I I was expecting a letter of opposition from the uh neighborhood Civic it was my understanding
that councilman Lozada was uh not was neither going to oppose nor nor I'm just reading from
this piece of paper it says a letter of opposition from count council member Lozada I understand
Thank you, though.
If I could.
All right.
So by way of background, Washington had purchased this property on May 19th of 2023.
We can't try to zero.
There we go.
That's what I was trying to do.
Maybe just a little bigger, Joe.
Absolutely.
So on May 19th of 2023, Washington had purchased the property.
And yes, admittedly, in the past, and that seems to be a lot of the focus of the opposition from the RCO, this property was once used illegally for multifamily dwelling.
But Washington has gone, he's taken many strides to convert this property back to its single family use.
We've had this property inspected by city inspectors.
City inspectors were satisfied, as I could show you in my packet,
That yes, this property is continuing to be used as single family. And all we are asking the board is for is for the variance to permit the rear semi detached structure so that he could access the basement. And I'll be showing you get access. Say that again.
that yes, this property is continuing to be used as single family and
And so he could access the basement. And again, the basement is only being used only for storage purposes, and nobody is living in the basement. And again, the RCO just, unfortunately, was just not getting past the fact that even though it's not being used for multifamily now, Washington wants to keep the structure as a single family home because it was being used in the past as multifamily.
they just were not getting past that. If I could start going down to some of the photos and the
plans. And well, before I get to the photos and the plans, here we have the building permit,
which was applied for, for the alteration to the existing structure as previously approved,
as well as plumbing and mechanical permits. I want to focus on the on the
confirmation. There was an inspection conducted on January 5th of this year
and it passed. Permit issued to verify single-family dwelling will need to
access basement to confirm as I scroll down and again on the 13th the inspector
verified that the basement is not being used as a residential unit will need
electrical permit and mechanical permit to continue separate permit required to
legalize the rear addition so that's what we're here for um Washington he
still was able to get the mechanical and fuel gas permit for the utilities gas
permit as well as and that's to permit the duct work and the heating he got
the electrical permit and I'll show you that there's only only one electrical
meter. I'm going to show you that shortly. As we're going down, here's a- Joe, Joe, did Washington
own it when it was being used for, as you described, illegal activities? Yes. Yes. When he purchased
it, it was being used. Okay. Okay. So if you see on the plans over here, here's the basement.
Okay, existing basement. Yes, it shows a bathroom in the basement of the front of the building. That bathroom still exists. It does identify two bedrooms and a kitchen. He's had all that removed, and I'll show you that in some photographs.
the structure that we're trying to legalize is right over here you have the
staircase going up from the back into the first floor of the house then you
have the staircase going back downstairs into the basement and these
were plans that were already approved by the city I could zoom in on the city's
departments of licenses and inspections. Okay. Let me go back out.
And we should be getting to some photos very shortly. Here we go. So here's the front of the
house from Hallward Street with the posting. The mailbox, there's only one mailbox on the property
because there's only one family living there. Here's the main entrance. The entrance is off
to the side. That's how these buildings are constructed on this block. That's the school
across the street. As soon as you walk in, you have a den area, living space.
Moving towards the back, here's the structure at issue with the staircase going down to the
backyard. And from the backyard, here's that same staircase that I was showing you.
going back to the to the house here is the staircase that goes down from the
yard down to the basement we took the steps down and here's and now we're in
the basement looking towards the back and here's the basement nobody's living
there and it's empty and that's and that's how that's how the basement is
being used to this day. Only one meter. You had the meters removed. The other two
meters removed. And he confirmed that. He had the other two meters removed. So
there's only one electrical service. Here's the structure. Side view of the
one electrical service. Here's the structure, side view of the structure with the siding.
structure with the
Here's another view of the structure.
This structure over here is the garage in the back, his garage.
The two doors, so the door to the left is what goes into the house,
the door to the right is what goes into the basement.
When was that done?
When was that done, Washington?
He doesn't remember, but it was sometime after he purchased it, but it was sometime
after he purchased it.
Here's a side view of the structure.
And these are the neighboring homes.
