Mr. Snell?
You must not have heard me.
Jane Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Clinton.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Have a great day.
Number four, MI 2024, 000103, 836 North 4th Street.
Number four, MI 2024-0001.
Richard Pressman is the attorney.
Letter of support from Northern Liberties Neighbors Association.
Richard Pressman has been promoted as panelist.
Mr. Pressman, Mr. Pressman, yes, I'm here, I'm starting my video, it was a thing, thank
I'm being promoted.
Alright.
Hi, Mr. Pressman. Could you state your name, please, and spell for the stenographer?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Richard Pressman. Richard, R-I-C-H-A-R-D, Pressman, P-R-E-S-S-M-A-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
The owner of the property is 836-N4-LLC, and the principal who's on the call today is Shimshon Zakin.
Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions for you, sir.
Good afternoon.
Do you agree to read another refusal or stipulate towards accuracy?
Yes, we agree to the waiver.
Thank you.
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?
yes we did with the caveat that we need to supplement the uh tax uh uh documents this
morning which were sent to council and the sunk it as well thank you council please proceed and
share your screen
Mr. Chairman, are you able to see the list?
We can, sir.
May I proceed?
Please.
This is the list of the exhibits that we presented to the board five days ago.
As I said, we supplemented the certificates of tax compliance for all four properties this morning.
I'm sorry.
That was it.
That was override.
Yes, but I'm sorry, Chair, if I may, can you please make the screen larger?
Is that helpful?
Yes, thank you so much.
You're welcome.
We are going to the notice of refusal, which is the second exhibit.
um this is a property that is located um on north 4th street 836 north 4th street it's four uh
subdivided into four lots it's currently two lots and also on the 800 block of north lithgow street
um there the lots um proposed to be divided into four single family attached residents
with roof decks with on-site parking on 4th street for one vehicle each and two cars each
on lithgow but the parking will be on site through an entrance on north 4th street through
a shared driveway so all the parking will be on site not on the uh parking uh on the street
um i don't know if there was an override there or not give me one second there we go the uh
The notice of refusal had two bases for it. One was over minimum lot size, which in this district, RSA 5, is 440 square feet. However, there is an exception where a lot containing at least 600 square feet is permitted to be divided into lots with a minimum lot size of 800 square feet.
In this case, the proposed lots are 1,200 square feet, which is 50% more than the minimum that would be permitted.
There is also a requirement of 75% of the lots around the property be 1,000 square feet and less, and we have that in our proposal, and I'll show it to you, those properties that meet that standard.
The other two conditions, each lot size has to be for single family, which is what these proposed use is.
and each of the lots uh created meet the lot with requirements of the zoning district which is also
And each of the lots created meet the lot with requirements of the zoning district, which is awesome.
met by the proposed plan the second issue is a dimensional standard for the height which is a
minimum a maximum height of 38 feet with a pilot house of four three and a half feet permitted
with a total of um uh 41.6 and this proposed uh dwelling comes in 43 and we'll get into that in
more detail. I want to go back to the documents that I wanted to show. You don't need to see
the deed or the tax compliance unless someone on the plan wants to, but I want to go bring
up the presentation, if I may, Mr. Chairman. And I have Mr. Zakin here to come in and help
if I need with presenting the yeah this is the presentation which is item number seven
are you able to see that Mr. Chairman okay we can okay this shows the location of the
the subject property up at the top here, 836 North 4th Street, where it's located in Northern
Liberties. And we also have, there we go. This is the site as it currently exists.
very slow and scrolling i apologize the current you can see the open lot there
and the uh the alleyway on lithgow and north 4th street there as it presently exists
in context of the site context and zoning on slide
three here again it's very slow and loading the full size that shows you the current location
of the project proposed project off of fourth street going back to let go and get some context
of the height of the buildings around the proposed project on either side that have been built up
this is the design coming in off of north fourth street
and showing where the entranceway will be built into going through North 4th street into a courtyard inside the property.
Also call your attention to the height of the proposed building. If you see the front height, it's less than the front height as facing 4th street to the existing property.
Behind them, you'll see the pilot houses, which are built as of right.
This shows the yellow hashed areas, show the existing properties which meet that standard
I was talking about of a lot with a minimum 800 square feet, and this shows the proposed
site in orange and the other properties which 33 lots are less than a thousand square feet
where the hatches are now going down i wanted to show you the prior design here this is the previous
i apologize
If you see, Mr. Chairman, on the right-hand side, I don't know why it's flicking around like this.
