of support. At this point, I would just like to have Mr. McNeil promoted to accept my testimony.
Counsel, do you see the proviso? Yes. Okay. And you're okay with that? Yes. That's part of our
community benefits agreement. We've agreed to limit the sign to be accessory to the apartments,
the multifamily. I think the concern was that potentially it could be used for another tenant
in the building since there is ground floor commercial space. And we were on the same page
that it would remain accessory to the molding family.
Thank you.
Tyler McNeil has been allowed to speak.
Hi, sir.
Could you please state your name
and spell it for the stenographer?
Hi, Tyler McNeil, T-Y-L-E-R McNeil, M-C-N-E-I-L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Tyler, did you hear my testimony today?
Would you agree it's true and correct?
i do and would you adopt it as your own yes questions from the board questions from the board
okay am i uh am i missing the projecting something there is a projecting sign it didn't generate a
refusal um it's this small all right address reading sign yeah all right okay
any other questions from the board yeah i have a question about it and so in the renderings it
looks like it's backlit but in the actual elevations there doesn't seem to be any of the
like electricity that needs to support it is it lit or not it's backlit it is backlit okay
but again that's something we talked about with nlna and we made sure they were comfortable with
the level of lighting and hours and all those details other questions from the board
questions or comments from our attorney hillary embers
not at this time mr chair question or comments from the virtual audience
yes chair i have a hand up by the name of larry friedman they have been allowed to speak
good afternoon mr friedman could you please state your name as spelled for the court stenographer
Larry, L-A-R-R-Y, Friedman, F-R-E-E-D-M-A-N, 700 North 3rd Street. I'm the chair of Northern Liberty Zoning.
Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. Friedman.
I'm just here to reiterate that we were, and the Board of Northern Liberties, okay with the no-lib sign.
Our concern was because its accessory could turn into something else down the road, and we wouldn't have any control.
Thus, our CBA and also the reason for the proviso.
and wanted to thank Claire Harrison and Catherine
and the development team for working with us on this
to assure us that this wouldn't change.
Thank you. Mr. Freeman, thank you for your call. We appreciate it. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Mr. Freeman, thank you for your call.
We appreciate it.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
I run Bednar City Planning.
The property is indicated for commercial mixed use on the city plan or adopted district plan recommends no change to existing zoning at this location.
The applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of any physical circumstances or condition of the property that was prevented from being used,
informing with the signage requirements of the code.
Therefore, we recommend the request for granted to not be granted.
MI 2024-004-205-828-40, North 2nd Street.
I vote yes with proviso.
Signs accessory to multiple family household living use only.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Iowen, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes, with Proviso.
Thank you.
Great, thank you.
All right, thank you, Council.
Number 14, MI 2024-004-286, 2052 Blair Street, Daniel Markowitz and Anna Rindos.
This is a pro se, letter of support from East Kensington Neighbors Association, letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squilla, and letter of authorization from the co-owner from Mr. Markowitz to proceed alone.
Daniel Markowitz have been promoted to panelists.
Mr. Chair, Mr. Johns has joined us. You can make that on the record.
Thank you, Michael.
Hello.
Mr. Markowitz.
Hello.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
It's Daniel Markiewicz, D-A-N-I-E-L-M-A-R-K-I-E-W-I-C-Z.
Mr. Markowitz, please, one more time.
spell it one more time please yeah d-a-n-i-e-l and markevich is m-a-r-k-i-e-w-i-c-z
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
yes i do this application is for the erection of an attached structure with a roof deck deck
at the rear and interior accessory parking spaces for use as a single-family household living,
whereas the proposed rear deck is located in the required rear yard at the second floor level
and within three feet of a rear lot line serving two lots, which is prohibited,
whereas the proposed roof deck has an enclosure 11 feet high and 42 inches, and in some cases 60
inches is permitted. In addition, the enclosure is 100% opaque and 50% opaque is permitted.
