Hi, sir.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yeah, so you can hear me okay?
We can.
All right.
Thank you.
Sorry about that.
uh kirk wechter k-i-r-k yep w-a-e-c-h-t-e-r do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the
whole truth nothing but the truth i do could you also turn to your video one please
go ahead joe you can start all right kirk have you heard my testimony just now regarding your
property so far yes are you and you adopt what i've said so far as your own
did we lose him he left no no no yeah i'm here okay okay there you go good and you adopt what
i said is your own so far yes okay could you walk us through the layout uh that your architect put
together i know these will turn into your uh co plans um but they're not labeled so i mean the
the levels are but not the interior so what's the basement look like basement is actually just free
and clear nothing special about it um our intention is to put storage units down there for the tenants
themselves laundry well and also um the garb like garbage cans and containers so that the tech can
put the trash into those cans um one of our staff members comes by weekly on trash night
takes the trash out puts the trash cans back okay and we've got interior photos that we'll get to
once I'm done with Kirk's walkthrough here.
done with Kirk's walkthrough here.
All right, now going to the ground floor,
All right, now go into the ground floor.
could you walk us through this layout, Kirk?
All right.
So let's see here.
Having trouble seeing all the way to the right.
Oh, okay.
So here's the entry to the upper left.
If you walk straight, there's a stairwell up to the second level.
to the right there. They're basically adjacent to each other as a stairwell
down to the basement as well. The entry to the first floor unit has a couple of different options.
So you would normally enter in the front there through that door. And then there's a living
area there um so living room area and then you would continue on to the common area
there's another there's a bedroom there continuing back there is the bathroom then back further is
finally the kitchen and then a doorway to the backyard so this represents unit one is that
correct correct all right so now i'll move on to the i guess where to go did i screw that up
that's level three all right moving on to level two
okay so stairway dead center here then you enter into kitchen dining room area
hallway at the bottom heads back to the first bedroom then the bathroom then the rear bedroom
okay so two bedroom one bath second unit correct okay and then we'll move on to the level three
all right stairway is at the top there
bedroom is to the very front and then it just has a kitchen
and a bathroom there.
And that's
a third unit and that's one bedroom,
one bathroom? That middle area there
is living space, like a living
room. Okay.
So no having
to go through bedrooms to get to bathrooms
to anticipate
that question.
Alright, I'm going through the deed.
Deed's my client's
company.
tax clearance, proof of mailing.
We included the emails with the various RCOs in the city, assigning and then reassigning
Included, my paralegal put together a little timeline of our attempts, all the emails and
phone calls that were made to try to schedule this.
exterior
photos showing the interior um kirk if you're still there could you help us identify what
units we're looking at on these upcoming photos let's see
i think that i want to say that's the third floor but it's it's hard for me to
to tell her a number. I couldn't really say, honestly.
Okay, so the state of these properties is not occupied and
will do the cosmetic work to make them
occupiable? Is that accurate? Correct, yeah.
Okay. Here are some photos
that we pulled as well. I believe these were, yeah,
you can see the for sale sign. Some listing photos that showed good angles of the property.
Some more, more, now I kind of have a feeling what the basement looks like now.
Obviously, it's not finished and like you said, your intent would be for what, a washer
dryer and storage and trash.
we also included a neighborhood petition of support uh quite quite a few uh number of
near neighbors that signed a petition of support for legalizing the use of this property we
included that in our packet uh i have nothing further any questions for my client or me okay
questions from the board what can you go back to that floor plans again that
that first floor seemed to be a little strangely laid out is that yeah it's us
so the years you said that the access to the basement is right next to the
right next to the adjacent to the floor the stairway to the upper level right I
adjacent to the floor
believe that's what you said but I'm looking at this stairway and it looks
like where is that stairway to the basement because I see a stairway to the
basement out of the first floor unit in the back where it says so down let's see
out of the back stands down um that i think that's an additional that's an additional one
um but see where it says up and then right to the right of that there's another staircase
that's uh that that appears to be within the unit also of that or is that first floor unit
separated by these walls that's separated by those walls with an additional door
if they wanted to. So you have to, so where the fireplace is, you have to go out of that into a
common area, open another door to go to your bedroom or to the bathroom or to the, to the
kitchen. Is that what I'm hearing you say? No, because see, let's count the doors starting in
the upper left. So the front door. Yes. Then there's a door from the foyer to the common area,
Yeah, which leads to the state both up and down.
Correct.
Well, as I'm saying, where is this?
That's where I'm stuck.
Where is this up and down?
Where is this up and down?
I see it now I'm going to draw here.
This is the up, correct?
So how do you get there?
So where do you go down?
There's a space.
The drawing is a rendering.
So you would go down there.
So where it says up?