So the one partial has one parking place and the other one has two, am I correct?
That's correct.
the ones on lithgow because the entrance is on fourth street we needed to cut it down
to uh one car there but in the back they're each of the what i wanted to show you mr chairman and
i'll i'll expand it once i can uh get the uh prior sheet up it's jumping around i don't know why
You want to take over? Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, can we raise Mr. Zakin to come in?
Mr. Chairman, can we raise Mr. Zakin to come in to take over the screen?
He can show the presentation because I'm having problems with my computer and scrolling it down.
Mr. Zakin is the owner?
Yes, he's the architect of record and the principal of the applicant.
I apologize, but my computer is...
Mr. Zakin?
Mr. Zakin?
Mr. Zakin, can you please raise your hand?
Hi, Mr. Zakin, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Jim Sean Zakin, S-H-I-M-S-H-O-N, last name Zakin, Z-A-K-I-N.
right do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes i do mr pressman do you want to proceed what what you need from yeah
mr say can you please bring up the presentation please
everyone can see the screen we can't see we see it yep okay great so um
how smoothly yeah i'll hear about it later um can you please go to slide uh eight please
absolutely okay mr zakin um on the rights the original design as you bought the property is
that correct yes okay this was a project that was already approved by ellen i and had a building
permit is that correct yes and i would like to uh say a few words if i'm alone okay please do um
i'm i'm also an architect in my profession and i'm the developer uh future developer for this
lot um when we came to purchase this property there were uh plans approved for building permit
zoning and building permits for two houses on the lots i used to live in this neighborhood
for 13 years. I've done many, many
works in the neighborhood and
this is
this design is a bad
urbanism and a bad
design, but it takes advantage
of the code
which allow for
in RSA5
single family townhomes to be
if they are designed as a
detached building with minimum
five foot side yards
on each side, they allow for some
reason to have
front garages by right
this is obviously
a bed urbanism and bed
designed for the neighborhood
I approached the
chair of the
Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association
the RCO and
we saw eye to eye
that they would be
very happy to not have
these homes with front
garages on North 4th Street and
on North Litco
built the way
they approve. So we came up with our proposed design for four houses that sharing an inner
courtyard where they have an access through one 12-foot driveway of North 4th Street into a 30-foot
yard um that can house six cars two double car garages and two single car garages um so that
that is why we're presenting today a supportive letter for for this design um so i hope that's
clarifying these slides that we're showing here.
Can you go to slide 11, Shimmy?
And this shows the two-car garages on Lithgow
and the single-car garages on 4th Street,
as Mr. Chairman asked us, correct?
That is correct.
And what's important is that we have eyes on the street
on both streets, North Lithgow, and North 4th Street.
We don't have cars backing up from garages on both sides of the property.
It's safer and it's a better design for the neighborhood.
And there's living space on both first floors, correct?
I want to call your attention to slide six.
Okay, and this, as I was testifying, shows the neighboring area and the properties with less than 1,000 square feet.
the neighboring area and the properties with less than 1,000 square feet of users, homeowners, correct?
This particular area of northern neighborhoods, you'll find more houses that are built on lots that are smaller than 1,000 square foot.
And in this particular location, even more so, we find it more appropriate to have lots that are 1,200 square foot inside, which is roughly 15% less than what is the minimum required lot size in RSA 5,
but is about 50% larger than what the minimum would be allowed
if instead of 67% of the lot around me,
where that number was 75%, which is pretty close.
And you're only 220 square feet less under the code,
and you're going to build 1,200 square foot homes.
Is that correct?
Footprint?
That is correct.
Okay, if you want to go to slide nine, I want to talk about the building height in Masson.
Yes, and even here, we work together with the neighborhood.
The building next door to us, even though it sits on an RSA 5, it was previously approved in the zoning board of adjustment for a multifamily.
And this is what we're seeing on the left side of our proposed building.
And it's a higher building than 38 feet.
it's a 42 feet or 43 feet in height, actually 44 feet in height to the top of the parapet.
What we designed is a 42 foot building height with only one foot parapet at the front of the property.
We designed the houses, so the roof decks are... Go to slide 14, please.
Yes, I'm going to go there. So the roof decks, as you can see in these illustrations,
are all designed off the street.
None of our roof decks are facing the streets,
North 4th Street or Little Street.
So the activities are away from the street.
And that's allowing us to do a very short parapet,
only 12-inch parapet.
And the overall massing of the house
that is built 42 feet in height