Sir, could you come forward and sit as close as you can to the mic.
Could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Yes. My name is Juan Bonilla, J-U-A-N-B-O-N-I-L-L-A.
Do you swear or affirm that tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. Counsel? Juan, did you hear my testimony today? Yes. Was it true and correct? Yes. And do you adopt it as your own? Yes. Questions from the board?
Questions from our attorney, Hilary Emerson? Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the audience? Anyone from the coordinating RCO?
Any other RCOs?
I see no hands changed.
Any other RCOs?
I see no hands changed.
District Council members or their rep?
No hands changed.
Anyone else?
No hands changed.
Planning Commission.
Amy Boyd with the Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change in zoning to the existing RSA 3 residential single family.
there is no evidence that the conversion of the garage into living space was done with the benefit
of permits the appellant has not demonstrated that there are unique physical conditions or
circumstances of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformance with the zoning
code the planning commission recommends that the board deny the request variance for parking in
the required front yard thank you mi-2025-004-378-2749 tremont street i vote yes michael
johns my vote is yes cheryl gaston my vote is yes tenetta graham my vote is yes ryan mcadams
my vote is yes i win my vote is yes counsel stay there a minute please um will mr o'brien
come forward please um mr chair for that that last case um there was an amended refusal
yes this one here on the tremon street we did not vote with the amended refusal
okay so we'll vote again for all right so mi2025 004 378 2749 treemont street i vote yes
with proviso per amended refusal dated 8 13 25. well johns my vote is yes with proviso
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Ty Owen, my vote is yes with Proviso.
Mr. O'Brien, MI 2025-004706, 184 Cotton Street.
I understand that is going to be continued.
Am I correct?
That's what I understand, yes.
All right, so that case will be continued to 2326 at 930 a.m.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I just wanted to put on the record the reason that that case is being continued is because we had an attorney enter an appearance for a neighbor just before the hearing to be a party to the case.
And unfortunately, that attorney is not available today and asked for a continuance, so we are moving this so that all parties can be present at the hearing.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So, MI-2025-004-379-1938-40 East Hazard Street.
Alex Goldberg is the attorney.
Mr. Goldberg, you've already been sworn.
Could you please just state your name for the record?
Alex Goldberg.
Do you identify your client or relationship to the property?
My client is 1938 E Hazard, LLC, and its representative, Avra Moslik, is in the virtual audience.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon. Have you submitted your documents five days in advance of this
hearing? I have. And do you waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to
its accuracy? I do. Okay, thank you. You can proceed. You have a letter from East
Kensington Neighbors Association, unanimous support, and a letter of non-
opposition from Councilmember Squilla. Okay, this is an interesting project that
This is the second iteration.
We made a separate filing about a year and a half ago for a new construction five-unit dwelling on this sort of extra-large RSA 5 lot in East Kensington.
We had a community meeting.
It did not go well.
It was too dense, and there was not enough parking, so we abandoned that application, and we refiled for two units and two parking spaces.
um throughout this entire process we've been in constant communication with our only adjacent
neighbors to the right on east hazard street who are represented by council who may or may not be
on in the virtual audience today um you know we had meetings with them throughout the design
process and they were present at the community meeting that took place in november and
they're in support of the project so i think this was the the community meeting process you know
working in the exact way it should and and we think this is a really great project i'll also
note that i have the project architects representative mark wallace in the virtual
audience so as i said this is a double wide lot actually i ran the numbers on the average lot
sizes on our block and we're 2.6 times larger than the average lot on east hazard street measuring
2,134 square feet. There's, you'll see in the photos, there's an existing single family on
the right side of the lot, and there's a large garage that runs all the way to the rear on the
left side of the lot. Currently, the lone residential tenant uses that garage to store
store their car um you know which we think is a is a quite an under utilization of this large
their car, you know, which we think is a quite an underutilization.
