ZBA Hearing - July 31, 2024

reuse of the property. My client is not the developer. They're just a tenant in the property.

But this is the property from Germantown, the property from Weaver perspective, and the property from Sharp Neck as well.

And then the hearing notice posters, you know, from Germantown, Weaver, and Sharp Neck.

And then this is, you know, again, Germantown to the right of the property, to the left of the property, Weaver to the right of the property, and to the left of the property.

and then finally sharp neck to the right of the property

and to the left of the property.

And then our plans and drawings,

this is how we envision the place.

You know, again, signage is just not part of this application.

If they're signage, obviously we would have to do a submission

to L&I in that respect.

But this is interior rendering of what we see the property

to look like from an interior point of view.

25 seats, cooking the premises.

You know, we just hopefully have this as a nice neighborhood restaurant where people come by, sit down.

But if they want takeout, we can give them takeout as well.

And then that's the kitchen area.

This is, I guess, a bathroom just to show you, you know, the quality of what my client expects to put in there.

And then this is just a site plan, again, for the different perspectives.

Weaver, Sharp Knack in Germantown.

And then, again, we have access to the first floor in the lower-level area.

Lower-level area is just for storage.

You can see right here, this is all storage for us.

No use on the lower level other than that.

First floor, there's 25 seats.

Main entrance is on this corner right here.

And there is two other forms of entrance here.

So I want to make sure I say the right streets.

That's Weber and Sharp Neck, yeah.

So this is the Sharp Neck side.

So there's an entrance here for the residential and our commercial.

But the commercial, this is only for really our employees.

Same thing here from the Weber side as well.

Multiple forms of egress.

But in case of emergency, people can go through.

But the primary form of egress here is through this little corner of Sharp Neck and Germantown.

RCO meeting notice.

We'll attend the meeting.

June 26th, we had it at 6.30 p.m. via Zoom.

We emailed notice of that community meeting to the RCOs, as well as other relevant parties a couple weeks beforehand, like we always do.

And what we showed them was that we sent it to, we mailed the notice to 82 addresses, list of the addresses,

proof of mailing to those addresses,

our application for special exception

that we filed on behalf of our client,

our notice referral,

as well as our project information form,

the lease of property,

showing that Mr. Gage in Germantown

Brick Oven Pizzeria LLC

is the owner of the property.

And then finally, our certificate of tax clearance, showing that there are no real estate taxes due on account of this property.

And then finally,

our certificate of tax clearance

showing that there are

I would ask that Mr. Gage virtually raise his hand.

I'll be more than happy to take any questions afterwards.

Ashton Gage has been allowed to speak.

Mr. Gage, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?

My name is Ashton Gage, ASH tier one, last name G-A-G-E.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?

Yes.

Please proceed, counsel.

Yes.

Mr. Gage, you heard everything I had to state today.

Is it true and correct?

Yes.

And do you adopt this in your own testimony?

Yes.

Okay.

A couple other things, which I probably, I'm sure the board's going to ask, but I had the hours of operation from Tuesday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Is that correct?

yes okay and then the storage is outside i believe right there's an enclosed container

um where where's the location of that again location is on sharp neck street okay and

you're doing commercial trash pickup commercial that is correct all right thank you very much

no problem question questions from the board yes uh question uh interior exhaust to the roof

No, so it's actually going to be exhaust to decide. And Mr. Gage can use confirm that it's decide to Weaver. Is that correct?

Can you go back to the plan?

Sure.

i don't know if it's reflected on there but um i did ask that question beforehand um

no it's very important and obviously a valid question for the board so um i think it's it's

not reflected but i'll just show you this this is the you know the oven and the exhaust of the oven

and it's going to be coming out of i believe weaver street onto the street and we made that

presentation to the community as well like we don't have control this is not our building we

don't have control of like how we how we can handle that so that was what we were told to do

and the what's on weaver street what's behind there uh good question let me see i think it's uh

let's see for um i think actually i think a better photo let's say i saw another photo where is that

here i would this is weaver right here so i would think the exhaust is right here

and so we're we're furthest away from the residential the proposal is going to exhaust

the proposal is to exhaust directly out there with about extending up through above the roof

um i would that's my understanding that's correct that's not a good thing

everywhere you see that they've got three starts to drip and the wall looks you know some mess

and it's noxious because all the fumes blow out into the neighborhood

is the is the is the the other question i have is is the uh entrance to the um the um

the restaurant is it at great i see you've got a a handicap accessible bathroom which is great

um it does look like you're at great if that's the yeah it does i'm trying to find a better

picture so let me just try to find one uh well i think this is right here so i think there would be

a ramp coming down here.

