what's the occupancy level typically?
She's like, at any time,
probably like around at most 60%.
But it's just for people
who just want a place to stay
a bedroom, and then they have a common area. And I think it's a better way to, like, open this up so they have a living area as well.
And then this is our meeting notice.
Just to be clear, at one point you said she was using the basement to put people to?
I want to ask her. Sure.
Yeah, I'll ask her that. Okay.
And then we would agree to a proviso, obviously no lower-level living.
Proof of mailing, our applications for appeal, our deeds showing 16X7, LLCs, the owner of the property, and then our tax clearance certificate showing an amount due, but obviously it's not yet.
So, Jackie, I would just ask that you be sworn in and I have a few questions for you.
Sure, but just to be clear, but this is three different units.
It would be four.
For Airbnb?
Well, it's five, but we are agreeing to four.
It's right now configured as five.
All right.
All right.
State your name and spell for the stenographer.
Jackie Zong, J-A-C-K-I-E-Z-H-A-N-G.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Counsel?
All right.
So Jackie you heard everything I had to state today about your zoning matter is that correct? Yes
Um, and do you adopt as your own testimony? Yes. So the chairman had a question
About the the basement level at one point were you having individuals down there?
So the basement when I purchased it there was a full size window as egress and it's up to the code
we had the contractor measured it at that point i thought that we could people put people in the
basement and we had about five reservations with people in the basement and after that we stopped
currently it's used as storage gotcha and then we had a discussion about that front portion of
the property on the first floor that's that was the only thing that you converted into that you
converted and you converted that into a bedroom yes that's correct and then if the board feels
so inclined to grant this variance request you would agree to disband that bedroom area and
we put it back as a living room that's correct okay all right all right so mr chair i know it's
always difficult um i do think that there haven't i think she's been a responsible operator other
in a couple of hiccups i would ask that the board grant a temporary variance of two years to give
her an opportunity to prove herself and come back here again okay um so we'll questions from the
board yes so for the work that was done on the first floor did you pull a permit when you put
up that wall i did not did not and did anyone advise you like because i'm assuming at this
point you eventually had a manager involved.
Right. It was a non-load bearing wall. I didn't realize that we have to pull a permit
because there hasn't been any plumbing or electricity change, but we agreed to restore
but we agreed to put a you know restore it back to how it was for the egress window or the
it back to how it was.
the full-size window that you that's at the rear of the property i'm assuming to the
to the backyard that's correct to the backyard and it was like halfway tucked in so it's a walkout
yeah it's like a walkout window um i know that's my first my second question is what why did you
decide to do rent by the room instead of rent the whole property as it is on Airbnb? Because I
really care about the property and the neighborhood. If we rent by the room, it is two person per group
at one time. That way would prevent the party very, very effectively. You can never have a party in
there with some travelers coming in the city. And 60% of our travelers are foreigners. They don't
have a car they use public transportation we are only one block away from the broadway street
subway station so they don't even you know have a car coming in and we verify everybody's id
before letting them in the property so by room it's even though it's more work for us
comparing to one house however it really eliminates the parties eliminate the noise and
everything so we want to keep everything clean and easy okay and then um actually i think that's
i think that's my last question okay um can we see this floor plan
oh i didn't know another question was what's the average length of stay of most of the tenants
that are staying we have 2.5 to three days so most of the time during the weekdays it's empty
yeah and you're currently it's listed on the is it on airbnb specifically or is it
being advertised because we got allen they suggested us to take every listing down so
we're not listed anymore it's not listening but when it was listed you had listed on airbnb
or was it on any other websites it was on airbnb uh i think it was also on booking.com
look at that yeah and obviously these are not to scale this is just illustrative only yeah
this is my question so yeah what what are we talking about here um the first floor
it looks like is what a bedroom are these
it looks like these are more like single room residences than there are
um, what we traditionally see as an Airbnb. Um, usually they're like small apartments.
This is not what we're talking about here. Yeah. So let me just say the only thing that she's
changed when she purchased the property was to put this, and correct me if I'm wrong,
maybe this low wall, these walls right here. It's actually just the street wall. The other wall was
the partitioning wall to the basement yeah so that bathroom here that full-size bathroom was
already in there yeah that's correct and each of these bathrooms were in each of the bedrooms
were already in there so she bought it that way that's what i'm saying it's very difficult to
envision and she had proof of the so what is the what is the zoning for this cmx1 and it's right
No. I mean, was there some other kind of zoning applications or variances that were granted?
