to make it compliant and we took out the commercial space based on the the the cries of the community
now so that's the project as it stands right now when we were here last um i i just want to do a
couple of housekeeping things um what the i will the applicant is 801 north 40th street llc and
And the applicant's managing member is German Yakubov, who is here to testify.
So German will be testifying throughout this presentation.
We had an additional witness who spoke at the last hearing, Salim Lukas.
Salim Lucas and with that we were able to establish our position with his interpretation
And with that, we were able to...
as to what's going on in the neighborhood. Since then we did continue this matter
And that was heard in September 20th of 2022.
And it wasn't until, I believe, 30 minutes prior to our 9.30 hearing that was scheduled, we received supplemental whatever.
I didn't even open the email from opposing counsel.
So I do ask the board to hear my loud objection for him relying or submitting any of those exhibits that he sent at, what, 9 a.m. this morning when we had months to prepare for this.
All right.
So with that said, I want to start.
Mr. Chair, can I do an opening at this point?
Because in the last hearing, we altered opening.
We did openings, and then I did my presentation, and then we continued it for me to continue my presentation.
And I just gave the board a background.
So, Mr. Masters, this is what we'll do.
Mr. Beauvais will start, and I'll give you plenty of time for your opening when it's your turn, okay?
And let me assist.
Mr. Beauvais, how many witnesses do you have?
Just one.
Proceed.
Thank you.
I would like to call German Yakubov. He's on the line.
Mr. Yakubov, may I give him permission to speak?
You are allowed to speak?
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Sure. German Yakubov. First name is German, G-E-R-M-A-N. Last name is Y-A-K-U-B-O-V, as in victory.
right do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do so swear and affirm all right proceed uh darwin yeah uh german so just just to start with
housekeeping again um the owner of the property is 801 north 40th street llc correct yes and
your relationship to the llc i am the managing member okay um what i what i'm starting with
is our exhibit 18 photos of of the property can you tell me what we're looking at sure well we're
looking at an irregularly shaped uh parcel on the corner of parkside and belmont avenue it is
adjacent to uh the mural that was painted on the neighboring um property party wall okay and
was there any discussion about moving this mural yes um for the last going on three years now
um we've had extensive discussions with the community the mural arts program the business
association which um was heavily responsible for the mural being placed there to begin with
um and we've committed to moving the mural across the street to the park that is there
um we were going to fund that um move mural arts was in support of it and they've issued a letter
of support which i think is attached to the application as well as uh the west um belmont
business association uh who also issued a letter of support and who has uh many people on the board
Senator Hughes and others who are also on that board and on the letterhead of that letter
of support. So, and that is exhibit 16 for the board edification. So, and here are other
views. Right. So that view is of the common driveway to all of the properties that are
Parkside Avenue they all have a garage and that is the common driveway that allows them access to
their garage okay and let's see okay I'm technically challenged here okay I just okay let's start with
with the actual design plans let's go to exhibit five and for the board that will be page 27.
okay can you tell me what we're looking at here sure so we're looking at a site plan of the
okay can you tell me what we're looking at here
proposed structure um which pretty much conforms to everything that we could physically conform
it to right so we reduced the height to be 38 feet the um the rear yard um i think we got a
refusal on that because the city considered the rear yard as that alley in between the two buildings
So let's slow down. So this is a three-angle piece parcel, and street frontage was identified. Where's the front of the street? Where's the front of the lot?
So there are two fronts of the lot. It's both on Belmont and Parkside. And the rear was identified as that alley that we have right there. So I think we needed a nine foot backyard. And it's just not feasible to have a building that would have a nine foot backyard.
The best we could do was a little bit more than five feet for a backyard, which is not really a backyard.
It's just an alley is what it comes down to.
And that also accomplished another concern that the neighbors had.
The neighboring property did not want a building attached to theirs.
So we set the building back five feet as to not disturb the foundation or any digging that would go on there.
And also it accomplished by it accomplished us getting the open space requirement that we needed for this, which was also difficult to achieve.
OK. So you're providing a roof deck.
We are. The roof deck is going to be for just one of the units on the top.
