i'm not meaning that as in you know i've been waiting to go hillary basically you raise a good
point so so to be clear we are here for a number of parcels uh five parcels um that have addresses
is ranging from 2552 to 2566 North 3rd Street.
As I indicated, you can see on the,
and this is a pretty massive file
because I use a lot of the CDR presentation materials,
but as indicated, our property or properties
are located on the west side of North 3rd Street,
the south side of Huntington,
and on the east side of Oriana.
They're all streets of varying different widths.
As you can imagine, Oriana is a smaller street,
small neighborhood street, and then you have Huntington and North 3rd, which are wider streets.
As indicated here on the survey plan, you have one, two, three, four, five parcels. I believe
they have a total of two OPA accounts, and where the proposal is to consolidate them into one.
I'll get a little more into the details in a couple minutes, but in terms of the letters
of support and non-opposition that you have, as referenced, we did receive a letter of support
from the coordinating RCO for the project.
As you can see here in the email
from the Planning Commission back on September 26th,
they identified our North Square Community Alliance
as a coordinating RCO for the project.
We did send out the 14303 notice
of the meeting on November 9th.
The meeting was held.
It was really good.
They ran it great.
It was a hybrid meeting.
We were in person,
but also there were people
that were able to participate via zoom they had a big screen camera worked really well um we you
know there were not very many comments that came up one of the comments that came up was a revision
to the walls fence wall the six foot fence wall surrounding the parking area uh we reduced the
height of that to cover the um to block headlights but then put in open fencing above it that was the
the main comment that came out of that. And again, the mailing was to quite a number of addresses
and 141 in total. And you can see the certificate of first class mailing here.
As part of North Square included with their letter, but we also included it as a separate
exhibit at Exhibit 2. My clients did a pretty nice, really nice petition letter here with a
good level of detail or rendering a lot more than you usually see with petitions and um they um and
they got a lot of the near neighbors to sign off on it uh they actually at one point they they're
both from the neighborhood they've done projects in the neighborhood they've worked with the the
council manic district office on other projects they had a meet and greet out at the site with
that all the neighbors attended so they've been very involved in the community um leading up to
this project and during the course of this project and getting the approvals. And then here you have
a letter from a woman that Brett Slackman, who's one of the principals, his involvement in helping
somebody in the community develop their property for themselves rather than developing it, you
know, taking it and developing it or buying it, developing himself, assisted them. So very
community oriented uh uh client that i have here uh we did receive
uh client that i have here uh we did receive um both the notice of refusal it was a heightened
use refusal uh the property's owned icmx industrial commercial and we're proposing a mixed commercial
and residential project the refusal in the application originally indicated 65 dwelling
units uh we dropped it to 64 with 21 accessory parking spaces and 22 bicycle parking spaces
We have a height refusal. The height limit in ICMX is 60 feet, and we are a little, I think it's at 71 feet. I'll show you that, and I'll explain to you why we're doing that.
We did receive a CDR referral because of the number of units, and we did complete, as you see, at 3.
They don't have their letter of completion out yet, but they did send us the email on Monday that went out to Tanya that indicated that we had, in fact, completed the CDR process on February 7th.
It was a one-and-done meeting.
We weren't required to come back a second time.
The project was very well received, in my opinion, by the Planning Commission staff and by the CDR committee.
We do have revised plans, as I indicated.
We changed the fencing.
We reduced the number of dwelling units from 65 to 64.
