So we'll go through the plans, but this kind of just gives you a sense from even just the
aerial of what we're trying to accomplish, trying to move this out of the way.
okay um if you can see between these buildings that little gap space right there sorry this
building right here that's what this we're covering from a lot coverage perspective the six percent
and the addition of the building it includes this six percent it also includes by right
addition to the structure but all we're focused on for the purpose of this appeal
is just that additional 6%, as you can see from the aerial.
This is just a front view of the building,
just to show the zoning posters that we put on the property.
Again, it's the existing Esperanza Health Center.
More photos of the postings.
Some interior photos, if you're not familiar with the space.
Again, it's an existing health center that's operated since at least 2022.
This is the existing space that's not being used currently.
And again, the exterior of the site.
As mentioned, the prior zoning
As mentioned, the prior zoning variance, that was granted for the same use.
Here's where in the code we only can have 80% coverage because this is a, or sorry, 75% coverage because it's a middle lot.
However, the building already takes up 94%.
As mentioned, we had a meeting with OSCE CDC, and they issued a letter of non-opposition for the project.
These are the mailers that were sent out, and this is their letter stating that they had no opposition.
I think five in support, one opposed, so they sent a letter of non-opposition for this project.
We also have a letter of non-opposition from Councilman Ketzi Lozada's office.
Um, if we could just briefly bring on our architects, I think it's either Jose or Amanda should be in the audience architect, please.
Go through the plans.
That will be rejoining shortly. Thank you.
uh hello hi sir could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
uh my name is jose science that would be jose jose science s-a-i-n-z do you swear or affirm to
tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do counsel thanks jose can you just go
through the plans um obviously ex you know going through and explaining the square footage that
we're adding, which is in the pink, but also for the board, you know, the other additional space
that we're going to be using for the building? Yes, we'll do. So this is currently, if you see
on the left side of the building, most of what is being, what is hatched is the existing clinic
that Esperanza is currently occupying. So their desire is to be able to better serve the community
by being able to expand their services within the existing clinic. So as we already mentioned,
they purchased the adjacent lot, which would be basically what you see on the right side
of the screen, the skinnier portion on the right side of the screen. And basically what they want
to do again is expand their service. What we're looking to do on the first floor is a reconfiguration
of the reception and entryway spaces,
including the extension of the already existing
ADA compliant ramp at the front of the building,
moving the entrance all the way to the right,
and again, extending that landing
and some of the steps
to be able to obviously reach that entrance.
As we move in from the main entrance,
we're adding a new vestibule
and again, rearranging the reception
and enlarging the waiting room
at the front as well.
And as we move back throughout the building, on the first and second floor, what we're doing is adding a number of exam rooms, obviously to further be able to have more patients in, a couple of consult rooms and some additional office space as well.
and then on the second floor again we are adding a couple more exam rooms some flex rooms which
can be used as consult rooms or exam rooms some additional storage and again some additional
staff space and so as you can see in the you know the red portions of the two plans
that is really what we are looking to basically enclose currently that is kind of like a
a courtyard of sorts that exists between the building.
And so in order for us to be able
to kind of like enclose this whole space,
we wanna basically take over the remainder
or the 6% that we've been talking about,
256 square feet on the first floor,
396 on the second floor as well.
One other thing is that,
since we are gonna have patients going
from the first to the second floor
and some staff also going down to the basement, which is going to be just storage space.
We are installing a new elevator that will be serving the basement, the first and the second floor spaces as well.