So it would not be a common roof deck for the entire building. It would just be for one of the units on the on the top floor.
and just a comment this is the only property on the block that is this shape and it's really
the only one that is not a rectangle so it comes with all of these physical restrictions and
limitations okay so then i that's not my background i don't know is there a tv on or
something okay um all right so we in essence have three refusals we talked about the rear yard um
the density well first can you tell me about the height sure so the height is 38 feet um we
We dug slightly below the grade. That's another concern that people in the neighborhood had. They were concerned that there's a river running through the area. And when we did a geotechnical report, the same was confirmed. Water was hit relatively high off the plan.
So in the previous building, we had a basement. We've eliminated the basement. And in this case, we've dug down just the bare minimum, which is around three feet, to establish a footing. And the first floor is recessed down about three feet slightly, mainly for handicap accessibility.
That ramp on the side that the city considers a backyard will act as a handicap ramp to get into the building.
this along here yeah
okay and if you can compare well if you can tell me the program so describe the floor plan
sure there are you too um what this this is also addressing the density issue because i believe
we're only allowed four. You originally had 15, and now you're having 12. Correct. So
mainly it's three units per floor. There's a one-bedroom apartment, there's a two-bedroom
apartment, and then there's a studio per floor. It gives a wide array of possible tenants to
occupy these units. We've eliminated the first floor commercial space based on a lot of the
tenant, a lot of the neighbors concerns. Some said it was going to be people were going to die
because of the commercial space that's there because there's a lot of traffic on both Parkside
and Belmont. In addition to that, the sole reason for the previous commercial space was that it was
going to be a baseball museum coffee shop that um was going to be run by one of the associations
and uh outside of that kind of pre-planned you know altruistic use there
Outside of that kind of pre-planned altruistic use, there is no viable commercial use on that space.
There is no real foot traffic there.
This would be the only commercial space on that corner on Parkside Avenue between Belmont and Girard.
Okay, I think we're getting ahead.
So you have one and two bedrooms.
um so i just want to and that's the top floor here here's what the proposed building is intended
to look like that's correct okay um and that's another view
that's correct yeah so we've set it back away from that alley because people had concerns and
also gave us an opportunity to use the space in the rear there for uh for dumpster access
and now this is the former project where you had the commercial correct okay now you can explain
so so in this case this was the initial proposal that we had before the community
you can scroll up just a little bit back to the site plan as you notice the building is directly
attached to the neighboring property. We've set it back, as I said earlier, and that should have
alleviated that concern. This is no longer a five-story building with an elevator. That's
what the initial proposal was. The initial proposal was that there was going to be a common
roof deck pretty much on that top floor that would have allowed much more people to occupy that
space so we reduced that as well um those were like the really big changes and the other is
the commercial space um the commercial space that you know would have um created a lot more foot
traffic in that area potentially and you know the neighbors did not want that additional foot
traffic given the the high activity of the the charter school across the street they were
concerned that that already has bad traffic and this was going to add to that traffic
okay and what was the height of this building the height of this building was uh 55 to the top of
the roof okay and that is the previous uh rendering which showed a five-story building
with that cafe on the corner which people were afraid somebody was going to turn in
uh and drive into it um and that was one of the uh the the concerns
now okay drove into the park across the street and we'll we'll we'll get into
to that later on um i want to direct your attention to exhibit six which for us it is on page 39
for geotech you mentioned earlier about digging in and finding uh a water table um
now you you do a lot of construction you also are an architect by by training um explain to me
the significance of this geotech report sure i'm not an architect by training just to clarify that
Matt, I'm objecting at this point because to explain a geotechnical report would require a level of expertise that the witness has just confirmed that he does not have.
If you want to present testimony on a geotechnical report, we're going to need the author or another geotechnical engineer to do that.
No, I'm not asking him to explain the report. I'm asking him to explain the impact of having the benefit of this report.
i'm not i'm not understanding how that's okay i i i continue my objection mr chair because
we're gonna we're gonna allow the testimony i mean i i think where you what i heard was he's
not an architect and your question is you've done a lot of construction in the past and that's your
question about how's this report compared to the construction you've done in the past that's exactly
or with this particular project.
Okay, sure.
And Steve, I hear your points.
So we've done hundreds of construction,
hundreds of buildings where we've built from the ground up
and we've had to excavate.
