All right.
Number one, MI-2022-005-922-1719 North 2nd Street.
Dawn Tangrady is the attorney.
Letter of opposition from South Kensington Community Partners.
Letter of opposition from Council Member Lozada.
don tangrady has been promoted
good evening mr and grady
good evening chair and members of the board right um could you just state your name for
the record and spell for this court sonographer sure it's dawn tancredi t-a-n-c-r-e-d-i
right do you swear for him to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Mr. Holloman has just a few questions.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
I would just like to say that we did come here today with revised plans.
So the plans that we're seeking approval for today, it's not for 10 units.
it's only for five units and also as a result the parking requirement would be eight spaces instead
of ten so it was accurate at the time it was issued okay did you email all of the exhibits
and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing yes my office did that thank you
please proceed and share you oh you're sharing the screen now thank you thank you so good afternoon
everyone. My name is Dawn Tancredi, and I represent Joseph Walker in reference to this
application for a mixed-use project at 1719 North 2nd Street. And just to
bring you up to speed here, I will show you a photo of the property in its current condition,
which is on my screen right now. And here is a rendering of the proposed project.
So the original application, as I mentioned, was for 10 residential units with an eating and
drinking establishment on the ground floor. After a meeting with the community, the plans were
revised the number of dwelling units was reduced to five dwelling units and the parking refusal
is reduced the owner has a parking agreement for five parking spaces nearby a copy of the cube
smart parking memo is included in the packet you can see here it says find the attached reservations
for five parking spaces from CubeSmart, and it has the fees for the spaces as well.
So just before I have the architect talk about the plans, I'd like to just give you some background.
The property itself is shown here on the zoning map on the screen. It's zoned ICMX. It's surrounded by other properties that are zoned ICMX. There is some property on the block that's zoned RM1 for multifamily.
but the property the property itself is just over 22 feet wide in the front
it's 73 feet in depth on one side of the property and a little over 85 feet on the
in depth on one side of the property and a little over 85 feet on the other side of the property.
So you can see here from the zoning plan that it's an irregularly shaped lot. It's about 1700
square feet so it's small for a commercial or industrial space and you can see that just even
you would never be able to include a loading zone here. And even if you look at the
picture of the property in front, you can see here and my client can testify that the garage
door poses challenges because it does not allow for a box truck to fit through it.
The history of the property shows it's been used for food distribution and storage.
It's been vacant for about a year and a half now.
Prior to that, the property was used for auto repairs, including body and fender work, and painting and spraying cars.
The neighborhood has changed, and these uses have become obsolete and undesirable here.
In particular, I'll show you photos showing the surrounding area.
The property is surrounded by extensive mixed use, which makes uses other than mixed use nearly impossible.
You can see here, here's our client's property.
The property in the middle here at the triangle has been built with multifamily.
You'll see other photos showing that.
You've got a property adjacent to our property, which is mixed use.
There are properties across the street as well.
Here's a property across the street. Just to give you an idea of these surrounding
properties with their addresses, the mixed use properties vary in height ranging from 60 feet
to 91 feet. For example, at 1701 North 2nd Street, the property adjacent to us or nearby,
it says the height is 86 feet. And at the front level, it's 69 feet. It matches our
client's property. And you can see that in the renderings.
Is this going to have a restaurant on the first floor and a drinking establishment?
Yes, the proposal is to have a restaurant here on the ground floor. And in response to the
community's concerns, there were changes to the floor plan on the first floor level because the
commercial space was located more in the rear of the property because of the elevator. And
And the owner made changes to have more of that commercial space up front.
Right.
And the council, have they ever changed their positions as a result of the changes the owner made?
They really did not.
Thank you.
But we did show them that their concerns have been addressed.
The one concern was density.
The number of units was changed from 10.
it was reduced to five units the building was made smaller it was pulled back above the first
word level and i can have the architect talk about that if david whipple could be promoted to a
panelist all right could you state your name sir and spell for the court stenographer he's coming
back in as a panelist here sir could you state your name
I don't
there he is
Mr. Whipple
please
sorry about that
I'm sorry
he can send you
himself
my name is
could you state
your name
and spell for
the court
sonographer
last name is
W-H-I-P-E-P-L-E
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth i do
david could you please describe the plans and in doing so in particular i'd like you to
address the refusals of the height and and the parking
of the height and and the parking. Sure um the and the use um with the lot being narrow uh with the
red the irregular shape um finding like a a allowable uses were challenging um
So we thought that a more open commercial use on the first floor, mainly for a restaurant that would allow for the tenants above and also adjacent property tenants to have access to that space.
The first floor does take up the entire lot to allow for a larger commercial space that could be more usable.
And then as we go up to the second floor and above, we did reduce the building back from the rear lot line more.