They have similar structures.
this is going towards the east of Howard Street and this is going towards the
west this is the immediate neighbor going towards the west with the
neighbor's garage while we have while we have a letter of opposition from the
councilwoman and from the RCO we have a petition in support on page 41 of our
exhibit packet, 11-12, Mr. Babyloni, he supports it, and 11-14, Horworth, they
support, 11-32, 11-11, Ms. Peralt, where does Ms. Peralt live? Well she lives on
Harwood Street and 1127 and 1125. 1127 Wakeling and 1125 Wakeling. So we have
and Wakeling is the next street over behind. So we do have some immediate
neighbors supporting Washington in this. We've had a we've had our meeting with
the RCO and the meeting took place on March 17th when they issued their letter
of opposition we tried to have a second meeting we tried to have another meeting with the rco
and the rco then saying well now it's getting to be springtime spring turned into summer
but joe 24 people were there and 24 people voted against it yes uh uh
nine 19 of the attendees and five of the committee okay and um i attended that meeting
And again, everybody was, I could say from personal experience, they were focusing on the fact that Washington was using this property in the past, despite the strides that he's made to convert it back into a single family and that it's still being used as a single family.
I also remember one or two attendees at that RCO meeting, they were in opposition simply because Washington was renting out the property.
This one individual that attended said, no, nobody's allowed to rent out any properties in this neighborhood.
Completely erroneous, completely not consistent with the law.
And for that reason, that individual was also in opposition.
I don't remember that individual's name. With respect to follow-up, my follow-up, I did ask for an explanation. I also asked for another meeting, and about three or four weeks ago, I finally heard back from Mr. Heiser, Terry Heiser,
after everybody got back from vacation
and Terry told me,
no, we're just not going to have any more meetings.
The neighbors were against it
and it's going to stand.
I have the deed and the tax clearance.
We have that.
And are there any other...
We have all your paperwork.
So if there are any questions...
As an officer of the court,
you can take the questions, okay?
Okay, thank you.
Questions from the board.
yeah just for point of clarity for me was the addition already built when he purchased
a property or did he build the addition let me confirm that with washington or
the or the interpreter can the interpreter interpret that question sure okay
one we can sorry about that interpreter could you swear in him when you speak to him and asked him
and ask him does he swear or affirm that tell the truth, told truth, nothing but the truth.
does he swear or affirm to tell the truth told truth nothing but the truth
El señor Washington, ¿Usted jura o afirma que va a decir la verdad, toda la verdad y nada más que la verdad?
Correcto, sí.
Yes, correcto.
Ok, so the question that the lawyer wants you to ask, right, the question was, was that two doors, was that addition there before when he purchased it or did he put that up?
there was one door and i added the second but the addition was already there so i just added
another door because there was only one okay so my other question is how what was access
like to the basement without the second door entonces mi pregunta es cómo sería el acceso
al sótano sin esa segunda puerta
question again how did you access the basement
how did you access the basement before the second door was put up
on the bus como usted accedía al sótano antes de que la segunda puerta fuera puesta en la edición
it was open the door was downstairs and it would get wet a lot so what i did is i put
a door up front so the second door or the door downstairs wouldn't get so much water
so the basement door was always on the exterior before the addition
entonces la puerta al sótano siempre estuvo en el exterior antes de la edición
correct thank you gracias gracias
¿Alguna otra pregunta?
Supongo que mi pregunta es ¿por qué no fue puesta unas escaleras en el interior de la propiedad para darle acceso al sótano?
I have no idea because I bought the property that way, so I have no idea.
I understand that that's how the property came. Why didn't you do it? is the question.
Entiendo que así es como estaba la propiedad. Mi pregunta es ¿por qué usted no hizo eso?
can you repeat the question please yes my question is why didn't he create an access
My question is, why didn't he create an access from the basement to the rest of the house
that does not require you to go outside of the structure?
