And this would offer informal takeout and sit down bites for individuals in the neighborhood
that whether they are they're kosher or not, who like traditionally Jewish food.
So this is a rendering of what the space might look like before moving.
And just keep in mind, we are not before you requesting these on awnings and signs today.
that would be handled under a separate application with L&I, but otherwise this is how we envision
this looking, and there's that cafe I mentioned, and here would be the chapel, and again on the
upper floor is, third floor is like a partial third floor, there would be the nursery school
preschool. So we do have community support. Just to sort of break this out a little bit,
I'm going to read into the record the summary paragraph here. So it says that the RCO overwhelmingly
supports the variances for daycare, which is actually child care center use on the application,
and religious assembly. However, there are significant unresolved issues concerning the
requested variance for the roof deck. Optimally, the RCO supports approval of the use variances
and parking variance with the proviso that the applicant withdraw the variance for the roof deck
until such time as consensus can be reached within the community. So what I'm going to propose to you
today is that you approve our application with the proviso for no roof deck. It's not really
possible to withdraw, you know, parts of our application and not others, but by placing a
proviso on the application that says no roof deck, I believe will meet the RCO's request.
And to show you our zoning plan, there are some elevations and a traditional site plan on the
first page. On the second page is a key plan that breaks down the different uses within the space.
There is, as I mentioned, the chapel for religious assembly. This is the orange area
would be the kosher cafe that I mentioned. Second floor is all child care. Third floor is
child care as well. And I can come back to that as needed. I have the architect online here who
drew these plans. If you have any questions for him. I also have the rabbi of the congregation,
Rabbi Hershey Sputz, who will adopt my testimony. And you can also ask him any questions you'd like.
just to quickly run through the refusal. So interesting property, just to go back really
quickly to the zoning map, keep in mind that about 75% of the land area of the property is CMX1
and 25% is RSA5. So under the new guidelines, I believe were adopted last year.
The new guidelines, I believe, were adopted last year, early last year for split zone properties.
This is governed by the RSA five rules, even though it's mostly covered by CMX one. So
accordingly, religious assembly is prohibited on this property. That would be by right if this
was CMX one. Childcare center use is prohibited on this property. That would be permitted by
special exception if this was cmx one um the roof deck is a non-issue as we're asking you to um
essentially uh prohibit us from doing a roof deck um and then there is uh there are two refusals
for the lack of parking so just looking at the building again real quickly it is simply not
feasible to provide parking because this is a structure that occupies 100 of the lot area and
we would have to demolish part of it, which we'd rather not do. We believe that constitutes a
hardship. I am really hoping that the community support will carry the day here, but for the
record, I do have to say to preserve the issue in the unfortunate event that this would wind up in
court somehow, that we believe that the fact that the RSA 5 designation controls the property and
prohibits religious assembly and the associated childcare use, despite the fact that most of the
property is zoned CMX1, is arbitrary and capricious and essentially is a restriction without rationale
that the code imposes over a use that has some constitutional protection. So we take issue with
that. And that would be something we would press only if we did not get the variances today off
the support we have in other ways here. So that's my presentation. I'm hoping that somebody from
Fairmount Civic Association and perhaps Mary Jones from the council president's office are
in the audience. But I'm happy to take any questions. Brandon, why don't you do the rabbi
first to adopt our testimony absolutely um so uh rabbi hershey sputs is his name
rabbi could you state your name and spelled for the court reporter
tour thank you uh my legal name is sweet t as in tom z as in zebra v as in victor i as in igloo
last name sputs s as in sam p as in peter u t as in tom z as in zebra right do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth. The whole truth is nothing but the truth. I affirm. Thank you. Go
ahead, Brandon. Hi, Rabbi. Did you hear my testimony in this case today? Yes. And is it true
and accurate to the best of your knowledge? Yes. Thank you. And would you adopt it as your own
therefore? Yes. Okay. Just stick around in case the board or others have questions for you.
questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual
audience we have mary jones from the councilman's office miss jones you can unmute yourself and wait
for the chair jones could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter
excuse me yes uh mary jones uh from council president daryl clark's office city hall room
494 right you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do proceed please uh yes based on um communication from the uh coordinating rco
as well as at their special request,
the council president does not have
any opposition to this project.
Thank you very much for calling in, Ms. Jones.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Teresa Holberg.
Ms. Holberg, you can unmute yourself
and wait for the chair.
Ms. Holberg, could you state your name
and spell it for the court reporter?
It's Teresa Holberg,
spelled h-o-b as in boy e-r-g as in girl right you swear for him to tell tell the truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth i do could you spell your first name please
teresa sorry it's spelled t-e-r-e-s-a thank you proceed i am a director and a zoning co-chair
of the fairmount civic association and i prepared the letter of support for this property and i just
want to reiterate that there is widespread and really overwhelming support for these
use variances. The only issue that we did have was the roof deck, and since that's been withdrawn,
The only issue that we did have was the roof deck, and since that's been withdrawn, there really aren't any issues with this proposal.
Thank you very much for calling in.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Elizabeth McGorn.
Ms. McGorn, you can unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Elizabeth McGurn, M-C-G-O-U-R-N.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
I'd like to ask where the drop-off for the children is going to be.
I'm sorry.
You can continue.
It's just that you're not here to ask questions.
Please remember that.
Just give testimony.
I'm concerned.
My testimony is I live on Krosky Street.
There is a fire door there.
that is only supposed to be opened in the event of a fire,
and I'm concerned that there's going to be a lineup
of people dropping their children off in the morning.
Thank you very much for calling in.