I don't know if Mr. Morrissey

or anyone from his team,

the architecture team,

can answer those questions.

I can answer them.

It's two entrances into the building.

One, the main interest is right there

and also it's handicap accessible

from Germantown Avenue

with a ramp going right into one of the doors.

Okay, so there's a ramp along Germantown Avenue.

Yes, and also for the exhaust,

it's going to come out Weaver Street,

climb up past the third floor and exhaust about four feet above that roof okay yeah all right

thank you no problem any other questions for the board yes did i hear you say that this is now

zoned as a sit-down restaurant and you want to change it to a take-out restaurant or are you

trying to have both or we're trying to have both we're trying we have a sit-down aspect to it which

is the primary purpose of this place, but we want the ability to also have takeout as

well.

So the variance is to have more than four seats?

Is that what we need to do here?

is that what we need to do here because takeout generally supposed to have what is it four seats

Because takeout you're only supposed to have what is it for?

or less and you're talking about having how many seats well we have 25 seats i don't so

i don't know how those coexist then so but is but is it is the request for

eat-in restaurant, right?

Is that what it is?

No, it's a request for takeout.

Alan says it's currently

an interior

just in there, and now it's

one takeout too.

That's right, and because we wanted that,

we got this referral, so it's not a variance,

but we got a referral for that aspect of it.

So we're still in the process of building out the space, so we got a permit for the sit-down portion of it.

In order to get the additional use for the take-out portion of it, we're going through this process.

Okay. And so I guess my question is, are we then saying that we're giving you a variance to have more seats than would ordinarily be requested or allowed for a takeout restaurant? Is that what we're doing?

Well, I would defer to Hillary Emerson, the ZBA's council in that respect. What we're asking for is to use to allow to have takeout capability, whether or not, you know, we're also asking for variants to allow us to have the additional seating for the sit down. That's, you know, that's, I think, more the ZBA's council's, like, purview.

yeah and that's that's really my question how do these coexist i mean so it is it is my

understanding um based on conversations with l and i that um they the uses can coexist in the

same property okay so um perhaps take out services offered at certain times exclusively sit down

at other times or different tenants.

But yeah, I have been advised

that they can exist at the same time.

Okay.

Other questions from the board, please.

I have another quick question.

You mentioned that the trash will be stored

in an enclosure.

But I'm looking at your site plan.

I don't see it.

It's on the outside.

This side is actually, let me see if I can find a picture of it.

I think I saw a picture of it before.

Let's see.

Oops.

You see it's right here.

It's along this side right here.

There's like an enclosure here that's part of our lease.

We're allowed to store our trash there.

Okay, so it's just, they're just cans.

There's not like a dumpster.

No, it's not a dumpster.

and we expect to have multiple times a week

to have commercial trash pickup.

All right, that was it.

That was it.

Any other questions?

Questions?

A comment from our attorney, Hillary Emerson.

Just briefly, Mr. Chair, Mr. Nockamson,

um uh we had requested um an executed lease because the one that was in your packet was

unsigned um as well as interior photos we didn't receive those um i don't know if you if you didn't

you didn't receive our email um do you have a copy i can get you a copy for your records and

you know same thing with the i think the interior photos would show like a raw space

i would ask mr gage i i don't i don't remember seeing that email

okay do you have do you have a copy of the signed lease you can show us now

um do we have a copy of the signed lease uh passion

and i can get a copy of the sideways uh uh use docu sign to sign it and that was like the fastest

where i could uh sent it over but i could uh ask him to send me the copy version of that at least

i could get it to you okay we will just need that to vote because that is the proof of standing

in this case oh thank you i mean i also technically filed it under the property owner i mean what i

can do is we can i can if you don't mind i'm sure you have other matters that you can hear we can

If you don't mind, I'm sure you have other matters that you can hear.

We can just be held up because, again, this is a business.

just be

We want to make sure this business can operate.

We don't want to hold off any longer.

We could do one or two things.

Again, the application was technically filed under the property owner.

I would say that there's a copy of the deed.

We can go public record and show you that.

Or we can get a copy of the lease, but I would just say hold off

And let's just get a copy of it. And when we're, when we're ready, I will email that copy to, to, you know, the board or supplement our packet. And if I would virtually raise my hand to say we're ready to just present that last item.

um Mr. Chair I would be fine with that either either the because the way the packet was

was provided indicated that the tenant was the represent was the applicant so either a copy of

the deed if you're representing the owner or a signed copy um of the lease yeah the copy of the

deed I mean I could just go online with you on atlas um let me just do that I can just show it

then I can supplement as well.

But hold on.

Let me just go on that.

Let's 65, 16.