to add floor area that's all i'm saying that's all i'm saying if this area was added in it would
count as additional floor area but right now it's not in the calculation so if we put the bathroom
here we would still have the same problem so you took out floor area and added floor area right
that's right this this isn't existing the third floor doesn't exist right now all right all right
are there any other questions yes um is there are that you said that there were going there were
other uh third units on the block correct do you know how many they were and and you said those
are the by right projects correct sure so we have on the on the 4200 block um there's one
and then on the adjacent block on 43rd street there are many there is two that are being
constructed that are full three stories and three units a piece on those and then there are three
other over builds on that block as well okay good I'm sorry I didn't hear how many you said was on
Westminster oh there's one other it's the 4211 it's the one I showed that's a by right okay all
so this would be the second one then correct thank you there's actually i'm sorry there's
actually uh one across the street as well that's um two-story but it has a basement apartment so
it's a three family oh no no i was just talking about the addition not the the third uh additional
above the second floor how many uh for those on westminster 43 2200 black westminster yeah there's
only the one on 4211 on that so listen to me we're we're going to move on um do we have any
comments from our attorney not at this time mr chair all right so we have uh several people
been waiting a long time in the audience here so what what i would like to do is is um in your
comments and i'll i'll swear you in in a minute i think i swore you in earlier this morning then i
i did i swore you in earlier this morning just state your name and then lay out for me what your
objections are and then what we can do after that other people want to come up and object i can just
take their name and their objection so why don't we start out with state your name okay my name is
state your name okay my name is lorraine denyard medley okay and you spelt that earlier for us i
Lorraine Gignard Medley.
appreciate so why don't you start your testimony okay and obviously you're a neighbor yes please
proceed uh excuse me chair this is the court reporter could i ask the witness to get closer
to the microphone i'm having difficulty hearing okay i can speak louder
okay so to give a little background about our block our area somewhere along the line belmont
the whole community was zoned entirely rm1 we worked for two years with councilwoman
uh gothier and andrew goodman of her office and mapped out the entire neighborhood
so we can maintain single-family dwelling character of the neighborhood
and the aesthetic properties of Belmont,
which is a very long-term African-American neighborhood
that was seeded maybe the first neighborhood where blacks moved,
who were schoolteachers and federal workers and people of good character.
When I came to the block 45 years ago in 1980,
you could hardly give a house away in the area so these are some of my neighbors who moved there
and we've developed we put our heart and soul into it i personally and my husband we have four
properties within 250 feet of this development so that's four voices as far as notifying the
the neighborhood of the RCO meetings, I do have an issue with a couple of RCOs. The Belmont
Alliance is an organization that we participate in. The president of that alliance passed away
right around the time that all, you know, this should have been going on. And we are very active
than that. The other organization, West Belmont Civic Association, we did not receive notices
from West Belmont as we normally do, a flyer or an email. The only notice that we had was
when the owners put this notice in our door, and on the back of it, in very small writing,
was some information now they say where the meet today what the property is the date of it
and there's no not even an address of where the meeting will be held okay can i see a copy of
this please because i don't know what this document is that she's speaking of what is the
document you created i i can't see it and i can't verify it's kind of it's kind of hard for us to
SHOW IT THAT YOU CAN SEE. THIS AND ON THE BACK. THIS WAS GIVEN BY THE OWNERS.
PLEASE PROCEED. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT BEFORE THE
CONCLUSION OF THE HEARING BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO VALIDATE HER STATEMENTS.
