There are also revised plans.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Good morning, Council.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Michael McElhenney, M-I-C-H-A-E-L, M-C-I-L-H-I-N-N-E-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good morning, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, I have.
Thank you, counsel.
Please proceed and share your screen.
okay i'm here on behalf of clearfield warehouse llc which is the owner ben estepani is the
architect on the project um let me scroll over i like to go through the preliminary uh attachments
are our zoning appeals at exhibit 11 a copy of the property with the zoning posters posted is
at exhibit 12 our rco notice with the community is at exhibit 13 we did have two meetings the
most recent being november 13th 2024 that did result in that letter of support
My client's deed, having taken titled September 12, 2022, is at Exhibit 14, and our tax clearance is at Exhibit 15.
As you can see, there is a balance for tax year 25. That payment is not due until March 31, 2025.
And as the chairman referenced, we do have a letter of support, 34 in favor, 3 opposed from the local community group.
After the first meeting, they asked for changes, and we will be presenting revised plans to accommodate the changes that the community wanted.
Exhibit two is our zoning refusal.
Our application is for the complete demolition of the existing semi-detached garage structure.
and were requesting to erect a semi-detached structure that was originally proposed at four
levels with four roof decks and two roof deck access structures for 14 dwelling units,
multifamily household living. The property is zoned, as you can see at the top RSA 5,
and that generated two use refusals and one zoning refusal. Going from the bottom up,
the multifamily use is not permitted by right in the RSA 5 district, so that's a use refusal.
the second refusal whereas the buildings on either side of us are two stories or two and a half
stories that would require our third story to be set back eight feet and we are proposing to have
the building built at the front property line and then the first refusal is the roof deck having
been constructed in the first um the first eight feet there's our there's the roof deck must be
eight feet set back from the front of the property and we did not have that required
setback at the fourth floor level. We are removing the fourth floor level in the revised
plan that we'll be showing today. Exhibit three is a zoning map showing orienting the property
and the surrounding zoning uses. The property is on the north side of East Clearfield Street
in the center of the block. It is RSA 5. Going to the west, the corner property is CMX 1
at Amber Street. And then going one block farther are all the commercial and residential multifamily
on Frankfort Avenue. And then going to the east, we have the ICMX, IRMX, and I2 properties. And
this is like an old rail line that runs and divides the east side of East Clearfield from
the west side heading towards Frankfort Avenue. The second photo of Exhibit 3 is an aerial view
just to show the subject property with the blue dot and the rail line to the east showing the
dividing from the residential to the industrial partials. And the third page are some aerial
photos again just showing 3D dimensions of the subject property with a view on the top of the
picture to the west Frankfurt Ave properties and then to the east the rail line. And if I could
turn to exhibit four which are some photos of the actual site at issue. So the subject property is
this garage building. It's about a story and a half tall. It was used by the prior owner for
storage and vehicle storage and other storage. It is a 100% lot coverage building as exists.
On either side of our building, we do have a, on the left side, the west side is a two and a half
story building. On the right side is a two story building. The building to the, and looking towards
the east we have the 2127 clearfield that's zoned for a duplex and i don't have the note here but
2129 as well as zoned for a duplex use the remaining properties going towards the east
are three-story single-family houses and vacant lot in the middle of the block
the next photo at page two is the remaining houses on the north side of the block going
towards the train station, the rail line, and the final photo is at the corner showing the end unit
and then the rail line immediately to the right, and it's clearer on this next photo at Martha
Street. You can see the rail line that divides the neighborhood. Page four shows the south side of
Page four shows the south side of the block, which is the rail line on the left.
the block, which is the real
And then we have two-story residential homes, some vacant lots, some other single-family home at Martha Street.
And then going to the west on the south side, we have vacant lots, some single-family homes, some vacant lots, until you get to the three-story on the corner, which is towards Collins Street.
which was last zoned as a ground floor tap room with a single family above so we have some two
stories some vacant lots and some commercial uses on this immediate block as we go farther above
collins street going west we have some residential structures and then the commercial uses as you get
to the farther west towards amber street and frankfort avenue and this is just a photo at
on page eight of the properties closer to Frankfort Avenue, the commercial uses.
