westbound on Allegheny Avenue. The subject property is located to the right. Here is a
view facing eastbound on Allegheny. Property is situate to the left. This is the letter from
ProPAC. As you can see, it was unanimous support, 17 to nothing in support. Here's a copy of
Councilman Driscoll's letter of support. A copy of the zoning permit from 2018. As you can see,
the board granted the variance, a calendar 32115 on January 17th, 2018 for a real estate
management office and a single family dwelling at the second floor. Again, this is the archived
documents associated with that permit, copy of the Notice of Decision. I presented that case to
the board back in 2018, granted. Additionally, we have the Councilman at Driscoll's letter,
councilman uh school is letter of support
the rco notice went out on january 30th of 2024 that was sent to
the addresses on the list provided by the planning commission and we asked the
i'm sorry hang on a second uh certificate of mailing with 141 addresses uh pursuant to that
list. Based upon the following, I would ask that the board grant the variance. Mr. Kalkou is
currently in Albania. He thought he was coming back today, but he didn't make it. I guess his
flight got delayed. So as an officer of the court, I would submit that he has reviewed the exhibit
packet and that if called to testify, he would verify and adopt my representations as true and
correct and that they are his own testimony. Thank you. Hillary, do we have that PRO PAC letter?
yes no yes we do have it now yes all right good thank you very much um questions from the board
no mr chairman no chair
no chair questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
not at this time mr chair questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands planning commission it's a run bed in our city planning
this property is currently indicated for residential use city plan given a documented
site history and the physical conditions we we have no objection to the granting of the variants
because the variance maximum two units only mi2023 000 839 2349 east allegheny avenue
I vote yes with proviso, maximum two units.
Thomas Holloman, my vote is yes with proviso.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shaheed, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you.
Number five, Thomas Holloman is recused from this case.
So number five is MI 2023-001-904-1201-203 Princeton Avenue. Darlene III is the attorney. The RCO is in support of this project.
Good morning, Commissioners. Darlene III on behalf of the applicant.
Could you please spell your name for the court stenographer?
Darlene, D-A-R-L-E-N-E, Threat, T as in Thomas, H-R-E-A-T-T.
H-R-E-A-T-T.
All right.
All right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Do you swear or affirm to tell the...
Could you identify your client and relationship to the property?
My client is on the line.
Her name is Marisol Suarez.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal or stipulate to its accuracy?
No, I don't think the refusal in this particular case is accurate today.
All right. Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Thank you. Please proceed and share your screen.
are you able to see my screen
yes thank you commissioners I represent the owner of 1201 to 1203 Princeton Avenue
I've submitted a package of information that contains 14 exhibits I won't go through every
exhibit, but I would like to start with taking a look at the refusal. This refusal indicates that
we were refused for a four-family dwelling, as well as business and professional use. I would
like to inform the board that this property has been a legal four-family dwelling since 1981.
one uh let me just here's the exhibit in particular we were legal at this time for a
four-family dwelling uh with a superintendent apartment and the office on the ground floor
today i am just trying to change the ground floor use to total office on no apartment and just to
show you that this has been legal and a legal use. We do currently
have a valid rental license, which expires
in April for a full family dwelling for this
location, 1201 Princeton Avenue.
Commissioners, my client currently operates a realty office on Rising Sun Avenue.
She's been operating this office for many, many years, and at this
time, she's ready to downsize towards retirement.
In that vein, she would like to zone her other property here, which I just showed you the zoning archive information, to just have a plain office use on the first floor, as opposed to what the prior zoning was, was an office use plus a superintendent apartment.
We like to get rid of the superintendent apartment that's located on the first floor currently and just use the first floor for office use for a real estate office.
As you can see in this picture here, here is the posting that we did in preparation for the hearing.
I'll show you a couple more just pictures of the property.
That's a side posting of the property.
Here's the poster right there.
I don't know if you can see it that well.
But this is Somerdale Avenue here, and the main street over here is Princeton.
As you can see, the backyard is fenced in, and this is where the tenants store the trash until trash date, and then we sit it out there.
I just want to show you the interior pictures of the apartment.
I mean, as you can see, we have four electrical units here plus a unit for the common areas.
That's just another picture of a similar property on the street.
And I just wanted to show you another similar property on these streets.
Many of the rear floors on Somerdale Avenue, especially the corner properties, currently have businesses in them.
