to the resources or facilities in the neighborhood and certainly to the use of the adjacent properties
and this proposed use will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood but instead will
restore the existing building to an act of viable use.
With that, we're happy to answer any questions.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Yes, I have some folks with their hand raised.
I have allowed them to speak at this time.
hi mr folks good afternoon uh chairman bergman zba board my name is my name is sloan folks s-l-o-a-n-e
f-s-n-f-i-r-o-l-k-s office of council member ketsi lazada do you swear or affirm to tell the
truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes i do please proceed i uh may i just i'm just i'd
like to ask the attorney for the applicant a question regarding the gentleman that just made
the uh that just testified and submitted the letter um and i'm just a bit confused i need
some clarity on what his statement what is the issue mr folks no it's not an issue i have a
question now and my question is this it is it is this letter states that the gentleman um that
submitted this letter uh mr cohen andy cohen uh contention it says that he voted yes on the
project at the community meeting is that what he's saying on the record
that's what his letter says andrew i'll let you speak for yourself if you're still available to
confirm that your vote at the meeting was yes thank you hung up
um if he's not available i'll just point to note four in the letter um that says that if they
didn't record the voters three two um they're not counting my vote um his letter of support
is included within our packet in his supportive project as he testified yeah i'm not i'm not
contesting with the uh the uh the gentleman's letter of support just uh stating for the record
that i was at the meeting that i was at the vote uh mr cohen did not vote at that it did not make
a vote at that meeting he stated that he would talk he wanted to get more information from the
applicant um if his if he stayed if he submitted a letter saying yeah can i vote for myself i don't
need that well i'm not yeah when i finish well let mr folks finish please mr folks if the if
the gentleman is contending now that he supports it we accept we accept that um but for the record
um the gentleman did not make a as my recollection and my notes and the notes of these
the gentleman did not make a as my recollection and my notes and the notes of the rco have
he did not make a vote at that you know at that meeting so i just want to submit that for the
record thank you mr folks are you taking wait a minute mr folks are you going to take a position
on the on the project actually our letter is based on the boot that was taken um at
At this point, we understand that the community has submitted letters to support the project,
but we're going to stand with what we submitted regarding the RCO vote.
We have no contention with what the community has stated in their letters of support for the project.
It would have been nice to receive those letters so that we could have made that argument, made that argument as well, and we could have reached out to the community to discuss it, just to make confirmation of that as a way to counter what the RCO vote was for the record and for our records also.
But in as much as we weren't able to do that, we have to stand on what the vote was at the meeting.
So thank you, sir.
Thank you.
I just want to clarify, I was not aware you were submitting a letter today. I did not receive a copy of it, or certainly we would have been able to provide the letters. The last one was received this morning, so I do apologize for the delay, but I'd be happy to send copies of you to you for your own records.
But I did just want to clarify that we're not proposing any malice at all on behalf of the RCO.
I think our understanding, having not been there from what we've been told, is that there may at best have been some confusion.
But we are certainly happy to have spoken to the neighbors since then and will note their letters of support for the record.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
No, sir. There is no other hand.
Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
These properties are indicated for commercially,
are currently indicated for single-family residential use on the city plan.
Given the physical condition of the site and the proposed use, reuse,
we recommend the request of variance be granted.
Thank you.
MI 2023-002923-1537-39 Deal Street, I vote yes.
Thomas Holliman, I vote yes.
Mr. Shahid?
Maybe having trouble with his audio.
Yeah, Chair, it seems like it's a problem.
Can we just hold the vote on this one?
This is Tanya.
I apologize.
We're going to hold the vote on this.
We'll vote on this next week.
next Wednesday
Mr. Chair just pause for a minute
we currently do not have a forum
we need to just pause while we
figure out what's happening thank you
Thank you.
We won't vote it, come on, come on the phone.
do you hear me we hear you now we hear you now as you heard the last case
my vote is yes thank you thank you very much counsel stay on we're going to go to this next
case right yes all right mi2022-006-365-1535 deal street stephanie boggs is the attorney
um letter of support from frank vernac letter of non-opposition from council member lozada
um you you represent the same client right am i correct that's correct it's frank and
and that age could you go over um follow questions sure thing you agree to weigh the
reading of the refusal or stipulate to his accuracy i do have emailed in all the required
documents that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing
yes i have thank you please proceed to share your screen
um so for reference this property is located directly next door to 1537 deal street that
we just talked about. This is 1535 Field Street. It's an existing, or it was purchased by our
client in 2022. It's a fully rented two-unit building. As you can see, it's an existing
two-story house, currently fitted out as two units. It was occupied, both units at the time
it was purchased. And then it came to the attention of the owner that there is only valid approval
for one unit here. So this application seeks to legalize the existing use of the property.
