uh i don't i don't think this project was as straightforward as we talked about having three
three straightforward ones but uh well how about this and i mean i did mention to you about you
well straightforward in the sense of in terms of meeting the community so i understand so i've
heard everything that was said and i think the best thing that i need to do is to get everybody
together next week and figure out where we want to be with this and we will vote on this at 2 p.m
next wednesday thank you thank you for your service all right thank you all right thank you
Thank you. Um Sean. Yeah, it's closed.
MI 2025 005 352 1032 North Front Street, TA 456223. Sean Whalen is the attorney. Mr. Whalen,
could you um um identify yourself and spell your name for the stenographer certainly good afternoon
sean whalen w-h-a-l-e-n whalen law group here for gdc allen street partners lp you swear or affirm
to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do i see northern liberty's
neighbors um has a letter of support with a proviso a trash proviso uh our vice chair has
few questions good afternoon have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance
of this hearing yes i did and do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to their
accuracy yes okay thank you show your screen and begin your case no i will start by saying i'm
very happy to say we've done no building without permits so we can just put we can push that one
aside and move on thank you we have all been we have all been in mr nockerson's shoes
this will be this will be refreshing okay
i know board member gaston even knows i watched her present many cases in front of this board
tap dancing just like that i understand all right uh this case is uh not straightforward
but i think well justified um this is 1032 north front street uh you may know it as the former
immaculate conception church and rectory uh so this is the back side of the piazza development
oh sure yeah um the owner has gone through extensive development work and pains to
adaptively reuse the church and the rectory instead of seeking you know what would have
seeking you know what would have been easy and common to demolish the whole thing and you know
been easy and common to demolish the whole thing and
rebuild a brand new building at much less cost so this project has already gone through
approvals for the church and rectory for a total of 37 it's approved already for a total of 37
units that originally and that's this is all part of this application that originally was approved
for 45 units and the owner here can say they already reduced that number based on the reality
and logistics of the church but in order to actually get in there and provide real usable
uh and adaptive reuse of the church and the rectory we've got you know we lost eight units
right there from 45 to 37 of the original approvals uh in addition this we are seeking an annex
building a six unit three-story annex building in the rear with seven below grade parking spaces
this has also been seen and approved by the historical commission already in fact this was
actually approved at a much larger four-story building that went all the way out to the street
and as i'll walk you through the owner has tried to minimize it as much as possible to meet not only
least minimum variance standard but more importantly to make it really fit in line
with what the historical commission saw as the the future and the vision of the church
so again we have here's an aerial at the bottom of the screen you can see 95.
we are essentially right under 95 and right at the railway tracks so you can see right
where my cursor is right now this is the existing church that's the church tower and then the
rectory is over here this is all rsa5 zoning so we are subject to that it's obviously never been
single family zoning nor will it be going forward so here are some photos again here's here's the
raised L right here across the sidewalk. This is looking at the rectory, the existing rectory
and the church building beyond it. So as we go down now, this is literally right out the front
door of the church, which unfortunately probably suffered quite a bit as soon as that L was built.
This is looking up north under the L and you can see actually the giant Carvana tower that
we all know well is right to the right of this and now as we go around the property you can see
there are all large multi-family developments all around here with one small pocket of single
family houses again this is now walking down pollard street there are a few single family
houses on the left the other the opposite side of pollard and then this is the existing condition
so you can see it already has an existing uh one car garage there
and then what you can see here to the left this stone wall with this large open area that's been
approved for approximately 35 townhomes that's the site of the former uh much maligned swim club
that was right behind the piazza um so that has been gone now i think went out of business right
around covid coming out of covid uh it it became approved for a large uh development of townhomes
and this annex building will be abutting and adjacent to and actually attached to one of those
interior townhomes so what you have right here is the existing parking lot of the church itself
the church is on the left we're now standing on west allen street looking across again this is
the existing church and you can see the rectory in the distance to my point so what we're doing
here is you'll be coming accessing this vehicularly via this annex via west allen street
that's the neighborhood
sorry while i'm talking about so uh here's west allen street on the right hand side of this
screen north front goes right underneath the l and then on the left is pollard so what you can see
here is you'll be coming off of west allen there's the existing curb cut which will be
actually shrunk and allow that axis axis point
and allow that access point. The green here is new landscaping that's going to be put in.
