I actually have a daughter myself, a five-month-year-old daughter that just came.
So I want to be able to still take care of my family and still help my mom and dad because I'm the youngest of the family.
So I want to still be able to help take care of them.
So these are my plans right here.
I'm sorry.
Can you see it good?
We're okay.
All right.
So these are the two apartments.
As right here the first floor, this is the first floor right here. You go into the first floor and this is the kitchen right here.
This is the backyard. Once you go downstairs in the first floor, you end up in the basement.
When you go to the basement, you have your two bedrooms. You have your utility room, you have your bathroom, and then you have your laundry room.
That's the first apartment. Then when you go back upstairs, you'll go upstairs again and you'll have your master bedroom that will be on the second floor.
so the second apartment you're going through your door right here on your second and you'll end up
in your kitchen you'll go up the steps again and then you'll end up in the living room with the
with the bedrooms then you go up the steps one more time and you'll end up on the fourth floor
with the two bedrooms the utility room the laundry room and the bedroom
and if you go up the steps one more time you'll end up on a rooftop
you'll be on a roof deck right here
are you done with your presentation yeah i'm sorry i went it came off my screen i'm looking
for it. Is there a basement? Yes, there is a basement. And no one's going to live in
and no one's going to live in the basement right the basement is two is two rooms in basement
the basement, right? The basement is two rooms and basement.
okay split into just two apartments the multi-family so the basement has two rooms
and the first floor has no room then the second floor has one room for the master bedroom
on the other side of that floor will be the kitchen of the second apartment
i'm sorry
you went to the rco yes
and they're in favor of you right yes can you see the players now yeah we see it we see it's
better. Okay. So yeah, the RCO is up here. I showed it already. I'm looking for it.
What was the vote of the RCO?
The RCO vote was like seven to four.
Or the whole and total?
You talking about the total vote or just the RCO members?
The RCO vote.
The RCO vote was four to...
I remember it was four to...
Chair, while he looks for that, this is Sharon.
Can I also mention that we have a letter in non-opposition from Councilman Scuola?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
i see no hands chair planning commission
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
um you've already been sworn peter what i said you've already been sworn yes i have yeah
um so the planning commission recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning
at this location there is no unique physical condition to this 885 square foot lot that would
prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning code additionally we are concerned
about having sleeping spaces in the basement the city planning commission recommends the board
deny the use variants. MI 2021-004-742-2071 East Auburn Street, I vote no.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
Pardon me. Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is no.
Thank you.
MI 2021-004-837-2334 North 29th Street.
We do have a letter from the RCO.
Darlene Treat is the attorney.
Chair, if I can just bring to your attention that the original refusal that was included in the exhibits was not correct,
that I did send you the actual refusal I emailed it to you today.
Right.
Ms. Treat?
Good afternoon, commissioners.
Darling Treat on behalf of the applicant, legacy leaders.
Okay. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Darlene Threatt, D-A-R-L-E-N-E, Threatt, T as in Thomas, H-R-E-A-T-T as in Thomas.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client and the relationship to the property?
My client is Legacy Leavers. I have the principal of Legacy Leavers with me today here, Mr. Reginald Barian.
Mr. Reginald Barian, Mr. Barian, can you please state your name and address for the record, please?
Mr. Barian, can you please state your name and address for the...
Reginald Barian, what's in the address?
You're the owner of legacy leaders.
Oh, yeah, Reginald Barian, owner of legacy leaders.
And your address?
2334 North 29th Street.
If he testifies later, I'll swear on that, okay?
Mr. Holliman, could you ask the council a few questions?
Good afternoon, Counselor. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
With one exception, Mr. Holloman. When I originally sent in my exhibits, I sent in an older refusal.
Subsequently, I sent the correct refusal to Ms. Sooletter. And with that, I would agree to waive the reading of the refusal.
okay according to our records you have submitted all of the required documents on time is that
correct yes it is sir please proceed and share your screen
uh good afternoon uh commissioners uh darling freed on behalf of the applicant can you see
my screen? I can. We can. Okay. I have a presentation package here with several exhibits.
I have submitted to, for your review, the refusal, the appeal, the
project information form, tax information, the 2D, the zoning history for this property,
plans, pictures, a community letter, and a certificate of mailing. I'm going to start by
scrolling down to the pictures so you can see what the place looks like.
This is the place in question here. Mr. Berrien and his family has owned this
building for a half a century. Previously, his father owned this building in the neighborhood
and it was an upholstery shop. In 2016, the same building came for the Zoning Board of Adjustment
and we were legalized to use the ground floor as a pharmacy and is currently in use as a pharmacy.
In this particular application, we are requesting the board to approve a takeout ice cream, water ice space in the back of this building.
And I'm just going to flip through some of the pictures very quickly to show you what we're proposing.
As you can see here, the building stands here. There are only three buildings on this block.
This middle building is used as a single-family.
The first building is a barbershop on the bottom, and there is single-family uses on
the top.
Here is a picture of the site of our building with the mural, and here is a picture of the
posting to notify the community of what we were proposing here.
Additionally, as you can see here, we have a handicap clamp here to our building, and
And we also had erected a large fence, which is part of this application today, to legalize.
If I scroll down a little more, you can see a picture of the entire block here.
The entire block, again, only has three residences on it.
Mr. Barian owns 2334 and 2336.
Now, this is a unity of use application, and we're asking to use these two lots together, and I'll show you why in a moment.
This is the back portion of our building, and it's about a hundred foot shed, and we're proposing just to have a takeout water ice stand here.
