said and then what i said so i don't appreciate just part of it being provided um what i had
what he said was well can't you guys sell six homes and i said the conversation's not about
selling or not selling where that's not we're there for obviously um we're there because we
wanted to provide something as you can see from what kelly has up um you know see how small these
lots are versus the mehan lot which we're leaving the same size just putting a dry vial and we're
actually going to be subdividing Pleasant Street the conversation was not about selling or not
selling or investment or money it was more so to provide something more in context with the square
footages of the lot which we've provided so I the board was not there for that and you're not
providing evidence of that I don't appreciate you know and I think I think Ms. Pritchard in her
earlier testimony spoke to the fact that yes they can build bigger homes but they thought the smaller
ones would be more in line with the cost uh of being able to sell these uh they would be more
affordable correct i'm paraphrasing okay correct is was a an effort to try to um disguise the fact
that what they're doing is not necessarily for the good of the community but for the good of
pocketbooks of their i i would have let's i i think that i i i think it's a little bit inappropriate
I mean, it is what it is. Sure, they can build less. They would be larger homes and they would
be selling for more money. The profit margin might be the same. I don't know. I'm not going
to get into that. Okay. Well, either way, I'd like to put this into record. I do have it typed
up and however I can submit that, that would be wonderful. And the transcript is available as well.
I appreciate that. Thank you. Anyone else?
we have dana chair
yes hi um i'm speaking i'm a part of the rco i'm an east mount area neighbor zoning committee
member dana please identify yourself spell your first and last name and give us your address
my first name is dana d-a-n-a my last name is fidelity f as in frank e d e-l-i and i live at
421 Wadsworth Avenue. Thank you. We're going to affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth? I do, yes. Please proceed. Thank you. I wanted to talk a few things.
Ms. Pritzker mentioned that the letter and the meeting had a lot of items related to the design
review, which is not completely accurate. We also discussed the details of traffic because what a
lot of people don't realize who don't live in the neighborhood is that Meehan Avenue is incredibly
has a lot of traffic issues that are
Ms. Fideli we're not hearing you
Ms. Fideli the last we heard was something about Meehan Avenue
and having this driveway situated where it is
can anyone can anyone hear me yeah it causes a lot of miss fidelli miss fidelli
can you hear me now yes we can hear you fine okay
miss fidelli with all due respect uh we couldn't hear you and i was trying to get your attention
the last i heard was something about traffic on me and avenue
yes so if you can pick up from that point we'd appreciate it we lost your
So, if you can pick up from that point, we'd appreciate it.
We lost your audio.
Okay, Dana, you can unmute yourself, but you're breaking up pretty bad.
All right, why don't we do this, Tanya?
Let's go back to Mr. O'Day, if he's ready.
Yes, I am.
Thank you.
This map shows you 106, as Ms. Pritzker explained, and then 109 and 121 Pleasant.
I want to talk about 106 for just a minute.
It's a very important part of this.
106 was attached to 108 Meehan Avenue.
And 102, which is the one on the left, I'm sorry, on the right in this picture, was built in approximately 1901.
I can see from the maps that 106, 108, and 110 were three houses built together, attached.
They were there in 1895. I can't tell you how much before that.
The original proposal for 106 was on the property or actually on the on the wall of 102. We pointed out that there is in fact a two foot wide parcel for 104. And so the applicant did move the building so that it was on the on the 104 parcel line, not the 102 parcel line.
The concern, though, is that since the house was originally built attached to 108, 106 always has been an unattached house.
It has three windows, as you can see, on its west side.
And when 106 was there, before it was demolished, there was a 14-foot setback between the 102 west wall and the 106's east wall.
So to put the new 106, it should actually be on the 108 side and not on the 106 side, because it will completely block the three windows, which were there for over 100 years.
If I'm correct, it's a 1901 house. It was there for over 100 years with the three windows having no obstruction.
I'd like to now go to 109 and 121. I want to call your attention I believe you realize this now
that the front footage for Pleasant Street is 132 feet. The applicant is proposing 16
and a half foot parcels eight of them. What we've identified are two by right options that they have
They could preserve the existing house, which is an 1870 house, and build four additional units, restore the 1870 house, and build four additional units, 20 by 72.
It is a 72-foot deep lot, 20 feet wide, would certainly be consistent with the neighborhood, or they could build six of them, 20 by 72, and demolish the 121.
Now, there's been some talk about the size.
Could you go back to that 121?
I want to see it again, please.
