the zoning board to be true and correct and adopt it as your own testimony yes thank you
questions from the board
question uh what are we going to do about the uh trash so so in the back of these properties
there's actually a access way um all the commercial units on this block essentially
have their trash in the back uh backyard area and the trash truck pulls off to the one of the side
street then they come through the back alley and pull all the trash out through there it's
a commercial pickup okay thank you thank you other questions questions from our attorney
Yes, Lynn Riedelhuber. I just wanted to confirm, are you using the, just the first floor in the basement with regard to the takeout restaurant?
And the second and third floor will remain as a, I believe, existing apartments?
Correct.
Questions or comments from the audience?
Virtual?
No hands, Chair.
planning commission good morning again jonathan goins planning commission staff
this property was remapped from commercial mixed use 3 cmx 3 to commercial mixed use 2 in 2014.
the proposed use should not cause detrimental impacts to the neighborhood beyond what normally
might be expected therefore the city planning commission recommends that the board grant
the special exception for takeout restaurant.
Thank you.
MI 2025-003-564-4941, Frankfurt Avenue, I vote yes with proviso.
Takeout restaurant use limit to first floor and basement
with previously approved uses above to remain.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes with proviso.
cheryl gaston my vote is yes with proviso tenetta graham my vote is yes with proviso
ryan mcadams my vote is yes with proviso hi i win my vote is yes with proviso thank you thank you
council number six mi 2025 003 573 1828 mcclellan street raymond de rizio is the attorney
Thank you.
Raymond Dorizio has been promoted
good morning council good morning Mr. Chair and members of the board
could you please state your name it's spelled for the stenographer
Yes, my name is Raymond Dorizio, R-A-Y-M-O-N-D, Dorizio, D-O-R-I-Z-I-O.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is James DeSimone, the owner.
Our vice chair has a few questions, and for point of information, we're going to hold this relative to a tax issue?
Okay, thank you.
all right good morning have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of
this hearing yes and a couple supplemental exhibits thereafter okay and do you waive
the read another refusal and stipulate to its accuracy yes i do all right all right thank you
can show your screen and proceed with the case thank you so i will pull this up
okay good morning this is at 1828 mcclellan street um my client is seeking to um
build, it's a vacant lot right now, build a two-family unit. It's an RM1 zoning district.
Here's the refusal. The refusal was for the allowable occupied area. He's looking for
roughly an extra four and a half or so percent usage. And then the third story setback was
refused for that reason here's my appeal form we oh here's the deed I'm sorry so
the deed is is 1800 McClellan LLC here are the plans so essentially when my
client is seeking doing we have met with the community there were two meetings
that we had he's essentially uh seeking to do i guess it's like the uh mansard roof so there is
sort of a setback but it doesn't go the full eight feet on the back which is regarding the um
occupied area there are two uh i guess uh decks outside that have access to the unit
The unit would be basement and first floor and then the second and third floor as the living space.
My client is going to reside in one of the units.
He resides in the neighborhood currently.
He's a lifelong resident of Point Breeze, so he will be occupying it.
And he has set forth an email to the community certifying that he would be doing that.
essentially trash should be kept inside the unit, utilities in each unit. Each unit would be two
bedrooms. I can't believe I can turn this. I have some photos of the street. That's the property.
There's a vacant lot. It's a vacant lot currently. I'm sorry, they're a little dark.
So McClellan Street's a little street. Sorry about that one. So this is one of the houses
across the street does have the setback. And then there's one to the right of that that does not have
the setback. So there are two, I guess, new construction or new properties that are third
floor properties. One, I guess, one with, one without. We're kind of in the middle there
with the mansard roof. My client did post the zoning poster at the property on that stake.