So here we can, we just added some, you know, aerial views that kind of like show you where the existing clinic is
and where the new space is and kind of like that hatched um space in between again that's what
we're basically looking to take over um in order to be able to fully um consolidate the the two
consolidate the two buildings into one main building. Then that middle picture you can see
buildings into one main building then
is the existing conditions with the clinic on the left side, and then the new space on the right
side. It's pretty beat up, so what we're trying to do in the image below, the larger image with
the orange canopy, is basically redoing the frontage or the facade of both buildings so that
we can you know again further consolidate the look of the building um modernize it a little bit um
again maintaining basically like the color palette that they currently have um and just then again
basically extending that canopy all the way to the other side to be able to cover you know the
entrance from the elements and again just unifying the look of of the building of the two buildings
themselves and then i think if you scroll down one more we just have a small rendering of what the
uh reception area the new reception area is going to be um within the space um and yeah thank you
um happy to take any questions for the architect um do you have anybody else you're going to bring
on i just want to bring on uh juan uh prez or justin perry to adopt my testimony we'll bring
him on and just have the architect in case someone has a question and won't we start okay
so why don't you bring and have your testimony adopted okay is there Juan Perez or Justin Perry
we're joining the meeting shortly Council thank you Jason
because I how you doing my name is uh please state your name and then spell for the sonographer
yep justin perry last name is uh p-e-r-y right and i work for tell the truth the whole truth
and nothing but the truth i do counsel justin have you heard my testimony today do you believe
it to be true and accurate and do you adopt it as your own yes i do thank you questions from the
board um yeah i think a question that i have so typically when you have those courtyards
And those second floor sort of breezeways, it's to provide light and air into sort of the building and, you know, at the property line, understanding that these are two separate properties. Is there a plan to consolidate this lot into one physical address in the future? Oh, it already is. Okay. Yeah. And then my second question is, have all the windows on the existing health center side been already eliminated from that courtyard area?
Yeah, so the existing clinic side, that interior portion of the clinic side doesn't have any windows on the inside. Now, the adjacent property, which is the one that they purchased and we're looking to consolidate, that has windows, but that is going to, you know, be reconfigured as we, you know, work within the plans.
And then just now that it's kind of 100% lock coverage, are there any plans that are being made to sort of address sort of fire safety in the whole building now, since that it will not have a setback and it won't have the.
Well, I'm saying all the planning we've done has been code compliant. We work with the code
all the time. And we have a life safety plan. We've taken into consideration all the required
egress paths that we need, any sort of fire protection that we need. We have that all in
our plans. And, you know, we do our best to make sure that that is all taken care of.
Yeah, totally understand that, like, you're going to have to follow code. It's more so that this is
now more than what would typically be, right? Code is based on what is typical. Typical would
be 75% lot coverage. This is 100% lot coverage. So are we doing anything above and beyond to
address the fact that the reason that that exists is for life and safety, and we've now eliminated
it yes so it's a good question and it's a question that the community group asked us as well so we
basically provided yeah we basically provided to them um some of the key compensatory measures but
not all of them that we responded to was reducing the maximum exit access travel distance to an exit
door compared to sprinkler buildings where longer distances are typically permitted more than one
exit in this case two exits from the interior of the building to the exterior stricter requirements
for the number of placement of portable fire extinguishers along with correspondingly shorter
travel distance to reach them interior wall and ceiling finishes and materials classified to class
interior wall and ceiling finishes and materials classified to class a in accordance with the astm
A in accordance with
e84 equivalent standard characterized by flame spread index of zero to 25 and a smoke development
index of zero to 450 fully installed operational fire alarm system with all components compliant
with applicable code requirements so those were some of the things that we had shared because as
you know obviously the concerns make a lot of sense in addition to um you know the front of
with the ramp and those doors allow easier and more access to the front of the building but
the concerns are well noted and heard and we did discuss this you know at length thank you for a
clear answer um and then the last thing is really more of a comment um you know i think esperanza
health center and the surrounding community groups have done a lot to create a sense of culture and
place on north fifth street and i will say that like in a space where the building has very
identifiable uh look and feel i do feel like the new facade does not fit in with the context of
