This matter is premature.
this board should not be hearing this case until such time as the the developer has dealt with the
conservancy conservancy in regard to multiple easements on that property and we have submitted
to the board copies of those easements and i'd say this is just premature mr chairman i i really
don't think this matter should go forward okay mr labor do you want to respond absolutely mr
chairman and members of the board um i'm actually surprised that uh so much time has been been given
to this discussion the department of licenses and and inspections has consistently held that
private agreements are private agreements this zoning board of adjustment has consistently held
that a private agreement is private agreement, not the purview of the zoning board. In full
transparency, the developer has gone forward with the more difficult path, actually, of engaging
with the community, engaging with the process, getting feedback. If we were to start with the
courts and the easements, it's very likely that we would have been asked about moving forward.
It is the right of the property owner to proceed as we have.
And this should not even be a question at this moment in time.
So we're going to.
Mr. Chairman, if I could just respond one sentence, two sentences, maybe.
They do not have a property right.
They do not have a property right in this property because it is burdened with easements.
They do not have a property right in this.
Easements are not.
Mr. Laver wants to shake his head as if I am some sort of fool.
This is not.
I'm telling you, these are not something that are private in nature.
They are public in nature.
You get an easement because the community benefits by the easement.
they do not have a property right. I think you said that. And I think we're going to,
listen to me, Mr. Laver, we're going to continue. Mr. McSherry, we're going to continue with this
process. The question I have now is, Mr. Laver, how much longer will you need for your presentation?
I would like to at least have Mr. Schenkman adopt and affirm the testimony that has been offered
today for the record and uh i was ready to move forward with uh community members who wish to
speak uh the council member's office etc so my my the the extent of uh of of this hearing would
be based on uh what is said further what is asked further mr chairman um mr feyman how long will
you need for your presentation um i i would try i will try i i noticed let me just say this
there are a few people um including the headmaster from the cretfeld school whose testimony i i would
give to the board and ask him to adopt and there are a few other people but i do notice that there
There are 107 people in the audience, and I can't guarantee, Mr. Chairman, as to what
would occur there.
So Tanya?
Yes, Chair.
So we're not going to be able to do this whole thing today.
I mean, we still have another 12, 13 cases.
What we're going to have to do is have a resumptive hearing for this.
Yes, Chair.
um and uh what we'll try to do is we'll do what we've done in the past and try to have a little
bit more time set aside for this because we just can't get through all this today
it's just we have no we have no objection mr chairman in fact i i did speak to mr laver about
this probably happening yes sure i can arrange for it offline and then we'll be we'll have to
send out information. Okay. So, Mr. Laver, we just, we're not going to get through what we
need to get through today. No, I completely understand and respect that. May I just have
Mr. Shegman adopt and affirm the testimony from this afternoon, Mr. Chairman? Why don't we do
that? And then if Mr. Feynman has questions, what we'll do is we'll start with that when we come
back for the next hearing, okay? No objection to that. Okay, all right, proceed. Mr. LaVie
Shankman, would you kindly raise your virtual hand to be acknowledged by Chairman Bergman?
I have. Thank you. Sir, could you state your name as spelled, please, for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is LaVie Shankman. It's spelled L-A-V-I-S-H-E-N as in Nancy, K-M as in Mary,
All right. Do you swear, affirm, to tell the truth, whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. Labor.
Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Shankman. Have you been present during the entirety of this virtual hearing?
Yes, I have.
And would you adopt and affirm the testimony that I've offered as your own?
Thank you.
um mr feinman when we come back we'll have you have a chance to talk uh across mr shankman okay
so we're going to move on for a resumptive hearing we'll be in touch um we will try to get
this as quick as we can and we'll try to find some more time that we can do it and you know
because apparently there is a lot of people in the audience interested and i'm sorry for anybody
that's in the audience waiting but the fact of the matter is we just have to we just can't
get through this today okay we respect i've certainly respect thank you okay thank you
mr chairman and members of the board thank you very much thank both you right thank you
okay number seven mi 2024 000 151 55 20 whittaker avenue jenner bazillo is the attorney
There's a letter of non-opposition from the 35th Ward Democratic Executive Committee.
I'm coming back in as a panelist.
All right, very great.
All right. Very great. Hello.
Hello?
My counsel, how are you?
My counsel, how are you?
Could you just state your name?
Great.
Could you just state your name and spell it for the...
Sure. It's Jennifer Bazidlo, B-A-Z-Y-D-L-O.
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Sure. It is Stephen Ewan, who is the tenant, proposed tenant, of Unit 9 of the building for a milk tea shop.
Our vice chair has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree to waver reading of the refusal or stipulate to exact consent?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed them all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I did, and I sent a few supplemental exhibits this morning.
Understood. Please proceed and show your screen.
Great. Let me get to the right screen here.
All right, so I am going to try to keep this quick for you guys. I think this is pretty straightforward.
So my name, like I said, is Jennifer Bezidlow, and I'm here on behalf of the potential
tenant of 5520 Whitaker Avenue, Unit 9, Yomi Milk Tea, that is going to be owned and operated
by Stephen Ewan. So we're just going to briefly walk through our exhibits here. We have the
refusal. The only refusal is for a takeout food establishment in an I-2 zoning district.
contract. We have a copy of the lease here. It is a five-year lease with a five-year
option, so a really long-term lease. It's also quite lengthy, so I'm just going to
step ahead to the end to show that it is a signed lease. You can see it's signed by
both parties. Property taxes, trash taxes are all paid on the property. We have a letter
of support from the 35th Democratic Executive Committee.
