We appreciate it.
All right.
Thank you very much, sir.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
Chair, I see no further hands.
Cleaning, do you want to withhold your comments until?
Yes, Chair.
I think that's best so that we get the full scope of the evidence.
So we will have a resumptive hearing.
um and why don't we what we'll do is we'll try to get this as quick as possible
when you get a date call the office and we'll see what we can do okay thank you so much mr
chair thank you i appreciate it right and mr mr chair this is hillary just to clarify for the
record the resumptive hearing will be um won't be for any follow-up testimony or letter from the rco
um response from the applicant um the council office and the planning commission otherwise
the record is closed and no other testimony will be taken i think you've got everybody covered thank
you okay thank you number 13 mi 2023 003 830 13481 damar drive stephen pollock is the attorney
There's a letter of support from Somerton Civic Association.
Steven Pollock is coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Pollock.
Good afternoon.
Mr. Pollock, how are you, sir?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the board. How are you today?
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the board.
How are you today?
Good. Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court stenographer?
Could you state your...
Yes, sir. Stephen Pollack. Stephen with a P-H, S-T-E-P-H-N, Pollack, P-O-L-L-O-C-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Mr. Chairman.
Would you identify your client and relationship to this property?
My client is DeMar Real Estate and John Capone. They are the owners of the real estate.
Our vice chair has a few questions.
Certainly.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
I do, Mr. Shahid.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed and required to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
We have, sir.
Thank you.
Please proceed, counsel, and share your screen.
Mr. Chairman, may I ask that?
You can.
You can.
But Nico left me for greener pastures, so I have Ryan Thomas who's going to help me out.
So if I can have Ryan.
Well, he'll just take care of the screen for you, right?
Elevate it.
I knew I'm going to tell him that you missed him because I told him you would miss him.
Ryan Thomas has been promoted, Chair.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, great.
There he is.
All right, Ryan, you want to share your screen for us and we'll get it going.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, this is an application to subdivide two lots into five lots to build two new sets of twin homes.
What you see in this very first picture are the two sets of twin homes that were approved by the zoning board back in 2016 for prior variants for DeMar Drive.
What we're doing is taking the next lots that are adjacent to these two dwellings and create two new sets of twin homes.
So, Ryan, if you want to go to the next picture you have just to show, there's just another one.
That's the corner property, DeMar and Southampton.
This is up in the 58th Ward off of Southampton Road.
That's the last set of existing twins.
And to the right of that is where we're going to be building the new property.
Go ahead.
Next one.
You want.
You can go past that because that's the same.
And then we have the next picture show that we had a post and we posted the property in two locations because it's 13481 and 13491 Damar Drive.
Go ahead. And just another picture of where the lot is. We have behind us a Pico right-of-way and a Conrail right-of-way. As you can see, the high wire transmission line behind us. Go ahead, next.
go ahead same similar shot and this is looking from um demar drive towards uh north along demar
drive towards southampton road that white house on the side is the side of the the second set of
twins and where i where my shadow is that's me taking the photo is about where uh the demarcation
line is between where the industrial development of demar drive picks up uh demar drive is a tale
of two cities or two streets. Long ago, the side to the left of this picture was allowed to change
by variances from industrial to residential and has been remapped to RSA2, but there are five
sets of twin homes directly opposite on the left-hand side. In allowing us to build the first
two sets of twins, we were starting to have the residential and got rid of some industrial
outdoor storage that my client had, and we're trying to move that even further up.
So if you keep going to the next photo, just a little bit further where you can see how
it's being, where we're going to be developing it, and you can go, there are those twins
across the way that are directly across the street from us, and when we build our last
home will be even with the last home on the other side of the Mars. So keep going.
Another shot looking towards Southampton Road, where we'll be building these
two sets of twins. And there is a fifth lot that will be vacant, that will be retained as vacant
for right now development. And that's probably about where my shadow is. But keep going. And
Let's get to the site plan for a second, if we can, at A71 and A72, so we can give the board a sense.
So highlighted in yellow are the two lots that we're converting into the five lots down below, and then if you go to the next one, A72, you will see.
And then if you go to the next one, A72, you will see the four lots and then an L-shaped lot that will be retained in the back.
But those four lots are 40 feet by 100 feet.
The RSA two dimensions across the street are 35 by about 100, even a little bit less.
We're going to be 40 by 100, so we've got 4,000 square feet of home.
The home itself is 24 feet wide.
And if we go to our A8, where we have the plans, there'll be a three- and a four-bedroom option.
Just A7-3 shows the streets department approved the curb cuts.
And we have plans that show basically that it's going to be a little large.
But that's if you get past that open page, the cover page and keep going down.
That's a side view, I guess, or the front view.
Go ahead. Keep going. It's getting a little difficult.
But there are three, four bedroom homes. Keep going. Keep going.
We're getting there with a garage. That's the first floor plan.
Here's the second floor plan for the three bedroom and the four bedroom.
And these homes will fit in, as you've seen, as shown on the adjacent property.
We have a hardship to the ground is that through the development of granting us a variance of the first two homes and what's across the street, as I said, this really is a tale of two streets.
In this beginning part of the stem of the bulb of the cul-de-sac, it's really become residential.
