approximately 13 driveways
curb cuts.
Some of them are
new construction.
Thank you.
I can move to the elevation plans and the floor plans.
and the floor plans how am i doing on time okay all right i'm watching our accounts over there
How am I doing on time?
she says she's she's watching the time okay okay there we go so um you can see the houses on boone
street are in the center uh you have a garage uh it is the second level there's a basement
then the garage and then two floors above the garage level and then the house on cotton
or street same thing there's a basement with three levels above the basement
So this is the first floor of the Boone Street properties. You see the garage and covered
entry. There's space in the garage to store trash, guest suite, bathroom.
room. Second floor. This is the basement rather. It shows the rear yard. That's right. That's
the first floor. The basement was the first floor. So this is the garage first floor plan.
this is the basement plan showing the staircase down from the entrance a media room staircase
to a rear yard second floor kitchen dining covered deck
primary bedroom two second bedrooms total of two baths laundry walk-in closets on that floor
and then a roof deck and as I said the staircases are moved to the center
so that there's less obstruction for those that have houses to the east of this
um i think that's the substance of my presentation be happy to answer questions
why don't you bring your client on sure adopt your test uh steve ashefsky could raise his hand
no hands raised at the sign chair okay so your officer of the court will take your test money
Council, you want to start your presentation?
I'm sorry, Chair.
A hand just went up.
They're being promoted to panelists.
Thank you very much.
Steve, are you muted and you unmute yourself.
Do we see him.
they're currently a panelist at the sound chair okay Mr. Ashefsky
he must be having a hard time with his can you can you unmute Mr. Ashefsky
Chair, we have another hand raised from Andrew Molson.
Is Mr. Molson part of the, Mr. Molson, can he testify to this?
Mr. Molson?
They're being promoted to panel.
Thank you.
Mr. Molson?
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, you can.
yes it can mr molson okay great could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
Mr. Molson, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
andrew molson and d re w m u l s o n mr molson could you turn your video on uh yes all right
do you swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do well thank you counsel thank you mr molson are you a managing member of cotton street partners
the owner of 184 cotton street i am uh and were you present during my the testimony i offered
to the zoning board i was uh was i truthful and complete yes do you adopt my testimony as your own
i do thank you thank you please stay on mr molson uh the attorney for
the neighbor may have some questions i will would you start your presentation
sorry do you have questions for for the owner at this time or okay all right thank you good
yeah just if you could maybe get a little closer here you go
there you go perfect please thank you um mr pillar uh owns uh four um 43 i'm sorry 43 34 and 43
34 and one half boone street which are directly um adjacent to the proposed project right his
concerns are twofold both dealing with the steep slope component of where the
boon street partners want to erect uh two additional premises in addition to the existing
premises first is he has not heard a hardship that would overcome the steep slope regulations
further the application to satisfy the pending or the what was an outstanding lni violation
for the collapsed wall that addressed the property at 4334 boone street
it did not address the portion of the wall at 4334 and one half boone street
Based upon that, and what was referred to in the main presentation as a deed gap, Mr. Piller has appealed the determination of the Department of License and Inspections of that curing of the violation.
Basically, his position is the application to cure the violation was based on an inaccurate
survey that contravened decades of decisions by the Department of License and Inspection
as well as surveys commissioned by the survey district.
i uploaded a december 3rd 2025 letter uh to mr o'brien that outlines this in detail and would
ask that that be made a part of the record i do have copies for the panel if you can you can bring
that up on um are you yeah i had trouble logging in i don't know did you include my response to
that letter i did not why not i have a copy i can hit it up okay so we stuff needs to be submitted
electronically so and then if you if you don't have it if it hasn't already been submitted to
the board by close of business tomorrow it needs to be submitted to be included in the record i
i uploaded it prior to come uploaded both documents i'm going to discuss um additionally there's there's
an outstanding appeal with the department of license and inspection regarding this issue
basically mr pillar the next door neighbor who is one of the parties that should be responsible
for maintaining the wall in addition to the owner of 80 184 cotton street as has been determined by
debt over decades by the department um the way it is proposed and the way that it is being submitted
to this panel it removes the responsibility of maintaining the retaining wall and providing
support for one or 4334 and 4334 and one half Boone Street and takes it off of the Boone
Street partners and whoever purchases the property puts it on Mr. Pillar. So based upon
the outstanding appeal and the discrepancy in the lot lines Mr. Pillar objects and lack
And lack of demonstration of hardship. Mr. pillar objects to, um, a variance based on the steep slope requirement. Okay, so your presentation. Yes, if I may, just briefly, um, at pages 62 and 63 of the materials, uh, this is not.
