blaring all day long seven days a week with traffic people sitting at that corner right now
before this project is just unbelievable it's increased over the years i've been here for 54
years uh and it does uh go against the city plan i believe the comprehensive plan i think nobody
would want to create a more dense neighborhood in the city and unlivable if they could possibly do
it and it would be in the and the disharmony of the spirit of the zoning code it would increase
like i said congestion and uh everything else with the general criteria and as far as the project
goes he pointed out that in the 2600 block of york street they just did a uh a project with
all those units that was a buy right project there's nothing there could be done and that's
not as populated down there at that intersection as it is up here as far as the community goes.
And this would just completely alter, continue to alter the neighborhood from RS5 single family
residential homes, which has been in place for 200 years, 200 years of history of this. And now
we're being dumped on with all these high rise, severely dense projects, which just brings so
many more people in this area and as far as everybody pointing out that yeah we got a bike
rack here that'll hold 25 bikes i'm 50 58 years old with serious health problems and all of us
elderly people in this community feel that we're being forced out and it's discriminatory because
our bike riding days are over with we rely on getting the medical appointments by transportation
by vehicles we can't drive in this area anymore because of the density we can't park anymore in
this area because of the density and and that we believe is discriminatory against the elderly
disabled people in this area how city the city you've got his own boards are letting all this
happen in these neighborhoods where you're just coming in and steamrolling over top of us
elderly people it's wrong
I'm finished
thank you
did we ever get the letter
from the RCO Mr. Phillips
yes it's in the packet my notation said no but do we have it jaron they just i think they just sent
it's in the packet
my notation said no but
it late uh yesterday um we may but it wasn't included at the point that we did the summary
so i'll look for it now anyone else to testify in this case please first please identify yourself
chair we have a mr monroe mr monroe you can unmute yourself and speak
Good afternoon, Mr. Monroe. Please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
Good afternoon, Chairman DiCicco, Matt Monroe. I'm appearing on behalf of the Residents at Gaul Civic Association. I'm sorry, Homeowners Association.
What is the name of that?
It's the Residents at Gaul Owners Association.
G-A-U-L?
G-A-U-L, yes.
Oh, okay.
As in Gaul Street.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
please proceed uh chairman to chico members of board i know it's been a long day so i'll just
try to cut to the chase i do have a legal memo that i've submitted on behalf of the um uh of the
uh uh residents at golf uh uh owners association uh but just briefly uh mr phillips is correct
we've been uh talking with him in the residents at gall they are the uh townhomes that are
immediately to the rear of this property.
Just wanna go over some of the primary code-based issues
that I think where we differ from the applicant
and believe that the density that's requested
is like the Fishtown Civics,
or Fishtown Neighborhood Association.
We agree that the density in this case
that is sought is excessive.
The building, the RSA private property,
if you took these two lots and consolidated them, there's enough square footage that you could have
three single family row homes as of right. We understand that sometimes variants are requested,
required. And in fact, the, the homeowners association that we're talking about
did obtain some variances as Mr. Phillips noted for rear yard. And they're also adding some,
parking. But in this case, even crediting the argument that the property should be zoned as
some sort of multifamily like RM1 or CMX2, we disagree with the representation that you could
build 18 units as of right there. Based on the square footage of the lot area, you have less than
5,000 square feet. We have not seen a requested site plan, so we don't know the exact square
footage, but we know that it's probably in the neighborhood of about 4,900 square feet or
something like that. But all told, the maximum number of units that you could get there without
any bonuses is probably going to be 9 or 10 units, and 18 is above that. Because the parcel
uh the combined parcels are less than 5 000 square feet um under the code you couldn't get a green
roof bonus uh because you have to have uh 5 000 square feet of earth disturbance area in order to
qualify for the bonus before you could get the green roof bonus um and in any event the green
proof the green roof that was proposed at the last fishtown neighborhood association meeting that we
saw uh was uh provided for a 20 green roof uh and if you're if you're asking for the green roof bonus
uh you have to provide a minimum of a 60 green roof so that that's uh significantly less um and
then similarly for the uh affordable units uh the the proposals is laudable however it's it's
unenforceable as proposed. I think that the applicant had previously proposed doing the
affordable units by community benefits agreement. A CBA would be enforceable only by the Fishtown
Neighborhood Association. So if there wasn't, if they didn't do what they said they were going to
do, they'd have to have somebody standing withstanding to sue them. If they were going to
do something like this uh you know it would need to be uh reduced to a recordable instrument uh
that the planning commission an agreement with the planning commission uh that could be recorded
like a deed containing specific conditions uh that the city can enforce against the development and
that's under section 147027b of the code um i do have uh two of uh my clients here one is mike
Two of my clients here, one is Mike Baruch, who is an owner in the Homeowners Association,
Baruch, who is an owner and the homeowner.