Because this is not like a single family dwelling.
This is like single room residences where you have somebody who has their bedroom and a little bathroom.
And other than that, there's nothing.
Well, except this was a living room at one point.
but I 100% agree with you. I haven't looked at the LNI file for some time in this, so I mean,
I can go on the Atlas really quickly. All I can tell, and yes, this was built like single room
residences. I 100% agree. And then what you're saying is that instead of having one, two, three,
four, five of these single room residences, now you're going to have four? That's right.
and that you want to operate them as an airbnb that's right okay so what's going to be changed
what's going to be removed where are we putting what how are we cutting this down to four of what
is still um from what i'm seeing on here single room residences not airbnb yeah i don't know why
things going on these people these people have to go out to eat these people have to go out
i mean if there's there's no kitchen there's no living room well there is a kitchen just a little
this there's no kitchen there's no living room well there is a kitchen just a little kitchen
kitchen well there is
well there is a kitchen and and that's why i suggest kitchen right here back here right here
the kitchen's here and that's for use of anybody who's in there again that's right like with single
room residences that's what you have you have like you know um no uh other amenities there's no real
living room well well that's what would happen here this wall would come down and then you would
recreate a living room it's not it's not dissimilar to a visitor accommodation where
you go to a hotel and there's an open area to sit and there is not dissimilar to a hotel where
you may have um like a little kitchenette area so i think i think it was a mistake to put this wall
here because then people don't have a place to stay um you know just generally as they don't
want to be in their bedroom but the bedrooms are rather large we took pictures we showed pictures
you say this is not to scale so well i know i know but that's why we took to show the pictures
of the different rooms like you can see this is one of the bedrooms that's a rather large bedroom
you know these are all the bedrooms and then the kitchen i do believe we have a picture of that as
well here's the kitchen so um so it's done well and like i said we didn't even add like i think
it's strange too that there's a bathroom here um you know it's not something you would expect
like in a row home in philadelphia like but i guess the question i have was was that bathroom
there when you purchased it was already yeah that's why i asked her i said so you were telling
me the only thing you put up was a wall because i thought the bathroom would be something that
be added like bathrooms so in every room yeah yeah i i noticed we have several people in the
back here ready to come up here and testify anybody else have a question i do have one more question
though um how are each of the bedrooms secured uh currently we have the like the uh keypad control
locks and the code will be sent to the guest once they send off uh send over their id and travel
And did you change the doors? So is it exterior solid core doors on each of the individual bedrooms? If we get the permit granted, we'll have to do that. Okay.
Could you ask your client to step back? There's going to a couple, a couple of people come up and testify. Any questions from our attorney?
Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions from the witnesses here. If anybody wants to come on and testify, come on.
hello okay so why don't we why don't we do this we're going to take the people that are
in the audience here first so why don't you come up first ma'am
now i see you have a lot of things with you we do have a policy
two minutes you get to your point and but we are open to letters so if you have a letter you can
drop it but your actual testimony should be two minutes and get to the point on what you think of
this project okay and and and if you would to state your name dupont last name spelled d-u
capital p-o-n-t do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
I do. Are you a neighbor? I am. I reside at 905 South 13th Street. Okay. I'm approximately one half block from this residence. And I've lived at my home since 1991. So I'm very familiar with the area and with this house, you know, the history of this house. Number one, let me, I'm going to read what I have here. There were a lot of things stated during the prior testimony that kind of contradict what
we've heard in the past. And also, you know, they contradict the meeting that was held with Hawthorne
Empowerment Coalition. So my house, as I said, is just about a half a block away. I am definitely
opposed to this property operating as a short-term lodging. I've lived directly next to an Airbnb
and encountered the issues that arise with that mounds of trash that were being disposed of in
in the yard that were then after complaint, they decided to store them in the basement that we then ended up with infestations of insects and rodents in the property flies coming over next door.
After we brought this issue, you know, to the owner's attention.
um later on things where they they actually did cease doing that but we went through a year of
constant parties there is no way for an owner to regulate what's going on when they're not there
There is no way for an owner to regulate what's going on when they're not there. So there was drinking, there was drugs, there were constant parties that spilled down onto the block. There was ongoing, frequent police activity calls to law enforcement as a result of how the property was being operated.
so there was drinking
I expect no less from this property. Our neighborhood is already impacted by the number of rentals causing serious parking issues. My block does not have restricted parking. However, some of the blocks surrounding or adjacent to me do.