What I've simply done is copied the L&I's refusal
and then simply tried to show
that there are two buy-write options there.
Yeah, I know.
I just want to see your...
The layout you show where the Meehan properties,
the width of the Meehan properties
that butt up against Pleasant.
So the width of the Meehan...
well you just had it well okay all right there's me and right there yes all right the width of
these me and properties it's 28 feet why yes 28 feet why that's the frontage that's correct
the me and property is 28 feet no the other no the other properties not not the one and not 106
the other properties i guess it's 109 and 121 right pleasant no the me and properties going
from 106 going oh those are 16 and a half foot wide they would be they would be consistent with
what is being proposed yes that's correct all right what's important on 106 though sir is
that it is a 28 foot parcel dating back to 1901 I get the 106 I just want to make sure that I was
saying this correctly that what is proposed for Pleasant Street is consistent with the same
What is proposed for Pleasant Street is consistent with the same width of the properties on East Millen.
Right. Yes. OK. Thank you. Now, let's go through the property areas.
This is the circle you talked to me about before, the 250 foot circle or the same 100 block.
It turns out there are 206 properties in the circle. We'll call it a circle.
It's not exactly a circle, but for purposes of this discussion, the 1440 is an important minimum number.
It turns out that there are 104 parcels less than 1440 square feet, and there are 102 parcels greater than 1440.
And you can see I've highlighted in blue the three parcels that are subject to today's hearing.
but kelly is it fair to say that some of those are also zoned rsa3 that require larger lots and
and ours are rsa5 just want to make that because that's not um mentioned on these plans so
that's correct this is a mix of rsa3 and rsa5 what i wanted to point out to make sure that
the board understood the context of the 200 foot 250 foot circle is that nearly half of the
properties are smaller than 1440 and nearly half of them are larger than 1440. And we can do the
102 versus the 104 and get the fraction, but I think you'd agree they're both close to 50%.
These houses were all built before the 1962 land use code was adopted. In fact, you can go back
and see them on the 1942 code, and many of them show up on the 1932 code. So they happen to have
been built under previous codes, but I think that the 1440 is a reasonable yardstick for this
immediate area in East Mount Airy. But if we had done it 1440, we can't, we would have,
if you just divide it by six, I think you get closer to 1,978 square feet,
And then you still have a 28-foot wide on Meehan, which we're leaving in place to keep the character.
And to your point, Kelly, most of them across from us and are next to us are under 1440.
So we're trying to stay in character with what's been there.
So if the conversation is about historical context, then that's exactly what we're trying to do.
Instead of put giant homes similar to what you'd find on Gorgas Lane, which is two blocks up from this property.
It's also worth mentioning that the other person who spoke on the call lives about 10 blocks away. So, you know, both of them probably live on blocks that have a larger mix and different characters. So again, the whole point is to provide more affordable homes at around a $400,000 price point, instead of a $600,000 or $700,000 price point more in line with what's there.
In addition, you know, using the extra square footage for the 28 feet and width for a drive out because some of the concerns were about parking that there's not enough parking or off street parking so it's hard to combat wanting parking and then also having an issue with traffic or you know the way that we're providing the parking you can't, you know, it's a double edged sword sometimes so we're just trying to mitigate the bigger concern which we think is the need for accessory off street parking.
Nina lives on, I think she said Wadsworth, which is 10 blocks away.
So I don't want to interrupt, but Dana lives on Wadsworth.
Dana, my apologies.
Dana lives on Springer, which is three blocks away.
Okay, but neither of which live on Pleasant or East Meehan.
Can I establish, try to establish, Mr. O'Day, are you speaking as a representative for the RCO?
I tried to make it clear.
I am speaking as a East Marinari neighbor.
That's all.
All right. Just want to know, because I believe there's a number of other people who want to speak.
And my guess is we're going to hear pretty much the same testimony.
I'm not trying to rush this along, but I hear what you're saying.
You did a lot of homework. I appreciate that, as the other board members do.
So you can summarize. That would be helpful.
