ZBA Hearing - March 26, 2025

I just, obviously they have the same street name. So I get a little, I had to make sure I had the

bright exhibits up there. So, um, all right. So, um, like I said, um, I'm Jennifer, I'm representing

the property owner, uh, Shankar, uh, and he lives, uh, at this property, uh, with his wife and their

children and, uh, grandparents. So this is a multi-generational household that we're talking

about. Um, I've submitted exhibits. I'm just going to walk through a couple of them and then we're

going to hit the bus later, but we have the refusal. The only refusal is for parking in the

required front yard, which is going to be in the existing driveway. We have the deed showing

ownership and we have the proof of tax compliance. This is just the taxes that are owed at the end

of the month, but we're technically have a few more days. I believe their mortgage company will

be paying this um so but as a moment they are tax compliant so um i also submitted um

I also submitted letters of support from Somerton Civic, letters of support from a near neighbor,

letters of support from somerton civic letters of

a zoning map, a list of properties that have also done a similar garage conversion,

aerial views of the properties, photos, and plants. So let's just start off here by...

Sorry. Okay, so this is the property we're talking about on the left-hand side here.

This is 11249 Jeans Place, which is a little cul-de-sac in this neighborhood.

And it's a subdivision largely of homes that look remarkably similar to this, as we often find in Northeast Feli.

So the original designs of these homes, you can see next door, there was a garage with an entry door in the front.

And then towards the rear of the property is a living room, also on that ground floor.

At the time that my clients purchased this property, the garage was still in existence.

You could see here when there was a garage there.

And that is what the garage looked like.

As you can tell, it was being used for storage at that time as well.

So, like I said, this is a large multi-generational household living together.

of parents, grandparents and children, and they needed some additional space. And they saw that

a lot of other homes, including other homes on this cul-de-sac had converted the space

to additional living space. They did it without permits. They are homeowners and their contractor

did not tell them that they needed permits. And in September, October, 2024, they did get a

violation um for converting this garage space without permits um they immediately took action

hired um an architect hired me um as you can probably tell the the time that has elapsed is

not much since um last fall on this so they immediately began to address it um and they

submitted plans and they received one refusal um so these are the plans that they submitted and

the only refusal that they have is for parking in the required front yard. Technically, you need a

15-foot front yard here, and the driveway counts as that. So we are looking to, instead of having

this garage that was one parking spot that no one used anyway, because it was too small really for

car. We're actually providing permitting to off-street parking spots in the driveway. So

let me just go back to the photo here. Recently, as you can see, the neighbors who have a garage

are still parking in their driveway as well, which is pretty much common practice throughout

this neighborhood. So let me get to the list of properties. I'm just going to show you the area

we're talking about, I looked at, this is where my client's property is. And I kind of looked at

this little portion of the neighborhood with kind of these wiggling lines and going through

of Incurrent Connected. And in that area, there were 31 other properties that had done a similar

conversion of their garage space. And when you looked around the neighborhood, everyone had

cars parked in the garage. So we're not creating a condition that's unique to this property.

um and we're not creating something that the neighbors aren't familiar with um and honestly

if we use this space for an additional bedroom i believe the grandparents are living down on

that level at this point there is the family room in the back as well um

i'm sorry i lost my train of thought um but so we have additional space for the family to live in

um and we're really having no impact on the other neighbors because it's essentially maintaining

the same condition obviously any other work that would need to be done or you know anything that

needs to be done to bring into compliance in terms of getting permitting will be done and

if any alterations need to be made to bring it into compliance that's obviously going to be done

to clear the violations this is going to continue to be used as a single family home for this

multi-generational family um and would not be converted to a duplex or rented out to

any other people um let me just go here so then we did um we did meet with somerton civic

uh it was a pretty well attended meeting um and they voted uh 28 to 7 in favor um there was

absolutely no concerns raised about the loss of the garage and the parking in the driveway. I

think it was pretty much universally understood that this is already an existing condition,

This is already an existing condition. And the concern was that it would become a multifamily household, like a formal duplex or something like that, as opposed to a multigenerational household, which is not the case.

and the concern was that it would become a multifamily.