Mi pregunta es, ¿por qué usted no creó un acceso al sótano o del sótano hacia el resto de la casa
sin que requiera tener que salir afuera de la estructura?
it was due for the house upstairs to have more space
right now there's no use for it
ok entiendo entonces si usted fuera a tener aprobación hoy día qué es lo que va a estar
ocurriendo con el sótano
simplemente se necesita por el espacio de arriba
y vosotros nire for the space of a bob
i understand the first and the second floor of the house i understand that there was not
a stairwell put in to keep the rest of the house as is with more space but what is going to be the
as it is with more space but what is going to be the use in the basement moving forward
use in the basement
storage are we going to have a playroom down there we're going to store tools like
what is the thing about the map
a herramienta cualquier cosita que yo
car bicicleta cualquier cosita que necesiten it will be to use a storage to put pops or tools
boxes bicycles whatever whatever i need okay thank you any other questions
questions from our attorney um i just wanted to put on the record um there was a question about
the letter from councilwoman lazada she did submit it's dated april 2nd april 20th 2026
uh that she did submit a letter of opposition
from the virtual audience i see no hands chair planning commission
i do have um before the planning commission i'm sorry uh i do have one of the near neighbors also
julio rodriguez he lives in the area he's also in the room with me who would like to voice his
support yeah joe could you make sure that she can please have her does she speak english yes julio
you speak english right okay he's right i could you please state your name and spell for the
stenographer. Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Julio, common spelling J-U-L-I-O,
Rodriguez, R-O-D-R-I-J-U-E-Z. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
told truth, nothing but the truth? Yes. Go ahead. Yes. So I'm here to testify because I
live in the area. Not only that, but I also work in the area as a police officer. I patrol the
area and i know this man personally as well and i could testify how he's really like caring about
the neighborhood caring about the the prop his property always keeps it like well maintained
because i know that's really important to that community specifically because everyone cares
about if if they take care of the property or not which he does and i'm also here to testify
that he, I understand he had, he had, you know, problems in the past because he didn't follow
the rules, but he did admit, you know, his mistakes and he corrected it. And that was
one of the main issues why when he went to the community board, why he was constantly
gonna be objective though they it was they just focus on that one mistake that he made
but he learned from his mistake and i asked if
kind of like you know we all make mistakes we all so not just focus on that one mistake and actually
well it's been some just there's some mercy that's all okay thank you very much thank you
planning commission good afternoon army i'm sorry uh this is sloan folks from council member
lazada's office i had my hand up and uh how are you sloan i i was wondering if you were coming go
ahead good afternoon chairman uh and board uh my name is sloan folks i'm representing team the
office of council member catchy lazada right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth whole truth
nothing but the truth yes i am thank you proceed sloan um we sent a letter of opposition uh back
in april i believe it was um in light of the outcome of the rco meeting subsequently um the
applicant did reach out to us um stating that you know his goal was to put the property back as uh
initially was um and um he asked us if we could facilitate a second meeting with the um community
um and uh in speaking with his attorney and uh in representation as well as reaching out to the
residents um in the um in the uh in that part of the in the northward section of the city
uh we worked to do so um we had hoped that um a community meeting with the rco would um
at least shed light on the applicant's next steps, goals, and objectives, possibly
clear up any misconceptions that they may have had going in because my understanding is
they were, the community had some issues with, you know, how we went about the process initially.
They were, community had some issues with, you know, how we went about the process initially, and the council member wanted to be sure that he had the opportunity to state to the community, and she lives in that community also, that he's working to address those, or part of the process of addressing those was the zoning variance.
we're not uh officially changing our um our letter but we do we would um state that you know
the appellants the applicant has uh worked to try to address the community concerns
um and um and uh we just want that to be recognized thank you thank you very much um
thank you mr folks dean of solomon of the planning commission the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the existing rsa2 residential single family the request is for
a legalization of a rear addition visible in atlas imagery back to 2024 after withdrawing a variance
request for two-family dwelling the applicant underwent additional efforts to convert the
property back to single-family use the addition was granted a residential building permit number
rp 2025 010643 in 2025 the planning commission recommends the board grant the requested variants
for side yard setback and occupied area um joe we had a lot of testimony and um you know
looked like there was complex meetings with the community we'll vote on this wednesday next