ZBA Hearing - May 18, 2022

Just to give some general background,

the application is for the demolition of an existing home at the property

and the construction of a new single-family home.

We'll discuss this in more detail,

but the refusal only relates to two proposed on-site parking spaces

in front of the property, the single-family home that would be constructed.

all right now i'm pulling up um google maps to show you the location and general orientation

of the property so this is the property it's located it's a corner property located at 601

gall street it's at the corner of gall and east montgomery avenue

here's an overhead um google photo google maps and again property at the corner

and then here's another aerial view and you'll see this is the property

again at the corner of gall street and east montgomery avenue the zoning classification

is rsa5 and just straighten this out there's the property at the corner and that's rsa5

now for some photos of the property

you'll see the property again at the corner where my cursor is and then what you'll notice

is that the properties on this portion of the block there are eight twins eight homes four

twins they all have garages in the front of the property and this is these are the twins

right here in this photo you can see. Now, what you'll notice is most, and I think as a general

matter, cars are parked in front of the homes. And you'll see in this picture, you can see the

cars that are parked. In the aerial view that I showed you for Google Maps, it showed the same

thing, which is the front driveway is used in front of the homes for parking. The other thing

you'll notice is that there is virtually no street side parking. So if you look at this

photo of Gall Street, you'll see all of the street parking is taken. Same thing. If you

look at this angle from Gall, there's another one. And the photos, I'm not going to go through

each one, but the photos of Montgomery Avenue, they show really the same thing, which is

There's virtually no street parking.

As I mentioned, the proposal is the construction of a single-family home.

And here are the plans.

So there's the home.

But we're not really going to spend any time on that because, again, the home complies with all zoning requirements.

the home complies with all zoning requirements all the dimensional requirements all use

It's all dimensional requirements.

requirements all front yard requirements and so on the only reason we're here is because

of these two parking spaces right in the front we presented the proposal to the RCO and they

they liked the proposal and there are two aspects of it that they like number one they feel that

parking in the front is consistent with the parking already on the block and as i showed you before

the homes on the block generally have their use the front of the property for parking number one

number two they like the fact that the property uh and the proposal will have two on-site

parking spaces because of the concerns about parking in the neighborhood that i that i showed

you in terms of very, very limited street parking. So the community likes the fact that there are two

parking spaces that are being proposed on the property. Additionally, there's hardship for this

because any construction, this property is non-conforming at this point in terms of the

parking because any new construction, parking is prohibited in RSA 5 unless it falls in one of the

an exception. One of those exceptions is that there's a rear alleyway in the rear

and that there's a driveway that goes to the rear of the property. Shared driveway is another

exception. But as you can see, no shared driveway, no alleyway to the rear of the property. So

under the code and under RSA 5, to have any onsite parking for this property,

the code just does not permit it and we believe that the hardship standard is satisfied as well

so just to sum up excuse me excuse me council yes i'm not understanding what you just said

that the code permits you so the code the code the code prohibits an rsa5 parking

um i can pull that code section up no i i agree to that yeah so the parking there's no feasible

way to install parking on-site parking on this site so so therefore you don't do it

well and we think we think that's that's not number one not consistent with the neighborhood

Everyone in the proper neighborhood has parking. Number two, we think that's a hardship. We think that not having on-site parking is a problem, both for the owner, but also given the conditions of the neighborhood where there's virtually no street-side parking.

But they have one parking.

I'm sorry?

They have one car.

well they actually have the ability to put two cars on it because if for example where my cursor

is you'll see there's a garage which is the way these homes were constructed and then there's also

parking on the driveway right in front of the garage so they actually the block actually

was built with effectively two parking spaces on each lot but but that's stacked and you're

in your site plan you have them side by side yeah that's correct but again we don't think that's

we um we we don't think that's significant or or a negative we think that at the end of the day

um the community wants the parking i will also point out that when these were built in the 1960s

they have what are called front-loaded garage and at this point these are generally frowned upon as

planning commit from a planning point of view to have these front loaded garages

excuse me do you have anything from streets department for review of your site plan

so the streets department reviewed the um the initial plan and they they approved it and our

architect he's here and he can walk you through more but we're we're going to need to um certainly

need final streets approval for the plan which we don't expect will be an issue

so so what do you have the street department stamps drawings or a form so from the streets

department when i filed the application i filed it for both um the zoning and then i filed a

streets department application as well the streets department approved the application

Which is why the zoning L and I then issued the refusal to proceed to the zoning board.

to proceed to the zoning board so you have evidence of that yes i mean the evidence is

So, you have evidence of that.

that i could not the the refusal would not have been generated without preliminary streets

department review of the plan because it required a separate streets department application that we

completed. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm happy to answer other questions, but again, you know,

the community supports this. We believe it satisfies the provisions of the zoning code

in that it certainly doesn't have a negative impact given the way this portion of the block

is laid out. And the community in their letter actually pointed out that they felt it would

otherwise be inconsistent with the parking on the street. So there are no negative impacts.

And again, we believe that because this is a corner property, we satisfy the hardship requirements.

The reason you're going to wind up moving the plug to

the um i'm sorry the hydrant the jacket moved so my understanding that the architect can speak to

this but the curb cut does not move towards east montgomery avenue the the wider curb cut

it goes to this goes to the inner portion of gall street so we're not expecting there's going to be

any changes required with the uh the fire hydrant because the curb cut doesn't move closer to it

Excuse me, council. There's a regulation for distance from the corner for corner property. Also, I think that handicap curb cut.