There's no landscaping there, obviously, as I just showed. And then this ramp will actually
ramp down below grade. And there will be, this is where we've proposed to put the annex building.
There will be seven parking spaces. I'll show those in a minute, below grade parking.
So what we have done is you can see this large gray building here is a set of individual townhomes that front directly on West Allen and kind of match and mirror the single family homes on the other side of West Allen.
We have no single family homes across the street from us.
And I have a photo for that in just a second.
We're actually across the street from a large surface parking lot.
and um so what we've done is i'm sorry a large park next to the parking on north front street
um what we have then is in the rear we have this i can
So as I move in, there is already approved and in the process of construction is what the status of the townhomes this center townhome is developed what the owner did here was pulled back the frontage of this annex just over 64 feet.
so it's recessed from the street by 64 feet in order to directly line up with this center townhome
development and it's actually limited to 17 and a half feet wide so it will again mimic for all
intents and purposes from anyone walking past a recessed townhome in the rear and that's all that
will be seen. This annex is not visible from North Front Street or from Pollard Street.
There will be, over here you can see this is Pollard on the left and this is the rectory.
There will be a deck that then attaches the annex building, the church, and the rectory.
and that annex building from a pedestrian standpoint on Pollard will be accessed by
ramps and steps coming up from Pollard Street. So again what you will be able to see from
the street is what you see on the left hand side here but again there's actually this much of this
goes below grade so you won't even see you know from this point below that's all ramping down
where the vehicular traffic is there is no height refusal this is 35 feet approximately in height
so there is no refusal for height again we have this will show you the access point
they didn't zoom in that much
so again north front street is on the right hand side here pollard is to the bottom of this screen
and this is west allen street so it's it's bi-directional here it ramps down so all you'll
be able to see from you know the pedestrian viewpoint is either the landscaping or then
this 17 and a half foot wide building so you won't even be able to see the full depth of this
and this has been designed by the owner in accordance with the requests of the zoning
or sorry of the historical commission so that it addresses all of the concerns that the historical
the historical commission had.
Again, this is just a landscape plan showing.
This is just evidence of the permit already existing in place for the church and the rectory.
And then we have
we we have the letter of full support from nlna and uh quite thankfully they were uh there was
no opposition whatsoever from either the nlna zoning committee or any of the individuals in
attendance uh they were ecstatic to have this project you know again continue to keep this
rectory in the church every neighborhood sees these get torn down every year or asked to be
torn down every year. So again, here, as far as the variance and the request goes,
So again, here, as far as the variance and the request goes, this is a large irregular lot over 20,000 square feet. Obviously, we have the hardship derives from the extremely large existing building that, you know, already predates even the zoning code, both the rectory and the church itself.
and part of what the zoning code allows for is that these church properties get kind of separate
zoning to try to help assuage the costs of maintaining and preserving these historic
resources and sometimes that doesn't go far enough like here you know if you have a large
enough property and you can't because of the logistics of the interior of the existing building
where you can't do massive demolition to the existing historic fabric, you're stuck in a
situation where you're losing the number of units that the code envisions you need in order to
overcome this preservation difficulty. And so what happened here is it actually would have been a
viable demolition candidate. The soils are terrible, and much to the owner's chagrin,
he has had to install an entire new foundation under the church in order yeah that was my
reaction as well an entirely new foundation underneath the the existing church in order
to keep it in place it also needed an entirely new roof and all new windows you know these are
in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollar initial improvements just to get started
before you can even start putting any units in here so what we are seeking again we get the
the refusals because we are rsa5 but we believe that we have overcome those in that we have this
huge existing dilapidated church and rectory that's extremely expensive to adaptively reuse
and we are trying to do so in the least invasive way possible which is the inclusion of this new
building which is a six unit and only a six unit building uh the six units are each one bedrooms
that will have approximately 740 750 square feet so they are very large one bedrooms um you know
these are not being squeezed in there are no studio apartments in either the church directory or the um
or the annex building and um you know that there is no detriment obviously the best
view of whether there's detriment to the new building yet you're talking about
oh yeah i don't think we did we see that i don't know i haven't seen them in time
so i can show you
here's where the new building is you know located on the site zoom out one
um so again here's uh the large church is at the bottom of the screen the rectory is on the left
hand side of the screen it's tough because it's so small this is the annex building right here
that's proposed uh there is this kind of zigzag in the in the property line so it does hug the
property behind what it looks like yes so this is what the frontage of the property will look like
okay and i will allow the owner to speak to you know the design aspects of that and and with the
brick um this again is the side of the of the property so you'll be driving down this all this
parking is below grade and you'll be parking underneath underneath the building
and again we we believe this is the least minimum variance this was already approved for 45 units
by right under the code the building did not allow for that and so it has been reduced by
eight units to 37 now we're seeking to only add in six more six of those units back basically
to try to make this an economically viable adaptive reuse.