Yes. I'd like to just make sure that you see the green color are the ones that are smaller than 1440,
1440 and the brown are the ones larger than 1440 and I just ask that you recognize that between
me and Pleasant there are a mix of both of those that's all I just wanted to get across the point
that 1440 is not a magic size and it you know it's too big I think it there's plenty of them
that have that size that's all but I would ask you to consider very carefully the placement of
106 building, that I believe it should be next to the 108, which was its original location
and not next to 102 which is a completely you know foreign to it as far as that's not where
and not next to 102, which is a completely, you know.
it was originally there you're saying flip it to the other side correct the other side the person
that would allow 102 to still have the three windows unobstructed that's correct which is
what the original design was has that been has that been uh discussed rachel yeah we we did uh
Scott can speak to this. We did look at it. As you're well aware, you're not allowed to put
windows on the side of a property line because if we were to put an attached home here, they would
cover both of the fully attached without any drive out. It would be abutting both the party
wall and that structure. Yeah, I understand that, but I don't know what was there prior. Was there
an alley separating 102 from 104 or whatever next, you know? There was a two-foot alley that
was that was there but then there was also the fact there's still that alleyway then i'm doug
who's the owner can speak to this as well he's uh writing me there is a two-foot alleyway that
will still remain so i can share the civil subdivision plans yeah that that would be
helpful and and just to make sure there's uh there will still be an alleyway um between
so it wouldn't be covering all the light and air from the windows on the side of the property
I would need to have Kelly stop sharing the screen.
Thank you, Kelly.
I'm trying to understand what the real, the meat of the issue is here.
Is it the number of houses? Is it 106? A combination of that? I'm just trying to figure
What if the folks in the community, and I'm not asking them to how to design something, with the landness that you have, what would they come up with?
Mr. DiCicco, I'm not sure if I'm on mute.
Can you hear me now?
This is Dana Fidelli again.
We can.
So what we were trying to say, or what I was trying to say earlier, is that traffic causes a major concern.
There's already a number of accidents that occur in this area.
and putting that driveway on me in the way that it is that they're proposing it to be situated,
there was a lot of discussion that night. And the neighbors also proposed perhaps putting like a
straight through driveway that there's an entrance on Pleasant and an entrance on me and it connects
that way in order to have all directions flow, you know, in one same way and, you know, to stop
all of these issues that even Ellen and I pointed out that there are safety concerns of the way
people pull in and out of those spaces, who might hit another person's car, things of that nature.
The other issues that were brought up is that with over the 60% increase of impervious cover,
this increases significantly the possibility of flooding, which is an issue that we have.
And also LNI had an issue with the density and the neighbors fully support and appreciate LNI
looking out for us and taking in consideration the reason that they, you know, looked at
us for the 2035 and why they've zoned everything the way that it is.
We uphold what LNI is proposing here, and we really think that it should stay that way.
I understand, you know, the complexities of whether or not to introduce parking as a part
of a project, but this is near a commercial corridor.
So that's also something to keep in mind. You know, I know that the city also pushes for homes and other areas, other buildings that are near major roadways to consider that as a factor.
so there's a lot to unpack here and unfortunately all of the information that the neighbors tried
to provide in a discussion as what if you know did you consider this did you consider that
and every answer which I think Nina was trying to say was that basically everything kept boiling
down to it didn't maximize investment as Mr. Richardson said oh I recall the conversation
to be fair dana anyway but look everybody understands it it's not this projects like
this are done because there's an economic benefit to it we that's nothing wrong with that we
understand we understand it's not but when you're saying that there's a 3.2 million dollar profit
for these for this i i you never that is not that is not we the board has no we don't take that into
consideration no i understand that but when you're saying that ms pritzker is allowed to say that
she's providing what she's calling affordable housing at $400,000 to $500,000.
Ms. Pritzker, I'm speaking, please.
All right, hold on, ladies.
Ladies, could you hear me?
could you hear me uh chair i can hear you i muted everyone please be respectful and do not speak
Chair, I can hear you.
I'm muted.
Everyone, please be ready.
over each other we have a court reporter who has to report everything please do not speak unless
addressed by the chair thank you chair whoever you wish to go next thank you i just want to point out
that miss pritzer said they'd be more affordable so you can play with that word as much as we want
she just that was based that's exactly what i heard her say all right uh does anybody have
anything new and different so we do have six hands up chair and new new and different and i don't
mean to be rushing folks um but um as the chair we also have a matter that has to be written to
record soon the law department is waiting on the line um so as you wish i can call now we have
seven people so it's your call james uh could we read that um into the record and come right back
to this hearing it's your call yeah why don't we do that and sharon are you reading it into the
record so all folks can we see if leonard i'm sorry i have the department here yes yeah leonard's
still here so the folks uh who are here for pleasant street just just hold on for a few
minutes, we have some very important information that has to be read into the record.
And Leonard, if you could go ahead and do that, explain what it is there.