building structure on this very large lot we're proposing to demolish the majority of that garage
while keeping the existing single family in the way that it is by demolishing a portion of that
garage and i think this will make more sense when i get to the plans we're creating two separate
building structures they're no longer connected by this internal drive aisle for lack of a better
term so we have a refusal for refusal for multiple principal buildings we have a refusal
for roof deck a roof deck setback which is really not a roof deck it's it's more of a balcony and
providing that five foot setback would eliminate the majority of it we have a refusal for accessory
parking we are utilizing that existing curb cut we're not taking any parking off of the street
we're you know repurposing that curb cut and in turn instead of interior accessory parking it's
just exterior surface parking and then the two family household living is prohibited in rsa5
again this is 2.6 times larger this is a hyphenated address it's 38-40 1938-40 so we think two units
on this lot is appropriate the way that it's designed is is more of a condominium structure
front to back and i think um the board will appreciate the the design efforts we made to
make this you know a great project we met with ecna we had six uh votes in support and zero in
opposition it sounds like the council member is in non-opposition as well here are the aerial views
so currently there is no rear yard the building structure goes all the way to the back of the lot
we're basically cutting off the narrow part of this building structure where that open space is
it's uh so the the back part is remaining as is and we're building a small one-story addition on
top of that to create bedrooms in like a loft style space that's basically six and a half feet
tall on top of that existing garage and roughly 18 by 27 feet that's the only new construction
that we're doing here we're really demolishing more than we're building um and and uh we maintained
that nine foot setback on the rear which is required to building on top of a non-conformity
so we actually don't even have a rear yard refusal for the addition that's going on top of it
here's the zoning map you can see we're obviously much larger in conjunction with
the building behind us on east sergeant than all the other buildings here
here's the photos this is the front so this single family home is staying and the the garage is is
going away here's to the right of the property there's a lot of multi-family much larger and
more dense than us on this block so i think um you know it was important to for the neighborhood
that five was way too many so we dialed it back and and uh this is the best version of the project
you can see this is the structure back here which is mostly the existing garage with this small
addition built on top of it that will be partially visible from the street this is where that garage
used to be there's two front to back surface parking spaces here i think it makes most sense
And I imagine the board would agree that those two parking spaces sort of belong, quote unquote, to the structure in the rear.
It's bigger. It's more suitable for families.
And with the front to back parking, it wouldn't really make sense to have them shared because then you have an issue with sort of getting in and out.
And if your neighbor is not home, how do you get your car out anyway?
This is what the addition looks like, right?
It's on top of the existing structure.
We go up to 27 feet, nine inches.
so we will sort of peek out on top of the existing single family home at the front by
five feet five and a half feet so very minimally you'll see an elevation of what that will look
like this is what it looks like on the site plan you have that existing front building they have
the yard back here you have the two parking spaces with a three-foot drive aisle running
up the left side of them space for trash cans in front of the parking spaces and then you have the
building structure which the footprint is remaining as is with this dark gray addition on top of it
and this speckled portion right here is that roof deck which is sort of a walkout from those lofted
bedrooms on top of the warehouse but not on top of the addition um so kind of more of a balcony
and having the five foot set back there on what is a 10 foot roof deck would basically cut it cut
it in half and we'd prefer to maximize that outdoor space because otherwise that you know
That home back there does not have any outdoor space because, again, this yard will belong to the single-family home that's existing.
2D elevation of what the structure will look like, again, just sort of peeking out above.
This is what it looks like from the back.
Here's the floor plans.
Zoom out a little bit.
So here's the basement plan.
It's remaining as is for the single-family in the back.
