whoever that person was doing.
Yeah, I guess a question I have for Hillary.
um i've noticed that as pulling the permits it a lot of our legalization of illegal duplexes
and triplexes it's the same company listed on the permit over and over and over and over again
whenever it was like an easy permit that was pulled for a single family
and then was illegally converted we should look into that thank you you're welcome
maybe you could do it this weekend hillary
other other questions
questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr questions or comments from the audience or the virtual audience
mr chair i do not see any hands raised planning commission
amy wood with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change
and zoning from the existing RSA 5
residential single family.
The property has a documented history
of two-family going back to at least
1944. The Planning Commission
recommends that the board grant the proposed
variance for two-family household living.
Thank you. MI 2025
000539
2649 South
7th Street. I vote yes with
provisos. CO to be obtained
no basement living.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with
proviso. Cheryl
Gaston, my vote is yes with provisals.
Tana Graham, my vote is yes with provisals.
Taya Owen, my vote is yes with provisals.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with provisals.
Thank you, Alex.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Number two, MI 2024-005-526-406-08 Jefferson Street.
Henry Clinton is the attorney.
Mr. Chair, they'll be coming back in as a panelist soon.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, counsel.
could you please state your name and spell it for the court sonographer? You are Henry Clinton,
H-N-R-Y Clinton, C-L-I-N-T-O-N. You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? I do. Could you identify your client, the relationship to the property?
Sure. The entity which owns the property is FNF Properties, LLC, and the principal is Shaker,
S-H-A-K-E-R
E-H-M-E-D-I
Our Vice Chair has a few
questions, sir. Good afternoon,
Counsel. Do you agree to wait the reading of the
refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
I do. Have you emailed in
all the required documents and exhibits that's
needed to proceed with this case five days
in advance of this hearing? I have.
Thank you, Counsel. Please
proceed and share your screen. Thank you,
Mr. Sheehan. Thank you.
Is that visible, Mr. Chairman?
It is.
It is, sir.
Good afternoon again.
Henry Clinton here on behalf of the owner, Mr. Armani, and he is on the call via telephone.
This is my table of contents, A1 through A10, with some backup zoning records.
This is a request for a four-family dwelling, each dwelling on a single floor on a piece
a property that was formally
used for at least 10 to 15 years
as an auto service
center. It's in dilapidated
condition. My client purchased it
in 2021. He had to
have a make safe permit
and then since that time he's been
moving forward to try to get the property
re-zoned for multifamily
Also on the call
is the architect Kevin O'Neill
so when we get to the plans I'm going to ask him
Mr. Chairman, if he could be unmuted and walk everyone through the plans.
So the refusal is pretty straightforward.
This is an RSA 5 zoning district, even though there are other multifamily on the block directly
across the street, caddy corner, and also next to the subject property.
That resulted in a refusal for multifamily living.
And then there's a minor, what we would consider de minimis, dimensional variance.
We do have an RCO letter of support from South Kensington.
Just by way of background, last year in 2024, we met with South Kensington and spirited dialogue back and forth.
They were not happy with the way the plans look.
They made some recommendations and we adopted almost every one.
and we adopted almost every one.
So we then came back with new plans.
So we then came back with new plans,
revised plans, which we have
attached to this presentation.
And if the board looks kindly upon it,
we'd ask that the proviso be
approved with one plan.
We came back and represented
to South Kensington Community Partners,
and that resulted in a unanimous vote of 14 to 1
in favor of granting the requested variance.
Um, just to provide you with some photographs. Uh, this is the existing old garage. There's no
roof. You can see the Joyce, uh, running front to back on the, on the property behind the property
is a, is a park, uh, to the left, which would be the East is a, um, a store with one or two families
above that's multifamily. Then Caddy corner is another commercial property on the first floor,
with an apartment above, and then directly across the street at 411, I believe the address is,
that's a two-family dwelling. Again, just some more photographs. This is a little bit clearer
than the prior one, showing you the dilapidated condition of the building. Neighbors on the block
are happy that it's being renovated, actually torn down, frankly, and then rebuilt. Again,
we're looking east uh on jefferson the multi-family is across the street at 411.
that's the corner property the new brick and also another corner property that is multi-family
this is just a close-up of the property adjacent to our property to my client's property zony notices
again just more perspective photographs and this is the proviso form indicating the changes that
we made uh we revised the building to four stories still keeping underneath the 38 foot
height limit but the idea was to have one floor living for each of the occupants which
makes it a nicer amenity and a nicer space to enjoy for a small family or for a couple
or an individual if need be.
This is the property here.
We're adjacent to CMX1.
And as I said, it is in an RSA 5 zoning district, and there's a park at the rear.
So I'm going to ask if Kevin O'Neill can be unmuted, Mr. Chairman, and have him walk
through the plans because I think he can give a very detailed description of what's happening here.