We have a zoning map showing that this is an industrial area, zoned area, bordered by commercial.
And this is furthered by, you can see the industrial area of the property here.
And then photographs, there's our posting.
This is the shopping center.
We'll come back to these two, but this is the shopping center.
it's in this right here where it says i'm sorry my my pronunciation is going to be bad but dm chow
is the location it used to be a beauty salon uh this is the interior of the store right now
again it used to be a beauty salon which is why there's a shower there
uh and here's whitaker avenue that you can see is a fairly um it's not a residential street
And then here are our plans. It's going to have an area for people to come in, a counter for
ordering, and then in the back is the prep area and storage. So let's just go back here
to the photos. All right, so 5520 Whitaker Avenue is this large shopping center.
um it is uh it has many other sit down and take out restaurants in it salons a grocery store
and other service businesses like salons i think there's an insurance agent in here
uh but it's your typical uh auto-oriented commercial shopping center i think we can
all agree that that's what that looks like uh unit nine itself here is a little under 1300 square
feet. And as you can see, it's just a small part of this larger shopping center. And as I mentioned,
it used to be a beauty salon. So the proposed use is to have a isyomi milk tea, which is going to
be a takeout only food establishment serving coffees, teas, pastries, and other similar items,
kind of like a coffee shop. It's going to be a coffee shop serving specialty coffees and teas.
The hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and for right now, it'll be Tuesday through Sunday.
It is going to be a family-owned and operated business, which starts off, hopefully, if things take off,
they'll be able to take some days off and have some more employees.
But right now, it's going to be mostly the family members working there.
It is a large shopping center, and there are dedicated dumpster areas with commercial trash pickup.
So there will be commercial trash pickup.
it won't be a big deal. Honestly, in the scale of the shopping center, the waste this
is going to generate is relatively small. And like I said, there was a commercial business
in there before. So let me just get to the zoning map again.
So let me just get to the zoning map again. So you can see here that we are in a industrial zoned
area but when we looked at the overhead and you can see this again when you look at the overhead
we have a a fairly high intensity uses. We have some manufacturing, we have trucking yards,
We have some more warehouse type spaces.
We aren't in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
But so, yeah.
And so in an I-2 zoning district, uses that are allowed by Rider Medium Industrial, which
is light to moderate, which have light to moderate impact on the community and allow
uses that may generate noise, odor, vibration, after hours activities and traffic impact
well beyond the property line. Our proposed use for a takeout restaurant coffee shop here
is significantly less intense than what would be allowed by right here
and has almost no impact. I can't actually see how this impacts any residential property
just because they're simply not that close by. This is the address notification list.
All of these, when I look them up, are all commercial or industrial properties.
there's no impact at residential properties. So as I was mentioning, this property is clearly
a shopping center, strip mall, auto-oriented commercial. And if we were going to zone this
property, how it's being used, it's a CA2 commercial, auto-oriented commercial,
where this would be a buy-right use.
So this is exactly where we would expect a takeout restaurant to be
in this honestly pretty thriving commercial center right here.
So I just wanted to go to the previous, this portion of the shopping center,
so this side of the shopping center was approved in 2005
to be constructed with numerous commercial uses.
um so this while each in since it's zoned industrial the new uses require zoning variances
uh it has been this spot has been used in some sort of commercial capacity and not an industrial
capacity for almost 20 years um and and our proposed use keeps in line with the spirit of
this previous approval um obviously we have a shopping center like i said uh and as a shopping
center this is not an appropriate space for an industrial use to go into if we look in there
1300 square feet this is not a place where we're going to be manufacturing things distributing
things it's a commercial space so it would really be a hardship to use it for um
to not to get the approval for a commercial business at a commercial space uh let's go to
we didn't have a site visit with the 35th democratic executive committee they came out
to the proposed location, took a tour, talked with me and my clients, and they are in non-opposition
and say that the RCO feels that the establishment would be a positive addition to the neighborhood
and have no concerns about the impact of it. So in the light of trying to summarize really
quickly here, we have a takeout coffee shop that's not going to have any negative impact
on any residential properties or any of the surrounding communities. The RCO is in support
and believes it'll be a good addition to the neighborhood and it'll be a wonderful small
business family business as an addition to the striving commercial space. So if I could have
Steven come on and adopt my question, that would be great. Steven?
they've been allowed to speak i could you please hi could you say your name
yes could you state your name and spell for the court stenographer
uh yes my name is steven winn s-t-e-v-e-n last name is h-u-y-n-h right do you swear or firm
tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i swear please proceed counsel
All right, Steve, but I just have a few questions. Did you hear my testimony here today and believe it to be truthful and accurate?
Yes, ma'am, I did.
And would you adopt it as your own?
Great. Thank you.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions from our attorney, Ryan McSherry?
No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
i do not see any further hands mr chair planning commission
i do not see any further hands mr chair
good afternoon chair peter bernard for the planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the existing i2 industrial use at this location
we feel the applicant has a demonstrated hardship accordingly the planning commission recommends
the board grant the variance thank you mi 2024 000 151 55 20 55 20 whitaker avenue i vote yes
with proviso use limited to unit number nine thomas holloman my boot is yes with proviso
James Snell, my vote is yes with Proviso
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with Proviso
Thank you so much
Number 8, MI 2024-000227
1000-1018 West Sedgley