the switchback staircase for the home is located approximately here
let me ask you a question another question this the staircase that you're showing on the left
yes says up and then the staircase takes you all the way to the roof deck
you come out the sliding door right here couldn't you put a spiral staircase in close by
Well, let's say we did that. Let's say we put a spiral here. We still have the problem with the five-foot roof deck setback because we can't – the only place we could theoretically put a staircase or a spiral is here.
Because if we do the five-foot setback on that roof deck, we chop off a ton of available space for access.
And then we have to rearrange the entire interior, which is possible, right? We prefer not to.
And spiral staircases, as I've said before, I don't like being on them and they're difficult to get up and down.
I have one on my roof deck. I understand that. My point, I'm just, I'm trying to, I still can't figure out why you couldn't put a spiral staircase somewhere in close proximity to the glass sliding doors.
Because it's impossible to fit it and still comply with a five foot setback chair. That's why.
So if we do a five-foot setback for this, just this portion, which I'm indicating in pink, I'm going to change my colors up, because this is the only portion where we got our refusal, right?
Just this.
The other one, this roof deck up here, we're set back and we're good to go.
This is the area we have to deal with.
So if we're cutting five feet off of that, because we front two streets, because our house is really strangely shaped, it's trapezoidal, we have to cut off five feet this way, which is that much, okay?
And let's do approximately that much.
I have to kind of measure with my fingers here.
You have to cut off five feet.
So this is Thompson.
I'm going to indicate that with a T.
Orkney, I'm going to indicate with an O.
Orkney is one way this way.
That's heading north westwardly approximately.
Thompson is one direction this way, heading eastwardly approximately.
Parking is on the north side of the street here only, I believe.
There's no parking allowed here.
The street's very narrow.
But people tend to park all over the place, and it's very dangerous, unfortunately, with the way people park here.
So getting back to your point, Chair.
So here's our five-foot setback here, indicating for the record the number five, indicating the five-foot setback, measuring the same setback as here because it's all five feet.
So I'm just kind of copying that.
We then set also five feet here.
It's approximately this, right?
In fact, let me do a line, and I'll just move the line so we can show actually exactly why this is impossible for us to do with this if we're looking to keep the massing down and to keep our neighbors – oops, I messed that up a little bit, but okay.
That's approximately 5 feet 10, members of the board.
I'll make it even a little bit smaller just so nobody is going to accuse me of trying to exaggerate the issue here because it raises a real problem.
So this is about five feet set back, okay? So we have the five foot here. I'm going to change my
color to something different, new and different. How about light green? That allows us, oh no,
That allows us, oh, no, I don't want that, draw, line, format, light green, cool.
I don't want that. Draw.
So that allows us from here, oh, come on, line, do your thing.
Here is where we could put our, that reduces our available five-foot setback roof area.
and i'll uh draw mine
i can't color it in but i wish i could um this is all we are left with as a by right area to put a
spiral staircase members of the board i'm going to draw a square above on the landing where we're
seeing up okay so in fact let's just do this i don't know what the circumference of a spiral
staircase is but i think it's greater than three feet so this is they come in various sizes you can
do three foot you can do four foot they're various sizes so let's say it's three feet um so for
purposes of the record i have now drawn a circle a green circle with a circumference of approximately
three feet because this staircase is three feet wide so this is all we get for that spiral
staircase all right i'm gonna move this oh that's the line forget about that i'm gonna move this
circle. I'm going to try to move the circle. Come on, buddy. There we go. Okay. So where do we put
that spiral staircase that is going to work? And frankly, Chair, I think it has to be bigger than
three for something like this, because three feet is so tiny. I'm sitting at a three-foot.
Excuse me, Leo. Excuse me, Leo. Relocate your sliding door that is in the living room.
Okay. Mr. Holloman, I'm happy to take suggestions, but where would you recommend that we do that?