I show you the picture to let you know that what we're attempting to do here is what's common in this area and what's done to have businesses on the first floor or ground floor, as we would say.
Commissioner, here's a copy of the plan.
I'm just going to enlarge it a little bit for you.
So this is the current, excuse me, this is the current makeup of the property.
You would really come into the property off of Somerdale Avenue.
Previously, we had a bedroom here.
There was a garage here.
There was a room here, and there was a room here.
And that was for the apartment, and we had two bathrooms and a powder room.
and that was for the apartment, and we had two bathrooms and a powder room.
What we attempt to do, what we would like to do here now, is just have a regular office.
We'll have an office space over this side.
We'll have office space here, office space here,
and we'll keep the kitchen and the bathrooms in the property as they are now.
It's just another look at the front of the property.
This is where the tenants enter the building.
They can walk up the stairs to their various apartments.
As you can see for the rental office, there's a side door here that will be used.
This is also a side door, but it won't be used for the office.
This will be the entrance to the real estate office that we're proposing here.
Just other various pictures of the property to show you what it looks like.
That's the front entrance where the tenants walk up the stairs.
Similar property in the neighborhood with a ground floor business.
And then I just took some interior photos for you so you can see it's not moving.
That's currently what the interior of the building looked like.
We have some empty space, some empty space that we plan to renovate.
That was part of the
super's apartment that
prior use.
It's another
interior bathroom. Commissioners,
we did notice the community and we
actually had two meetings. We met at the property initially with community on the rise. Then we
sent out this letter for an actual in-person community meeting. We had a community meeting
on March 1st at 6601 Rutland Street. Here's the notice of proof of mailing the certificate. We
We mailed the certificate out to 72 individuals provided by City Planning.
We did get a letter of support from Community on the Rise.
We also got a summary sheet of the voting.
I believe everybody who was actually in attendance at the meeting supported the application.
There were 23 individuals, I don't know that they were all at the meeting.
there were some call-ins. And then we had the tenant actually circulate a petition on the
actual block. And as you can see, many, many of the neighbors on this block had no objection to
the converting of a full real estate office as opposed to just a office there. And with that,
commissioners, I'm here to answer any questions that you may have about this application.
Is your client here?
I'm sure she is.
Marisol, can you raise your hand, please?
Marisol has been allowed to speak.
Marisol, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
My name is Marisol Sierra now.
I got divorced, so I owned the building for many years, 20 years.
Could you please spell your name for the stenographer?
M-A-R-I-S-O-L, last name S-S-N-S-M-I-E-R-R-A.
You swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
So are you the owner of 1201 Princeton Avenue?
Yes, I am.
Is it your intention to operate your real estate office there?
Yes, I am.
Yes, I do.
And have you heard the testimony
That I've given to the board today
And if you were required to testify
Would you be able to adopt my testimony
That's all I have Commissioner
Questions from the board
No Chair
Thomas
He's recused from this one
But no Chair
Are you for this ish?
Well, we're not voting, Mr. Chair.
Well, we're not voting, Mr.
Chair.
You asked a question.
You asked the question.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Questions or comments from Hilary Emerson?
Just a quick question for Ms. 3.
Is there any parking at the property?
Did she freeze?
I think she froze.
There's parking in the back in the gated area with the fences.
How many spaces are there?
yes i can hear you now how many i believe there are two parking spaces behind the property
okay so i i think the refusal because um in rta one you're supposed to have one for one parking
and then with a commercial use um one space per 1 000 square feet if there is a thousand square
feet of commercial there um so i i think there was a missed refusal for um at least two if not
three parking spaces okay so that's why they
okay and i just i just wanted to put that on the record so if the board if the board grants today
then that will be incorporated but i just wanted to make a note of that
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands planning commission so ron bend our city planning while this property is currently
indicated for residential use on the city plan given sites physical conditions we have no
objection to the going on first hillary so when we vote on this hillary include uh this covers also
lack of parking you don't need to do that because that would need to be reviewed by l and i to
determine exactly the
nature of the variance. I'm just putting it on the
record that was reviewed
and discussed. Thank you.
So, MI2023
1201 203
Princeton Avenue, I vote yes.
James Snell, my vote is yes.
Ishmael Shahi,
my vote is yes. Thank you,
Counsel. Thank you very much, Commissioners.