minimize it yes that's zoom oh here's a zoom
can you hear me yeah we can but we don't see anything mr chandler oh geez uh mr mr chandler
let me tell you what i'm going to do sure i have several other cases i'm going to move on and i'll
come back to you. Okay. And by that time, see if you can find your documents. Okay. Okay.
Thank you. Okay. We're going to move to number three.
MI 2023 001 386 1532 West Nidro Street,
Jose Warren Gillis, Jr. is the owner applicant.
Mr. Gillis.
Mr. Gillis is coming back in as a panelist chair.
can you hear me mr gills i can could you state your name and spell please for the court stenographer
uh my name is warren gillis w-a-r-r-e-n-g-i-l-l-i-s right do you swear or firm to tell the
truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes um azure you one
tom could you do the follow-up question with him please
can you hear me yes we can okay uh good afternoon sir do you email all of the exhibits and documents
as required five days in advance to this hearing yes thank you please proceed and share your screen
just so you know sir yes this application is for multi-family household living free
dwelling units on the same lot with all other uses as previously approved the proposed unit
multi-family household living is prohibited in the rsa 5 zoning district i would also mention that
the oak lane rco is in opposition the current concerned citizens association is in opposition
and council person bass is in opposition of your proposal please share your screen and start
oh screen screen on the bottom share off the screen
i think i got it i'm trying to learn this ears
no nothing yet okay wow we're just looking at an empty screen all right i think that
we're sharing screen wait a minute
here's your presentation okay okay so um so tell us what you want to do and what you're trying to
well i already have a multi uh my property is approved as a multi-family property that's being
used as a duplex and what i would like to do is make in a stand not a standalone but make an
apartment unit in the basement okay a a one-bayroom apartment and i do know that the uh
And I do know that the RCOs were against it.
that the rcos were against it under one
And one of their concerns was trash and parking.
But, you know, I have a parking space in the rear and I'm going to install trash bins.
And currently the residents that live there, they bring their trash out from the front and bring it back because we get our trash picked up in the rear.
Right.
So, you know, I didn't think that that was much of an issue, but I know that was one of their concerns.
And then also with the parking, like I said, there is a parking space in the rear and.
You have photos for inside.
Oh, you know what? Yes, I do.
But I didn't. Let me see if I can get to it quickly.
Oh, this is the.
You're mailing, you're mailing.
right the mailings yes yeah um here we have all your documents right so this is the picture uh
here okay they are moving oh i didn't think they were going to show like this perfect
so this is the uh where it would lead from the um current uh first floor unit down to the basement
unit which would all be blocked off obviously and uh this is you know the basement unit i just kept
the pictures as they were it's not cleaned out but all that's going to be cleaned out
this would be part of the living area here and uh let's see this area is being proposed as the
bedroom area with a uh egress window uh placed in the you know towards the rear of the property
there and obviously this is the back door that leads outside where there will be another egress
and this area here is a closet now but that will be the proposed kitchen area
and this will be the utility areas where the gas meter is and the water meters stuff that's
towards the front of the house and there's already a bathroom down there um so that was
basically the extent of the pictures and this is the clearance uh letter and this is the letter
that was sent to the um to the residents in the neighborhood for the um for the neighborhood
meeting uh so i'll go back to the plans oh this is where i posted my uh zoning notices
for the property
I think this is the refusal letter
here for
saying it doesn't meet the zoning
requirements
and these are the drawings
for the property
and this is the basement
unit and what what it would look like um if it was done like i said the bathroom would be towards
the front of the uh property where it already is the the mechanicals are listed there i don't have
a mouse to point to them um and then this would be a living area in the kitchen and then the bedroom
towards the uh back of the property with right now you have a duplex and you want to make it
a triplex
a triplex into the basement
questions from the board
no chair
no Mr. Chairman
questions or comments
from the virtual audience
yes Chair
Charles Richardson has a hand up
I will allow him to speak
thank you Mr. Richardson
just state your name and please proceed
Charles Richardson, Office of Councilwoman Cindy Bass, Room 508, City Hall.
Councilwoman and the RCOs are against this basement apartment.
It's very small.
Even in Mr. Gillis' own estimation, it's only 800 square feet for two individuals in there.
There's only one egress.
He keeps saying egress as a window.
It's not an egress.
That is a window.
And it's just not good for a basement apartment in that location with only an entrance from the back, from the driveway, essentially.
So the councilwoman is against granting this variance.
Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to call in.
Is there anyone else in the first audience?
Planning Commission.
Yes, Chair. I'm sorry, Chair. Robert Young, excuse me, has a hand up.
okay hi mr young could you state your name please and spell for the court stenographer
hi Mr. Young could you state your name please
and spell
mr young mr young please unmute yourself
he's still muted can you hear me now yeah could you state your name please
a spell for the court reporter? Yes, Robert, R-O-B-E-R-T, Young, Y-O-U-N-G. Do you swear or
affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Please proceed.
Yes, I was in attendance with the ACCA meeting prior to this, and my conviction is this proposal
proposal is not a good idea. The apartment would be too small. The point of egress is a point of
concern, not to mention cooking. It looks like a bad safety hazard, and I would say no to this
proposal. We appreciate your taking the time to call in. Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see no hands, Chair.
Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
The first name Ron, R-O-N, last name Bednar, B-E-D-N-A-R.
