MI-2022-004093-3712 Clarendon Avenue.
Donald Nogowski is the attorney for the owner.
Mr. Donald Nogowski, can you raise your hand, please?
Oh, I see my audience.
Do we see him?
Yes, I just promoted him.
Okay, thank you.
There he is.
Good morning, Mr. Nadowski.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Thank you.
Donald Nogowski, D-O-N-A-L-V-N-O-G-O-W-S-K-I.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
mr dasky could you could you could we see you on the on your screen please can you turn your video
on it is on mr chairman i i i don't know what the issue is i i see it says you have low bandwidth
i'm not sure what that means uh hi this is tanya may i ask a question mr nagowski here you have
there you go thank you there you go you're you're on okay could you identify your client
and the relationship to the property sure the owner mr george grice g-r-e-i-s-s okay our vice
has a few questions for you sir good morning counsel do you agree to waive the reading of
refusal and stipulate to his accuracy? Yes, I do. Have you emailed in all the required documents
that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, other than I believe Hillary requested a copy of the zoning refusal which I sent yesterday.
Understood. Please proceed and show your screen.
Hello, Mr. Dasky, you need to show your documents now.
Share your screen.
yeah i'm i'm sorry i'm i guess certainly um
should be a green dot at the bottom
here it is it's coming up
Mr. Nagoski?
Mr. Nagoski?
it looks like he's frozen chair
It looks like he's frozen, chair.
I'm going to stop this video and see if.
Why don't we move on and we'll go back to him.
Maybe by then he's better.
Wait a minute.
So George, Michael, to all this is George.
Lakeisha, can we take him off the screen?
Yes, and I think George, Michael could be like the architect or something.
architect or somebody um why don't what so we don't lose time why don't we go back we'll call
him in a little bit okay let's see here
can we go to number 14
MI-2022-004-087-273 Delmar Street.
Brandon Saverin is the attorney.
Mr. Saverin has been promoted to panelist here.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning.
Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Yes, my name is Brandon Saverin. That's spelled B-R-A-N-D-O-N. And then S as in Sam, A, V as in Victor, R-A-N as in Nancy.
You swear or affirm the total truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
Yes, I do.
Could you identify your client and their relationship to the property?
My client is Tower Hill Development, LLC. They are the owner of the property.
All right. Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do, Mr. Vice Chair. And I just want to note for the board that this case is working off an amended refusal, which I'll show you in a moment.
Understood. Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Yes, with the exception of the RCO letter, which the board received last night.
Okay, thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
Okay, thank you very much.
Okay, good morning, members of the board. So I'm going to show you the amended refusal in a moment.
But I thought I'd start with this subdivision survey just as a way of introducing the project.
So we are on Delmar Street here in the Ridge Park section of Roxborough, which is essentially like a loop street that, you know, has several hundred homes on it.
This is the parcel, the existing parcel.
It would be the outer boundary of that.
I'm sort of tracing right now with my cursor on the screen.
And what our proposal is, is to subdivide that parcel and create a new lot that would have a new single family home, because by subdividing that parcel, we're going to create a new parcel that is over 19 feet wide and very deep, I think almost 100 feet deep.
So, you know, there's more than adequate space here for a new home and a rear yard, and it will replace what is currently like a gap in the block.
We will be retaining the existing home that is on the left side of the screen, and that will remain a single family home.
And we're also going to be putting a parking space in front of both the new and the old home.
So with that, let me show you real quickly.
this is a photo of our notice posters but I'm just showing you this to demonstrate what is
currently in that gap area so the street is at the bottom of the screen here's the existing
building that will remain and then to the left of it is the gap that's being subdivided and what's
on that space right now is like a side walkway that leads to the backyard and a driveway and
and those will be you know eliminated in favor of the the new home so here is the amended refusal
zoom in a little bit. So we applied for this amended refusal at the recommendation of the RCO Ridge Park Civic. The amended refusal, all it does versus the original refusal is it has a second parking space.
zoom in a little bit so we apply
And I'll show you that on the plan in a moment. So what this refusal is for is really two things. One is starting in the bottom here. You're not allowed to have parking in the front yard space under both the base zoning and an overlay.
That's why there's two lines here, but this is an extremely common feature on this block,
as I'll show you.
And then the other refusal is for the fact that we'd like our new home to be flush in
the front rather than having a setback on the third floor.
This is going to fit better because basically the adjacent buildings have flush front sides
And one of them is already three stories. So just for your benefit, if this was not in the Ridge Park overlay, we would not be required to have that front setback of the third floor.
That's a specific requirement to the overlay, excuse me.
But the RCO, who I'm sure was instrumental in creating that overlay, sort of given the situation, decided that they wanted to sort of waive that requirement and have you grant a variance around it so that we could have a flush front facade.
So I'm just going to show you, this is basically a slightly more colorful version of our zoning plan.
The actual zoning plan is also in the packet.
What this is going to show you is a couple things that are unique about our section of the block and why there is a hardship.
So here where it says 273 Delmar, that's the existing building that my client owns that will be retained.
We'll be introducing a front parking space in front of it and what is currently sort of like a gravel pit.
