I do not see any further hand. Okay. We're going to go to our add-on list. Number one.
Okay. We're going to go to our add-on list. Number one, MI 2023-001-042-10 South Front Street. I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, I vote yes.
ish it's no sahib i vote is yes thank you number two
mi 2023 000 484 2426 cedar street
i vote yes
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Okay, thank you.
Number three.
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary.
I just want to note for the record that Emily Persico from Development Services has joined us as an alternate board member this afternoon.
Great. Thank you, Emily.
Thank you.
Number three, MI 2023, 001-327-6212-22 Market Street.
Brandon Saverin is the attorney.
Letter of support from Achieve Ability.
They've been promoted to panelists.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Counselor, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Brandon Saverin.
That's B-R-A-N-D-O-N, S as in Sam, A, V as in Victor, R-A-N as in Nancy.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client, their relationship to this property?
Yes, my client is JL4475 LLC, who is the owner of the property.
All right.
our vice chair has just a few questions good afternoon counsel do you agree to waive the
reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy yes i do have you emailed in all the
required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance
of this hearing yes thank you please proceed and share your screen okay thank you very much
All right. Good afternoon, members of the board. I am here to speak about an application to legalize an existing parking lot, and I will show you our notice of refusal and referral in a second.
but first I just wanted to familiarize you with the property. So the property is located on the
south side of Market Street, basically under the L, the L train tracks on the block that
ends at the west at 63rd Street and the 63rd Street L station. And this parking lot,
which is shown here is comprised of five parcels, but the doctrine of unity of use
enables us to present this to you today as one project, because what we'll be doing if we get
the variances and special exceptions that we've requested is we will be recording
a restrictive covenant that binds us to use this parking lot as one property going forward,
at least until a different zoning permit is applied for a different use.
But it's pretty much exactly what you think it is. It's a parking lot. So here are aerial images
and everything I'm showing you is in our exhibit package that was submitted five days in advance.
The parking lot is at the corner of 62nd and Market. We will be restriping it, and I'll show
you our restriping plan in a second, but it's going to continue to exist as a surface parking
lot, and it's been that for years. We just didn't have the proper permits, and I think this comes
down to the fact that the parking lot serves an office building at 6232 Market Street which is
here where my cursor is down the block. I'm not sure if my client was aware that it needed permits
because it turns out that we and probably most people out there would have assumed that this is
uh we and probably most people out there would have assumed that this is an accessory use to
that office building but what ended up happening is l and i categorized it as a non-accessory
parking lot as if we're sort of like a paid parking lot you'd see downtown which we're not
but the reason we were categorized that way and given some of our um you know uh points of refusal
is because there is a church. I'll go to the zoomed in image. There's a church and the church's
parking lot both sort of separate our lot from the office building it serves. So because of that,
let me show you our refusal now. That's why when we went to legalize this, we ran into
some trouble here. So here's our notice from L&I. It is technically a notice of refusal and referral.
And that actually is a good thing for us as the applicant in a way, and I'll explain why.
So what you see here is what I call the scope text on the refusal.
The big paragraph I'm not going to read through, it says what I said about that the board can hear this as one case because we're promising to use these five parcels as one parking lot.
and the next paragraph here says what we want to do with the lot continue to have it be a parking
lot with 53 spaces after we restripe it including three handicap accessible parking spaces so we do
not have a refusal for not having enough handicap accessible spaces we're good on that front
what we have refusals for and I'll go through these in one second is lack of landscaping
and lack of bicycle parking, but those are all existing conditions. And what we're asking for
your permission to do today through the variances we're requesting is not to dig up the ground
and install these features, which is an extremely expensive proposition. And after consulting with
the community, we don't believe they want that. And it actually would work counter to the community
organization's goals for this property. The special exception is the use. So while we have
refusals for the landscaping and the bike parking, the core issue, the use of the property as a
parking lot is permitted under the zoning code. It just requires a special exception. I think that
intent of the code is to force us to obtain a traffic study, which we did, to demonstrate that
it's not going to cause undue congestion. But with the special exception, parking is a permitted use
here. The issues that are refused are landscaping and the bike parking. And just to spend one more
minute on it, let me go to the zoning plan and I'll talk through those landscaping issues.
So this, excuse me, is our zoning plan drawn by Michael Cole, our architect.