We have a takeout window here. There are stairs up to the window here and there are stairs here.
And there's actually a gate here because we like to use an additional part of this property for community purposes to maybe sit down and enjoy their ice cream, water ice or soda or beverages.
Here is a fuller picture of the two lots.
Missing from the picture, you can't actually see the stand here, but I wanted to show you
a fuller picture of the lot.
We have tables that will be placed over here.
We have tables that will be placed over here.
Patrons can get their water ice over here, walk out into the yard, and sit down.
Patrons can get...
And it is an enclosed area.
Why is the property enclosed, and why is the fence so large?
And I'm going to address that issue.
At the timing of the Floyd, George Floyd, what can I say?
riots, the pharmacy was under siege. We had to put a roll-down gate here. They were breaking in.
They were breaking into the back of the building, and we just pretty much squirted off, and we put
a high fence here because people were attacking the building from all angles. We also put some
additional lighting and cameras on the building. You can't really see it from this picture, but we
also fenced in the air conditioning because they were, excuse me, gated in the air conditioning
because they were coming through the windows. This is just the back of the building and you
can see again how we put lighting and cameras out here and we gated in the air conditioning
and there was an existing fence back here but we also put a fence in the back to keep
the individuals from trying to break in and loot the pharmacy.
This picture here just shows you 29th Street.
We are directly across the street from the Strawberry, I guess you call it Strawberry
Square where there are a host of stores here, none serve ice cream or water ice.
It's a plaza with a bunch of commercial uses which is directly across the street from us.
This is an additional picture of the plaza across the street from us.
There is a heavy, heavy dumping problem in this area and a trash problem in this area.
And you can see in the grass area here across from the mall or in the same lot, it's strewn and littered with trash.
I say that to say we did put up a high fence.
We do know that it is outside the mandates of the zoning code, but the reason we chose to put this fence up is because of the continuous dumping and the breaking in of the pharmacy property in the front here.
Here I have a copy, and I'm just going to reduce it a little bit so you can see it, of the plan.
This was the building as it existed previously. I know our application says to add an addition. We didn't add an addition. This part of the building right here has always existed. When they broke into the building, we had to repair it. And the only thing that we did was square it off over here. And as you can see here, we just squared the building off.
We didn't actually add a whole addition. This was an existing in 2016 when we had the pharmacy use approved. It's currently existing now. We just squared it off.
So now I'm going to move the diagram over a little bit and I'm going to show you why we did the unity of use application.
As you can see here is the property line.
Here is the beginning of the fence and the gate where you will walk into this property.
The ice cream takeout water ice is in the back of the property.
The only way really to get to it is to actually use the other lot, which we do own, and walk back here so we can get to the water ice facility.
The facility we proposed to operate six days a week from about 10 to 8.30.
We did have the opportunity to meet with the Civic Association.
I sent out a letter to 87 patrons, and I have to say, really, only one neighborhood person showed up,
and I don't really believe that they lived on the block.
Here is my proof of mailing certificate that we got from the post office.
As a result of the meeting with the Strawberry Mansion community concerned, we did get a letter of non-opposition with several proposals, with several provisals in it.
And let me open that letter up for you very quickly.
I apologize.
We did meet, again, with Strawberry Mansion Community Concern.
They sent a letter with quite a few provisos, but it is a letter of non-opposition.
Commissioners, we believe that this business use will serve the community really well over here.
we have a place where the community can meet
and that they can interact with each other
over some comfort food, just an ice cream cone.
And with that, that's my entire presentation.
And we are willing to answer any questions
that the board may have at this time.
I'm just going to flip that to a picture
to give you a better look at what we're really proposing here
and how the community can use and enjoy this space.
Here is the picture.
Unfortunately, you can't see the water ice section in the back,
but you can see that we have the picnic tables and we have the table over here.
You can actually come through this fence right here and you can sit down and gather
and what we believe is a very safe place and what I would consider a pretty dicey area here.
May I interrupt for just one minute? Would you mind pulling back the letter back up?
I just wanted to clarify something. There were concerns about which addresses are included
within this application. I did confer with Ellen and I on that. The properties before you, it is
only two um it is let's see 2334 and 2336 yes they're the subject of the unity of use um the
the adjoining properties the adjacent properties are not part of this appeal they would actually
require a separate application so nothing that you rule on in this appeal will affect those
properties um and commissioners it is firm that with ellen i that those are independent properties
that only um the use of this property would be at issue and would be you wouldn't affect the other
properties thank you commissioners and with that um we are here to answer any questions that any
members of the board may have the use of this property. So why don't we have your client adopt
your testimony? Mr. Barian, you are the owner of 2334 and 2336 North 29th Street? Yes.
Can I swear in mid one minute, please? I'm sorry, sir. That's okay. That's okay. Could you state
your name and spell for the court reporter please reginald barian r-e-g-i-n-a-l-d b-e-r-r-i-a-n
thank you do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes oh thank you mr barrian go ahead mr barrian have you heard my uh presentation to the board
today yes and if you were to testify today would you adopt the testimony here that i have given
along with the exhibits that i have provided to the board yes thank you mr barry questions from
the board no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience chair we have strawberry
Mansion Community Concern. Yep. Yep. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Could you state your name and
spell for the court reporter, please? Hi, my name is Bonita Cummings. I am the Director of
Strawberry Mansion Community Concern. Could you spell your name, please, too? B-O-N-I-T-A-C-U-M-M-I-N-G-S.
Right. Do you swear for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Proceed.