And then here's the new home. What we're going to do with this new home is construct it so it lines up with that 273 building.
and we're going to, as I mentioned, have another parking space in front of that home. So the RCO
pushed us to have one spot in front of each, the new and existing home, rather than just a spot in
front of the new home, which was the original proposal. So that's just to say the RCO really,
although it's not to code, they do want us to have off-street parking. And you can kind of see
there's many other homes on this block that have the same exact style of parking.
If this diagram continued to the right side, which would be the west, there'd be more and more and
more examples of that. And I'll just point out that on-street parking on our side of the street
is illegal. So we're not taking away any on-street parking. And just in terms of other factors that
lend themselves to a hardship here. As you can tell, 279 is sort of, you know, built all the way
to the sidewalk line, whereas 273 is not. So not only did the RCO not want us to have a setback of
our top floor, but even if we were to have it, it doesn't benefit anybody because, you know,
We're not taking away from our neighbor 279's light and air in the front regardless because they're situated probably dozens of feet forward from where the front of our building is going to be located.
So really the hardship in complying with that upper story setback requirement would be that it doesn't benefit anybody and it would cause a loss of interior space.
I also just think it's visually unattractive. And I think in this case, the RCO agreed with that.
So I will close by showing you the RCO letter very quickly. It mentions that we met with them
three times. My colleague Rachel attended the first two meetings. I attended the final one.
It mentions that a vote that was taken after I believe we were asked to leave the meeting
was 16 votes in favor of the amended proposal and none opposed.
And that's my presentation.
John Bollier is here from the owner to adopt my testimony.
Mr. Bollier has been allowed to speak.
Mr. Bollier has been allowed to speak.
Thank you.
John, I think you're going to be sworn in.
Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Jonathan Bollier, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N, Bollier, B-E-A-U-L-I-E-U.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Proceed, Brandon.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
John, firstly, are you authorized to speak today on behalf of Tower Hill Development?
Were you able to hear the full extent of my testimony this morning?
Was it true and accurate to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
It was, yes.
And would you therefore adopt it as if it were your own testimony?
I would, yes.
Okay, thank you.
Brandy, could you show the photos one more time at the front of the property?
Yeah, absolutely.
One second. Let's see. I go to there. So I think what might be helpful, Mr. Chairman, is that the architect in their plans has some other existing condition photos.
I just want to. No, you have one that was straight on. Look at the. Oh, sure. Yeah, I can pull that one back.
nope that's not it hold on here we go that was page 25 okay right right that one there right
uh-huh so tell me what what would you do build up a pad there because you got to step down to
get to the door right what would you do there yeah so um john might be able to provide further
detail i think what we're going to do is have a graded space with with drainage as i mentioned
And originally, we didn't want to have a space because it's going to be expensive for John to grade this area and make it sort of sensible for parking.
It's going to be very easy to do that on the new home where there's going to be construction anyway.
But yes, we're going to reconfigure this area.
Yeah, Brandon. And I believe Rustin was on.
And he could speak to more of the construction and design element.
But basically, the the, you know, we'd bring the home against the party wall, there'd be an opening for the door and then a retaining wall would be built and we'd bring that sunken area up to grade with the driveway of the new home.
OK, thanks, John.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Chair.
No, Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
i see no hands chair planning commission yeah i'm back uh this is ron bennett
ron we're glad you're back yes thank you uh the property is indicated for residential use
on a city plan given its documented use history we recommend that the requested variants be granted
uh for the new housing unit and no objection to the parking provided the front yard set back on
the third floor be denied. I'm sorry. So, and again, I'll just quickly say, you know,
our feeling was that a flush front facade would better match the block and doesn't adversely
affect the other neighbor. I'll be right with you.
mi-2022-004-087-273 delmar street i vote yes
thomas holliman i'm sorry i'm sorry i got it per amended refusal dated 2-21-23 thank you hillary
Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shah, my vote is yes, with proviso.
Chair, my vote was James Snell, yes, with proviso.
Thank you, Jim.
Thank you.
All right.
Hillary, want to try six one more time?
yes mr chair okay number six my 2022 zero zero four zero nine three thirty seven twelve clarin
mr nagowski
mr nagowski can you raise your hand please if you're in the audience
he was he was there he left oh i see him chair
Mr. Nagoski has been promoted back to panelists.
listen to galsy has been promoted back to panel
Thank you.
Hi, Mr. Nagoski.
Mr. Nagoski.
he should be coming in i promoted him again okay thank you you're welcome
mr chairman can you can you see me can you hear me sir i i i hear you we do not see you sir
it says the host has disabled my video okay
we see you in it wait we see you now we do okay thank you okay all right um you've already been
sworn right and could you show us your document should you show us your documents thank you sir
and again i apologize for this technical difficulties this is the property 3712
of Clarendon Avenue. Wait a minute. We need to see it. We need to see it. We don't see it.
Okay. I'm sharing my video.
Okay. Here it comes. Yes. I am sharing my video. You should be able to see it now.
um Mr. Chair can you see we see okay we see okay the property 3712 Clarendon Avenue the application
is to convert uh the off-street garage parking to additional living space retaining the off-street
parking space in the driveway uh this is a picture of uh the converted space and the driveway
uh here is another photo from further out uh uh so off-street parking is retained
uh it's a common uh construction feature in the neighborhood um uh mr grace michael
the owner did meet with the community group um and uh mr o'neill's office as well and uh
obtain their approval and 33 neighbors joined in support of the application.