the neighborhood i think some of the most interesting and culturally relevant aspects
of the building have been removed to kind of give it that new modern look and just want to
state for the record because i do think that is one of the things that makes fifth street special
yeah you're not the only one who mentioned that as well we did yeah we did discuss that and just
justin if you want to kind of share what you had shared at the meeting just related to some of the
maintenance and stuff that you guys have had to deal with with the current design and why the
thought was to make this a little bit less artistically beautiful i will i'll agree with that
yeah i mean we've had yeah we've had historical issues just with the roof line being i mean we
see the current roof roof line it kind of goes up and kind of like a peak to it um over time we've
and multiple times trying to you know make sure water was not getting that space and we've not
been overall very successful so in terms of just making sure that everything is clean and secured
and safe that's why we kind of have a new uh facade there to make it look as as best as we
could and understand your comments also all right any other questions questions from our attorney
and i see there's something to hear you've yeah no just it's more of a comment um rachel i think
on this one that the refusal because you're expanding a use that was permitted by
variants there should have been an additional referral for that group medical use
um so i think that's missing but that'll that'll automatically be incorporated and if the board
you know grants the variance that is listed so i just wanted to note that for the record
okay all right questions or comments from the virtual audience
i do not see any further hands mr chair
Dana Solomon of the Planning Commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change the
existing commercial mixed-use cmx 2.5 zoning the property allows maximum lot coverage of 80
whereas the current lot coverage is already in exceedance of 94 and the appellant is requesting
100 the dimensional various variance is de minimis the City Planning Commission recommends the
zoning board grant the lot coverage mi 2025 006 776 2944 north 5th street i vote yes
michael johns my vote is yes cheryl gaston my vote is yes tenetta graham my vote is yes
brian mcadams my vote is yes i win my vote is yes thank you okay thank you um mi 2025
25-006-891-2438, Aspen Street, Leonard Altieri is the attorney.
It is unanimous support from Fairmount Civic Association.
The vote was 43 total votes, 11 affected neighbors, 6 RCO board members.
and also a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Young.
Council, could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
Yes, my name is Leonard, L-E-O-N-A-R-D, Alteri, A-L-T-I-E-R-I.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to the property?
My client is Patrick and Eileen Murphy, and they are the owners of the property.
Okay, and our vice chair has a few questions for you.
Good afternoon.
Have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing?
I have.
And do you weigh the read and know the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Okay, thank you.
You can share your screen and proceed with your case.
Thank you very much.
And again, good afternoon, everyone.
The property that we're here for is for 2438 Aspen Street.
It is a single-family home.
It's a very simple case.
What my client is trying to do is to do the applications for the erection of a rear addition
with a roof deck to the existing single-family home as you'll see as we go through this presentation
As you'll see as we go through this presentation, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy have two boys, ages 11 and 9.
mr and mrs murphy have two
Right now, there's only one bathroom in the entire house.
They love the neighborhood.
They love living in the city.
So to stay in the city, what they're proposing to do is just this small addition.
It's funny, you know, again, so we'll just go through.
Here's the refusal.
Again, to orient the board, it is mid-block.
This looks like the backyard backs up directly to the neighbors on Meredith Street.
It's actually a substantial grade change.
so they are not you know parallel to each other property is located in the rsa5 zoning district
this is the front of the house and then to just orient the board and give an idea what the street
residential normal street what we're proposing to do you're not going to be able to see
because again it is in the rear of the property this is the existing backyard right now
and then this really gives a good
view of what we are doing so on the left hand side is the existing second and first floor
on the right hand side are the proposed second and first floor when i was at the rco meeting i
made it a focal point to talk about how it's one bathroom and mrs murphy has to share it with three
men uh but what i think i realized with the rco uh the big selling point with the rco was not
necessarily the bathroom but that mrs murphy will now have a much larger closet uh that i believe
will also extend into the second closet so mr murphy will have probably one hanger which he's
very much looking forward to so again what we're doing is essentially building out about seven feet
on the rear of the property and doing so will allow for another bathroom to be installed as
well as for the bedroom to just be a little bit larger or actually i think the same size but
allow for additional living space in there looking at it from a view kind of from the side again
here's the existing wall right now and then we are proposing to have this extend out seven feet