tax issue originally and why I say I didn't have the correct certification this was for the
permanent license that my client forwarded to me he's currently he has an OPA appeal because he's
getting I think his issue was he was getting taxed as if there was a building there but there isn't
so that is in dispute and he does have a current open appeal he was at least clear for the permanent
the licensing that is our meeting um notice and then we have the um proof of mailings which are
several uh that go back um but that is essentially what we are tell us what happened at the rco meeting
yeah the rco meeting we met them in july and originally my client was not proposing
a setback and the community um you know voiced concern and said look you know going straight up
like that other property to the right in the one photo you know really wasn't something they were
willing to agree to so my client uh went back and um revised this plan to do the setback to to at
um revised this plan to do the setback to to at least um address those concerns and then we had a second meeting i believe it was march mid-march
um march 23rd yes we had a we had a march 23rd meeting and uh presented this plan
could you bring on your client yes this would be the third third story building
yes there are two others up that street correct please bring your client on
okay uh mr de simone do you hear us can you please uh come on and unmute yourself
uh mr de simone can you raise your virtual hand if you're an audience
and i see no hands you have to tap the screen mr de simoni you'll see the hand raise i see them
thank you they're coming in as a panelist now thank you very much you're welcome
Okay, Mr. de Simone. Hey, good morning. Sorry. I don't know how to work. This is my first
time okay okay uh could you please state your name is spelled for the stenographer
james de simone and that's j-a-m-e-s d-e-s-i-m-o-n-e right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir um council uh please proceed and uh yeah when when
you're doing could you mention basement what's in there and how this place is laid out yes okay mr
de simone did you hear my test my testimony uh to the board uh yes and was it true and accurate to
the best of your uh knowledge uh yeah believe yes and do you wish to adapt that as your own
um yeah the only thing i'd like to just you know uh say well i'm going to ask you to add but okay
what i said oh yeah adopt that as part of you of your testimony yes okay so chairman had a question
for you about the first floor the basement the use can you please explain that um so the basement
and the first floor will be one unit um which giving me the four percent increase in the size
of building if we can get it will allow me to do my indoor trash and have a two-bedroom unit and
you know space for everything and then the second floor and the third floor will be the second unit
which will be another two bedroom if we get the approval for the mansard roof okay and then there
was something you wanted to add after i asked you if you were adopting my presentation as your
testimony oh yeah i just wanted to clarify a few things um because i know we had this question come
up a lot so uh when you didn't say it i don't know if we were going to get to it maybe i'm jumping
the gun i just wanted to add that the four percent increase that we were asking for was to accommodate
all indoor trash and allow us to have the square footage for the two two-bedroom units.
Also, some neighbors had the question, and I don't know if this is going to come up again,
but so we can clarify. They were going to ask if the back of our house was going to extend past
the backs of other houses. And with the 4% increase, it does not because their houses
have an overhang. So we are meeting the overhang. So the backs of the houses will be squared up.
they'll be flush you know if you were to look down a straight line let's just say and then um
the mansard roof um again we went for the straight up the first time they didn't like that idea and
the rco meeting not only just the community i guess whoever runs it they were the ones that
asked us to well pitched us the idea for the mansard roof and when we presented that at the
last meeting everybody was okay with it so that's really all i wanted to add okay thank you mr de
simone i have nothing further so why don't you do this why don't you tell him tell him he needs to
explain what's in the basement oh okay i'm sorry mr d simone what will be in the basement can you
go back to the floor plan too so yeah can you just ray can you switch that over so i could see it
myself um so the basement itself should just consist of the kitchen the utility room um
um now i know we had some some flip-flop in here so i'm a little confused myself because we had the
when we read advised the plans we had to move uh some things around to make it work as far as
square footage and space and just make it you know usable um but the basement should be the kitchen
well that's what i wanted but the architect i think was proposing the kitchen still be on the
Well, that's what I wanted. But the architect, I think, was proposing the kitchen still be on the first floor. So I don't know which way he designed it, but he left it as is. So on these plans, I think it's going to show you kitchen on the first. But as of right now, basements should just consist of utilities, washer, dryer. I don't know if we're flip-flopping, again, trash storage from basement to first or first to basement. You'll have your egress. You'll have a basement. You'll have a bathroom.