Whereas the All Street accessory parking is prohibited unless it can be accessed from a
shared driveway, alley, or rear street. The access for the proposed parking space
is on Blair Street. Our Vice Chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon, sir. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that's needed
and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes i have
thank you sir please proceed and share your screen
um i'm sharing my screen now hopefully starting to come up it's coming up yep
um thank you all for um hearing our case again my name is daniel i am the owner of this property
along with my wife, Anna Rindos, who's here as well.
We are looking to build a home for ourselves at 2052 Blair.
This is a photograph of the vacant lot, the building in our rear,
and the buildings neighboring us on Blair Street.
I am an architect, so also have drawn these drawings,
which is also why i'm um uh defending this uh the variance uh myself uh this is the exhibit package
that i uh shared um more than five days in advance uh i'll just go through um what i have uh in terms
of uh the contents and then the the various refusals um so we have the original drawings
the letter of refusal, application of appeal, project information form, deed, et cetera.
And I will go through all of this.
All of this, we do have also a letter of support from our coordinating RCO for the project. It was a 13 to 1 vote with Proviso, and I'll explain what we did to adjust the plans after discussion with all of the neighbors.
We do have also a letter of support from our.
um before i get into well i will go through um you mentioned the letter refusal this
project has uh four refusals associated um with it one uh is the the garage which is access from
the front and not a shared in the back two is the height we are just a little bit over the 38 foot
um maximum and then the the last two have to do with the the decks um deck second floor deck in
the rear covering our backyard which we've actually adjusted um and the guardrail the
opaque guardrail at a deck on the top floor uh but i will go through all of those in detail
and share some some visuals uh for it um just to run through everything in the application or in
in the exhibits that I shared, we have the application for appeal, the project information
form. This is the deed with myself and my wife on it. I have, we made a spousal letter of
authorization. She is here, but so that I can speak on her behalf as well today. We have the
tax clearance. I have the revised plans, which are the adjustment to the deck. So one of the
refusals that was mentioned. We've pulled that into compliance. The plan forms. This is our
zoning or photographs of our zoning notice that were posted on the site. We mailed this letter
and had, I think, a well-attended meeting on August 14th. This is the proof of mailing
to 115 of our neighbors, and then the letter of support that I mentioned, which was a 13 to one
vote with proviso. And that was, again, the proviso was one of the neighbors, and I'll get
into it, was interested to see if we could do it a different way in the back with one of the
refusals associated with the death um but to go through the the refusals and to share
kind of general information about our project this is um blair street uh looking uh west and then
and then east uh ish east northeast um this is our uh lot uh which is a um irregularly shaped uh
a trapezoidal lot that is 45 feet deep on one side, not an enormous lot in that respect.
And then this is just a diagram of the house that we hope to build for our family.
The first refusal that I was going to talk about has to do with the garage and is part
of the reason that a lot of the other refusals were produced in the design.
parking in the neighborhood is um extremely difficult and becoming more and more difficult
our side of the street has um no parking and and therefore we have less less opportunities
to park on the street something that my wife and i rely on um for uh our our jobs um and so we were
hoping to have uh be allowed to have a parking barrage and curb cut as part of our project um
We also feel that, you know, being that there's no parking on our side of the street, that we would be alleviating congestion in the neighborhood by taking at least one car off the street without taking away parking from anyone else in the neighborhood.
So we hope in that respect that we're improving the congestion and something that the public can appreciate, hopefully.
uh this is just to show again on our our block that um there are a number of curb cuts
uh already so it's not out of character for the block to have uh curb cuts um these are actually
here on the more southern side of the street um when where there is parking again we are on the
side that has no parking so we wouldn't be taking anything away uh from the from the community but
There are a number of curb cuts, I think some that have even recently been granted
quite close to us in the past year or so.
So again, not out of character for the rest of the block
because we were hoping to have the access, the front access for a garage.