Yeah, all right.
so that is all open area right there and the down steps is right there okay it makes no sense
in terms of which is drawn here if this is this black is a wall how do you'd have to walk up come
down there's no room to do what you're saying I don't think it looks like it say that it's wrong
right so so if this is the way to get down the steps right then i'd have to come in here go down
the hallway go down the steps this is part of the first unit this is part of the first lunatic
blah blah blah i've got to come out of here go out a door go into a door go to the bedroom
kind of doesn't make sense so just in terms of in terms of the of the of the layout now whether or
not in reality there's something different going on i don't know but based on what you showed
it kind of doesn't make sense that first word layout I'm just I'm seeing if
there's any photos that I have that can make it clear yeah I'm looking through
the large for larger format photos now see if any make it clear I'm not certain
that they do i think also it appears that there's two stairwells into the basement from the same
unit correct yeah right right so so so i don't i don't know what that i don't know what that
what that all means right um other than the the second and third floor units probably maybe
work out a little bit better maybe so does it make sense to be three units I
don't know okay that's where the you know everyone is storing their trash in
the basement everyone has to have access to the basement in order to do
that you might need interior trash storage for you we're we're fine with that um this is a better
shot of the stair they're the only stairway it appears leading upstairs on the plans that's okay
right are we seeing both are we seeing both here or now i don't know and the one that you're showing
in this photo is the rear one near the back is the rear one correct in the plan correct
and that has white right has a winder at the top which is incorrectly drawn on your plan
all right so listen i think i mean with the stipulation that trash is managed and kept off of
the um the front i think i think trash is one issue i think there's a lot of other questions
you didn't answer about how the drawings are done and joe what i'm going to do is make this a
resumptive hearing and come back with better drawings that people understand i mean okay
we just can't keep going back and forth with this so yeah that's fine we can we can get
his architect in there quickly hearing the resumptive hearing is 10 6 9 30 a.m
and then just come back with the i think you've heard enough that you'll understand what the
drawings are okay if um 10 6 is going to be an issue what's that that's a 10 6 is going to be an
what's that that's a 10-6 is going to be an issue if if it's assumed because i haven't been on site
issue if
because we've been waiting for zoning for some time if it's assumed that the stairway to the
basement is strictly from unit one well could we proceed with that assumption listen listen to me
i mean it it's as simple as this we're going to continue to 10-6 if you want to you can call the
office but at this point that's the date i'm given okay um thank you very much and joe you have
another case i do all right so we're going to move on to number 12 which is 245 west coulter street
um and joe just for uh could you state your name again please yeah joseph council could you
identify your client a relationship to the property yeah my my client is uh one second
let me get these celeste de silva owner of the property right and also joe we we recently
received another letter of uh support okay you don't have it but we'll make sure you get a copy
of it okay oh great our vice chair has a few questions good afternoon um again have you
Have you submitted your documents and exhibits for this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
Okay. And do you waive the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Okay. Thank you. You can show your screen and present your case.
All right. 245 West Coulter Street. This is an application for a visitor accommodations approval in an existing single family structure.
This use would be, per my clients, feedback from the RCR would be limited to two adult
guests, no parties, no events, no exterior signage, no commercial storefront activity.
My client, as you'll see, posts house rules, has the property monitored with safety and
management technology, including exterior security, noise monitoring, smoking detection,
This property operated as an Airbnb, obviously against the city code, although my client did not realize as they submitted the rental license and were approved by Airbnb to operate, they did not realize that that was inappropriate.
I understand the Planning Commission will have their say there, but it did operate successfully and without any incidences leading up to coming into the side.
Once they realized it was inappropriate, they terminated that operation and the listing came down, although we do have some reviews and things like that that we can show you.
There's the refusal.
This is the exterior of the property.
Our mailers, interior of the furnished property, current status of the basement, and one of
client's big points and she can talk about it a little bit is just that the quality of the
property that she's able to provide is so much stronger with this model versus the long-term
tenant model that she had prior to giving this model a try. And we actually even have photos
was from the pre-model showing sort of tenant under site and that's the opposite of oversight
and kind of letting the property go down.
But as you can see now, the property is in good shape.
This was the traditional, this was the tenancy prior to her taking over and transitioning
to a visitor accommodations model.
And here's what the basement looks like now.
property is purchased in in 2010 as you saw before the property has been um substantially improved
exterior now condition at the time of purchase um my client can attest to the
you know craftsmanship that went into refurbishing this property here's what it looks like now again
You know, we know that we got an RCO letter of opposition, although they did state several items that they would want to see if it was approved.
That was a temporary variance issues, but interior trash storage, limiting the number of adults, and those are all things that we are fully willing to.
that we are are fully willing to commit to.
Thank you.
We included some reviews just showing the properties run nicely.
These are some of the more recent ones. It's the zoning. Another important point is that this
the surrounding context we think matters. It's not an isolated single-family residential block.
There's daycares, churches, funeral homes, security businesses, grocery and other storefront
type uses on this block. Again, uses that serve the neighborhood. It's not strictly a single-family
block despite the RSA-5 zoning that dominates it. It has plenty of other non-single-family
uses. The record is not one-sided. We had some petitions that came in and another one that came
in that we just mentioned that support it, including the actual next-door neighbors.
Here's some photos showing other businesses on the block, Streetscape.
my client you know also submitted some uh items regarding how she runs the business and things
like that and here's one statement of support that we have and here's another um
the property I guess two down or perhaps right next door 249 I can attest to that and
property at 237 West Coulter so I'll have my client come on to speak a little bit about
why don't you do that please um Pamela Braces you are allowed to speak
hi could you please state your name and spell it for the sonographer good afternoon uh i'm not the