And by allowing these two other sets of twins to be developed, we will be pushing any more industrial away from and creating sort of a pocket for the industrial.
So it's the old Valley View case that there's sort of things around it have changed and been zoned and other uses have been permitted that allow a residential use for this for this property.
If we go back to the photos real quick, and we went those last ones, Ryan, like 31, 32, 33.
And then we have behind those existing homes, if you keep going, I think it was photo 31, 32, 33.
There we go.
So if you see, Mr. Chairman, that's the backyard of the closest, the last set of twins.
There's a privacy fence that's in the rear.
We agreed, Somerton Civic in their letter wanted us to put a privacy, continue the privacy fence behind lots A, B, C, and D, which we're building the four.
So we said we'd be willing to do that.
And then the other thing was, we discussed about putting up some shrubbery and sealing off where the residential ends.
So we have a proposed proviso, and if you could pull that one up, because we think that where Ryan, where Chris Borderline showed it on his image too, he showed shrubbery on the wrong side.
So we've proposed that, and we'll have it, we have proviso language.
It says that we would put the privacy fence in the back where the yellow line is behind lots A, B, C, and D, and along the side of the last lot D, and then we would put a buffer on the other side, fence side, our side, lot E side, where the green is, and also a buffer in that back L.
If you want to show, please, Ryan, the language that we have with that so that the board was willing to adapt it.
Because we're trying to accommodate what came up with Somerton Civic to wall off the residential firm industrial.
So we would just be saying applicant to wreck the six-foot high fence on the rear.
Property line of the proposed lots, A, B, C, and D, as shown on that attached image number two.
Applicant to extend the six-foot high fence along the side property line between proposed lot D and proposed lot E.
from along the side property line as shown in yellow
in that attached image.
And then we will provide landscape buffer
on Lottie as shown in green.
So that would be what we would ask
if the board is willing to grant us a variance today.
So they're trying to accommodate.
Okay, hold on one minute, hold on.
So Hillary, if we were gonna approve this,
is that appropriate?
So typically landscaping,
we we don't um we don't do provisals for landscaping um because that's
we don't um we don't do provisos for landscaping um because that's not not something that we review
um with the with the fence um that would be better i think in a proviso plan because you know fencing
has specific requirements in terms of height and opacity depending on where it's located
so i would be i would be hesitant to to do just a proviso for for a fence
without having revised plans that could be reviewed
we were i know that the six foot high fences is zoned i and i1 industrial was allowed in the rear
i think it would also be allowed along up to the front on the side because i1 does not have a
building setback and therefore uh we could still have a six foot high fence so i i would i would
suggest that i mean if that i think this we're trying we were trying to accommodate
right no i i understand i understand yeah typically fencing fencing needs to be reviewed
by lni so i i i'm hesitant to just add it as a proviso without having it you know in in plans
that can be reviewed so that's that's my well as i said what we were trying again if we
well the only other way i guess would be to hold hold your vote on and let us present a plan but
you would want us to have when i look at it and see if it's okay and all that kind of stuff yeah
i would think so yep or we could because i know we could we could uh present shrubs hang on i'm
get no i was gonna say you could also just get a separate permit for you know what we'll go for a
separate permit for the fence yeah because if it's by right if you do it completely by right that
will be a problem yeah that would be the best way i think all right we'll withdraw forget about
as i said we were just trying to in a nice way that's fine that's fine we could accommodate
accommodate summer and civic i grew up being the first civic association i represented way back
when was uh because i lived up in summer in the 58th floor was the summer and civic so i always
have a soft spot in trying to accommodate summer and civic but we'll withdraw any request for
offense at this point and we'll because i think they're as of right and we'll be able to just
follow through with it okay and then just ask the board to consider uh all our exhibits from a
1 through a 16 which shows uh and ask that our explanation of them be included i have john
Caponi available so Mr. Caponi can get on and verify what I've stated and adopted.
John Caponi, if you're in the virtual audience, please raise your hand.
He's going to be a phone call, a phone number.
Chair, we have a caller with the phone number ending in 2800. Is that him, Mr. Pollack?
Yes. John, is that you?
they've been
unmuted and allowed to speak
sir could you state your name please
sir could you state your name please
and spell for the court stenographer
john are you on
mr caponi
i'm texting him
he usually is pretty quick
he's reconnecting he's telling me okay
mr caponi
mr pollack mr pop yes sir you're as an officer of the court if you will accept my
I can't lightly accept your testimony.
I can't accept my testimony yet.
Questions from the board.
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?
Chair, we have Alice Udovich.
They have been unmuted and allowed to speak.
Alice, you've already been sworn today.
just state your name for the record and and please testify good afternoon chairman members of the
board alice udovich a-l-i-c-e-u-d-o-v-i-c-h and uh chairman uh the councilman is happy to support
the granting of the variance at this location thank you very much for calling in alice we
appreciate it is there anyone else in the virtual audience i see no hands at this time chair
planning commission
i'm sorry i was i i didn't that's okay that's okay great good afternoon uh chair members of
the board this is greg waldman planning commission staff the comprehensive plan recommends no change
to the existing late industrial zoning the appellant has not supported their hardship
claim with evidence of unique fiscal circumstances or conditions of the property which is a vacant
lot additional residential uses would impair adjacent existing operating uh industrial