What this basically says is that we're going to re-strike the parking lot so that it conforms to all of the rules about the depth and width of the parking spaces, the width of the drive aisles, the number and the layout of the handicap accessible spaces.
So this basically, you know, keeps us kosher in terms of all those rules pertaining to driver safety. We don't have refusals for those issues. Again, what you'll note on this plan is in the rear, there is a retaining wall. And I'll show you a picture of that in one second.
But one of the refusals is that we don't have landscaping in the back of the lot. We're supposed to have an eight-foot landscaped buffer with several trees and shrubs, but the retaining wall serves the purpose of that landscaping.
It creates privacy for the homeowners in the back, and it's already there and in good shape, too.
The other refusals for landscaping have to do with not having it along the street lines and not having like islands in the interior of the lot, which might be something you've seen in like a suburban office park setting, but it's somewhat difficult to pull off in the city.
So here's why we ultimately chose beyond just the expense not to install the landscape islands and the street side landscaping.
The community association, and I'll show you our letter from them, called Achievability.
We met with them. I think we sent three folks from the ownership team, including my colleague, Rachel.
We had five folks on their end come out to the meetings or eight people at the meeting.
everybody from this organization and all the local attendees agreed that they
Everybody from this organization and all the local attendees agreed that they wanted this to remain a parking lot.
They had no issue with the way it's been a parking lot for the last several years.
And one of the things we did was we struck this community benefits agreement with the group.
And among other things, let me just walk you through what this provides.
It notes that the parking lot already has security cameras and lighting and will continue to have those features. It notes that we're going to make this whole lot and I'll show you the photo in a second. It's pretty big.
We're going to make this available to Achievability, this coordinating RCO, at least three full days per year on weekends for them to hold events to the public, which has to do with their programming for local residents and namely those who suffer from disabilities and other disadvantages.
So this is going to be sort of like an outdoor meeting room for them. And if we have that landscaping in the middle of the parking lot and on the front edge, it effectively reduces its usefulness as the outdoor gathering space that they want to use it as.
it chops up the space if you picture something like a farmer's market if there's interior
landscaping islands you can't put up tents or exhibition booths or whatever else achievability
might want to do because the space is broken up and in terms of that that front perimeter
landscaping and the bike parking which would also typically go on like the front side of a lot
that sort of would preclude folks from seeing the event that Achievability would want to throw on
the lot because it would make the lot interior private, which isn't good for Achievability
and its programming. Also, because this is on the corner of 62nd and Market, having perimeter
landscaping maybe can be seen as a safety concern. You can't see across the corner. So say if you're
walking up 62nd street you don't see who's coming at you along market street at the same time
so i think that everybody felt that it was better not to use landscaping to screen off this
important corner property because it would reduce visibility and safety um let me see a couple other
things i want to highlight um why is this lot the way it's used the other days of the year
important to the community. That's because, just to go back to this office building for a moment,
you know, this is more than a typical office building. It's 6232 Market Street.
The current tenants in there are City Health Life. That's an urgent care center,
medical urgent care center that specializes in treating patients who are on Medicaid.
the Veterans Administration the VA has an office in there and Health Partners which is a company
that helps folks obtain and sign up for health insurance so this is sort of like nuts and bolts
survival stuff for the community and they serve people who are in distress medically with like
acute ailments or long-term disabilities so a lot of people show up to this property by car
Now, what you can see in the aerial image is that that office building does have some on-site parking, but it's very important to have the overflow parking that the subject property provides, because on a given day, particularly when you kind of include all the staff, that parking lot fills up.
So it's really important to the community to have this property available as overflow parking.
And then finally, I submitted a memorandum to the board. It's exhibit one in our packet that walks through all of the standards for the grant of a variance for the landscaping issues and the bike parking, the lack of bike parking facilities, and for the grant of a special exception for the parking use.
So I'm not going to tick through all of the things we have to demonstrate to, you know, earn those things from you, because I think they've been explained in my testimony.
They're explained in that memo. The only thing I want to highlight is that there's a requirement for the special exception to obtain a traffic study.
And we did that. We hired a very reputable firm called Traffic Planning and Design.
They went out and counted cars and measured, since the lot's already there, what effect it has on the surroundings, particularly the three lights.
It's 63rd Market, 62nd Market, and 62nd and Chestnut.