Do you swear a firm that told you nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
This property is indicated for residential use on a city plan or adopted district plan recommends no change to the existing zoning at this location.
the applicant's hardship is not supported with evidence of unique physical circumstances or
condition of the property that would prevent it from being used in conformity with the use
requirements of the code. Therefore, we recommend that the request of variance not be granted.
Thank you. MI 2023-001-386-1532 West Negro, I vote no. Thomas Holloman, my vote is no.
James Snell my vote is no. Thank you.
Number four MI 2023-001-426-2566 Carl. Angela Romero Monsalva is the applicant.
This application is for a visitor accommodation in existing structure. No sign on this application.
RECOMMENDATION OF SUPPORT FROM EAST KENSINGTON NEIGHBORS ASSOCIATION AND LETTER OF NON-OPPOSITION FROM COUNCILMEMBER
SQUILA.
APPLICATE PROVIDED MULTIPLE LETTERS OF SUPPORT FROM THE NEIGHBORS.
ANGELA?
ANGELA RAMIRA IS PROMOTED, CHAIR.
THANK YOU.
YOU'RE WELCOME.
HI, GOOD EVENING.
Hi, good evening. Good afternoon. Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Sure. My name is Angela Romero. That is A-N-G-E-L-A-R-O-M-E-R-O.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yep, that's correct.
Our board member, Mr. Holloman, has a few questions.
good afternoon madam good afternoon madam did you email all of the exhibits and documents as
required five days in advance to this hearing that's correct thank you please proceed and
share your screen as you are uh okay yeah i just wanted to confirm that i'm sharing my screen
yes we see it thank you okay thank you i know we're running a little bit late so um i'm not
going to excuse me mr chair did you read the refusal into the record uh i thought i did but
i'll do it again okay this application is from uses of visitor accommodation in an existing
structure no sign on this application yeah that's the second time yeah that's okay sorry mr chair
No, that's fine. Proceed.
So here's what I think.
We have all your documents.
First of all, tell us what you want to do.
And then I think what you could do is then show us the photos of your property
and how you're using it, okay?
So tell us what you want to do.
Yeah, sure.
So I would like a visitor accommodation variance for my property.
I've been operating this property for about three years.
I can show you the pictures of it. This is the property as a triplex. I live in the property, so I live in the top unit. I have been operating the bottom two units as a short-term rental for the last three years.
I can show you the pictures of it.
This is the...
They have been a very successful long-term rentals in the sense that the community really supports the project.
And I will explain a little bit more why the community supports the project.
So before I bought the property, the property was unhabitable.
It was deemed structurally unsafe and it was abandoned by the landlord.
And as a result of that, there was a lot of crime, drug consumption, and unfortunately, prostitution in the corner.
Because the property had so much deferred maintenance, the landlord didn't want to do anything and it was abandoned.
It was very expensive to do all the redevelopment of the property because it was abandoned for so long.
So here I have some pictures of the basement and the middle of the first unit.
there was no first unit it was just this the main issue was that the plumbing was essentially very
old so it was a column like kind of like a colander and the basement was flooded and that
had made that the joist brought it and now the foundation was kind of caving in like a like a v
and so the house was just kind of falling into itself like a v that was very expensive and the
reason why the landlord didn't want to do it was because with the income that a long-term rental
they would make it's not financially viable to make all this remodeling so I kind of figured
out that with a short-term rental business in addition to my home I would be able to you know
do all the necessary fixes for the property after I can show you this is the second unit again this
had live wires it didn't have any electricity the third unit didn't have a bathroom or the
kitchen wasn't working as well so I did the remodelings and again and that's tied to my
hardship the remodeling were very expensive and I only did them because I knew I could operate
them as a short-term rental before the zoning changed a little bit more about the kind of the
it's a neighborhood serving business. It's operationally excellent. I've served over
a thousand days of people that I hosted with over 336 days, almost a perfect rating. And I've never,
ever, ever had a party, a police incident, a trash complaint, or a neighbor complaint. In fact,
again, as I mentioned, as a neighborhood serving business, most of the people that I host
are relatives of people in the community. And as you can see, I have some examples of the guests,
Jane Ann is visiting her daughter who lives around the corner and infecting.
And she's had stayed with me for several times.
She sent a letter of accommodation talking about why this is important to her.
David, his parents-in-law and his parents are also has also stayed with me.
And then Jennifer, for example, is a grandmother who has stayed with me several times because she visits her grandbaby.
um and this is to show the pictures now after the remodeling um to show that i really focus on
providing um affordable quality accommodations into the community i don't run like you know a
city operation i really took care of you know building an exceptional business that serves
the neighborhood um and i also want to bring in high quality visitors that contribute to the local
economy. So again, this is, you know, the remodel unit number one. This is the remodel unit number
two. And this actually for this unit, we also had to bring in some jacks and pull up the foundation
for this because it was a scan caving into itself and it needed retrofitting.
And then the third unit as well, as you can see, they didn't have a kitchen or a bathroom.
now it's operational and this is actually um at this unit also had a lot of issues and with the
roof of the roof just had a lot of holes and it was damaging the property in terms of the safety
measure that I put in for my property um this there's a lot I know we're kind of sharing out
of time so I don't want to cover too many um being respectful of people's time the most important
thing is that I do a background check on all the guests that stay through a platform called
Hospitable. I have four cameras in the property that have now become a beacon of safety. Every
time there's an issue not related to my property, but a car and things, I always get asked to share