Representatives of Roseland Property, developer of a major apartment complex at Rowe Quarry, acknowledged Monday it has not required its contractors to hire union or local workers as the Revere City Council said the developer promised when the project was approved four years ago.
However, Joseph Shea and Andrew Copelotti said that if the City Council holds up approval of a permit to build a parking garage because of the longstanding dispute over labor between their company and both the Malden and Revere city councils -- or disputes over the company's traffic plan or proposed property tax payment schedule to the two cities -- he intends to ask the state fire marshal's office for the permit.
''I would not be interested in appealing a denial by City Council," Shea said, adding that he hopes to win council support. ''But if the City Council doesn't approve the license, then we would appeal it to the state fire marshal's office."
Shea, the company's chief legal counsel, added that until his company wins several approvals from the state Highway Department it cannot project the number of housing units it plans to build. Currently 623 one- and two-bedroom units are under construction but as many as 3,000 units have been projected, he said. The current phase will consist of four five-story buildings.
''Right now I will tell you it looks closer to 2,300," he said, adding that the future course of Route 1 could be the determining factor on the number of housing units the company can build.
New Jersey-based Roseland Property won council approval four years ago to develop the former gravel pit on the Revere-Malden line for housing and retail uses. The housing development, which is primarily on the Revere side, is the largest in the city's history, according to City Council president Mark Casella.
At issue at Monday's council meeting was a gasoline storage permit the company needs to open a parking garage at the site. Casella said the permit is required to alert fire officials to the presence of a flammable liquid, in this case inside vehicles' gasoline tanks.
Casella said he would not authorize that permit or any others the company might need until Roseland agrees to sit down with city officials and discuss several outstanding issues, the labor issue among them. He also appointed five councilors to an oversight committee in hopes of keeping pressure on the developers.
''Certain promises were made and I understand they are saying they don't need the city to get this permit," Casella said later. ''However, I cannot in good conscience work with them until they sit down and begin talking to us in a real way about the labor issue as well as mitigation [funds] for a fire station."
Appointed to the Roseland Property Development Watch Dog Committee were councilors Robert Haas, George Colella, John R. Correggio, George Rotondo, and Arthur Guinasso.
Shea said Monday that the company expects to begin leasing half of the 623 units under construction by September and that 50 percent of the units are one-bedroom and the other half are two-bedroom. Some portion of the two-bedrooms are designed with an additional room that can be used as a den or home office.
''It would be illegal to use them as a bedroom," he said.
Casella, with the support of several other councilors, had asked Roseland Property to attend Monday's session in hopes of clearing the air over several outstanding issues with the development, among them the company's traffic plans and projections on the development's school-age population. Also attending at Casella's request were 10 members of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, including several unemployed members from Revere.
During the 90-minute discussion Colella reminded Shea and Copelotti that he was the lone vote against the project four years ago, a vote he cast because he feared the housing would bring an influx of school-aged children that would cost the community more than the additional tax dollars the development would generate.
Colella also noted the company promised a traffic plan that it still hasn't delivered.
''Four years is an awful long time to wait," he said.
Shea said the company has made no change in its initial marketing projections and anticipates the high rents would lure few couples with children.
''We don't have any affordable housing at the site, though we are contributing to the affordable housing funds in the two cities," he said. ''Our demographic is singles and young professional couples."
That didn't allay Councilor Rotondo's fears. Rotondo said he had visited another Roseland development in Quincy and learned from the managers of the 196-unit complex said that the project had attracted 18 school-aged children, not three children as Shea said.
Rotondo said he was also concerned that the workers Roseland had hired had been coached to tell anyone who inquired that they were being paid ''$20 with benefits." He noted that every one he talked to on a recent visit to the site was from another country, notably Brazil and Mexico.
''I find it hard to understand how they could tell me what they were making and yet they could not tell me what their job was in English," Rotondo said.
Richard Pedi, the business agent for the carpenters' union, told the councilors the company is ''talking to us" about hiring unionized workers and that he is still hopeful more local workers will be hired.
Later he said the carpenters he represents are disappointed they have not been offered jobs at the site because many grew up in Revere and have longtime commitments to the area and are paying property taxes on their city homes.
Caroline Louise Cole can be reached at cole@globe.com.