So with that, I would simply have my client adopt my testimony.
Sir, could you please state your name and then spell for the stenographer?
Michael Koep, M-I-C-H-A-E-L, last name's Koep, K-O-E-P.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Mr. Koep, you're here on behalf of the owner, correct?
Correct.
and did you hear all the testimony that i already presented i did and do you believe that testimony
would be true and correct to the best of your knowledge information and belief i do and would
you adopt that testimony as your own yes and you've heard some of the questions that have
already come forth do you have anything new in addition that should be added for the board's
in addition that should be added for the board's edification um no okay um and could you just
edification uh no
briefly describe i have up on the screen so i left it here the uh visually what will be seen
from the and materiality what will be seen from the pedestrians on west allen street as described
As described, the building is set back about 62 feet, so it abuts the new proposed, the interior new proposed townhouses, but when the new proposed townhouse on Allen is built, you have limited sight lines to the building, so you only see that front elevation that faces north.
um that is shown to be brick the fenestration the windows match or are similar to or take its
character from the rectory um and we did return the brick um on the east elevation one bay um so
that you know if you if you're standing at the corner of the church you won't see anything but
brick um then what the main side elevation that you see um is not visible from the street
we purposely lowered the grade to put parking underneath it and you can you pull the microphone
a little closer to you sorry we purposely lowered the grade uh for the parking and put the parking
underneath the annex uh we try hard to provide parking um although no parking was required for
the church and rectory portion of the building um you know because of its historic nature
okay uh any other questions for the board um yeah yeah could i ask a question do you have
the layout of the apartments i mean there's six units right how how would that lay out
or at least a ground floor plan yes there are floor plans while he pulls it up there are two
units per floor okay um the staircase is essentially in the center and and how do the
how do the tenants access the parking lot the parking so the the the parking lot itself is
is the the driveway that slopes down to the parking lot um the buildings it's themselves have
are interconnected. There is an entry to the main church building on Allen Street. There is
that entrance with the handicap ramp on Pollard Street, and there's also an entry on the corner
of Pollard and front for the rectory building. So you have three primary entrances that bring you up
essentially on the first floor. The parking lot also has a lower vestibule into the building,
uh which you see in this the picture that's up right now is actually the basement of of the
rectory and you see there's a lift and an entry um at that level um and that's that's sort of in
the spine that connects the three buildings um so i would say most most people will not
enter the the property there's no reason for anybody to enter the property down the the
drive lane unless you're driving as there's three other forms of entry so they're gonna
what i'm asking is where when you when when you park your car where do you you get out of your
car and where do you where do you go is that is that what we're looking where's the project on
this plan so sean if you move to the the drawing northeast corner the top right corner that's where
the parking is that where you were you showing right now is the wall of the of the the proposed
annex the the one that goes north south that's that correct so the parking is just to the right
of that or to which which is actually north of that but drawing so this this plan is of the
existing rectory building it is that that where his cursor is now that's a new wall for the annex
so is there a first floor of the annex itself like a ground floor plan of the annex
the architect is on hold um i'm still trying to get to you get you park your car you get out of
your car and what do you do okay can you go to the site walk up the sorry let me zoom out on this
five way i don't know what do you do you park your car and you and you how do you get in the
building okay so you you park your car which is this is actually showing the roof of the scale
right so you you're under this building and then all right how do you get into the building from
your part from the from your parking spot okay so um this one right correct on the right there so
you'll see where the handicapped parking spaces are shown yes um and if you go just down a little
down to the right in the corner of the inside corner of the rectory and the church is that
church is that entry that we were looking at when we were looking at the basement plan of the
entry that we were looking at when we were looking at the basement plan of