After five years, a pile of lawsuits and more public meetings than anyone could count, Joseph G. Moujabber’s illegal three-story garage in the North Bluff section of Oak Bluffs started to come down this week.

Construction workers on Monday began to demolish the garage that morphed into a three-story home with no building permit beginning in November of 2003. It signaled the end of a long saga that sparked outrage throughout a neighborhood, involved five local boards and two building inspectors, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees on both sides.

house
Jaxon White

“I’m glad that garage is finally coming down. But I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with what happened on that property over the past few years,” selectman Kerry Scott said this week. “It still upsets me that neighbors had to spend their own time and money to defend themselves against their own town.”

She continued: “ I hope we can start to heal now; but I worry the healing process will take a long time.”

All week workers from Joe Cloherty were busy dismantling the building, and by late Monday the walls which once blocked neighbors’ views of the ocean had been removed and daylight could be seen through the wooden frame. By Tuesday the entire third floor and most of the decking was gone.

Soon the entire structure will be gone, to be replaced by a new addition to the rear of the Moujabber home off Sea View avenue extension. In October the zoning board of appeals approved a plan to demolish the structure — dubbed garage mahal by critics — and replace it with the 1,600-square-foot addition with a two car garage and living space above.

The story behind the Moujabber garage is by now familiar. In November of 2003 Mr. Moujabber received a town building permit to replace an existing small garage on his property. In less than six months the project grew into a three-story building with multiple balconies, sliding glass doors and a roof deck.

The violation sparked heated opposition throughout the neighborhood.

Under pressure from town officials and neighbors, building inspector Richard Mavro, who has since resigned, revoked the building permit in May, 2004 and ordered the building demolished. The decision was upheld by the town zoning board of appeals later that summer.

In August of 2007 a Dukes County superior court judge overturned the demolition order and sent the garage project back to the Copeland District Review Committee, which has special powers vested in it by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, for a fresh review. The project has also been the subject of numerous lawsuits, both by abutters and by Mr. Moujabber himself, who has appealed several court decisions and filed a lawsuit to block a review by the MVC.

Even as the three-story garage was being torn down this week, many neighbors who opposed the project over the past four years said they took small comfort in something that should happened a long time ago.

“We should not have had to expend the money we spent to make sure the town reversed its own illegal behavior and finally did the right thing. But we’d do it again if we had to,” said Belleruth Naparstek, an abutter and plaintiff in more than one of the lawsuits.

But Mrs. Naparstek said she hopes the demolition is the symbol of an end to a previous way of doing business in town.

“It is good to note that Oak Bluffs has made significant progress since those days five years ago, when it was normal to expect backhanded deals, based on personal alliances, dubious sweeteners and blind public officials. Zoning regulations were a joke, oversight was nonexistent and cynicism was the norm,” she said.

She also said she was encouraged that selectmen have instructed current building inspector Jerry Wiener to monitor the tear-down to ensure the new structure matches what was approved.

“Without vigilance and an active, involved citizenry, this progress could fall apart. If we don’t keep standing up for our homes, our neighbors and our towns, we’ll all just get what we deserve, and the bad old days with the good old boys will return in a heartbeat,” Mrs. Naparstek said.

Albert Read, another abutter, said he also had mixed feelings about the tear-down. “This came with a great financial cost to many people in the neighborhood, including Mr. Moujabber. I take no comfort in that,” he said.

He added:

“It’s a little premature to celebrate. We haven’t seen what is going up. I trust that it will be permissible. But there is always the possibility of something going up that is different than what was approved,” he said.

“This was a catalyst for enormous change in town. And in my opinion those neighbors [who fought the project] are my heroes. It’s always very painful to speak out against your neighbor . . . but they had the vision and the fortitude to fight for what was right for the town and the entire Island,” said Ms. Scott.

Mr. Moujabber could not be reached for comment.