Correct. For parking for campus apartments, personnel.
So that we're in the neighborhood currently. And so currently, where do they park?
um in various locations in in the area probably here there maybe even on the street but mostly
in other areas and other private lots too yep yeah so this would consolidate them and also free
up some on street parking spaces would that be fair to say correct and and um you're asking for
we're asking for a temporary use would for example three years be sufficient timing so we can restart
i think that would be sufficient so we're not coming back in front of the board okay and
you and i appear before spruce hill and they support the project
as i mentioned that is correct okay um i have no further questions for mr chop
the board has any did he adopt your testimony mr patterson yes he did okay thank you
questions from the board i just have a closing statement if you don't mind okay go ahead okay
thank you as soon as i turn this up here so accordingly based on what we presented i believe
that the interim use will cause a great no adverse impacts as evidenced by the design
the uses and spruce hills position on behalf of the neighborhood that no impacts would occur
because they support special exception and that the impacts will have no greater than impacts
will be expected by a permitted use recognizing that half parcel has already is being used as a
surface parking lot and also concluding that this is a temporary interim use thank you questions on
the board questions any questions questions or comments from our attorney hillary emerson
A couple of things. Mr. Patterson, thank you for clarifying. You were asking for temporary
in about three years. That was one of my questions. The lot that you're using for the
parking, is that based on the unity of use agreement from the prior permit?
Yes, you're correct. So the zoning permit also had a unity of use that
consolidated three parcels one where i'm showing my cursor the the xed out building which was
demolished and the parking lot uh to be uh considered as one zoning lot for the purposes
of the zoning code so yes it's uh still unified okay so my my concern is that it's not listed
on the current refusal so if you would be okay holding it for a week i just want to go back to
lni um because i i feel like that should be listed on on this refusal as well just to be clear
um yeah so i just wanted to check on that okay because i did it there's my application so i did
see that in your application that you yeah you were very clear you didn't want you know you're
not getting rid of the other um the other permit although i don't know if this would toll you know
the three years for the other permit that you have you know that it's good for yeah um so just
keep yeah keep that in mind but let me i will just check because if um if this it may have been that
the unity of use was omitted from the refusal and i just want to make sure that that's indicated on
there because usually ellen i wants those listed on the refusal if if there is no fair enough i
I think that's a good clarification.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no hands at this time chair planning commission
I see.
good afternoon amy boyd with the planning commission amy boyd
swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
i do please proceed the planning commission recommends no change to the existing commercial
mixed-use CMX-3 zoning at this location. The appellant has shown that the requested special
exemption would not cause such eventual impacts beyond what would not really be expected.
The appellant has paid fee in lieu of landscaping. The City Planning Commission recommends that the
board grant the requested special exemption for non-accessory parking.
If I may, we did not agree to pay.
What's that?
Apologies.
That's okay.
Just to clarify.
We're going to vote on this two weeks, right, Hillary?
Is that correct?
Oh, yes, that's right, Mr. Chair.
We do not have hearings next week.
So, yes, we'll vote on this in two weeks.
Two weeks at the 2 p.m. meeting.
I just, two things, Mr. Chair.
The payment in lieu, we didn't feel the need to pay because we're providing more interior landscaping that's there now
And adding additional landscaping would remove a substantial number of parking spaces, defeating the whole purpose of this application.
It's really only temporary. And lastly, I appreciate the accommodation today.
I have a personal matter to attend to. Thank you very much.
OK, let's go to number four. MI 2024 001 511 1601 North 27th Street.
Alan Nockamson is the attorney.
Mr. Nockamson is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Mr. Nockamson, you've already been sworn.
Just state your name for the record.
Good afternoon.
Alan Nockamson.
and could you identify your client or relationship to the property yeah my client's 1601-05 north
27th street llc and in the virtual audience is donovan clark its member you should play to the
reading of the refusals and you agree with the accuracy of the refusals i do share your screen
Please start, sir.
Let's get a full screen mode, and there we go.
All right.
So I'm here to present 1601 North 27th Street.
With me is Donovan Clark, the member of the corporate entity that owns the property, as well as Ryan Solmeo of Harman Deutsch, who's going to be walking us through the plans and drawings.
We met multiple times with the community.
This is one of these projects where it's a process, and because of us working with the community, I think we have a better product because of that.
So first, we'll review the notice of refusal. Then we have a letter of support from the Brewery Town Charge with Community Civic Alliance. So during the initial meeting, they brought up a number of concerns with our project, and we'll go through that. And we made a decent amount of changes to it, addressing their concerns. And at the final community meeting, we received almost unanimous support. I think the vote was like 13 to 2.
