That'd be great. I appreciate that.
So, counsel, this will have a resumptive hearing on 10-14-25 at 9.30 a.m.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, everybody. Appreciate your time and effort today.
Thank you. And, Ms. Johnson, thank you.
Number 10, MI2025-000482-2532-34 East Allegheny Avenue.
Zen Jin is the attorney.
There's a letter of unanimous support from the Southport Richmond Civic Association,
15 votes total, and a letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squillin.
Good morning.
Good morning, Council. Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yes, my name is Zen Jin, Z-H-E-N, last name J-I-N, here on behalf of the applicant.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
Yes, my client is KCJ Investment LLC, the owner of the property.
Right. Do you waive the reading of the refusal and do you agree with its accuracy?
Please start your presentation.
Thank you. I'm going to share with the board what was previously submitted.
Can the board see my presentation on their screen?
We can.
Thank you.
So this is an application for use of the second floor of an existing building as a single additional residential household living unit.
household living unit. There's an existing pharmacy on the first floor. There's no change
There is an existing pharmacy on the.
to that existing use. The zoning district of the property is RSA 5, triggering a refusal
based on more than one principal use in the property. However, I want to show the photograph
first to the board to better understand what we're looking for. So this is the building in question
that we are seeking the additional unit above.
As you can see, this is on the corner of Allegheny Avenue
and is part of many buildings of similar types on these corners,
which traditionally are commercial mixed-use buildings.
We're not sure why it is zoned RSA 5.
As you can see, it's not even structured in an RSA 5 format.
This building is actually combined of two lots.
There's, again, the existing retail pharmacy
that's been there for some time, and then what we're really here for today is to ask the board's
permission to permit this entire second floor to be used as a single additional household living
unit. The commercial side faces Allegheny Avenue. The residential side would actually enter
off of Allegheny, not directly from Allegheny, and have their own direct entrance to the second
floor. And this is again the side entrance where the residents would enter. The upper floor is
currently vacant and has not been renovated. It will be fitted out per the plans and according
to code requirements. Once fitted out, the plan is to allow it to be used again as a single
residential unit. Jumping to the plans. This is the existing front and side elevation. Here we
have the proposed layout for the residential unit. Again, there's an existing stair that will
lead up into the unit. And then you have restroom, HVAC room here. The kitchen and living area
essentially is one large and part of one side of the former two lots in the top. Then you have
access to your bedrooms. There are a total of three that are designed in the layout. So living
room, kitchen, bedrooms, they're basically natural lighting to all rooms because of the way this
building is situated. So there are windows here, windows here, here for each of the bedrooms,
multiple windows for this one bedroom. Also the living room, kitchen, and bathroom all have their
own natural lighting. Again, because it's being renovated now, it'll be up to all the latest code
requirements when it comes to fire safety, including means of egress or any fire retardant
requirements to make sure that the residents can exit safely. The business downstairs would
continue to operate and there would be no change to that particular use. The community unanimously
supported our request. They understand that these buildings, particularly on Allegheny Avenue,
the second floors tend to be residential, whereas the first floor would be commercial in nature.
They have no issue with adding one unit. There would be no real impact of parking or any of those
items that normally would be of concern, adding additional residents to the area.
So that is essentially our request. It is two primary uses because, again, the zoning is RSA-5 and only would permit normally a single family dwelling. But again, the commercial use is pre-existing prior to our request for the residential unit.
I'm happy to answer any questions from the board. And I believe the representative of my client's company is also here to verify my testimony.
Why don't you have your testimony adopted, so bring that rep on.
Richard, can you please kindly raise your hand virtually to be identified?
Richard Tang.
Good morning, sir.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
Yeah, good morning.
My name is Richard Tang, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-T-A-I-N-G.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I am.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Richard, did you see my presentation before the zoning board on your screen and hear my testimony?
Can you verify what I have represented to the zoning board is true and correct and adopted as your own testimony?
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Question.
the bedrooms
The bedrooms in the, are there, there are two bathrooms in this?
in the are there
Yes, there are two bathrooms in this unit.
One is, yes.
Yeah, so I guess my question is, so the one bathroom number two is, I guess, for use by bedroom number three.
Correct. It's essentially a master bedroom bath setup.
Right. But one and two, the bathroom is way over to the side here. It says existing bathroom number one. I didn't know whether there was a plan to put a bathroom somewhere between these two bedrooms.
I believe it's existing only in the sense the piping and the in the past there was piping already for bathroom in that location.
Right. So the question is, was there some plan to make it?
So I guess I just had this problem when you have bedrooms and you got to walk through half the property to get to to a bathroom.
In all fairness to the bedrooms, because this property, the way the layout, these are actually, this wall here, because it was formerly part of the structural wall, because it's a combination of two properties, it's very hard to make more openings than what is done here to allow the access.
So it's a little difficult. And I believe the plumbing, because of the existing business downstairs, to put new plumbing through here or routing them to try to get a bathroom in is also difficult.
Gotcha. So that's why the bathrooms are where they are, where the commercial use is downstairs.
Yes. The commercial use takes up the entire downstairs. So any renovations, we have to give consideration to that business.
All right. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from the board?