with respect to this design only because i'm not an architect so from my understanding of this
and if mr um villa's on the line he'll be happy to explain why that is very difficult to do from
his design perspective um let's say we even if we put the three foot spiral staircase here assuming
we can get a three foot which i think is impossible to do only because i'm sitting at a three foot
square table right now and i've never seen a spiral staircase this small i think i think they're
generally at least five or six feet so you can come to my house i have a three foot oh is that
are you inviting me over for dinner that's wonderful i'll bring a bottle of wine so let's
say we put this this spiral staircase here which we don't want to do because spirals are as a chair
knows spirals are interesting and finicky to deal with and then mr leo mr leo in the living room
you have a sliding door yes relocated right well that's what i'm saying to be passed to be passed
of spiral stairs well that's that's what i'm saying mr holliman so here what our spiral staircase
is indicated draw i'm going to do this in a different color now let's try red i believe
and do not you know don't hold me on this we'll do it for reference in a second i think this is
the location of the of the thing of the door i think that's it or thereabouts nevertheless so
you'd open the door you come out this way what we'd have to do for purpose of design is then we'd
have the world's tiniest little landing. So say we go here. How does a person, considering this is
three feet, so this is, I don't know, 16 inches maybe? Take the door, take the slide door further
up. Okay, so let's say we move it here, right? Past the spiral stairs. Okay, but that's assuming
that we can even get a three-foot spiral, and I don't know that we can, but this is all
speculative at this point. So maybe you could open the door and then walk directly up the
maybe three-foot spiral stair, which is not ideal. And then we go real tight here, right?
But the point that I'm trying to understand, members of the board, and the reason is this
seems like a whole lot of hullabaloo over something that's almost academic when it comes to the reason
for the zoning refusal because theoretically we could do all of this right but this really
changes the design it makes this outdoor space really difficult to navigate um for anybody with
i don't know a disability like walking with a cane or crutches or things like that which was
something i've learned uh had to do the last few weeks recovering from hernia surgery and it was
This is the hardship here because it becomes so tight for us to design this in accordance with the strict confines of the zoning code in a way that's actually feasible.
I mean, we can do it on paper.
With all due respect, Mr. Mulvivell, I think that might be a better question to be answered by the architect.
yes possibly it is and i'm not sure if mr if rich is on i can try to send him yeah because
Yes, possibly it is.
And I'm not sure if Rich is on.
I can try to send him a tackle.
we're going to get move on with this case we may have to resume it but let's i'm trying to get it
done rich if you're on the line will you please raise your hands i'll text you if you aren't
mr villa you have to unmute yourself and you can speak all right rich all right say your name
spell your last name and give your address for the record mr villa richard villa v-i-l-l-a
Thank you.
Mr. Bill, you swear and affirm to tell you the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I assume you've been listening to our questions?
I have.
Could you help us out?
Is there a way in which we can get, I guess, a spiral staircase in there that's adequate by relocating, as Mr. Holloman asked, relocating it further up?
The sliding glass door is rather further up.
uh there is not a way to have a legal width spiral staircase which i'm guessing your house
probably doesn't have to share oh be careful about that it was done third it was done 25 years ago
yeah so let me if you don't mind rich i'm just going to control the questioning for a little
bit to keep the record clear uh rich i've never seen a legal three-foot spiral staircase used in
new construction what is the legal size of a spiral staircase these days if you're doing the
by building code to clear with at and below the handrails at spiral stairs shall not be less than
26 inches okay so what does that mean for purposes of the circumference that means you would have
26 40 it's uh uh 42 or sorry 52 inches plus you need the column in the middle so the column in
the middle is probably about six inches so we're talking like 58 58 inches give or take in terms
same five foot around you could say five feet right so if you imagine a five foot diameter
circle uh in that space it just sort of doesn't work it doesn't fit within the five foot it
doesn't doesn't fit outside of the five foot uh setback so the idea with this was that
the putting this putting the stair axis where it is um you know as the as you go up the stairs it's
very not visible from thompson street and then it's visible from orkney but it you know the
entire roof deck itself is set back um from the from the street and there is no pilot house so
that was really the the play here that this roof deck does not affect the later air of the neighbors
uh it really affects the latent air of the fourth floor deck i get that i think we're just trying
to figure if there's a way and removing one of the refusals by incorporating a different type
staircase that's that was my only purpose so i guess rich can we can we unless we put the
staircase in the house and put a big pilot house on top that's going to affect the air and lay of
the immediate neighbor which is as i recall their primary concern i'm pulling up the letter we'd
received from old kemsington is there a way to do that legally under the zoning code i don't think
there is but you not in this configuration and i really and i i you know i don't like to i'd like
to have as few uh refusals as possible so this one i knew was going to happen but i tried to make it
as the minimus as i could right and is there so there's no way that you can legally as you think
of it under the zoning code to design the roof deck that that fronts on orkney and fronts on
um i'm sorry i was gonna say master but i knew that was wrong uh there's no way you can do that
under the code right it's impossible you it would something would stick out into the five feet
into the five feet uh setback right would you call that a hardship i mean you're not a lawyer
but would you call that a hardship in terms of you designing that?
In its current configuration, yes.
But yes.
I submit to the board, and I shouldn't say that.
I hate when lawyers say that.
I suggest members of the board that that's a design hardship due to the size and shape and configuration of the lot.
