the side of it the side that's the picture of it was posted out front as
well this is the notice this was published these are all the supporting
signatures from neighbors around the area we went around door-to-door these
are the certified receipts that we mailed out um about these hearings to all the neighboring neighbors
and that's pretty much it yeah guys have any questions mr man this is all new construction
yes sir okay are there other multiple family units in the area
i yes there is i believe there is yes okay questions from the board
no chair no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair i see no hands at this time planning commission thank you mr chairman and good
morning david effecta with the city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends
no change to the residential single family zoning at this location there is no unique physical
condition or circumstance of this 1218 square foot lot that would prevent it from being used
in conformance with the zoning code the city planning commission recommends the board deny
the proposed use variances for two-family household living and vacant commercial space thank you
MI 2023 000 972 313 West Somerset Street. I vote yes with proviso. This approval is for
two-family household living only. Use registration required for vacant commercial space prior to
occupancy. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. You have your votes. Thank you. We're going to go back to number three. MI 2023
03-000-820-2468, Frankfurt Avenue.
Jennifer Bazzillo is the attorney for Daniel Welsh.
Letter of support from East Kensington Neighborhood Association.
Letter of support from Fishtown Kensington Area Business Improvement District.
And a letter of opposition, non-opposition from Council Member Squilla.
Counsel, could you state your name and spell, please, for the court stenographer?
There you go.
My name is Jennifer Bazidlo, B-A-Z-Y-D-L-O.
Right.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, a relationship to this property?
Sure. His name is Daniel Welsh, and he has been the owner of the property since 2005.
His name is Daniel Welsh, and he has been the owner of the property since 2005.
And our vice chair has just a few questions.
Great.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do agree to waive the reading of the refusal, but I don't think it's completely accurate.
Understood.
I've emailed them all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance.
Yes, I did.
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
All right. Let me just move this over here so I can go.
Okay. So, like I said, my name is Jennifer Basidlo and I'm here representing the property owner, Daniel Welch,
who's owned this property since 2005.
In the packet, I'm just going to go briefly through
and we'll come back and revisit most of these exhibits.
But refusals, we'll get into this later, obviously.
Project information form,
deed showing that he is in fact the owner of the property,
proof that there's no property taxes owed,
the letter of support from ECNA,
the letter of non-opposition from Fishtown bid.
This, I actually emailed the board this morning. I just got these letters from the near neighbors,
both adjacent and to the rear of the property. So there's like five letters of support.
We're going through the zoning maps. We'll come back to this. This is the historic zoning map,
zoning archive, coming back to this as well. Photographs. This is the aerial photograph.
Photographs of property. There's my postings on the front and rear. Again, front on Frankfurt,
rear on Martha and our plans, and we will come back to all of this. So let me go here. And so
2468 Frankfurt is a CMX2, is currently zone CMX2, and it runs street to street from Frankfurt Ave
back to Martha, which is a small street here that's largely the rears of homes on Ember
and the rear of some properties on Frankfurt and a lot of vacant properties as well.
Currently, this property, so as you can see, there's two main structures on this property
with a yard that separates them right here. This front structure is currently three residential
units. And that was given a use permit in 1960 for the three one-bedroom units in that main
property. And we're not proposing any change to that. What we're looking at here is just this
rear building that faces Martha. So let me just go to the picture so you can see a little bit more
what we're talking about. So this is the front on Frankfurt. This is the rear on Martha.
And they are separate structures. This is the little yard that's in between the two.
So our proposal is to take this structure that was a former carriage house for the property.
As you can see, it's old. It has been around a long time. Take this, preserve it, improve the
facade and basically, in general, renovate this to be used as an additional bi-level
one-bedroom residential unit.
So if we go to the plans, you can see here again, this is the Frankfurt Ave structure,
the open space, and then this two-story former carriage house.
And pretty basic structure, going to have a living and kitchen space on the first floor,
one bedroom, one bathroom on the second floor.
This did generate two refusals, the first of which I have no objection to, and that is for the minimum lot area required for four residential units in a CMX2 zoning.
By the code, you're required to have a little 1,920 square feet, and our existing parcel is 1,613 square feet.
