And then the final refusal has to do with bicycle parking.
While my client cannot comply with this refusal, they are looking at U-bike racks to be placed in front of the properties themselves, and I think that would add that value for that refusal.
All right, so as the chairman stated, we have unanimous support.
It's a well-attended meeting.
We have 13 in favor and zero in opposition.
I think they're really excited, hopefully, now to get back on track to put some residential use at this property.
And then as we don't have the letter, but my understanding through the chairman is that there's a letter of non-opposition from the district council member.
So if you look at, you know, this aerial view, it's in a regular shape lot.
Again, here's Germantown, here's Dauphin Street, here's North H Street.
This is where the quadplex is going to be, and we'll look at that.
And then we have 10 triplexes all facing, excuse me, nine triplexes all facing North H Street.
and then this is just an aerial view just you know we got from atlas kind of see where we are
in the neighborhood and then zoning map again you have the split zoning so you have the cmx2 zoning
on germantown it looks like a little bit of cmx2 around here and then there's i2 right in the
middle so it's interesting there is some i2 is here there is cmx2 here this looks like
There is CMX2 here. This looks like it's just straight residential here, and there's really not much going on at all, you'll see from the photos, on Germantown.
it's just straight residential here and
And then these are the photographs from 8th Street, from the front of the property on 8th, and then because we had three public, we were facing three public streets, we have a zoning hearing poster for each of those public streets.
and then this property has been vacant for some time or vacant land for some time and this you
know goes as far back as 2016 according to uh google street view and then this is uh or the
side of the property from dolphin street and then the rear of the property from germantown
and then here are plans and drawings um according to my notes uh these properties the height of the
buildings are 38 feet high, which fall within the CMX2 zoning. And again, you know, flat building
facades, brick facades as well, trying to change up the roof lines to make it a little bit more
architecturally interesting. And again, Rustin from Harman Deutsch can talk a little bit about
that. Just a different way of looking at the renderings. And then this is Germantown, the
quadplex right here. This is the front. This is the side. And then this is from North 8th Street.
Again, nine triplexes. And then this is just some contextual drawings that were prepared by Harman
Deutsch from a site perspective, similar to our photos. And then this is just a site plan here
again here is the quadplex on germantown here are the nine triplexes on north 8th street
and that this is the elevations um you know we we go let me just make sure i'm accurately stating
this we we are three feet out of the ground from the basement and then we're six feet in the ground
from the from the street downward so it's nine feet you know the basement's nine feet
And then these are the floor plans for the triplex. So you would walk in into the first floor and you would eventually come into unit number one, which is a bi-level, which is a three-bedroom, three-bath.
a little bit different than what you saw for the 39-unit building that was previously approved.
I think the community really appreciated that we had three bedrooms there
because to account for families and such. Also, I know it's not something that's enforceable,
but our rental rates are in line with 60% AMI, just so the board knows that as well.
But, you know, you go into unit number one, you see it's an open floor plan, there's a kitchen, there's a living room, there's a few bedrooms, there's a bathroom, you go down the flight of steps, and there is, I think, one more bedroom, living area, and more like an office area.
something that we did focus on because we know that the board really cares about how the base
how the basement use is being used from an egress perspective there is a separate set of stairs
going down you know out you know so steps not like an egress well so that was very important to the
to the community and i also obviously being in front of the board so much i know that that's
been something that's been the focus of the boards specifically the last few months instead
of going unit number one, which is a bi-level, you go up a flight of steps, which is unit number
two, which is a two-bedroom, one-bath. Again, open floor plan. You have a living room, you have a
kitchen, you have a bathroom, and you have two bedrooms. And then unit number three as well
is also a bedroom, one-bath. And then instead of the triplex, we have the quadplex.
and here you it's a little bit different there's two sets of bi-levels but you have
you know coming in unit number one which is a bi-level all these are one bedrooms these are
all one bedrooms but we need that density in this quadplex to make the project work
so again while 39 units didn't work 30 units don't work either so it's like we're trying to
balance that off but this is a you know a you know two by levels first floor and lower level
and then you have going up to the second story and third stories you have a unit here as a by
level and the unit here is a by level and there is a set of steps for the rear unit to get directly
out you know from a set of steps here's our rco meeting notice for june 18th proof of email of
Proof of email of that notice a few weeks beforehand to the relevant parties, such as the coordinating RCO, the district council members, only aid and such.
that notice a few weeks beforehand to the relevant parties such as
Again, we mail that notice to 125 addresses.
Here are the addresses we mailed it to.
Proof of mailing to those addresses.