OKAY. HALFWAY DOWN IT SAID THERE IS A REGISTERED
community organization meeting tiny writing i can barely see it with my glasses and that's not how
we advertise our meetings by saying right we say west belmont civil wbca um and it was around
christmas time that this meeting happened nobody knocked on our door to tell us about the meeting
or made um we don't know these owners they only come to our neighborhood when and make a mess when
the property with some people have pictures of that so and as far as going around the neighborhood
and informing neighbors and getting them to sign we have a neighbor right here who signed her paper
and did not understand what he was signing okay so that's one issue i object to that testimony
that's hearsay no he's sitting right here he jennifer he's going to wind up absolutely so i
prefer if he made that statement instead of she okay also please basheed okay so sure
okay as far as hardship is concerned for this owner i'm here today and to express my strong
concerns about this multi-family dwelling as i said we work with councilwoman go the a and said
this property can be multi this one can be single so that we can preserve well evidently
Well, evidently, they purchased the property while it was still in this stage of being all zoned.
they purchased the property while it was still in this
So these people have no direct stake in the day-to-day quality of life in our neighborhood or its long-term success.
There is one property all the way down the other end of the block that has this roof, but it's set back or whatever it was.
the one she refers to on 43rd street we got no notice okay and all of us are in 250 feet
of the three properties that are on 43rd street right or we would have been here
okay so these people don't care about relationships with our neighbors they don't
we shovel each other's pavements as neighbors we pick up the trash that we didn't put down
My husband cleans the entire block.
We look after those who need help, and we respect the character and the integrity of
the community.
The primary goal of these owners is profit.
They overbuild, overcrowd, and overlook the social and cultural identity of our block,
bringing in temporary tenants while leaving permanent residents to suffer through the
long-term problems that they create.
Then they have the audacity to claim hardship. Their hardship is entirely self-imposed.
They do not need a rooftop deck to be profitable. They don't need a third bathroom to be profitable,
and they don't need to count from the pavement practically 17 or 20 whatever feet in order to
put a rooftop deck that robs us of privacy and other issues and is a danger. What are we going
to do? Be plucked off with rifles from rooftops now? So a single family dwelling or multi two
family dwelling with one bedroom can be entirely profitable without disregarding the integrity of
thank you very much um i do have some questions for this okay so jennifer do you want to wait
till everybody's done or do you want to question each individual person i would like to question
each individual well i i'm going to tell you jennifer that's uh hillary i i don't want to
end this but we'll need a uh a resumptive hearing and i don't really want to bring all these
neighbors back okay i just so since no no no wait a minute wait a minute let hillary respond you
you're the one said you want to question everybody so go ahead well i well i think we should find out
what what question if jennifer is just asking a couple a simple question or two to each person
then that i don't i don't think will take much time but she does have a right to cross
so i mean if we have to we will have to resume um the case all right jennifer go ahead start
dig across sure um miss i'm sorry can you say what your last name is again i i don't want to
mispronounce it you can call me lorraine medley okay um miss medley um i understand what you're
saying are you aware that the second unit uses by right and that is not before this board today
I heard you.
What effect would having an additional 147 square feet of space added to this property have for you as a neighbor across the street when the additional space is in the rear of the property?
Well, you do understand that that address is 47 and minus 46.
We have invested in property in the neighborhood, but we live there.
it's a big difference. So my question is, is the additional 147 square feet
at the rear of this property, how does that versus, so as you can see on my presentation here,
how does the project by variance versus the project by right, what is the impact of you
on that additional 147 square feet.
It's in my face.
We have a side yard.
It affects our privacy.
People looking down,
they can look right in my bedroom window.
You understand also that the patio itself
is a by right feature of the property, right?
Well, do what you can do by right
and what you can't do by right, no.
And what I am asking is
how does the portions that are not by right impact you?
I don't, I didn't see your drawings because we were not included in the meeting where you presented them in detail.
So I don't really think it's fair of you to ask me that question at this point, because when these, when the owners are right across the street from me every day.
Because when the owners are right across the street from me every day, that they come and do that property, they could have shown it to me then.
They could have had a nice conversation with me as a neighbor directly across the street.
They did not.
And now they're using you for a mouthpiece.
We don't have attorneys.
It's just us, neighbors who care about each other.
I would ask that you only give a responsive answer.
