case i okay no i mean if that we you know if he submits them thursday and friday that today's
tuesday right so um but presumptive hearing all right so why don't we do this we'll we'll get you
in a little bit quicker we'll um because i did get all of the exit i have okay so what we'll do is
here's where we're going to be. So MI 2025, 004-101, 5944 Cal Hill Street. This case will
be continued to 4-7-2026 at 9.30 a.m. And then just check with the staff before him and make
sure you have everything and we'll go along with that. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for
all right um number five mi 2025 004 398 10012 sander meyer lane isaac slepner is the attorney
this is a resumptive hearing
isaac slepner will be rejoining us as a panelist
good morning members of the board good morning counsel could you please state your name and
spell for the sonographer yes isaac slepner i s a a c last name slepner s l e p n e r
I am counsel to the property owner of Mariam Star, LLC.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
All right.
There's unanimous support from Somerton.
Am I correct?
Correct.
And what you're going to do is give us a presentation of the supplemental information from the applicant.
Correct.
Questions from the board.
There will be public testimony limited to what you present today, and then planning may give us an update.
Understood, Mr. Chair.
At our initial hearing, the board had requested plans.
Just to refresh the board's memory, this is an application for a use variance.
The property is owned. I, too, and my client plans to open a takeout market, small grocery market, with a prep kitchen, no on-site seating, no liquor license, no tobacco license.
It did have unanimous support from Somerton Civic.
If I may share my screen, I would like to go through the plans.
And my client, Zakid Raskojehev, I'm sorry, Zakid, if I mangled your name, I apologize, is here, who is the principal of Mariam Starr.
And also our architect, James Ferreira, should be out there as well.
And why don't you go through the plans?
And if there's questions, you can bring your architect on.
Sure thing.
I'm going to go ahead and share my screen.
All right.
Thank you.
Here we go.
Okay, is everybody seeing that?
We do. Okay, great. We're up now. Yep. All right, so
Up here is a kind of gives you a synopsis of where it is at the site and the site itself is a strip shopping center and has been
So for a while I would say several decades here. We have our floor plans. So
Here we have our floor plans. So, this is the front of the store, Sandmeyer Lane.
This is the front of this
Here's a nice little rendering of it. This is what it will look like ideally when finished.
Over here you see you've got your front windows, your front door right here,
and then you've got shelving, shelves.
Here's a refrigerated unit back here, your cashier.
Then you've got a hallway back here, prep area, kitchen, and a restroom.
These are stairs to the basement.
Then your stairs to the basement lead.
Down here you've got your mechanicals.
I know it says living room.
This is more of just a general large open storage type of space.
Some more storage, storage, linen closet, employee area, and that's at basement level.
Over here, again, you've kind of got, just so you can see the square footage and where the doors are, here's the front door.
You've got just a large empty space that can be modified as needed, your stairs, your pattern room, your rear door for trash takeout,
and then your electrical, mechanical, basement, and some other configurations if need be.
these are renderings this is your first floor your ground level it's really a
one-story with a basement here's a side view elevation I know it says deck but
that's just ground level street level here's a left side side view we're
rear elevation with your rear door for trash takeout then these are some
renderings. So this is your prep kitchen, shelving, sink, range with hood. This is
the interior of the store area, your cashier's desk, shelving, and that's
looking from front to rear. Here's your interior of your restroom, rendering, and
And then these are some cross-sections. So as you can see, here is the ground level front with your big windows, your front door, customer area with your shelving and cashier, prep area, restroom, and then downstairs.
and then another 3D view with your storage in the basement and then some larger storage spaces and closets in the basement.
And then here's another angle of it. This is from the front with the wall cut off and you can see the store space, prep kitchen, bathroom, basement.
This is the placement of the store kind of within the strip center, and over here is, this is actually rear view.
That's your rear door for your trash takeout, your downstairs, mechanicals, and then towards the front of the store where the basement is storage.
Here's your market area, prep area, and powder room.
And then a few more rendering views.
This is your basement from front to rear.
this is your basement from rear to front and then this is sort of again the
basement from front to rear and again the basement more of a side view but this
is front and rear so those are our plans and I if the board has any questions I
think that would actually probably be a good time for that and I have my
architect here if uh if we need him well why don't you do this why don't you bring your client on
sure to adopt your testimony all right uh zakid you there
i have a hand up by the name of rasul that that is my client okay thank you
your client will be promoted to panelists
good morning good morning sir could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer
Zohid Rasul
Z-O-H-I-D
R-A-S-U-L
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth?
The whole truth is nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Counsel?
Okay. Zahid, are you the primary
member of Mariam Star LLC?
And Mariam Star LLC owns this property, correct?
And did you hear all of the testimony and see
and did you hear all of the testimony and see all of the exhibits that i've shown so far
all of the exhibits that I've shown so far?
yes and do you um was all of that true and correct to the best of your knowledge
yes and would you adopt my testimony as though you gave it yourself today yes thank you questions
from the board yes is all of the exhaust being vented through the roof or the rear
the my understanding and i have a photo of this is that the exhaust goes through the roof but
zakid you may be able to speak to this and i think our architect may be as well
i can go through my photos um i mean i could take you through all the photos
what money is your client so zakid is does it vent through the roof is that the how it is situated
yes uh all uh my neighborhood over the setup uh uh you know uh kitchen hood and we will do the same
things yes all the photo you will see yes that's correct and there's a photo of the exhaust set up
for um the commercial kitchen type of use that's correct and the previous use of this property was
also a commercial kitchen or are we adding the hot cooking on site the
immediate previous use I don't believe was but as a kid was it used as a
kitchen at some point in the past and you're going to use it again as a
kitchen yes but we you know focusing only market first it's not gonna be a
full service restaurant they're going to make they're going to prep food that's correct and
it's not the dining restaurant also it's not gonna be i understand that but you're still
making hot food on site and then selling it out of the deli side right correct uh yes
all right and i guess my question is was this already a commercial kitchen like was there
already or do you have to do like construction to allow this property to be able to uh support that
use uh yes okay other questions questions from our attorney hillary emerson um just uh just
wanted to verify so this this use is for the entire property the entire structure there's not
any other uses in this structure correct that's good thank you questions or comments from the
virtual audience I see no hands at this time chair well any Commission do you already to
have you already taken a position we have not share okay sure uh good morning chairman David
effecto f-e-c-t-e-a-u with the city planning commission do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir I do please proceed thank you sir
Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan recommends a change in zoning at this location from I2, medium industrial, to CMX2, commercial mixed use.