It's just storage and utilities and laundry. There's actually 10-foot ceilings underneath of this garage.
utilities and laundry there's actually 10 foot ceilings underneath of this garage i'll allow
mark wallace the architect to speak more on that if the board has questions um and there's mostly
storage and um you know an additional den down here and utilities moving up to the first floor
that first building structure is quite small i mean it's a two bed one bath
and is about 1300 square feet in total this is the first floor of the sort of renovated garage
structure you can see it's an open floor plan really nice has a has a primary suite on the
first floor and then in the back there are stairs up to that addition floor which is again sort of
loft style you can see if i zoom in the skylights here to provide natural light because again we
go all the way up to the we touch the party wall on all three sides back here um there's a there's
a full bathroom and then up sort of a half a flight of stairs you have these two lofted bedrooms with
nice big windows and access to the uh to the deck that's out here and the top floor of the existing
Structuring structure is two beds and a pass.
Moving to our RCO meeting notice, we had that meeting on 11-12, again, unanimous support,
application for appeal, the deed to the property, 1938 e-hazard, LLC, and our certificate of
tax clearance.
My client may be in the virtual audience, I know he has some family medical issues,
but i guess let's see if he's there um his name is avram what's his name avi oslik avi
show of hands i see no hands okay um council as an officer of the court uh we'll take your
testimony all right okay and you have an architect here in case there's a question that you sure
would you like to swear i think let's wait to see what the questions sounds good questions from the
board your questions so the your your egress out of the rear of the uh two-story front uh property
uh is through that yard and then the driveway there's access so they have they can actually
access from the driveway to the to their rear yard is that there there is right here and
mark looks like he's got his hand up i i'd ask him to follow me up here but there's space here
behind the parking and there's a three-foot sort of walkway along the parking i imagine there will
be an operable gate that's that's in this direction but why don't we call mark on he's
the expert what do you have here what's his name mark wallace mark and these these are for sale or
the rental or whatever the plan is to do a condo so to sell them okay all right would you guys for
a man please could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer mark wallace
m-a-r-k-w-a-l-l-a-c-e do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth i do please proceed counsel mark so um did you hear the question about the the egress for the
front the front building yeah we do um i don't know if we took them off the the floor plan can
you go to the floor plan instead of the site plan i believe we have the fence drawn in
yeah so essentially here where we have the the egress well out of the basement den
and then we placed a rear gate um into that side yard so that we we clearly delineate who has like
that rear yard space for the front structure versus what the rear structure is and they will
share that easement out to the front well not an easement it'll be a planned unit development
all the questions what's happening in the basement of each of the structures yeah great
question so we have the the the existing building structure is and mark correct me if i'm wrong i
believe it's an unfinished basement down there that just has storage and utilities there's yeah
it only it like barely i don't think it has six feet so we're not planning to do anything really
down there but there is an existing washer and dryer down there and a hot water heater yeah and
then for the new structure which also has an existing basement um which mark i believe i
mentioned previously my understanding it has very tall ceilings yeah it's got like a 10 foot i think
it's 10 foot clear i don't even think it's 10 foot floor to floor down there so our thought was to
cordon off one side as a den cordon off one side of storage we didn't really want to put any program
in front of the parking, which is why the den is on the other side.
So we figured that it would be an oversized storage room
and a second living space in the basement.
what are you guys going to do to make sure that nobody tries to turn the storage area into living
What are you guys going to do to make sure that nobody tries to turn?
space um sorry god like a practical question yeah that's thin foot ceiling most human beings
that see a door are going to want to make it a bedroom sure i mean it's not um the left half of
it will not be finished that you know we have a large egress well we'd like to be able to have as
much additional living space as possible. It's, for all intents and purposes, a
single-family home, but it's not going to be built as a
single-family home. Or it's not going to be built as an additional bedroom.
I understand that, but I just want to flag it for the record that that is my
concern, is that right now it looks like this has, it looks like it's two rooms
and that most people are going to think that they can weave use into that space
and there's not much we can do once it's sold to...
Versus if that wall was not there and it was open
and the only thing that was enclosed and only finished walls and floor were the den,
where it would kind of be obvious.
I believe the walls separating the spaces we're going to need for structure.