appellant's testimony so mi 2024 006713 2618 north 22nd street i vote yes with provisos first floor
and basement only and hours of operation monday to friday 9a to 10p and saturday and sunday 9a to 7p
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with provisos.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with provisos.
Sonetta Graham, my vote is yes with provisos.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with provisos.
Tyia Nguyen, my vote is yes with provisos.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh, you don't have to cry.
I mean, you know, you're...
Thank you so much.
Right, right.
I'm done?
i got another question too because since they switched my zoning to residential rsa5
i've been i had to pay ten thousand dollars last year for my trash i was informed that
since it was a rsa5 i was not supposed to be in charge for commercial trash pickup is that true
uh you know what i'm not sure okay yeah okay yeah but congratulations thank you so when i
would i get my zoning papers and stuff all right thank you so much thank you
oh okay so uh number nine and number seven together so number six mi2025 004 494
224-2247 Rear East Roosevelt Boulevard, and number 7, MI2025-004-495-2429 Rear East Roosevelt Boulevard.
David Orphanides is the attorney.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.
Good morning, counsel. Could you please state your name as spelled for the stenographer?
Certainly. My name is David Orphanides. Last name is spelled O-R-P-H-A-N-I-D-E-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Mr. Orphanides, I have a letter of opposition from Northeast Community Civic and a letter of opposition from Councilmember Driscoll. Is there any other RCO information?
What are the dates of those letters? Do you mind?
those are the i don't think we've received any um new letters since the there was a meeting last
month i believe yeah earlier in january right those are the the prior letters um and i followed
up i did speak with stan sawinski from council member driscoll's office yesterday he was waiting
to hear from neca um and um and i exchanged emails telephone messages and text messages with
uh thomas naville but um are they on the because if they're if they're still opposed my presentation
is obviously going to be much different than if they've changed their position based upon
we had we had a sec we had a second community group meeting and beginning of january and like
the first meeting at the end of october nobody showed up um to to say in favor or against
um the letters that you have right now from um neca dated november 30th references negative
feedback in regards to the project but that happened outside of the community group meeting
um so you know i'd be interested to hear if they're still opposed or because we've made
changes to the project you want to continue your case to see where they are i mean i'm just going
i mean i'm just going to go forward i just was going to give them an opportunity to speak up now
to go forward i just was going to give them an opportunity to speak up now because that might
because that might affect how i present but so i think i think we also this is going to be held
for an amended refusal am i correct well i again i don't know so let me explain so this application
why don't you start your presentation yeah let me start it and i'll and i'm going to get to
this real quickly so let me share my let me share my screen
okay can you see that i can't okay so the uh this is a photograph of the two properties 92 47
r east roosevelt boulevard is on the right with the paddy wax signs on top of the gate and 92 49
r is on the left east roosevelt boulevard is on the left um they're two vacant lots uh apparently
about 20 years ago, and I'll show you some aerial photographs, these two buildings were destroyed
by a fire. They've remained in this condition for approximately 20 years. The building to the left,
which is used as a gym, Body Works, excuse me, I have a bit of a cold, was also damaged in the fire
but was rebuilt since that time. I have had a Zoom call with the owners of that building since
our last zoning board hearing, which I can share with the board. The original application
which I can show you right here, was to build two buildings on each lot.
Those buildings were to be commercial, non-residential at the ground floor and cellar.
And then the upper floors were to be two apartments on each property, identical buildings.
And you can see here the site plan.
There was roof decks off the back for the residentials and a roof deck on top of the pilot house.
here's what the color elevations look like from the front there's a little bit of a court in the
front to create windows in on the sides here's the rear with the decks and the pilot house and
here were the floor plans you can see here the cellar the ground floor which is vacant commercial
and then the residential units on each of the one on each of the floors on the second and third floor
flats above with the roof deck. The original refusal, this property is on CA2 and in CA2
residential uses are not permitted. So each of the applications received a refusal for that.
