I have listed here that it's in the name of Caster Gas LLC.
Is this your?
No, my is .express.llc.
No, mine is Ponto Express LLC.
Okay, so I think I understand this a little bit.
He needs an attorney.
When he has an LLC, he can't come here without an attorney.
And my recommendation to him would be to get an attorney,
and the attorney could help him figure out what it is he needs.
In other words, once you have a company, you need an attorney.
You can't represent yourself.
So he's going to have to hire a lawyer.
okay so i need some time to hire a lawyer so here here's what i'm going to do is i'm going to give
him a date that's a little far out but he'll have an opportunity to get what if he needs money or
get an attorney or whatever so we're going to continue this case until april 22nd 26 at
9 30. you okay you got 3 30. you want 9 30.
okay all right so april 22nd 26 at 9 30 a.m is when his case will not come back
Look, I'll give you a lot of time for you to organize the money, the lawyer.
I'll mark for April 22, 2026, at 9.30 p.m.
That's fine.
That's fine, okay?
Mr. Chair, I just have one question.
Mr. Silva, do you own, does your LLC own the property or are you leasing the property?
Você é dono da propriedade ou você está alugando essa propriedade?
Propriedade alugada, eu pago todo mês.
The property is a rental and I pay every month.
okay so you are renting it through your llc the llc is the name on the lease
e você está alugando em nome do seu llc o nome do seu llc que está no contrato
sim yes thank you very much all right so muito obrigado 4 22 26 at 9 30 am and interpreter we
thank you very much for coming on to help us thank you very much for having me
so we're going to go to number one mi2024 004050 21 55
I mean, I got it halfway out and he didn't start. So, okay. So number three, MI 2024, 007-587-1408-12-North 50th Street. That case is continued to 422-26 at 9.30 a.m.
All right. Here we go.
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, this is Ian Hegarty. Is that case on at 9.30 or 3.30 p.m.?
I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. This is Ian Hegarty. Is that case?
3.30? Didn't you just say before 9.30?
The previous case, I think we wanted 9.30 for the interpreter.
These ones can be continued.
Thank you, Mr.
Number one, MI 2024-004-050, 2555 Castor Avenue, T2-483-246, Isaac Slepner is the attorney.
There's unanimous support from Harrogate Civic Association and a letter of support from Council Member Driscoll.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Board.
All right, Counsel Haria, could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Sure thing.
Isaac, I-S-A-A-C, Slepner, S-L-E-P-N-E-R, Counsel for the Property Owners Sterling Paper Lofts, LLC.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good evening.
Have you emailed all your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, except for the tax cert, which we just received this morning, and I promptly sent that on a few hours ago.
We have it.
Okay. And will you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their accuracy?
Yes. Yes, I do.
Okay. All right. Thank you. You can proceed with your case. Share your screen.
Thank you. I'm sorry?
You can share your screen and proceed with your case.
Okay. Will do. Bear with me. All right.
okay so 2155 caster is a large brick old factory building it used to be the sterling paper factory
And I'm going to also share the screen with my Google Map so everybody can kind of get an idea of where that's located.
Is everybody seeing this on?
We're not seeing anything, sir, but you.
How about now?
You're coming now.
Oh, there we go.
Okay so 2155 Castor is this large kind of irregularly shaped parcel over here
at the intersections of Castor and Coral through to Butler and Coral and bounded
on the sort of southeast side by railroad tracks and then Survivor is the
next street over. If you look over here on Google Maps this is the parcel itself
and if you look on Google Street View that's the building. It's got the old
clock tower, the painted sign, you can see there are the rail lines to the one
side and Castor Avenue looking northward, Castor Avenue looking southward and
And across the street is a city rec center. I'm going to now go ahead and share with you. Can everyone? Oh, I'm going to share with you my documents, my documentary evidence here.
so this is our notice of refusal which we've already stipulated to the original application
for appeal which was filed in June of 24 and the project information form which was
filed at the same time we have a letter of unanimous support from Harrogate Civic 17 in
favor, zero, opposed. We also have a letter of support from, more recently, from
Councilman Driscoll's office of the 6th Council District. Our proposal is 481
dwelling units on the second and third floors, first floor commercial units,
and first floor commercial units and bike parking, 137 parking spaces.
So these were our proposal as sent to CDR.
And we have on the phone our architect, Ian Smith, and a member of my client, LLC.
the phone are architect Ian Smith and a member of my client LLC who will adopt my testimony and I
think I'm going to have the architect also give us a little bit more of a walkthrough but
these are the photos if you see here Caster Avenue looking north and looking south you can see the
clock tower and the painted ghost sign and then these are the Butler Street views which
You can see north and south at the rear of the property.
This is a view of the site, 2155 Caster.
This is the frontage on Caster.
It's kind of this irregularly shaped sort of like the state of Utah shaped lot with the tracks.
Butler over at the south side of the property, Caster the north side of the property.
Here's a view showing Coral, Castor, Butler, and again, a view at the reverse showing Butler, Castor, Train Tracks, Survivor Street.
This is kind of the site in the context of the neighborhood, and the site is zoned I-2, and that's why we're here today,
because of refusals for multifamily living in I-2 and other refusals.
This is a topographical study. If anybody needs more information on that, I can have our architects speak to that. This was an initial site plan for parking, which, again, I will have the architect speak to.