We made some changes in setbacks of the upper floors.
we changed there's a roof deck that was a communal roof deck at the second floor level fronting on
third street on the third street side of the property that we changed to a private roof deck
and those were the major changes that that we did make as far as the zoning we didn't include
the fencing in that that's often not sometimes they say you don't need a permit for fences but
that is the other change that we made in the revised zoning drawings i could add that to
revised provisive plan form if necessary um the project again consolidation of the lots
and then what we're proposing is a six-story building you can see sorry about that
it's such a large file it just takes a second sometimes to load there you go
and then there's a couple things i want to bring your draw your attention to in the
in this tab, this is 6A. You can see, I'm sorry, 5A, the revised drawings. You can see where we
have pulled the building by right. We have a massing diagram or plan that we have included
in our exhibits. And what that shows is that in ICMX, you could build a building that's 100%
lot coverage, five stories, 500 far. The problem is, is if you take a look at aerials, the problem
that we saw in designing this is that here's the existing building. It's been a dye and bleaching
company business facility for decades. It's a rundown, dilapidated building. You see that we
have two-story structures to the south of us, and then a newer park. We have some three-story
buildings right across North Oriana Street on the opposite corner, on the southwest corner.
But then other than that, on the opposite side of Oriana, you have two stories.
But the main concern was budding a 60-foot tall building up against the buildings that you see
right here. And the idea was to pull the building back to create a buffer, a physical buffer,
to reduce the impact during construction on having to underpin things of that nature,
the buildings to the south of us.
And we created a 15-foot buffer that you see right here.
And we've located the parking.
And because some of those spaces face the buildings and face the rear yards of the buildings
and the properties that abut us to the south, that's where maintaining some solid fencing
or a fence wall there to block the headlights of people at the parking at nighttime
was something that we revision we were happy to make it also kind of opened it up a little bit
along the street so you didn't have a six foot tall wall and you could kind of see create some
additional light visual a different visual appearance for pedestrians as they walk by but
as a result of pushing this building back and creating this buffer from the properties to the
south and still maintaining a decent amount of floor area we basically what I say like to say
is we squeezed the balloon.
We took a wider balloon and we squeezed it a little bit
and we pushed it to push the building up
the additional story.
You'll see though that we didn't still go for the 500 FAR.
We actually, if you look at the zoning data table,
we're only at 489.
And based upon my calculations, that 11% of far difference of a lot of over almost 14,000 square feet is about 1,500 square feet of floor area, which is another unit or two.
Based upon my calculations,
that 11% of FAR difference of 11%.
So clearly my clients weren't looking to squeeze every little last thing into this building.
They pulled it away for the benefit of the properties to the south.
We've set back the upper floors that you'll see in the, you see both in the zoning drawings and both at the, you know, at the upper floor level.
And you'll see when you look at the rendering real quickly, not to drag on about this, but if you take a look at the renderings and the color elevations, and here you go, is what we've done is they, with the use of materials, you know, so here you have that buffer area to the south.
But what they did is, and this is something that was appreciated at the CDR meeting, is they made it read with the solid material.
They made it read as a two-story building and honored the heights of the buildings to the south.
And then on this side, you can see they dropped it to three to be in line, the solid material to read as three stories there,
and then dropped it to two heading to the south on Oriana to be consistent with those buildings,
which obviously they wouldn't have to do if they did a by-right building.
The ground floor is intended to all be commercial along Huntington Street and North 3rd Street.
You can see here the rendering.
Here's the private decks that are going to be located at the second floor level.
They're partially screened, both with the brickwork that's brought across from the north side to the south side
and then with planters that are going to be located there as indicated on both the revised
zoning drawings and on the these renderings you can see that street trees have been provided all
the way around the property right now we're showing two commercial units can show you those
floor plans you have a commercial unit right at the corner activating the corner of huntington
and north third and then another vacant commercial at the along huntington street they might be
consolidated into one unit. They might be broken up into smaller units, but that's a seller plan.
