There's no new construction to the site.
And it would actually be a hardship to require the owner to now remove the unit
and everything that's in that unit, the bathroom, the kitchen, and to make use of it in another way.
As for the accessory parking, there has never been accessory parking at this property.
There is street parking on both sides of the street.
There's public transportation nearby.
There are two bus stops across the street, and there is a train station a block away.
So we did meet with the community.
There were no concerns raised at all about adding the additionals unit.
Concerns were related to ongoing maintenance issues that had been going on for years at this property.
um my client only recently purchased the property in may and since that time he is
going out of his way to make sure that the litter is cleaned up he's caring for the property even
by filing this application he's being diligent about this property um he did not receive a
violation he just he wanted to do the right thing and obtain the approval for the additional unit
it. He's addressed other issues, for example, the fence behind the property was damaged
due to a tree falling on the fence. My client had that repaired. He's also provided his
contact information to neighbors so that they can reach him in the event that there are
any issues they can reach him pretty quickly to address those issues so any concerns about
maintenance of the property are being addressed by this relatively new owner and the community
group didn't raise any issues about the additional unit itself is your client here yes can you raise
your hand, please. Ms. Tancredi, what is your client's name? Joel Ortner, O-R-T-N-E-R.
Mr. Ortner, if you're in the virtual audience, can you raise your hand, please?
Thank you. Mr. Ortner, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair, please.
You state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please.
Joel Ortner.
J-O-E-L-O-R-T-N-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Proceed.
Proceed.
Mr. Ortner, did you hear my factual statements today?
Are they true and accurate?
Do you adopt them as your own?
Thank you.
And would you like to add anything about your maintenance of the property?
I think you did say everything what I wanted.
Not really.
questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman so counselor so what basically happened
was years ago there was 21 units that were rentable units and that's what it was zoned for
and then there was one unit that the caretaker stayed in we think that's what we believe from
speaking with the department of licenses and inspections the zoning archives which are
included in our packet do show zoning approval for 21 units. Thank you very much. Questions from
the virtual audience? Chair, we have a Nina Curlett. Ms. Curlett, you can unmute yourself
or wait for the chair, please. Hi, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter,
please um yes my name is nina curlett n-i-n-a c-u-r-l-e-t-t right do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do yes proceed um good afternoon
um as i said my name is nina curlett i'm the co-chair of the east mount area neighbor zoning
committee, RCO. I did just confirm with our executive director that a letter was sent. She
forwarded it a second time to me. I'm not sure exactly why the board did not receive, but clearly
the applicant did. I just wanted to state that I can confirm that I had been in email contact with
the applicant right after the meeting and they did they did do due diligence to address um some
concerns about the maintenance of the property as far as a car that had been abandoned on the street
and they were able to have that removed um i'm hoping that going forward the rco did take a
position of um um we we we didn't support nor oppose the application i feel as if as long as
um they do address the property maintenance issues the neighbors um will be happy going
forward with this agreement i can't speak for them for certain but that was my sense through
um our email exchange that's all thank you thank you very much for calling we appreciate it
and on that note i was under the impression that the city received the community's letter
otherwise i would have forwarded it right thank you very much thank you um anybody else in the
virtual audience there are no hands at this time planning commission good afternoon chair bergman
members of the board david effecto city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends this
property for residential multi-family zoning given that this is a legalization of an existing unit in
a 22 unit building the city planning commission recommends that the board grant the use variants
for multiple family dwellings and the variants for not including one required parking space
MI 2021, 004970, 625 Vernon Road, I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you, Counselor. Thank you.
We're going to take a five-minute break. We have one more case from the two o'clock list,
and then we're going to go right into the 3.30 list, but let's take a five-minute break right now, okay?
MI 2021
004993
8410 Prospect Avenue
RCO Chestnut Hill
Community Association
letter of support
Melanie Lacey
rep against the applicant
is there another attorney involved
Josh Harvitz
who represents neighbors who oppose
we'll start with
you. Chair, Ms. Lacey and Mr. Horvitz have been promoted to panelists. Thank you.
Ms. Lacey, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Chair, she should be coming back in now.
Chair, she should be coming back in now. I had some problems.
I had some problems promoting her.
That's fine.
Right.
Mr. Chairman, David Feynman from my office is also here.
Carl Primavera is the attorney for the applicant.
Mr. Primavera should be coming back in as a panelist.
I see him.
Mr. Primavera, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Carl Primavera, C-A-R-L-P-R-I-M-A-V-E-R-A.
And along with my colleague, Melanie Lacey, we represent the owners of 8410 Prospect Avenue,
with your doctor and Mrs. Joseph Pisano. Mr. Rivera, do you, do you swear for him to tell
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. You want me to swear on your
partner too? Please feel free to. She's operating the technology because it's dangerous for me to
try. Okay. Ms. Lacey, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Good afternoon. Melanie Lacey, M-E-L-A-N-I-E, last name L-A-C-E-Y.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I don't expect to testify, but if so, yes.
Okay. Mr. Horvitz, do you want me to swear you?
Sure, Your Honor, and my partner, S. David Kleinman.
We can go to the same time.
All right. Why don't you spell your name for the court reporter first for me, please?
Sure. Joshua Horvitz, J-O-S-H-U-A-H-O-R-V as in Victor, I-T-Z of Feynman, Krexian, and Harris on behalf of the Protestants.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
Mr. Chairman.
