Benjamin Gallagher is the tenant.
Applicant.
Benjamin Gallagher will be joining as a panelist.
Recommendation of opposition from the Southport Richmond Civic Association.
The vote was 32 in opposition, including eight in the affected addresses and six in support.
Mr. Gallagher
Gallagher
Yes, I'm here
Good morning, could you please state your name
and spell it for the stenographer
Benjamin Gallagher
B-E-N-J-A-M-I-N
Gallagher
G-A-L-L-I-G-A-R
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Yes, I do
OK, so this application is for use as assembly and entertainment, public entertainment venue in area three within an existing structure.
in Area 3 within an existing structure, no changes
No changes to other.
to other previously approved uses, whereas the proposed use
assembly and entertainment is prohibited in the I-2
zoning district. Would you please start your
presentation? The presentation is I'm trying to do like a
theater, like the Walnut Theater. No, no, no. What I'm saying is
start your computer. That's it. It's coming up now.
it's coming up now good thing you're here
these are the pictures inside why are they not coming up
i'm sorry the computer's super slow
and then just click
explain what it is
why don't you start telling us what you want to do there
what I like to do is
a theater for like live entertainment
comedy shows
rehearsals
things like that
and that's what the area looks like this is what the area looks like now
there's there are two bathrooms
there's the windows to the cedar street side
that door would have to be closed off to the rest of the building
and that's all the pictures we have yeah i'm i'll show that if you're a few years
you have drawings on what it's going to look like we have the drawings of frank hasn't
i know we don't have drawings on what it's going to look like when it's complete it'll
be like that with just the stage on it we don't have drawings until we get the approval
Oh, that was our meeting.
Can I get a mailing?
The compliance, our tax compliance.
You got to tell them.
That's our tax compliance.
this is a copy of our lease
the refusal letter
did you hire an architect and what's this did you hire an architect yes we do have an architect
actually the plans for there are in review right now
in review by who i mean who's revealing that l and i right what is no frank we don't know who's
Who's got Frank got the plans in front of?
No, that's for up here, not downstairs.
Oh, we don't have plans.
We don't have plans for that area yet until we get the approval.
Okay, so Benjamin, we need to see plans.
I mean, yeah.
So, yeah, so just to clarify, I understand that this is a change of use,
so Elle and I would not have required a site plan,
But if you could provide the board even with something hand-drawn to show how the space is going to be set up, because it's very difficult for the board to understand what the space is going to be used for without seeing some sort of depiction.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to have a resumptive hearing for this.
and what I would do then is
whether it's you, your architect
somebody draw up what it would look like so you can explain better how you're going to use the
somebody draw up what it would look like
so you can explain better how you're going to use
the place
place okay okay and what we're going to do is there will be a resumptive hearing for this
on 8 19 25 at 9 30 a.m okay okay thank you very much thank you well i'm sorry well
well they also clarify how um how folks come in the space like do they have to come to the
whole building or is they oh okay so from the outside so how do folks access your space to
come i'll do the drawings i'll put i'll take pictures and put that in the drawings thank you
also just a clarification is this different than the change of use permit and the building permit
that was filed for a similar use in 2023 yes it is okay yes okay all right thank you very much
sir. Thank you. Have a good day. All right. Number 15.
We're done with 15. Okay. All right. Number 14. That's done too. Oh my God. Okay.
Let's go back. We'll start in the beginning here.
We did one. Four. I got it. Okay.
Number four, MI 2024-002-515, 1725 Jackson Street.
Adam Natchmani is the attorney.
There's a letter of support from the Drada State Neighbors Association.
Adam Natchmani should be coming in as a panelist.
good morning board members adam nakmani on behalf of uh the applicant josh klaroff
there's also an ark could you do me a favor could you please spell your name for this
of course adam adam nakmani n-a-c-h-m-a-n-i you swear to tell the truth the whole truth
nothing but the truth of course yes and do you wait do you agree to waive the reading and the
refusal and agree with its accuracy um yes and could you identify your client please
sure my client is josh square off who's the owner of the property there's also an architect
Mr. Alex Doller of FUSA Designs, LLC, who has the presentation for the for the board.
So you want to start your presentation on how you're going to do it?
I mean, you're are you going to start and then bring the architect on?
Yes. I mean, this is a request for a variance for the to eliminate the required eight foot setback.
The architect, I'd like to bring him on, Mr. Duller, who's also a neighbor, the directly adjacent neighbor, who can go through some additional points relating to the request here.
So I'm not sure.
He should be on the meeting.
I hope so.
There he is.
I do see Alex's hand is raised.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
You're muted.
You're muted.
Good morning. My name is Alex Duller, A-L-E-X, D as in David, U-L-L-E-R.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you going to put the documents up and we'll...