Questions or comments from our attorney? Not at this time, Mr. Chair.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair. Planning Commission. Thank you, Chairman, and good morning. David
Fecto with the City Planning Commission. Chairman and board members, the comprehensive plan
recommends a change in zoning at this location from RSA 5 residential single family to CMX 2
commercial mixed use. The city rezoned this neighborhood in 2003. At that time, this property
was zoned R10A, today's RSA 5, and has been zoned for residential use since 1933. The proposal for
multiple principal uses appears to be a previously approved condition. The City Planning Commission
recommends that the board grant or propose to use variants for multiple principal uses.
Thank you. MI 2025-00482, 2532-34 East Allegheny Avenue, I vote yes.
Michael Johns, my vote is yes.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes.
Ryan McAdams, my vote is yes.
Iowan, my vote is yes.
Thank you. Thank you, Kathleen.
Number 13, MI 2025, 000536, 1942, South Kimmack Street.
Jennifer Brazillo is the attorney.
There is unanimous support from East Passion Civic Association, 12 votes,
and letter of non-opposition from Council Member Squillin.
Hello.
Good morning, Council.
Good morning.
Could you please state your name and spell for the sonographer?
Jennifer Bazidlow, B-A-Z-Y-D as in dog, L-O.
All right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, their relationship to this property?
My client is Latita Lenore Green, and she is the property owner and occupant.
All right.
Do you waive the reading on the refusal?
Do you agree with its accuracy?
Will you start your presentation?
All right.
So, as I said, I'm here on behalf of both the property owner and occupant.
This is her primary home.
She goes by Lenore Green.
I also have today with me the architects for the proposed project, which are G-Space architecture, if we wind up feeding them.
I'm just going to briefly run through our exhibits so we have the refusal our
only refusal is a dimensional refusal for occupied area at the second floor
for occupied area at the second floor level we'll come back to this deed showing that miss green is
level we'll come back to this
the owner of the property um that she has paid her taxes here's our letter of unanimous support
from both um the board members and the community members um zoning map just kind of showing where
we are some views of the property we'll come back to what's relevant here um here's our posting
that the property is properly posted see some photos we're definitely going to come back and
talk about the layout of these existing bedrooms right now um and then we also have our plan
so let's just go back to the beginning here and i would like to have all those exhibits in the
record so um 1942 south camac it's a relatively small parcel uh with a relatively small home on
it. The parcel itself is 14 by 49 feet, approximately 640 square feet total, and it's
zoned for single-family use, and we're not proposing to use it for anything other than a
single-family use. The existing home is about 840 square feet, and we're not making a substantial
change to that. However, the minor change we are proposing will provide the homeowner with
a massively increased efficiency of use on the existing second floor.
So Lenore bought this home in May of 2024, and she absolutely loves it, and she loves
her community, and she's looking to make this minor addition so that the house is functional
for her, and she can stay in it long term.
So as Lenore told me when we were first discussing this project, the second floor of her home
currently has very little bedroom and a lot of hallway. So let me explain what that means.
So in this photo here, you can see you come up the stairs to the second floor.
You're immediately met with this window. When you go to the front of the property,
that's where she has her primary bedroom. But if you turn to the right, you get this hallway.
And from this hallway, there are three doors. You can see two of them in this photo to the right,
where you have the rear bedroom
that basically only fits a bed and nothing else.
You can see the bed occupying that whole bedroom there
and this small bathroom as well.
There's a couple more photos.
This is her primary bedroom at the front of the property.
And right now, this is the only functional room
that would meet current code compliance standards.
And you may notice this little portal in this photo.
that goes to her third room that has no window access is very tiny has this portal window to
her main bedroom and the only light is from a skylight and so we really have two non-functioning
rooms for her and a really tiny bedroom in an entire second floor that again winds up being
a lot of hallway and very little usable space. So what our proposal here is to use this space
between these two properties, which is behind that window you saw. One second, I'm so sorry.
So when you first come up, you saw that window in this photo up here, right? Come up the stairs,
this is window there's an open space in between this property and the property next door and by
filling this in we're going to get a much more functional layout so let me go to the plans here
and zoom in for you so by hold on let me i'm just trying to get to the right part of the plan
one second. So by adding an additional space here, what it allows is for there to be more rooms and
less hallways. So we take that space, we fill it in, and we create a door to this rear bedroom. So
now we have room for a bed and to move around. It's a functional guest room for Lenore's family
to come and visit her and stay in. We have a functional bathroom layout as well with a little
more space and turning radius um and we're also able to move this door next to the primary bedroom
which she's planning on using as her dressing room as you know an extended closet area
so as you can see by adding this this pretty small um it's you know a little less than 11
than 12 feet by by four feet right around there um we're able to have a very amazing transformation
of the functionality of her second floor and kind of move it to what we see as a more traditional
layout of a row home from what it was with just a lot of winding hallways and tiny spaces without
a lot of room um so um just so we
um so um just so we note there is a there's no third floor expansion plan this is all done within
the second floor um there is going to be a green roof uh roof deck added um but even with that
addition of the pilot house we are well under height for the property i think it's about it's
under 32 feet to the top of the, um, to the pilot house. Uh, and the pilot house is in the middle