Page eight at the second photo is a view looking east with the garage building farthest to the
right on the photo and showing properties along the north side of Clearfield. Going to the west,
we have houses, garages, and then at the corner there'll be a commercial use.
photo page nine just shows the residential houses to the west and then the garage use
is the next one over going west so more residences until you get to the corner at amber street which
is a corner grocery store supermarket going opposite across the street on amber street
then we have an auto repair use auto detailing use and then the remaining uses are heading
towards Frankfurt Avenue. We do not have interior photos, so I took an aerial. This is a sealed up
building. It is a 100% lock coverage building. The roof has been removed for safety reasons,
and as I mentioned, it was last used just for storage purposes by the prior owner.
Exhibit 6 is the original zoning plan, and I'm going to take away the tabs just so we can
A brief overview. This property is a 32-foot wide by 100 feet deep, 100% lock coverage building
currently. The request is to build a new semi-detached structure that originally was a
four-story building, not to exceed 38 feet in height, so it would be dimensionally compliant
height-wise. And we had a roof deck at the front of the property, and at the fourth store, there's
another roof deck with pilot houses. We are proposing a full code compliant nine foot rear
yard and a side yard to provide additional light and air that's five feet, seven and a half inches
wide. And the main access point for the proposed units will be through the side yard. And I'll
show that on the layouts, the floor plans on exhibits. It'll be exhibit eight, I believe.
the this is a side view of the original plan which again was uh four levels the first three
levels would be to the front of the property line and then a recess five foot setback a fourth floor
roof deck area that was one of the refusals and then a fourth floor um of three additional
residences the rco requested even though the height is within 38 feet and by right in terms
of height for the RSA 5 district, they did ask for reduced unit count, and they asked for reducing
the height so that it's more in line with the size and height of the buildings on the block.
So the revised plan is to remove this fourth floor level, which I'll show on the next plan.
And so the layout from above appears very similar. We have the full nine-foot setback,
a full the same side yard the fourth floor has been removed we do have the roof deck and pilot
house that would be accessed for any of the units and we do have the five foot setback
before the roof deck would begin
and the new side view elevation of the revised plan shows the removal of that fourth floor level
to bring it down to approximately, as you can see over here, it's 31 feet to the roof deck surface
as opposed to before it was closer to 38 feet. The front view of the property, and I'll try to
make this a little larger for the front elevation, you can see windows at all three levels. The second
and third floor level do have recessed balconies to provide light and air and outdoor space for
those front upper units and all the units will have access to the roof deck for outdoor space
as well as access to the rear yard. On the renderings I'll show more clearly there is this
five foot side yard. We do have a gate to secure the side yard which is where the occupants would
which is where the occupants would be coming in and out of to enter the uh the structure
be coming in and out of to enter the.
the next exhibit is the revised proviso plan form just detailing those changes of removing
the fourth story to reduce the height the building goes from 38 feet down to 31 feet
one of the comments at the community meeting was when you have 30 morning do you have bacon egg
and cheese on a when you have 38 feet um in four stories you end up with low ceiling heights so
actually the representative from the councilman's office requested it would be better living space
if we had higher ceiling so by removing the fourth floor we were able to make the floors a little
higher nine feet floors instead of eight feet so it is better better living space for the occupants
and the unit count reduced from 14 to 11.
The next exhibit, and let me pull up.
The next exhibit is the,
exhibit eight is the proviso plans form.
The RCO package that we presented at the last meeting
has the rendering, so that's tab nine,
which page Z102 shows the proposed rendering.
As you can see, we now have that building
that's approximately 31 feet high.
The building to the west of us is about 24 feet, I believe.
And the building to the right, the semi-detached, is 20 feet high, two-story structure.
One of our refusals is because we have a third floor and there's a two-story next to us,
we'd have to reset our third floor back eight feet, which is kind of silly where the building
next to us then would be higher than us.