Okay, which means that the folks on my block, we get permits because we can't park because the most of the folks who rent in the on the other blocks, either due to registration issues being out of state don't obtain them. So we really have a serious parking issue in our area.
With this property, they're proposing it's gone from six to five, and now today I hear they're talking about four.
We don't know what that's really going to look like.
Units in this facility online when they advertised or when they spoke to us before, I think they said they could have as many as four folks on the first floor, two in each of the rooms upstairs.
There could be anywhere from 12 to 15 people, potential people staying in this property.
there could be six or more cars that that that come to the area from this property because they
can't they can't control that folks are not going to come with the vehicle um what an investor
accomplishes by renting a property like this within the short-term lodging is that it allows
them to maximize their investment they can make the most they want out of this property without
having to go through or adhere to some of the laws and regulations that would apply if this
were regular rental parking being one of those those concerns um there's no need to supply
parking because it's a short-term lodging facility um so i strongly oppose this okay
i think we understand where you are okay and some of the issues that were discussed trash has been
a real real issue at this property the cleanup was only done after after the meeting with hawthorne
empowerment coalition it's been an ongoing issue at this property right um signage they mentioned
signage outside i don't know that signage is actually allowed um on a facility like this
outside um so you know some of the things that are being stated it's as if they're they're being
stated to respond to what happened at the meeting, but may or may not actually be taking place.
Okay. All right. Do you have any questions?
Do you want me to defer to respond?
Wait, wait, wait till everybody's.
Yeah, that's right.
Sir? Ma'am, thank you for coming in.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer?
sure uh jerry j-e-r-r-y last name kill kelly k-i-l-a-e-l-l-y right do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do i want to say the same thing to
you if you would yeah and and if you would try to concentrate on things that that yes this person
hasn't said so we're getting a yeah sure please proceed yes thank you i live about 170 feet away
FROM WHERE THIS RESIDENCE IS LOCATED, SO I HAVE SOME OBSERVATION I'LL SHARE WITH YOU.
I'M HERE FORMALLY TO OPPOSE THIS VARIANCE BEING GRANTED TO THEM.
THE FIRST THING I'LL TOUCH BASED ON IS THE APPLICANTS CLAIM.
OH, IS IT ON? OH, SORRY. I BAD. OKAY, MY BAD.
SO THE APPLICANTS CLAIM OF COMMUNITY SUPPORT FOR THIS PROJECT IS BASED ON A FLAWED SURVEY PROCESS.
THE RESIDENTS WERE ASKED TO SIGN A PETITION IN SUPPORT OF THE VARIANCE WITHOUT RECEIVING EITHER
written or oral explanation about what was going on in this property or what was being proposed for
it. And multiple residents who I have spoken to and myself actually met with the surveyor. And
during that course of that interview, when she came and asked us for her support to sign this
document, nothing was presented, nothing was described, other than a comment that, yeah,
we're going to operate like an Airbnb. So it was, in my opinion, highly unclear as to exactly what
was taking place with his property and for the people who signed as in support of this never
really understood what they were signing for so in my mind this whole survey that was conducted
here is essentially worthless when you don't tell people properly what you're doing
and going ahead and doing it uh in difference to to the community um in contrast i also went out
and did a survey and i have i have 39 signatures that were signed by our residents in the community
who are again opposed to it. I also prepared a draft statement of a handout that was presented
to those individuals who signed. We also had conversation in terms of explaining actually
We also had conversation in terms of explaining actually what we saw going on with the property, and after those things were done they went ahead and signed the petition.
what we saw going on with the property.
I think our petition really represents what the community thinks about this project and the people, the owner of this property in terms of his lack of her lack of care concern for this community.
so one last thing i want to hit on so we've been talking about the number of units that were
were proposed for this thing it was six then it went down to five so they cut it back somewhere
in between here where they they cut it because of the level of opposition here now we heard today
well we were cutting it back to four and you know quite frankly there's so many things that
have gone wrong with this from the owner's perspective in terms of how she operated and
didn't follow the rules and so many examples here and i still believe there's more but
But what I will focus on is that on bookings.com, we could go out there, we could see that there
were six units that were on there for sale, and we could see not only was it available
for two residents or two adults, but they also were accepting children to go into these
units as well.