Because we were hoping to have the access, the front access for a garage, things became shifted in the design, and so we are right at the limit for the height.
This is on the left, a diagram of what is allowed 38 foot maximum roof height, but also with a roof deck and roof parapet and pilot house to access that.
We don't have a roof deck and we will never have a roof deck on top of our house, but we're only
asking to use that space as part of the house. We have a six inch parapet just to control drainage
and we're right at 41 and a half feet that the project is. Similarly, we're not out of character
for the immediate surroundings in terms of this height request.
The building that we back up to, which was the photograph,
the first photograph in the exhibit package, well above that.
And then the other building that we actually faced through a vacant lot here, also above that.
So on the block and in our immediate vicinity, there's a number of buildings that are already
significantly above the 38 feet and above what we are requesting at the 41 and a half
feet. The last two refusals have to do, as I mentioned, with the depths in the rear. This
is a diagram of the building from the rear. So Blair Street and the front of the building would
be here this is our rear lot line um and this is a corresponding plan that that shows that as well
um one of the refusals has to do with we're hoping to have opaque uh and full height guard rails at
a deck at the top level again we don't have a roof deck but this deck at the top level
um we hope to have in some location uh full height and opaque uh there are a number of
tall buildings in the area and this is just for um privacy but um and we think it's also
not a safety issue certainly would be improving safety nothing's going to be falling off of this
deck um uh into anybody else's um space and then the last refusal has to do with the deck
at the second floor, which is encroaching on our nine-foot rear yard setback by six and a half
feet. And this was the refusal that the only refusal that the community had questions about.
We had a neighbor that had recently done a beautiful renovation of their own backyard
and asked us to consider if we would change this design and be less above them.
We met with them. They invited us to their backyard, which was fantastic.
And we consequently made revisions to the design.
And so this is the revised design that we shared with them on August 24th, 10 days after the meeting.
we've pulled the deck back completely into compliance so nine feet from the rear yard
it's more of a balcony at this point so we hope to have be allowed to have a stair down
to a deck which is at the level of the first floor that is above grade we've spoken to
all of the neighbors in the addresses listed here surrounding the property
in person a number of times after the community meeting we shared this with them and they're all
happy with this adjustment to our design and um we hope that the board uh agrees and allows us
these variances we're excited to join this this block and become neighbors with all of these good
folks um and and you know build this house for our our family uh i will that's i'll leave it at
that i'm happy to answer any questions if there are any um uh and i hope that the the board um
will uh agree and vote in favor of our of our project questions from the board
yes question question for you what's the width of the street and did uh you get any pre-approvals
from streets for your uh proposed curb cut for your driveway we did get uh approvals from uh
streets for the curb cut um so we have that that's on record i'm just going back to the uh
the plans to give you the answer on the width of the street, which is here. So it's a 20-foot street.
which is here so it's a 20-foot street um 10 and a half foot sidewalk there's the parking lane which
is um seven feet and we drew the um the curb cut as well as the turning radius is for the for the
garage okay so that seven feet is are those the cars that are parked across the street that's the
parking lane exactly yeah okay so the street is 20 feet yes yeah okay and 10 foot six
of sidewalks. Okay. Thank you.
The other questions from the board? Yes.
Can we go back to the picture that you had
showing the, I'm not sure if I understand
the deck on the
what's that, the second floor or the third floor?
So you're saying that
this is going to be opaque you said uh this so this deck here yes this would be a uh just a full
height wall with an opening in it um and then a transparent guardrail here um what is not allowed
by zoning and to be completely frank i'm not sure what the reason for this is i actually asked
zoning members why they're this is not allowed and they couldn't tell me but you're not allowed
to have a solid guardrail but a solid fall protection from a deck it has to be open or
transparent um so that that's the that's what the refusal is but we're just asking that everything
that i'm drawing over here and in red be allowed to be uh a solid wall this is still a deck because
it's open to the air above but um yeah that that is that refusal i don't know if that was the