And this is like a several dozen page long plan. It's very professional.
I'm simply going to tell you what the conclusion is.
I'm simply going to tell you what the conclusion is.
It's that the proposed parking facility.
It's that the proposed parking facility will not degrade the level of service at any of those traffic lights.
And also that the sight lines for people driving on Market Street and people entering and exiting the lot are safe.
So they concluded there's no measurable impact of this parking lot that could cause traffic congestion or danger to drivers.
That's the extent of my testimony.
um last last thing i promise is um just to show you um on google and i have a still of this in
the packet what this thing looks like here's the parking lot so on the corner with market street
there in the back is that retaining wall so if you're on our lot you really have to walk up to
that retaining wall and peer over because i think it's about a half dozen feet tall to look into the
backyards of these adjacent homeowners. And nothing else around here is residential. So
for the homeowners, it's pretty private as it is. I'm going to stop sharing my screen and call
Mark Nicoletti, who's the owner's representative. Council, how long has that parking lot been there?
So, Mr. Chairman, my understanding, and Mr. Nicoletti will correct me if I'm wrong,
is that in its current size, it's been there since 2019. But before that, because if you
remember it's composed of five parcels it's actually been there for longer before that it
just wasn't quite as large and mark may know how long okay good thank you you're welcome
mr nicoletti
please raise your virtual hand away to be sworn in mr nicoletti could you state your name please
and spell for the court stenographer
Mr. Nicoletti could you please unmute yourself
how about now that's good Mr. Nicoletti could you state your name and spell please for the
court sonographer Mark Nicoletti M-A-R-K-N-I-C-O-L-E-T-T-I do you swear or firm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel mark i'm just going to ask
you a few quick questions and then after that the the floor is yours and if you could um then answer
the chairman's question about the age of a lot that'd be helpful um but to get us started um
are you authorized to speak on behalf of jl4475 llc today yes okay and were you able to hear
my testimony over the last few minutes in your zoning case?
And was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
And would you therefore adopt it as if it were your own testimony?
Okay, so you're free to add anything you'd like to my testimony at this point.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Zoning Board,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity today to not just discuss this application, but to share a really good story with you.
These are the days I'm going to suggest that you feel the work that you're doing, the vital work that you're doing, you walk away at the end of a meeting like this, and hopefully you feel good about this.
And this is why.
Most of the time that we come in front of you and applicants come in front of you, it's for a proposed project.
This story has already been written.
In a city that struggles under an enormous weight of unacceptable poverty, food deserts, and health equity imbalance,
This building opened at least five years ago to go directly into the root of the problem and deliver a state-of-the-art medical office building right where it was needed.
For example, the Veterans Administration operates out of that building a primary care medical office for veterans that have veterans benefits.
So they don't have to wait in long lines down at the VA hospital just to get primary care.
There's actually another organization, and Brandon didn't mention, Oak Tree provides
primary care for Medicare advantaged, usually I think it's pretty much seniors and those
with disability.
And the third medical operation focuses on adults and children that have Medicaid benefits.
This is a case study.
This is a case study.
If there could be a dozen buildings like this.
If there could be a dozen buildings like this
around the city, maybe we get somewhere
with the issues related to health equity.
But the fact is that this one's been there,
it's been serving a purpose.
The community in the meetings that we've had
has embraced this building and its programming.
We didn't realize that we needed a parking permit.
That's really what we're talking about today.
And Brandon did a great job talking about some of the exceptions we've asked for, but I think the one that really was consistent in the conversations with the community was no one seemed to be concerned about a landscaping waiver because, number one, it creates more parking, which was needed.
And number two, the visibility seemed to be a priority from a public safety standpoint for the seniors, especially that are parking in this lot.
The lot is well lit at night. There are cameras on the lot for surveillance, but the visibility seemed to also be a priority.
um we take um no presumptions here that this is not a small matter getting a parking permit
um we respect the process and we did a traffic study we hired a very good law firm to represent
us we had a number of meetings with the rco we reached a um developer's agreement with the rco
we handled this parking permit as if it was a major zoning application
he gave it just as much respect
hopefully today you'll agree
with us and we'll be able to
get this approved
questions from the board
no chair
this is Ron Bednar
City Planning. Hold on a minute, Ron. Tom? Sorry. Mr. Tom, are you there? Please unmute.