We'll get to that point before they leave.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Claudia Siegel.
Ms. Siegel, you can unmute yourself or wait for the chair.
Hi, could you state your name and spell it for the court reporter?
Claudia Siegel, C-L-A-U-D-I-A-S-I-E-G-E-L.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Proceed.
I just want to express my support for all the FCA recommendations concerning the property at 741 North 23rd.
I am unequivocally opposed, and this is also in concert with the FCA.
unequivocally opposed to any roof deck on the property. Okay. Okay. Is there anyone else in
the virtual audience? I see no other hands at this time, Chair. Brandon, do you want to respond to
anything before I give to the planning? Sure. So as I believe I mentioned earlier, we consider
Kroski Street to be sort of the third frontage here. There is no plan to use that as a primary
entrance. Aspen and 23rd are the primary frontages, and we will be applying to the
parking authority to create a loading zone on Aspen Street that will be, hopefully,
if granted to us, operable during business hours. Thank you very much. Planning Commission.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. David Fecto, City Planning Commission. Mr. Chairman, members of the board,
comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial and residential mixed use zoning at
this location. A daycare and religious assembly would be allowed if the proposal were entirely
on a CMX1 zoned lot. And we believe that child care is an activity that a reasonable person would
expect to be a companion use to a religious assembly. So the City Planning Commission
recommends that the Board grant these variances and we're going to throw in with the Civic and
request no roof deck. MI 2021 005321 740 North 23rd Street I vote yes proviso no roof deck.
Carol Tenere my vote is yes proviso. Thomas Holloman my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell yes we're proviso
Ishmael Shaheed yes we're proviso
thank you okay MI 2021 005 303 802 North Banbury Street
do not see an RCO letter yet there may be one that came in
Gavin and Kristen Archidicano sorry if I didn't pronounce it right
They're coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
oh yes sorry i had to hop off that's okay state your name and spell for the court reporter please
gavin archidiacono g-a-v-i-n-a-r-c-i-d-i-a-c-o-n-o right do you swear or affirm to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. Okay. Our vice chair has a few
um our vice chair has a few questions hi good afternoon do you um i assume that you've submitted
questions.
all the required documents is that correct that's correct okay you may proceed and can you share
your screen with us thank you okay good afternoon chairman and board um my name is gavin archer
Iacono, and my wife is Kristen. We are, this is our home, 802 North Banbury Street. Our architect,
Jan Kang, is on as well as a participant. I will be going through the refusal, the exhibits,
our community meeting, pictures, and floor plan. This is our refusal. The reason we're doing this
is we're expanding our family. We have a daughter coming in May, and we have 960 square feet in our
current home. We're adding an addition onto the third floor. The refusal is for an eight-foot
setback on the front of the house. This eight-foot setback would prohibit us from adding two bedrooms
onto the third floor for our expanding family and our expanding family moving forward.
The exhibits, these are the pictures of the zoning notice in the window. This is March 14th.
This is our tax clearance. This is the letter of authorization from my wife and I as owners. This is the deed to our home, our project information form.
The RCO meeting, these are the certified letters that we sent out to our 210 neighbors for the RCO meeting.
In preparation for the RCO meeting, I went around to all of our neighbors on our block. There was not a single person that I spoke to who was in opposition. We have a petition that I got signed by 45 of my neighbors. We are the 800 block of Banbury, as you can see here. And these are all of our neighbors, a bunch of our neighbors that signed. So we felt the overwhelming support.
This is a letter from Teresa, the co-chairman of the Fairmont Civic Association and head of zoning.
She is also on the call, as you heard before.
These are the neighbors that are in close proximity, 14 support, zero opposed.
And there's Teresa.
it. Just to get into some of the meat of it, this is our home right here, and there are
a bunch of houses on our block with third floors built to the end. So, it's not like we'd be the
only one built to the end here. Directly across the street, there's one and these, and I'll show
pictures. So, this is our home right here, and then directly across the street is this third
floor built to the end if you take a look at this on the right here and actually all of these
pictures you can see that these two trees provide a ton of shade for our street so us having a third
floor built to the end really won't affect uh the the shade uh or the the sunlight that's provided
because of these these huge trees uh and this seems to be the sunniest day of the year here
as you can see this is me standing in front of our house right off the stoop facing northbound
you can see there's a third floor built to the end here third floor built to the end here third
floor built to the end here and then I moved up and I took another picture I'm standing right here
now and this is where that picture is so this third floor built to the end is this house right
here. Uh, and then, and then you have these two houses, which you can see I turned right for this
picture. That's actually the corner of this house. So these two houses are built to the end as well.
And then these last two. So we have a ton of houses on our block that are built to the end.
Um, and so uniformity, um, and you can see the style of these houses and you'll see in the plans
in a minute the style of these houses is very in conjunction with how we planned our home
and these are the plans so I'll go through the plans now we have the basement and then the first
floor here existing the second floor here existing with a very small bedroom on the back
then this is what we're looking to add this is a nursery for our daughter due in May
And then up here is another bedroom and a bathroom and then the roof.
And then this is our home, and then this is what we're looking to add on the front.
So you can see it's very similar to the houses that are in Fairmount and the ones that are on our block.
And what we're asking for is to be able to build to the end so that we can add that extra bedroom for our family moving forward.
and if anyone has any questions available.
Questions from the board?
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman.
No, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman.
All right.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands at this time, Chair.
Planning Commission?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
David Fecto, City Planning Commission.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board,
The Comprehensive Plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location.
Granting the variance will not impair the use of adjacent properties,