ZBA Hearing - May 17, 2023

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Questions from the board?

No, Mr. Chairman.

questions or comments from the virtual audience

i see no handshare planning commission thank you chair bergman and good morning david effecto with

the city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential

single family zoning at this location the applicant has shown that the property has a

history of multi-family use however the applicant has not shown why ground floor commercial is

required to permit the applicant to derive value from this property the city planning commission

recommends the board grant the variance for two dwelling units but deny the variance for ground

floor commercial use thank you hillary your uh your your variance needed for personal services

uses you yes so mr chair i was i was a little unclear because it there was a variant from what

i could tell previously requested for personal services and it was denied according to the

refusal. So it appears that there should have been a variance listed for personal services

on the refusal in this case, but it was not listed. So I think we can safely assume that

was an error and that a variance is needed in this case for personal services. Mr. Jin, do you agree?

Yes. In fact, personal services is mentioned on the application part of the refusal,

but it's and it was refused as one of the principal additional principal use uh so yeah

so we do that was part of the request from the original application yes

yeah so we do that was part of the request from the original application thank you yes

mi 2022 006 996 1400 south a street i vote yes revised plans two pages stamped by zba may 17 2023

James Snell, my vote is yes with provisos.

Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with provisos.

Thank you, counsel.

Thank you.

All right.

Number four, MI 2022-005-910-4340 by Burry Road.

Carrie Nash

passed as the attorney

no RCO meeting held

the coordinating RCO

Millbrook Civic

Associations was unresponsive

to a request for meeting

case was continued on

2-20-23

Councilman O'Neill's office became involved

applicant sent a second mailing on 517 for for the 517 hearing

counsel mr naspas has mr or mrs naspas has been promoted all right good morning

hi could you state your name please and spell for the court reporter yes good morning my name is

Carrie Nase, N-A-S-E, PAUST, P-O-U-S-T, attorney with the law firm of Fox Rothschild,

here this morning on behalf of the owner and applicant of the property.

You swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Yes, I do.

Could you identify the applicant and their relationship to the property?

Uh, yes, the applicant is, um, sorry, I have the name here. It's a single purpose entity.

Right. Safe store Byberry LLC. They are the owner of the property.

And our vice chair has just a few questions. Sure.

Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?

Yes, I do.

Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?

Yes, we have.

Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.

Thank you.

Can you see my screen?

We can.

Sorry, here, let me.

There. You can see the exhibits?

Yeah.

Okay, great. Thank you. As you indicated, this property is located at 4340 Byberry Road.

It is bounded by Woodhaven Road and Byberry Road.

We have submitted our exhibits. We have here a copy of our notice of refusal.

which is here we have a copy of the application of appeal the project information form deed to

the property showing the owner of the property having standing we were unable to secure the tax

clearance certificate but we did provide a printout from the tax center showing that

that taxes are paid in full. As indicated previously, this hearing was scheduled for

February 22, 2023, and we had reached out to the RCO to try to schedule a meeting. Those

requests went unresponded. The day of the hearing, back in February, we did receive

a call and email from the RCO from Millbrook requesting information regarding the proposed

signs. We provided that information to them, agreed to continue the hearing until today.

We still had not had a meeting scheduled with the RCO. We did send out the proper notices. We've

included a copy of the certificate of mailing, but we were not able to secure a letter from the

RCO since the public meeting was not held. I will advise this property previously was subject to

a use variance and received zoning approval last year. During that time, we did meet with the RCO,

so they are familiar with the property, the project, the self-storage facility,

and at that time, we did receive a letter of non-opposition from them.

And at that time, we did receive a letter of non-opposition from them.

We also have here as Exhibit 6 a copy of our zoning notice.

Let's see.

Our notices to surrounding neighbors.

We have a photograph of the zoning notice confirming that the property was properly posted.

Also here, you'll see these are photographs of the property and the existing self-storage

building.

As I indicated, we received zoning approval last year.

The building has been constructed and is open and operating here on Byberry.

This view here you'll see is looking down Byberry Road from the corner of Woodhaven

and Byberry.

Here's an aerial.

as you'll see, the property is kind of tucked in here. It's bounded by Woodhaven Road. You would

then come off into Franklin Mill Circle, and it's down along Byberry. This part of Byberry Road is

actually not through, so people would come in here. What's being proposed today is an application

for the signage on the building. So, the prior zoning approval did not include signage. This is

the approved zoning plan. You can see here the self-storage facility. This is Byberry Road. This

is Woodhaven Road. There's stormwater management, and then you have two parking lots.

This plan here, a rendered copy of the plan, will show we have a freestanding sign that's in this

location. This is important to properly identify the location of the property given its location

and the limited traffic that comes down by very. Also included as exhibit is the sign plans.

This plan here just identifies the various plans. So D is where the freestanding sign would be and

then we do have wall signs that are being proposed on the building. This is an elevation of the

building, again, showing where the wall signs would be located. So we received a notice of

refusal due to the fact that this property is actually zoned residential. It's zoned RSA 1.

However, it is surrounded by commercially zoned and commercially used properties.

It was also, as I indicated, approved for a commercial use.

However, the signage does not comply with the residential standards since those standards are lesser in order to minimize impacts of surrounding residential neighbors.

However, the proposed signage does in fact comply with the ICMX zoning district.