May not allow you to put another car there on site. Thank you.

So, the again, I can pull in the architect and maybe we should do that. But the distance, as I understand it is.

sufficient from the corner

because we're not moving the curb

cuts any closer to the

corner. John Weckerle, are you available

to answer that question? If so,

please raise your hand.

In the meantime, can you go to the site plan?

Sure.

Mr. Weckerle, please unmute yourself

and wait for the chair.

What's going on here?

Sir, could you state your name, please,

and spell for the court reporter?

Yes, John Weckerle, Boxwood Architects. Weckerle is W-E-C-K-E-R-L-Y.

Thank you. Do you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Yes. Thank you.

So as Dan said, we do have zoning approval from the streets department and they did not comment at the at the zoning review regarding the fire hydrant.

However, they did say that they would like for us to reconfigure the truncated dome associated with the ADA accessibility on the corner.

So we expect to work with them in the building submission process to address any reconfigurations or replace new locations for the hydrant.

If they choose to do so, we're agreeable to that.

And as Dan said, our proposal on the curb cut is to is to move that in the plan east direction, as it shows on the on the existing site plan.

You can. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. The handicap has standard dimensions.

I don't know how you want to change them.

I believe that the existing condition is not consistent with the current streets department ramp requirements.

So they've identified that they will look for us to modernize that ramp to comply with their current guidelines.

Usually the street department get contractors to do that and not individual homeowners.

You know, I'm responding to comments we receive back from streets directly.

And whether it's streets or our client, the homeowner that does it.

I mean, we expect to have disruption to the sidewalk as part of our new utilities coming in.

So we will comply with all of the streets department's requirements.

And if it's a streets department team that does that ramp, we're certainly supportive of that.

Your utilities don't come in the rear?

the utilities are programmed right now to come in on montgomery you know based on the

based on the existing conditions of the utilities and that's in process right now on the building

plan development working with the engineer of record to determine that based on the

utility plan and the existing conditions and and things of that nature

utility plan and uh the existing conditions and and things of that nature um but you know the

expectation is we will we will need to you know with that with that exit for example the existing

sanitary line is is going to be almost 70 years old our expectation is to replace that sanitary

line uh and that's what i that's what i was referring to that type of situation relative

to disrupting the existing sidewalk according to your plan you don't have a side yard correct

so so you occupy 100 of the lot uh we have a a front yard requirement uh in in place and a rear

yard uh requirement in place however the side yard given it uh being a corner lot we are proposing to

the that the property line and the uh building footprint on the side yard is one and the same

so again just to confirm we're compliant with all dimensional requirements that is correct yes so we

satisfy all open air requirements all uh yard requirements the only issue before the board

is the uh is the two parking spaces that is correct yes thank you

you want to have your testimony adopted mr reisman uh yes thank you mr chair

I'd like to call Jonathan Dubrow.

If Mr. Dubrow, you could please raise your hand.

Mr. Dubrow, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.

Mr. Dubrow.

Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?

Yes, sir.

This is Jonathan Dubrow.

His last name is D-U-B-R-O-W.

you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do proceed

uh mr dubrat did you hear my statements today i did and are they true and correct to the to

the best of your knowledge information and belief yes and do you adopt them as your own i do thank

you questions from the board no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience

i see no other hands at this time chair planning commission

this is ron bednar city planning first name ron r-o-n last name bednar b-e-d-n-a-r

do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do

proceed ron the comprehensive plan uh recommends no change to the existing

residential single family at this location standing policy of the city planning commission

is not to support front-loaded parking therefore city planning commission recommends that their

requested variance not be granted mi 2022 001 068 601 wall street i vote no

Carol

Thomas

Solomon my vote is no

James Snell

my vote is no

Ishmael Shaheen my vote is no

Thank you

Thank you

Is there anyone

still have a case pending

from the 2 o'clock

meeting in the virtual audience.

Chair, I see no hands at this time.

So we're going to move to the 3.30 meeting.

Good afternoon.

My name is Bill Bergman, and I will be chairing the 3.30 meeting of the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

With me is Carol Tenere, our Vice Chair.

Present, Mr. Chairman.

Ismail Shahid, our Board Secretary.

Present, Mr. Chairman.

Hamas Holloman, our Board Member.

Present, Mr. Chairman.

James Snell, our board member.

Present, Mr. Chairman.

Also, here is our Executive Director, Tanya Sunkett, and our Board Attorney, Hillary Emerson.

Before we begin, here's our virtual format.

Be advised if proceedings are being recorded.

By participating, you acknowledge your agreement to be recorded.

A video will be available by contacting tanyasunkett at phil.gov.

For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses to identify themselves before testifying.

If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute.

To enter an appearance statement, call 267-270-5548.

Leave your email and the address of the property in question.

And finally, please note the question and answer box is not for testimony or comments.

It's not for testimony or comments.

Any comments should be directed to Tanya Sargent.

Any comments should be directed to Tanya Sunkett, our executive director.

I'm going to take a look at our continuances for this meeting.

Number six, MI 2021-003-192-6610 Hashbrook Avenue.

This is a joint request of the attorney and the Long Crest Community Association.

that case will be continued does anyone in the virtual audience have any comments about that