what i mean for us to see and to see that there's going to be better light and and ventilation in
that in the living area or whatever that you have in the basement i i agree with that 100 i know
when i spoke to them they told us you know once if the zoning is approved they will basically you
know, I guess, restructure it. And, you know, they were saying to me was like, hey, let's
just, you know, see if they approve the three units, and then we can make authorizations
if need be. And I said, Well, I think it will help out a lot. Because again, you are in
a basement.
We're gonna really have to move on. I mean, Jermaine, do you have anything else you want
to add?
No, I don't have anything else to add. I mean, if there are any other questions that
any of the members may have. One more. Yes, I just have a question for the entrance exit and
the basement unit. I guess typically the basement would be a part of the first floor apartment.
Have you seen this? So what is the plan for, let's say there's a snowstorm and there's three
foot of snow overnight, you wake up, how do you open your door or what's the plan for snow removal
for the tenants in the basement? So I have a property management company that cuts the grass
and maintain the grass that's what we've been doing for the service and to until now um for
us when snow before we haven't removed it um just pretty much maintain the property that was one of
the agreements that i told the neighborhood that i will you know maintain a property um and so far
we have been keeping our work with that it seems like it could be a potential hazard well it could
a hazard not a potential hazard it's a drain system um in the middle of when you come down
to the back apartment it's a drain system where um where the water will degress but like so far
um i've been keeping my word with the neighborhood um i actually have been there myself personally
and helping out removing it so you know unfortunately that was the layout of the
building when i acquired it so i have been taking every necessary steps to prevent anybody from
um run into that issue all right questions from our attorney thank you yes uh mr
questions from our attorney thank you yes uh mr harris um you did not submit the color photographs
that you just um i did not submit the what color photographs there were five color photographs that
you have up right now those were not yeah we just yeah we just got those that was post
friday or whatever but i can stop if the if the board would allow i i could if i could supplement
the record to add these that's fine what i what i was going to say is if you could please submit
those five uh color photographs in each of your appeals and if you can do it by the close of
tomorrow yeah sure i mean i i yeah i have them right now i mean i could submit them well yes
yes it has to be in each case it has to be in what each appeal it has to be in each appeal
because they're separate records understood thank you any questions or comments from the
virtual audience yes chair I have a hand up by the name of Iris Brunson I'm going to allow them
to speak sure thank you hello can you hear me I can could you please state your name
and spell it for the stenographer i definitely will i'm talking on the line with of um miss
brunson but my name is sharon wilson i'm the vice president of oka the community organization and
the rco okay hold on one minute do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing
but the truth i do please proceed i just want to make some corrections to the testimony i heard
for Mr. Harris and to really hit home with the board that the neighborhood is overwhelmingly
opposed to this. We've been dealing with Mr. Pasha for a number of years now. Those bottom
apartments are very problematic because their exit and their interest is like less than three
feet to the fence of the house behind it. We had a lot of problems with the tenants when they sort
of tried to do this earlier. The house is in a lot of disrepair. The windows are open. They just
don't seem to really want to take care. The second thing is he indicated that he had some
agreements from some of their neighbors. I don't even believe there's 40 near neighbors in that
vicinity. And it just so happens that I am also a near neighbor. And I didn't get an invitation
from Mr. Harris when they originally done this. We invited him to come back to submit plans that
could actually be supported by the community. He, Mr. Harris declined on behalf of his client to
come back to the community and to try to get a resolution to this we've been working hard we want
to say yes but these plans are really problematic that is also a very densely parked area and he has
no plans for parking it's a it's a overuse of that building it's just too many apartments in
that small space okay thank you for calling jermaine do you have any questions i don't have
any questions for the for the vice chair to just uh testify but i can have my client testify as
to the signature since there's questions that she has about the veracity of the petitions why don't
we do this is there anyone else in the virtual audience no chair okay um you can bring your
client on and but please you know just concentrate on the on the signatures okay yeah sure so miss um
Yeah, Mr. Pasha, did you obtain, well, are you familiar with these signatures?