Like I said, we have a permit from, excuse me, a permit from 1960 that created this three residential units plus the garage in the rear.
And when my client purchased this property in 2005 and up to about 2017, this property was owned RM1.
this property was zoned RM1. So here you can see here, this is the prior zoning map.
Um, so here you can.
This is the area we're talking about here. This is Martha. This is Frankfurt. And so the property
is one of these right here. And in, when he bought this house and this property in 2005,
it was always, he was living there until 2016. And it was always his intention to convert this
carriage house and restore it into a residential unit. Prior to the remapping in 2017, this would
have been a buy-write project and we wouldn't have been here. In RM1, for four units, you only need
1,440 square feet of parcel for the four unit, and we have over 1,600 square feet. As you know,
Now in CMX2, the zoning code is anticipating that in addition to whatever residential units, there would also be a commercial unit.
So in the 1920 square feet that's required, you would actually have five units, a commercial unit and four residential units, right?
Right. So and if you only wanted to have four total units, a commercial and three residential, you would you would be back to, excuse me, 1440 square feet of parcel required for those four units.
So because we have a long-standing use here, and then this is the new zoning map, as you can see,
it is CMX2 now. So here we have a proposal where we have four total units without a commercial
space, which we're going to get to next. But that lack of commercial space has been there since the
1960s. So we would like to continue to use this as a purely residential building, restore and
renovate the existing older carriage house in the back and have four total units, as would be allowed
by the zoning code in CMX2, just without one commercial space. So it's not really,
we don't think that this is an overuse of the property at all, since we would be allowed to
have actually a more intensive use of three residential units and a commercial space on
this property by right um all right so that gets us to um the second refusal which is for the lack
of commercial space um let's just go to the refusal um it's specifically for a lack of
commercial space along martha as we already have had a zoning uh zoning in place for no commercial
on Frankfurt since 1960. And the reason I'm objecting to this is because
the code only requires commercial space on the ground floor of the primary frontage of the
property. And very clearly here, the primary frontage of the property is on Frankfurt Avenue,
not on Martha. And we received refusal for lack of commercial space on Martha. However,
I'm still going to give our case why it's not a good idea to have a commercial space on Martha.
So if we go to the photos here again,
we have the ground floor commercial space just would not be very appropriate here.
First of all, just based on size, this entire structure when you have two floors is only about
700 square feet. So you'd be creating a commercial space on the first floor that's quite small,
which is going to be at most around 350 square feet, perhaps good for, I don't know, a small
office, but it would be very hard to, it's not really a good commercial space, right? And if you
look at Martha Street in general, you can see that this is not a commercial street. This is a
residential block, which is confirmed when you go back to the zoning map. And you can see here
that fronting Martha, you have RSA 5 homes, RSA 5. And then, you know, these are the rear of
the commercial properties. But in general, when you're looking at just Martha, you have a residential
single family home single family block and what's cool about our project right is that you're going
to have this separate building which looks like a single family home and will function as a single
family home on a block that's zoned for single family use uh it's just that because it's one
property uh it's going to be multi-family all when you put them all together but essentially
you're going to wind up with a single unit and a single family home. And so it's going to fit
right in with the neighborhood. I also think that this is a really much better use to have someone
I also think that this is a really much better use to have someone living here. As you can see on Martha, we have a lot of vacant space, we have a lot of garages, we have a lot of rears of home, and not a lot of eyes on the street and people going in and out of it.
it is a block when we talk to the neighborhood. And also from my personal experience, and you
can see a little in this photo, we have problems with trash and dumping and things like that.