And I would also like for Angela to be able to talk about if she had actually spoke to these neighbors.
we're concentrating on the neighbors now not Angela right but I feel that it's important to
counteract her statement that she's not telling the truth yeah that's so if I'm no no no no she's
not testifying when the neighbors testified if you want to bring her back later you bring her back
I'm not gonna have right that's why you're the attorney and not that's why she won't testify
do you have anything else for this witness uh no not at this time all right so what I want you to
do is identify yourself. I'll swear you in. And then if you would, could you tell us something
different than what she told us? In other words, what we want to try to do is zero in on what
everybody's concerns are. So could you please state your name and spell for this court stenographer?
Gwendolyn Jones, G-W-E-N-D-O-L-Y-N, Jones, J-O-N-E-S. You swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Yes, I do. And your neighbor. Yes. Please proceed.
My concern is about the parking because once we have these multi levels, it's going to impact on the parking. We have like a lot of senior citizens that lives in the built lives in our neighborhood. And that's going to really impose on them getting back and forth and being able to park in front of their door. Our parking is limited now because we have a school around the corner, you know, already.
Thank you very much.
The number of units is not an issue for the zoning variance. So what I'm asking is how the additional square footage of 147 square feet that does not add an additional bedroom, how that would impact parking.
I can see that it does.
Okay. She said she can see that it does.
Okay. Sir, could you identify yourself and spell your name for this?
My name is Kenneth Medley, K-E-N-N-E-T-H, Kenneth Medley, M-E-D-L-E-Y.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Sir, are you in favor of this project or against the project?
I'm against the project.
Is there anything else you can add than what we haven't already heard?
Well, I would like to talk about trash and maintenance.
I don't trust them doing what they're supposed to do once they get the property up.
And for one reason, I have pictures of where they started demolition in the house, piled it up on the porch.
I have a neighbor that's here, lives on this side.
I have a neighbor here that's on this side.
And when they come out the door, they see it.
Rats was running over there.
A raccoon was standing in the house.
they did not clean up their yard
if you've seen it had a place
where there was grass
it would grow up
grass was over there eating
I'm a little upset
I'm just calming down
we're going to calm you down
but they had a groundhog
was living there
the whole time that they were doing
the development they never came
over and cleaned up the yard
and when they came to my house
knocked on my door and said oh are you watching the football game i said what do you want
she had a petition in her hand right and she wanted me to sign it and i said um and then she
said when i leave here i'm gonna talk to debbie which is the lady that lives where the trash is
at that they left next door to her i said i don't think you want to go over there and talk to debbie
right now okay she said why i said because you have left this trash on this porch for months
okay debbie pays someone to come and clean the yard because we got to live there they don't
live there i understand so she spent her money paying some money else to clean up the yard
and then she said to me she said uh oh we came over once once this is a weekly thing now
oh we came over once once this is a weekly thing now the wind blows east and west east wind blows
this way right and when it blows it blows into her yard and then what can't stay in the yard it
blows in someone else's yard and she has a rail there right they have no consideration i can i
understand what you're saying i think i i i got i have a clear view of what you're saying so i don't
need the pictures i know exactly what you've said one other thing go ahead when they first started
her husband came outside on a wednesday right and put trash out bags and it was debris not no
paper trash and was going to leave it there and my wife said man you're not going to leave that
there he said why not the trash company will pick it up she said this is wednesday our trash is not
picked up to Monday and he had an attitude and then all of a sudden they want to be everybody's
buddy. I understand. I understand. So, so let me ask this, Jennifer, do you have any follow-up
questions? Yes, I have two questions for this, for this witness. Mr. Whitley, do you live with
Lorraine? Excuse me? Do you live in the same household as Lorraine who testified? It's my
wife. Do you live in the same household as her? Yes. Okay. What was that question for? She testified
that my clients had never reached out to her or your family and you testified that they had. Is
that correct? No, they didn't reach out to nobody until they wanted to get a petition signed. She
came to my door while I was watching a football game and said, Kenneth, are you watching the
football game my second question so so they did reach out to you um second question i have is
i hear all of your concerns how does the additional 147 square feet that would provide
space for a second bathroom negatively affect you because you can look off that balcony there