And then on top of that, each application received a refusal for not having required
accessory parking. Now in CA2, the parking is determined not necessarily by the use,
but by the amount or square footage of net leasable area. And I can show you that here
at tab D4 at table 148025. You can see here for the first 100,000 square feet in that leasable
area for every 1,000 square feet of that first 100,000 square feet of net leasable area.
Four accessory parking spaces are required. These lots, as you can see on the site plan, and I'll show you on the aerials, they're 70 feet deep, all of them.
There's a string of 15 or 16 properties that are looking to be in an island behind the Northeast Shopping Center off of Roosevelt Boulevard.
At one time, there was a street, Dietrich Street, that passed in front of them that was subsequently stricken from the city plan.
And now they're kind of floating in the parking lots of the shopping centers that surround them.
None of the properties have any on-site parking.
All of the buildings in this strip, and you'll see in a little bit, have buildings that go from front to back.
and then with blacktop and parking areas and drive aisles for the parking areas to the front and rear.
So the original refusal cited, just like the other properties, there was no on-site parking, and they had four.
Because of the amount of net leasable area, the examiner wrote up that there were four.
Fortunately, I did the calculations, and it turned out that the amount was actually,
the amount of required off-street parking was more than that.
They issued a revised corrected refusal on 1210.
They said the number of parking spaces was 12, which was not correct.
Hopefully you have a corrected refusal dated the 7th, which has 8, which is the correct for the amount of net leasable area.
We presented the Astita Community Group at the first meeting on October 28th.
And at that time, even though the refusal hadn't been corrected, I advised them of the number of off-street parking spaces that required that,
But unlike the refusal, which stated four, it was actually eight for property for a total of 16.
It was made clear to us that, and during my conversation with the owner of the gym next door, the Zoom call with the owners, that they were not, there didn't seem to be a favorable view of the use of the property.
that they were not there didn't seem to be a favorable view of the use of the properties
for residential purposes so we have agreed to strike that from the application
and we did present that at the beginning of january at that community group meeting
on january 14th and what we presented was a different building um doesn't have decks off
the back it doesn't have a roof deck it's all vacant so with it's a use registration permit
it would be required prior to occupancy.
If it's a use that's permitted in CA2, it would be by right.
If it's not a use that's permitted in CA2,
it would have to go back through this process.
We presented these drawings.
The amount, what's important is,
so this eliminates the refusal for the residential use.
It does not change the amount of off-street parking
that's required because the amount of net leasable area
hasn't changed to the point
where it actually requires more off-street parking.
So it's essentially now looks a little bit different in the front.
It doesn't have that cut out in the front of the middle at the second and third floors,
but same materials, same ground floor storefront, same materials at the rear.
And then the floor plans, you can see at each level, if I were to zoom in,
it would say vacant use registration required prior to occupancy.
And each level, we've provided the gross floor area and then that leasable area.
We believe that with these changes, they address the concerns of the community regarding the use of the property for residential, for apartments, apartments or condos.
And and given that the other properties of the other commercial properties on this strip, which I'll show you in a second, don't have any off street parking, that there's no way to provide any off street parking on these properties other than to use the whole ground floor from the front as a garage door, which I don't think does anybody any favors, whether it's the other commercial businesses that are located there.
There is a sidewalk that's located in front of those businesses, which I'll show you in a second.
It doesn't make any sense.
There is parking for the other properties.
We're not sure right now where the guests or the customers of the other commercial uses on this strip park their cars.
We believe they park in the rear of the shopping center, the Northeast Shopping Center.
I did contact them.
They weren't interested in leasing any spaces.
My client does, unlike any of the other properties that are located on this strip, my client, I believe, my client reached out to a nearby property located behind us at 9280 Marshall Street, and he secured a letter of intent for them to lease to us the number of parking spaces that we require on site.
Obviously, this is not a zoning classification CA2, like CMX 3 or 4 or 5, that allows off-site parking to comply with the accessory parking requirements.
But in all material aspects or respects, we comply with that.
It's within 1,000 feet.
It's actually located right behind our property, and I'll show you that in a minute.