If this board feels inclined to grant this zoning variance appeal, we do have revised plans based on what we presented to the community, which they supported, and that's Exhibit 3.
We also separately met with members of the community nearby, and we solicited their support, which is shown by way of that petition of, I think it's like two or three pages of signatures.
Then what we're asking for in terms of variances is not have character to what this board has granted in the past.
We have a slight height variance, but there's reasons why we want to give nice height clearance for the for the occupants of these properties.
And just from a design aspect, you know, the architect will explain why that kind of mimics what's in the neighborhood as well.
And we also have a variance for density.
These are three RSA 5 lots that we're looking to combine as RSA 5 lots.
We can't have multifamily.
We are requesting five units, but it's not out of character for the board under similar circumstances to grant.
But it's not out of character for the board under similar circumstances to grant an equal amount of units.
There is an example that's in our packet of materials.
We also do an aerial view of this, of the property in the surrounding area.
We are three vacant lots, essentially at the corner of 27th and Oxford, and you'll see that.
And it's been vacant for some time.
You know, it's very important for the community to, like, for us to respect that corner.
We'll liven it up, not only with the building structure, but with trees and lighting, which we're proposing to do.
Then we'll go through maps of the area.
We're not that far off from Cecil B. Moore.
Commercial corridor, which has ample public transportation.
Photographs of the property and surrounding area.
Our plans and drawings.
And like I said, we have Ryan in the virtual audience who's going to walk us through that.
Our RCO meeting notice for our last meeting with the community, as well as proof of mailing of that notice, our deed to the property showing that my client's 1601-05 North 27th Street LLC is the owner of the property, and finally, certificates of tax clearance for each of those properties that are the subject of this appeal.
So our nosy refusal is this. We own 1601-03-05, North 27th Street, basically the corner of 27th and Oxford.
We're looking to consolidate these lots, put a four-story apartment building with nice height clearance, and also to have, you know, five dwelling units there.
By us combining these lots, we make functional floor plans on really like small RSA 5 lots.
But when you combine it together, it makes a really nice layout for a five-unit apartment building.
Originally, we also asked for accessory private roof decks and pilot houses.
That was one of the refusals.
That was one of the requests that was asked of us to eliminate the roof decks and to the pilot houses to, you know, as respect in the neighborhood where you don't really see a lot of roof decks.
And so that's one that's why we have revised plans.
But our refusals are as follows. Part of the height refusal that you see as the first matter in the notice refusal had to do with the size of the roof of the pilot houses in relation to the square footage of the building footprint.
So we have lessened that refusal by ridding ourselves of the pilot houses.
The second refusal had to do with the roof decks and the roof deck access structures.
We eliminated that refusal by eliminating that as part of our project.
We do still have the refusal for density.
We are asking for five units.
I mean, this is, you know, I have Donovan Clark on, you know, in the virtual audience.
You know, this is what's going to need to happen for this project to proceed forward, you know, because of, you know, interest rates still high because of construction costs really high.
And in order to keep this property looking nice and and, you know, having rates, rental rates that are reasonable under the circumstances, we really do need five units.
And, you know, it would be hard and, you know, for this property to get developed any other way.
And then the final refusal has to do with rear yard depth of six feet where nine feet is required.
Again, not something that's out of character in a way.
And, you know, given the configuration of the property as well as the building structure, we think that that's reasonable under the circumstances.
um if you look at the letter of support uh from the brewery town chargewood uh community group
you know they gave they you know they had they have they have a two-step process they have a
zoning meeting that we're not invited to as an applicant but they review the project they also
have a community meeting which is you know a public rco meeting where we give notice to the
community if you look at the we had a meeting in may and we had a meeting in august so they had
You know, also a zoning community meeting in May and the community meeting in May and then another zoning committee meeting in August and a community meeting in August when with the original proposal, their zoning committee voted unanimously in support of this project.
So conceptually, even under the the older version of the project, they thought that this was a reasonable use of the property that that they as as an organization that represents Brewery Town Shardswood could support.
But when we met with the with the community group, there were people in the neighborhood who were close by who did not appreciate the decks.
And, you know, they wanted more definition in terms of what we're doing with the trees.
And, you know, they wanted more definition in terms of what we're doing with the trees and what we're doing, the lighting.
And they and they, you know, at that moment, they voted against the project.
We then addressed their concerns. There was another zoning committee meeting.
Again, we're not involved in that. But again, unanimously, the community group voted as a zoning committee,
Like as professionals that handle matters in Brewery Town Shortswood voted unanimously in support of these revised plans.
We then presented those revised plans to the community on August 15th.
Thirteen people voted in support of that project.
Two people opposed.