of demonstration of hardship Mr. Pillar objects to a
But my response to Mr. Vanderslice's December 3rd, 25 letter, but it's a summary of it. I can certainly supplement the record just so that there's a response to go along with Mr. Vanderslice's record, and I will do that.
But this is a summary of the two issues. One, the failed retaining wall, and secondly, the unsafe violation. And then the derivation, the reason why we're certain that this retaining wall is not on Mr. Piller's property, and it's not on my client's property, is a 1948 plan, which I'm showing here. It's on page 63 of the materials.
You can see the stone retaining wall is in limbo.
It's between 184 Cotton Street and between 44, 43, and 44, 43, 34 and a half Cotton Street.
There's a gap in the legal descriptions, and that's where this retaining wall stands.
The benefit to Mr. Pillar is that the original violation notice suggested he had to correct this.
My client's bearing this.
We're going to correct it.
And the reason that there's a steep slope disturbance is because we're correcting this failed retaining wall.
This is a win for the neighborhood.
This is a win for Mr. Pillar.
His objection, frankly, is confusing.
Thank you.
do you want to be responding under here uh sure on uh
april 14 2008 uh the department of license inspections issued an inner office memo
which is attached to my december 3rd letter which uh based upon the survey that is also
part of that letter and determined that the boundary line goes down the middle of the wall
and the and based upon that it is Mr. Piller's position that the application to correct the
violation issued by the Department of License and Inspection was based on an inaccurate survey
which this proposed subdivision is also based upon um there should be no deed gap it was
rectified by the work of the city a couple almost two decades ago and Mr. Piller would ask that any
plans at the very least take into account what has been determined by the city and
And it is unclear why he didn't get notice of this application to correct and move a boundary line in effect.
All right.
Hillary, how are we doing on time?
We're doing fairly well, Mr. Chair.
We have 10 or so minutes left.
I won't belabor it.
Just for the record, if I can supplement my response to Mr. Vanderslice, that letter.
there. And then also Mr. Pillar did appeal to violations. He then those appeals were then
dismissed for non-appearance, and I can upload those as well. There's much ado about nothing
at this point. Thank you. Questions from the board? Yes. Could you just help me out as
a visual learner? Could you go back to the picture that you showed of the two, well,
the units that uh are going to be built and the relationship uh to um the bone street properties
i think it was the renderings okay yeah and i just would like for you if you could to point out
uh the property line that we're talking about
okay so this is the subdivision plan this might be easier to talk this was the photos it was the
I'm sorry? It was the photos, the rendering photos. Yeah, the rendering. Here? That go up a little bit. There it is, right there. Okay. Right. If you can blow that up, you can just show me where. Where is the wall? Yeah.
The wall is behind the building on the left. So let me go back to this image. So the building on the right, which is the northern most building, the retaining wall.