I'm sorry. Here's the ground floor plan. You can see, and another great aspect of this design,
we've provided off-street accessory parking, but, and Derek Spencer, who's here from Nome
Architecture, who did a great job on the design here, along with my clients, you'll see that
north third heads north, northwards, and I can show you on the, if I can get you a quick traffic
plan, where is it? Okay, it's up here. This is the transit plan, but you can see north third heads
north you got Huntington that heads west and then Oriana that um Oriana that heads heads south
here you go and so what we did and this was a great a great design by them is is that they
created essentially a closed loop with the um having the parking come in and here we go
so what they've done is parking cars come down Huntington they turn in they come through the
parking come out into onto north third there's a great design one way they've essentially created
a closed loop and what that does is it has the what we believe is it's going to keep traffic away
from the park to the south that a lion's share of the traffic will come off american come in
off of huntington come around you know park come out come on north third and then head west on
huntington so there'll be no traffic coming in and out on the small street of oriana and we hope this
will also minimize the amount of traffic coming by the newer playground at the south end of the
block on North 3rd Street. Tab 15 of my exhibit book does show the, or tab 16 shows, tab 13 shows
the zoning archives for the subject property and documents, again, the industrial use of the
property. Previously, it's our thought that given we do have commercial to the west of us,
here's American Street. You have a lot of vacant land right here. But then you have CMX2 across the
street from us right here, which is a PPA parking lot. And then you have all residential to the
south of us and then all to the west of us. And the idea is that we don't really, I think it was
probably zoning classified as ICMX remapping because of the current use of the property.
But we believe, my understanding is that the Planning Commission agrees that this use,
this residential commercial use is more fitting with the where it's located what's around it
particularly what's around it to the south and to the west um we we posted the pro
um we we posted the property photos are attached to tab 28 the copy of the notice that was posted
at tab 27 along with the notice of refusal um we the our current my my clients purchased the
property uh recently from the prior owner so the opa is not showing them as a current owner we
weren't able to run the tax compliance uh certificate but we do show that taxes have
been paid because the property was just purchased, save for the 2023 taxes. And that's essentially
ownership. Here's the deed that shows the transfer from the prior owners to my clients.
We can go into greater detail. Shadow studies real quickly show that comparing our project to
a buy rate project, that we actually shadow the neighboring residential properties less with what
we're proposing, even though we're taller. By pulling away from the properties to the
south and setting the upper floor back, we actually shadow less. And what's great, what
GNOME does is they do what we call is a shadow Venn diagram. And rather than having to bop your
eyes back and forth and compare what one looks like in the other, they show the difference in
coloring between where one shadows, by right shadows more than what's proposed. And again,
the Venn diagrams show that the by right building actually shadows more. So we believe that there is
a hardship here to utilize the property for the industrial commercial use, at least for the
industrial use aspect of it. And that is given the residential properties that are located to
the south to the west of us. We believe that the use of the property as commercial and residential
is appropriate given the residential nature of the properties to the south and to the west of us,
the brand new community park or newer community park to the south. Some of the renovations that
are happening along North American Street to support the businesses that are coming in there
to provide light and energy and people and density at a corner that you can see from the aerial
images is a pretty dead corner right now. So, and the traffic has been designed and very specifically
to reduce traffic congestion. It will actually improve traffic congestion. If there was going
to be any over a buy rate project for certain, for sure. Shadow studies show the impact upon
air and light of conforming properties is actually going to be less than it would with
the buy rate project. So for those reasons, and not to go on and on, I just think it's a great
project. Again, it was well received by the community, really well received by the community
and by the Civic Design Review Committee. I stop and answer any questions.
You want to have your testimony adopted, please?
That'd be great.
So I have Brett.
Brett, either you or Joe can raise your hand to adopt my statements as my clients, and then I'll have Derek Spencer adopt them from the architectural side of things.
Mr. Brett, he's going to be allowed to speak?
Brett Slackman.
Please.
Could you state your name and spell it, please, for the court reporter?
Can everybody hear me?
We can.
My name is Brett Slackman.
it's spelled b-r-e-t-t s as in sam l-a-c-h-m-a-n right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel thank you mr chairman uh brett you heard
the statements that i made to the board today correct i did and are they true and correct
to the best of your knowledge yes they are and would you adopt them as your own i would
Okay, thank you. And then Derek Spencer, real quickly, from No More Architecture.
Okay, Mr. Spencer is allowed to speak.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, Derek Spencer, D-E-R-E-K-S-P-E-N-C-E-R.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?