Here we're proposing a wall sign that is approximately 183 square feet in size.

Under the RSA district, we are only allowed to have 15 square feet per lot frontage.

so we did receive a refusal for those signs. We also received a refusal due to the maximum

allowable wall sign height. Under the RSA district, your wall site is not permitted to exceed

the second floor windowsill. As you can see here, it actually is at the third floor windowsill.

Again, it's important to have this size of a wall sign and the height of the wall sign

so that people traveling down Woodhaven Road have the ability to identify and properly recognize

the building and then make the proper traffic maneuvers in order to get off the ramp and come

into the property. This is just a larger scale of what the wall sign will look like.

this is a copy of the uh what the freestanding sign will look like as i indicated this would

be on the corner um up by uh byberry road this uh sign is proposed to be 20 feet in height

this is actually consistent with what the surrounding properties currently have uh there

is a NTB tire store next to us, and this is actually the same height as their freestanding

sign. However, in the RSA district, freestanding signs are limited to seven feet, and we're

proposing 20, so we did receive the refusal for that, as well as the allowable sign area

as well as the allowable sign area for freestanding sign we're limited to 15 square feet

for freestanding sign.

and this is proposed to be approximately 82.25 square feet again we have some hardship here just

due to the unique location of this property the fact that it is bounded by woodhaven road we don't

have access from woodhaven so we do need to ensure that proper signage is on the building so

that users can identify and come out and then going down Byberry Road it is a it is not a

through road it's limited traffic and we need to make sure we have a pylon that's out there

that can identify the building and the business itself. So we are requesting variances to exceed

the freestanding sign area the freestanding sign height the wall sign area and the wall sign height

I do have Jim Burt here. He is the engineer that was working on the project, as well as Shaq Hassan, who is the signed vendor.

Why don't you bring the owner on and adopt your testimony?

Great. If you could let Jim Burt in.

Mr. Burt? There he is.

Here I am.

Hi, sir.

Could you state your name and spell, please, for the court reporter?

My real name is James Burt, J-A-M-E-S-B-U-R-T-T.

Right.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Proceed, counsel.

Thank you.

Mr. Burt, were you here during the testimony that I've just stated?

Yes.

And do you agree with the statements that I made?

Yes. And had you testified yourself, would you agree to adopt my statements as your own testimony?

I would. I have no further questions for Mr. Rupert at this time.

Well, this is surrounded by oil commercial? Correct. Okay. Questions from the board?

Yeah. No, Mr. Chairman. No, Chair. Yeah, I have a quick question. I know the area well.

Well, I think you have, do you still have, is there a homeless problem there along the side of your building where the trees are, the woods right there?

In this area here?

Well, between Woodhaven Road and your building.

Not that I'm aware of, Mr. Burt. Are you aware of any homeless issues along the property?

i know it garnered some attention uh of late over the last few months

i just saw one i saw one of your pictures you had some real nice uh landscaping on that side

of the building i've yet to see that it's it's um we are towards the end of the construction

process and the landscaping should be installed per the plans that were approved. The homeless

issue, though, was not near where the building is. It was down at the very end of Byberry along

Creek. It's along Woodhaven Road in the woods between your building and some other properties

along there, too. Just asking if you were aware of it. I am aware of it. We've actually contacted

the um the local police department there is a actually a person who's involved with that

for that purpose and uh we've been in contact with in the past with them to see if there's

anything we could do they actually we've had people go down there and look and uh it's been

somewhat elusive um we've not been able to make contact with anybody on there um but we're aware

OF IT AND WE'D LIKE TO KEEP BEING AWARE OF IT AND RESOLVE IT IF POSSIBLE, BUT IT MAY,

IT'S JUST ALONG THE STREAM AND ALONG THAT SEWER LINE THAT'S DOWN THERE IS A CLEARED

AREA AND IT'S PROBABLY SOMETHING THAT WE MIGHT NEED TO BE LOOKING AT AS TIME GOES

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from the board?

No, Mr. Chairman. No, Chair. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?

Yes, Chair. I have Alice Udovic with a hand up.

Morning, Alice. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?

Sure. Alice Udovich, U-D-O-V-I-C-H, on behalf of Councilman Brian O'Neill.

Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do.

I do.

Proceed.

On behalf of Councilman Brian O'Neill, he has no objection to the granting of the variance.

And I did want to mention that our office has been working on that homeless issue

almost on a daily basis with the 8th District and with individual property owners,

and will continue to do so.

Thank you very much for your comments, and thank you for calling in.

Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?

i see no hands chair planning commission thank you chair bergman and board members and good

morning david vecto with the city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends

a change to residential multi-family zoning at this location the applicant requests dimensional

variances for signs on a self-storage warehouse the applicant has shown that the location of this

facility on a dead-end road abutting an expressway warrants signs that are visible to potential

customers the city planning commission recommends the board grant the dimensional variances thank

you MI 2022-005-910-4340 Byberry Road I vote yes Thomas Holliman my vote is yes

James Snell my vote is yes Ishmael Shahid my vote is yes

thank you counsel thank you have a nice day okay um

number six mi 2022 007 137 454 delmar street sam elliott is the owner

we do not see anything from an RCO here

yeah this is

Hillary yes we

are waiting

if Mr. Elias is here

we do need to see proof of posting