Okay. Good afternoon. This is Kevin. Do I need to be sworn in? Kevin, please state your name
and spell it for the stenographer. Kevin J. O'Neill, O'N-E-I-L-L. Do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth, told truth, nothing but the truth? Yes. Why don't we start, counsel? All right,
Kevin, you drew these plans, you designed this building, correct?
Correct.
And just wanted to walk through the plans.
I'll be the, you know, handle the cursor.
You tell me what plans to go to, and then we'll explain what's going on for the board's purposes.
So maybe you want to start with this page?
So this page is our site plan showing the site and the adjacent structures.
You can see we have a building on the right that we're building next to.
And then we have a series of buildings on the left where we have the rear yards that are abutting the left side of the property line there.
This is a four-story structure, but we are maintaining the 38-foot height limit for RSA 5.
Also worth noting, I believe there was an existing curb cut on this block, which is going to be eliminated as part of this proposal.
So we're not taking away any on-street parking.
We're actually adding approximately one on-street parking space with this updated scheme.
And then, Kevin, can you explain the walkway that you have from the front to the rear for the trash enclosure?
Right. So this is a four-story structure.
We are required to have two stair towers, and we also need to have egress from the rear of the building.
So at ground level, we have a compliant egress alley three feet wide,
and that's accessible to the back behind the property, which allows for egress, trash storage, bike storage, things like that.
And is this the egress you were just talking about, Kevin, on the right?
Correct.
This is just a front view of the facade.
Yeah, this is just a front view of the proposed building from Jefferson Street.
As you can see, we've got the egress alley on the side that we just discussed.
And then two entrances, because the building does have two stair towers.
There are no projections into the public right-of-way.
It's a fairly simple flat facade with no balconies or bays or anything like that.
uh balconies or bays or anything like that and we also don't have any uh step encroachments onto
And we also don't have any step encroaching.
onto the sidewalk as well um the ground floor of this building is is built right at grade
so this view is an aerial view again shows the front of the building and then also shows the
the depth and how we relate to the adjacent structures um also note there is a roof deck
on this building but it is not a shared roof deck it would only be accessible from the upper level
unit. So these three diagrams are our basement plan, our first floor plan, and our second floor
plan. Worth noting, there's no habitable space in the basement. That space in the front is optional
for building mechanicals and tenant storage, but there's no living space in the basement.
The back half of the basement is just slab on gray that will be unexcavated. So there's only
a partial basement, no living space here. Also of note, the previous scheme, we did have living
space in the basement, along with egress wells out on the sidewalk. And that was one of the
negative comments that we received was that wasn't really appreciated by the community group. So
that's been eliminated from this scheme, and there's no longer any living space in the basement.
Beyond that, it's a fairly straightforward layout. There are four two-bedroom apartments,
and they all share a very similar layout. You can see these are sort of a T-shaped
arrangement you've got two bedrooms in the back with bathrooms in between and kitchen living and
dining in the front so these are are fairly flexible adaptable units for several different
living configurations could be you know one or two one or two inhabitants or even a small family
they are set up nice so that you have some privacy between the bedrooms and then we do have ample
light and air for all of these units for not only the bedrooms but obviously the kitchens and the
bathrooms as well I'm sorry kitchens and living rooms as well which are which are towards the
front on Jefferson Street and then Kevin on the second and third and fourth floor units you have
a separate trash closet for each dwelling correct there is a closet for temporary storage and then
all of the residents would have access to that outdoor trash storage behind the building so the
idea there is that you know trash bins wouldn't be stored out on the public sidewalk this is the
third and fourth floor again very similar layout the second and third floor I believe are our
typical layout the fourth floor because it has that access up to the roof deck there has a little
bit more space but it's essentially the same layout with the two bedrooms in the rear and
kitchen, living, and dining in the front. So this is our building section. Hopefully
this sort of summarizes what we just talked about. We've got the one unit per floor. The
basement in the front half of the building is just for mechanical and storage only. We're slab
on grade in the back. And then the pilot house structure that you see up at the top roof deck
is just access for the fourth unit on the fourth floor. It is not a shared roof deck.
We have front and rear elevations here. Hopefully this just shows roughly where our floor datum
lines come in, grade first, second, and third, and fourth floor. And then rear elevation as well,
which would be from the rear side.
We've got large floor-to-ceiling windows on all these units.
So, again, we're really trying to maximize light and air.
And hopefully we'll have spacious layouts that are well lit with daylight.
Now, Kevin, you know this is an RSA 5 zoning district.
Could you and your client and my client consider single-family homes on this piece of land?
despite the fact it was used as a garage for all those years?
Yeah, it was briefly considered.
We felt that this was a better use of the site just in terms of we'd end up with approximately the same number of bedrooms.
And this gave us a little more flexibility with, you know, being able to rent these to different family configurations.
So I think that was important when we were looking at the zoning regulations.
and then you said the community group did raise objection to basement living the front window on