which is the the northern most building the retaining wall is next to this foundation
um and it's below grade it's because of the change in grade from boone you can't see it
uh but i can bring the detail up again the city reviewed the plans the structural plans
uh and and was satisfied that this will address this so so that the the foundation would be the
the wall will be built in the foundation of that unit right okay all right thank you so so so to
just piggybacking on that because i'm still a little confused so there was a it sounded from
what from one attorney that there was a um what do we call not even a relocation of lot lines
i'll say right about about a decade ago he said that made the center line of this
current retaining wall the center line between the two properties did i hear that correctly
no so what happened our first uh existing conditions plan from the lane survey district
three years ago has taken a while to get here uh had a roughly two and a half foot wide strip
where the retaining wall was in and there was a note the 2008 notation that john parkinson that
opposing counsel just mentioned when he made this report uh he opined that the property owners on
both sides had to share the responsibility um when we got that retaining one we saw this strip i said
wait a minute every deed for 184 cotton street going back 150 years has the depth along boone
Street, 48 feet. It doesn't go beyond 48 feet. So doing some research, we came up, Dan Burke,
the surveyor of the nice survey district, found this plan from 1948, which confirmed
that 184 Cotton Street is south of this retaining wall. It's not on this lot. He then went in and
looked at the legal descriptions of all three lots and said aha it's an orphan parcel
the retaining wall is not on mr pillar's property and it's not on 184 cotton street it's an orphan
parcel so so so so so that's you're contending that but the opposing attorney is contending
that that's not true right is that what am i hearing that correctly no i'm relying on the
my survey district and their analysis that this wall is on an orphan orphan parcel it's not on
Mr. Piller's property yeah I understand I understand your point I'm just I want to hear
from the other attorney is that am I right that that's what you're saying the other I believe you
you summarized Mr. Piller's position correctly the later determination by the department and
the survey district was that the property line ran down the middle and if called to testify
mr pillar would state that there are actually pins in the middle of the stone wall um that i
don't think a picture has been shown up but what is the current condition um that indicate where
that property line should be um i'm unclear as to why the the newer survey did not use those
okay so so so okay so i just want to make sure that i heard both correctly now the other attorney
and i'm sorry i don't can't remember your name um you're saying that under your plan you are
rectifying the condition of this retaining wall are you then but but you're rectifying the are
you repairing the retaining wall and you're building a new retaining wall on your property
line to address the steep slopes or are you moving your wall to the the retaining wall location and
repairing the retaining wall we are incorporating uh the failed retaining wall uh within um as part
of the foundation wall for the proposed single family home on parcel d so you're extending so
so you're so so are you extending your property line to that existing retaining wall location to
be able to do that i think it's probably fair that we're going to encroach again the ninth
survey district reviewed mr parkinson who's a former regulator and surveyor the ninth survey
dan burke the current uh surveyor reviewed his uh 2008 memo reviewed the 1948 plan and concluded
that Mr. Parkinson was incorrect, that this wall is not 1184. It's not one of the Boone
it's not one of the boone street properties it's gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha got that so but in
Street properties. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, got that. So, but in order.
order but but so but in order to recta but but your but your attempt you're going to rectify the
issue of the failed retaining wall by encroaching upon the area of the this two foot area in order
to do that am i correct i don't believe it's actually going to encroach um it is you just say
i think it's so close let me show you this is the detail from the structure you said your lot didn't
touch that this was an orphan that it's a three foot wide orphan property so for you to build a
foundation up against the wall your foundation wall is now on the orphan property it's going to
be next to it yes it's going to it's going to carry the load that the failed retaining wall
was carrying before it failed so is the retaining wall sitting on the demising wall between your
property and the orphan property is that the argument that i don't know what argument the
pillar is making i'm asking your argument because you're saying there's a three foot wide orphan
property we is the retaining wall standards because we couldn't submit an application i
understand what you did i'm asking a very practical question about location can you help us solve this
I hear you. I got what the board asked. I'm just asking a very simple question. There's an orphan property. There's your property. Is the retaining wall on the demising wall between the ghost property and your property?
The failed retaining wall is not on 184 Cotton Street. It's right next to it.
So where is this repair? Where is this repair?
how is how are you repairing it if you are sistering your foundation to it and you're not
building on it i'm just a lawyer i yeah
my definition has to have money money show what it looked like yeah no i saw what it looked like
that's why i know that i'm correct i'm asking for clarity because your detail shows that you are
literally attaching your foundation wall to the or to the to the remaining wall it's like the same
way you would sister a joint or a beam you are literally tying them together by steel which
means that they have to be on the same property so i'm asking is your foundation on the orphan
property or is the retaining wall the dividing line between your property and the orphan property
and that is the issue show that detail our foundation wall will go on our property
and tie into the foundation wall so it is on the demising law so the answer to my question is yes
yes we're going to tie into that and it's not what ellen i told you to do that's what the
board of building standards asked us to do right we submitted okay structural plans right yeah
were adopted and again yeah right okay any other questions questions from our attorney
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
or the chair we have a hand up from andrew molson yeah we just had him yes okay mr molson
yes i just want to clarify uh mr o'brien's statement um we will be within our property