And there's this wall penetration there that is evidencing a previous heating and cooking
stove location, which is further indication of this historic, you know, pre-existing use
as a living space.
Right.
All right, so then we have renderings from your architect here.
so this is the porch and the carriage house and then this is the the addition that you're
constructing correct um one caveat to this is these renderings were not updated with the proviso so
they're they don't depict the trellis and the landscape buffer which is going to be not just
on the patio um but is also going to um be surrounding the addition itself to try and
not, you know, make it more beautiful and not
distract from the historic nature of the original structure.
So this is from the west side
of the carriage house? Mm-hmm. Southwest. Yeah.
We have our tax
clearance uh we have um the deed in our exhibit binder uh the application for appeal the project
information form uh our rco letter and proof of nailing
i have some additional witnesses i wanted to call
how many witnesses do you have steve um well we have an architect um as needed if if members of
the board have uh questions on the the design i think he did i think he did a good job describing
what the carriage house is going to look like okay uh we have the um applicant's mother who's
going to be residing in the in-law suite okay um molly smith can you raise your hand
Good morning. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Ms. Smith, please unmute yourself. You're free to speak.
Okay. Okay. I got it. Molly Smith, M-O-L-L-Y Smith, S-M-I-T-H.
Sure. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Okay. Proceed, counsel.
Sure. Ms. Smith, can you tell the board where you currently live?
5925 wayne avenue and that's relatively close to the property yeah that's a few blocks
um your family has lived in germantown for quite a while is that true well i've lived in germantown
40 plus years but my ex-husband grew up in germantown ah okay yes i knew it was one of
your son's parents and his father before him three generations or so right at least yeah
um so um tell us what what your um what your needs are in terms of of moving into uh the
in-law suite at the carriage house well i live in a really big old house and uh just me and my
um husband my second husband and it's way too much house for us and uh so we
And it's way too much house for us.
And so we have been downsizing.
Well, I've been downsizing for 15 years, but I'm really slow at it.
Anyway, yeah, I need a smaller place and preferably without stairs.
And it's nice to be close to family, closer to family.
Okay. Is there anything else you wanted to share with the board about your vision and why you are looking to age in place at the carriage house?
well um truthfully I live on a corner Wayne and Haynes and uh there's lots of traffic and lots of
neighbors who can see into my backyard and uh anyway I would like to live in the country and
I feel like that's what I would be doing if I move into Luke's and Rama's backyard it's very
it's very quiet back there except for the drummer next door
um okay i have um no further questions
next witness next witness is julie stapleton carroll
ma'am please unmute yourself you're free to speak could you state your name please and spell for
the court reporter. Hello? Is she unmuted? Yes, Chair. Okay. Could you state your name, please?
Yes, Julie Stapleton Carroll, J-U-L-I-E, Stapleton, S-T-A-P-L-E-T-O-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, counsel.
Ms. Stapleton Carroll, can you tell the board where you live in relationship to the property?
Yes. I live at 130 West Walnut Lane, which is directly across the street from 131 West Walnut Lane.
And can you describe why you are in support of these variances for the conversion of the carriage house?
Sure, yeah. Our neighborhood has really long struggled with the challenge of having very large houses and the cost of upkeep. There's a balance between having single-family home options and being able to maintain large properties.
We've seen, you know, we've been very careful and deliberate as a neighborhood in terms of deciding what density is best.
And I truly believe that Luke's option and Rama's option is in line with that.
I think it will give them the opportunity to maintain a property in our neighborhood that is very valued and beautiful and also a community asset.
Every year they host a community neighborhood picnic, and it's become sort of a mainstay of
our history. And so to be able to allow them to continue with that is great. And Luke's a very
active community member. He's been the head of our zoning committee for years. Not now, of course,
but he's also the president of the board of, I believe, Ebenezer Maxwell Museum. He's a board
member of germantown united cdc he's a very good neighbor and their family is a very valued
members of the family and you yourself are a civic activist would that be correct to say
yes yeah i'm the board president of germantown united cdc i'm a committee person in our neighborhood
as well and didn't you also work with west minority neighbors i did not oh okay sorry
i was on the board previously of the west central germantown neighbors association okay that could
be it okay um all right thank you um next witness is how many more witnesses steve well we the two
witnesses that i have next are around the voting irregularities uh voting irregularities well the
the at the rco meeting there was a slate there there all right yeah the tally showed um a slate
and we had letters do we have letters from both of them too i believe we do yes from emily yeah
So, let me go to Karen Stevens, who is the neighbor who shares the largest boundary with the coach.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Excuse me, Chair, there's no one with that name who has their hand raised or in the audience.
or in the audience uh karen stevens or thomas schwartz
Karen Stevens or Thomas Schwartz.
mr schwartz you're free to speak please unmute yourself
hi could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter
Mr. Schwartz, you will have to unmute yourself to speak.
Hi, could you state your name, please?
He's free to speak, Chair.
He's still muted.
What would you like to do?
Do you have another witness, Steve?
Yes, Emily Demarest.
Do we have a letter from Emily, too?
We do.
Hi, Emily, could you state your name, please, and spell for a court reporter?
Emily Demarest, E-M-I-L-Y-D-E-M-A-R-E-S-T.
Right.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
All right.
Hi. Can you tell us where you live in comparison to the property?
Sure. I live at 132 West Walnut Lane in the twin with Julie, or like next door to Julie, who just spoke, and directly across the street from Luke and Rama and their family.
Okay. And you are a professional architect. Is that also true?
I am, yes.
So in your evaluation of the project and from your professional background, why is it that you support this project?
I support it because, I mean, I think that it's important for the preservation of a space that existed prior to any of us living.
Um, but also, you know, I think it's intentional growth and, um, and density in the neighborhood
that, that's important for the upkeep, as Julie said, of these large properties, but
also, you know, just, just because otherwise it would be a vacant space.