Our application for appeal that we filed on behalf of the property owner.
The deed to the property showing that my client owns the property.
and then finally, the certificate of tax
clearance, showing that we don't
owe any money. With that being
said, I'm going to unshare my screen, and I
would ask that either Igor or Nathan
virtually raise their hands, and then
again, we have Rustin, if you have
any architectural-related questions.
We see the hands.
Chair, I see no hands at this time.
Just a minute, Chair. Igor just put his hand
up. I'm going to promote them to panelists. Thank you.
Mr. Gitterman, please accept the request to be promoted to panelists.
Thank you.
sir could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer yes sir my name is igor
igor last name is gitterman g-i-t-e-r-m-a-n you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole
truth nothing but the truth yes i do please proceed counsel uh yes igor you heard everything
i had to state today about your zoning matter yes is it true and correct yes and do you adopt
this your own testimony yes i do thank you questions from the board can you go back to
the section i kind of you kind of went through it pretty quickly so you're you're three feet
above grade to the first floor and then the ceiling guy in the basement is nine feet is that
what i heard it's six feet below grade i'll i'll expand that out a little bit let me
you know i saw somewhere here
oh here it is i think these are for the triplexes right here so as you can see we are this says six
feet like above here but we're halfway there so we're three feet above grade and then i know i
saw somewhere where it said six feet below i was looking at this let me see
and maybe if rustin who's on line can kind of confirm that as well i know oh and by the way
here's the quadplex too kind of showing above grade so this indicator is six feet and halfway
way there is three feet to show above grade i know there was another spot where it showed six
feet below i'm just trying to find out hi board how are you good good uh rustin oler harman
architecture you do me if you ever state your name again spell for the stenographer sure rustin
oler uh first name r-u-s-t-i-n last name oler o-h-l-e-r of harman deutsch oler architecture
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do
alan do you want him to start yeah yeah uh rustin you know i know i saw it before the hearing
where i heard the question um yeah so we don't actually dimension that on the zoning drawing
because zoning deals with above grade not below grade uh the six foot dimension you see in the
rear that Alan was pointing to in the section is for the fence height. So the first floor is about
three feet to three foot six out of grade. We will have, depending on geotech soil conditions,
we try to have nine foot in the basement as clear ceiling heights. It'll be eight to nine feet of
basement ceiling height at a minimum. And then as Alan mentioned, we do have a code compliant
walk out stairs from each building's basement as well in the rear to the rear yard yeah in the
rear so that i like that in the rear that's good it'd be good if you were just below grade
five feet as opposed to six to seven feet
we also have to balance the streets department approval so we try to raise the buildings out of
great as much as we can in compliance with the streets so as part of our technical approvals
for the psd checklist too we will attempt to do that but we have to balance the what how many
how many stairs the streets department will allow to raise the building out as well.
stairs the streets department will allow to raise the building out as well so
So we will try to minimize that. Yeah. So reduce it to five. You're good.
All right. We will work. We will work on that throughout the construction document process.
I think that's I think that's the answer. And then on your floor plan, you that I don't know what it's not the not the quadplexes,
But I guess the triplexes, you've got that room in the back and you've got the egress out.
Is that a door there or what is that?
At the moment, so window, we've gone back and forth about whether it becomes a door or window.
There's no issue with putting a second door there.
If that's something the board wants to see, we can definitely commit to doing that.
Yeah, that would be preferable because other than that, you're forcing folks to go out of a bedroom into the yard, which is a big concern.
That's not a problem. We can commit to doing that.
Okay. All right. Those are my comments.
My question is about just trash.
Well, because this is 31 units, even though they're separate, we're required to have commercial trash pickup.
Where's the trash going to be stored there? Well, the trash on the first unit on the first floor for the first floor in the lower level, it'll be stored in the rear yard.
And then for the upper floors, I believe there are trash closets there.
Yes, it is. There's a dedicated trash closet. It'll be vented and conditioned in each of the upper units.
Thank you.