And anything that we try to do, based on my testimony and the testimony of Mr. Villa,
who has spent many months on this project, and we've talked about it a lot,
We did our best to design this so it wouldn't affect the neighbors in any appreciable way,
and any design that we would change will affect them more. And there's no way under the zoning
code to do it without making a big pilot house that's tall and is going to bother the neighbors,
which is what we did not want to do. I have an opposition letter from Ms. Jones. I guess they're
they're echoing the concerns by Old Kensington Neighbors Association. I'm not sure whether
Ms. Moss is on, but this is what I have to say about that meeting. We had an original meeting
with Ms. Moss and her organization over Zoom several months ago, I believe. I don't remember
the date. Don't remember the date. Irrespective, we talked with the neighbors and talked with Ms.
Moss. Most of the concerns that were brought up had nothing to do with zoning. They did bring up
concerns about the height of the property. We tried to explain the height of new construction
and the fact that our building had less mass
and less overall ability to block the sunlight
and less overall ability to block the sunlight than any of the new construction in the area.
than any of the new construction in the area.
What else? They were concerned about the side alley. And I guess, Mr. Villa, if you want,
we can change that design to eliminate that refusal and then kind of have a weird dog
leg where we can put the elevator. But we didn't want to do that either because we wanted to have
the ability from that alleyway to access the rear yard for purposes of egress. It's like an emergency
egress situation there. So it makes the property less safe if we were to build out in that dogleg
area right past the 21-foot alleyway, which the neighbors share have rights to. It also makes the
house closer to the neighbors, which we're trying to avoid because we do not wish to interfere with
their light and air, which is the theme here. The other concerns had to do with the deck on
orkney street but there are no neighbors on that corner who would have to worry about that and the
deck itself as i stated are uh is really too small to use for entertainment that's why we have the
stairs there to go to the top um i now have in front of me members of the board my um letter from
old kensington neighbors association which i will share at this moment as soon as i can get rid of
all these scribbles. One moment, please. All right, let's make this the big one. Let's make
sure I don't have any dumb tabs open. Nope, I don't. Okay, so there's no client stuff up. There's
just this. Let's go over this letter. So this is a letter dated January 6th. I don't know why it's
dated January 6th, since our first meeting was on December 8th. That's the meeting we attended
and agreed not to have a vote that night and come back. The next meeting was January 26th at 6 p.m.
That is not correct. I signed on to the meeting before 6 p.m. via Zoom. At 6.07 approximately,
I sent an email to Ms. Moss indicating that if the meeting did not start by 6.10, I was leaving
because it was a waste of my time. And we came back to the RCO as a courtesy because we are not
required to enter the zoning code if we have one meeting and the RCO chooses not to vote,
which is what happened. At 6.17, I'd sent another email, if I recall, where I said,
I am leaving. This is disrespectful to my time, to my client's time. If I recall correctly,
Ms. Suleta was copied on each of these exchanges. When Ms. Moss responded, my recollection is that
she did not copy Ms. Suleta on the exchange, but I made sure that Ms. Suleta was aware of what was
going on. At 6.27, approximately, I think I received a text or an email from the adjacent
neighbor. I believe her name is Jessica. I keep wanting to call her Rachel, but I don't think
that's correct. Saying, we're ready. We're waiting for you. And then Ms. Moss said, we're waiting for
you. And I said, I'm not coming back. You wasted half an hour of my time. You wasted half an hour
of my client's time. I was sitting there waiting for the meeting to start. And we were doing a
courtesy to the community because we're trying to plan this in a way that would help them out.
We reached out independently to Jessica to try to talk with her. My clients reached out by
themselves without me involved, because usually I don't like to get attorneys involved, especially
in neighbor issues where my clients will be living directly next to these people, and we don't want
to have bad blood. And when you get attorneys involved, sometimes things get complicated and
silly very quickly. They'd refuse to meet with my clients. They later hired Mr. McElhatton. Again,
I do not know if he's on the line. I asked Mr. McElhatton repeatedly what their client's
objections were. Their position was, we echo the concerns of the RCO, which is super not helpful
when I'm trying to work with the neighbor to design something that's amenable to them.
So ultimately, it seems as though there is just objection to this altogether, and an objection
to new construction, especially one that does not excavate, that has taken into great consideration
the neighbors, air, light, open space. And even though it's asking for a little bit more height,
with the design is actually shorter than what would be allowed if my client went 38 feet by
right with a roof deck and a pilot house. It was very frustrating to do that. So let's talk about
what this meeting said. I don't know when this vote took place. I actually, while I was having,