Yes, I am. What I did was I went door to door on actually the block of 13th and Godfrey. I
walked up from the beginning of 13th and Godfrey up to two blocks above, and I spoke to each
individual neighbors. The ones that told me they were in agreement, they wanted to hear what I was
to do when i basically told them what i was looking to do they said okay we're fine with it
i did have some neighbors said they didn't want to be bothered with it then i went one block over
on the left as well as one block over the right and i got petition signed from all parties um
saying that you know we would like you to you know finish the property um it is eyesore and i said
with your consent i would like to do that but i cannot do that without your support so i was able
to get i believe at that time maybe 50 signatures um also um i think i have got letters as well
Also, I think I have got letters as well. Unfortunately, I can't show them because I don't have it in front of me, but the neighborhood who I spoke to were in agreement of allowing me to move forward.
And like they said, one thing the young lady said, well, it is an eyesore. And I said, I can't do nothing about that without y'all consent.
So that was one of the reasons they wanted to increase the work being done to and hold up the value and maintain the integrity of the neighborhood.
That is the reason why I was given support and backing of all the signatures.
And one last thing.
There was a device that the vice president make a comment about you not wanting to meet with the community when they made an extra invitation.
Could you speak to that, please?
I'm not really sure because, like I said, I asked to have several conversations about it.
I know that the meeting or the verbiage that came back was, hey, we are open to allow you to turn
into a multifamily. We're just not open towards possibility of three units. And I was like, hey,
and they asked me several questions. I said, I'm open for whatever conversation that you guys would
like to have to make this a comfortable transaction or to help out to allow me to continue to move
forward i don't remember declining anything or even being presented with that all right okay
all right i don't have any further questions thank you planning commission
ina solomonic with the planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the rsa2 residential single-family attached zoning at this location the property has
continuous violations for working without permits and there is no evidence that a conversion to
multifamily was performed without the benefit of permits. The planning
commission recommends the board deny the requested variances for parking and
multifamily use for both properties to say, or sorry, 6215 and 6217.
Jermaine, what I want to do, there's been a lot said about the projects. I'm
going to take this back to the board. We will vote next Wednesday at 2pm.
Okay, that's fine. In the meanwhile, I will, in the meanwhile, you'll get your
package down here again. Right. I'll supplement it with the colored photos. It's not a problem.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Steve.
sorry we had you down here so long both of you really uh mi 2025 006
730 3801 old york road steve masters is the attorney mr masters you've already been swarmed
just for the record could you please state your name good afternoon mr chair members good evening
good evening yes um steve masters s-t-e-v-e-m-a-s-t-e-r-s do you swear oh yeah we're good
with that could you identify your client a relationship to the property sir yes my client
is fnj used auto parts and auto repair and the owner is is um uh francisco garcia okay our
vice chair has just a few questions okay good evening um have you submitted your documents
and is a bit five days in advance of this hearing yes and so this is a referral um so you know you
require a special reception um so do you wait to read another referral and stipulate to its accuracy
yes all right thank you you can share your screen and proceed with the case okay
all right um members of the board uh this is as um the vice chair said this is a special exception
case we are looking to legalize a junkyard use of for auto parts at 3801 old york road
and we just have one uh referral which is that um in the i2 industrial zoning district
a salvage yard or yards and buildings require a special exception.
We have some signatures in support.
I went around last week and gave flyers door-to-door to let all the neighbors know that there was a hearing happening this afternoon.