Yes, I got you. I got you, Mr. Feynman.
Yeah, I probably will be doing the majority of the work here.
No, that's fine.
Very. I just want to make sure.
Just spell your name for the court reporter for me.
S. David, F-I-N-E-M-A-N.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mr. Primavera, start.
Okay, thank you. First of all, we do agree to waive the formal reading of the refusal, and we will stipulate to its accuracy.
This is a single-dimensional variance request with regard to minimum lot size, I'm sorry, minimum lot width in an RSD-1 residential district.
I'm going to outline through my presentation the nature of the case, and then I'm going to present the architect and my client to adopt the testimony and one other member of the community.
We have the exhibits in our package. You'll see the list of both standard exhibits as well as those particular to the presentation.
The most important document is the presentation, which you'll see with Larry McEwen, our architect.
We also do have a letter of support from the Chestnut Hill Community Association, which you'll hear more about later.
Basically, we will go through a series of slides to show you the existing conditions, the proposed new conditions, and how we believe this dimensional variance, which we believe is diminuous, will not only make the project better and overcome some practical hurdles and challenges due to the size of the lot and the impact of the existing home on the property,
as well as to demonstrate there's absolutely no adverse impact to the community.
In fact, any other configuration, we believe, would have an impact that would not be beneficial.
It would disturb some beautiful trees, some view sheds, and some stormwater-related issues.
And you'll hear from Joyce Lenhart, hopefully, who's a member of the Community Association review process,
as well as an architect familiar with the property.
This property was originally a much larger estate going back really far in time.
And you'll see in what's been put up, it's a 58,000 square foot lot.
The minimum lot size in this district, which may be the largest lot size requirement under the code, is 10,000 square feet.
And here we're at 58,000 and the proposed subdivision will result in two lots, each of which will be double the lot size requirement and bigger than any other lot on the block.
So we're dealing with an immense piece of ground. It has a single family, large stone home that was.
piece of ground. It has a single family, large stone home that was part of the original estate
that covered most of this area. And as you'll hear, my clients have been living in the house.
It's much too big for them in their mature part of life. So they want to subdivide and relocate
lot lines to create two lots, one for the stone home that exists and one for a new architecturally
designed home which will be to the rear utilizing a flag configuration now interestingly in the old
days the flag configuration only required two-thirds minimum lot width at the street so
there's a 75 foot lot width if you had two-thirds of that at the street then you could go back to
the building envelope, that was changed. So even though you'll see through Larry's presentation,
the flags are commonplace in this immediate area, as well as other parts of Chestnut Hill,
under today's situation, we do not have the 75-foot frontage at the street, Prospect Avenue.
We are three feet off because of the nature of the way the property works, and you'll see that
in more detail ultimately the flag as you see it there has 50 feet because we want to allocate
more land to the existing stone home but there'll be nothing between the property line and the
existing stone home it's just the allocation of land so it's not like any density issue
or anything like that you wouldn't think something like this would create as much
interest, but it did. So the materials are voluminous because you'll see the sensitivity
and level of detail that Dr. Bozzano and his architect went into, both for the neighbors
and for the community process. They went through the development review committee of the Chestnut
Hill Community Association, the land use and planning committee, back to the development
review committee, and then on to the entire Chestnut Hill Association board. So this thing
has been vetted very carefully over a long period of time. And you'll even see in the proviso form
that Larry will talk about, there were some modifications to the plan, none of which require
additional refusals, but they were all done to improve upon what we believe is a very, very
strong and sensitive plan. If you just look at the lot size, which is density in quite frankly,
context, if you have 58,000 square feet and a blank slate, assuming you would take down the
stone home, which you would never do, obviously, 10 into 58,000, that shows you the kind of yield.
And that would still be on lots of 10,000 square feet or more. So that's why we believe that this
is the minimus. Any other treatment of this, we think becomes, you get less from more, meaning
less sensitivity, less tree protection, and the like. And Larry's going to go through that.
You'll see in the zoning summary in the materials, we looked at the code requirements.
Open area is limited to 65% under the code, and we're going to have 88% under lot one and 92%
under lot two. The height, we're going to stay conforming with the height, two and a half
stories for the existing home, two and a half stories for the pro's new home. We have conforming
parking. So this is really within the spirit and letter of the code, although we do need what we
call dimensional variance, as you'll hear later on in some argument at the end, that the burden
for dimensional variance is really a practicality test. And the level of hardship really is a matter
of reasonable adjustment rather than a use variance, which requires significant hardship
to the property. And then if you believe, as we do, it's the minimus. That's a special type
of dimensional variance. And we have a code section or a citation from a court case that
we provided that says if it's deemed de minimis, you don't even need hardship because it means
it's contextual with the community and it's a very slight deviation. So with that and with the
exhibits in the record, I would ask that you promote, I guess, Larry McHugh and the architect
and I guess Melanie will work the exhibits as he goes through his presentation.
I'll attempt to switch it over to him, actually.
I'm going to stop sharing.
Mr. McKeown, if you're in the virtual audience, can you please raise your hand?
Chair, I see no one by the name of Mr. McKeown with their hand up.
Could it be a different name?
There's someone by the name of Joseph Pisano.
would you like for me to unmute him chair