so raymond council i i i do think that we we just can't say i don't know or i don't know
no right right so i think i think these are these are the plans yeah that's not what he's saying
i just didn't want to say the wrong thing because i know he he he redrew the plans after the first
drawing so what were proposed though the plans that we attached yes it should be living space
in the basement and the kitchen was moved to the first floor so is uh is there any bedrooms in the
basement yes oh okay all right yes there's one towards the back where the egress would be um
one there's one front so these are the plans the the bathroom two bedrooms would be up
it's actually a one and a half bathroom
all right questions on the board so um go ahead go ahead mike no i was good i'm going to just
want to be clear uh what the refusals are for for this yeah um space right yes so the maximum
square footage was 75 percent and go ahead right i'm sorry go ahead no let me i'm getting there
so it's lot coverage lot coverage yes and then the eight eight foot setback for the
and the eight foot setback and so what about nothing for the height are you less than 38 feet
yes that's by by and this is this is rm1 yes it is it's an arm which is which is which is
interesting because um i'm looking at this block and they're even the new construction they're all
single family there are no two family dwellings on this block this would be the first duplex on
this block so i'm just surprised that people weren't um had issues with that um the one concern
of course that i have and generally always do is the living in the basement and the depth of the
basement slab below grade can you tell us what that is yes that is i'm going to go back to the
drawing and the plans and the plans show bedrooms in the basement right yes too so this is the
drawing um for the basement and the blue grade uh let me get the number i'm sorry i don't have
that handy i have it right here uh the actual picture right because i know the
Do you know the number that you can let the board know? I'm sorry.
I'm looking at it from a side view to get the depth.
It looks like it is.
It looks like we're.
I don't know how you would judge this.
Like if we go from grade below grade or into the ceiling.
So below grade, it looks like we're roughly six feet, five to six feet.
yeah because then we're the house the house the first floor choices are above grade
so that's roughly an extra judging by what i see two to three feet so i'm assuming the whole total
is roughly eight foot so you're fairly deep below grade which is which is concerning particularly
for bedrooms i think it's just five foot is below the grade i'm sorry it should be five foot below
for aid all right thank you yep I want to double down I think for this to be a new construction
I think for the amount of space that you have here I think to only have egress wells into the
basement and to have the primary bedrooms for that unit be down there like this was an opportunity
since you're building new construction that you could have dug out and had a walkout basement and
had more light and more windows that allowed you know air and light into that space so I would look
at that and then uh my second question is that a a spiral staircase um the spiral two staircases
in the basement and i i think maybe that's because of this from like an aerial view but the only
spiral staircases should be in the second unit which is from the third floor to the roof deck
to save space okay yeah every the main the main comment i have is really around that first
Yeah, the main, the main comment I have is really around that 1st floor basement egress wells. I think, yes, you did the egress wells, but I think that it is.
You have an opportunity to actually make those a little better quality.
Can you just tell me what happened at the meeting?
yes the primary issue was the setback um and that was the one in july the first one where my client
did not propose any setback and then we had another meeting and it was last month where
the proposal was prevented presented with the mansard room
and there was no other issues um in terms of um multi-family or anything like that that came up
none that none that i'm aware of okay other questions questions or comments from our attorney
none at this time but with regard to the hold yeah i should talk about that yeah the tax i
yeah go ahead one of you two yeah uh we're going to hold it for the tax compliance and also for
the rco letter in the applicant's response to the rco questions or comments from the uh virtual
okay we and just to just to but i didn't get a copy of the rco letter so i have no idea what it
says i wasn't out forwarded to me so we don't have an rco letter no we don't we don't have an rco
letter that's what i'm saying okay i'm sorry i missed her yeah i i questions there are comments
from the audience yes sir um i have dominic long with a hand up we have someone here right now
okay we're wanting to sit down first good morning
a-l-b-e-r-t-l-i-t-t-l-e-p-a-g-e i'm the president of the point breeze community
development you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do absolutely excuse me chair this is the reporter i'm sorry i did not catch the gentleman's
My first name is Albert, A-L-B-E-R-T, like Fat Albert, and my last name is Little Page, L-I-T-T-L-E-P-A-G-E.
I would have said, like, Einstein.
I wanted to reflect to the cartoon.
See, I was kind of aging myself.
I didn't want to go back to your age, Chairman.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
And I believe that the council person's office is on. I'm not sure why we haven't sent a,
because we were in contact with Mr. DeRusso, but we didn't send a letter out. But what we were
asking for today is to bring this back to the community one more time to address some of the
issues that were brought forth this morning. And I believe that the council person, Dominic,
from the councilman's office is online. And that's why I was just trying to hold up because I didn't
had that he had known yet all right thank you comments from the virtual audience yes dominic
long will be coming in as a panelist good morning sir good morning could you please state your name
yes uh dominic d-o-m-i-n-i-c last name wrong l-o-n-g
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes please proceed
so i'm here representing the district office and we are just simply requesting