One other question is you said something about the bikes that you're going to try to address that.
so we've agreed with the community group to provide u racks on the street um so we'll work
with the streets department to get as many as we can approved around the site so that they're
secure bike locking outside of each building um other questions questions from our attorney
hillary emerson not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
hi could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer yes can you hear me i can
okay hi board and uh and board members my name is ahmed a-h-m-e-d apologize my device does not
have a camera all right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but
the truth? Yes. Are you a neighbor? I am here as a Protestant and a grieved party, and I'm also the
most affected by this development. Okay. Chair, pardon me. This is the court reporter. Could I
have the witnesses' full name? Yes. A-L-M-A-S-H-H-A-D-A-N-I. So as I was saying, I have the
most vested interest due to proximity and special use classification. I barely made it to this
hearing today uh basically to start from the beginning this original plan was submitted
during the pandemic it was rushed through no one was paying attention okay um from my own rco they
tell me this is the property from hell uh what happened was uh i originally was objecting to the
size of the property and i thanked the board that you were able to stop that due to the height which
would have caused a lot of problems for me uh but the main issue was that uh when these notices were
quote-unquote sent out our post office here locally has some of the worst service in the city
they use overtime mailmen and a lot of the mail does not get delivered uh so i barely get any
notices and all of these quote-unquote 160 parties that were alerted barely are noticed and i never
even knew due to no frontage signage that there was a change in the main building plan to the
next one now that's just to start uh basically uh there was a building here originally that was
attached to my property and that building collapsed and since that time happened my wall
has been exposed my brick facade wall has been exposed damaged with the sprinkler line severed
now the previous owner was supposed to settle this matter with me and instead at the last minute
during the pandemic he sold it to this party without telling them the liability involved
In addition to that, the properties, if you look at the plan, it's directly adjacent to mine.
I mean there's no room for my sprinklers or anything.
There's a door there.
There's a garage there.
There's no gap.
So at least one of these triplexes can't even be built.
And in addition, there's also a tree on that back lot that faces Germantown that has poison oak that is so strong with the branches.
It's been grabbing my wall, destroying it, destroying the corner of the structure.
causing temporary repairs and at no point have I been able to contact them to deal with any of
these issues. So besides the wall damage and the structural damage and the...
So besides the wall damage and the structural damage and the connection for the sprinkler that has never been restored, there's also issues with the parking, which as far as I know has not been changed or resolved.
Now, this attorney recently just mentioned that there was no commercial on this street, which is unbelievable because to the casual eye it would look like that.
I mean there's a reason why the street is commercial. The whole street on one side is a complete demolition yard who actually just rented half of his to another demolition yard. And this company during the day in addition to the mechanic shop on the other side of me, they have tow trucks and semis and all these big trucks that come at all times. And they're towing and trailing other semis that take up the whole street.
So one side of the street is not even available for parking.
And the neighbor also just put up no parking signs everywhere on that side.
And so if you actually calculate the real – I mean I went to architecture school in the city.
So I can tell you that the only amount of parking available is directly in front of the property on both sides.
And that's it.
I mean maybe half or 10 to 15 spaces max.
And yet they're jamming as much as they can into the street when it's not even a residential street.
So they're going to completely change the zoning code, and it's going to adversely affect the neighborhood. It's completely inconsistent. So this prior denial for the parking density and compatibility, as far as I know, is still unchanged and now worsened by another construction tenant.
So I'm trying to just go through all the issues here because there's so much, but ultimately, I have procedural concerns about the RCO approval process being improper.
The notices that they sent out that they showed you on the live stream, it was clipped in the actual mailings, cutting off the link.
I had to barely find the link at the last second to attend this meeting.
When I have the most vested interest, I have not received proper service at all.
um and uh the the biggest glaring issue that i think nobody understands including the rco
is that there the city has something called like a master plan or something and there's a district
in the north that i'm a part of and in that district there's only two properties that has
an amusement classification the property used to actually be a famous african-american club
that started the breakfast club and a host of other things and by allowing this to continue
it's going to negatively impact my use and the economic value of that amusement classification.
There's only two properties in the whole ward that has that classification and the other one
is owned by Temple. So, you know, my specific interests with that and are at risk and in a
materially unique way. And I'm just asking the board to postpone and or deny this to allow for
proper legal representation and a chance for the applicant to maybe even settle these matters
directly and hopefully outside his court because I'm interested in a swift resolution. I want my
wall repaired. You know, I want all these things reconnected. And this seems to be a common issue
with new construction in the city. Okay. Thank you. And Ms. Nockms, do you have any questions?
No, but I just want to respond to some of the assertions. So first of all, this is the first
we've heard of any issues regarding the next door neighbor. As the board saw, we had unanimous
support with the community um there is a building permit for 39 units uh for an apartment building
um so what we're trying to do is have an effective project with 31 units um as far as you know the
notices and the issues with notices being mailed to parties all i can tell you is our office sends
notices out we tried to do it two weeks beforehand we know there's an issue with the post office not
about not getting delivered just taking a while but we thought that we think that two weeks is
more than enough time before a community meeting to make sure everyone gets their notices i can't