and then Mike Gilpatrick is the president of the Homeowners Association. I'm not sure if he's able
to make the call. He's a military pilot and has been traveling. He's in the Air Force. He was
getting back from a trip earlier today. I'm not sure if he's on, but I do have Mike Baruch on the
call but uh just want to quickly summarize a lot of the the changes that were um made absolutely
the height was was was an issue um the the the commercial on the ground floor my clients weren't
completely opposed to commercial on the ground floor uh they they did have concerns about the
entranceway being on belgrade because it's a it's a narrow street that bottlenecks uh right there at
York, especially in the morning. So they had concerns about that. But with the increased
density, they have concerns that especially now when everybody's ordering everything online and
constantly getting deliveries from Grubhub and Amazon and DoorDash or whatever, in order to
access the building, you're effectively creating a traffic loop down Gall Street and then around
and then up to Belgrade so now with the entrance on York that might reduce some of that additional
bottleneck but with with 25 units you know which will have multiple inhabitants and then their
visitors this is simply too dense for this parcel. I think my client had proposed making an offer to
grant an easement to the developer to use their drive aisle so they could develop single-family
row homes, single-family townhomes. They would have even, as I noted before, RSA 5, you could
get three here as of right. And my client said they would support an application for
an additional unit for four if they wanted to just build as of right. But with that,
there there does not seem to be a uh a hardship imposed by the code uh on the on the property
and um and if uh mike baruch is on the call i would simply ask him to to raise his hand
electronically and um so he can state his name for the record and uh adopt any of the factual
statements that i've made available
Are you there, Mike?
Baruch?
Baruch?
Mr. Baruch, you can unmute yourself and speak.
Please spell your full name, and I'll swear you in.
Michael Baruch, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-B-O-R-U-C-H.
Mr. Baruch, you're breaking up.
Did you spell your last name again?
B-O-R-U-C-H.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, Mr. Monroe.
All right, Mr. Baruch, can you just tell me, what is your address?
It is 2123 Gall Street.
And are you part of the Homeowners Association?
And what is that Homeowners Association?
It is the residences at Gall.
And how long have you lived there?
Going on two years.
And were you present at some of the Fishtown Neighborhood Association meetings that were referenced?
And did you hear the factual statements that I made on the record?
Were they accurate?
Pardon the interruption.
Carol, I'll be back in three minutes.
um and do you adopt them as your testimony i do uh and uh mr bruce i guess is there is
there anything else that uh that i um that i didn't cover that you would like to add
to the record um no you you covered everything very well okay and is uh is mike gilpatrick
uh on the line matt uh i just wanted to clarify uh i said my address backwards it's two three two
one gulf street not 21 got it thank you thank you before we get to uh whether mr gilpatrick
uh is online it is available i have some questions for mr baruch on cross
and excuse me this is sharon can i interrupt for just one minute to say that i
I've looked through both the original and the revised exhibit packet and
looked through both the original and the revised exhibit packet and couldn't find the RCO letter
they may have submitted it to the board and just not copied me they often don't
I can uh I can email that to you right now okay thank you
and Matt if you'll just indulge me for one moment while I just email it to uh Sharon
mr phillips that's the fishtown neighbors association yeah okay are there any more
witnesses um i will have questions uh on cross for uh uh mr baruch okay great
all right all right sorry about that excuse the interruption uh i did not hear sharon's
testimony about the rco letter uh we're we're waiting for michael i just started it okay okay
thank you sorry it looks like they just sent it to rco zba um and nobody else so thank you
welcome that often happens and they sent it to my uh former email address though i didn't get it
until this morning as well um so are they supportive no they uh were in opposition but
if you know as i said their opposition was also based on the fact that there was no commercial
ground floor um usage they mentioned the uh type lack of type a accessible unit um but they were
uh in favor of the affordable components and uh um our decrease in height um so there were some
positive elements as well if you look closely at the letter thank you
so i just have some brief cross uh examination for mr baruch um mr baruch are you still there
yes i am okay uh as you talked earlier you were at uh the uh fna uh meeting earlier this year
where this project was discussed.
Is that right?
And you were
Mr. Phillips, we're getting
Mr. Phillips, we're getting feedback.
I'm not sure if it's from you or
Mr. Baruch.
There's an echo.
All right.
Phillips, try speaking
again.
A little bit more than that.
uh you're still getting the feedback when i'm speaking right now yes can i ask that everyone
else mute themselves while mr phillip and mr baruch talk you sure can
i'm making myself unmuted just in case i need to uh pipe in
okay uh hopefully that addressed it um mr at the at the fna meeting you noted uh your concern
about what a project like this would do to your property values is that correct yes
okay uh you noted you said you had paid six hundred thousand dollars for your home
objection this uh this is outside of the scope of the direct testimony
it goes to his feelings and sentiments
that he's expressed at public community meetings,
which you had already noted that he was at those meetings.
So I think it's worthwhile to place on the record.
We'll stipulate that in his opinion,
he thinks he's now, there's a lot of feedback still.
We'll stipulate that Mr. Baruch has belief
that he can sell his house for a certain number it's all speculation at this time um i'll move
on to the next uh mr bruce you stated that uh you were concerned with the size of the units that we
were proposing right yes i felt that they were uh all one bedroom units in your last submitted
proposal uh and that they were exceedingly small mr barouche mr barouche do you have any other
devices i do not i just have my laptop and okay we're getting feedback i'm just trying to figure
out where it's coming from i'll move my phone i'll move my phone away from the uh
all right it's the two o'clock i think that was witching
all right it's the two o'clock i think that was which yeah i'll i'll make it quick i have just
a couple more questions uh mr bruce you i believe i have you as quoted as calling uh development
like this with renters uh at a dormitory or flop objection this is the meeting objection this is
outside of the scope of of our presentation which was just related to the zoning issues
sustained okay uh you had objected to the affordable component of this did you not
objection again this is outside of the scope of our presentation
your presentation referenced that his attendance at the meetings his testimony at in in representations