the board the opposition “isn’t personal” and was not about making newcomers feel unwelcome, it was about protecting her family and community.

She has owned her single-family home since 2008, describing a block where children move freely between yards. Four children live in her house, she said, and many more in the neighborhood ride bikes and play in shared driveways. “We want our kids to be safe,” she said, asking the board’s help in trying to revive it.

Speaker after speaker returned to the same argument. The block, like much of southern Norwich, is zoned R1 for single-family residences, and residents live and bought homes there expecting it to stay that way.

Another resident, Christine, said she drives past the property twice a day and considers it an eyesore, and urged the board to keep the city’s single-family homes intact.

“Just leave our single-family homes as single-family homes,” she said

The developers said they had come to Norwich to rehabilitate damaged property and create affordable rental housing, partly as a retirement investment. They purchased the house believing a two-family conversion was permitted and felt unfairly singled out.

They also said rental units are for working families that can’t afford a house.

The permit was approved with conditions: a permanently maintained vegetative screen between the parking area and the street, no new entrances but at least two per apartment for the fire code, no more than four paved parking spaces, and a limit of two to three bedrooms per unit, capped at five for the house.

The application reached the board under unusual circumstances. It was filed before the City Council voted in March 2026 to bar two-family conversions of this kind, so the board heard it under the earlier ordinance, a timing question and long delay that drew accusations during the hearing between board members.

For the neighbors who turned out for the vote, it was poorly received.

Some cried out the board was “corrupt,” others said it was useless to have even showed up at all, others looked around bewildered asking “who here wanted this?” One man remarked, “Is this a dream, am I dreaming?” Another woman replied, “I don’t even know what just happened,” as many left the room, a few stormed out, slamming the door.

A group of neighbors stayed after and began asking about how to appeal the decision and file freedom of information requests.