uh this afternoon um there we already did a mail um uh notice but a lot of the letters got sent
we already did a mail
back so it was important to to let people know uh as as many as many ways as possible um and
so these uh these signatures are um there there's 10 signatures here they um they are uh people who
our uh residents in in close proximity to to um this business this business has been
um in operation with mr garcia for uh several years now but there but this neighborhood and
this location has been industrial for probably a hundred years the big problem here is not mr
Garcia's business. It's the business across the street on Old York Road on the side that is closer
to all the residential areas. It's a scrap metal business. It's run by someone who has literally
no concern or doesn't care at all about the welfare of the community and continuously does
things that are extremely harmful to the neighbors. Unfortunately, the neighbors don't
distinguish between Mr. Garcia's business, which is run really well, and this scrap metal business,
which is run really terribly. So in a moment, I'm going to show you some videos of some of the
things that happened from the scrap metal business that the neighbors, when we had our RCO meetings,
thought was from Mr. Garcia's business. And that's, I think, really the crux of why there is
some opposition to to this um to this uh zoning project so when we when we met with the with the
community we um oh i'm not showing my screen huh uh that's not good uh let's see
amazing okay thank you um so we we presented this um to the to the community um let's remember what
old york road looked like before francisco garcia opened up his auto repair business
at 3801 old york road there was rampant prostitution at all hours of the day and night
out-of-control trash dumping on both sides of Old York Road and thieves breaking into cars day and
night. Everything changed after Francisco bought his business to Old York Road in 2022. He has
kept calling the police and personally asked the prostitutes to move away from his business so
there's no tolerance for the prostitution anymore. There's no more out-of-control trash. He started
to hire local people from the neighborhood to pick up the trash on both sides of old york road this is
where he operates and also in areas with the terrible trash uh guy the the who who who just
is doesn't care about anyone else there was a big decrease in crime after uh after francisco came on
on the scene he installed security cameras which the police can use he calls the police many times
each week to deal with trouble he wants to partner with the community he's hired local residents
to clean on both sides he's all and he wants to even train young people in the community on
on classes to um to do mechanics training but the community has treated him as if he
is the problem not the scrap metal guy across the street and so let's let's go to the videos
okay um i wasn't able to figure out how to embed a video in a in a um adobe uh so we'll
but but since but since this is going to be in on the video for the for the for the the board
this should be fine so we have four videos here um and i'm going to have um francisco tell us
what we're looking at um in each of these videos first state your name and spell for this photographer
and get close to the mic you have to be really really close right yeah is it on mic one yes
okay state your name and spell for the stenographer yes good evening everybody
my name is francisco garcia f-r-a-n-c-i-s-c-o-i-g-r-g-a-r-c-i-a do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes that's right counsel so just to let
you know, Mr. Garcia had surgery recently on his vocal cords. So that's why he may sound
difficult. Yeah. But I'm just letting you know that it could happen. Okay. So let's go to this
um okay so uh let's go to this first one um mr garcia can you set the set this set the
first one.
information for us like what is that we're looking at here before i turn it on yes uh
what is this truck is right there that's the main entrance of my business and that truck going into
the this is right up here is your is your business entrance oh that's uh that's another
another oh okay oh right right there there yeah okay right there okay and and the truck is backing
up into the scrap metal business right okay let's look at it and this is like basically
blocking the entire road both directions of alderock road
i don't think i have i have um audio but it's it's going to be a video that we're going to be
seeing
so so this one i mean it's just it's just staying still the whole time right okay
um uh here is um
i think right now with this with this video we're going to be looking at the entrance to your
property and we're going to see there are forklifts that are used by the scrap metal company
and the the community thinks that the forklifts are coming in and out of Mr. Garcia's business
but they're actually coming in and out of the scrap metal business so I think this is one of
the scrap metal I mean it's one of the one of the um the forklift okay so here in the top of
screen here we're looking at um a forklift right it's a little hard to see because there's there's
the the time imprint but we'll see it better in in another version but this is a forklift that
was coming from a it picked up a car that was parked next to the scrap metal business and then
and it brought it into the scrap metal yard.
Okay, let's move this way.
This looks like a better forklift.
street okay once again mr garcia where is your business um it's around right here right yeah
okay and this is the crap metal business here yes um okay so that's a clear view of the of the
forklift coming in with a car to the scrap metal business you can even see it's a scrap metal in
the, in the top here, um, of, of the business sign. And they, all the cars are backed up
because they can't move because there's a forklift and a forklift is, um, an incredibly
dangerous, uh, vehicle to be used in a regular street. Um, which is why Mr. Garcia doesn't
use forklifts and why the scrap metal guy who doesn't care, uh, uses them all, all day
long. I think, uh, what's the fourth one. I think this is our last one here.
So here's the forklift coming back out. You can see that cars are, are, are moving in
very quickly and and this guy is backing out with a forklift again from the scrap metal
your business mr. Garcia's business is all the way over here and you see cars racing
by very close to the forklift yes we do you do yes inside the building but he uses them you'll
use them only inside your your your premises you don't take them out onto the street yes that day
that the forklift carrying the record it was the RCO meeting the sender sent us an email
It was the RCO meeting that sent us an email saying that's the problem.
That's why I forgot the email, but I got it.
It said that was one of the issues, and that's why I recorded a video that day
showing the proof that it's not us.
All right, so we have some more photos I want to show you, but let's go back to...
Okay, great.
Here we go.
did you show these photos the RCO yes we didn't we didn't have the the video to show to the RCO
um but um we we had we had we have we have we have the photos that we're going to show you of