So in speaking with the community, the agreement was to keep the building at the front and
to get rid of that fourth floor so that it's more in line with the scope of the other buildings
on the block. We are 100% lock coverage currently, whereas the other buildings are not. So we're
also going to be reducing the occupied area by putting the residential structure in at this
location. And I'm going to go to the floor plans to give a better view of, and this is the side
elevation Z104. Before we go to the floor plans, as you can see, this is the coming down the
courtyard. The ground floor units do have access to their individual units by outside doors that
go to the side yard and have access to the rear yard. All these side units do have light and air
windows attached because we have that five and a half foot side yard. And the main entrance to
the building is this door behind the first ground floor unit. Z, the next page is, and I'll close
this again, just to show the floor plans. The first floor plan, again, has a direct access into
the unit, which is a two-bedroom, one-bath, two-bath unit, living room, kitchen. In the main
entryway coming in, we have a trash room, which is always a concern when you're adding units is
how are they handling trash. So we have a designated trash room, a designated mail area,
and a stair tower to go to the second and third floors for those units. And there's a separate
stair tower at the rear, again, for access to the second and third floor units. The ground floor
units all have their own entryway to the outside. And we have windows along the entire property
line. So all of these rooms have light and air. The first floor rear, we do have a one bedroom,
one-bath unit. And the very back unit, unit three on our plan, is again a one-bedroom,
one-bath unit. Since these units do not have washers and dryers inside and storage is always
an issue, part of the discussion with the community was make sure we have laundry in
the building, which we do in the lower level. And we've also added additional storage units for all
the dwellings so that they have additional space for their materials. There's no living space
downstairs. It's just utilities and storage units for the tenants. The second and third
floors are identical to each other. We end up with four one-bedroom, one-bath units at each level
accessed by that central stair tower and accessed by that rear stair tower. And all these buildings,
the stair tower does go up to that pilot house to provide outside access. And these units are
good-sized units, going from the back to the front. Unit 7 is about 434 square feet,
one-bedroom, one-bath unit. Unit 6 is 478 square feet. Unit 5, 407. Unit 4, 517. And that's going
to be the same dimensions on the upper units. The lower unit, the two-bedroom unit, two-bath unit,
unit one is 712 square feet. Unit two is 573 square feet. And the unit at the rear unit three
is 475 square feet. So we have good living space. We have full kitchens, living room,
dining room, laundry and units, trash storage to address all the community concerns. And the
laundry in units, trash storage to address all the community concerns, and the appropriate density for this location.
As part of the exhibit, there's a mix of uses on this property in this block with the multifamily vacant lots, single family.
The buildings right next door to us, I did include the zoning archives just showing that they are approved for two units each at 2127 and 2129 East Clearfield Streets.
The we would request and submit that this is an appropriate use to change the garage use to provide additional affordable rental units, quality living space in the community.
And with the community support, we've requested the board grant the requested use variance and dimensional variances so that my client can construct the requested multifamily apartment building at the location.
and with that i believe this you want to bring your client on please
yeah if mr whitfield is on the zoom if he could raise his hand
alfred with two has been promoted to peniles
hi sir could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
Mr. Whitefield, can you please state your name?
Do we see Mr. Whitefield?
Yes, Chair.
He has been promoted to penalist.
Mr. Whitefield?
Council you're an officer the court we will accept your testimony questions or comments
from the board yes I have a question at any point had this been considered to have like
units that accommodated those in wheelchairs I noticed on the plans that you had a lot of
turning radiuses on a building that only has stairs on upper floors yeah and that's that's
really i don't know if ben estepani is on the architect one of the issues with anything above
the ground floor is getting space to add the an elevator which they opted to do a walk-up instead
of an elevated building the and i'm not sure if any of the ground floor units are ada accessible
or not that's if mr estebani could opine on that um that might be the architect here
yes chair ben estefani has been promoted to penalists
sir could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
Ben Estepani, B-E-N, last name, E-S-T-E-P-A-N-I.
Tell the truth, the whole truth is nothing but the truth.
Counsel, that's your witness. Please proceed.
Mr. Estepani, did you hear the question about turning radiuses and accessibility?
Yeah. The ground floor units are all accurate.
The plan was to treat those as type B rental units, so we have clearances for there to make those units all ADA accessible.
The upper floors were showing the turning radius just because during the first RCO meeting,
comment had come up about an emergency um just getting through some of these doors
um even though we aren't providing an elevator um it was brought up like a stretcher or something
like that to accommodate um someone in case of emergency so we widen the hallways at certain
spots um primarily at entries and at the egress towers to allow for maneuvering extra people