But this is a site plan where you can see the public and inner courtyard entry here, bike racks here, and here, 137 spaces.
This is Castor Avenue with an existing curb cut right here.
And this is your front entry door.
over here you have 15 and 16 are the commercial entrance and commercial parking lot you've got
a commercial loading zone here and you've got new new sidewalk is planned and another existing
curb cut here for entry circulation and exit. This is the first floor plan. All
of these pink indications are commercial units and these are
walkways and circulation for people, bicycles, etc. in this yellow space. Then
these are roof plans. These are a landscape plan as you can see some trees
and greenery are planned here. These are the types of plants that will be used.
This is a close-up of your first floor plan with I believe that it's 26
commercial by my count but again I can have Ian Smith our architect testify to
that within a bit more detail. This is floor two and you have 33 one-bedrooms
planned on these halls as well as seven two-bedrooms which are the green
indicators. These are the interior walkways and hallways and this is kind
of the second-story height of the commercial spaces that are at the first
floor. Then this is the third floor unit, third floor plan rather, with an
additional 35, one bedrooms in the blue, six two bedrooms in green, and again
circulation walkways, stairwells, elevator. I believe those are elevators.
Again we'll have the architect testify to that. These are renderings of the
elevation as seen from Castor Avenue and as seen from the east on the parking
lot which would be entered from Castor between the building and the train track
spaces. This is the north elevation as viewed from Butler Street and the west
elevation is viewed from Coral Street. These are cross sections as you can see
the first floor here is all commercial, second and third are residential, this is
Castor Avenue commercial back here and Butler Street. This is a transverse of
The transverse of the site, which again, again, the clock tower, which is being preserved and incorporated and the first floor commercial, second and third floor residential.
the site with again the clock tower which is being preserved and incorporated.
These are some of the materials.
Mr. Slepner, sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to clarify the scope of what's before the board today, because you're talking about commercial uses, you're talking about parking.
But the refusal states that it's only for multifamily household living, 80 units on the second and third floor.
There's no parking.
There's no landscaping, any of that.
All it is is just a change of use on the second and third floors.
Understood.
Is that your understanding as well?
That's my understanding as well.
And I can limit my discussion of this to those residential units.
um i do see there were other some other permits that were pulled for some commercial uses although
i didn't see parking anywhere um and there was a variance granted for some commercial uses although
it doesn't appear the permit was ever issued that was back in 2023 so um i just want to make sure
we're on on the same page in terms of what the board is considering today that it's a change of
application understood understood um I know that the that the client's plan
was for commercial uses and I would was hoping to have that at least you know
do that as expeditiously as possible but I understand the refusal is for
multifamily as well as required parking I can tell you that the proposed
Well, it's it's for. So if the refusal says there's no parking proposed, if there is parking proposed, then we need to have the refusal corrected.
We may need to have that. But I would actually like to call my architect at this time, Ian Smith, to give a little bit more insight on our plans, because I think he can speak to that a little more in depth.
I'm not sure that we bring them on in quickly because I think I don't I'm not you know, there's nothing here that he could tell you the plans or you didn't do parking and you don't have anything there were commercial, really.
The only thing we have the residents.
Right. So bring them on.
Understood. Ian, can you unmute and raise your hand and they'll they'll bring you in.
Well, we're back in as a panel shortly.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
All right.
Everyone hear me?
Yes, I can.
Ian, can you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
My name is Ian Smith, spelled I-A-N, capital S-M-I-T-H.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Absolutely, yes.
Isaac, start your testimony.
I mean, your question.
uh ian first of all did you hear the testimony that i offered um up to this point yes and do
you understand that to be correct uh true and correct yes um did you want to um add anything
with regard i mean isaac go back a minute i mean your your testimony had nothing to do
most a large part of your testimony had nothing to do with what what's on the paper right
You talked about parking, you talked about commercial, and we don't have any of that in front of us today.
Am I wrong?
Can I help?
I was going to say there were no plans reviewed as part of this application by L&I.
It's a change of use only.
That is correct.
Understood.
Ian, did you want to add anything about the plans with regard to the residential units?
no except for sort of stating the fact that it was a use application and no plans were submitted
with the use application however we were expecting to have to go through cdr because the number of
units based on um one of their requirements and produce these plans for that purpose however were
informed that it wasn't required because it is an existing building and didn't need to be reviewed
under CDR. So, although this is helpful as a presentation, it greatly exceeds what's required
for talking about the units only. Understood. And do you and my client have a planned
in the future after today to move forward with a plan for parking?
Yes, because that would be required, and we are well aware of that.
okay okay I have and and other than what you just offered you had already
And other than what you just offered, you had already testified that you have heard my testimony and you believe it to be true and correct.
testified that you have heard
Would you adopt my testimony as it was given?
With my augmentation.
With my augmentation.
Thank you.
I also want to call a member of my client, George Groves, to also adopt my testimony.
And I have a few more exhibits that I would like to present to the board as well.
george you're out there george yeah i'm here hi george could you please state your name and
spell for the stenographer sure george rose g-r-o-v-e-s do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes isaac all right george uh are you a member
of Sterling Paper Lofts LLC? Yes. And Sterling Paper Lofts LLC is the owner of this property,
correct? Correct. And George, do you recognize this deed in favor of Sterling Paper Lofts?
Yes. And does that deed look true and correct to the best of your knowledge?