The city rezoned this neighborhood in 1978, and a council-supported map change.
The proposed use would be allowed by right under the proposed zoning and is consistent with the configuration of the current structure.
The city planning commission recommends that the board grant the requested variance for retail sales of food and beverages.
Thank you.
mi2025-004-398-10012 santa meyer lane i vote yes michael johns my vote is yes
cheryl gaston my vote is yes tenetta graham my vote is yes
brian mcadams my vote is yes i win my vote is yes thank you um all right thank you board
thank you do you have your photos when they come up
just for the record state your name again you've already been sworn
Bianca Buskett right um so why don't you start your presentation you know we've and Mr. Chair
just a note for the um stenographer we're going back to number one 2618 North 22nd Street oh thank
you so that's the picture of the bathroom i have two bathrooms in the property one upstairs and
one also downstairs if someone wanted to use it downstairs um so i have wrote something down
did you want me to read it well what i want you to do is you you were here once before yes just
give us an update of what you've done since um right and the photos and things of that nature
okay i painted everything over i painted my floors um which are epoxy floors
I painted everything over. I painted my floors, which are epoxy floors now, and I just added
lighting and just, that's pretty much about it that I did. I didn't do too much, but I do plan
on like having my different classes and stuff because I was told from state boards that my
building was too small because my plan was to do a hair school, but they said that the space of my
building is not enough you have to have 2600 square footage or more to do an actual hair school
but i'm licensed to be able to do classes so this has been like a big struggle with
getting my zoning change and i didn't know all these years i did not know i wasn't
informed or anything how long have you been in the building i've owned a building for 16 years
i've been in the building it would be 15 14 years may 5th may 5th it'll be 14 years all right and
i've been of involved with the community i did book bag drives i also get i employed a lot of
the youth in the community like i'm really involved i don't have any you're doing wellness issues and
fitness issues yes right and then you're giving instructions on how to take care of hair too i
guess what right yes but you don't have you're not having you're not licensed to have a school
well you know you cannot have a school because it's not yeah i'm not licensed to have a school
but i am a life goes through the photos goes through the photos okay so that's the back room
that's a that's an extra entrance so if you walk all the way through the building you can enter out
that door right so the building has two separate entrants it has that back room and then i also
submitted a photo of the front of the building um front door and why don't we move the photo stroke
that's the um bathroom on the first floor right
that's the first that's the first floor and then it's it's a it's and this has been like
this for a while the way it's say it again this has been in this situation for a while this yes
the way it's yes okay and i have tables and chairs too that i pulled up in our store downstairs
and whatever that's a window right there to harrow street i took another picture and
and uploaded it and sent it to you guys
that's the bathroom in the basement okay i don't plan to use the basement too much but they told
me to include it in it to you guys that's in the basement too yes okay and i'm waiting for
the front door like the front of the building because that was uploaded as well
but that's the those are the shutters that's the front door that's the first
entrance of the building the second floor has an apartment yes do you live there yes okay
so you're coming here for the first the the first floor in the basement
yes that's what this is of a wellness center and things that nature yes sir
all right questions from the board i don't see my other pictures that i submitted
well i think you had the first which are hours of operation well my hours operation
hours say it again sir a proposed hours of operation um my proposed hours of operation
i would like to do probably monday through friday like 9 a.m to 10 p.m i wouldn't probably like use
all that but i was told to like give like a estimate to you guys because i might not need
all those hours but and then on Saturday and Sunday I was going to do like nine to
six or nine to seven nine to seven for Saturday and Sunday
Hillary is there anything relative to the hours of operation and the provisors
um the RCO didn't mention as a proviso the hours that were stated by the applicant at the hearing
so okay all right thank you specify they also said something about a trash management yes again
was not not specific um about you know where trash was stored or anything like that start on the side
of the building i have two i have two commercial trash cans that i'll pay 500 for and i also have
a recycling bin so i i keep up with the property i've always has oh okay other questions
questions from our attorney um not a question just wanted to to note for the record um for
the board that uh because there are multiple principal uses at this property that that
was not included on the refusal as a refusal but if the board grants that will be important
it was not included on the refusal as a refusal but if the board grants that will be incorporated
okay but today it's just first floor basement um correct okay yes but then it's multiple we're
ending up with we have to list the times too um it is up to the board but that is typically an
enforceable provides it's ours operation right questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands at this time chair planning commission thank you chairman and good morning
David Vecto with the city planning commission chairman and board members the comprehensive plan
recommends no change to the rsa5 residential single-family zoning at this location the city
rezoned this neighborhood in 2014 in accord with recommendations in the comprehensive plan
at that time this property was zoned cmx2 commercial mixed use the city issued a permit
in 2009 for personal services and a permanent in 2011 for another commercial use the proposed
used is in keeping with documented prior use the city planning commission recommends the board
grant the requested use variants for personal services and other uses described in the