You were, um, you were present for the RCO meeting that happened, uh, last year.
Is that right?
I was, yes.
Can you describe the issues that apparently occurred with the tallying of the votes and the availability of the technology for voting?
There are a handful of things that happened.
So the meeting was testing out a new voting system.
A lot of the members of the meeting were unfamiliar with it.
you know, obviously, we all are still struggling with hurdles of Zoom and virtual meetings.
And the votes were taken electronically via link. And we were told at the beginning of the
meeting that it would be circulated the day after the RCO meeting. The meeting was, you know,
there was some levels of contention, a lot of levels of support as well, but the meeting
concluded with an informal vote of the people that remained at the end, stating that we weren't
going to vote then. And then we had, which was contrary to the original instructions at the
beginning of the meeting, a lot of people at that point dropped off of the call because we weren't
required to stay on um i remained on the call until it the meeting ended um but at the end of
the discussion the neighbor discussion where you know the smith family had dropped off the call
and everyone involved in the project had dropped off um another informal poll was circulated and
we decided to have the vote. And so then the link was sent, I think, two days after the RCO meeting
via email. And so half of the attendees probably weren't expecting it because I think that I don't
have the exact numbers, but at the end of the call, there were only like a dozen or two people
left on the call, but there had been, you know, 70 people on at one point. So there were a large
part of a large portion of the call had dropped off and understood that there was not going to
be a vote and then there was a vote that was circulated not within that time frame um
i think there were um did you notice um at some point that there were supporters who were not
actually casting votes and did that did that um cause you to to take notice of that yeah i think
cause you to take notice of that yeah I think there were there were several people um you know
there were several
near neighbors to the property that had been in attendance in the meeting um earlier that did not
end up casting a vote um you know I can't tell you whether they were supporters or not but I
I assume you know a lot of them were supporters and they um they were they were listed as eligible
voters, and they didn't end up casting a vote, whether that was because they didn't know that
there was going to be one, they didn't see the link come through because it wasn't timely,
etc. So the window of voting just wasn't as expected. And that was Beth and Bob Emmett and
Lewis and Kimberly Klotman among that group, right? Yeah, those are four that I know explicitly
didn't vote yeah and they have provided us with letters of support that we showed earlier today
um do you have anything else that you wanted to share with the board about um why you feel that
this project is important to to be approved um i mean i i'll keep it short um but i think that
it's just i mean i think it's very thoughtful um and you know providing you know a place for
family and you know we we love the smith family they're they're excellent neighbors and you know
excellent stewards of the community and everything like that and i i i don't feel like this is um
bad density in any way shape or all right thank you can i just ask one clarifying question before
we let emily go and i'll be very brief of course so just to um be clear and thank you emily for
for being on um the voting platform allows you to see um a list of the near neighbors that were
listed as eligible to vote correct yes and you could see of that list which of them had cast a
vote um yes by name not which way they voted but that they had or had not casted a vote correct
yes that is true and there yes i i meant to add that there were duplicates for some
folks in the voting system. And who were those duplicates? Specifically Fausia and Gustavo
Garcia. Okay and I think that the that they were eventually um you know excluded from the count but
um I is is it your recollection that there was a total of 20 um eligible near neighbors to vote
if you exclude those duplicates i believe so yes and that there were at the close of the window
exactly four near neighbors that had not casted votes within the time frame that is true yes and
those were the four that um steve mr masters listed a moment ago is that correct yeah beth
bob lewis and kimberly okay thank you you're welcome um i just want to circle back um luke to
question for you. So in the beginning of my presentation, I spoke about the cost estimate
for renovating the carriage house at $400,000. Can you tell the board how that number came about
and what your research, what research you did in order to determine that that cost was a proper
cost and, and, uh, and then explain why it is that you, that you are asking for not just an
in-law suite, but for a rental unit that could provide you with some, with some income for the
property. Sure. So the, um, that figure is based on, um, square footage, uh, and a calculation
that my architect kind of put together i i my understanding is that uh renovating a existing
historic structure with all that's involved in in that is more expensive than probably constructing
something from the ground up but i felt it was important to preserve um preserve the structure
um and yeah so that's uh that figure is just kind of i've had contractors come out and look at it
and that the ballpark that seems correct and it was also something that that figure was obtained
prior to the pandemic and I know that costs have just gone up and up for materials and labor and
all that in the meantime Steve we're comfortable with the cost we understand it okay all right
thank you all right so then we rest with the option for rebuttal if there are questions
questions from the board? No, Mr. Chairman.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience? Chair, we have Bob Lane.
Chair, we have Bob Lane.
Hi, Mr. Lane.
Hi, Mr. Lane. Could you give us, state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please?
Yes, my name is Robert Lane, R-O-B-E-R-T-L-A-N-E.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
And I remember we have a letter from Mr. Lane, too. Am I right, Steve?
Yes, we do.
Proceed.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, I was just wanted to comment that I believe at the beginning of this hearing, you noted, I believe I understood you to say that you had not received the letter from the RCO on this matter.
That's what our records had indicated at the time.
Well, I am the co-chair of the zoning committee and the secondary contact for the RCO for WCGN.
And I just wanted to inform you that, indeed, a report and letter was submitted to the ZBA on January 12th.
and and that's all uh i wanted to say thank you mr lane for calling in and tell us that i appreciate
it chair we have gustavo garcia sure
mr garcia please could you state your name and spell please for the court reporter
Yes, my name is Gustavo Garcia, G-U-S-T-A-V-O, Garcia, G-A-R-C-I-A.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Proceed, sir.
I have a statement that I would like to read, but I'd like to first indicate that it is a surprise and news to us that our votes were not counted at the RCO.