Yep, I am working on that.
Just trying to find their share.
Can everyone see? Yep, we see it now. Yep. Okay.
Well, here we go. All right.
So as Adam pointed out, I'm actually the red brick house here.
Josh's house is the gray house with the rendering of the front facade.
We have the copy of the deed.
A tax clearance form, the certificate of bulk mailing,
our Girard Estate Neighbors Association.
We met with the neighbors.
No opposition at all.
100% support.
There's a certificate.
This is Hillary.
So the attorney needs to be giving the presentation.
You can call the architect as a witness
to discuss the architectural aspects of the project,
but the bulk of the presentation,
especially the things not related to the architecture,
should be discussed by the attorney.
So the architect, you have all the documents.
So, so the architect, you, you have the, you have all the documents.
Why don't you start over and let the lawyer make the presentation off the
Why don't you start over?
documents. Okay.
Counsel, please proceed.
Thank you. Okay. Um, Alex, so just going back to,
sorry, the table content.
Okay. So if you go to the next slide, please. Uh,
this is the deed confirming that Josh square off the applicants,
the owner of the property. The next item is confirming that Mr. Spiroff is compliant with
taxes. The third, the next item is the Girardi State Neighbors Association letter of support,
no opposition at all. Confirmation of mailing is the next slide. The next slide after that is the
refusal. And I'd like to call Mr. Doller as a witness to testify regarding the plans that he
had put together regarding this project. Mr. Doller, can you please explain the plans that
you prepared? Yes. So a few years ago, Josh did a third floor addition. We've been basically,
he came to me last year wanting to infill the front eight-foot setback. He was having
roofing issues, drainage issues, and basically wanted to know the process for having to do this.
I explained to him, you know, we would have to go through the ZBA process, and so
we find ourselves here today. So first, we have our site plan, just calling out for that.
I have kind of a context map. We're located right behind Pass Young Avenue, so we have no houses kind of behind us.
We're on the north side of the street, so with the sun, basically Josh proposing this additional addition.
He doesn't shadow anyone except for himself.
And then here are the plans for the house.
Basically, he put a master suite up at the top floor and finds himself and his wife basically working, you know, they were working more from home.
And so this additional space gives them the ability to have a home office up there.
So that's that.
It also would solve all of the roofing issues right now that he would have because everything would drain to the rear and be able to tie in with the rest of the roof drainage.
And then we have some photographs of the existing conditions.
So you can see he has a guardrail basically up there right now, but he isn't able to use that as a roof deck across the street.
there used to be a bakery here that they renovated and basically did a full third
story addition and then i am the immediate neighbor i plan on doing an addition basically
exactly how we propose and due to the way the code is written i would not be required to go
to the zba basically josh is penalized for being the first person on the street so either of his
immediate neighbors the way the code is written can do a third floor without a third floor setback
because he has a third floor so either i at 1723 or 1727 could go and basically do the third floor
addition as he plans like this tomorrow completely by right and i almost went ahead and filed zoning
for something like this so that we could use it as as evidence but ultimately you know josh didn't
want to pay for a zoning permit that you know wasn't really for him and i don't have my plans
completely worked out it's basically just discussions with my wife right now after seeing
josh's third floor addition and basically seeing how you know gave him so much more room we also
have a little one he has a little son who's growing bigger and you know basically we're
both encountering the same issues of we both needed more space josh was just the first one
to go and do it so um we so what you're saying is he put an addition on prior yes now you want
now you want to recoup the eight feet that he had to go back to exactly like exactly he basically
he's been dealing with issues since the finishing of the construction you know some he had water
the finishing of the construction you know some he had water overflow issues water overflowing on
overflow issues
the 1727 um it's it's just been a lot of issues due to the setback and keeping basically the water
the way the water was done the way that the contractor did everything it wasn't it it it's
caused issues and even changing it and redoing it it most likely would also cause issues in the future
questions from the board
yes um a few questions that i have one um i just want to put on the record that i don't think it's
fair to say that the eight foot setback is the cause of the roofing issues um because there's
many properties in the city that have the eight foot setback and don't have said roofing issues
so I do just want to make that statement really clear my question is that one how many properties
on that block are above two stories yeah Josh is the first on that side of the block and then on
On the other side of the block, there's one three-story.
And then we have Zero Electric, which is kind of like two and a half stories across the street from us.
And then there's a three-story building on the corner of 18th Street.
And then in the – yeah, go ahead.
At the end of our block, there's a car repair shop that's owned, I believe, CMX 3.
and they ultimately would be allowed to go or cmx 2.5 so they would be allowed to go 55 feet
and the properties behind us are all cmx 2.5 they would be allowed to go 55 feet in height