The property is currently rented in the same condition as it was purchased.
So we are looking to seek approval to legalize that second unit and to maintain the occupant of the of that unit.
The refusal was issued because two family household living is not permitted in the RSA five district.
We presented this application in conjunction with the other project to the RCO on November 9th.
The neighbors issued a letter of support for this project, which is included in the zoning letter.
Again, to reiterate, there are no additions or changes to the project that are proposed
or simply seeking to legalize the use in the condition in which it was purchased by my client.
With that, I'll ask Peter Crawford to identify himself again and adopt my statements for the record.
Peter, can you raise your hand?
Mr. Crawford, Mr. Crawford, you've already been sworn.
Just state your name, please.
Peter Crawford, C-R-A-W-F-O-R-D.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you, Peter. Did you hear my brief statements to the board?
Yes, I did.
Are they correct to your understanding and knowledge?
Yes, they are. Thank you.
Would you adopt them as your own?
Yes, I would.
Thank you. Are there any questions for the board?
Is the house separated with utilities and all?
Yes, the house has separate utilities, yes.
okay um questions from the board no mr chairman no chair questions or comments from hillary
emerson our attorney not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands mr chair i play any commission
Ron Bednar city planning properties indicated for use on a city plan given the physical condition
of the site we recommend the request of parents be ready thank you MI 2022 006365 1535 Deal Street
I vote yes.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, counsel.
Number five, MI 2023, 002-942-1546-48 South 20th Street.
Jennifer Bratzello is the attorney.
We have...
A letter of opposition for the Point Breeze Community Development Coalition.
However, there was no vote taken.
Give me one second.
Give me one second.
I'm just having some technical issues here.
I'm here.
I swore you a little while ago.
Am I correct?
Correct.
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
My client's name is Daniel Katz, and he is the property owner and applicant.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to his
accuracy? I do. Have you emailed in all the
required documents and exhibits that is required and needed to proceed with this case
five days in advance of this hearing? Yes, all the required documents
were emailed in five days in advance. I did email a few additional documents
this morning, but they were not part of the required documents.
Understood. Thank you. Please proceed. Share your screen. Great.
We just get to the correct tab. All right. One second. There's sorry, things are appearing in weird order right now.
OK, so I just want to take a moment before we get into the details of my case, since I know there's some controversy about what happened at the RCO.
I'm going to go into more detail later, but I do just want to just address a couple of things with the board so that you have context as I'm presenting.
So we had the meeting. We had a very extensive meeting for several hours with the RCO.
It was not necessarily well attended. There was, I think, nine people total and only one of them was an actual neighbor.
The rest were other members from RCO boards and overlapping RCO boards.
They had suggested some changes to our plans.
I discussed it with the developer.
He didn't want to change anything.
So the following day, I said, hey, you know, we're not changing anything.
Do you think we want to, you want to meet with us again?
Probably not necessary since we had already presented our case.
I followed up again on November 13th, as you can see, saying, hey, do you want to meet
with us again or are you going to issue a letter based on our conversation and um albert little
page who's the head of the rco uh explicitly said that they did not want to meet with us again
so i was honestly quite um taken aback when last week we received a letter from point breeze
saying that we refused to meet with them again because i explicitly asked if they wanted us to
I'm also just going to say this is a pretty straightforward project.
It's subdivision with one new development, one overbuild, four units total.
It's not a super complicated case.
And we'd already had hours of discussion.
So I, at this point, I'm a little bit confused about what happened here because I thought I had worked out with the RCO what was going on.
I will say we would agree to like a brief continuance.
It's just that we have been waiting.
I have been trying to meet with this RCO since May and repeatedly reached out to them.
I have the emails in here since May, kept asking, kept asking.
Finally, at the end of June, they finally got back to me and they scheduled me for October
23rd, which left very little time between then and now to do any more further conversations.
And I just don't think this is on the developer.
to have to wait until May or June of next year for a continuance because the RCO didn't do what
they were supposed to do. So if they're willing, if you guys, if there's any way to like continue
this for 60 days, we would be happy to go back and meet with the RCO. But I just don't think it's
fair to my client to, you know, have to wait basically a whole year for a case because the
rco didn't schedule on time and then also didn't give me correct information about what they wanted
for me so um if you want me to proceed i will but i just wanted to explain well initially you said
you wanted to go on with the case if i remember i do because i don't want hold up one hold up one
minute um tanya how far away will we be if we could bring this back nothing real soon chair
Are we talking about going towards at least the beginning quarter of next year?
Next year.
Chair, if I may.
Can we just hear the case and wait for the vote until we get the letter in?
We could do that.
We could hear the case, and she could arrange to meet with them,
and then we'll close it for anything but a response from the RCO,