So real quickly, these are the two properties right here.
and you can see the strip of buildings that you see right here the arp ours is located right in
the middle of that um a little closer up and i'll show you pictures these are all commercial
different business operations ours is right here um there's a free library right here there's a
mosque that's right here uh i believe just like i did when i went and took my pictures that i
It's the customers of these properties are parking here somewhere in this area.
These are the backs.
Their properties do not extend any further than the rears of the buildings.
So all these buildings and the uses occupy 100% of the lot coverage, and they don't have any on-site parking.
And you can just see a little closer.
And I'll show you in a second.
This is what's called, strangely, it's hard to see.
There's a car wash here, and then there's a property known as 9280 Marshall Street.
So at one point, this was Dietrich Street,
and it was stricken,
and it ran all the way out to Welsh Road.
And then there was Marshall Street that ran back here.
So, and you can see it's all been consumed
or taken up by this shopping center.
I do have the historical aerials that show,
about in 2007, I can't tell if this is the point
where it was after the fire,
But clearly after, it's hard to tell here, but by 2010, and I believe in 2008, you can see right here, the property was a vacant lot, which shows how long this has been a longstanding vacant lot.
There was an attempt to pull a zoning permit back in 21 by the prior owner of the property.
to pull a zoning permit back in 21 by the prior owner of the property to develop the property as
a one-story building. They weren't able to make that work for financial reasons and ended up
selling the property to my client. Again, I've gone through the notices of refusal.
We believe that with the net leasable area of the new building, we are not increasing
the amount of parking that's required.
In terms of the off-site parking,
the arrangement we have with 9280 Marshall Street,
here you can see this is 9280 Marshall Street
back in this area, and here's the zoning map.
So our properties are, I should have marked this,
is this property here and this property here.
We're 7 and 8th in from the end, the northern end.
And so we have a letter of intent here for them
to rent us the number of up to 16 parking spaces because at the time um you know that's that's
currently what we have in the in the notice of refusal um here's and that's david do me a favor
could you go back a minute what's that long white strip behind the building uh in what picture well
with that picture okay is that a tractor trailer yeah so these are tractor trailers so what's
interesting is that well I don't know if you'll find it interesting so Alamov transport who 9280
um is this is their property and this is where they're storing their trucks
I they I think that in talking to the owner of that property and I'm testifying here
um I have spoken with him and uh he believed that the prior owner of the property uh had an
arrangement with this property owner to park his tractor trailers there he does not and since that
time the owner of the property behind us um has roped off and if i can show you here
there you can see they've roped off that's the transport you can see here this is the gym
these are our two vacant lots and so they have since roped off the area behind us
my client has been in discussions with the owner of this property behind us regarding actually
allowing us to park there and he can testify regarding um his discussions at the end i
believe they're close to an arrangement and discussion maybe they just haven't memorialized
it with the letter of intent yet but so we at one point i think alamov was parking their tractor
trailers there because they believed look at the striping um that they were allowed to do so
And since that time, it's been roped off or chained off and they're no longer parking there.
Okay, does that answer your question?
Yeah, it does.
Okay, great.
And anyway, so back to the Alamov, they own 9280 Marshall.
Here's the deed showing that they own.
They are the entity that signed the letter of intent.
And I included the zoning code provision regarding offsite parking.
again it doesn't apply to the ca2 zoning district but we do comply because it's ca2 ca2 and it says
it has to be located within a thousand feet and it has to be a property that either is already
approved for accessory non-accessory off-speed parking which this would be or is zoning classified
that it could be uh zoned by right um as such and ca2 does allow non-accessory parking as a matter
of rate uh i've included the deed for the property showing my client purchased the property in 2023
both properties uh that tab g tab h are our appeals tab i are two tax clearances tab j
or example are the hearing notices for 9247 and 9249 the posting of the properties um in 9247 here
and then 9249 here with the notices of the latest notices of refusal and then at tab l
we have the um the email from the planning commission designating uh neca as the coordinating
rco we have the list of addresses to which uh we mailed there weren't a lot of addresses as you can
imagine within the 250 foot radius a lot of that is just shopping center but they did receive the
notice is we i've not received any communications from anybody directly the only communications
i've had again were the was a zoom call between the first community group meeting and the second