One of the concerns that the RCO had was just the overall mass of the structure.
So we thought by doing that, it would have to address that concern.
And is that shown here on the plans with the balcony?
Correct.
So there are exterior balconies that are going off the rear.
We thought giving each tenant some exterior space would be a nice feature to have.
And then the rear wall was pushed in more.
And why couldn't you do that on the first floor level?
Really to allow for a large enough commercial space that could be used.
The size of the commercial space that we have now is only about 1,200 square feet.
So it's not a super large space.
And can you talk about the height of the building?
We really just wanted to match the height of the adjacent structure next to us.
There are mainly two reasons.
One, we felt that if our building was smaller, that it would lose some presence on the street.
And in addition to that, one of the partners of the project is also a solar panel installer.
So the intention was to have as large of a roof area as we could in order to install solar panels up there,
and trying to maximize the amount of renewable energy
that we could generate for the apartments.
Thank you.
Does the board have any questions for the architect?
No, we're fine with the architect, I believe.
Is the owner here that you can adopt your,
you can adopt, have your testimony adopted with the owner?
Joseph Walker.
Joseph Walker has been promoted Mr. Walker, could you say your name is spelled please
for the court stenographer.
Mr. Walker, he's unmuted chair and he's been allowed to speak.
i don't know if he's having audio trouble okay um counsel you're an officer the court will
will gladly accept your testimony um thank you questions from the board no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
no hands chair planning commission
ron yeah ron bednar city planning this property is currently indicated for neighborhood commercial
mixed use on the city plan 2016 the zoning map was amended from i2 to cmx2 but
recent construction supports the proposed revised plans therefore we we have no objection to the
granular variance. Council, we're going to hold this until next week. Is that okay, Hillary?
Yes, Mr. Chair. Ms. Tancredi, some of the changes that you mentioned aren't listed on
the proviso form, so I need to go over some of that with you and make sure that everything
So I need to go over some of that with you and make sure that everything, all the changes are reflected and listed and in the plans as well before the board can vote on this matter.
Hillary, can we look to do this by next week?
That should be fine, Mr. Chair.
How about next Wednesday at 2 p.m. we'll vote.
Okay, that sounds good.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Kathleen.
Thank you all.
Have a good evening.
All right.
Okay. Number two, MI 2023-001-423-2246 North 16th Street, Vern Anastasio.
Mr. Anastasio is coming back in as a panelist.
I can't so good evening I'm sure I swore you sometime today yes early this morning you just
state your name for the record please yeah Vern Anastasio A-N-A-S-T-A-S-I-O 2016 Spruce Street
representing the owner Mr. Durant of the subject property
um mr hallman has just a few questions for you sir thank you good evening counselor do you agree
to waive the reading of the refusal and stimulate to its accuracy i do did you email all the exhibits
and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing yes sir thank you please proceed
and share your screen thank you mr chair it's my understanding you have a letter of support
i do from the uptown entertainment and development corporation so we'll make this quick uh basically
it's uh we're trying to get a use for a four-family dwelling and a 16 structure
structure already is a four-family dwelling um i have plans here that i will share with you
There's a first floor plan. I'm trying to get this bar out of the way. Okay. First floor plan of one unit, second floor plan of two mirror units, both of ample size, and then the top floor, one unit.
We have evidence of a long-standing use as a multifamily.
I'm moving into evidence, all 33 pages of exhibits, including all the photos, the most important of which, as you can see, each unit has its own water heater.
Each unit has its own electric meter plus a house meter.
And my client didn't put any of these there.
My client inherited this property and it was already subdivided up as a four-family dwelling.
This is the letter that went out to over 200 households.
There's the proof of mailing 234.
And after meeting with them, it was voted by the neighbors to support the project.
This is the exterior.
There's a vacant lot right adjacent to it.
There's lots of vacant lots on this block.
It could use a little bit of density.
Again, it's already been there, but it could, I guess, use compliant density so that the
the owner could you know make sure that folks who are occupying it are doing so responsibly
and as you know with a rental license there can be an eviction if they're not good neighbors so
this is the property in question and because you know this is a long-standing
pre-existing use because there's evidence of multiple utilities being installed decades ago
And I have history of the property that supports all of that.
And because the RCO supports this application, not just offers non-opposition, but truly supports it, we're respectfully asking granting of the variance.
You want to bring your client on?
Yes, Gregory Durant, if he happens to still be here, if he could raise his virtual hand.
Gregory Durant.
yes can you hear me yes we can sir could you state your name and spell for the court
stenographer yes gregory durant last name spelled d-u-r-a-n-t right do you swear
Right. Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir i do
Yes, sir, I do.
Is he counsel?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Durant, did you hear my presentation to the board this evening?
Yes, I did.