So twice, the professionals within the Brewery Town Shortswood community group voted unanimously in support of this project.
And the revised version, I think, is a much better version. And that's part of the process of like going through and discussing with nearby neighbors. They voted almost unanimously to support themselves, 13 to 2.
So and that's all laid out in the in the letter that the Brewery Town Shards with Community Civic Association sent to this board.
But, you know, in this letter, they talk about like they appreciated, you know, the community appreciated the changes we made specifically about the roof deck, roof decks and the roof deck access structures, a.k.a. the the pilot houses.
And how what we did was they still wanted outdoor space for the tenants, but they what what the resolution was, was to have a balconies on the second and third floor.
So then they would have that access, but not to have that height with the extra roof decks that, you know, the brewery townshards with the community did not appreciate.
They also wanted more, like I said, definition about the tree plantings. And we showed them that under the law, we're allowed two. It's questionable whether we can do three, but we're going to push as hard as we can to do what's legal and allowable.
And then the final thing is, we affirmed that we would do commercial trash pickup as part of this project. So if this board is inclined to grant this variance request, there would be two provisos. One, the revised plans that I'm going to present to this board, and two is commercial trash pickup.
so as part of our presentation we you know for the second time in front of the group we showed
these revised plans these are same exact plans we're showing the board today three items that
we changed from the original plan submitted to lni we removed the roof deck and pilot houses
we added a balcony and it says on the third floor but um there's also on the second floor
we added a balcony. And then we reduced the building height to 42 feet, six inches.
And these are our revised plans. And that's part of our architectural package. And I'll have Ryan
go through that when we're talking about the general plans. And then the petition that we
circulated throughout the community, you can see that we did a decent amount of legwork
and pounding the pavement, and there's similar variances.
So 1616-18 North 27th Street, which is across the street from us,
also has a five-unit dwelling, and then this board granted that appeal
for that request in August of 2022, so basically two years ago,
under calendar number MI-2022-002551, also an RSA 5 property.
And then this board also granted a height variance. Again, we're at the corner of 27th and Oxford at 2623 Oxford Street under calendar number 35077 in 2019, where they granted a height variance where the height of the building was 41 feet, 5 inches.
I pulled the notice of refusal so the board can see what the height was for this building.
And then the aerial view of the property, as you can see, there's a parking lot across the street.
But this property, you know, my client purchased it only at the end of 2023, so less than a year ago.
You know, it definitely is an opportunity for, you know, redefining that corner at 27th and Oxford.
These are three smaller RSA 5 properties with not much depth where you're not going to be able to have functional floor plans.
Really, what makes sense is to combine this into one lot to have five residential dwelling units.
And then you can see here, and while there's a lot of yellow here, you can see that we're surrounded by orange, which is multifamily allowances.
And then you can see here we're on Cecil B. Moore, where there's an evening on 29th Street.
We're on Cecil B. Moore, where there's, and even on 29th Street, there's ample public transportation.
And the photographs of the property, this is the front of the property from 27th Street,
side of the property, and then the hearing notice posters as well for both corners.
And this is 27th Street to the right of the property, to the left of the property,
West Oxford Street to the right of the property.
Wex West Oxford Street till after the property and then our plans and drawings, this is where I would ask Ryan to these are his presentation materials so Ryan, if you can virtually raise your hand to be sworn in.
Ryan Solomio, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Ryan. Yes.
hi could you state your name it's spelled for the stenographer ryan solimeo r-y-a-n s-o-l-i-m-e-o
do you swear affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
i do please proceed counsel all right ryan um so this is uh page one of your presentation materials
that you uh gave to us that we submitted to the board um is label site context uh can you just
explain the first page of these materials? Sure. I think this is kind of covered by your earlier
stuff, but this is, you know, just some mapping and some site photos to give context to the site.
Great. Thank you. And then we're going to go to page two, which is the civil plan.
What is this? This is the civil site plan for the lot line consolidation.
Okay. And to the right is what the existing conditions are in terms of, from a legal standpoint, we have three lots here at the corner of 27th and Oxford, and the proposal is to consolidate that into one lot. Is that correct?
And then this is the floor plans from first floor plan to the basement plan and the second floor plan. Can you please explain these floor plans to the board?
Yeah, so what we have is two first-floor basement bi-level units.
They're each about a little over 1,200 square feet and are two-bed, two-bathroom units.
We also have trash storage at the top of this sheet.
You can see there's ample trash storage, which will be accessed in the rear yard space for all tenants.
on the second floor and in pink on the right there is a flat that is also about 1225 square feet
also two bed two baths with the balcony as you touched on before to give that
to give that unit some outdoor space so this this unit's on its own floor yeah and it's access