And we did have the family talk about that. There is a good reason to keep your generations of families together and care for each other, especially in times where we're facing increasing housing costs.

um so uh honestly they they voted this way uh they were in support of this as long as it was not

a duplex uh i would say as far as the hardship like again there's no other place to look we're

still providing more off-street parking than was previously permitted because that one garage spot

that wasn't used um it's the minimum variance necessary because we're still providing off-street

parking um we're not changing the use uh we won't harm any of our neighbors use of their property

or endangered public it's this is a pretty this is what was doing before and we're just going to go

through the permitting process to make sure everything's now code compliant um and it's not

going to increase congestion these people are all living there no matter whether this is a garage or

a family just makes it more comfortable for them to live in and again the only variance that we're

asking for is for that um is for use of um the driveway as parking instead of the garage um so

with that i would guess i would have my client come on and um adopt my testimony and then the

board can ask any questions jennifer before they come on could you explain what's inside on that

in the garage now i mean is there a kitchen is there a kitchen in there a bathroom so there is

a bathroom i can show you hold on one second let me get to the photos so this is what it was before

this is the rear room there and so now we have um we have a bedroom a washer and dryer and a bathroom

and there is like a little kitchenette um this is for the you know the older generation to be

able to cook their food as you can see it's connected into the main house um if that is an

obstacle to the approval, I understand, and we could talk about provisals for removing the stove,

but this is really just so that the elderly family members don't necessarily have to walk

up the stairs if they want to cook themselves breakfast or something like that. Questions from

the board? I think you may have answered it in your last statement. So there is access to the

upper levels still from the basement? Correct. This door right here, so in this picture here

on the right hand side this is the door that's in the front of the property and this is the door

that goes to the staircase that goes up to the main floor of the property and to the rear of

that is where there is a existing family room that's connected to the main part of the house

so there is a door in between but this is it's not walled off there's entrances it's meant to

circulate as a single family home. So question then people coming into the property walk through

this space. There is another entrance on on the side of the I don't have a floor plan of it

but there is another entrance on the side of the house to the main floor and all of these

properties have that so you can see kind of here let me just get to a better photo

um you can see here the stairs up to the side um there is an entrance to the lower floor and

there's an entrance up to the upper floor and that exists on all of these properties that wasn't

created by my that's the original floor plan of these buildings okay and then you said that um

There were 31 similar conversions in the surrounding areas.

How many of those, if you know, were legal conversions?

I looked, and some of them are, and some of them aren't.

It's definitely a mix.

The other one that's on this block was permitted.

Okay.

And this one was done without any.

Correct.

And just so you know, the other person on the block, I don't know if there's any neighbors in attendance here who had converted the garage, was at the community meeting and was in support of this as well, and was happy that they were now going to go through the process to just document everything they did.

Okay. Thank you.

Other questions from the board?

Questions from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?

Not at this time, Mr. Chair.

Questions from the audience or the virtual audience?

i see no hands planning commission can i just have my client adopt my testimony

i sure sure yeah can you raise your hand please uh in the virtual audience so you can be promoted

can you hear me yes sir could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer

my first name is shunkor and last name is kimat s-h-u-n-k-o-r and last name k-h-i-m-m-a-t

do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth

i do please proceed counsel um did you hear my testimony here today and believe it to be truthful

and accurate yes i did and i do believe that it's true and accurate great and would you adopt it as

your own yes great thank you planning commission thank you chairman and good morning david fecto

with the city planning commission chairman and board members the comprehensive plan recommends

no change to the rsa2 residential single-family zoning at this location the city rezoned this

neighborhood in 1978 the appellant converted the garage into a living space without the benefit of

permits the condition of parking in the driveway instead of in the garage is a common situation in

this block face so the proposal matches the character of the other homes the city planning

commission recommends that the board grant the proposed use variance for accessory off-street

parking in the required front yard um jennifer we're gonna we're gonna hold this to next week

and okay along with the next case and we'll definitely vote on this at 9 30 a.m next

wednesday okay great thank you why don't we move on to your next case so that's mi2024