Sometimes we hit water and it makes the project not feasible
the project not feasible because the water remediation becomes um cost prohibitive in
because the water remediation becomes prosperous.
this case we were able to mitigate that by raising the building out of the ground and not having a
basement so instead of being at having the footing at um seven feet which is what the initial
proposal uh showed um which would be which was on the the previous plans we raised the building to
only be three feet below ground which still leaves about four feet of um space between the water and
and your initial proposal um you you were you looking to go underground correct we were going
to have an underground space for storage for the commercial space and it was maybe about seven feet
below the ground. But now you find out through this report that it seems unlikely for you to do.
Correct. Okay. All right. I now want to direct the board's attention to exhibit nine,
59, which here is on page 59.
This is a comparison of similarly approved projects in the area.
I'm objecting to this exhibit, and we've we had argument on this at the last hearing
that my understanding of the board's direction to each of us
is that we only are to focus on the unique situation of this lot
and not bring in any other properties
to make any analogies for hardship or for anything else.
And I respectfully disagree.
First of all, we're using public information.
Second, to say that you have to look at a lot isolated and not in relation to other properties goes against what we're doing.
So I respectfully believe that we can look at the density of nearby projects as we try to have the board decide this one.
We can look at the density, take a look.
But I mean, let's, you know, I think it'll speak for itself.
I'll go over to it very quickly, please. Okay. So, German, right? Well, let me ask you a couple
of simple questions. Are you familiar with the area? I am very. Okay. And you're familiar with
the different projects and properties that are at that area? I am. Okay. Does this list reflect
what you believe is going on in that area correct um this i created this list uh based on um you
know i've been developing in the area for close to 10 years um and this is what we've seen and
this is i'm in the area almost every day uh and the the biggest uh difference between the properties
that were approved as recently as a year ago by this board um or the previous board the they're
all single-family zoned lots that are equal in size, if not smaller, that have been approved
for six units or 12 units at a time. More recently, the lot at 1717 North 42nd Street,
as well as 1715 North 42nd Street, which is merely a block and a half, two blocks away,
on a single-family zoned lot, the same RCOs approved a 12-unit building. There are two
six-unit buildings but they're adjacent to one another i'm objecting to a testimony about the
rcos and the square footage is the same as our law that that's hearsay whatever whatever someone
else does i can understand that mr yeah not if it's public his own his own um it's not hearsay
if it's public record there's no records that are being introduced here that's because it's public
record so um mr chairman members of the board right just in in just in terms if if the board
so choose to get granular and look at the i think we had this from the later i remember seeing this
the last time yeah well i understand what you're trying to see right yeah and here are the actual
permits that's that's the point that i'm trying to make so now i i do want to bring the board's
attention because I think we can it's getting to the crux of the matter here let me go to page
247, which is our exhibit 17. There has been several community members who have stoked the
247 which is our exhibit
flames against the applicant. And I would like the applicant just to explain what he has
experience for the last few years as he's been trying to develop not this property, not only this
property, but others. So, German, why don't you tell me what's been going on with the particular
neighbors in East Parkside? Sure. So, there has been a concerted campaign to single me out as
the developer that everybody decided to rally against and not support any of my projects.
This was evidenced by countless protests outside, letters that have been circulated throughout the
community, mainly by Brian Harris, as he's the author of the most recent one that you just kind
to put up there. Even in the previous RCO meeting, it was evident that it was personal
because somebody said so it was. And there's really no other reason to explain it because
every other project that comes along that is of denser or similarly dense proposal gets approval
from the RCOs. So this one is, again, singled out mainly because of me, of who I am. And
it's unfortunate. Did they ever try to miss, I think the term of art now is provide disinformation
about the project? Every step of the way, from posters that were out front, from petitions that
were circulated. Every step of the way, they have misinformed the residents in order to stoke
fear and anger to gain opposition. And it's evidence so in the fact that, you know, at the
one RCO meeting, they said that they don't want anything. And then when I gave rather, they didn't
want a commercial space. So when I took the commercial space out, we're like, we never said
that. And we asked them for copies of the RCO meeting records, and they refused to comply with
those. They have nothing to hide. I don't understand why they wouldn't do that. They've
also held a developer roundtable, if you will, and failed to invite me, even though I am the
largest landowner in that neighborhood so it is a you know it's if it's not one thing it's it's