And the more people we can have interacting with the street, the better to help keep it clean and
tidy and prevent any sort of misdeeds going on on that block. So we think that this, between that,
between getting eyes on the street and essentially having a single family home facing a single
family block and preserving a fairly old historic structure. We think this is in harmony with the
neighborhood and the comprehensive plan. We did meet with ECNA and Fishtown BID and I will get
to their letters. So I did send out all the notices and it was posted. We had two people come. They
were both in support. I just wanted to say also that the contractor, who is also the proposed
tenant uh for this project um did do further outreach to the community both before we started
the zoning appeal process and during um and and talked to the neighbors extensively i think no
one came because they were all okay with it based on what he told me but again that's just what i
was told take it for what it is uh we also meet with the fishtown bid i just want to highlight uh
this section of their letter which said in the current matter the part of the property that
faces our district, Frankfurt Ave, has already been legalized for multifamily use. The rear
garage facing Martha does not have any commercial frontage on the street and is most suitable for
residential use. The Fish Town area bid believes that this is the best use of the detached structure
and will add to our growing residential density, which will in turn continue to help the thriving
business corridor. And we tend to agree with that assessment. Let me just get to the neighbor's
letters of support. So I can show you, this is the adjacent property owner at 2470 Frankfurt.
No, you know, they're in support. 2465 Amber and 2461 Amber are the properties to the rear
that their backyards face Martha to the rear of the property. And they are also in support. We
have another one on Amber 2457. Again, their property backs up to Martha. And this is another
property owner further down on Frankfurt, who's in support. I did also just want to point out that
my client has owned this property since 2005, which is 18 years at this point. I can't believe
2005 is 18 years ago, but it is. And there have been no violations on the property. So you know
that he has been taking care of it and it is being well maintained. I know trash is always
an issue when we talk about multifamily housing. Trash will be stored in that rear yard area and
taken out on trash day like it would in basically in a single family home where trash is stored in
the backyard and taken out. And then what I did want to highlight here is that this exact proposal
was previously approved in 2018. I was also the attorney at this point. And at that point,
it was also supported by ECHNA unanimously, 23 to zero at the meeting. What happened is my client
owns this property. He's not a major investor, started the project. We got the proposal and he
was unable to finish it within the three years. So we're back here looking to renew this variance.
He has contractors lined up, financing lined up, all that ready to go. So this project will be
completed. In summary, I think that this is a great project because you have a property that
an old structure that we're looking to preserve and use in a way that makes sense on the block
as was multifamily use. It's essentially a single family home on a single family block.
Could you have your client and have them adopt your testimony, please?
Sure. Daniel, are you here? Can you raise your hand?
chair i am unmuting daniel welsh hi sir could you state your name and spell it please for the
court stenographer hi my name is daniel welsh my last name is spelled w-e-l-s-h do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do proceed counsel uh daniel have
you heard my testimony here today and believe it to be truthful and accurate i do yes and would
adopt it as your own i would yes thank you thank you questions from the board
no mr chairman no chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
no chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
chair i see no hands at this time my planning commission thank you chair and good morning
david effecto with the city planning commission the comprehensive plan recommends no change to
commercial mixed use zoning at this location the proposed variance from the required commercial
space documents and existing condition however the fourth dwelling unit could be achieved if
the appellant applied for the mixed income housing bonus, which would remove this variance
and provide a guaranteed affordable unit. And the appellant has not shown that the economic
detriment would accrue to the property if a fourth unit were not allowed to be added.
So the city planning commission recommends that the board grant the proposed use variance from
the commercial ground floor requirement, but deny the dimensional variance for a fourth dwelling
unit. May I just respond for one second? I do think that right now we have a vacant structure
that without a fourth unit is pretty much unusable. MI 2023-000-820-2468 Frankfurt Avenue,
I vote yes. Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes. Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes.
Thank you, counsel. Thank you so much. Number five, MI 2023-000-988-4203 Adams Avenue. Henry Clinton is the attorney. Letter of support from Frankfort Neighborhood Advisory Committee with proviso.
Mr. Chair, this is Hillary. I also want to note that we received a letter of non-opposition from
Council Member Lozada. Thank you.
Morning, Mr. Clinton. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the court stenographer?
Sure. Mr. Chairman, it's Henry Clinton, A-T-N-R-Y, Clinton, C-L-I-N-T-O-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client in relationship to this property?
Sure. I have two clients, Mark Romanoff, R-O-M-A-N-I-W, and his uncle, Michael Milos, M-I-L-O-S. Mark is on the call today.
Right. Our vice chair has just a few questions, sir.
Good morning, counsel. Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
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, I have.