007 029 11212 gene street

let me just and you have the support of the somerton civic association also non-opposition

from council member o'neill correct um so um mike oh do you want to ask me the questions for this

one too the um our our vice chair will gladly issue the questions but i'm sure it'll be the

same answers it is the same answers but you know i don't want it i don't want there to be a bad

record you know good morning counselors do you agree to wait to read another refuse or stipulate

to its accuracy yes i do have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits as needed to

proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing yes thank you counsel please proceed

great so um i'm here today on behalf of the property owner um i am metawali i'm sorry i

butchered that name um i also um on the call i also have uh ahmed who is his son and also a

resident of the property um so again we have another it's very similar circumstances so i

won't go into grueling detail with you um but i'm just going to show you again the refusal for

parking in the front in the front yard required front yard you can see the ownership here of the

property purchased in 2021 and similarly we have the just this year's taxes that are owed

by the end of the month and the letter of non-opposition from the councilman's office

and a letter of support from somerton civic so um i also submitted uh in addition um

um the proposed deed restriction from the civic association which we'll get to um six letters of

support from near neighbors including um the two neighbors on either side of them and the two

neighbors across the street from them uh the same list of nearby properties with similar conversions

aerial views of the property photographs and plants so uh let's go to here so this is um as

can see very similar property to the one we were talking about before uh it's an existing three

story home um in a subdivision of pretty much identical homes you can also see the side entrance

to this property um how these are set up easier on this photo because it's not on the curve um

so at the time again instead of the same way that there was a front facing garage an entryway and

And then in the rear was a was a there's there's what it looked like before.

And you can see here that you had the entryway and then there was the garage off to the side.

And this was the family room towards the rear of the property.

You have the same setup where you have access to the rest of the living space.

This door had been there before, too, just to block off the garage area.

but so you see that and then this is what it looks like now you see you have the bedroom

and they renovated the family room you have a little kitchenette and bathroom and those are

the stairs you can see those are the stairs to upstairs connected to this area as well

so similarly this is a large multi-generational household that was looking to have a little more

household um that was looking to have a little more space and converted their garage into living

space and

space um and in october of 2024 received the violation and immediately began the process to

correct this um hired me hired architects moved on with the process uh similarly received a with

the plans received a refusal for required for parking in the required front yard and there's

no proposed changes to the existing driveway and as you can see even in the plan photos

the neighbors are parking in their driveway even with a garage spot as well similar small

garages that aren't commonly used for parking and more commonly used for storage or other purposes

um and as you can see too and here there's no other location on this property where we could

locate the parking other than in the required front yard um let me ask you is there room there

for two cars because the front of this property is different than the other one right sure um i

believe if you pull them like so this is the plans that they submitted and i believe that if you pull

them like closely together there is it's much tighter on this one um but there is room if you

pull all the way over and all the way over um so um let's see lost my train of thought here so again

we're still providing off-street parking uh and essentially parking the car where the cars would

have been anyway uh but allowing for more living space for this multi-generational family uh again

this is common for the neighborhood we have a list of 31 properties within this section of

this neighborhood that have similar conversions um we did uh again this is a single family home

meant for single family living uh we do have uh with access to all residents have access to all

spaces here um it isn't walled off in any way if you went you could enter one or the other they

both have the same you know entrance abilities um for both doors um no there's no exact additional

proposed changes and uh building permits would be obtained cleared violations and a certificate of

occupancy obtained uh we met with somerton civic um let me just let me just show you again these

were prior to meeting with the civic i asked um for uh ahmed to go out and reach out to his neighbors

um this is 11 11 210 which is not the adjoining attached parcel but they it's the one next to it

they're in support and this is the actual attached twin um and they are also in support

um and we also 12 1 1 2 1 5 and 1 1 2 this is further down but 1 1 2 1 7 are the two properties

across the street those are the most affected um somerton civic um it devoted a little bit

differently on this one and the only reason i can think is that they went first um and then

maybe had more questions um because we presented it at the same time so again the only real issue

brought up was what concerns over um two family use of the property sorry i'm losing my place here

and that is for this one we agreed that they would sign a deed restriction that the property

could not be used as a two-family dwelling now or in the future which they were okay with signing

as it is what they intend to do with the property anyway. It's zoned single family and they only

want to use it for their family. So this is I submitted the proposed restriction and we agreed

with the um civic association that what they would do is that um you know we would sign this after

the variance was granted uh and there wasn't an appeals filed we would sign this and record this

um and we didn't have my client does not have opposition to that

um and so again just with that we have a property where the cars are already being parked

um in the front yard um so this is a pretty much uh existing condition you can you can see in the

overhead view actually how many cars are parked um in in driveways already um minimum variance

because again we're just trying to get part we're providing the same or more parking off